Yahoo Sports AM: King James reaches 50,000 points

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🏀 The Mavs are in hell: The Mavericks’ season continues to reach new lows. Luka Dončić is gone. Anthony Davis has yet to return. And now Kyrie Irving (torn ACL) is out for the season.

🏈 Saquon gets paid: The Eagles signed Saquon Barkley to a two-year, $41.2 million extension ($36 million guaranteed) that makes him the highest-paid running back in NFL history.

🏀 Aggies stun Tigers: No. 22 Texas A&M upset No. 1 Auburn, 83-72, to snap a four-game losing streak and record the program’s first ever win over a top-ranked opponent.

📺 End of an era: ESPN’s “Around the Horn” will air its final show on May 23, bringing one of the longest-running sports shows to an end after 23 years and more than 4,900 episodes.

⚾️ Sasaki’s electric debut: Dodgers newcomer Rōki Sasaki struck out five across three scoreless innings in his spring debut, with a four-seam fastball that averaged 98 mph and an all-world splitter that induced seven whiffs on eight swings.

(Joseph Raines/Yahoo Sports)

LeBron James reached yet another milestone on Tuesday when he scored his 50,000th point (including playoffs), nearly 6,000 more than any other player in NBA history.

Top 5:

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar: 44,149

How did he get here? It wasn’t just transcendent play; LeBron’s latest accomplishment also required excellent health and, above all, astonishing consistency. Just look at the three phases of his career, during which he’s somehow experienced virtually zero drop-off in production.

Chapter 1 (age 19-25): 17,332 points in 619 games (28.0 ppg) during his first stint with the Cavs (2003-10).
Chapter 2 (age 26-33): 20,617 points in 763 games (27.0 ppg) during his time in Miami and return to Cleveland (2010-18).
Chapter 3 (age 34-40): 12,084 points in 453 games (26.7 ppg) with the Lakers (2018-present).

About that consistency… LeBron averaged 20.9 points as a rookie. 22 years later, that’s still by far his lowest single-season mark. His second-lowest? That would be this year, at age 40, when he’s averaging 24.9 points a night — good for 12th-best in the league.

Compare that to the rest of the top 10 and only Jordan and Kevin Durant also went their whole careers without dipping beneath 20 points per game.
The difference is that MJ played only 15 seasons and Durant, now in his 17th, has been far less durable.
LeBron is in Year 22, has missed just four games this season, and is playing 34.7 minutes a night, eighth-most in the league.

This is not normal: James’ stats since turning 40 years old (26.4 points, 8.2 rebounds and 8.1 assists on 54.1% shooting) are almost identical to his stats from his fourth MVP campaign in Miami 12 years ago (26.8 points, 8.0 rebounds, 7.3 assists on 56.5% shooting).

The postseason factor: 50,000 points would have never been possible without the playoffs, where LeBron has scored a record 8,162 points thanks to both opportunity (he’s only missed the playoffs four times) and immense success (he’s made it to 10 Finals).

Who (if anyone) could catch him? The easy answer is no one, unless you really think another player is going to play at an all-NBA level for 22 years (and counting!) while also consistently making deep playoff runs. But just for fun, here are three contenders.

Durant is closest among active players, though he’s still 15,000 (!) points behind. The 36-year-old would have to match James’ highest-scoring season for the next five years to reach 50,000.
Luka Dončić reached 12,000 career points faster than James, so that’s a good start. But the King’s new teammate already said he won’t play long enough to catch him: “I’d rather go back to my farm in Slovenia.”
One intriguing candidate? Anthony Edwards, who should pass Dončić this spring for the fourth-most points ever scored before turning 24. LeBron, of course, tops that list, but when you’re chasing an unbreakable record, you’ve got to start somewhere.

The bottom line: Eventually, this madness will stop. He can’t play forever. Until then, I implore you to keep enjoying one of the most prodigious careers in the history of sports.

Go deeper: LeBron James, the face of the league, and the last of his kind (Vincent Goodwill, Yahoo Sports)

(Giphy)

There are crooked numbers, and then there’s what George Mason did against Holy Cross on Tuesday.

Offensive explosion: The Patriots scored 23 runs in the second inning of their 26-6 win over the Crusaders, the most scored in a single inning in NCAA history. And it all began with a harmless groundout.

Play-by-play: George Mason sent 28 batters to the plate, drawing eight walks (plus five HBPs) and hitting six singles and five doubles.

Fielder’s choice (3 outs)

History books: The Patriots’ 23 runs broke the previous NCAA record of 21, shared by Penn State (1983) and Wichita State (1984). The MLB record is 17, set by the Red Sox during their 23-3 win over the Tigers in June 1953.

