LeBron James is 41 years old, playing for his fourth franchise, in his 24th NBA season, and he just moved into third place on the league’s all-time assists list. The pass that did it went to a rookie.
James fed VJ Edgecombe late in the fourth quarter of Philadelphia’s 131-124 win over the Indiana Pacers on Sunday, his 11th assist of the night and the 12,092nd of his career. That put him one ahead of Jason Kidd, who finished with 12,091.
One Assist, and Then the Next Target
Eleven assists was a season high for James. He also had 15 points on 5-of-8 shooting in a game Joel Embiid missed while Philadelphia manages his right foot, which pushed James into stretches at center down the back end. Jaylen Brown scored 31 and Tyrese Maxey added 27. The Sixers are 11-3.
The number in front of him now is Chris Paul’s 12,552, and that number is finished. Paul retired in February during All-Star weekend after 21 seasons. James needs 461 more assists to pass him, which at his current rate of 6.5 a game is something like 70 games of work. He has played 10 of Philadelphia’s 14 so far, sitting out a win over Toronto to manage sciatica in his back.
John Stockton’s 15,806 is not in play for anybody.
What He Said About It
James did not make the milestone about himself.
“It means I had a lot of great teammates,” he said afterward. “You gotta have teammates that can put the ball in the hole, so my job is to put it on time, on target, lead them to the hole, either from layups, dunks, 3’s, midrange, whatever the case may be.”
He went back further than the NBA, too. “From the moment I picked up a basketball, when I started playing recreational basketball, five-on-five, I always got a joy and a kick out of seeing my teammates score,” he said.
The Combination Nobody Else Has
This is the part that separates him. James has 43,606 career points, the most in NBA history, and no other player has reached 40,000. He is now also third in career assists. Nobody else has ever held the scoring record while ranking that high as a passer.
The usual knock applies, and it is fair: he got there partly on volume. James has played 1,632 games. Kidd played 1,391, Paul 1,370. He needed roughly 240 more nights to pass Kidd by a single assist. Durability is the skill that made everything else possible, which is its own kind of argument.
He also sits sixth all-time in steals with 2,430 and 23rd in rebounds with 12,174. He leads the sport’s history in games played, minutes played, field goals made and seasons played.
Nobody Should Call This a Farewell Tour
James signed with Philadelphia on July 24 for two years and $8 million with a player option, a fraction of the nearly $53 million he made with the Lakers last season. He called it “my last decision” at the time and admitted he had seriously considered retiring. He has not said this is his final season, and at Sixers media day he refused to go near it: “I’m not going to speak to the future right now; I’d be doing myself a disservice.”
So the writers calling this a last chapter are doing that on their own. What is on the record is a two-year deal with an option, a 41-year-old averaging 15.1 points, 7.2 rebounds and 6.5 assists, a team sitting at 11-3, and an assists total that is still climbing.
Chris Paul’s number is parked there and it is not moving. Give James two healthy seasons and it falls.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.
