With 16 NBA Championships and 31 NBA Finals appearances overall, it makes sense that the Los Angeles Lakers would be all over the NBA Finals records list. Now in the midst of his eighth straight NBA Finals appearance, and ninth overall, Cleveland Cavaliers forward LeBron James is doing the same.
James already made playoff history earlier in this run, passing Lakers legend Kareem Abdul-Jabbar for most field goals made. Now he has surpassed Cap again on another list, but still trails another all-time Lakers great.
James passed Abdul-Jabbar for second on the all-time NBA Finals scoring list, trailing only The Logo himself, Jerry West, via ESPN:
The ???? keeps climbing pic.twitter.com/Mya6JVtBMW
— ESPN (@espn) June 4, 2018
Being in this level of company is truly outstanding, but at this point it’s pretty normal for LeBron, who is finding himself at or near the top of a number of all-time lists. He still has quite a ways to go to surpass West however.
James currently finds himself 352 points behind West for the all-time lead. Depending on what happens throughout the remainder of this year’s NBA Finals, LeBron will almost definitely need two more Finals appearances to approach the 1,679 points West accumulated in the Finals.
Coincidentally, both James and West have a losing record in the Finals. West won just one of his nine NBA Finals appearances while James has a 3-5 record and finds himself trailing 2-0 to the Golden State Warriors in this year’s edition.
Abdul-Jabbar on the other hand, won six of his 10 NBA Finals appearances. Regardless of whether he wins these NBA Finals or not, James has firmly established himself as one of the greatest players of all-time.
If he can past West and put his name at the top of this list, it will be one of his most impressive accomplishments ever.
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