Projecting Every NBA Record LeBron James Will Hold by Retirement

As LeBron James enters the stretch run of his 12th NBA season, the records are starting to fall.

More will follow.

King James already occupies entire chapters of the Cleveland Cavaliers' record book, and we'll touch on how many more pages he's likely to fill out before he calls it a career.

More broadly, we'll use LeBron's current statistical pace to plot out how likely he'll be to knock down some of the NBA's most hallowed marks. This will be a quick and dirty projection; to really zero in on LBJ's chances to topple historical marks, we'd need to incorporate complicated age-regression arcs, specific injury data and a million other nuanced factors.

Here, we'll keep things simpler for a couple of reasons.

First, James is a physical anomaly, and trying to guess exactly how his production will change with age is tricky. It's better to use his past production and career trends as loose guides going forward.

Second, let's assume James' effectiveness will hold up into his mid-30s because that gets us closer to seeing some seemingly unbreakable records shattered. That's more fun, right?

Time to guesstimate.

Cavaliers Records

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Already Broken

Total Assists: James moved past Mark Price for the team record in assists with dime No. 4,207 in a March 10 win over the Dallas Mavericks.

LeBron was a born facilitator. He recounted an early anecdote to Dave McMenamin of ESPN.com after taking over the Cavs' franchise lead in assists:

"

Even when I first started playing basketball, we had a kid named Sonny on our team that was younger than all of us and he couldn't catch. So, in order for him to catch we used to roll the ball to him so he could pick it up and shoot it off the ground. And when he finally made one, it was like the greatest thing for all of us. And I'll always remember that. So, it just came natural.

"

Somewhere, Sonny is smiling—probably as somebody rolls a ball to him.

The list of Cavs records James already held before adding total assists to the ledger is long. Let's breeze through it:

Points: 16,680

Minutes Played: 24,096

Field Goals: 5,924

Field-Goal Attempts: 12,440

Three-Point Field Goals: 866

Steals: 1,040

Turnovers: 2,035

We'll stop there for the sake of time. Just know that James holds dozens of other franchise records and per-game highs and dominates virtually every advanced metric category in Cleveland's history. You can check them all out at Basketball Reference's Cavs page.

Yet to Fall

Total Rebounds: Zydrunas Ilgauskas grabbed 5,904 boards as a Cavalier, putting him well ahead of James' 4,178. If LeBron's career average of 7.1 rebounds per game holds up, he could catch Big Z during the 2018-19 campaign.

Games Played: James also trails Ilgauskas in this category, 771-603. If we conservatively assume LeBron logs an average of 70 games per season, that mark will fall sometime in 2017-18.

Career Points

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We might as well start out with the big one.

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar has scored more points than anyone in NBA history. His total of 38,387 feels utterly unbreakable, but if James stays healthy and, more importantly, decides he wants to play long enough to chase some individual records, it's possible he'll one day challenge Abdul-Jabbar.

That day is a long way off, and it'll only come if James ages incredibly well.

At present, James trails Abdul-Jabbar by nearly 14,000 points. If LeBron were to continue averaging 26 points per game, which he's averaging this season, he'd need another 530 games to reach No. 1. That's roughly six-and-a-half seasons of 82 games apiece.

We know James won't play all 82 going forward because he's never once done it in his dozen years in the league. So if we estimate he'll log a more reasonable 70 games per season, he'll need almost eight years of at least 26 points per game to catch Abdul-Jabbar.

That's hard to fathom, as James would be 38 by the time he finally crested the scoring hill.

But it's possible, and predicting it will happen is a lot more exciting than dismissing the chance.

Career Turnovers

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James (3,028) needs just less than 1,500 giveaways to catch Karl Malone (4,524) for the all-time lead.

If he sustains his career average of 3.4 per game, it'll take just over six more 70-game seasons to set the record. Of course, if James continues playing like he is this year, in which he's coughing it up 4.2 times per game, maybe it won't even take quite that long.

