NBA All-Time Scoring Leaders

Published April 18, 2026 · Updated May 21, 2026 · By The Basketball Fans Editors

The NBA’s career scoring record has changed hands seven times since the BAA’s 1946 founding. Each change of hands has tended to outlast the career of the next several challengers. Joe Fulks held the original lead. George Mikan took it over. Dolph Schayes followed. Bob Pettit passed Schayes in 1964. Wilt Chamberlain passed Pettit in 1966 and finished at 31,419. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar passed Chamberlain on April 5, 1984 and finished at 38,387, a record that stood for thirty-eight years. LeBron James passed Abdul-Jabbar on February 7, 2023 and has continued to extend the mark. The full list of NBA all-time scorers is longer and more varied than the record chain suggests; the current top twenty-five includes players across seven different decades.

What the list obscures is how different the paths to the top actually were. Chamberlain scored 31,419 points in fourteen seasons by averaging 30.1 per game, the second-highest career average in league history. Kareem scored 38,387 across twenty seasons at a steadier 24.6 per game. LeBron’s 40,000-plus spans twenty-two seasons at roughly 27.2 per game. The arithmetic looks similar at a glance, but the underlying demands are entirely different. Chamberlain’s total came from pure scoring dominance in an era when the schedule was shorter and defenses were less sophisticated. Kareem’s came from a combination of elite efficiency (54.7 percent career field-goal percentage, the second-highest among players with more than 1,000 field goal attempts in the post-merger era) and extraordinary durability, playing until age 42 at a level that remained useful. LeBron’s record required both: sustained per-game output that has barely declined since his late twenties, and the physical conditioning to stay on the floor for more games than almost anyone before him.

That distinction between total points and per-game average runs through almost every argument about the all-time scoring list. Michael Jordan never cracked 33,000 career points, finishing with 32,292, but his 30.12 career scoring average is the highest in NBA history. Wilt Chamberlain averaged 30.07, virtually tied with Jordan. Elgin Baylor, who retired at 27,365 points in part due to knee injuries, averaged 27.4. Taken strictly on per-game production, those three players have a plausible claim to having been the most efficient scorers the league has ever seen. Taken on career totals, they rank fifth, seventh, and outside the top fifteen respectively. Neither framing is wrong; they answer different questions. The per-game list captures peak scoring threat. The career total list captures the sustained combination of output and availability that defines all-time greatness over a complete career.

The Kareem-LeBron record chase is the most discussed single event in the history of this list. For most of LeBron’s first decade, the record felt theoretical: Kareem’s 38,387 was so far ahead of anyone active that projections required assumptions about longevity that seemed unreasonable. But LeBron continued to produce at 25-plus points per game well into his mid-thirties, absorbing wear in a way no previous player had managed at his size (6’9”, 250 pounds). By the 2022-23 season, the question had shifted from “can he do it?” to “when?” He passed Abdul-Jabbar in February 2023 with 19 seasons completed. He then crossed 40,000 in March 2024, reaching a threshold that had never been achieved in eighty-eight seasons of professional basketball.

The record holders, in order

The career scoring-record chain since 1946:

• Joe Fulks held the original BAA scoring lead. Fulks was the Philadelphia Warriors’ forward and the league’s first star, averaging 23.2 points per game in 1946–47. He held the career record through his 1954 retirement.
• George Mikan passed Fulks in the early 1950s. Full Mikan story here. Mikan retired in 1956 with 11,764 career points, the first in NBA history to pass 11,000.
• Dolph Schayes passed Mikan in 1957. Schayes, the Syracuse Nationals’ twelve-time All-Star, retired in 1964 with 18,438 points, becoming the first to reach 15,000.
• Bob Pettit passed Schayes in 1964. Pettit’s story here. Pettit retired in 1965 with 20,880 points, the first NBA player to pass 20,000.
• Wilt Chamberlain passed Pettit in 1966. Chamberlain’s full story here. Chamberlain retired in 1973 with 31,419 points, the first to pass 30,000.
• Kareem Abdul-Jabbar passed Chamberlain on April 5, 1984, with a skyhook over Mark Eaton of the Utah Jazz at the Forum in Inglewood. Abdul-Jabbar’s story here. He retired in 1989 with 38,387 points, the first to pass 35,000, then 38,000.
• LeBron James passed Abdul-Jabbar on February 7, 2023, with a step-back jumper over Kenrich Williams of the Oklahoma City Thunder at Crypto.com Arena. LeBron’s story here. He passed 40,000 career points on March 2, 2024, the first NBA player to reach that mark. He continues to extend the record.

