Entering Tuesday night's contest against the Sacramento Kings, he's sitting pretty at 14,997, so it's a fairly safe bet he'll gain entry to that club at 26 years, 78 days
"James reached the milestone at 25 years, 79 days, and he did it in his 540th game," the Associated Press reported, via NBA.com, back in March of 2010. "[Kobe] Bryant [the previous record holder] was 27 years, 136 days and playing his 657th game, according to STATS LLC, when he did it for the Los Angeles Lakers."
But here's the fun part.
James has an advantage in the youth department, as he entered the NBA straight out of high school, bypassing the ranks of collegiate basketball so that he could join the Cleveland Cavaliers and get his professional career off to an early start. Durant did no such thing, playing for the Texas Longhorns and declaring for the draft after his freshman season in Austin.
So while Durant comes up right in between James and Kobe Bryant, trailing the former by a full year and coming in ahead of Bryant by about the same margin, it's worth looking at how many games it took him to hit 15,000 points as well.
This contest against the Kings will be the 550th of Durant's NBA career. He's not quite on the same pace as the four-time MVP currently playing with the Cavaliers, but it's not as though he's particularly far behind.
And that gives hope that Durant might eventually finish ahead of his fellow small forward on the career scoring leaderboard.
At this point, James is already well beyond 15,000.
When he broke that barrier, he was finishing up his first tenure with Cleveland, playing a mid-March contest against the Chicago Bulls while gearing up for a playoff run. Since then, he's won two championships with the Miami Heat, scored plenty more points and returned to his hometown squad.
While Durant prepares to hit 15k, James is coming up on 24,000 points scored, and he's only just nearing his 30th birthday. He has plenty of years left to rack up buckets, and it won't take all that long before we're comparing his spot to the ones occupied by Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant.
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