When the NBA summer league was quaint, when it was just the business of evaluating basketball before the evaluation of basketball and the pleasures of Las Vegas, it was played in Boston. In the summer of 2003, LeBron James was there. He hadn’t yet played an official professional game, but he was already rich, having signed a seven-year, $87 million endorsement deal with Nike before sinking his first basket. LeBron in the University of Massachusetts Boston gym 20 years ago represented two things at once, a staggering physical presence for a mere 18-year-old, and physically, a mere child compared to what his fearsome adult body would become.
Two decades later, over the span of a week when he neared and finally surpassed the league’s all-time scoring mark now formerly held by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, the totality of James’ remarkable journey came into clearer focus during one remarkable week in the NBA.
THE RECORD
In comparison to other professional sports, the basketball point is an odd quality. Because of the individualist nature of scoring, points are alternately the most revered and reduced commodities in sports. Points are similar to the home run: wholly selfish — one pitch, one swing, one run. They are the most exciting and defining barometer for greatness, but also a measure of success independent of team concepts. Like the home run hitter, the basketball scorer stands alone, and, like the home run, points can be interpreted as detrimental to the team game and paradoxically, to winning. Just as the case with the one-dimensional baseball slugger, Bob McAdoo, Adrian Dantley, George Gervin, James Harden and even Wilt Chamberlain scored a ton of points but were not always considered winners. Their high point volumes were often seen as examples of selfishness. That LeBron and Kareem now stand as the two greatest scorers in the NBA connects the top of the scoring record book to team success, winning and championships. Ten combined NBA titles, 20 combined NBA Finals appearances, 10 combined regular-season MVPs and nearly 80,000 combined points.
Like the home run crown, the scoring leader passed hands more frequently in the nascent period of the game, but from now on likely will be held only by the greatest of the sport. From 1871 to 1920, six men held the all-time home run record. In the 102 years since, when Babe Ruth overtook Roger Connor (who…
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