NBA All-Time Career Scoring Leaders

Data

Note: How NBA Career Scoring Records Really Work

The chart and table above rank the 25 highest scorers in NBA regular-season history. The numbers look simple, but behind them sits a story about three things: how points are earned, how long a player lasts, and which eras made scoring easier or harder.

What Counts as a Career Scoring Total

• Regular season only. The NBA tracks playoff points in a completely separate list. LeBron James leads that one too, with 8,521 playoff points, ahead of Michael Jordan (5,987) and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (5,762).
• NBA only, no ABA totals. Career totals here count only games played in the NBA. Julius Erving is the classic example: he scored more than 30,000 professional points across the ABA and NBA combined, yet his NBA-only total keeps him off this top-25 list.
• Three ways to score. Every point comes from a free throw (1 point), a field goal inside the arc (2 points), or a shot beyond it (3 points).
• Every team counts. A player's total follows him through trades and free agency. LeBron's 43,440 points were scored for the Cleveland Cavaliers, Miami Heat and Los Angeles Lakers.

LeBron James and the 40,000-Point Barrier

LeBron James is the NBA's all-time leading scorer and the first player ever to pass 40,000 career regular-season points. He also needed the fewest games in league history to reach every milestone from 1,000 points all the way to 31,000. The man he passed, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, had owned the record for 38 years, 10 months and 2 days (14,187 days) from 1984 to 2023, the longest reign in NBA history. LeBron's current lead over Kareem is 5,053 points, a wider gap than the entire career total of most All-Stars.

Longevity Is Half the Battle

Scoring 25,000+ career points is as much about staying on the floor as it is about talent.

• Vince Carter played 1,541 games, the most on this list, and averaged only 16.7 points a night, yet still ranks inside the top 25.
• Karl Malone (1,476 games) and Kevin Garnett (1,462) built enormous totals the same way: 20 points per game for 15-plus seasons.
• Michael Jordan is the opposite story: 32,292 points in just 1,072 games, a career average of 30.1 points per game.
• Wilt Chamberlain scored 31,419 points in only 1,045 games, also at 30.1 points per game.

The 30,000-Point Club Is Tiny

Only eight players on this list have crossed 30,000 career points. Getting there takes a rare combination of health and consistency. The 25th-ranked total, Alex English's 25,613, would require a 20-point-per-game scorer to play roughly 15 or 16 full seasons without a serious injury. An 82-game season at 20 points a night produces about 1,640 points, so cracking this top 25 usually takes well over 1,200 games or a much higher scoring average.

Active Players Still Climbing

• LeBron James (43,440) keeps extending the record every season he plays.
• Kevin Durant (32,597) has already passed Michael Jordan and is closing on Kobe Bryant's 33,643.
• James Harden (29,339) is knocking on the door of 30,000 points.
• DeMar DeRozan (26,711) and Stephen Curry (26,528) are steadily moving up the list.

Why the List Keeps Moving

• The three-point line arrived in the 1979-80 season, changing how many points a single possession can produce and giving modern guards a faster route up the list.
• Pace and spacing have risen sharply since the 2010s, so today's stars attempt more shots per game than players of the 1990s.
• Load management and injuries work the other way: fewer games played means fewer points, which is why availability is such a valuable skill.
• Records are snapshots in time. Every total on this page is accurate through the 2025-26 season and will look different next year.

Fun Facts

• The tightest gap in the top 25 is a single point: DeMar DeRozan's 26,711 sits just ahead of Oscar Robertson's 26,710.
• Michael Jordan's 10 scoring titles are the most in NBA history.
• Wilt Chamberlain's 4,029 points in the 1961-62 season remain the single-season record by a wide margin.
• Jordan and Chamberlain are tied at 30.1 career points per game, the highest scoring averages ever recorded.
• Kareem Abdul-Jabbar piled up his points with the skyhook, a shot almost nobody since has been able to copy.

The Takeaway

Career scoring records reward three things at once: skill, health and time. LeBron James sits on top because he has been elite for more than two decades. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar held the record for nearly four decades because he was almost never hurt. And Wilt Chamberlain and Michael Jordan prove that a freakish scoring rate can be just as overwhelming when it lasts long enough. Keep an eye on the active names here, because the top 25 will look noticeably different within a few seasons.