For whatever reason, Dirk Nowitzki never seems to be mentioned whenever there is a comversaton about the best players of this era. He has continued to play well year-after-year, and now he is one of the leading scorers in the entire history of the NBA.

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In fact, Nowitzki may have amassed the quietest surefire Hall of Fame resume of this generation. Friday night, he added to it when the Dallas Mavericks defeated the Los Angeles Lakers 102-98. Nowitzki scored 14 points in the game, bringing his career total to 27,322 points scored and moving him ahead of Elvin Hayes for eighth on the all-time scoring list.

According to ESPN, Nowtizki also had a quick chat with Bryant after the game. Bryant did not play in the contest, and he is on his own quest to move up the all-time scoring list, having recently passed Michael Jordan.

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"As for what the two talked about, Nowitzki said, "I told him that I was going to catch him. But that's going to be tough."

Bryant currently has 32, 365 points for his career, so he is almost certainly out of Nowitzki's reach, especially if he continues playing. However, Nowitzki is likely to continue moving up the all-time leaderboard. He will likely pass Moses Malone later this season to move into seventh.

If he continues scoring well (Nowitzki is averaging 18.5 points per game this season), he could pass Shaquille O'Neal next year and could even pass Wilt Chameberlain in a few more years and retire in the top five all time.

"I'm fortunate to have great teammates to put me in position to keep scoring, even as I'm older," Nowitzki said. "It's been fun. Still competing at a high level and hopefully will win a lot more games these last couple of years, which really means more to me right now than all the points. But it's definitely been a fun ride."

Nowitzki is 36, and this is his 17th NBA season, all with Dallas.