‘KING OF THE GRIND’
LeBron relies on three traits to become NBA’s top scorer
Consistency, longevity, durability. Of all LeBron James’ remarkable attributes, those three shine brightest and enabled him to maximize his talent, work ethic, IQ, size, strength and quickness – a skill set that has made him one of the best players in basketball history.
With unmatched consistency, longevity and durability with Cleveland, Miami and the Los Angeles Lakers, James passed Lakers great Kareem Abdul-Jabbar as the NBA’s all-time leading scorer on Feb. 7, 2023, a pursuit that seemed fait accompli for the previous five seasons.
Over the course of his 21 NBA seasons, James averaged at least 25 points in 20 seasons, including 25.3 in 54 games this season, and he has played in at least 90% of his team’s games in 15 seasons.
This is a story about numbers, but stats do not tell the entire story.
“When you look at those three things, it’s a testament to how he lives his life,” Warriors star Draymond Green told USA TODAY Sports. “I recently said he’s the greatest face the NBA has ever had. Think about the day and age we live in – cameras, social media – he’s never had a scandal. Never been arrested. Never photo’d drunk. Those things go hand in hand with durability, longevity, consistency.
“It’s a testament to the discipline he has in his life, and basketball is a result of that. It speaks to the person that he is, and basketball has benefited from that.”
It has allowed him, season by season, game by game, incredible moment by incredible moment, to pass some of the game’s greatest scorers – Jerry West, Moses Malone, Oscar Robertson, Dominique Wilkins, Wilt Chamberlain, Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant, Karl Malone and Abdul-Jabbar (38,387 points).
“As he closes in on my all-time scoring record, I have been a cheerleader urging him on, happy to pass the mantle to someone so worthy as an athlete and a person,” Abdul-Jabbar said before James passed him.
When James passed the Hall of Famer and former Lakers great last February, he scored more points than Abdul-Jabbar in fewer games, fewer minutes and with fewer field goal attempts.
James’ unprecedented accomplishment of 40,000 points, which he reached
last weekend against the reigning NBA champion Denver Nuggets to extend his NBA record for all-time points, put even more distance between him and AbdulJabbar.
It has been a persistent, methodical hike to the top of the scoring mountain. And he has done it under inconceivable expectations placed on him as a high schooler.
In James’ first NBA game, with Cleveland on Oct. 29, 2003, he scored 25 points and had nine assists and six rebounds against Sacramento. He was 12for-20 from the field, making 8 of 12 shots in the paint – a harbinger for James’ dominance at the rim as a scorer. Nearly 20 years later, on Jan. 16, 2023, James
scored 48 points (16 in the paint and 15 on 3-pointers).
“The thing I think is most impressive about the longevity and what’s he’s done is the game has changed dramatically since he entered the league and probably three, four different brands of basketball since he’s been in the league,” Green said. “He’s been at the top no matter what the game did.”
Of the players in his NBA debut game, James is the only one still in the league. Of the players in his draft class, only James remains in the league as a player. Some of his draft class peers moved into coaching (New Orleans’ Willie Green and Luke Walton), the front office (Phoenix’s James Jones, Atlanta’s Kyle Korver), part ownership and other endeavors (Utah’s Dwyane Wade) and wine making (Carmelo Anthony).
“The thing that’s most impressive is his ability to do it all again the next day – not just playing the games but doing the work to play games,” said Korver, who played until he was 38 and was James’ teammate in Cleveland during three seasons.
Not every player can do that, but NBA Commissioner Adam Silver noted, “I hope the young players pay attention to that. Anyone who’s ever been around LeBron, he’s always working on his body. He’s always thinking about getting his sleep and proper nutrition. It’s hard to talk to him where he doesn’t have some device hooked up to him or ice on some part of his body where he’s constantly recuperating from the bangs and the minor injuries he’s constantly dealing with.”
To maximize his ability, that care extends to James’ physical conditioning. He doesn’t look that much different today than he did in 2013. About six years ago, James’ friend and business partner Maverick Carter said James spends $1.5 million annually on his body – personal trainers, chefs, nutritionists, massage therapists, cryotherapy, or cold therapy, hyperbaric chambers and compression boots.
Korver said James is the “king of the grind.”
“It’s just monotonous work to do all the little bits of self-care that add up,” Korver explained. “It’s putting the time in. He has genetics and a body that is just different. He’s been blessed physically in ways that are very unique. But he still does all the work. You have to have both to play as long as he has at the level he has. His commitment to his craft and commitment to his body is everything.”
LeBron never considered himself a scorer
Consistency, longevity, durability. It’s displayed over and over throughout his career. He shot a career-low 41.7% from the field in his rookie season and has not shot lower than 47.2% in the next 20 seasons. While his Cavs 1.0 teams pushed his minutes played to 40 per
game, including a career-high 42.5 in 2005-06, he has been steady in the 36-38 range since then.
It is one thing to have one of those attributes or even two, but all three is unprecedented. No one at 39 years old has done what James is doing.
James has avoided a major injury, like a torn ACL or ruptured Achilles, that forced him to miss a season’s worth of games or more. However, in his five seasons with the Lakers, he has missed significant time.
