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It was another monstrous week for LeBron James as he moved even closer to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar's regular-season scoring record. As of January 14, James was 399 points shy of the scoring record. However, after a big week, he's now just 261 points away from overtaking Abdul-Jabbar.
James kicked things off on Sunday with a big 35-point performance in the LA Lakers' 113-112 loss to the Philadelphia 76ers. The following day, he played in a back-to-back game against the Houston Rockets, where he put up a whopping 48 points in the team's 140-132 win.
He kept the momentum rolling on Wednesday as he scored 32 points against the Sacramento Kings despite a 116-111 loss to the third-place Kings. Friday night, at home, James and the Lakers put on a sensational comeback performance as they defeated the Memphis Grizzlies 122-121. During that game, LeBron James scored 23 points, closing out a big week for the four-time champ.
With just 261 points to go until he breaks the Hall of Famer's regular-season scoring record, it's time to take a look at when he could make NBA history.
Above you can see a clip of NBA veteran JJ Redick talking about LeBron James' recent surge in play during year 20.
Predicting when LeBron James could break the scoring record
The fact that LeBron James is averaging 29.6 points per game at 38 years old is hard to comprehend. As Redick pointed out above, there's literally no precedent for a player in year 20 to be leading a team like James is.
As dominant as Kareem Abdul-Jabbar was, in his second-to-last season, when he and the Lakers won the 1987-88 championship, he averaged just 14.6 points. The following year, his last, Abdul-Jabbar averaged just 10.1 points per game. On the flip side of things, LeBron James is currently scoring more than his career-average of 27.1 points per game.
(Suggested Reading: Robert Horry with the hot take on LeBron breaking Kareem's record)
Using his career scoring average of 27.2 points per game, assuming James plays in every game coming up, it will take him 10 games to make NBA history. In this case, he would break the record on February 9 in the Lakers home game against the Bucks.
Using his 29.6 points per game average from this season, it would take LeBron James nine games to break the record. In this case, he would break the record on February 7 in the LA Lakers home game against the OKC Thunder.
In either situation, as long as James plays in each of the team's next 10 games, he will break the record at home. With that said, should he manage to continue to put on 40 and 50-point performances, he could break it sooner. In the month of January alone, James has put on two forty-point performances.
With how dominant he has looked in recent weeks, it seems as though it's a question of when he breaks the record, not if he breaks the record.
Above you can see some of his highlights from the team's Friday night win over the Memphis Grizzlies.
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