Michael Jordan is arguably the greatest scorer the NBA has ever seen. He’s won 10 scoring titles, which is an NBA record. He also has the highest points per game average of all time at 30.12, which is slightly over Wilt Chamberlain’s 30.07.
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Despite this, Jordan does not hold the all-time scoring record. That belongs to LeBron James. Even though LeBron has scored more points, Jordan is the better scorer. No question.
Charles Barkley recently explained why Jordan doesn’t have the record.
“I love LeBron. I’m not going to say anything bad about him. But he didn’t go to college for three years. You have to factor that in also. He had a three-year head start on Michael.
“I’m just going to give a couple of things about it if you want to do it fairly. He would say, ‘Well, how many games does Michael Jordan play compared to LeBron?’ And actually, if you look at the numbers, Michael actually had 5,000 more points in his career in the same number of games. That’s basically two and a half NBA seasons.
“You have to factor in that Michael went to college for three years. And if you remember, he broke his foot in his first year, and he retired for two years. So if Michael had gone to the NBA three years sooner, not missed his rookie year with a broken foot, and not retired for two years, he would be the all-time leading scorer.”
Barkley makes a good point. If all of the above didn’t occur, Jordan would be the all-time scoring leader, and it wouldn’t be close. The record does belong to LeBron, but he is not close to be the best scoring the NBA has ever seen.
