LeBron James becomes first NBA player to score over 50,000 points... and counting

LeBron James has hit another NBA milestone, the king of feat that maybe will never be seen again in the history of the sport: he has become the first player to score 50,000 combined points in the NBA, counting regular season and play-offs. When you have played for as long as him, one could think it is not that hard to score as many points. But, for starters, it is rare for basketball players to still be active at 40... and the few ones that do never score as many points as James keep scoring: in the latest game, a 136-115 Los Angeles Lakers victory over New Orleans Pelicans, James scored 34 points. Seventh victory in a row for Lakers, which has seen an incredible resurgence last month, with a little help from Luka Doncic.

Not even Michael Jordan scored as many as James does at his age: James averaged 29.3 points, 10.5 rebounds, 6.9 assists and 1.2 steals in February, which earned him his 41st NBA's Western Conference Player of the Month... and yet another NBA record: the oldest player to earn that award (the previous record was Karl Malone, when he was 37 in November 2000). How many more records will he break before the season ends?

LeBron James has scored now 50,033 points. A symbolic figure, as he has long surpassed the second top scorer: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (44,149 points). The rest of the top 5 is made up of Karl Malone (41,689), Kobe Bryant (39,283) and Michael Jordan (38,279). From the active players, the second player with a higher score is Kevin Durant, with 35,191 points.

LeBron James is also tied with Vince Carter for the longest career in NBA. James started in 2003, and has played now for 22 seasons, in Lakers, Cleveland and Miami. It is unlikely that he will retire next year, so he could also claim that record next year... but he himself admitted that he will not last forever.