Still, the most consecutive games he has missed in a season is 20 in 2020-21 with a sprained ankle. Considering he has played three-plus extra seasons of playoff games (282) and spent five summers with USA Basketball at the Olympics, FIBA World Cup and FIBA Americas, it’s surprising he hasn’t missed more games.
“That doesn’t happen often, and it’s not going to happen, probably again for a long time,” Kings guard De’Aaron Fox said. “Father Time wins at some point. But ’Bron’s battle against it is amazing.”
James never considered himself a scorer, and he means that in two different ways. He’s not a pure scorer the same way Bryant, Jordan and Kevin Durant put up points, and he never wanted his game framed as one-dimensional.
“The overall point of my game is what means more to me, me being able to be an all-around player to be successful on the floor and to be able to contribute to the three franchises that I’ve played with so far in my career,” James said in 2020.
Wade, his longtime friend and former teammate, once said, “If he wants to, he could put up 40 a night.”
Not only is James one of the game’s great scorers, but he is also one of basketball’s best all-time passers. He will finish his career as the all-time leading scorer and in the top four (possibly top three) in all-time assists. Last season, he passed Mark Jackson and Steve Nash and moved into fourth place with just Chris Paul, Jason Kidd and John Stockton ahead of him.
Asked by USA TODAY in 2020 if he ever considered what his game might look like if he scored more and passed less, he said, “That’s not who I am as a player.” Though Wade said James could score 40 per game, he rarely did unlike Bryant and Jordan.
James has 14 50-plus point games while Bryant had 25 and Jordan 31. James has 75 games with 40 or more points, and Bryant had 122 and Jordan 173. But James has 549 games with at least 30 points trailing just Jordan (562) and well in front of Bryant (431).
He is on pace to become just the second player to score at least 1,600 points in his rookie season and at least 1,600 points at 39 years old, joining, yes of course, Jordan.
When he scored 31 points earlier this season, he became the first player to have 30-point games separated by at least 20 years. The barrage of buckets is constant.
James has led the league in scoring per game once (30.0 per in 2007-08) and led the league in total points once (2,251 in 2017-18).
Averaging 25.3 points this season – four more than his rookie season – James will become the oldest player to score more than 20.6 points per game in a season, and if he averages at least 20 points next season, he will become the first player 40 or older to hit that mark.
Among James’ scoring records and achievements, his streak of 1,204 consecutive games with at least 10 points is one of the most underrated and underappreciated.
He last scored fewer than 10 points on
Jan. 6, 2007, with eight points against Milwaukee. Every game since then, at least 10 points. Jordan is No. 2 on the list with 866 consecutive games with 10 or more points, and Philadelphia’s Joel Embiid is the next active player on the list at 169 games.
Like Wilt Chamberlain’s 100-point game, it’s difficult to see anyone touching that record.
LeBron has focused on growing his game
There are other constants to James’ record-climbing pursuit. From a tactical perspective, James attacked the rim for 21 seasons. Look at his shot chart. Scoring at the rim with layups and dunks is a staple. Given his size, strength, skill and smarts, he has obliterated defenses in the restricted area.
Early in his career, James took a significant number of mid-range jumpers as he worked on his 3-point shot. A dedicated learner, James understood analytics’ impact on the game and became a threat as a 3-point shooter and limited his midrange shots.
“We see so many athletes and they never grow their game, and to grow that side of his game with the athleticism he has – and still has – shows who he is as a competitor and as a student of the game,” Green said. “What works? Where do I need to improve?”
His evolution as a scorer changed but consistency remained the same. Even as James reduced his mid-range shots and increased his 3-point shots, his shooting percentage didn’t oscillate wildly.
James’ much scrutinized choice to join the Miami Heat in 2010 was a turning point in his career. That four-season run with the Heat resulted in two MVPs, two championships and two Finals MVPs as he played some of the most efficient basketball of his career.
With the Heat in 2012-13, the season James won his fourth and last MVP, he averaged 26.8 points, 8.0 rebounds and 7.3 assists and shot 56.5% from the field, 40.6% on 3s and 75.3% from the freethrow line. It’s difficult to say when he was at the height of his powers, but he had figured out how to exploit defenses with mastery.
Then, he went back to the Cavaliers and led the city to its first major sports championship in 52 years, and joined the Lakers, leading the franchise to their record-tying 17th championship, in the bubble, in 2020.
“LeBron does have a map of how he operates,” Korver said. “Every game, there’s going to be three, four breakaway dunks, a few free throws, a few turnaround jumpers, a 3 or two and there’s probably been a few more lately, but there’s a general map to how he is going to operate and play.
“He tinkers and it evolves with the game.”
James is adamant he wants to play alongside his oldest son, Bronny, a freshman guard at Southern Cal, in the NBA. If he’s averaging 35 per game now, it seems he has at least a few more seasons of 20 to 25 per game.
How many more?
When asked at All-Star weekend how many seasons he had left, James didn’t have a definitive answer but said, “I know it’s not that many.”
With that consistency, longevity and durability, James stands to finish his career with well over 40,000 points – a record that may take another 40 or 50 years or longer to break.
If anyone breaks it.