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The current crop of NBA superstars are busy carving their names into the league’s history – none more so than Brooklyn Nets forward Kevin Durant.
The 33-year-old recently surpassed one of his basketball heroes, Allen Iverson, as the 25th all-time top-scoring player in NBA history. Durant achieved the mark by racking up 21 points in Brooklyn’s 123-104 victory over the Boston Celtics last month.
At the time, his performance took him to 24,369 points across his 15 NBA seasons, which puts him ahead of Iverson’s 24,368 – taking 12 fewer games than the great ‘AI’ to reach that tally.
“I mean, it means the world. I dedicated my life to this game at an early age… so I watched all these guys that I’m like passing up,” Durant explained when he was informed that he had overtaken Iverson on the all-time list.
Durant grew up in the Washington DC area, looking up to Allen Iverson as he led Georgetown to back-to-back trips to the NCAA Sweet 16.
“I really became a huge Iverson fan, obviously, just like everybody else his rookie year,” said the Nets player. “But seeing him at Georgetown and playing for coach [John] Thompson and that whole culture that they built there, he was a huge part of that.
“But once he came to the league, he had players… I was a center, power forward on my young team, and we all were long crossing and double-crossing. He influenced a lot of people.
“So to pass him on the list and to be up there with some of the greats on that list is incredible. I’ve just got to keep going.”
Durant, assuming he remains injury-free and continues scoring at the rate he has set this season, could reach as high as 18th on the all-time scoring list by the end of 2021-22, putting him ahead of fellow forward Kevin Garnett (26,071 points).
The all-time leading scorer in NBA history is Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, with 38,387 points from 1,560 games. Second is Karl Malone with 36,928 from 1,476, with LeBron James in third place on 35,549 points from 1,318 games (at the time of writing).
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Catch the following NBA games live on ESPN this week:
All times CAT
Saturday 18 December
02:45: Boston Celtics v Golden State Warriors – LIVE on ESPN
05:05: New Orleans Pelicans v Milwaukee Bucks – LIVE on ESPN
Sunday 19 December
22:30: Chicago Bulls v Los Angeles Lakers – LIVE on ESPN