Shaquille O’Neal has found a new way to describe LeBron James: “a modest arrogant guy.”
That was O’Neal’s label for James during an appearance on The Young Man and The Three podcast, where the Hall of Famer praised the Lakers star’s scoring chase while also marveling at how far James has pushed the all-time mark out of reach.
“LeBron is a modest arrogant guy,” O’Neal said. “For example, he’s loving the fact that he’s the No. 1 scorer in the league.
But guess what? I’m going to put this s*** so far out of reach, nobody will ever do it.
Like, I ain’t going to lie, when I was playing, looking at [Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s] number, I was like, ‘Man, 36,000, 38, I’ll never get to that.’
“I looked at it the other day, LeBron’s at 45, still averaging 20,” O’Neal said. “He going to mess around and be at 50,000 points.”
O’Neal’s point lands because he knows exactly how impossible Abdul-Jabbar’s old standard once looked. Abdul-Jabbar retired in 1989 with 38,387 points, a total that seemed untouchable. O’Neal, despite his own Hall of Fame career, finished at 28,596 points and said plainly that he was never getting there.
James, on the other hand, has turned the record chase into something that felt inevitable by the early 2020s. He passed Abdul-Jabbar on Feb. 7, 2023, in a game between the Los Angeles Lakers and the Oklahoma City Thunder, and he has kept piling up points since.
At 41, James now has 43,440 points. O’Neal believes 50,000 is at least in play, though he also said James will get to 45,000 and continue doing it while still producing at a high level.
James averaged 20.9 points, 6.1 rebounds, 7.2 assists, 1.2 steals, and 0.8 blocks per game for the Lakers in 2025-26.
O’Neal also suggested that if anyone is ever going to threaten this kind of scoring mountain again, the game itself may have to change.
“Me and you both will probably be dead before somebody passed it up,” O’Neal told co-host Cam Johnson. “… The only way they passing up is four-point shot and a five-point shot.
And then you get a guy that’s like Steph Curry who averages 50 points. So LeBron thinks like that.
So if I was him, if I could play two more years and put all those records out of reach, I would.”
That kind of durability is a huge part of James’ case in the GOAT debate. He is the first player ever to play 23 seasons and is likely headed for 25 after signing a two-year, $8 million deal with the 76ers. James has a player option for the second year, and the expectation is that he will take it.
However it ends, O’Neal’s message was clear: James is still adding to a record that already looks like it may live forever.
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