LeBron James Passes Shaquille O'Neal for 7th Place on All-Time Scoring List
Cleveland Cavaliers legend LeBron James finished with 26 points during Thursday's 99-93 loss to the Chicago Bulls. In doing so, he surpassed Shaquille O'Neal to cement his place as the NBA's seventh-leading scorer of all time, per ESPN Stats & Info.
The NBA's sixth all-time leading scorer, Dirk Nowitzki, is active and has a team option on his contract for next season, meaning James will likely have to chase him for at least one more year while they're both still playing. The King is averaging career highs in both rebounds (8.4) and assists (8.8) per game this season and ranks 12th on the NBA's all-time assist list.
Though James has been having an impressive individual season, the Cavaliers have struggled recently. They're 6-10 in March, marking the first time that James has seen double-digit losses in a month since November of his rookie year, per ESPN. With Thursday's loss, they also surrendered the top seed in the Eastern Conference to the Boston Celtics and would play James' former team, the Miami Heat, if the season ended today.
It's no secret that James is the glue that holds the Cavaliers together. The team posts better numbers with him on the floor in nearly every statistical category, per Basketball Reference. Where the Cavaliers have had issues is with their starting lineup, which has a net rating of just plus-4.4 points per 100 possessions. That's compared to a lineup that features DeAndre Liggins rather than J.R. Smith, which is plus-32.1 points per 100 possessions.
Regardless of this season's outcome, James seems poised to continue to climb up the all-time leaderboards. He's currently sitting at 28,599 points, which is 9,788 behind all-time scoring leader Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (38,387). It will certainly be a challenge for the 32-year-old LeBron to achieve that, but we may have seen more unexpected things from him already.
