LeBron James breaks NBA mark for games played in Lakers’ win over Magic

LeBron James broke the NBA record for games played in the Lakers’ win over the Orlando Magic on Saturday, surpassing Robert Parish with 1,612 career games played.

He may be running out of records to chase soon, and has already achieved many, including most points scored, most seasons played, most minutes played, most All-NBA selections, most All-Star selections, most field goals, most field goals attempted, most playoff games, most playoff points, highest career earnings…James has all of these marks, and probably many more.

And that list doesn’t even include the ones that James’ Los Angeles Lakers teammate Austin Reaves adds to the tally — very nuanced and perhaps made-up categories like most sneakers worn and most lace-up shoes used.

“He says a new statistic about me every day,” James said.

James took ownership of another record Saturday night, when he started the Lakers’ game in Orlando and officially played in the 1,612th regular-season game of his career, breaking a tie with Robert Parish for the most in NBA history.

It’s a clear tribute to James’ longevity. He is in his 23rd season, one more than Vince Carter’s previous record. As of Saturday, 79 players have logged NBA minutes this season and weren’t even born when James played his first game in the league on Oct. 29, 2003.

“It’s not like I write things down and look at the record book and say, ‘I’m going to have this, I’m going to have that, I’m going to have that.’ It just happened,” James said. “It wasn’t on the list of things I wanted to accomplish.”

Everything he does now raises the bar. Every point he scores, every shot he makes, every game he plays only widens the gap between him and everyone else on the stat lists that little bit. He accomplished all the big tasks on his bucket list coming into the league — four NBA titles did that — but the accolades that have come his way in recent years are also ones he relishes.

“I wanted to be the best player in this league at one point,” James said. “I wanted to be one of the greatest, if not the greatest, to ever play the game. I wanted to be an NBA champion. I wanted to eventually win rookie of the year, make All-Star appearances, win a gold medal, win MVPs, those were some of my goals. But some of the things that have happened over the last few years have been super cool.”

A breakdown of some of the NBA records James owns to this point:

• Points. James entered Saturday with 43,229 points. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar is second on the list with 38,387.
• Minutes played: James’ total entering Saturday was 60,676. Abdul-Jabbar has played 57,446 and only seven players have reached 50,000 in their career.
• Field goals: James (15,884 entering Saturday) recently passed Abdul-Jabbar (15,837). Karl Malone is the only other player with over 13,000 marks.
• Field-goal attempts: With 31,350 entering Saturday, James is just over 3,000 shots ahead of Abdul-Jabbar. He won’t be there any time soon.
• Consecutive double-digit games: James’ streak of 1,297 consecutive regular-season games with at least 10 points ended earlier this season. Michael Jordan (866) had the second-longest such streak, and James won’t get caught here for at least a decade. Kevin Durant had the longest active streak on Saturday at 316 games; he would have to play until at least 2038 to catch up to James’ streak.
• Most award picks: 22 All-Star selections and 21 All-NBA selections… forget it, they won’t get caught unless Victor Wembanyama plays by 2048 or so.
• Double-digit games: James scored 10 or more points in 99.44 percent of his regular-season games Saturday, a staggering 1,602 times in the first 1,611 appearances. He doesn’t let himself be caught there either. (He’s also the leader in 20- and 30-point games — and is tied with Allen Iverson for sixth on the 40-point games list.)
• Playoff Scoring: James has 8,289 playoff points while no one else has reached 6,000. As is the case with regular season scoring, it’s almost inconceivable to think he’s not on this list.
• On-court earnings: He made around $580 million this season, and that doesn’t take into account his massive on-court empire. (But with the way salaries are rising, it’s almost certain that James’ on-field earnings numbers will be out of date and likely well into the next decade.)

Number 1 on these all-time lists may be hard to come by, but James can move up a few notches in a few categories (assuming he returns to play next season).

• Assists: James is fourth on the all-time list and certainly won’t catch record holder John Stockton (15,806), but he could catch Jason Kidd (12,091) early next season and Chris Paul (12,552) by the end of next season.
• Steals: Stockton’s record (3,265) is out of reach, and Paul’s No. 2 place (2,728) and Kidd’s No. 3 place (2,684) probably are too. But James – currently sixth on the list – would have a chance to catch No. 5 Gary Payton (2,445) and No. 4 Michael Jordan (2,514) next season.
• Made 3 points: James is currently sixth and there’s a good chance that’s where he’ll be whenever he retires, unless he plays several seasons after that. Stephen Curry, James Harden, Ray Allen, Klay Thompson and Damian Lillard are the five names ahead of James on the list of 3; Among them, Allen is the only one to be retired and he is more than 300 ahead of James.
• Triple-double: Russell Westbrook (209), Nikola Jokic (191) and Oscar Robertson (181) are not within reach. But James (currently fifth with 124) could overtake Magic Johnson (currently fourth with 138). And this is a category in which James certainly seems to be overtaken in a few years; his current Lakers co-star, Luka Doncic, already has 90 triple-doubles.