LeBron James Increases Streak of 10 Point Games to 1,000

Imagine playing in the NBA and it’s your birthday and you just reached 1,000 games with 10 or more points. Well, that’s exactly what LeBron James did in a game against the San Antonio Spurs. LeBron James’s present for his 36th birthday on December 30 was becoming the first player in NBA history to have 1,000 straight games with 10 or more points. He already owns the longest streak in NBA history breaking Michael Jordan’s mark of 866 games on March 30, 2018, and he continues to increase the record every time he takes the court. The last time LeBron didn’t score 10 or more points in a game was on Jan 5, 2007, when he had eight points, nine assists and five rebounds as the Cavaliers beat the Milwaukee Bucks. He has eight single-digit scoring games in his career, with six of them coming in 2003-04, which was his rookie season!

LeBron averaged 25.3 ppg last season, which was 12th in the NBA and second on the Lakers next to Anthony Davis (26.1 ppg, 10th in NBA). Not until LeBron’s 17th season, he was no longer his team’s leading scorer in one season. Something else he did instead was lead the league in assists for the first time in his career (with a career-best 10.2 APG). While his team-scoring-leader streak was thrown into the trash, he did extend another remarkable streak as he averaged more than 25 ppg for the 16th consecutive season. After averaging 20.9 ppg as a rookie, LeBron has never averaged fewer than 25 ppg in a season. That is the longest streak in league history by a whole lot. The next closest players are Hall of Famers Karl Malone and Michael Jordan with 11 straight seasons (and that’s if you include Jordan’s 1994-95 comeback season where he only played 17 games).

Since the 1983-84 season, there have only been nine streaks of at least 300 straight double-digit scoring performances. That list includes only two active streaks with LeBron at 999 and James Harden at 411. When you look at active streaks, there are only six players who pass 75 back-to-back double-digit scoring games. After Harden, the next longest active streak belongs to Kevin Durant (with 152 games), followed by Kawhi Leonard (125), Karl-Anthony Towns (113), and Bradley Beal (109). Add those five together (910) and it would still not be enough to match LeBron’s streak. Among the players with the longest active streaks, Harden likely has the best chance to challenge LeBron. Harden is the league’s dominant scorer, having led the league in scoring in each of the past three seasons. However, Harden trails LeBron by 588 games — the equivalent of more than seven full seasons (82 games = one season). Plus, LeBron isn’t stopping at 1,000 games. That means this mark will keep rising, making it more difficult for anyone to challenge.