Guest of the famous show The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy FallonKareem Abdul-Jabbar took advantage of a question about the greatness from Stephen Curry to the 3-point shot to… give one more argument in his favor in the GOAT discussion. A rather fun punchline that reminds us of the greatness of what he has accomplished.
While it is usually rather rare in the media, the passage of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar in the Jimmy Fallon show is likely to make a lot of noise in the States. Because despite his 75 years, the one who was elected MVP six times showed that he was still in great shape, with a keen sense of the punchline. We first saw it when he evoked the Celtics of 1985, whose tears he compared to a vulgar garnish to put in his hot dogs, or when he launched into the indefensible dimension of his famous hook. But that’s not all. The rest of the show notably gave him the opportunity to place an even saltier statement at a rather unexpected moment. Asked by the moderator on what Stephen Curry accomplished in 3-point shooting compared to the guys of his era, KAJ took the opportunity to recall a mind-blowing stat from his career. And also a little to put in the sauce his rivals (LeBron James and Michael Jordan in the lead) in the honorary discussion of the GOAT. Come on, we transcribe his words for you, enjoy the artist:
“At the time, there were good shooters but we took maybe ten 3-point shots in a whole game. Now it’s ten, twenty 3-point shots per quarter. Looks like it’s a 3-point contest, people like that. I was, well, I still am, the leading scorer in NBA history, and I only made one 3-pointer in my career. […] It was 1986. It was an accident. I was in the corner to get the rebound. I had my back to the basket, so I turned around, took the shot and scored. – Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
Beyond the rather funny second part of this statement, Abdul-Jabbar raises an interesting point. At a time when outside shooting is highly valued and offensive records fall every year thanks to it, good old Kareem is a good reminder of how dominant he was in the key. Without this long-distance shooting weapon that seems indispensable today, The Captain manages to stand up to the biggest scorers more “recent”, who all have a good skill at 3-pointers in their arsenal. And even if LeBron James could take the all-time record for the number of points scored still held by Kareem (he will still have to score 1,326 to get there), this is an argument that weighs heavily in the comparisons that can be made. with other top NBA all-timers. Besides, as we like to have fun, we decided to go and see what the scoring of LeBron in career if we took away his award-winning shots. Well with 2,140 successes in this area, LeBron’s total would go from 37,062 points to just 30,642. Almost enough to make the King look like a loser (no). Well, we admit it, this stat is not very useful and it does not make too much sense, but we wanted to push the reasoning to the end. It remains to be seen whether, despite this, LeBron will end up taking this record from the former pivot by the end of his career.
Little present in the media to praise his career, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar may have just revived the eternal debate on the GOAT of the NBA. The argument made is interesting, but we doubt that Bronbron, Jojo and a lot of other guys would agree with it. But after all it doesn’t matter, we like this kind of pretty fun declas.
Source : « The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon »
