The 33-year-old, playing in his 10th EuroLeague season, continues to write his name into the history books.
Mike James climbs to third place in scoring and PIR lists
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AS Monaco guard Mike James has reached a pair of milestones in his Turkish Airlines EuroLeague career by climbing to third place in the all-time scoring list and also into third place all-time in total PIR.
James needed 7 points in his team's Round 13 game against Zalgiris Kaunas to go past former FC Barcelona legend Juan Carlos Navarro in the all-time scoring charts. He did so by sinking a mid-range jumper with 4:32 left in the second quarter.
Then, in the fourth quarter, James passed his former teammate Kyle Hines in third place on the all-time PIR list. James needed a PIR of 17 to catch Hines's 4,223, and he did that when he knocked down a three-pointer with 4:01 left in the game.
"It is always good to keep progressing and keep getting better every year," James commented on his scoring feat after the game, in which he posted 25 points and 8 rebounds for a PIR of 26, having led Monaco to a 79-83 win.
"[I'm] just trying to stay at a high level as much as I can. Hopefully I can continue to stay healthy and go higher. It is better to get a win in a game like this; it would have been kind of sour [if we did not win]."
James is currently in his 10th EuroLeague season. He scored 467 points with his first EuroLeague team, Baskonia Vitoria-Gasteiz, in 45 games. He went on to play for Panathinaikos AKTOR Athens, getting 522 points in 37 games. In his only season with EA7 Emporio Armani Milan, James scored 595 points in 30 games. James had 1,122 points in 55 games with CSKA Moscow, before improving his tally to 1,475 in 89 games with Monaco.
Mike James continues to amaze
He is one of only two players to score 600 points or more in two EuroLeague seasons, having done so with Monaco in the 2021-22 and 2022-23 campaigns with 622 and 605 points, respectively. Former Anadolu Efes Istanbul star Vasilije Micic also broke the 600-point barrier in each of the last two seasons, getting 668 and 619 points. James reached 500 points in a EuroLeague season as many as five times: twice with Monaco, twice with CSKA and once with Milan. Only current LDLC ASVEL Villeurbanne guard Nando De Colo has matched that achievement.
At 16.29 points per game, James is also the fourth-best scorer in competition history. The late Alphonso Ford leads that list (22.2 ppg.), followed by Kaspars Kambala (16.7 ppg.) and two-time EuroLeague MVP Anthony Parker (16.3 ppg.). None of these players, however, took part in more than 90 games, while James just played his 256th game in the competition.