LeBron James guns for Michael Jordan record: 'It's a personal goal of mine'
Watch out, Michael Jordan. LeBron James is coming for you. Or specifically your postseason points record.
The Cavaliers star needs 28 to surpass Jordan's 5,987 postseason points, the NBA record.
"It's just a personal goal of mine," James said Thursday, via ESPN.com. "It has nothing to do with passing the rings, passing the points, passing MVPs. It's just my personal goal to keep me motivated — that's all."
Despite a terrible Game 3 against the Celtics that saw James score only 11 points, the King is averaging 32.3 points per game this postseason. With Game 5 of the Cavs' series against Boston on Thursday night, it's highly likely James can overtake Jordan before the Eastern Conference Finals are over.
However, Jordan still has several prestigious records over James. MJ has six NBA titles, compared to James' three. Jordan has also won one more MVP award than James (five to four) and is fourth on the regular-season all-time scoring list with 32,292 points. James currently sits in seventh place with 28,787 points.
Even though James has joined the elite club of basketball greats, he stated the comparisons don't matter to him. What matters is playing your best every game.
"You guys are going to have the conversations about who is greatest of all time and things of that nature," James said. "It doesn't matter to me. At the end of the day, it's so funny that the conversation is always talked about in the NBA about who is the greatest, but it's never talked about in the NFL about who is the greatest quarterback. It's just like: [Dan] Marino, [John] Elway, [Peyton] Manning and [Tom] Brady. All great quarterbacks, you know — and it should be the same for us.
"We go out and just try to be as great as we can be every night. The comparison of always trying to compare people either living or still playing or not playing, I think it's great for barbershops, but for me I'm just trying to put my mark on the game and leave a legacy behind so I can inspire the next group of kids that want to play the game the right way."