LeBron James surpasses Shaquille O'Neal on NBA's all-time scoring list
Move over, Big Aristotle — the King is here..
With his 24th point against the Bulls on Thursday night, LeBron James surpassed Shaquille O'Neal for seventh on the NBA's all-time regular-season scoring list (and ninth on the combined NBA/ABA leaderboard). LeBron finished with 26 points on the night, giving him 28,598 for his career — but the Cavs came up shirt in Chicago, falling 99-91 as the Bulls swept the season series.
O'Neal scored 28,596 points in his 19-year career, while LeBron is in just his 14th season. He reached this lofty plateau so quickly by posting the fifth-highest points per game average in NBA history (minimum 400 games played), at 27.11.
Next up for LeBron is Dirk Nowitzki, who has scored 30,181 points and counting. LeBron trails Nowitzki by nearly 1,600 points, so he'll have to wait until at least next season before passing the Big German.
After Dirk, the top five in reverse order are Wilt Chamberlain (31, 419), Michael Jordan (32,292), Kobe Bryant (33,643), Karl Malone (36,928) and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (38,387), via Basketball-Reference.com.
As for the playoffs? LeBron is currently fourth all time with 5,572 points, trailing Bryant (5,640 career postseason points), Abdul-Jabbar (5,762) and Michael Jordan (5,987).
