Former Showtime Laker Credits Himself For LeBron James Breaking NBA Scoring Record
Hall of Fame power forward Spencer Haywood, who won a title with your Los Angeles Lakers in 1980, recently weighed in on current LA superstar small forward LeBron James' shattering of the long-standing NBA regular season scoring record, previously held by Haywood's own teammate Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.
During an interview on YouTube Scoop B Selects with Brandon "Scoop B" Robinson, the 6'8" big man, a four-time NBA All-Star and one-time ABA All-Star out of Detroit Mercy, spoke at length about how his 1970 antitrust lawsuit with the NBA helped expedite the league's eligibility window and allow underclassmen (and prep players!) to turn pro.
That shift in league eligibility eventually enabled a player of James' caliber to enter the NBA straight out of high school (as had several other high-scoring champions before him, including Moses Malone, Kevin Garnett and Kobe Bryant), which gave him a four-year head start on Abdul-Jabbar.
Cap notched the previous record of 38,387 career points in a 20-season NBA run, which is exactly how long it took James to surpass it. Abdul-Jabbar hung it up at age 41. But 38-year-old James is clearly looking to add on to his current record of 38,652 career points.
"Oh he’s going to add to the record but, you also have to think: He would not have broken that record if he didn’t have four extra years that Spencer Haywood provided for him," Haywood opined. "Because before I came along, you had to wait for 4 years before you got into the pros. So LeBron was able to come in from out of high school so he’s got 8,000 plus because of what I did. So it’s a beautiful thing to see and to see Kareem is on the acceptance level that says, You know? He broke this record; because all of these records are going to be interesting."
Across 844 games in his decorated 13-year NBA/ABA career, Haywood averaged 20.3 points, 10.3 rebounds, and 1.8 dimes.
We should probably mention a technical caveat about Haywood's title season with Los Angeles as a role player in 1979-80. He averaged 9.7 points, 4.6 rebounds, 1.2 assists and 0.8 blocks in his 76 contests for the club.
Granted, Haywood had actually been suspended by head coach Paul Westhead during the Lakers' six-game NBA Finals series (and subsequent win) against the Philadelphia 76ers due to drug problems, but he was a critical part of the team's run to that point, and still won a championship ring for his contributions.
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