Durant chases Kobe, LeBron eyes 44,000: the career milestones in reach in 2026-27

Kevin Durant opens his 20th NBA season 1,047 points from passing Kobe Bryant for fourth on the all-time scoring list. LeBron James starts a record 24th season 560 points from 44,000. Stephen Curry is 102 threes from a number no one has reached. The 2026-27 season has not tipped off yet, and the record book is already in play.

NBA.com published its list of milestones to watch on Wednesday. Set against the all-time leaderboards kept by ESPN, the list shows a season in which several of the most prolific players of this era could move past names that have sat in the same spots for years.

Durant takes aim at Kobe

Durant passed Michael Jordan for fifth on March 21, 2026, with a corner three in the fourth quarter of a Rockets win over Miami. He had already moved past Wilt Chamberlain and Dirk Nowitzki earlier that season. He finished 2025-26 with 32,597 career points, according to reports all-time leaders list.

🚨 KD PASSES MJ 🚨

With this three, Kevin Durant passes Michael Jordan for 5th on the all-time SCORING list! pic.twitter.com/byqx3AFLer

— NBA (@NBA) March 22, 2026

Bryant’s 33,643 is next. Durant needs 1,047 points to pass him, which works out to about 42 games at 25 points a night. The Houston Chronicle noted that he has averaged at least 25 in every season since his second, not counting the year he missed recovering from a torn Achilles tendon.

NBA.com flagged two smaller marks as well. Durant is 73 field goals from passing Shaquille O’Neal for seventh in career makes, and one 40-point game from becoming the 10th player with 75 of them in the regular season.

LeBron’s 24th season, in a new uniform

James, who turns 42 in December, starts the season with the 76ers and 43,440 regular-season points. He needs 560 for 44,000 and 1,560 to become the first player to reach 45,000. Last season he scored 1,256 points in 60 games. At that rate, 44,000 would take him about 27 games.

The scoring record is only part of it. NBA.com lists James as 76 assists from passing Jason Kidd for third all-time and 537 from passing Chris Paul for second. He is 29 steals from passing Gary Payton for fifth, and 27 regular-season wins from passing Kareem Abdul-Jabbar for the most in league history.

Curry and the first 5,000

Curry has made 4,898 threes across the regular season and playoffs. At 102 away, 5,000 is a matter of weeks for a player who has made the three-pointer the center of the modern game.

He is also climbing the scoring list. Curry has 26,528 regular-season points, 472 from 27,000. DeMar DeRozan sits three spots ahead of him with 26,711, 289 from the same mark. Both are within a few hundred points of Hakeem Olajuwon (26,946) and Russell Westbrook (27,176) on a list.

Harden closes on 30,000

James Harden enters his first full season with Cleveland on 29,339 points. He needs 661 to become the ninth player in NBA history with 30,000. The Big Lead estimated that at his 20.5 points per game with the Cavaliers last season, he would get there in about 33 games.

Harden is also 189 assists from passing Isiah Thomas for 10th on the career assists list.

The rest of the watch list

• Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, coming off back-to-back MVP seasons, needs 10 more straight 20-point games to reach 150 in a row.
• Klay Thompson is 75 threes from passing Ray Allen for third all-time, behind only Curry and Harden.
• Trae Young is nine games from becoming the fifth player with 100 career games of at least 30 points and 10 assists, after Oscar Robertson, Harden, James and Luka Dončić.
• Brook Lopez is 82 blocks from passing Dwight Howard (2,228) for 13th all-time.

Nikola Jokić’s chase of Westbrook’s triple-double record, 12 away, is the other headline item on the list. Opening night is October 20, and from then on most of these numbers will move every night.

Sources: NBA.com, ESPN, NBA, Houston Chronicle, The Big Lead.