LeBron James will join a talented group in Philly that includes second-year swingman VJ Edgecombe.
At the age of 41, LeBron James is set to play a 24th season, and he’ll be doing it with the Philadelphia 76ers.
James will seemingly slot into a starting lineup that already includes Tyrese Maxey, VJ Edgecombe, Jaylen Brown and Joel Embiid. And his job is simple: get the Sixers past the Eastern Conference semifinals.
Over the last nine seasons (since 2017-18), 19 of the league’s 30 franchises have reached the conference finals at least once. The Sixers are not one of those 19 franchises, even though they’ve had the league’s fifth-best regular-season record over that stretch.
James has reached the conference finals in 12 of his 23 seasons, winning four championships along the way.
Here are some more numbers to know about the NBA’s all-time leading scorer …
All stats are for the regular seasons, unless otherwise noted.
1. All-time numbers
LeBron James surpasses 50,000 career points with a 3-pointer in the 2024-25 season.
1. In addition to being the league’s all-time leading scorer, James is the only player with at least 10,000 career rebounds and 6,000 career assists.
2. James has played in at least 45 games and averaged at least 20 points, five rebounds and five assists in all 23 of his seasons. The only other player who’s put up those numbers in half as many seasons is Stephen Curry, who’s done it in 12 of his 17.
3. He’s one of three players — Luka Dončić and Hall of Famer Oscar Robertson are the others — who’ve averaged at least 25 points, seven rebounds and seven assists per game in 500 career games or more.
4. He’s the all-time playoff leader in scoring and steals, while also ranking in the top 10 in playoff rebounds (fourth), assists (second) and blocks (ninth).
2. Paint dominance, play-type diversity
Take a look at some of LeBron James' best dunks since turning 40.
5. James has scored 20,370 points in the paint, 5,024 more than any other player in the 30 years for which points in the paint have been tracked. His 65.2% shooting in the paint ranks fifth among 351 players with at least 2,500 paint attempts in those 30 years.
6. He’s the only player with at least 2,000 dunks and at least 2,000 3-pointers in the 30 years of play-by-play data. Kevin Durant is the only other player with at least 1,500 of each.
7. The 1.6 dunks per game he averaged last season were his most in the last nine seasons. Dunks accounted for 11.2% of his field goals, the second highest rate of his career and up from 5.6% (the lowest rate of his career) in 2024-25.
8. He’s one of four players — DeMar DeRozan, Jonas Valančiūnas and Nikola Vučević are the others — with at least 100 post-ups in all 13 seasons of tracking data. Last season, the Lakers scored just 0.89 points per chance when a James post-up led directly to a shot, turnover or trip to the line. That rate ranks 20th among 21 players with at least 100 direct post-ups.
9. He’s one of three players — DeRozan and James Harden are the others — with at least 300 isolations in all 13 seasons of tracking data. Last season, the Lakers scored 0.98 points per possession when a James isolation led directly to a shot, turnover or trip to the line. That rate ranks 37th among 53 players with at least 200 direct isolations.
10. Last season marked the eighth time in James’ career that he led the league (among players who played at least 41 games) in fast break points per game (5.7). He ranked in the top five in all eight of his seasons with the Lakers, and his 6.2 fast break points per 36 minutes last season were the second-highest rate of his career.
11. He has 4,090 career assists on 3-pointers, the most for any player in the 30 seasons for which we have play-by-play data.
3. Clutch numbers
Relive some of the top clutch plays from LeBron James' career.
12. James has 70 career field goals (regular season, SoFi Play-In Tournament and playoffs combined) to take the lead in the final minute of the fourth quarter or overtime. That’s the most for any player in the 30 seasons of play-by-play data and one more than Kobe Bryant (69).
13. Over the last three seasons (including playoffs), he’s shot 95-for-183 (52%) on clutch shots, the third best mark among 69 players with at least 100 attempts. That breaks down to 73-for-110 (66%) on clutch 2-pointers and just 22-for-73 (30%) on clutch 3-pointers.
4. Taking a smaller role in Year 23
Watch LeBron James' best moments and plays from the 2025-26 season!
14. James’ 20.9 ppg in 2025-26 was the lowest scoring season of his career. His usage rate (26.2%) was also the lowest of his career.
15. He averaged 3.8 minutes of possession per game, 11.6% of his total minutes on the floor. Those were, by far, his lowest rates in the 13 seasons for which we have tracking data. He was assisted on 53.9% of his field goals, making it the first time in his career that he had been assisted on at least half.
16. His 6.9 drives per game and 7.5 drives per 36 minutes were both his lowest rates (by healthy margins) in the 13 seasons of tracking data.
17. His 3-point rate (26.4% of his shots) was his lowest in his eight seasons with the Lakers.
18. His 31.7% from 3-point range was the fourth-worst mark in his career and his worst mark in the last 10 seasons. After shooting 44.5% on catch-and-shoot 3-pointers over the previous two seasons, he shot just 40-for-122 (32.8%) on catch-and-shoot 3s in ’25-26.
19. Overall, he shot 64.1% in the paint and had an effective field goal percentage of 44.8% on shots from outside the paint. That was the sixth biggest differential among 149 players with at least 200 field goal attempts both in and outside the paint.
20. Opponents shot 48.8% on shots he defended, when the expected field goal percentage on those shots was 47.2%. That was the first time in 13 seasons of tracking data where opponents shot better than expected when he was defending.
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John Schuhmann has covered the NBA for more than 20 years. You can e-mail him here, find his archive here and follow him on Bluesky.
