LeBron James is once again nearing scoring history, but the Los Angeles Lakers star might have already made it if it wasn't for a quirk in the NBA's stat-keeping.
Over the last few years, the NBA has tinkered with its schedule. In 2022, it officially created the play-in tournament, which gives the 7-10 seeds in each conference an opportunity to duel in single-elimination games. In doing so, the NBA tries to replicate some of the excitement of the NCAA tournament. This season, the league also introduced the in-season tournament, which ramped up intensity during the early parts of the regular season that can feel sleepy.
But as ESPN reporter Dave McMenamin pointed out on a recent edition of SportsCenter, those extra games created an odd situation for James. He is currently nine points short of 40,000 officially after scoring 31 against the Washington Wizards on Thursday, but that's partly because the NBA doesn't count his point totals from two play-in tournament games or this year's in-season tournament final. If it did, James would be up to 40,055.
"Right now [those points] are in the ether," McMenamin said prior to the Wizards game. "So my friends in the Olympic Tower, NBA offices, do something to those 64 points. They are currently not regular-season points. They are currently not playoff points. So until you do something with that, LeBron is already going into tonight with 40,000 points as far as I'm concerned."
McMenamin raises a strong point. In-season tournament games were exciting, and the Lakers' win in the finale over the Indiana Pacers was the most-watched non-Christmas regular-season game in six years. Players on the Lakers earned an extra $500,000 apiece for their win. Meanwhile, play-in games rope more fanbases into playoff excitement and can coax more competitive games out of back-of-the-pack playoff teams during the regular season with the promise of playoff revenue.
But despite the excitement, none of those statistics will carry over. In an email to Newsweek, an NBA spokesperson said there are "no plans" to include play-in or in-season tournament statistics in regular-season stats. James' three games will remain—as McMenamin put it—in the ether, and James will look for 40,000 on Saturday evening against the Denver Nuggets on ABC.
After Thursday's win, James was asked if his looming milestone was meaningful.
"I mean, I can't sit here and say no because, of course," James told reporters. "No one has ever done it. And for me to be in this position at this point and time in my career, I think it's pretty cool. Does it sit at the top of the things I've done in my career? No. But does it mean something? Of course. Absolutely. Why wouldn't it?"
James broke the scoring record set by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar in February of 2023. Prior to that evening, Abdul-Jabbar's record had stood for 39 years.
Currently, no other active NBA player has topped 30,000. Kevin Durant, Russell Westbrook, Stephen Curry and DeMar DeRozan trail James in second through fifth respectively.
"To be able to accomplish things in this league, with the greatest players to ever play in this league, the NBA, this has been a dream of mine and to hit feats and have milestones throughout my career, they all mean something to me," James told reporters. "Absolutely. Obviously, there's a pecking order of which ones are higher than others, but absolutely. I would be lying to you if I said it doesn't mean anything. Because it absolutely does."
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
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Tom Westerholm is a Sports & Culture Reporter for Newsweek. Prior to joining Newsweek, he was the Boston Celtics beat ... Read more
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