Kevin Durant Becomes 8th Member of 30,000-Point Club, but How High Can He Rise up the Scoring List?

Durant reached 30K in his 1,101st NBA game, with only Wilt Chamberlain (941 games) and Michael Jordan (960 games) reaching the mark faster.

The scoreboard displays Kevin Durant (No. 35) of the Phoenix Suns after he scored his 30,000th career point during the second half of the NBA game against the Memphis Grizzlies at Footprint Center in Phoenix, Ariz., on Feb. 11, 2025. Christian Petersen/Getty Images

Tuesday night NBA games in February usually don’t generate many headlines, as it’s the dog days of the NBA season. That wasn’t the case with the Memphis Grizzlies’ 119–112 road victory over the Phoenix Suns.

The main takeaway from the game wasn’t Memphis winning its fifth contest over its last six games, or Phoenix suffering its fifth defeat over its last six contests, but rather a historic achievement for Kevin Durant.

The four-time scoring champion eclipsed the 30,000-point plateau, making him just the eighth player in the 79-year history of the National Basketball Association to reach the milestone.

Durant joined Wilt Chamberlain, Dirk Nowitzki, Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant, Karl Malone, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and the league’s all-time leading scorer, LeBron James. Durant reached 30,000 in his 1,101 NBA games, tying with Abdul-Jabbar for the third-fewest games needed to achieve the mark, trailing only Chamberlain (941 games) and Jordan (960 games).

At 36 years old, Durant is showing no signs of slowing down as he’s averaging 27.1 points per game, which ranks sixth in the NBA and is in line with his career scoring average of 27.3 points. He’s also as efficient in getting those points as ever as his 54 percent shooting on mid-range jumpers leads the league, while his overall field goal percentage (52.8 percent) is above his career mark of 50.2 percent.

With his play and scoring ability still at an elite level, the questions are, how many more points will Durant score, and how high up the all-time scoring list can he rise?

Durant is the greatest scorer in NBA history at 35 years old or older. He’s averaging 27.1 points per game since turning 35 prior to the 2023–2024 NBA season, which is the highest average ever, just edging out James at 26.8. Durant has only one year remaining on his contract after this season but is expected to get a multiyear deal, if not with Phoenix, then from another team.

If he simply maintains his output over the rest of the season, and the last year of his contract, then he would be knocking on 33,000 points at the end of the 2025–2026 season, which would have him surpassing Chamberlain, Nowitzki, and Jordan, putting Durant in fifth place.

Bryant (33,643) could then easily be reached in the 2026–2027 season, when Durant will be 38 years old. However, then reaching Malone (36,928) for third place is when things get tricky. Durant would need roughly 4,000 points starting with the 2026–2027 season to surpass the Mailman, and while he’s reached half of that—2,000 points—in seven different seasons, most of those came earlier in his career. He’s not on pace to reach it this year, meaning it will be just twice over the last nine seasons that he’s reached 2,000 in a year.

A big reason for that is due to missed time, and you can’t avoid talking about that when bringing up Durant, who was an ironman in his first seven seasons but has been frequently sidelined over the last decade. Durant played in 542 of a possible 558 games through his first seasons, lacing up for 97.1 percent of team games. However, since then, and including the entire season he missed due to a torn Achilles’ tendon, Durant has played in 559 of a possible 853 games, or 65.5 percent.

Father Time is undefeated, and one can’t expect Durant to be healthier in his late 30s than he was from his late 20s to his mid-30s. Thus, reaching Malone for third on the all-time list may be a monumental task, unless Durant plays into his 40s. That’s something that the NBA’s three-leading all-time scorers—Malone, Abdul-Jabbar, and James—all have done, so that may end up being the prerequisite to cracking the top three.

Abdul-Jabbar holds the mark for the most NBA points scored after 36 years old at 6,860, which is nearly 1,000 more than Malone and 1,300 more than James, who is adding to his total on a nightly basis. If Durant could somehow get in the ballpark of that number after this season, then he would be able to surpass Malone. Anything more than that would be a huge stretch, so it’s safe to say Durant won’t be knocking on the door of Abdul-Jabbar for second on the all-time list, and he’s unlikely to come anywhere near whatever number of points James ends up with.

As for others who have 30,000 points on the horizon, James Harden appears to be the active player with the best chance of reaching the milestone. Even though his production has dramatically decreased since his Rockets days, Harden (26,931 points) should be roughly 2,500 points away after this season and is one year younger than Durant. He could reach 30,000 in another two years after this season, while another couple of Durant’s former teammates—Russell Westbrook (25,834 points) and Steph Curry (24,694 points)—are both longshots.

Westbrook is also 36 years old, but his two lowest scoring averages have come in the past two seasons as he’s moved into primarily a bench role at this stage of his career. As for Curry, he’ll be 37 in a few weeks and has his own injury concerns. His scoring average this year of 23.3 is his lowest in a dozen years.