LeBron James leads prolific list of NBA’s active career scoring leaders | Sporting News
LeBron James’ seemingly never-ending basketball accomplishments include his spot as the all-time leading scorer in NBA history, a total he continues to add to night in and night out.
It makes it easy to underappreciate just how special this entire era of basketball has been. James isn’t the only prolific scorer to grace the courts in the last couple of decades.
In fact, eight of the top-50 scorers of all time are active right now, including James and Kevin Durant, who is eighth all-time in regular season scoring.
The latest milestone for James is the 50,000 point mark when combining regular season and playoff points (which he is also tops in).
That’s what happens when you enter the league at 19 years old, play until you’re 40 and barely slow down the entire way.
Many of his contemporaries haven’t played quite that long or scored quite as many points, but it’s still been an era of plenty of buckets.
MORE: Former NBA champ says LeBron is still league’s best player
Who are the NBA’s active career scoring leaders?
LeBron James, rising above 50,000 points and counting on March 4, 2025, tops the charts among active players in combined regular season and postseason points. Kevin Durant, at 35,191, is second.
Here’s the entire top-20, with point totals through games completed on March 3.
| Player | Points (through March 3) | Points per game |
| LeBron James | 49,999 |
27.3 |
| Kevin Durant | 35,191 | 27.5 |
| James Harden | 30,879 | 23.8 |
| Stephen Curry | 28,883 | 25.0 |
| Russell Westbrook | 28,779 | 21.5 |
| DeMar DeRozan | 26,164 | 21.3 |
| Chris Paul | 25,796 | 17.4 |
| Damian Lillard | 24,090 | 25.2 |
| Giannis Antetokounmpo | 22,057 | 24.0 |
| Paul George | 21,106 | 20.7 |
| Kyrie Irving | 20,644 | 23.6 |
| Anthony Davis | 20,390 | 24.3 |
| Klay Thompson | 19,310 | 19.2 |
| Brook Lopez | 18,437 | 15.8 |
| Bradley Beal | 18,236 | 21.7 |
| Kyle Lowry | 18,187 | 13.9 |
| Jimmy Butler | 18,038 | 18.7 |
| Nikola Jokic | 17,944 | 22.2 |
| Jrue Holiday | 17,721 | 16.0 |
| Mike Conley | 17,718 | 14.2 |
Can anyone catch LeBron James in scoring?
The short answer is probably no, especially as long as players are required to play one year of basketball after high school before coming to the NBA, unlike LeBron.
He has also played in 10 NBA Finals so far, giving himself a ton of long postseason runs to pour in the points.
Even Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, who has averaged 27.1 points per game in six seasons with Oklahoma City, is at just 11,265 points across his regular season and playoff career. Even if he played 80 games apiece in 17 more seasons (taking him to age 43), he’d have to average 28.4 points per game to reach 50,000. Not happening.
Simply put, what LeBron James has done and is still doing is one of a kind.
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