LeBron James Passes Kareem Abdul-Jabbar for Most Regular-Season Field Goals in NBA History

LeBron James caught the ball on the left baseline, backed his defender down with two hard dribbles and turned over his right shoulder into a soft fadeaway. The 12-foot jumper dropped cleanly through with 12 seconds left in the first quarter—routine in every way except one.

With that shot Thursday night at Ball Arena, James made the 15,838th field goal of his career, passing Kareem Abdul-Jabbar for the most regular-season baskets in NBA history.

The play, a turnaround over Denver Nuggets forward Zeke Nnaji, gave James sole possession of another of Abdul-Jabbar’s long-standing marks nearly three years after he moved past the Hall of Famer to become the league’s all-time leading scorer. This time, the milestone came on the road, in a 120–113 Los Angeles Lakers loss, and against the backdrop of a late-game elbow scare.

“My name being mentioned with some of the greatest to ever play this game has always been humbling and pretty cool,” James said afterward. “It’s hard for me to kind of wrap my head around it. I’ve never had a goal to have that record, but it’s a pretty cool feat.”

The record-breaking sequence

James, 41, entered the night needing three field goals to surpass Abdul-Jabbar’s record of 15,837, set when the Lakers center retired in 1989. He opened his scoring with a driving layup, added an alley-oop dunk on a feed from Luka Dončić to pull even, then moved past Abdul-Jabbar with the baseline jumper over Nnaji late in the first quarter.

He finished 7-of-11 from the field, leaving Denver with 15,842 career field goals. In 33 minutes, he totaled 16 points, five rebounds, eight assists, three steals and one block.

Nuggets control the game

The Nuggets controlled most of the night. Denver raced out to a 16–3 lead and held a 32–22 advantage after the opening period. Two-time MVP Nikola Jokić had 28 points, 12 rebounds and 13 assists in another triple-double. Jamal Murray added 28 points and seven assists, hitting five 3-pointers.

The Lakers repeatedly cut into the deficit but never led.

Elbow scare, return, and late finish

The Lakers’ last serious push came midway through the fourth quarter, when James drove to the basket, scored through contact to trim Denver’s lead to 110–106 and crashed to the floor bracing his fall with his left arm. He immediately grabbed at his left elbow and stayed down as play continued. No foul was called on the drive.

James went to the locker room for evaluation and missed several minutes of game time before returning with just over two minutes remaining and the Lakers down by one. Denver closed the game on a late run to seal the win.

“It’s pretty sore right now,” James said of the elbow. “We’ll see what happens over the next couple of days… Hopefully, I wake up tomorrow and it doesn’t feel too much worse than it does now.”

Lakers coach J.J. Redick said the team would monitor the injury, but emphasized the larger context of James’ career.

“He’s been a complete player for 23 years,” Redick said. “He’s just a phenomenal basketball player. Every year there’s something else that gets added to his résumé. He just keeps adding to his greatest hits.”

A durability mark across eras

James is in his 23rd NBA season, having debuted with the Cleveland Cavaliers in 2003 as the No. 1 overall pick. He has since played for the Miami Heat and returned to Cleveland before joining the Lakers in 2018. Thursday’s game in Denver was his 1,606th regular-season appearance, placing him five games shy of Robert Parish’s NBA record of 1,611.

Abdul-Jabbar, who starred for the Milwaukee Bucks and Lakers from 1969 to 1989, retired as the league’s all-time leader in points, field goals, games and minutes, among other categories. His total of 15,837 made field goals stood for nearly 37 years and was long viewed as a byproduct of rare durability and efficiency.

Abdul-Jabbar shot 55.9% from the field for his career, relying almost exclusively on two-point attempts and the signature skyhook that defined his scoring. He attempted only 18 3-pointers in 20 seasons, making one.

James, a 6-foot-9 forward who has often functioned as his teams’ primary ballhandler, has built his totals in a radically different era. He has hit 51.6% of his shots overall while taking thousands of 3-pointers as the league has shifted toward perimeter spacing, pick-and-roll play and higher tempo. He surpassed Abdul-Jabbar’s 28,307 field-goal attempts earlier in his career and continues to add to that volume.

Nuggets center Jokić called James “definitely a legendary player.”

“You see what he is doing in Year 23,” Jokić said. “He’s still playing at a really high level. That’s not easy.”

Another all-time milestone

James already held the NBA’s all-time regular-season scoring record, which he took from Abdul-Jabbar on Feb. 7, 2023, against the Oklahoma City Thunder in Los Angeles. He is also the league’s leading scorer in playoff history and the first player to surpass 50,000 combined regular-season and postseason points.

By adding the field-goals mark, James now leads in both the total number of points and the total number of baskets made, a statistical pairing that underscores the breadth of his scoring over two decades.

The milestone reflects not just peak performance but also continuity. James has been an All-Star in nearly every season of his career, sustained heavy offensive responsibilities into his late 30s and early 40s, and adjusted his game as the league evolved. He won two championships with Miami, one with Cleveland and one with the Lakers, collecting four regular-season MVP awards along the way.

The record also further intertwines the histories of Abdul-Jabbar and James with the Lakers franchise. Both players set or extended major all-time marks while wearing purple and gold, reinforcing the team’s association with some of the sport’s most decorated careers.

In the moment, however, James said his focus remained on the loss and his health. The Lakers are in a crowded Western Conference playoff race, and Denver is one of the teams they are chasing.

“It’s always about wins and losses for me,” James said. “We had opportunities tonight and couldn’t capitalize.”

Still, the shot over Nnaji will enter the logbooks as more than a first-quarter basket in an early March game. It was another incremental addition to a total built one jumper, layup and dunk at a time—and the one that moved James past a record that once seemed to belong to another era.

Long after the details of Thursday’s loss fade, the number will remain beside his name: more made field goals than any player the league has ever seen, and counting.