Top 20 NBA All-Time Scoring Leaders
The 20 highest-scoring players in NBA history, ranked by career regular-season points under the league's official counting rules. Playoff games, All-Star games, and ABA seasons are all excluded, which is why players who began in the ABA sit far lower than their true career totals suggest: Moses Malone scored 29,580 points across both leagues but is credited with 27,409 here, and Julius Erving's 30,026 combined points shrink to an official 18,364, keeping him off the list entirely.
Interesting Facts & Summary
Rule one of this list: NBA regular season only — and that rule rewrites history. Moses Malone scored 29,580 points across the ABA and NBA but is officially credited with 27,409. Julius Erving's combined 30,026 would place him inside the all-time top ten; his official NBA figure of 18,364 leaves him off the top twenty altogether.
The efficiency gap is just as stark. Wilt Chamberlain piled up 31,419 points in only 1,045 games, a career average of 30.1 per game. He and Michael Jordan are the only players here who averaged 30-plus, and Jordan edges him 30.12 to 30.07 for the highest career scoring average in league history. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar needed 1,560 games to reach 38,387. Chamberlain outscored him by roughly 5.5 points every night and still ranks seventh, purely because he played 500 fewer games.
Loyalty shows up too: every one of Kobe Bryant's 33,643 points came in a Lakers jersey, and all 31,560 of Dirk Nowitzki's came for Dallas — the two largest single-franchise totals in league history. The tightest margin on the board belongs to Paul Pierce (26,397) and John Havlicek (26,395): two points. Nowitzki is the only man here without a US passport: Hakeem Olajuwon was born in Nigeria and became an American citizen in 1993, Tim Duncan comes from the US Virgin Islands, and Dominique Wilkins was born on a US military base in Paris.
| Rank | Player | Nationality | NBA career | Career regular-season points | Figure status | Data vintage |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
LeBron James | United States | 2003–present | 42184 | Active (exact end-of-season figure) | 2025-04-13 | |
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar | United States | 1969–1989 | 38387 | Retired (career final) | Career final | |
Karl Malone | United States | 1985–2004 | 36928 | Retired (career final) | Career final | |
| 4 | Kobe Bryant | United States | 1996–2016 | 33643 | Retired (career final) | Career final |
| 5 | Michael Jordan | United States | 1984–2003 | 32292 | Retired (career final) | Career final |
| 6 | Dirk Nowitzki | Germany | 1998–2019 | 31560 | Retired (career final) | Career final |
| 7 | Wilt Chamberlain | United States | 1959–1973 | 31419 | Retired (career final) | Career final |
| 8 | Kevin Durant | United States | 2007–present | 30571 | Active (exact end-of-season figure) | 2025-04-13 |
| 9 | Shaquille O'Neal | United States | 1992–2011 | 28596 | Retired (career final) | Career final |
| 10 | Carmelo Anthony | United States | 2003–2022 | 28289 | Retired (career final) | Career final |
| 11 | James Harden | United States | 2009–present | 27687 | Active (exact end-of-season figure) | 2025-04-13 |
| 12 | Moses Malone | United States | 1976–1995 (NBA) | 27409 | Retired (career final, ABA excluded) | Career final |
| 13 | Elvin Hayes | United States | 1968–1984 | 27313 | Retired (career final) | Career final |
| 14 | Hakeem Olajuwon | Nigeria-born, later United States | 1984–2002 | 26946 | Retired (career final) | Career final |
| 15 | Oscar Robertson | United States | 1960–1974 | 26710 | Retired (career final) | Career final |
| 16 | Dominique Wilkins | United States | 1982–1999 | 26668 | Retired (career final) | Career final |
| 17 | Tim Duncan | United States (US Virgin Islands) | 1997–2016 | 26496 | Retired (career final) | Career final |
| 18 | Paul Pierce | United States | 1998–2017 | 26397 | Retired (career final) | Career final |
| 19 | John Havlicek | United States | 1962–1978 | 26395 | Retired (career final) | Career final |
| 20 | Kevin Garnett | United States | 1995–2016 | 26071 | Retired (career final) | Career final |
Sources
- Accessed: 2026-08-04
- S2 · Basketball-ReferenceNBA Career Leaders and Records for Points
Basketball-Reference, NBA Career Leaders and Records for Points, retrieved 2026-08-04.
Accessed: 2026-08-04 - S3 · WikipediaList of National Basketball Association career scoring leaders
Wikipedia, List of National Basketball Association career scoring leaders, retrieved 2026-08-04.
Accessed: 2026-08-04 - S4 · WikipediaAmerican Basketball Association
Wikipedia, American Basketball Association, retrieved 2026-08-04; basis for the ABA-exclusion note on Moses Malone and Julius Erving.
Accessed: 2026-08-04 - S5 · Basketball-Reference player pageJames Harden
Basketball-Reference player page, James Harden, retrieved 2026-08-04; season-by-season basis for the rank-11 active-player total of 27,687 through the 2024-25 regular season.
Accessed: 2026-08-04