Lakers' LeBron James Eclipses 40,000 Career Points; Could Mavs' Luka Doncic Eventually Reach Milestone?

After Los Angles Lakers' LeBron James surpassed 40,000 career points on Saturday, it got us thinking about what Dallas Mavericks superstar Luka Doncic would have to do in order to reach that milestone before his career is over.

Dalton Trigg | Mar 3, 2024

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Los Angeles Lakers superstar LeBron James already became the NBA's all-time leading scorer last season, and now he just became the first player to ever eclipse 40,000 career points in a loss against the defending-champion Denver Nuggets on Saturday. James finished with 26 points, giving him 40,017 career points.

James' latest accomplishment got us thinking about what Dallas Mavericks young star Luka Doncic would have to do over the remainder of his career to reach that seemingly-untouchable milestone. Doncic, who just turned 25 years old last week, is the NBA's leading scorer this season at 34.5 points per game, and he has 10,892 points in 382 career games played.

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Assuming Doncic plays in all of the Mavs final 22 games this season and maintains his 34.5 points-per-game average, that would put him at 11,651 with six full NBA seasons in the books. If Doncic averaged 30 points per game and played in all 82 games going forward – which, let's be real ... that won't happen given the insane load he has to carry every year – it would take him nearly 12 more full seasons to eclipse 40,000 career points.

If Doncic ends up playing 20 seasons or more while keeping up his incredible scoring pace, perhaps there's a chance he could get there. However, it takes unprecedented endurance and longevity to reach that point, as James has shown us, and besides ... Doncic himself doesn't know if he can see himself playing that long.

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"No," Doncic said when asked by former teammate J.J. Redick if he ever thinks about breaking LeBron's record one day. "I am not playing that long, no chance. I'm going to have my own farm in Slovenia."

Doncic says that now, but if health permits, and the Mavs win a championship or two in the near future, that natural want for more might be too much for the 25-year-old phenom to turn down. Greatness coincides with being obsessive, and Doncic has what it takes to chase LeBron if he makes up his mind to do so.

Published Mar 3, 2024

DALTON TRIGG

Dalton Trigg is the Editor-In-Chief for Dallas Basketball, as well as the Executive Editor overseeing Inside The Rockets, Inside The Spurs, All Knicks, and The Magic Insider. He is the founder and host for the Mavs Step Back Podcast, which is a proud part of the Blue Wire podcast network. Trigg graduated from the University of Southern Mississippi’s College of Business and Economic Development with a bachelor’s degree in entrepreneurship in 2016. After spending a few years with multiple Dallas Mavericks-related blogs, including SB Nation’s Mavs Moneyball, Trigg joined DallasBasketball.com as a staff writer in 2018 and never looked back. At the start of 2022, he was promoted to the EIC title he holds now. Through the years, Trigg has conducted a handful of high-profile one-on-one interviews to add to his resume — in both writing and podcasting. Some of his biggest interviews have been with Mavs owner Mark Cuban, Mavs GM Nico Harrison, now-retired legend Dirk Nowitzki and many other current/former players and team staffers. Many of those interviews and other articles by Trigg have been aggregated by other well-known sports media websites, such as Yahoo Sports, CBS Sports, Bleacher Report and others. You can find Trigg on all major social media channels, but his most prevalent platform is on Twitter. Whether it’s posting links to his DBcom work, live-tweeting Mavs games or merely giving his opinions on things going on with Dallas and the rest of the NBA, the daily content never stops rolling. For any inquiries, please email Dalton@MavsStepBack.com.