LeBron James was undoubtedly feeling quite full of himself after his most recent NBA milestone. As many fans should be aware, King James is currently playing in Year 21 and is the NBA’s all-time leading scorer. He surpassed Kareem Abdul-Jabbar to take the #1 spot on this coveted list last season and recently put his record a bit further out of reach by accumulating a grand total of over 39,000 career points.
There is no denying the magnitude of LeBron’s accomplishments. The Lakers star took to social media soon after crossing 39,000 career points and made quite a few interesting statements. With that being said, let us take a closer look at what LeBron had to say about his own impressive record.
LeBron James believes no one will surpass his NBA record
Although it is easy to merely state that LeBron James has been in the NBA for 21 years, fans might forget just how long ago the 2003 NBA Draft was. Despite having incredibly high expectations on his shoulders while entering the NBA, LeBron managed to exceed those expectations throughout his illustrious career.
After all, even he might not have known that he would be a 4x NBA champion and the NBA’s all-time leading scorer when first entering the league. King James promoted his own accomplishment on social media and included a caption, “Ironically, that pass-first guy you guys talk about is the all-time scoring leader and it’ll never be touched.”
LeBron James Shares The Truth About His Underrated Scoring Ability: “A Pass-First Guy Is The All-Time Scoring Leader” https://t.co/UbqhuG4E1z
— NBACentral (@TheDunkCentral) November 24, 2023
It is undoubtedly a bold proclamation to claim that a record will never be broken. We are quite sure that Kareem felt similarly when setting his record in the first place. However, LeBron’s statements about being defined as a pass-first player are significantly more interesting and require greater analysis.
Is LeBron a pass-first player?
While one could argue that LeBron James is the face of the NBA and has one of the largest fan bases in the NBA community, he also has an incredibly large amount of critics, doubters, and haters who jump at every opportunity to question his choices and inevitable basketball mistakes.
As opposed to Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant, who were known as pure scorers, LeBron has always made it clear that getting his teammates involved and making the right basketball play was something that he valued quite highly. Since he was guarded closely towards the end of games, LeBron has no choice but to make the right play and believe in his teammates.
Although he could certainly be more aggressive if he wished to be, his passing abilities earned him a reputation as a pass-first player among his critics. King James used this opportunity to call out all the members of the NBA community who ever accused him of being passive and passing the ball as opposed to scoring.