NBA All-Time Leading Scorers

Kobe Bryant's 29-point performance against the Hornets on December 5, 2012 gave him 30,016 and counting for his career... making him just the fifth player in NBA history to reach the 30,000-point plateau.

At 34 years of age, Bryant is also the youngest player to reach that mark. Of course, that's more a factor of his entry into the league right out of high school at age 19 than anything else. He has already played more games than Michael Jordan - third on the all-time scoring list - or Wilt Chamberlain - who is fourth. Jordan played three years of college basketball and took a mid-career hiatus to try his hand at baseball; Chamberlain played two seasons at Kansas and one with the Harlem Globetrotters before making his NBA debut.

Can Kobe catch Kareem? Hard to say. He's 8,371 points behind at this point. He has averaged around 1,840 points per season to this point, and that includes his first two seasons (when he was coming off the bench) and two seasons cut short by labor strife. Assuming he continues to score at that pace, he'd probably need to play through the 2016-17 season to reach the top of the list.

There are no guarantees that he'll even try. Bryant's contract with the Lakers runs through the 2013-14 season, and he has hinted that he'll retire after that.

The top of the all-time scoring list has a heavy Los Angeles Laker influence. The NBA's all-time scoring leader, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, played 14 seasons in Los Angeles, and Karl Malone - the second-leading scorer in league history - finished his career with the Lakers. Chamberlain, Bryant, Shaquille O'Neal (6th overall) and Jerry West (15th) also played all or part of their careers in Los Angeles.

The only other active players in the top 20 all-time scoring list are Boston's Kevin Garnett and Dallas' Dirk Nowitzki.

NBA All-Time Scoring Leaders

Rank	Player	Games	PPG	Points
1	Kareem Abdul-Jabbar	1560	24.6	38387
2	Karl Malone	1476	25	36928
3	Michael Jordan	1072	30.1	32292
4	Wilt Chamberlain	1045	30.1	31419
5	Kobe Bryant	1180	25.4	30016
6	Shaquille O'Neal	1207	23.7	28596
7	Moses Malone	1329	20.6	27409
8	Elvin Hayes	1303	21	27313
9	Hakeem Olajuwon	1238	21.8	26946
10	Oscar Robertson	1040	25.7	26710
11	Dominique Wilkins	1074	24.8	26668
12	John Havlicek	1270	20.8	26395
13	Alex English	1193	21.5	25613
14	Reggie Miller	1389	18.2	25279
15	Jerry West	932	27	25192
16	Patrick Ewing	1183	21	24815
17	Kevin Garnett	1273	19.3	24553
18	Allen Iverson	914	26.7	24368
19	Dirk Nowitzki	1055	22.9	24134
20	Charles Barkley	1073	22.1	23757

Through games played on December 5, 2012.
Active players in bold