Kevin Durant Reflects on Michael Jordan, LeBron James' Careers Ahead of Passing MJ on Scoring List

Houston Rockets star Kevin Durant praised Michael Jordan before potentially passing him on the NBA's all-time scoring list in a recent feature by The Ringer's Michael Lee.

"He's the standard. He's the blueprint of this whole thing," Durant told Lee about Jordan.

Durant currently has 32,224 career points, leaving him just 68 points behind Jordan for fifth on the NBA's all-time leaderboard.

He told Lee he felt Jordan could have joined LeBron James over the 40,000-point threshold if he hadn't missed time due to injury and multiple retirement stints.

"He could've played past 40, too," Durant told Lee. "I would say MJ took off four to five years combined. You give him 300 more games of 30 points a night. That's not an exaggeration. That's what he averaged—30! I don't want to take that away from him when I pass him. I think that's key for any historian to know that about MJ. It's cool to still be in that same realm as him but he's more than a 32,000-point scorer to me."

Ahead of Jordan and Durant on the leaderboard are Kobe Bryant (33,643 points), Karl Malone (36,928 points) and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (38,387 points).

The all-time lead is held by LeBron James, the only player to compete in 23 NBA seasons, who currently boasts 43,180 career points while still averaging more than 21 per game.

Durant noted the difference between James' consecutive run and Jordan's 15 seasons over a 19-year span, but pointed out those stretches came in different eras with James potentially enjoying "more of a shield around him."

"It's true," Durant told Lee. "MJ took time off. It's times where he was like, 'I'm sick of the game. I want to take time off and regroup and come back into the game.' And that's what he did. Bron, he played straight through. I'm sure it was times when he was sick of the game and didn't want to play. Sick of all the B.S. that come with the game.

"It was a different time. He probably had more of a shield around him than MJ had at the time. It's different eras but guys choose their paths how they want to choose them."

Durant is averaging 25.8 points per game in 64 games of his 18th NBA season, which could put him on track to pass Jordan's career total within his next three games.

The Rockets will be at home over that stretch, with a Wednesday matchup against James and the Los Angeles Lakers followed by a weekend back-to-back against the Atlanta Hawks and Miami Heat.