Wait for the end and a new challenge opens.
On March 20, 2022, LeBron James ended the suspense about when he surpassed Carl Malone in terms of total scores, and 5 minutes and 20 seconds before the end of the second quarter of the Lakers' game with the Wizards, James received a pass from Stanley Johnson on the right wing, and the NBA career total score reached 36930 points, officially breaking through the Marlon Town Guard barrier in the NBA's all-time scoring list (Malone's NBA career total score was 36928 points) and rising to second place.
Next, James will move to the ultimate height of this list, With Abdul-Jabbar's 38,387 points just around the corner, and a new round of challenges to break the ceiling begins.
Will be at the top of the mountain, overlooking the mountains, this is James's basketball journey.
During the 2022 All-Star Weekend, James's new ad was released, in which he traveled back in time to 2003 to talk to his 18-year-old self.
"What do you want to know?" Old Zhan asked Little Zhan.
"Is it too much propaganda for me? Am I ready? "Xiao Zhan is full of expectations for the future, but there are also some tensions and uneasiness.
"I can't tell you everything, but if you want to make history, you have to decide for yourself." Old Zhan said.
Every year in the NBA, high-ranking players receive varying degrees of praise, especially in the title, they are portrayed as "XX successors", or "next XX".
Some of them lived up to expectations, some were decent, some were defeated, and the NBA presented stories of talent being cashed in or wasted every year.
Among the many people who shouldered the expectations, James was the only one, he won the state championship in the first year of high school, successfully defended the title in the sophomore season and was elected Mr. Basketball of Ohio, beat Upy Cook, who had the title of "America's First High School Student" at ABCD Training Camp, appeared on the cover of Sports Illustrated in his third year of high school, was known as the "Son of The Chosen", led the team to lock in the first place in the United States in the final year of high school (American high school quadrennial), and won the state championship for the third time in four years.
A year before James graduated from high school, the Cavaliers conducted a secret trial for him, the so-called secret did not cover up for long, other teams received the news and immediately reported it to the league, the Cavaliers were fined $150,000, but they were still happy.
'After watching LeBron's trial, we had a feeling that 'great players are right in front of us' and then it's up to us to see if we can get it." Knight Media vice president Ted Capper said.
Before the start of the 2002-03 season, the Cavaliers sent away all the top three scorers of the previous year, went all out to get the lottery, and when the lottery results were announced, the Cavaliers' representative directly took out the jersey with James's name on it, which is a very rare situation, because after all, the draft has not yet begun, who is so sure? But if this person is James, it makes sense.
"We've been working hard for a year, isn't it for LeBron?" Capper said, "When we get the top pick, is there any suspense about who will be chosen next?" ”
James spent four years at St. Mary's High School in St. Vincent, and the basketball world awaited him growing up. After James became a champion, the basketball world waited for him to succeed. It's motivation and pressure, and after 19 years, has James let those expectations land?
It depends on who is used as a reference to judge.
If it was Jordan, James hadn't met the mark yet. Given James' age and career stage, his chances of catching up with Jordan are already low. Jordan's position as the first in NBA history is still unshakable, and James is currently sitting on the top of the two.
But does James have to compare himself to Jordan? Jordan has his brilliant basketball routes, and James has his own extraordinary basketball airspace.
James is the only player in NBA history to get 36,000 +10,000 +10,000 +10,000 total assists, in fact, starting from 27,000+10,000+9,000, there is only one James on the list, which is his all-around.
All-around, a basketball label James has created since middle school, has obscured his scoring ability for a long time. Since entering the NBA in his second year, James's season average has never been lower than 25, and only when he reaches a certain scoring milestone will the outside world remember that Old Zhan is also a historical scorer.
Or to put it another way, what James has done is not so surprising, and we have become accustomed to him turning the incredible into the unremarkable. Watching james play the generation that grew up, admiring the youngest records of the youngest zhan in the youth, witnessing the oldest records of the oldest in middle age, he was refreshing history at different times, occasionally being amazed, and often appearing to become a matter of course.
So, when James overtakes Malone and raises his all-time scoring list to second place in NBA history, there is no shocking admiration, more of a expected blandness, and the more prosaic, perhaps the more extraordinary.
James, who will not "create surprises", has walked out of an extraordinary basketball path according to his own wishes, with his own talent, and with his own efforts. If Bryant is the closest player to Jordan, James is a maverick, without a template before, and difficult to copy after that.
The noise of social media, the noise of Internet public opinion, the binary opposition of black and white, at the level of competitive sports, presents either unlimited praise or no lower limit of ridicule for an athlete, this extreme is most evident in James, this moment is held high, that moment falls hard, to the left is "honey", to the right is "black", there is almost no middle ground.
James is not a perfect player, he has made mistakes and failures along the way, from the style of play on the court to the decisions off the court, it is impossible to satisfy everyone, but he has been working hard, not living up to his innate basketball talent, releasing them in the way of the maximum limit, withstanding the wind and rain of the years.
When James surpassed Malone in total points, he played 113 fewer games than Malone. Malone averaged 23.2 points per game in his 37-year-old season, which is already a remarkable career evergreen, while James is now averaging 29.7 points per game. This can be explained as the progress of sports nutrition and medicine, which is indeed a better objective condition, but why can't James's subjective talent and struggle be recognized?
James, whose total score came to second in history, has only one mountain to conquer on this list, and that is Abdul-Jabbar's 38,387 points. Discussions about James' eventual access to history's top scorer began a few years ago, when the famous basketball data expert Kevin Pelton calculated that James would surpass Malone in February 2023 and Overtake Abdul-Jabbar in November 2024.
Of course, if James's data accumulation is "working years", or if he has invested limited energy in the defensive end in recent years, and is more focused on the offensive end of the "brushing" data, these views are different. However, in the competitive environment of the NBA, "boiling" to this level and "brushing" to this level is also the ultimate.
James's basketball story is to go all out to live the life he desires, to create his own basketball history, he is racing with himself, not in the fantasy, not in the voice, ambitious, down-to-earth, worthy of the cheers of the crowd, but also can withstand the controversy of the mountains.
Do not fear the floating clouds to cover your eyes, and you are at the highest level. That's it.