It might seem like setting the record for total turnovers is a bad thing, but it's really not. The next four players on the list after Malone are John Stockton, Jason Kidd, Kobe Bryant and Moses Malone—a pretty solid list, superstars and Hall of Famers all.

"As far as turnovers, I suck, I suck," James told reporters after giving up the ball nine times in a March 6 loss to the Atlanta Hawks.

Take it easy, big guy. Setting the turnover mark is merely an indicator that you played for a really long time and were good enough to get a ton of touches. There's no reason for so much self-criticism.

James certainly fits the bill there.

Career Player Efficiency Rating

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Say what you will about the shortcomings of player efficiency rating as a catch-all metric, but the fact that Michael Jordan currently has the highest career figure in that category lends it some value.

Or, you could say it provides a whole bunch of confirmation-bias fodder.

Either way, James currently sits in second place, just a fraction of a point behind MJ in PER. His Airness' 27.91 edges the King's 27.69 by the slimmest of margins.

Predicting James will move past Jordan by the time he retires is a bet that LeBron will play more like he did over the previous seven seasons, in which he posted a PER of at least 29.1, than this year, in which he's put up a 26.13.

It's bold to think James will sustain his late-20s performance into his early 30s, but there's a good chance his statistical dip this year has more to do with learning how to play with new teammates and in a new system than any overarching decline in ability.

Assuming the Cavaliers stick together going forward, and assuming LeBron gets more comfortable with what head coach David Blatt wants him to do, it's possible we'll see a return to PER figures that approach 30.

If that happens, James could pull his average up enough to eclipse Jordan.

Playoff Records

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James has a real shot to hold many of the most impressive playoff records in league history. A few of the more remarkable include:

Total Points

James has 4,419 career playoff points, putting him 1,568 behind Jordan and his 5,987. If James sustains his postseason average of 28 points per game, he'll need 56 more contests to make up that ground.

Over the past four seasons, all of which have resulted in James reaching the NBA Finals, he's averaged 22 playoff games per year. With three more deep postseason runs, James will surpass MJ. The only question after that will be how far out of reach King James puts the postseason scoring mark.

Total Minutes

Tim Duncan is in the all-time playoff-minute lead right now, and he's likely to keep adding to his total as long as he decides to delay retirement. James has averaged 42.5 minutes per playoff game in his career, giving him a total of 6,717. And if we assume he goes down to a still substantial 40 minutes per game going forward, he'll need approximately 55 more postseason tilts to reach Duncan's current total of 8,902.

We can reasonably guess that James will reach the playoffs in every season for the foreseeable future. With Duncan unlikely to play much longer, LeBron should be able to grab this record in another four or five years.

Total Games

If James continues to make trips to the Finals, it'll only take him another five postseasons to make up the 101 games separating him (158) and Derek Fisher (259) for most playoff games ever.

Of course, if James sticks around as a veteran role player well past his prime, he could have plenty of time to chip away at the record. Though it's sometimes difficult to imagine superstars taking on smaller roles to chase titles, James' passing skills and post game make that a distinct possibility.

He'll catch Fisher one way or another.

Turnovers

Another 154 giveaways will move James (543) ahead of Magic Johnson (696) for the all-time postseason turnover mark. If he continues to surrender the ball at his current average of 3.4 times per playoff game, James will overtake Magic in 45 games.

Expect that to happen in 2017.

Most MVP Awards

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James needs two more MVP awards to tie Abdul-Jabbar's record of six.

Maybe this is cheating, but I'll predict James collects exactly two more, which, technically, will give him the lead, albeit in a tie.

He has a shot at grabbing No. 5 this year, despite battling the voter fatigue attached to his previous four honors, according to Bleacher Report's Greg Swartz: "James certainly shouldn't be penalized for this, however. The most valuable player should be a blind award based off who's made the biggest difference for his team, regardless of past success. Hopefully, the voters will get it right."

It's hard to know what voters will do, but James is definitely in this year's MVP conversation. And he'll probably remain a fixture for at least the next four or five years.

Surely, he'll pick up a pair of trophies before he's finished.

All stats courtesy of Basketball-Reference.com and accurate through games played March 11.