Let's try to put LeBron's breaking Kareem's career points scoring record into perspective.

  • LeBron has 38,352 over 20 seasons.
  • Kareem has 38,387 over 20 seasons.
  • Jordan has 32,292 over 15 seasons.

And it's not like Jordan stopped early. He took off his 10th and most of his 11th season. Then he took off his 15th, 16th, and 17th seasons, played his 18th and 19th, and took off his 20th.

If we add those seasons back, what would we get?

Here's a way to unfairly estimate those seasons:

We'll take the last "fullish" season before each break and, if it exists, the next fullish season after he comes back and half the seasons' totals. Then we'll pretend that's what he would've scored during the missing seasons -- and for here, we're going to remove his partial 1994-5 season and replace it with this ballpark estimate.

  • In 92-3, Jordan had 2,541 points.
  • In 95-6, he had 2,491 points.

So for 93-4 and 94-5, we're going to add (2541 + 2491) / 2 per season for 5032 points for two seasons.

But we have to remove the points from his 17 games in 94-5, which is 457 points. Not fair, I know, but let's do it. Those could've been 17 easy games, or you could argue he could push harder not playing a full season or whatever. Better to use full season estimates. Maybe.

All told, that's plus 4575 points.

  • In 97-8, he had 2,357.
  • In 01-2, he only played 60 games and had 1,375 points.

That 01-2 amount is pretty conservative from the injuries, but let's use this ballpark measurement. That's (2357 + 1375) / 2 = 1866, but for three seasons.

That plus 5598 points.

Now let's get in that 20th season. This isn't fair the other way (to his benefit this time), but let's say he repeats his 19th.

  • That's 1,640 points (he amazingly plays all 82 at 37 mins a game)

So that's 4575 + 5598 + 1640 = 11813 points.

That gives Jordan 44105 points for 20 seasons.

Now that's insane. He's now 5753 ahead of LeBron (and 5718 over Kareem).

Once LeBron beats that, you can get back to me on GOAT arguments. (And you'll still lose.)

PS I'm sure I've messed up some math somewhere. Sometime I might correct it. Apologies in advance.

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