Other than perhaps the most extreme cases, like Wilt Chamberlain's 100 point game before the 3 point shot even existed, nearly all sports records have to be considered with various caveats or asterisks. But still people like to keep track of them.
LeBron's achievement is more a proof of his unusual longevity - paired with his maturity as a young player, skipping college entirely to get more years in the NBA than his peers - than of his GOAT-ness. Even though he certainly should be in the conversation for that.
As for Caitlin Clark scoring more than 40,000 points, that would first require the WNBA, at a minimum, to play equally long games as the men and more importantly play as many games in a season... neither of which seems remotely viable. 
As it stands, female WNBA players generally play two seasons each year, one in the WNBA during a couple of months and most of the rest of the year in some other league, in Europe or Turkey. As scoring goes, reaching 10k in the WNBA is about as big a milestone as reaching 30k in the NBA. Or even as big as 40k - only Diana Taurasi has reached 10k and only just, having played roughly as long as James, with nobody else even at 7.5k. Clark would need one hell of a career - or a dramatic increase in the number of minutes played per season - to even equal Taurasi.
Very true.
