With LeBron James securing his place as the first NBA player to score 40,000 points in a career with a layup in the second quarter vs. the Denver Nuggets on Saturday, a reflection of James' game and what to learn from it. In the end, James' accomplishment and his whole Beyond-Legendary career come down to two choices.
It's important to remember that James never aspired to be a great scorer. In his interview with Coach K when he set the record for most points scored, he spoke about how he wanted to use his skills to lift his teammate:
It's forgotten now, but in the early part of James' career, before The Decision, James was often criticized for his reluctance to shoot. He would pass in clutch game moments, and there would be questions about whether he was "afraid" to shoot. (The mid-00s were a dark time for how we viewed the game.)
There were questions about whether James was enough of a scorer.
So we should take a moment when he crosses yet another unbelievable scoring mark to recognize the choice that James made that led to this point.
James could have crossed this mark years ago if he'd wanted to. If James had decided that was the player he wanted to be, he could have averaged 28 for a decade. Nothing was stopping him; no coach would have bent him away from it. Had he made the decision that it was the best thing for him, he could have pursued that and cleared both Kareem Abdul-Jabbar's all-time mark and the 40k-points mark two to three seasons ago.
Most players would have to scrape and claw to get near this kind of milestone. James literally has passed it only by endurance and longevity. It was not something he wanted to accomplish. He never cared about being considered the greatest scorer in the game of his era or all-time. It wasn't the priority.
It took James until age 39 to score 40,000 points because he did not choose to score that many earlier, he chose the things that make teams win. He chose defense and passing, rebounding and controlling the game. James pursued the things that make teams the best they can be together instead of what players choose that make them great and the best they can be in other people's eyes. He chose true greatness over legendary accomplishments… and he accomplished those anyway.
That's the second choice James made. The only way he could choose to be the more complete, well-rounded, impactful, and winning player and still reach this many points was to play forever. To play the second-most seasons ever (behind Vince Carter), and play 1,757 games across those 21 seasons, night after night. To keep coming back for more.
James hinted at considering retirement in a moment of despair and frustration following the Lakers' sweep at the hands of the Nuggets last spring and then returned again. He loves the game enough to play this long. Ask the legends, and they'll tell you: they hang it up not when their bodies demand them to but when they no longer want to do the work to be ready to play. The conditioning, treatment, injury maintenance, and training all become something to dread after age 35.
And yet here is James playing what will likely be the most games he has played since 2020, still playing 35 minutes a night, still scoring 25 with seven rebounds and eight assists per game, for a team that is not nearly as good as his legendary status deserves.
You have to love the game to do this. Not just a little. You have to love and care about it in a way very few ever will to give what James has to the game of basketball and to continue to do it when he could have walked away years ago with his legacy fully complete.
His ninth point Saturday night did not change anything. That in and of itself is remarkable. LeBron James became the first player to score 40,000 points in a career, something no other NBA player has ever done, and yet it will be buried deep in his list of accolades. It will not be the first or last line of his basketball epitaph. It's just another thing no one else has done that he did, another exceptional signature flourish on the never-before and never-again tapestry that has become his legacy.
The time is coming when we'll no longer see James throw chalk up or slams down, when we'll no longer see him carve up defenses. The journey's end is so much closer than his prime, let alone his beginning now. So, on nights and days like this in the aftermath of his never-before-seen accomplishments, we should honor James in the same way that he's honored the game, with love and respect for all that makes him The Greatest.
