Who has next for James’ scoring record: Luka? Tatum? Anyone?

The previous season, James Harden averaged 36 points per game. In one game, Devin Booker scored 70 points.

LeBron James entered the NBA in 2003–04, when scoring was done by a much smaller group of elite players. In that season, Tracy McGrady averaged 28 points per game, a number that nine players have since surpassed.

Players have more opportunities to rack up scores thanks to the increased speed of play and the proliferation of 3-pointers. But Harden is proof that it will be difficult for even a top scorer to maintain his current pace for long enough to threaten James’s future scoring record, whenever that may be.

In 2019–20 he scored 36.1 points per game and in 2020–21 he dropped to 34.3. With such figures throughout the course of 75 games every season, a player would be on the cusp of 40,000 points in just 15 years, however James is expected to break the current record of 38,390 points.

But things took a turn for the worst. Harden had to learn to share the ball with other All-Stars after being sent to Brooklyn and then Philadelphia, and a serious hamstring injury limited his performance. Since then, he hasn’t even been able to average 20 points, much less 25.

Booker is convinced that James will never be found.