(Cameron Spencer/Getty Images)

Barefoot water skiing is exactly what it sounds like, and some of the world’s best “barefooters” competed over the weekend in Sydney, Australia.

(Cameron Spencer/Getty Images)

The sport traces its roots back to 1947, when the first barefooters took to the water in Winter Haven, Florida. By 1955, they were starting their rides without skis (as opposed to “dropping a ski” once up), and by 1960 they were doing tricks like the “tumbleturn” and riding backwards.

(Cameron Spencer/Getty Images)

Barefooting then spread across the globe and became especially popular in Australia, which hosted the first biennial World Championships in 1978. Only the USA (13) and Australia (9) have won world titles, with the next edition coming this September in France.

(Cameron Spencer/Getty Images)

Barefoot competitions feature three events — wake slalom, tricks and jumping — and the sport is not for the faint of heart: The standard procedure if a blister or cut opens on the bottom of an athlete’s foot is to simply glue it shut, continue competing, and stitch it up later.

(Ethan Miller/Getty Images)

From Yahoo Sports’ Jack Baer:

Pete Rose died last September. A petition to reinstate him from his permanent ban from baseball was filed in January. Many people, most notably President Donald Trump, have said it’s time to put him in the Hall of Fame. The petition may very well be successful.

It’s not a surprising sequence of events, to the point that Rose himself reportedly called it 10 days before he died from heart disease.

“I’ve come to the conclusion — I hope I’m wrong — that I’ll make the Hall of Fame after I die,” Rose said in the interview. “Which I totally disagree with, because the Hall of Fame is for two reasons: your fans and your family.”

“What good is it going to do me or my fans if they put me in the Hall of Fame couple years after I pass away? What’s the point? What’s the point? Because they’ll make money over it?”

The mechanics of what Rose is lamenting are not complicated. After decades as a baseball pariah, MLB’s all-time hits leader expected the world to be more ready to forgive and forget, or at least his proponents would become much louder once they had the concept of grace on their side after his death.

Whether or not they actually succeed is almost entirely up to MLB commissioner Rob Manfred. Unless a future MLB commissioner is a fan, Rose won’t have a better chance than the petition in front of Manfred right now, and there’s no way this decision is leaving his desk.

At some point in the coming weeks or months, Manfred will likely have to say whether or not he’s reinstating Rose.

To do so would fall fully in line with Rose’s most cynical expectations, on a matter where very little has changed, except for the fact that the man involved is no longer with us and the president of the United States is yelling at baseball to “get off its fat, lazy ass.”

Keep reading: Does Manfred have any reason to reinstate Rose?

The Maple Leafs blanked the Golden Knights in their first meeting back in November. (Mark Blinch/NHLI via Getty Images)

Three of the NHL’s four division leaders are in action tonight on TNT, starting with Capitals at Rangers (7:30pm ET) and ending with Maple Leafs at Golden Knights (10pm).

Cream of the crop: Washington (86 points) sits atop the Metropolitan Division, Toronto (79 points) sits atop the Atlantic and Vegas (78 points) sits atop the Pacific.

More to watch:

🏀 NBA: Heat at Cavaliers (7pm, ESPN); Thunder at Grizzlies* (9:30pm, ESPN) … Cleveland (50-10) is in the midst of its third 10-game winning streak of the season.
🏀 NCAAM: No. 13 Maryland at No. 17 Michigan (6:30pm, BTN); No. 5 Florida at No. 7 Alabama (7pm, ESPN2); No. 20 Marquette at UConn (8:30pm, FS1)
⚽️ Champions League: Round of 16 (12:45-3pm, Paramount+) … PSG vs. Liverpool (3pm) is the headliner.

*Heartbreak kids: Memphis has lost three straight games, all in the final five seconds of regulation.

(Mike Ehrmann/Getty Images)

LeBron James is one of just four players to make at least 10 trips to the NBA Finals.

Question: Can you name his five opponents in those Finals?

Hint: He faced one team four times and another three times.

Answer at the bottom.

(Nicolas Tucat/AFP via Getty Images)

Club Brugge defender Brandon Mechele provided an unintentionally hilarious photo after scoring an own goal in Tuesday’s 3-1 Champions League loss to Aston Villa. Sorry buddy, we’ve all been there.

Trivia answer: Mavericks (2011), Thunder (2012), Spurs (2007, 2013-14), Warriors (2015-18), Heat (2020)

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Yahoo Sports AM: King James reaches 50,000 points

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