{"id":35389,"date":"2014-12-14T16:30:52","date_gmt":"2014-12-14T08:30:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=35389"},"modified":"2014-12-14T15:58:16","modified_gmt":"2014-12-14T07:58:16","slug":"kobe-bryant-poised-to-pass-michael-jordan-for-3rd-on-nba-scoring-list-sunday-in-minnesota","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2014\/12\/14\/kobe-bryant-poised-to-pass-michael-jordan-for-3rd-on-nba-scoring-list-sunday-in-minnesota\/","title":{"rendered":"Kobe Bryant poised to pass Michael Jordan for 3rd on NBA scoring list Sunday in Minnesota"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Kobe<\/a>
Kobe Bryant shoots over Shane Battier in April 2009. steve.lanctot \/ Flickr<\/a>.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Kobe Bryant is ready to cap a busy week by moving past another great on the NBA\u2019s career scoring list.<\/p>\n

Bryant needs just nine points in the Los Angeles Lakers\u2019 game at Minnesota on Sunday night to surpass Michael Jordan, who is third on the league\u2019s career scoring charts with 32,292 points.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a huge honour to be here in this position,\u201d Bryant said this week. \u201cI can\u2019t believe I\u2019ve scored that many points, especially from where my career started, not playing and things like that. It\u2019s a huge honour. It wasn\u2019t something I thought about growing up as a kid. It was championships. The numbers aren\u2019t something I\u2019ve ever started out to accomplish.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yet Bryant is poised to add another big number to his five NBA championship rings when the Lakers visit the Timberwolves.<\/p>\n

The 36-year-old Bryant likely would have surpassed Jordan a year ago, but he has made an impressive return from two major injuries which limited him to six games in an 18-month stretch before the start of this season. He even led the league in scoring until recently, dropping back to third with 25.4 points per game.<\/p>\n

Bryant stays in regular contact with Jordan, the owner of the Charlotte Hornets, and has gained insight into the six-time NBA champion\u2019s longevity.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think we\u2019re both cursed with the obsession of trying to be the best that we can,\u201d Bryant said. \u201cIt\u2019s a blessing and a curse at the same time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lakers coach Byron Scott was there at Madison Square Garden for Bryant\u2019s first NBA point when they were teammates in 1996, and he looks forward to witnessing Kobe\u2019s latest achievement.<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom my standpoint and knowing Kobe like I do, I know he has an extreme amount of respect for MJ,\u201d Scott said. \u201cHe\u2019s probably the one guy Kobe wants to pass in a number of categories, and I think rings are one of them as well. I think for him, it will be very significant. It puts him in that category of the greatest players ever in this league.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bryant scored 22 points in the Lakers\u2019 overtime victory at San Antonio on Friday night, going 7 for 22 while contributing several big assists down the stretch. He even ceded the biggest shot of the game to teammate Nick Young, who drained a go-ahead 3-pointer with 7.4 seconds left.<\/p>\n

Bryant is finishing up a week that has included two victories for the struggling Lakers, a headline-grabbing trash-talk performance in practice, and his orchestration of the Lakers\u2019 decision to wear \u201cI Can\u2019t Breathe\u201d shirts before their win over Sacramento on Tuesday. Bryant also spoke eloquently about the importance of questioning and protesting, citing his \u201cplatform to affect change\u201d as an important aspect of American society.<\/p>\n

Bryant rarely practices with the Lakers these days while attempting to preserve his 36-year-old body for the 82-game grind, but he joined in an intense scrimmage Thursday before the club left on its road trip.<\/p>\n

While the media watched, Bryant was captured verbally shredding his teammates with trash talk that made national headlines, but isn\u2019t anything out of the ordinary for the competitive guard.<\/p>\n

Bryant laughed at the attention attracted by his words, saying they were just \u201cfun bantering back and forth.\u201d<\/p>\n

Once Bryant passes Jordan, who played parts of 15 seasons, only Karl Malone (36,928) and former Lakers centre Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (38,387) will be above him on the NBA\u2019s career list.<\/p>\n

Bryant is early in his 19th NBA season. He doesn\u2019t know whether he\u2019ll play after his current contract expires following next season, although Lakers general manager Mitch Kupchak suspects Bryant will retire.<\/p>\n

If surpassing Jordan\u2019s career points total is Bryant\u2019s final milestone on his rise, he\u2019ll be grateful to sit alongside one of his heroes.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not like a distraction or anything,\u201d Bryant said. \u201cIt\u2019s not like it\u2019s (not) going to happen. I just take it all in stride.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Kobe Bryant is ready to cap a busy week by moving past another great on the NBA\u2019s career scoring list. …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":35390,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[44],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-35389","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","mauthors-greg-beacham","mauthors-the-associated-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35389","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35389"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35389\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35390"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35389"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35389"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35389"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}