LeBron James becomes youngest player to reach 25,000 career points
PHILADELPHIA -- He might be in his 13th season and playing through the bad back that caused him to miss most of training camp, but LeBron James is still setting basketball records that celebrate his youth.
James became the youngest player in NBA history to score 25,000 points with an alley-oop dunk that he guided in the hoop with 8:07 remaining in the fourth quarter of a 107-100 win over the Philadelphia 76ers on Monday. The bucket gave James 22 points in the game and 25,001 points for his career. It was the second of two alley-oops James converted on consecutive possessions, which made him look every bit the sky-walking teenager he was when he entered the league.
"The man above definitely put a stamp on it," James said afterward. "What better way to close in on it than by me kind of high-flying a little bit. The man above definitely reached down and touched me a little bit."
During the ensuing timeout, James was acknowledged for the accomplishment by the Sixers' public address announcer, and he received a standing ovation from the road crowd.
"It's pretty cool," James said. "I haven't really had an opportunity to categorize the list of things that I've done, but to be able to do it in a winning fashion, No. 1, and with this group of guys and do it in a building that loves the game of basketball -- and obviously, they are Sixers fans 'til death, but they know and they respect the game of basketball -- and to get a standing ovation for reaching the milestone, it was very special."
James, who is 30 years, 307 days old, outdid another prep-to-pro sensation,Kobe Bryant, in reaching 25,000 points. Bryant hit the plateau at 31 years, 151 days old.
James became the the 20th player to reach 25,000 points and the sixth active player, joining Bryant, Dirk Nowitzki, Tim Duncan, Kevin Garnett and Paul Pierce.
"Nineteen guys?" James said of his elite company. "There's been over 1900 guys that have been in this league, so I guess it's a cool thing.
"It just means that I've played with a lot of great teammates, a lot of great coaches that have allowed me to be in position to be successful on the floor," James said at shootaround Monday, when informed he was nearing the point total. "It's definitely a milestone any time you're able to have an accomplishment like that. I've been around some great groups, and I'm able to reap a lot of the benefits."
James said he remembered reaching the 20,000-point notch while playing in Golden State in January 2013. He said he saved the game ball from the occasion.
"I'll probably keep this one too if we win," James told ESPN.com. "If we lose, it's going to put a damper on my trophy case."
That won't be a problem, as the Cavs came back from a 15-point first-half deficit en route to the win. James finished with 22 points, 11 assists, nine rebounds, four steals and two blocks, and Cleveland's director of team operations, Mark "Cobra" Cashman, tucked the game ball away in one of the Cavs' equipment bags for the flight home.
Five years ago, James spoiled the 25,000-point night for the Los Angeles Lakerssuperstar. He scored 37 points to Bryant's 31 in a 93-87 win for the Cleveland Cavaliers on Jan. 21, 2010. "That's crazy," James said when informed of the Bryant connection. "That was five years ago? Wow."
Both Cavs coach David Blatt and Sixers coach Brett Brown tried to put James' career in perspective on his special night.
"The NBA is full of records, but that's an extremely impressive, record-breaking moment for LeBron," Blatt said. "To be the youngest player in the history of the game to score 25,000 points, particularly when you're every bit the passer that you are the scorer, is just a testament to his greatness."
Added Brown: "He got that hype. I remember so vividly that hype coming up. Lots of people get a great amount of publicity, but he got a lot. You always wondered: Could he back it up? Was he really this good? And he has been and then some."
James is just the seventh to reach the 25,000-point milestone before the end of his 13th season, along with Wilt Chamberlain, Michael Jordan, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Karl Malone, Oscar Robertson and Dominique Wilkins. James needed 915 games to reach the accomplishment, which trails only Chamberlain (691), Jordan (782) and Abdul-Jabbar (889), according to the Elias Sports Bureau.
Meanwhile, James continues to catapult up the all-time scoring list. The next name ahead of him is Jerry West, with 25,192 points.
"For me, winning basketball games and then reaching milestones individually will be a pretty cool thing, but obviously, it will be a team aspect of it that comes first," James said. "But any time along that line that you're able to reach a milestone, I think it's very humbling and it's a cool thing.
"I know where I come from, and I know where my family comes from, and for me to have milestones along the way -- obviously I have more work to do -- but it's cool to see when you're able to kind of just stop and look at it. Because I don't get much time to really stop and look at some of the things that I've done."
LeBron James becomes youngest player to 25,000 career points
By Eric Freeman
LeBron James has accomplished a great deal in his 13-year NBA career — enough so that individual achievement and milestones sometimes do not register as especially impressive or notable. Sometimes, though, LeBron reaches a level that serves as a reminder that we have had the privilege of watching a singular basketball phenomenon for more than a decade.
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One of those moments occurred with roughly 8:10 remaining in Monday night's game between theCleveland Cavaliers and Philadelphia 76ers at the Wells Fargo Center. James finished an alley-oop from Matthew Dellavedova to become the youngest player to reach 25,000 points for his career. Take a look:
At 30 years and 307 days, LeBron tops Kobe Bryant's previous record of 31 years and 105 days (set in 2010 against James and the Cavs, incidentally). As noted by Jason Lloyd of the Akron Beacon Journal, he had previously broken Kobe's records as the youngest to 10,000, 15,000, and 20,000 points.
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LeBron predictably took the diplomatic route to explaining how he was able to reach this milestone so quickly (via Lloyd):
“It just means that I play with a lot of great teammates and coaches that have allowed me to be in a position to be successful on the floor,” James said. “I have been around some great groups and can reap a lot of benefits.”
Yet James was the one who put his teammates in a position to succeed on Monday, dishing out 11 assists to go along with his team-high 22 points (9-of-19 FG) and eight rebounds in Cleveland's 107-100 win. The Cavs are now 3-1 and next face the New York Knicks in a nationally televised game Wednesday night.
Meanwhile, James will continue to reach new milestones as if they were perfectly common occurrences. The same can be said of his highlights, too. This alley-oop from Dellavedova came just before the record-setting play with added style points:
The amazing thing about LeBron is that he's done similar things so many times that the difficulty of this finish almost doesn't even register. Let's do our best not to forget just how good he is.
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