Can Jayson Tatum Join Kevin Durant in the Elite 30K-Point Club? The Shocking Answer Might Surprise You!

The Celtics star already is on a historic pace in his eighth season.

Kevin Durant entered rare NBA air last week, becoming the eighth player in league history to score at least 30,000 career points. Durant has been an incredible model of sustained high-level production, averaging more than 25 points per game in 16 of his 17 NBA seasons to date.

But that achievement got us thinking: If Durant can reach 30,000 points despite multiple injuries that have caused him to miss significant time, what are the chances that Jayson Tatum — one of the league’s most durable and available superstars — eventually joins him?

First, a disclaimer: We realize this conversation is very premature, as Tatum is just 26 years old in his eighth NBA season. As you’ll see below, he’d need to keep up his current pace for an additional decade (or more) to have a realistic shot at hitting the 30,000-point club. It’s impossible to project that far ahead in the future.

But let’s suspend reality for a moment to provide a hypothetical answer to this question: What would Tatum need to do to hit 30,000 career points?

We’ll start with a look at the eight current members of the 30,000-point club with their total games played, total seasons played and career scoring average included:

The NBA’s eight all-time leading scorers averaged 1,337 career games played over 19 seasons while scoring an average of 25.8 points per game. Tatum is currently averaging 23.5 points over 655 games (seven-plus seasons) for a total of 13,258 points.

Tatum’s career average is brought down a bit by his first two seasons, during which he averaged 13.9 and 15.7 points per game, respectively. In fact, he’s averaged 26.8 points per game over his past six seasons, which would put him right on par with the other members of the 30K club.

But let’s assume Tatum stays at that 23.5 point-per-game mark for his entire career, to account for a potential late-career scoring decline. At that average, he’d need to play 1,011 more games (1,665 total) to reach 30,000 points. That’s 12 additional seasons, which would require Tatum to play until age 38 or 39 — assuming he doesn’t suffer a major injury.

Considering no player in NBA history has reached 1,665 games played — Robert Parish holds the current record at 1,611 — the more realistic path to 30K for Tatum is increasing his scoring average.

Let’s say Tatum increases his scoring output to 25 points per game over the remainder of his career. With that level of production, he’d need to play 669 more regular-season games (1,324 total) to hit the 30K threshold. If Tatum plays at least 70 games per season — which he’s done in every 82-game campaign to date — he’d reach 30,000 points in about nine-and-a-half seasons, or in his 18th year in the league at age 36.

Expecting any player to produce 10 more full seasons of 25-plus points per game is a tall order. But if any young superstar can pull that off, it’s Tatum, who has been one of the NBA’s most consistent players — in terms of both scoring output and availability — over the past eight seasons.

And regardless of whether Tatum eventually enters the 30K club, the fact that we’re discussing his potential to be one of the best scorers in NBA history is remarkable, and a reminder to Celtics fans of how good they have it with a generational talent as their best player.