Kareem Abdul-Jabbar Career Map: How to score the most points in NBA history

Source: NBA.com

Necessary NBA facts:

• There are 82 games in a season

• There are 48 minutes in a game

• There have been 4374 basketball players to play in at least one NBA game, including Kareem (Bleacher Report)

• 8 players have played 20 or more years, including Kareem (Basketball Reference)

In the 2020-21 season the NBA scoring champ was Stephen Curry, who scored 2015 points. It is important to remember that the three-point line had not been invented for much of Kareem’s prime. Curry has made over 3000 three pointers, Kareem has made one.

More than three quarters of NBA players would view 20 ppg as a wildly successful basketball career. In the 2020-21 season only 31 players averaged 20+ ppg (Land of Basketball.com). Kareem maintained this level for 17 years.

Unlike most NBA players, especially ones of his size, Abdul-Jabbar enjoyed a healthy career, managing to play 90% of his games in 18 of his 20 seasons. Injuries have been the downfall of many of Kareem’s peers attempting to break his record.

Statistics like minutes played and field goals attempted per game are good indicators of a team’s dependency on a player. His usage dipped slightly in his final season, natural regression of an aging superstar. His age did not hit him as hard as other NBA players that turned forty in an NBA uniform. Robert Parish also played from his early twenties to his early forties, both all-stars, both centers. However Parish was not in the starting lineup for most of his last 3 years (Basketball Reference). Kareem started every game of his career.

*Still active

The more times a player makes the playoffs, the more opportunity there is to score points. Kareem only missed the playoffs twice in his career which resulted in 237 playoff games played in, which is fifth all time (Basketball Reference). In this graph, I have compared him to the five players behind him in the all time scoring list.

On February 12 2022, LeBron James broke the record for combined playoff and regular season points in a career. However he still trails Kareem in regular season points. This shows just how important those 29 extra playoff games Lebron has played are.

Alternate Story:

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar scored 38387 regular season points. More than any other NBA player in history. To reach the ultimate pinnacle of basketball scoring success, a few things have to go your way. You might look at his ironman ability to avoid injury, rarely missing games, thus rarely missing opportunities to score. Or maybe, his usage-rate, Kareem's skill set made his contribution to his team vital to their success, even in the later stages of his career.

It’s hard to get into the NBA, it’s harder still to stay, playing for 20 years is Herculean. One of Kareem’s greatest attributes was his longevity. He played from 1969 to 1989 , only 7 other players have played for that long.

In my graphs I have compared Kareem to these other 7 players. I used the statistical categories, points per game and total points, and plotted them year by year. Over a 20 year career in sports it’s expected that players will have good and bad seasons. This is exemplified by the natural regression of kareem’s peers during their twilight. Although he regressed slightly as well he still never averaged less than 10 ppg. Consistency is necessary to score 38000 points.

The thick yellow line is LeBron James and he will overtake Kareem eventually. Most likely in less than a year. Up to this point his career trajectory was very similar to Kareem. LeBron is in his 19th year, typically this is when he would begin to show his age a bit more. He is not only staying at a consistent high level, he is having one of his better seasons. This is why he is the only player close to catching Kareem’s record.

Leon's notes:

This post was submitted as an assignment. The first story was my draft, however it proved to be a little too sicko mode for my Data Journalism teacher. So I took on board his criticism and in the end submitted the second story.

Both are available for your enjoyment.

I know that the graphs in the second story look like the background of a Jean-Michel Basquiat painting, but they were somehow more readable to my professor than "Total points per season".