Jennifer Stewart-USA TODAY Sports

The NBA’s all-time leading scorer was in attendance of the Oklahoma City Thunder’s last game on the road vs. the Phoenix Suns.

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar watched from the stands as Kevin Durant poured in 41 points to help the Thunder to a 102-90 victory.

Kareem was asked after the game if he thought Durant would one day have a chance at catching his scoring record.

“I think he certainly has the talent. It all depends on if he stays healthy and is the focus of the offense, because he can score from anywhere on the court … He’s not just in it to put up numbers. He wants to win and understands what the game’s about. That always makes me feel better.”

via The Oklahoman

It will be hard for Durant to play as long as Kareem did. Kareem played 20 seasons in the NBA and averaged 24.6 points per game. The most he ever averaged was 34.8 points per game at age 24 and the least was 10.1 points per game in his last season at the age of 41.

Durant came into the league at age 19 so he has a slight head start on Kareem but it is more unlikely these days for someone to play 20 seasons, especially for a non-center.

Durant is averaging 26.5 points per game for his career so far. Kareem averaged more than 26.5 points per game in each of his first seven seasons.

The evolution of Durant’s offensive game will be key in his quest to become the game’s all-time scoring champ. Sure, Durant can score in more different ways than Kareem could but that doesn’t necessarily give Durant an advantage here. Part of why Kareem was able to play so long and score so much was his one, unstoppable move: the skyhook.

Durant will definitely have to become one of the best post players of all-time to have any real chance of catching Kareem. He has been working on this so far in his career but still has a long way to go.

Kareem is right when he says that Durant is playing the game to win and not to get records. That mentality is something that might hold Durant back from catching Kareem. Durant will be the guy who takes a lesser role later in his career to remain part of a team that can win.

Durant is only in his sixth season in the NBA and still has a long career left ahead of him. He will undoubtedly go down as one of the greatest scorers ever, but becoming the greatest will take a lot of work and good fortune.

Steve Mitchell-US PRESSWIRE

As LeBron James capped off quite the spectacular year with a gold medal win over Spain in the Olympics, it sparked the most popular debate in the sport of basketball: Who is the greatest player ever?

Jim Boeheim got the ball rolling saying he used to think Michael Jordan was the greatest player ever but after spending six weeks with LeBron, was no longer sure about that.

Then everybody started voicing their opinions.

That’s enough about that though. What I’m curious about is where Kevin Durant fits in with all of this. When his career is over, where will we remember him on the hierarchy of greatest players ever?

Durant just finished his fifth season in the NBA so yes, it’s early on. But he’s already challenging LeBron in some respects and is widely considered the second best player in the NBA right now at just 23 years old. He won his third straight scoring title last season, has finished second in the MVP voting twice and has already led his team to the NBA Finals.

More than any other player in the NBA, Durant was put on earth to play basketball and to score in particular. But he’s not from the same mold as Jordan, LeBron or Kobe so we rarely talk about Durant as someone who could go down as the greatest ever. He’s been more one-dimensional so far in his career too, viewed as just a scorer who isn’t a great passer or defender yet.

Those things are all true and that’s why no one talks about him yet as a potential G.O.A.T. but he still has a very good chance to go down as a top ten or maybe even top five player ever.

Durant’s shot at being remembered that good will have a lot to do with team success. Right now he is part of the best young team in the NBA that is already good enough to compete for an NBA title. It’s easy to look at the Thunder as a team that will be able to compete for a championship for the next decade. They’ve been compared to and are modeled after the San Antonio Spurs, who won four titles in the Duncan era from 1998 until now. If Durant can do the same kind of thing in OKC, he will be remembered in a similar light as Duncan.

Durant also has a chance to go down as a historically great statistical player. He is obviously on pace to score about as many points as anyone ever. Durant’s game is still evolving though so it’s tough to know if he will be able to sustain being such a high-scorer later in his career.

To do this he will have to start going into the post more. He started doing this some last season and even implemented Dirk’s patented stepback jumper. If Durant can learn more from Dirk and develop the kind of post-up game Dirk has had these past few seasons, that would seem the most likely way to keep scoring at the clip he has been.

The top five scorers in NBA history right now are Kareem, Mailman, Jordan, Wilt and Kobe in that order. LeBron has a good shot to get into the top five by the end of his career. If Durant plays long enough, he has a really good chance to pass Malone and get within striking distance of Kareem or wherever Kobe ends up.

The other factor in determining Durant’s greatness is how good of a shooter he is. He has a legitimate chance to go down being remembered as the best shooter to ever play in the NBA. It’s something that isn’t debated about as much really because it’s hard to say what constitutes being the best shooter ever is.

We have Reggie Miller and Ray Allen who are known as the best 3-point shooters ever. Then there’s Bird, Dirk, Maravich and Nash who are often in the conversation. You can even make a case for a player like Steve Kerr as one of the best shooters ever.

Durant could define the debate with what he has a chance to do in his career. To be as skilled as he is at 7-foot tall with the kind of range he has is unprecedented. It would be hard for him to touch Reggie or Ray in terms of career threes made but he has a relatively easy chance to become third on the all-time list (now held by Jason Kidd).

Durant is a career 88 percent free throw shooter as well and shot just under 50 percent from the field last season. If he can string together some 50-40-90 shooting seasons while still scoring as much as he does, it will become tough to argue that he isn’t the greatest shooter ever.

So let’s say Durant wins like three NBA titles, retires as the league’s third all-time leading scorer, top five in points per game for his career and makes the third most threes all-time, that would put him right up there with some of the greats of all-time.

Again, it’s early and that’s a lot of pressure and expectations to meet but I kind of see that as his relatively conceivable ceiling. He’d end up right around Duncan-Shaq-Moses-West in the greatest of all-time rankings. I’d be good with that.

Kobe will go down as one of the most decorated NBA players of all-time, already having won five NBA titles and potentially in the hunt to pass Kareem Abdul-Jabbar as the league’s all-time leading scorer.

When Kobe’s playing days in the NBA are over, his playing days in general may not be.

“It would be natural for me to go do it,” Kobe told Yahoo! Sports when asked if he would consider playing overseas when his NBA career was done. “It wouldn’t be a stretch at all. I grew up here.”

Kobe grew up living in Italy while his father, Joe Bryant, played in the Italian league. Kobe’s favorite player growing up was Mike D’Antoni who was the reason why Kobe wore No. 8 with the Lakers to begin his career.

“You’d have to look at the market and what’s going on in terms of the level of basketball being played,” Kobe said. “I understand there’s a high level of competitive basketball in Turkey now. They might have the best league in Europe. Spain has obviously been one of the top leagues for a long time. And Italy is a place that’s dear in my heart, I grew up there, but the level is not where it used to be. When I was growing up over there, that was the best league in Europe.”

The level of play in other countries is something that has been increasing ever since the 1992 Dream Team dominated the Olympic basketball field in Barcelona. Players like Deron Williams, Stephon Marbury and Josh Childress have spent some time playing professionally in other countries.

Kobe doing this, who seems to be such a citizen of the world, doesn’t seem that farfetched at all.

We know he loves basketball more than anything in the world and he will stay involved in it somehow after his NBA career. If he can still compete at a high level in these other leagues into his 40’s, possibly picking up a few championships along the way, doesn’t that sound just like Kobe?