Our Projections Determine When LeBron James Will Break the NBA Scoring Record

LeBron James is set to add yet another record to his already storied career in February when he passes fellow Los Angeles Laker, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar for the most points in NBA history. But just when will the man known as King James surpass Kareem’s mark of 38,387 career points? Luckily for us bettors, various sportsbooks have released markets, allowing us to bet on the occasion. We’ve put the power of our predictive analytics to the test, to project LeBron’s points total for each of his coming games to determine where your money should be going.

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When Will LeBron James Break the NBA Scoring Record?

FanDuel Sportsbook currently has the most extensive list of odds for LeBron’s big moment, offering markets on the exact game he will score his 38,388th point.

In Which Game Will LeBron James Score his 38,338th Regular Season Point? Via FanDuel Sportsbook:

Now with just 63 points to score to break the record, when it comes to trying to predict just which game LeBron takes his place atop of the NBA's all-time leading scorers, our projections align closely with the sportsbook's lines. 

Following his 28 point performance in the Lakers' win over the Knicks at Madison Square Garden, and projecting the points James will likely score in his next seven games, it’s no longer neck and neck between the Lakers’ two home games on February 7 and February 9 against the Thunder and Bucks respectively.

In 10,000 simulations, our model data has King James breaking the record against the Oklahoma City Thunder in 3,345 scenarios (or 33.45% of the time), while he breaks the record against the Milwaukee Bucks two nights later in 6,142 of our simulations (61.42%). 

So, with quite a significant variance between the two top chances from the sportsbooks, what should the bet be? 

Why LeBron will break the scoring record against the Milwaukee Bucks:

Following Thursday night's win over the Indiana Pacers, LeBron still needs 63 more points - or in other words, two strong games of scoring around 30 points against the Pelicans and Thunder will set him up to break the record early in the Lakers' home game against the Bucks on February 9.

LeBron is not unaware of this record and what it means for his legacy, and you could even argue that he has been pressing the issue to get there as quickly as he can over the past couple of weeks of basketball, averaging 33.5 points per game over his last 20 appearances. While that would be enough to get to the record-breaking number against Oklahoma City on February 7, Bron's scoring has been slightly down since the return of Anthony Davis where he's scored 28 and 26 points against the Knicks and Pacers respectively.

The final verdict as to when LeBron James will break the record:

James only needs 63 more points to accomplish something that we may never see done again - and he knows it. With Anthony Davis now back in the lineup we should expect to see a slightly less-dominant offensive output from LeBron against the Pels and OKC, leading to him breaking the scoring record against the Bucks on February 9.

BET: LeBron James to break the NBA scoring record against the Milwaukee Bucks (-190) with FanDuel.