Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Michael Jordan , Karl Malone and Moses Malone these are the goats peers not super chuckers like Melo and KobeLeBron James accomplished another mind-boggling feat Tuesday. With a dunk in the first quarter, James became the fifth player in NBA history to score at least 10 points in 500 consecutive regular-season games.
The others on that short list? Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (twice, 787 and 508 games), Michael Jordan (866), Karl Malone (575) and Moses Malone (526).
In order to find the last time James failed to score in double digits, you’d have to flip the calendar all the way back to Jan. 5, 2007, when he scored only eight points at Milwaukee.
Yes, this streak dates back to even before Durant, Greg Oden and Derrick Rose stepped foot in the NBA. It has been that long.
Speaking of Durant, James might be hearing some footsteps. Durant has an active streak of 327 straight games of double-digit scoring, which is downright terrifying because that means Durant has been doing this for the majority of his NBA career.
Who else currently has an active streak going? Here’s the top five:
LONGEST ACTIVE 10+ SCORING STREAKS
Player Games Date started
LeBron James 500 1/6/2007
Kevin Durant 327 2/27/2009
David Lee 80 11/3/2012
Dwyane Wade 65 11/14/2012
John Wall 28 2/27/2013
Yeah, Wade still has a ways to go before he catches his teammate. Crazy fact: If you aggregate the next four players behind James on the active streak list, it adds up to exactly 500 games.
Let’s frame this another way. What if we compared James’ last 500 games to his scoring peers?
Here’s an infographic that illustrates James’ past 500 scoring games next to Durant, Wade, Kobe Bryant and Carmelo Anthony. And for fun, I threw in Chuck Hayes, the player with the fewest points who has played over 500 games and is still active.
(By the way, DeSagana Diop has only four double-digit scoring games in his past 500 games and he went for 10 points in each of those four games. Fortunately for him, he’s not on an active roster so he won’t be shamed here. Sorry, Chuck.)
James’ streak is more than just about scoring, however. One of James’ greatest attributes as an NBA player is his exceptional durability. If he starts a game, you can bet that he’ll finish it. The other top scorers shown here have suffered in-game injuries that knocked them out early. James? He has played at least 20 minutes in every game since the streak began except for one. And he scored 14 points in that game.
For those wondering, Bryant's longest streak is 211 games, which stretched from 2001-02 to 2004-05. Anthony? His longest run is 222 games from 2006-07 to 2008-09. And Wade? Try 148 games from 2008-09 to 2010-11. So James' longest streak is more than Anthony and Bryant’s combined.
and before you bring up the 81 pt game which was vs one of the worst teams in the league and took more than 45 shot attempts
Consistency > over one game chuck fest
