The NBA has announced that the Los Angeles Lakers’ contest on Tuesday, Feb. 7, at home against the Oklahoma City Thunder will now air at 7:00 p.m. PT. The game will now be aired nationally on TNT in addition to Spectrum SportsNet as Lakers superstar LeBron James nears the NBA’s all-time scoring record of 38,387 held by the legendary Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.
Following his 26-point outing on Thursday night against the Indiana Pacers, LeBron is now just 63 points away from surpassing Kareem at the top of the list. Should he maintain his scoring average he posted in the month of January, this would put LeBron on pace to surpass that record against the Thunder at Crypto.com Arena.
This is the expectation of most and the ticket prices to witness history are bearing that out. According to TickPick, current “get-in” price for the Lakers’ game against the Thunder is $416. That is a 670% increase from the price of the game before the season began, when it was just $54. Should this price remain, it would go down as the most expensive NBA regular season game on record.
Of course, there is also the possibility that LeBron doesn’t pull it off against the Thunder in which case his next chance to break the record would come on Thursday, Feb. 9 against the Milwaukee Bucks. That game was already scheduled to air nationally on TNT, but, like the Thunder game, has also seen a massive increase in ticket price.
According to TickPick, the current “get-in” price for that Lakers-Bucks game is $497, a 397% increase over the $100 price before the season began.
Of course the opportunity to witness history is the driving force of all of these changes. James is set to break a record that Kareem has held since 1984. On April 5 of that year, Kareem sank a skyhook against the Utah Jazz to surpass the record then held by another Lakers legend in Wilt Chamberlain and has held onto it ever since.
Before LeBron, the only person to even come close to threatening Abdul-Jabbar’s record was Karl Malone, but even he fell more than 1,400 points shy. The next closest was the late, great Kobe Bryant, who finished more than 4,700 points away from Kareem’s mark.
LeBron James feels no added pressure as he nears scoring record
As he nears the all-time scoring record, James himself insists that he is feeling no extra pressure. When recently asked about it, LeBron said that the pressure isn’t getting heavier because it’s a foregone conclusion that he will ultimately break the record.
Additionally, LeBron added that he simply plays the game the right way and lets things fall where they may, while also noting that he plans to keep playing for ‘a few more years.’
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