{"id":403793,"date":"2026-01-10T08:20:14","date_gmt":"2026-01-10T08:20:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/403793\/"},"modified":"2026-01-10T08:20:14","modified_gmt":"2026-01-10T08:20:14","slug":"kevin-durant-passes-wilt-chamberlain-for-7th-on-career-scoring-list","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/403793\/","title":{"rendered":"Kevin Durant passes Wilt Chamberlain for 7th on career scoring list"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>PORTLAND, Ore. &#8212; <a data-player-guid=\"dc324fde-eee8-98e2-09ac-d31d8ad9909e\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/nba\/player\/_\/id\/3202\/kevin-durant\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Kevin Durant<\/a> passed <a data-player-guid=\"ada3cdc4-8e3d-d94a-e117-30470c75464e\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/nba\/player\/_\/id\/4142\/wilt-chamberlain\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Wilt Chamberlain<\/a> for seventh on the NBA&#8217;s career scoring list Friday night when he made a 3-pointer for the <a data-clubhouse-guid=\"78113ad4-1ac7-0c04-dada-388a6ff4e15e\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com.au\/nba\/team\/_\/name\/hou\/houston-rockets\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Houston Rockets<\/a> in the third quarter of their <a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com.au\/nba\/game\/_\/gameId\/401810395\/rockets-trail-blazers\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">111-105<\/a> loss to the <a data-clubhouse-guid=\"ed294c02-3c44-db14-9e06-1b4e8cff9558\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com.au\/nba\/team\/_\/name\/por\/portland-trail-blazers\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Portland Trail Blazers<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Durant needed 15 points going into the game to eclipse Chamberlain, who scored 31,419. Durant&#8217;s jumper with 7:57 left in the third gave him 31,422.<\/p>\n<p>Dirk Nowitzki is sixth on the career list with 31,560 points.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;To be amongst the greats is always an honor,&#8221; Durant said after the game. &#8220;Wilt is somebody I studied and tried to look up to as much as I can, a player like that. Like I always say, he set a standard for NBA players and [I&#8217;m] grateful to reach that &#8212; and inspired by what he produced for the game of basketball.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><img class=\" lazyload lazyload\" data-image-container=\".inline-photo\" height=\"320\" width=\"570\"\/>Rockets star Kevin Durant receives a standing ovation from the Moda Center fans as he is recognized for surpassing Wilt Chamberlain&#8217;s career points total Friday night in Portland.\u00a0Troy Wayrynen\/Imagn Images<\/p>\n<p>Durant, 37, is in his 18th NBA season and is a 15-time All-Star. He finished Friday&#8217;s game with 30 points and 12 rebounds, also surpassing 8,000 career rebounds.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;No, it doesn&#8217;t amaze me when you see the work ethic and what he does on a day-to-day basis,&#8221; Rockets coach Ime Udoka said before Friday night&#8217;s game about Durant&#8217;s impending milestone.<\/p>\n<p>Blazers coach Tiago Splitter said he remembered being impressed by Durant when he was a young player with <a data-clubhouse-guid=\"bd458c44-2d33-47eb-cebc-35d3d4ac595c\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com.au\/nba\/team\/_\/name\/okc\/oklahoma-city-thunder\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Oklahoma City<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Just a young Kevin Durant, scoring 30 every night, and he just keeps doing that, which is amazing,&#8221; Splitter said. &#8220;At his age, of course, he&#8217;s probably at the end of his career, but just doing that every night is just impressive.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>When the scoring achievement was announced to fans at the Moda Center during the game, Durant was rewarded with warm applause and a hug from Splitter.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;These milestones always have me reflecting on the people that helped me get to this point &#8212; the journey that I&#8217;ve been through, the close calls and the things that could have went left plenty of times in my life,&#8221; Durant said. &#8220;So to be here, very, very grateful, and Portland is such a classy, classy city for recognizing me in that moment and honoring me.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PORTLAND, Ore. &#8212; Kevin Durant passed Wilt Chamberlain for seventh on the NBA&#8217;s career scoring list Friday night&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":403794,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[557],"tags":[64,63,590,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-403793","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-nba","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/403793","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=403793"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/403793\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/403794"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=403793"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=403793"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=403793"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}