Kobe Bryant Becomes Youngest Player in NBA History To Reach 25,000 Scoring Mark

Although his Lakers lost against LeBron's Cavs on Thursday night (January 21) in Cleveland, Kobe Bryant had an individual highlight when he became the youngest player in NBA history to reach the 25,000 career points mark.
He is now ranked #15 on the all-time scorers list, behind a list of the sport's elite.

Kobe beat out Wilt Chamberlain's previous mark to become the youngest player to hit the mark, but by just over 30 days. Wilt did it at 31 years and 186 days, while Kobe reached it at 31 years and 151 days.

"That's what I do best," Bryant told ESPN this week. "Steve Nash is a great passer, I'm a great scorer. It's what I do."

He's right too. According to Kobe, it's been that way from as far back as he can remember ... scoring at ease, that is.

"I think it just came easiest to me because, at an early age [when I was] five or six years old, I could put it in my left hand, put it in my right and that age, if you can go left against those kids it's like shooting fish in a barrel," Bryant recalled about his earliest scoring memories. "I just became more curious about it the better I got at it all the way until now."

Above Kobe on the All-Time Leaders List in points, there's greats like Jerry West, Reggie Miller, Hakeem Olajuwon, Shaquille O'Neal, Michael Jordan, and Kareeem Abdul-Jabbar at the top with 38,387.

That leaves Bryant with around 12,200 to go, if he wants to reach the top. ESPN did the math, saying he needs to average 25.3 points (his career average) for 483 games, working out to six more seasons. That would be 20 years in the league for Kobe, putting his retirement year in 2017 when he's 39 years old.

However, he says he's not even sure how long he plans to play. Congrats to Kobe for reaching the milestone!