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LeBron James, pro basketball's all-time leading scorer, is 409 points away from hitting the 40,000-point mark for his career. So when is the 39-year-old Los Angeles Lakers legend most likely to reach 40K?
Pull up L.A.'s schedule, break out a calculator, and take your best guess. Better yet, go ahead and bet on it.
Two of the top online sportsbooks, DraftKings and FanDuel, have posted special LeBron 40,000-point futures prop odds.
Not only can you bet on which game King James will score his 40,000th point, but you can also wager on how he'll do it — i.e. on which kind of shot he'll attain the milestone.
Below we'll examine DK's and FanDuel's James 40,000-point futures props and offer some educated guesses on when to expect the historical achievement.
LeBron James 40,000-point odds: Predicting when it will happenAfter scoring 25 points Wednesday night in the Lakers' 127-110 win over the Dallas Mavericks, James is averaging 24.7 points per game.
Going by that, it will take 17 more games for LeBron to hit 40K.
But that, of course, assumes a 39-year-old, who's in his 21st season, won't miss a game for the rest of January and into February as we enter the dog days of the 82-game campaign.
LeBron has played in 38 of the Lakers' 42 contests (90.5 percent) so far. And that's not including the Dec. 9 NBA In-Season Tournament championship game, which doesn't count toward L.A.'s regular-season record.
It should also be noted that the Lakers have back-to-back games scheduled five times (Jan. 29-30 and Feb. 8-9, 13-14, 22-23, and 28-29) before the end of February, which also contains the league's All-Star Game break (Feb. 15-21).
The end-of-February back-to-back sees the Lakers play a "road" game at the Clippers, followed by a home date with Washington the next night. Not exactly a lot of travel involved in that pair of contests.
Even if James were, conservatively speaking, to sit out — or miss due to minor injury or ailment — two or three games during that 19-contest span, it could push his 40K quest into March.
LeBron James 40,000-point odds: Which games are the best bets?Currently, the Lakers' just-mentioned Feb. 28 game at the rival L.A. Clippers (10 p.m. ET, ESPN) is the favorite at both FanDuel (+440) and DraftKings (+330), with the Feb. 25 contest at Phoenix running second on both sites (+490 at FD, +350 DK).
However, we did just witness the show and ceremony James, and the NBA put on last Feb. 7 when he broke Kareem Abdul-Jabbar's league scoring record. And just from the reception LeBron received that night from Laker Nation, we'd definitely bank on him "timing up" his 40K milestone to coincide with a home game.
L.A.'s schedule plays out in that favor, with the Lakers tipping off one of their longest homesteads (six games) of the season in the Feb. 29 contest against the Wizards.
And what's even better than a home game is a nationally-televised home game on a major network, and LeBron and the Lakers get that very scenario on Saturday, March 2, with an 8:30 p.m. ET contest at Crypto.com Arena on ABC.
Even more appealing is the Lakers' opponent that night: The defending champion Denver Nuggets, who swept James and the Lakers in last season's Western Conference finals.
Combine all those factors, and we're recommending that March 2 game against the Nuggets (+600 at FanDuel, +500 DK) as our best bet for LeBron's 40K-eclipse game.
LeBron James 40,000-point odds: What kind of shot will net history?The other James 40,000th-point odds prop — offered by FanDuel — contains even less variance.
Will LeBron's milestone, 40K point come via a:
Apologies, but it's time for more math.
This season, 58.0 percent of James' 939 points have come via 2-point field goals, 25.9% have come on 3-pointers, and the remaining 16.2% have come at the free-throw line.
And of LeBron's 272 made 2-pointers, 125 have been layups (46.0 percent), 104 have been jumpers or hook shots (38.2%), and 43 have been dunks (15.8%), according to the informative folks at BasketballReference.com.
The thought (and nice 8.5-to-1 return) of a James 40K milestone dunk is appealing, and we wouldn't mind throwing a small amount on that.
But the recommendation here is to save most of your James 40K prop shot bankroll for Other (+490) and/or Layup (+155).
If you or a loved one has questions or needs to talk to a professional about gambling, call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit 1800gambler.net for more information.
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