Kobe Bryant Welcomes LeBron James Passing Him On All-Time Scoring List

Only 66 points are keeping Los Angeles Lakers forward LeBron James from the No. 3 spot on the NBA’s All-Time Scoring List. Once he totals 33,644 points, he will pass a player revered by Lakers fans worldwide: Kobe Bryant. 

Some may be a bit unsatisfied about James supplanting Bryant on the all-time scoring charts, but not Bryant. To him, being concerned about such matters is akin to foolishness.

“I don’t know if people want that or want to have this kind of contentious thing where you don’t want records to be broken or people there to surpass you,” Bryant said. “You should be happy for the person that comes after you to be able to surpass things that you’ve done. It’s kind of juvenile to think or to behave any other way.”

GOAT recognize GOAT ??

(?: @SpectrumSN ) pic.twitter.com/a8JCx1yRFY

— Los Angeles Lakers (@Lakers) November 18, 2019

Bryant has been watching LeBron’s performance this season and has nothing but praises for The King.

“He’s coming in this year with a chip on his shoulder obviously because of what everybody was saying that he’s washed up,” Bryant said. “When I first came into the league, the average age was like 33 or 32. Now that you’re 35, [the narrative], is ‘You’re washed up and you’re dying.’ It’s kind of silly. But I think he’s doing a fantastic job.”

Bryant Has No Regrets

Bryant has dealt with several injuries which kept him from overtaking Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (38,387 career points) or Karl Malone (36,928) on the all-time scoring list. However, he said he didn’t regret not being able to move up higher on the list.

“Competition is about competition,” Bryant said. “It’s like competing with things that you can control. If you’re competing as somebody mano a mano, it’s different. Of course, you want to win. But if it’s things that aren’t in your control?

“I can’t control whether you win an Oscar or not. You do the best that you can and you make the story as good as you can make it and then you sit down and you just chill. If our name wasn’t getting called in that envelope, I would’ve been happy for the group that won because I know the amount of work that goes into that and respect that.”