James is approaching Abdul-Jabbar and sitting firmly at the top of the NBA's regular season and playoff total scoring list, but this is not a concept with what we usually say is the number one scorer, because the NBA's historical scoring record is only statistical regular season data, so James is at least one season away from surpassing Abdul-Jabbar to become the league's historical scoring leader.
However, if you calculate playoff scores, James (44,074 points overall) is only 75 points away from Abdul-Jabbar , the highest total score in NBA history ( 44,149 points overall).
How many games does James need to overtake Abdul-Jabbar for the highest total score in NBA history? How many games does James need to overtake Abdul-Jabbar to become the regular season-only scoring champion in NBA history?
NBA Total Scores List (Regular Season and Playoffs)
list
James is currently 75 points away from surpassing Abdul-Jabbar to become the NBA's all-time all-time leading scorer. LeBron averaged a jaw-dropping 29.1 points per game in his 19th season, and he probably only needs to play three more games to overtake Abdul-Jabbar.
That means LeBron could leapfrog Abdul-Jabbar to become the NBA's all-time total leading scorer on Sunday, Feb. 13 against the Warriors.
NBA All-Time Scoring Chart (Regular Season Only)
Regular season scoring rankings
James is just 485 points away from second-place Malone on the NBA's all-time scoring list. At his rate of 29.1 points per game this season, James only needs to play another 17 games to score 485 points, which means he should be able to surpass Malone this season.
James still has some way to go if he wants to overtake Abdul-Jabbar, because he's still 1944 points away, which means he needs at least another season to achieve that feat.
While James' scoring has so far been steady and there is no downward trend at all, any signs of a slowdown could change his trajectory as the best scorer in NBA history. Currently, he is on track to score about 800 more points this season, which will put him just overtakes Jabbar by just over 1,100 points.
Even though he played just 45 games in the 2020-21 season, James still scored 1126 points. It was the fewest totals he'd scored in a single season of his career to date, and on average, that number is almost enough to overtake Abdul-Jabbar the next season and become the all-time leading scorer.
To sum up, it's safe to say that James will be the top scorer in NBA history sometime in the 2022-23 season.