LeBron James added another unfathomable milestone to his career on Tuesday, surpassing 50,000 career points. He did so on his first basket of the night, a 3-pointer he made thanks to a wonderful pass by his new superstar teammate Luka Dončić.
The Lakers went on to win the game easily defeating the Pelicans 136-115. After the win, Luka was asked about LeBron’s achievement and gave a fun response.
“It’s amazing watching him do this stuff at this age, it’s just unbelievable,” Luka said. “Like 50K points, I can’t even explain how insane that is. He might get to 70K, you never know.”
It’s great to see Luka finding his joy as a Laker. He’s smiling throughout games, joking about needing to work on his celebrations and is marveling at LeBron’s greatness while playfully suggesting a new round number to reach for.
Luka was clearly kidding about LeBron getting 70,000, but let’s see what it would take to do so.
Last year, when you combined LeBron’s regular season and playoff games, he scored 1,961 points. To reach that 70,000 mark, he’d need to replicate his 2023-24 numbers for a little over ten years.
While it’d be awesome to see LeBron do that while playing alongside Luka, that’s a bit too much to imagine, even for the guy who has defied Father Time this long.
The good news is we have LeBron and Luka in LA now and this honeymoon has led to the longest winning streak of the season. So, while the King might not score another 20,000 points from now until his retirement, every basket from here on out helps the Lakers and Luka return to glory.
And as far as Luka reaching LeBron status, he has a ways to go.
Dončić has scored 13,841 career points across seven seasons. So, he will have to play roughly 26 years to reach 50,000 points. Again, all these numbers are laughable and it’s a testament to how long LeBron has been this good.
