LeBron James is expected to break the all-time NBA scoring record when his Lakers face the Oklahoma City Thunder at L.A.’s Crypo.com arena on February 7, and some wealthy superfans are paying up to $92,000 per ticket to experience basketball history.
James is just 63 points away from Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s all-time NBA scoring record after putting up 26 points in the Lakers’ recent 112-111 win over the Indiana Pacers. James currently has 38,325 points to Abdul-Jabbar’s 38,387, a record set when the Lakers great retired 36 years ago.
“I think it’s one of the greatest records in sports in general,” James said, per ESPN. “I think it’s up there with the homerun record in baseball. It’s one of those records that you just don’t ever see or think that would be broken and then you end up seeing guys like…you had Hank Aaron that had it for so long, you see the guys, the likes of Sammy [Sosa] and Mark McGwire and those guys, start climbing it and it was like: ‘Oh, man. This thing can really happen.’”
Jabbar has repeatedly criticized James in recent years over everything from James sharing a jokey Spider-Man COVID meme during the pandemic to James’s celebratory “Big Balls” victory dance after beating the Indiana Pacers in 2021.
Given that James currently holds a 33 points-per-game average over his last 14 games, many NBA observers expect him to break the scoring record at the OKC game. Bleacher Report shared a viral Twitter post stating that tickets for the game are going as much as $92,000 per seat.
Jabbar even paused his usual LeBron-bashing to offer some congratulatory words on his successor’s imminent historic achievement.
“I’ve been carrying the torch as record holder for 38 years. I’m excited and relieved to pass it along to the next worthy recipient,” Jabbar said on NBA on TNT. “LeBron earned it and I hope he carries it even longer than I did.”
The impending scoring record isn’t James’s only recent epic achievement recent. In 2022, he became the first active NBA player to build a net worth of 1 billion, according to Forbes.