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NBA Communications: Houston forward Kevin Durant enters tonight’s game against Miami needing 26 points to pass Michael Jordan for fifth place on the NBA’s all-time scoring list. The Rockets host the Heat at 8 PM ET on NBA League Pass.
Danny Green: If he gets one, if he even gets one championship with the Lakers because nobody's nobody's banking on them winning a championship. That's not possible. If he gets it done with one and gets a Finals MVP win, him getting it done, I'll put him above Michael Jordan. (…) Mind you, again we're talking about the Lakers win a championship. (…) Paul Pierce: I’m going to tell you what LeBron has done. He's made being the GOAT unattainable now. Because like when you look at it, he put a wall in front of Jordan. Because to like be the GOAT, that means you have to be better than LeBron. Nobody's going to be better. It's just hard to mention it. If Wenby won six championships, you going to be like, well, he's not better than Bron because Bron statistically he’s just so much better than everybody.
The Rockets host the Atlanta Hawks on Friday, then the Miami Heat on Saturday. Houston then travels to Chicago for a game Monday against the Bulls. The 16-time All-Star and 2014 NBA MVP accomplishing a milestone so revered at the United Center — “The House That Jordan Built” — would make for a new core memory. “Michael Jordan has always been my inspiration. There’s a reason why I wanted to be able to knock down those shots,” Durant said in a one-on-one interview with The Athletic. “He was always unstoppable, but when he became a midrange maestro, you never knew how he would attack you. You never knew what MJ was going to do. “He scared defenders every night, and I wanted to put that same kind of fear in the defender who’s guarding me.”
While appearing on the Mind the Game podcast last July with LeBron and Steve Nash, Durant spoke about the difficulty of staying the course as an elite scorer and attaining longevity. “You got to recommit and sign that contract with yourself. … Some people say, ‘I want to go play baseball. Yeah, and then I wanna come back.’ Or some people say ‘I’m gonna go 22 straight.’” Durant got considerable backlash at the time, but said he still stands by those words. “It’s true,” Durant said. “MJ took time off. It’s times where he was like, ‘I’m sick of the game. I want to take time off and regroup and come back into the game.’ And that’s what he did. Bron, he played straight through. I’m sure it was times when he was sick of the game and didn’t want to play. Sick of all the b.s. that come with the game. It was a different time. He probably had more of a shield around him than MJ had at the time. It’s different eras but guys choose their paths how they want to choose them.”
“He could’ve played past 40, too,” Durant said. “I would say MJ took off four to five years combined. You give him 300 more games of 30 points a night. That’s not an exaggeration. That’s what he averaged—30! I don’t want to take that away from him when I pass him. I think that’s key for any historian to know that about MJ. It’s cool to still be in that same realm as him but he’s more than a 32,000-point scorer to me.”
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Future Hall-of-Famer Kevin Durant sits just 86 points behind Michael Jordan on the all-time scoring list - 32,206 career points to Jordan's 32,292 - and is likely to pass him late this week, cracking the Top 5 in league history in the process. It's a remarkable milestone for the 16-time All-Star, especially considering he missed a full season's worth of action after tearing his Achilles in the 2019 NBA Finals. What makes the feat even more impressive is the efficiency behind it. Yes, Durant has played 114 more games than Jordan (and counting), but he's on track to surpass him in 2,200 fewer field-goal attempts, and with a career effective field-goal percentage of 55.5 versus Jordan's 50.9.
Durant also comfortably clears Jordan in career true shooting percentage at 62.1 percent vs. MJ's 56.9 percent. True shooting percentage takes into account two-point field goal percentage, three-point field goal percentage and free-throw percentage, all in one, to give a measure of a player's overall shooting efficiency. In fact, Durant's 62.1 percent mark is the highest among the Top 19 scorers in league history.
During the second quarter, unprompted, Buzelis decided to start trash-talking Luka. The moment surprised Luka, but once he took in what was said, Doncic borrowed a page from Michael Jordan’s book and took it personally. “I’m not going to say what he said, but if I would’ve said that, I would definitely get a tech,” Luka said postgame. “But really, these games, sometimes you’re going easy and we kind of went easy in the first quarter, then he woke me up.”
Oh No He Didn't: Bam says Michael Jordan reached out to him after scoring 83 "If you know Mike he's not talking a lot"
Bam says Michael Jordan reached out to him after scoring 83
— Oh No He Didn't (@ohnohedidnt24) March 11, 2026
"If you know Mike he's not talking a lot" pic.twitter.com/ix1BluuG4J
Keerthika Uthayakumar: Some SGA fun facts: - On pace to be the 1st player since Michael Jordan in 1993 to have 4 straight 30 PPG seasons - On pace to have the 2nd-highest TS% in a 30 PPG season, behind Steph Curry. - On pace to lead the NBA in 30-point games for the 4th time, only Wilt & MJ have more.
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The NBA has evolved, with smaller guards like Yuki Kawamura having some success. If you were coming up today, do you think your NBA chances would have been different? The Professor: Oh, absolutely. People now get a scholarship based on potential, so like your high school mixtape might get you a scholarship. There are a lot more outlets for exposure. I was a big secret. I was like completely unknown. Couldn't even get on the radar of hardly anybody. And then when I did, it's like I would show a lot of skill, a lot of talent, but I was so small that they're like, 'Well, how's he going to play defense?' So my high school mixtape would have been crazy. I think I would have had a better chance. I also think today's basketball business is much more entrepreneurial, like just in general it's much more open-minded and seizing all opportunities. I mean to think today, Bronny James can make the NBA, just a different time. Bronny's not making the NBA in the 90s, whether he's the son of LeBron or not; it's just not happening. Because look, if that's the case, Michael Jordan's kids should have been in the NBA. They were as good as Bronny; at least one of them was probably better than Bronny. So, even Jordan's kids couldn't make it. But nowadays, it's different. They go where the dollars are, marketability. When you think of AND1 and how popular it was, if it were like today, they probably would have had us in the league somehow, if anything, just to sell tickets. But yeah, I think my chances would have been better coming up in this era, just more exposure. But then again, I think the way it happened for me was the way it was supposed to happen. I'm just like a late bloomer. I went through puberty at a very late age.
Robert Parish: Dennis (Rodman) was one of the nicest people you will ever meet on this planet. He’s just the opposite of the persona that he tries to live up to, like he’s crazy and deranged. He’s the best self-promoter since Muhammad Ali and Madonna. He finds more ways to keep himself in the spotlight than anyone. But he’s a sweetheart of a person. If he was crazy, he was crazy like a fox. Thinking back on the team, there’s only one day that comes to mind when things got a little heated in practice. It was between MJ and me. I started talking shit. For some reason, my last year in the league, I came out of my shell a bit. I’d never got my mouth running in any other season.
Robert Parish: Let’s talk Michael Jordan. People often ask me to compare and contrast Michael and Larry [Bird]. When I think about those two guys, the similarity I see between them is their competitiveness. Their drive and focus. They both had a strong distaste for losing. The biggest difference between them was their leadership style. Michael is a more aggressive person, more verbal and in your face. That’s how he leads. Larry led by example. He wasn’t a rah-rah guy or a yeller. He didn’t lead with words. He led with action. When you do that, you can stay a leader longer. People don’t get tired of your voice. You don’t become background noise or get tuned out. But finding differences between Michael and Larry is like nitpicking. In general, it was a pleasure to play with both.
