James Set to Pass Ewing for 20th Place on All-Time Scoring List

Cleveland Cavaliers forward LeBron James enters Thursday's game against the Miami Heat needing just two more points to surpass Patrick Ewing for sole possession of 20th place on the NBA's all-time scoring list, per ESPN Stats & Info.

Barring an injury in the opening minutes of Thursday's contest, James will achieve the milestone in front of his hometown fans, facing the team that he spent the previous four seasons with.

According to Basketball-Reference.com's Play Index, James has never gone scoreless in a regular-season game, managing at least three points in each of his 906 career appearances.

James has 24,814 points through those 906 games, giving him a career-long scoring average of 27.4 points per game.

Ewing needed 1,184 games to rack up his 24,815 points, making for a more modest per-game average of 21.0.

Of course, that figure includes Ewing's twilight years in the league, while the 30-year-old James still seems to have some MVP-caliber seasons ahead of him.

The Knicks legend averaged 20 or more points in each of his first 13 seasons, before rapidly falling into decline in the late 1990s.

While it's possible LeBron eventually deals with a similar drop-off, he's still an excellent bet to finish his career in the top 10 of the all-time scoring list, with 10th-place Hakeem Olajuwon (26,946) sitting just 2,132 points away.

A more challenging goal would be for LeBron to eventually pass Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (38,387) as the league's all-time leading scorer, but even with modern improvements in training and medicine, Abdul-Jabbar's longevity is hard to match.