Kobe isn't even halfway there yet. He's 21,521 points shy of Kareems record. Kareem played 20 seasons in the league, Kobe has played 10. He would still need almost another 11 2,000 point seasons to match Kareem. At the moment breaking the record seems pretty far fetched.
He would be still having to score 24.4 PPG each season (if he played the seasons in full, which he won't, but he will average higher than 24 for some seasons to make up for it + playoffs) during those 11 years.
Kobe is what, 28 now? So he would still have to be averaging 24+ at 39 years old. Michael averaged 20 PPG at 39. Kobe would need to be better offensively than MJ at the same age by a considerable margin. However, as I said it can balance out.
2,000 (total points over 82 games) x 11 (seasons before matching Kareems amount played) = 22,000, Just remember that number.
Lets say Kobe's career 11 years into the future goes down like this:
AGE* | SEASON | PPG | Total points over 82 games
27 | 06/07 | 29.0 | 2378
28 | 07/08 | 30.0 | 2460
29 | 08/09 | 32.0 | 2624
30 | 09/10 | 30.0 | 2460
31 | 10/11 | 29.0 | 2378
32 | 11/12 | 28.0 | 2296
33 | 12/13 | 28.0 | 2296
34 | 13/14 | 25.0 | 2050
35 | 14/15 | 23.0 | 1886
36 | 15/16 | 21.0 | 1722
37 | 16/17 | 20.0 | 1640
38 | 17/18 | 18.0 | 1476
*At start of season
Add those totals up, and you get 25,666. Thats 4,145 more points than he needs. However, there is no way Kobe will play all 82 games of each season for the next 11 years. So far during his career he has averaged about 70 games played each season, which is 12 short of the amount he must play to reach that total above. However, there are the playoffs. If he misses say, 14 games each season for the next 11 years of his career, he must match those missed games with equal performances in the playoffs.
If he did average the same amount of points per game as my fictional one (which I think is realistic) then we can find the average of the averages themselves, and multiply it by the amount of projected games missed. From there we can find out how well he will need to play in the playoffs.
28.4 is his average PPG over the 11 seasons.
28.4 x 154 (14 (projected games missed per season) x 11 (seasons)) = 4373.6
So, if he does miss as many games as my "prediction", he will need to score 4374 points in the playoffs to match the total I talked about earlier.
Kobe has played in 126 playoff games during his career. He has been there 9 years out of his 10 in the league. However, the Lakers may not make it almost every year. Lets say during the 11 seasons into the future they make it 8 times.
Then, lets say the average 12 games played in those Playoff appearances (With an average 4-2 victory per round the Lakers would be eliminated in game 6 of the second round). Seems fair to me, as there are times when the Lakers will be eliminated early, but they will also go deeper some seasons to make up for it.
So, 12 (playoff games each time they qualify) x 8 (times qualifying for the Playoffs) = 96
If Kobe was to average his regular season average each time the Lakers made the playoffs, he would make up for 2,726 of those 4,374 points he missed out due to injury.
Now for the final stages.
Kareems Total: 38,387
Kobes Total: 16,866 (up to the end of last season)
Kobes 'Projected' Total over the next 11 years: 25,666
Kobes 'Projected' total points lost due to injury: 4,374
Kobes 'Projected' Playoff total over next 11 years: 2,726
25666 - 4374 = 21292 (Kobes 'Projected' Total over the next 11 years - Kobes 'Projected' total points lost due to injury)
21,292 + 2,726 = 24,018 (Kobes 'Projected' Total over the next 11 years, realistically + Kobes 'Projected' playoff total over the next 11 years)
So there we have it.
By my estimated "Kobe Career", he will score another 24,018 points over the next 11 seasons. Thats 2497 more points than he needs to tie Kareems record.
If his career plays out similar to this, he will be the new scoring leader. I think the expected scoring I said earlier is fair, Kobe averaging 25 PPG at 34 definately isn't far fetched, after all, AI averaged 33 at 30 years old last season and the game is getting softer and softer.
Of course this isn't what will exactly happen throughout Kobe's remaining career but it does show he has a real legitimate shot at the title barring career ending injury or early retirement.
Sorry for the huge post and the long explanations, I know there is probably a far simpler way to do it but I suck at math and was doing the calculations as I typed my post. I really hope I didn't make a mistake some where
