NBA: Who Is the All-Time Best Scorer?

The question of who's the GOAT in any sport is always controversial and almost certainly impossible to settle---there are just too many variables (length of career, titles, personal stats, etc.) and intangibles (impact of leadership, clutch plays, teammates, evolution of the game, etc.) that need to be taken together. It is a little easier to compare these different dimensions in isolation, particularly something like scoring. 

Lebron James is the highest scorer in NBA history. As of Nov 18 2025, he's made 42,915 points. The next highest scorer is Kareem Abdul Jabbar with 38,387 points, followed by Kobe Bryant with 33,643 points. 

Click to enlarge. Source: StatMuse and Mantabye. 

Michael Jordan, who in many people's eyes is the most dominant scorer in NBA history, scored 32,292 points in his career; but he only played 15 seasons in the NBA compared to 22+ for James (as shown above). Jordan's 30.1 average points per game (“PPG”) is substantially better than James' 27.0. Does that mean Jordan is the better offensive player? Not necessarily! Perhaps if Jordan continued to play, rather than retire, effectively, at 36 years of age, his PPG would have come down with age. Who knows? 

Last year we looked at Lebron James' remarkably consistent scoring record over 20+ seasons in the NBA. He has maintained his output at almost the same level throughout his career! He has scored at the same rate in his first five years in the league, as he has in his middle 10 years, and as he has in his last five years. Simply INCREDIBLE! He has successfully adjusted his game in response to age, team, competition, tactics, etc.

In fact, we can only really appreciate James' uniqueness by comparing his career scoring rate to that of the other NBA greats. As shown below, Jordan's average PPG rate peaked early in his career and gradually trended down (albeit from a very high level), similar to the way Kareem's PPG rate moved over time (but Kareem's average PPG rate fell more steeply than Jordan's). If we quantify the trend, Jordan's chart has a slope of -0.49, i.e., on average, for every two years he played he scored 1 point less per game. Pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty good! By comparison James’ chart has a slope of 0.04, i.e., almost no change in production as his career progressed. Better! The difference with the other great scorers is most stark when you compare average PPG in seasons 16-20. There is a huge drop-off for Bryant and Jabbar, but not for James. Or more aptly, King James? 

Click to enlarge. Source: StatMuse and Mantabye.

(Note, this is an admittedly simplified analysis...that assumes the only variable is age...for example, perhaps Jordan's PPG came down, in part, because he was comfortable sharing more of the scoring responsibilities with his teammates in later years.)       

When Donald Met Zohran...

Yes, that happened! Yesterday, NYC Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani met President Trump at the White House in a highly anticipated face-to-face that was covered extensively by the press, something the media-savvy President noted (see clip below). The two men, seemingly polar opposites, both ideologically and temperamentally, got along well shockingly well, despite the WH press pool's best efforts to stoke drama. Trump was genuinely warm and cordial, lavishing Mamdani with praise and even defending him against questions clearly designed to bait Mamdani. Moreover, he swatted down some of the racists attacks Republicans like Elise Stefanik were making against Mamdani, declaring "I want him to do a great job." Here's the Q&A session with reporters.

While the media was feverishly awaiting/hoping for a "slugfest" (ala the infamous Trump-Zelensky meeting), what they got was a remarkably affable meeting that left both rightwing and liberal media outlets shellshocked. Reporters were incredulously using words like "bizarrely chummy," "lovefest", and "bromance," to describe what they witnessed between a rising political superstar and a famously adversarial President. Here's a summary of the headlines spanning the political spectrum from the liberal Huffpost to the Mamdani-phobic NY Post:

(Click to enlarge)

It was all fascinating to watch and the President affectionately posted selfies on his social media account (even including a picture of Mamdani by himself!). Outlets like AP, CNN, and the Hill provided helpful key takeaways. 

Basically, the winners were:

1. Mamdani, who cemented his status as an important new political figure 

2. Trump, who found common ground with Mamdani on affordability which had contributed to his falling approval ratings

3. New York City, their shared love

The losers, for the time being, were:

1. The GOP overall, whose "hopes of running an anti-Mamdani scare campaign next year just took a big hit, straight from the president."

2. Elisa Stefanik, specifically, who is aiming to take Kathy Hochul's job as NY Governor. She meekly "agreed to disagree" with the President.     

History: NYC Elects Zohran Mamdani!

A historic night: Mamdani to become the first Muslim mayor of NYC, the youngest mayor in over 100 years (at 34 years old), in election with the biggest voter turnout (2+ million) since 1969!!! A Democratic Socialist in the financial capital of the world to boot! And it looks like, despite the tens of millions spent against him by the billionaire class, he will have an outright 50%+ majority win. Mabrouk beta!

MLB: Mr. Shoctober

Last year Shohei Ohtani had one of the greatest offensive games in baseball history. He went 6-for-6 with 3 home runs against the Miami Marlins. Yesterday, in the NCLS Game 4, he had arguably the best game ever. Full stop. He was dominant not only with the bat--hitting 3 home runs---but also with the ball, shutting out the Milwaukee Brewers for six innings with 10(!) strike outs. The epic performance propelled the Dodgers to the World Series to boot!

Here's a highlight of the highlights:

 

Arabs are White, Because Jesus Can't be Brown

The history of Arab American identity is complex. The first major period of Arab migration to the U.S. began in the 1880s and coincided with rising nativism in the country, where Anglo-Saxons worried about "race suicide." The Naturalization Act of 1870 prohibited people of Asian or Native American descent to become citizens, and the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 limited immigration to U.S. after an influx of Chinese workers was blamed for declining wages and economic malaise in the West Coast. Not surprisingly, Arabs didn't wish to be categorized as Asian, which would make them ineligible for citizenship. The issue came to a head in 1909, when a Lebanese-born police officer George Shishim from Venice, California, came before Judge Hutton of the Superior Court of Los Angeles with his naturalization petition. Weeks earlier, his application for citizenship was rejected by an immigration officer, despite Shishim being established resident of L.A. and civil servant, on the grounds his "Arab identity" disqualified him from being white within the meaning of the statute." As noted in a NYU law journal, Judge Hutton initially seemed "persuaded by the Naturalization Examiner’s position, which deemed immigrants from the [Arab] region hostile to both American democracy and Christianity, and thus...[were] inassimilable aliens." Short on persuasive rebuttals, Shishim sought a "Hail Mary" to redeem his prospects for citizenship. He rose from his seat and declared: “If I am a Mongolian, then so was Jesus, because we came from the same land." Since Christianity ranked among the primary hallmarks of whiteness in the U.S. at the time, Judge Hutton accepted Shishim’s appeal that, although an Arab, he was not a Muslim and, in fact, a Christian. As a result, Shishim became "the first immigrant from the Arab World to be naturalized as an American and judicially ruled white by law. 

There were many other important cases of course, including Ex Parte Mohreiz, where a district court in Massachusetts declared all Arabs to be white. But leave it to Arab comedian Sammy Obeid to provide the best recounting of the legal battles of early Syrian Americans in a funny bit that highlights the traditional narrative of Jesus' (perceived) whiteness to reconcile the country's racial and religious characters. 

Economics by Chris Rock

Chris Rock provides critical socio-economic insights by observing places where women don't work...

The March of Progress

In the 1950s, a 5MB storage device weighed over a ton. Today, that’s the size of a typical iPhone photo.