LeBron James Is the First Player Ever to Make 16,000 Field Goals

He needed two baskets when he got to Detroit on Wednesday night, and he did not keep anybody waiting. Early in the second quarter at Little Caesars Arena, LeBron James drove past John Collins and finished with his left hand — a runner for field goal No. 16,000 of his regular-season career, a number no player in NBA history had ever reached. The basket put Philadelphia up 33–23, and the NBA confirmed the milestone during the game.

He had arrived at 15,998 career makes, two short. The record itself has been his since March 5, when — still a Laker — he passed Kareem Abdul-Jabbar on a turnaround jumper in Denver. Wednesday was about the distance. Making No. 16,000 put him 163 ahead of Abdul-Jabbar's final total, and the next name on the list is not close enough to argue with.

James and Abdul-Jabbar are the only two players ever to make 14,000. The gap between second and third on that list — 2,309 makes — is itself bigger than the career total of almost everyone who has ever played the game at volume. And James got there as a working part of a winning night, not on a farewell tour: 13 points, 10 rebounds and eight assists in 33 minutes, in his 24th season, weeks before he turns 42.

Detroit nearly took the night back

The game around the milestone was the East's top two teams going at each other. Jaylen Brown scored a season-high 30 points, Joel Embiid added 26 points and 15 rebounds, and Philadelphia led 56–42 at halftime — on a night when Tyrese Maxey was held to a season-low 19 on 5-of-16 shooting.

Detroit spent the second half erasing all of it. The Pistons rallied from 17 down behind Cade Cunningham — 26 points, 11 assists and seven rebounds — and Duncan Robinson, who hit seven threes on his way to a team-high 27. With 37 seconds left, Cunningham rose for a three that would have cut the lead to one possession's worth of panic. Brown met him at the top of the shot and turned it away. That was the last real threat: Philadelphia 112, Detroit 106.

The win avenged the Sixers' only loss of the season — at home to these same Pistons in October — and moved them to 8-1, the best record in the East and a perfect 4-0 on the road. Detroit fell to 6-2. Afterward, James called Cunningham one of his favorite players in the league, in the same sentence as Luka Dončić. Philadelphia goes to Cleveland on Friday for an NBA Cup game; Detroit hosts the Lakers on Sunday.

📺 Full Game Center — 76ers at Pistons · LeBron James in the Stats Hub · NBA hub