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At this point, it’s a bit hard to deny LeBron James is the greatest basketball player of all time. Of course, plenty of people would argue Michael Jordan is actually the G.O.A.T., although you could also make the (admittedly weak) case for a slightly less notable name: Oscar Schmidt.
On February 7th, 2023, LeBron James made history when he scored the 38,388th point of his career to top the all-time NBA scoring record that Kareem Abdul-Jabbar had held since he retired in 1989.
At this point, it’s kind of hard to tell how many points LeBron will have when everything is said and done. While he’s firmly in the twilight of his career, the 39-year-old superstar is still one of the best players in the NBA, and (as was the case with another G.O.A.T. in the form of Tom Brady) it seems like he’s almost immune to the passage of time.
LeBron added yet another achievement to his illustrious résumé when the Lakers faced off against the Nuggets on March 2, 2024 in a game where he became the first player in the history of the league to score 40,000 points.
Now, it makes sense to assume the man who’s scored more points than any other player in the world’s best league is unmatched in that particular category. With that said, LeBron still has some work to do to beat the basketball equivalent of a final boss.
The overlook legend of Brazilian basketball icon Oscar Schmidt
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The United States has historically dominated international basketball competitions, which makes sense when you consider it got a bit of a head start on the rest of the competition by being the country where the sport was invented.
Brazil, on the other hand, hasn’t really had much to brag about in that particular sphere since winning back-to-back FIBA World Cup titles beginning in 1959. It picked up a couple of bronze medals at the Summer Olympics during that era, but it was largely downhill from there.
The country has sent a grand total of 19 players to the NBA over the decades, a list that includes Leandro Barbosa, Nene, and Anderson Varejao. It does not include Oscar Schmidt, which is interesting when you consider what he was able to achieve outside of the league he declined to play in after the Nets earned the right to sign him by drafting him in 1984.
Schmidt was born in Natal (a coastal city in northeastern Brazil) in 1958 and was only 16 years old when he made his professional debut with S.E. Palmeiras in 1974. That marked the start of a pro career that stretched nearly 30 years and saw him play for nine different pro teams in his home country as well as in Italy and Spain before retiring in 2003 at the age of 45.
The power forward was also a staple on Brazil’s international team and represented his country at the Summer Olympics five times after making his debut in Moscow in 1980 (the man referred to simply as “Oscar” in his home country opted to step away from the squad after playing his final game with them at the age of 36).
Schmidt scored a grand total of 42,044 points during the 1,289 regular season and playoff games he played as a member of the aforementioned nonet of pro clubs (an average of 32.6 PPG). He also scored 7,693 points while representing Brazil on the international stage, 3,476 during his time as an amateur in his youth, and 236 in the various All-Star Games he participated in over the years.
That means Schmidt officially scored a grand total of 53,449 points on the hardwood during his career (it’s likely higher due to a handful of games with stats that have been lost to time), a number that is widely recognized as the highest combined total in basketball history.
As of this writing, LeBron is second on that list with 49,629 combined points (48,116 in the NBA, 979 internationally, 487 in All-Star Games, and 47 in a couple of club exhibitions that took place in 2009 and 2010).
He will almost certainly pass Schmidt for the record for the most points recorded as a pro by the end of March 2024 when you consider the total drops to 49,737 when you remove the Brazilian’s amateur numbers. However, based on his current pace, he’ll need to play at least two more seasons in the NBA if he wants to break the record that still belongs to Schmidt.