Kobe Bryant surpassed legendary Celtics great John Havlicek for eleventh-place on the NBA all-time scoring list after netting 23 in the Lakers loss to the Bulls on Friday night. He also stands to catch several other players in the coming months and could move as high as sixth before the 2010-11 season comes to a close.
Bryant is no stranger to scoring milestones, of course. Not only is he currently 11th in NBA history in scoring average (25.3) but he was the youngest player ever to reach 20,000 points (29 years, 122 days) and 25,000 points (31 years, 151 days), passing Wilt Chamberlain both times in the process.
Below are the top fifteen scorers in NBA history after Kobe hit his milestone (per Basketball-Reference.com):
RANK NAME POINTS
1 KAREEM ABDUL-JABBAR 38387
2 KARL MALONE 36928
3 MICHAEL JORDAN
32292
4 WILT CHAMBERLAIN 31419
5 SHAQUILLE O’NEAL 28434
6 MOSES MALONE 27409
7 ELVIN HAYES 27313
8 HAKEEM OLAJUWON 26946
9 OSCAR ROBERTSON 26710
10 DOMINIQUE WILKINS 26668
11 KOBE BRYANT 26398
12 JOHN HAVLICEK 26395
13 ALEX ENGLISH 25613
14 REGGIE MILLER 25279
15 JERRY WEST 25192
Kobe is also climbing higher each game in a plethora of other all-time statistics as well. Check out the table below:
CATEGORY RANK AMOUNT
FREE THROWS MADE 9 6701
FIELD GOALS MADE 16 9182
TURNOVERS 16 3051
3PT FIELD GOALS 21 1333
STEALS 24 1583
MINUTES 31 38132
ASSISTS 53 4872
GAMES 76 1044
Kobe is entering the top fifty in all of these important regular-season categories and isn’t showing a ton of signs that he is slowing down, as evidenced by The Sporting News naming him the best player in the NBA today and his current 26.4 points for the division-leading Lakers this season.
The turnover-rank isn’t fantastic but hey, even the GOAT Michael Jordan turned it over 2,924 times in his career.
His playoff statistics are also entering rare waters. Check out the table below:
CATEGORY RANK AMOUNT
POINTS 4 5052
MINUTES 5 7811
STEALS 9 278
ASSISTS 11 955
REBOUNDS 37 1037
Bryant may be entering the stretch-run of his career but he’s not done yet and before he’s through top thirty ranks in all of the above are not out of the question.
