On Saturday, Houston Rockets forward Kevin Durant passed Chicago Bulls legend Michael Jordan for fifth on the NBA's all-time scoring leaderboard. He might not be the last active player to pass His Airness, either.
MJ retired with 32,292 career regular-season points. He finished with a career average of 28.3 points per game, but his brief mid-'90s detour into baseball and his temporary retirement toward the end of the 1990s cut into his chances of passing Kareem Abdul-Jabbar as the NBA's all-time leading scorer.
Within the next few seasons, at least one other player could pass Jordan on the career scoring leaderboard. After that, his spot on the list is likely safe for a while — unless Stephen Curry or DeMar DeRozan pull a LeBron James and keep playing at a high level into their 40s — but a few up-and-comers could surpass him within the next decade.
James Harden
Points scored: 29,160
Points to go: 3,133
The internet is not ready for the discourse if (when?) James Harden passes MJ on the all-time scoring leaderboard.
But I have bad news: It's coming, and sooner than you might think.
Harden is turning 37 in August this year, but he's showing few signs of slowing down yet. He's averaging 24.1 points per game this season and tallied more than 1,800 points last year. If he maintains that pace, he'll likely pass MJ toward the end of the 2027-28 season or the beginning of the 2028-29 campaign.
It's easy to forget now amidst his journeyman era, but during his time in Houston, Harden was one of the league's most feared scorers. He led the league in scoring for three straight seasons, including a career-high 36.1 points per game in 2018-19. That was far higher than Jordan's peak season (33.4 points per game).
Longevity and durability are the keys to climbing that high on the all-time leaderboard, and Harden boasts both in spades. Harden played in 72 games in 2023-24, 79 last season and is on pace to top 70 again this year. If he maintains his scoring average in Cleveland (20.9 points per game) across the Cavs' final 11 regular-season games, he'll end this season around 2,900 points shy of MJ.
As long as Harden avoids a long-term injury over the next two years, he'll be the next one to jump Wilt Chamberlain, Dirk Nowitzki and MJ on the all-time leaderboard.
Giannis Antetokounmpo
Points scored: 21,531
Points to go: 10,762
This has been a season to forget for Giannis Antetokounmpo.
Calf and knee injuries have limited him to a career-low 36 games. He's now reportedly in a standoff with the Milwaukee Bucks about whether to shut himself down for the year since their postseason hopes are already kaput.
If we don't see Giannis again this season, this will be his lowest-scoring year (993 points in total) since his rookie campaign. Prior to this season, he had scored at least 1,700 points in each of the past nine years.
The Greek Freak averaged 27.6 points per game this season and isn't going to lose his 6-foot-11 frame anytime soon, so he should remain a dominant scorer for years to come. Even if he begins to tail off, he'd just need to average roughly 1,540 points over the next seven seasons to pass MJ during the 2032-33 campaign.
Giannis will be going on 38 by then, but LeBron, Curry and Durant have proven that it's possible for some stars to continue making a sizable impact that deep into their 30s. DeRozan (26,598 points) and Curry (26,447 points) also have an outside chance of passing MJ as well, but Giannis realistically has the best shot of anyone other than Harden of doing it within the next decade.
Donovan Mitchell
Points scored: 15,058
Points to go: 17,235
We're now getting into some real speculative territory. But the other active players between Giannis and Donovan Mitchell have next to no shot of passing MJ, so we need to dive deeper down the career scoring leaderboard for some potential candidates.
Mitchell is turning 30 in September and has yet to average more than 28.3 points per game in a season. He did begin his career averaging 20.5 points per game as a rookie, but he also turned 21 before his rookie season ever began. One-and-done players will have an inherent advantage over Mitchell and other players who spent multiple years in college when it comes to the all-time scoring leaderboard.
With that said, Mitchell is averaging 28.0 points per game this season and has scored at least 1,600 points in seven of his nine NBA seasons to date. He'd need to keep that pace up for the next decade to even have a chance of passing MJ, which seems unlikely, but that assumes we've already seen the peak of him as a scorer.
Depending on what happens with Harden this offseason, Mitchell could have an elite setup man helping him run the Cavs' offense for the next few years. That could help him generate some easy baskets off the ball, whether as a catch-and-shoot threat or a cutter.
It projects to be an uphill battle for Mitchell to pass Jordan, but it isn't entirely outside the realm of possibility for now.
Luka Dončić
Points to go: 17,442
At the rate Luka Dončić has been scoring as of late, it might only take him a few more seasons to pass MJ.
Dončić is currently leading the league in points (33.5), field-goal attempts (22.7), 3-point attempts (10.8), made 3-pointers (4.0) and free-throw attempts (10.3) per game this season. He's scored at least 28 points per game in six of the past seven seasons and at least 32 points per game in three of the past four (including this year).
Dončić played only 50 games last year, which limited him to only 1,408 total points. He had at least 2,000 in both the 2022-23 and 2023-24 seasons, and he's only 27 points away from topping that mark this year as well. If he maintains that scoring pace, he'd need less than a decade to leap over MJ.
Dončić just turned 27 in February, so even though he's behind Mitchell in total points, he has a few more years to catch up. As long as he avoids a catastrophic injury, he'll have a real shot to surpass MJ's career scoring total by the mid-2030s.
Jayson Tatum
Points scored: 13,937
Points to go: 18,356
Speaking of catastrophic injuries…
Despite suffering a torn Achilles during the 2025 playoffs, Jayson Tatum is already back on the floor. However, that injury wiped out most of his 2025-26 campaign, and it might have cost him his best shot of joining Luka in the MJ chase over the coming years.
Tatum began his career averaging fewer than 16 points per game over each of his first two seasons before jumping into the mid-to-high 20s ever since. He scored at least 1,900 points in four straight seasons from 2021-22 through 2024-25, but he'd be lucky to crack even 400 points this year.
If Tatum gets back to being a 1,900-points-per-season scorer next year, he'd have to maintain that pace for a full decade to pass MJ. He just turned 28 at the beginning of March, so he still has plenty of time left in his career, but one more major injury would push MJ that much further out of reach.
With Jaylen Brown emerging as a bona fide alpha in Tatum's absence this year, it's unclear whether Tatum will get back to averaging in the high 20s next season. He's more in the Mitchell tier than the Dončić tier when it comes to his chances of actually surpassing Jordan one day.
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander
Points scored: 13,161
Points to go: 19,132
Given where he stands currently, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander is the biggest long shot of the bunch. He never topped 1,400 points in any of his first four NBA seasons, which put him way behind the eight ball when it comes to jumping MJ.
With that said, SGA has averaged at least 2,100 points in each of the past three seasons leading up to this one. An abdominal injury and the OKC Thunder's relentless dominance might have cost him a shot of topping that mark again this year, but he should clear 2,000 points with ease.
Including this season, Gilgeous-Alexander has topped at least 30 points per game in each of the past four years. He's also riding an NBA-record 131-game streak with at least 20 points after recently surpassing Wilt Chamberlain's previous mark (126 games).
That type of metronomic efficiency from Gilgeous-Alexander is what gives him a puncher's chance to get into this conversation even though he turns 28 in July. As long as he keeps drawing free throws in droves, he'll have an outside shot of clearing 30,000 career points and eventually jumping MJ.
And if SGA starts dialing up more 3-pointers as he gets older, MJ isn't the only legend whom he could surpass.