“I treated it like every day was my last day with a basketball” are the  famous words of a living legend, Lebron Raymone James. “King James” has done nothing but prove his words to be right. Every time Lebron is on the court, he turns into a beast, always giving his all. I haven’t seen a single game where Lebron doesn’t bring his A game on, and he put this on display recently in a monumental way. Last Tuesday night, Lebron passed Kareem Abdul Jabbar to become the all-time scoring leader with his 38 point performance against the Oklahoma City Thunder.

 His outstanding numbers separate him from all NBA players, both past and present. Lebron James is the  Greatest Of All Time,  and there’s no question about it. It’s hard to comprehend his sustained greatness over the last two decades. At 38 years old, (very old by any NBA standard), he’s averaging 30 points per game, and it looks like he is not slowing down. Lebron is now officially the greatest basketball player to ever walk this Earth, and no apologies are  necessary to those who still insist it is Michael Jordan. Lebron swished his fade-away jumper in front of a roaring crowd at Crypto.com Arena with 10.9 seconds left in the third quarter; this wasn’t just a milestone for a superstar, it was the crowning of a King. James not only eclipsed 38,387 points, but he ended a debate that is surely now resolved. James, not Jordan, is the GOAT. He cemented that status on a night when a celebrity-studded sellout crowd screamed every time he touched the ball, urging him to shoot, groaning when he passed.

In breaking a seemingly unbreakable record that has stood for nearly 39 years – as long as another GOAT, Babe Ruth once held the career home run record after his retirement – James has checked the last box on a resume that doesn’t just dominate basketball, but defines it. He ranks first on the scoring list, more than 11,000 points ahead of the next active player, and nobody will ever catch him. He ranks fourth on the all-time assists list, having just recently passed Steve Nash. He is the only player all time to be in both the top 10 for assists and points, proving he is the ultimate Swiss-Army knife of basketball, a man who can do it all. He ranks 32nd on the all-time rebounds list, but no active player has more, and no active player is in position to pass him.

In all three categories, James leads Jordan, which leaves Jordan’s defenders to continuously brag only about the same thing they’ve been bragging about for years. Jordan has won six championships, James has won four, and that is supposed to make Jordan a better player? It does not. Basketball is a team sport, and individual accolades alone do not paint a proper picture.

I’m tired of everyone saying Michael Jordan is the greatest of all time; I’m not afraid to say that Lebron James is the GOAT and it’s not even close. Lebron has put that argument to rest, with 20 years of sustained excellence in the form of a freight train that has no end in sight. I’m not sure what Lebron has left in store here for the last years of his career, but I know that I’m glad to be a witness.