The 79th season in the history of the National Basketball Association will begin on October 22 and we are looking forward to an exciting battle on the court for the title of the best. In 2024, the Boston Celtics won the Larry O’Brien Cup for the first time in a long time. But what will the 2024/2025 season have in store for us? What new records will be set? NBA superstars will soon answer all our questions as we follow the historic moments that are about to happen.
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LeBron James has left a huge mark on NBA history. The King, at the age of 39, went to the Paris Olympics and helped the US basketball team win gold medals, becoming the tournament’s MVP. The superstar continues to break all kinds of records in the NBA. Next season will be LeBron’s 22nd in the North American league, thus surpassing Vince Carter in the number of seasons spent in the NBA.
LeBron will play alongside James, Bronny’s son, and become the first basketball player in history to compete with his son in an official game. But that’s not the end of the King’s record in the upcoming season: he has 850 regular season minutes left to surpass Kareem Abdul-Jabbar for the most minutes in regular season history. If the current Los Angeles Lakers player plays 69 games in a season, he will surpass the elder Kareem in the number of NBA regular season games, placing second on the list. James will rank second after Robert Parish with 1,611 appearances.
In the 2023-2024 season, LeBron became the first player in NBA history to score 40,000 points in the regular season. In the upcoming season, he will be able to stand out even more from the crowd and become the first basketball player to score 50,000 points in the regular season and playoffs. He needs only 1,364 points, a significant drop from the 1,984 points he scored last year. If he maintains his performance, he will once again firmly inscribe his name in the history of the best basketball league in the world.
LeBron James, 2023/2024 season
Photo: Ronald Martinez/Getty Images
It’s no secret that LeBron has long been chasing the “ghost” of the past – the legendary Michael Jordan. Well, James needs to score 30 points nine times to surpass the Chicago Bulls legend for the most 30+ point games in history. MJ has 562 such games. By the way, last season the King played 22 games and scored 30+ points. Thus, he manages to break another record that belonged to Jordan.
From the legendary LeBron, let’s move on to equally iconic NBA players. We’re talking about Kevin Durant, Russell Westbrook, and Nikola Jokic. KD needs just 76 points to reach the 29,000-point threshold in his illustrious career, leaving the Phoenix forward with 1,076 points remaining to become the eighth player in league history to break the 30,000-point barrier.
Denver’s new point guard Russell Westbrook is the NBA’s all-time leader in triple-doubles. The Turtles only need one game with at least 10 points, rebounds and assists to reach 200 triple-doubles! In addition, Westbrook could become the first basketball player to record a triple-double for six different clubs.
Russell Westbrook (left) and Nikola Jokic (right), 2023/2024 season
Photo: Harry How/Getty Images
His teammate Nikola Jokic continues to rack up triple-doubles one after another. Last season, Jokic ranked second in the league in that statistic with 25 triple-doubles for a career total of 130. The Serbian center is just nine triple-doubles away from surpassing the legendary Magic Johnson for third place all-time behind Westbrook and Oscar Robertson.
There are still James Harden and Chris Paul. Beard ranks third in three-point shots made. He only needs 34 three-pointers to surpass Ray Allen on the list as the second-leading scorer in history behind Stephen Curry. Harden now has 2,940 career three-pointers. Floor General Paul ranks third on the career assists list with 11,894. He could surpass Jason Kidd (12,091) this season if Chris averages 6.8 assists. The point guard moved to the San Antonio Spurs, where Victor Vembanyama looks like an increasingly formidable force. The duo of elite point guard Paul and towering Alien could provide the NBA veteran with plenty of assists, allowing him to surpass Kidd on the list.
Basketball fans are in for an exciting NBA season full of unpredictable events. All the records we talked about above can easily be broken, because many superstars, despite their age, demonstrate abilities superior to those of youth in some aspects.
And Stephen deserves a special mention!
Next season, Curry could set a record that will (probably) never be broken.