The top twenty-five

As of the end of the 2023–24 season, the top twenty-five career scorers in NBA history (regular season):

1. LeBron James: 40,474 (active; total continues to rise)
2. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar: 38,387
3. Karl Malone: 36,928
4. Kobe Bryant: 33,643
5. Michael Jordan: 32,292
6. Dirk Nowitzki: 31,560
7. Wilt Chamberlain: 31,419
8. Shaquille O’Neal: 28,596
9. Carmelo Anthony: 28,289
10. Kevin Durant: 28,200+ (active)
11. Moses Malone: 27,409
12. Elvin Hayes: 27,313
13. Hakeem Olajuwon: 26,946
14. Oscar Robertson: 26,710
15. Dominique Wilkins: 26,668
16. Tim Duncan: 26,496
17. Paul Pierce: 26,397
18. John Havlicek: 26,395
19. James Harden: approximately 26,000 (active)
20. Kevin Garnett: 26,071
21. Vince Carter: 25,728
22. Reggie Miller: 25,279
23. Alex English: 25,613
24. Russell Westbrook: approximately 25,000 (active)
25. Jerry West: 25,192

The list is a mix of seven-time champions (Kareem’s six), all-time championship-less scorers (Malone, English, Nowitzki’s one), and modern-era 2020s players (Durant, Harden, Westbrook, James).

The active-players chase

Of active players (2024–25 and onward), only a small group is on a credible path to approach the top of the list:

• Kevin Durant, 36 years old with approximately 28,200 points, would need to average a healthy 25 points per game across three more full seasons to approach Nowitzki’s position.
• James Harden, 35 with approximately 26,000 points, is likely to finish in the 28,000–29,000 range.
• Russell Westbrook, 36 with approximately 25,000 points, has seen his scoring decline as a bench role player and is unlikely to pass 27,000.
• Stephen Curry, 37 with approximately 24,000 points, is still adding roughly 22 per game; a top-ten finish is possible with two more healthy seasons.
• Giannis Antetokounmpo, 30 with approximately 22,000 points, is the only active player with a realistic path to challenge LeBron’s record if he sustains his current rate and plays until age 40.

Records most likely to stand

Abdul-Jabbar held the scoring record for nearly 39 years. A 40,000-point career line requires roughly 20 seasons at 25 points per game or a slightly-lower rate over more games. LeBron has played 22 seasons as of 2024-25 and shows no sign of decline. His final career total is projected to exceed 42,000 points, which would require an NBA player to produce an Abdul-Jabbar-class career at a LeBron-era pace to surpass. The next player with a credible path is Giannis Antetokounmpo, whose current career rate (approximately 23.7 points per game) is lower than LeBron’s, but whose age (30 in 2025) gives him roughly ten more years to close the gap.

To actually overtake LeBron’s record, the math is sobering. If LeBron finishes at 42,000 and Giannis averages 27 points per game for ten more seasons at roughly 70 games per season, he would finish with approximately 41,000, still short. He would need to either maintain his current rate longer than LeBron did or sustain higher per-game production to make up the difference. No active player under age 30 is on pace to clear that threshold. Anthony Edwards and Jayson Tatum are the two youngest players who have shown 25-plus scoring averages across full seasons, but both need roughly eighteen more productive years to reach 40,000 from their current career totals. The record, in short, is likely to stand well beyond 2040.

The shorter-period records (single-game 100 by Chamberlain, single-season 50.4 by Chamberlain) have not been approached since 1962 and are widely considered permanent. Chamberlain’s 100-point game against the New York Knicks on March 2, 1962 remains the most singular statistical outlier in professional basketball: he made 36 of 63 field goal attempts and 28 of 32 free throws in Hershey, Pennsylvania, with no television cameras present and the official scorer working from memory on some of the totals. The single-season scoring average record (50.4 in 1961-62) has never been approached; Joel Embiid led the league at 33.1 in 2022-23, the closest anyone has come in sixty years, and still fell seventeen points per game short.

Playoff career scoring

The career playoff scoring leaderboard is led by LeBron James, who passed Michael Jordan’s 5,987 during the 2017 postseason and has continued to extend the record. The current top five:

1. LeBron James: approximately 8,200 (active)
2. Michael Jordan: 5,987
3. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar: 5,762
4. Kobe Bryant: 5,640
5. Shaquille O’Neal: 5,250

Jordan still holds the highest career playoff scoring average at 33.4 points per game, a mark unlikely to be broken.

Per-game career scoring average

The career scoring average leaderboard is led by Michael Jordan (30.12 ppg), who is followed by Wilt Chamberlain (30.07), Elgin Baylor (27.4), Kevin Durant (27.3), LeBron James (27.2), and Jerry West (27.0). No active non-Durant-non-James player is within 2.0 points of Jordan’s mark. The Pyramid framework in The Book of Basketball (Ballantine, 2009) ranks the all-time scoring greats in a way that diverges sharply from the raw totals, placing Jordan and Russell above Chamberlain despite the counting-stat gap.

Gear

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Sources

• Basketball-Reference, career scoring leaderboard (updated through each NBA season)
• NBA.com, official all-time scoring records
• April 5, 1984 box score: Lakers vs Jazz (Abdul-Jabbar scoring-record game)
• February 7, 2023 box score: Lakers vs Thunder (James passes Abdul-Jabbar)
• March 2, 2024 box score: Lakers vs Nuggets (James passes 40,000)
• Individual career statistical pages (all top twenty-five entries)