Kobe Hits 30K

The Master and the Up and Comer

It's been a pretty great week in the NBA. The Knicks continue to win, the Heat have now lost 2 in a row, and Kobe... is still being Kobe. This past Wednesday Kobe Bryant of the Los Angeles Lakers scored his 30,000th career point. He is only the fifth player ever to reach that milestone, and he is also the youngest to ever do it. The top five list now breaks down like this...

1	Kareem Abdul-Jabbar	38,387
2	Karl Malone	36,928
3	Michael Jordan	32,292
4	Wilt Chamberlain	31,419
5	KOBE BRYANT	30,016

Kobe is in a prime position to move up on this list, and I would be shocked if he didn't finish at least 3rd. You know when you think about Kobe Bryant, you think of him as one of the vets. One of those guys with his foot in the door who is presumably just sticking around to win one more chip, and then he hangs up the sneakers for good. But then he goes and does something like this and turns out to be the youngest player to 30k. Pretty crazy. 

However, I think one of the craziest yet vastly unreported parts of this story is when you venture down the list a little bit more. Sitting at 19,473 points is the 27 year old LeBron James. He should crack 30,000 points within the next five years, at around 32 years old. And then scroll down the list a little bit more, and at 10,481 points is the 24 year old Kevin Durant. He's only been in the league for 5 years, and has already gotten a third of the way there. Now, it's true by that math he won't crack 30,000 until he is around 33 or 34, but I'm not sure he's even hit his full scoring potential yet. He still has to worry about having the human black hole Russell Westbrook firing up shots left and right, and believe it or not that does take away from his totals. 

Now all three of these guys are now, and will most likely be, superstars for the remainder of their career. I still think Kobe will end up retiring in around 2 or 3 years, and that within the next ten years I can almost guarantee we will have at least two, maybe three (Melo? 16,374) new members of the 30K club, which should make for an exciting NBA as long as these guys are around.