SCORECARD

RECORD TIME, IF THE NBA CAREER SCORING MARK IS BROKEN AND HARDLY ANYONE IS THERE TO SEE IT, DID IT REALLY HAPPEN? WE FOUND OUT IN 1984

- HOWARD BECK

THE POINTS that broke the NBA's most hallowed record came on a shot no one uses, in a gym built for college games, in a city with no NBA team, with just one league official present to commemorate the feat and a fledgling cable network there to broadcast it. The moment was magical, emotional... and over within minutes, hoops taking precedence over hoopla.

Yes, dear reader, 1984 was a different time.

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar was a towering figure, in every sense, when he swished the skyhook that lifted him past Wilt Chamberlain as the sport's all-time scoring leader on April 5 of that year. But the NBA itself was smaller, less glitzy, less boisterous, less self-promotional, less everything than the league of today.

As LeBron James closed in on Abdul-Jabbar's scoring total (38,387 points) in February, league officials were making plans for a live, global broadcast of the recordbreaking moment, to be attended by NBA commissioner Adam Silver, alongside countless other league officials, celebrities and hundreds of reporters. An on-court celebration, featuring Abdul-Jabbar himself, was considered a given.

"I think it's spectacular," Silver, speaking in January, said of James's enduring excellence at age 38. "I hope fans are paying a lot of attention to what's happening right now."

Fans surely were paying attention to the chase, by the millionsperhaps the tens of millions-with the NBA now routinely beaming its games into living rooms in China, India, Europe, Africa and the Middle East. By contrast-and man, is it a contrast-Abdul-Jabbar's special moment 29 years ago was almost an intimate affair, charming in its minimalism.

David Stern, two months into his role as commissioner, was the only NBA official in attendance. Lakers owner Jerry Buss skipped the game entirely. So did Chamberlain (though he attended the next game in L.A.). The only special guests were Abdul-Jabbar's parents, Ferdinand and Cora Alcindor.