Breaking Down What Kobe Bryant Needs to Do to Pass Michael Jordan in Scoring

Kobe Bryant might have a tough time catching up to all-time scoring leader Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and his 38,387 career points. But, an equally iconic benchmark could be well within his reach.

The five-time NBA champion is just 2,808 points away from tying Michael Jordan as the third-most prolific scorer of all time, behind Abdul-Jabbar and Karl Malone. Bryant won't get there overnight, but it's worth recalling that he scored 2,832 points in 2005-06 alone.

Of course, he averaged over 35 points a game when he hit that mark, so it's highly unlikely he'll score at a similar rate for the new-look Los Angeles Lakers.

Even if the roster wasn't so deep with capable scorers, Kobe is now 34-years-old.

It would be an overstatement to suggest the legendary shooting guard is no longer able to carry the load. He played 38.5 minutes a game last season, nearly five more than he'd played in 2010-11. 

And, he took that opportunity to put up 23 field-goal attempts per contest, the most he'd shot in all but two of his years in the league. Though his efficiency was down a bit, it didn't stop Bryant from averaging just a hair under 28 points per game.

Going forward, however, it wouldn't be at all surprising to see last season's trend reverse itself. Expect Bryant to take fewer shots, and expect him to cash in at a higher rate.

Unless something goes terribly awry with Los Angeles' transition to the Princeton offense, Bryant should get better looks on account of Steve Nash distributing and role players like Antawn Jamison and Jodie Meeks spreading the floor.

Let's take Kobe's 2010-11 campaign as a model for how his next couple of seasons might look. In 82 games, he averaged 25.3 points while shooting 45 percent from the field. He scored less than he did the following season, but he scored at a more efficient clip.

That season brought him 2,078 points closer to MJ's mark.

In other words, if Bryant can reproduce an 82-game effort with at least at that kind of scoring rate, it shouldn't take him more than two seasons to pass Jordan handily.

That means he'd be the third-leading scorer in league history by the time his current contract with the Lakers runs out. If he opts to continue playing, he'd be 36 when his next contract started–just enough time to have a very outside chance of catching that top spot.

If Kobe remains spry enough to play into his 40s, he could do it. He'd probably need to play until he was 41 or 42, and he'd need to continue playing at a high level.

Needless to say, the odds of catching Jordan are much better.

Bryant need only stay healthy. He should be able to drop 25 points a game for the next two seasons with his eyes closed.

There may be fewer shots to go around after the Lakers injected so much talent into the roster, but it's hard to imagine Bryant taking fewer than 18 or 19 shots a game.

Even if there are more scorers on the floor, there's no question about who's the best one.

We may be used to seeing Kobe rely on isolation situations to score most of his points, but it's not as if he hasn't played off the ball before. He did so pretty frequently under Phil Jackson's triangle offense, so the Princeton scheme shouldn't be too extreme a departure.

If he lets the offense come to him, it will. 

And, two years later, Kobe will have caught up to Jordan in at least one respect.

It may not change any minds about how Bryant stacks up to Jordan in the grand scheme of things. After all, he's already played for 16 seasons whereas MJ set his career scoring mark in just 15. There's nothing Kobe can do to change that.

Nor is there anything he can do to change the fact that Jordan was unquestionably his team's best player during each of his title runs.

It's hard to argue the same about Bryant during his years working with Shaquille O'Neal.

None of that should diminish what will be a landmark accomplishment. Regardless of what you think about Kobe's legacy, the numbers don't lie entirely. He's one of the very best scorers of our time, and the list of all-time leading scorers will reflect as much.