LeBron James had every intention of breaking the NBA scoring record against the Thunder. So he did

LOS ANGELES — LeBron James wore a black blazer, black dress shirt with the collar open and the top buttons unfastened, thick, gold chains and a gaudy gold pendant in the lapel of his jacket.

They were not the clothes of a man who intended to drive home from the arena as the NBA’s second all-time leading scorer.

He’s Here. pic.twitter.com/9jwhZGGtra

— Los Angeles Lakers (@Lakers) February 7, 2023

“Tomorrow is not promised,” James said. “If I had an opportunity to do it tonight, I was gonna try to make it happen.”

James is worth a billion dollars but is not wild about spending money. Before unlimited data was a thing on cell phone plans, he was loath to text or surf the web without connecting to Wi-Fi. Because Tuesday night was gonna be the night, he flew in his close childhood friends and high school teammates (basically all the guys from “More than a Game“), the family who took him in when he was a boy in Akron, Ohio, and his mother needed help and put them up for the night in Los Angeles.

“My boys leave on a red-eye tomorrow night,” James said, drawing laughter in the packed media room. “I would’ve had to pay for another room in the hotel for another night for my boys. If I didn’t do it tonight, they would’ve stayed till Thursday.”

For 20 seasons, James has downplayed his enormous individual milestones and records. He has passed to open teammates at the end of games, if that was the right play. He’s mostly scored within the flow of the offense, and if you disagree, well, he is also fourth all time in assists.

What was different about Tuesday night was not that he had close friends and family at the game, or that it seemed like everybody just stayed in town after the Grammys so they could come to this particular Laker game.

It was that James showed up with the express purpose of becoming the league’s scoring king.

LeBron broke Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s 39-year-old record by scoring his 38,388th career point with 10.9 seconds left in the third quarter of an eventual 133-130 loss to the Oklahoma City Thunder. James had to score 35 to catch Kareem, 36 to pass him. He wound up with 38 points on 13-of-20 shooting.

“I had to have the mindset,” he said. “I dressed for the occasion, like you said. I put on the headband because that’s where the journey started. … And I was still super efficient. I wasn’t out there just gunnin’. I was still super efficient and was able to get it done.”

Throughout his career, and even during the last week or two as this moment neared, a loss like this would have eaten LeBron alive, and he’s suffered a bunch of them in his five Lakers seasons. No matter what was going on around him, he’d always repeat the mantra he learned from Pat Riley when he played in Miami, about making “the main thing, the main thing” — which always means to focus on winning basketball. If the record was on his mind before the game, afterward he’d be brooding over the veteran Lakers losing another game to a team it’s trying to catch in the standings.

But the Lakers are in 13th place in the West, they haven’t escaped the first round of the playoffs since winning the title in 2020 and didn’t make it at all last season. He can’t become the NBA’s scoring king twice. So this one night, this one game was actually about something bigger than who won.

“I write ‘the man in the arena’ on my shoe every single night from Theodore Roosevelt — tonight, I actually felt like I was sitting on top of arena tonight when that shot went in, and the roar from the crowd,” James said. “I’m not sure if I would be able to feel that feeling again, unless it’s a game-winning Finals shot.”

James spoke a few times late Tuesday about the stoppage in play after he broke the record, his tearful embraces with family and friends and just soaking it all in, but he said, “I don’t think it’s really hit me on what just transpired.

“As much as I tried to live in the moment, it was kind of a blur,” he said.

(Adam Pantozzi / NBAE via Getty Images)

There was his wife, Savannah. Their three children, including his two basketball playing sons. His mother, Gloria, was there, in from suburban Akron. His close circle of adult friends were also in attendance, like agent Rich Paul and business manager Maverick Carter. A small army of Nike executives were present, including founder Phil Knight. As he left the press room and walked amongst a herd of people toward their waiting vehicles at the loading dock, Knight presented James with scholarships — worth $38,388 a year, for four years — to college for graduates of his iPromise school program in Akron. Four children will get them each year, and they will last for four years, to any college of their choice.

James intended to break the record by shooting Kareem’s famous skyhook. He’d been practicing the shot for more than a week prior to games, and once he reached 34 points against the Thunder, he tried to get position on the block, so he could catch a pass and go to the hook. But he couldn’t get position and had to “settle” for the fadeaway.

Except, the first shot James made as an NBA player, on Oct. 18, 2003, in Sacramento, was also a fadeaway.

“I know a lot of people wanted me to go to the skyhook to break the record or one of my signature dunks, but my fadeaway is a signature play as well,” he said. “And I was able to get it and it touched nothing but the bottom of the net, and that was pretty cool.”

(Harry How / Getty Images)

The likely greatest achievement of his career, if you ask him, was the Cavs’ 2016 championship, given his history with that franchise and northeast Ohio — where he was born and raised — as well as the simple fact that no other team has won an NBA Finals after trailing in the series 3-1.

But on June 19, 2016, LeBron strolled into the visitor’s locker room wearing jeans, a beige blazer and a T-shirt that just said “RWTW.” Roll with the winners. He had no intention of leaving Oracle Arena in second place, and he didn’t.

Just like on Feb. 7, 2023, James dressed as though he was certain he would be the best scorer in NBA history before the night was over.