High Quality Sports

Searching for the Greatest Scorers: 

Who is the greatest scorer in NBA history? Some would simply say it’s LeBron James, the guy who scored the most points. Some would argue it’s Michael Jordan, who has the highest points per game average. Others would say Wilt Chamberlain for his 50 ppg season. Some could argue it’s Kevin Durant for having the most well rounded scoring game and being able to hit every kind of shot all over the floor. To answer these questions we have to take a deep dive into what it means to be a great scorer and what we’re really asking with that question. 

First and foremost – scoring is ALWAYS a two sided figure. It’s not just how many points you scored but how many shots, or possessions it took you to score them. In a nutshell, missing matters. It doesn’t matter if you’re in a pickup game or in the NBA finals, scoring 15 points on 30 shots is bad, and 15 points on 8 shots is good. In basketball, there are 1s, 2s and 3s and to get those all into one number we use true shooting percentage (TS%), which you can think of as points per shot. I think we all realize that even an extremely efficient 6ppg isnt incredibly impressive but scoring at a high volume (points) with low efficiency is also not impressive. When looking at the greatest scorers you want both high volume and high efficiency. Who could repeatedly get high percentage looks against the defense and score at a frequent rate. In the spirit of the question, we also want to look at who was the best at their best, not necessarily who was able to score 10 ppg for 20 straight years. 

Another skillset I looked for was a player’s ability to scale their volume up or down and what happens to their efficiency. For most players if you have to take more shots or the offense puts a greater burden on you your volume would go up and your efficiency would go down. The defense has more pressure on you as a creator and you’ve got to generate more looks for the team or yourself. Some players can do that with no dip in efficiency, some have a notable dip, and some simply can’t ramp up past a certain point. Similarly if you scale down your volume, can you ramp up in efficiency. Although it might make intuitive sense that if you’re taking fewer shots these are more high quality looks and you would be more efficient, history says otherwise. Most players decreasing their volume still generate the same quality shots they were getting before, just taking fewer of them. Players who could scale up or down effectively are looked at more favorably. 

Lastly, it’s not about how many different shots you can hit, its how well you can hit the shots you have. Shaq had no moves, an occasional baby jump hook and a dunk. That’s it, and he’s one of the best ever. Kareem had a dunk and a skyhook, that’s pretty much it. You don’t have to have a bevy of pump fakes, step backs and trick shots in your arsenal to be effective. However, players who did have counters to their first moves have proved adaptable and resilient in the playoffs when other teams and coaching staffs made gameplans against them. This is why Kobe Bryant is a better scorer than Karl Malone or James Harden. He had a counter to everything. 

Evaluation and Criteria: 

Just looking at ppg is far too crude in 2024. We have a lot of data that can help us adjust ppg to make a more accurate comparison of Shaq in 2000 vs LeBron in 2012 vs Embiid in 2021 vs Kareem in 1977. 

Pace and Minutes: A player playing 40 minutes for a team that has 110 possessions in a game gets 92 possessions or opportunities to score. Compare this to a player who plays 32 minutes per game for a team that has 90 possessions in a game. They play at a slower pace but that isn’t really reflective on how good of a scorer our player is. He only has 60 opportunities to score. This is less than two thirds as many opportunities so his ppg will undoubtedly be lower. What we want is how frequently you score, or points per possession or points per 100 possessions or whatever number you want to scale it to. For this exercise we will use points per 75 possessions because that’s about as many possessions most stars play, or you can think of it as per 36 minutes adjusted for pace. 

Era, rules, officiating and league environment: Instead of an unending circle of bias and mental gymnastics about this era being tougher or that era being weak or this era more skilled or that era having plumbers etc etc etc, we just need to acknowledge that with the current talent level of that given year, with those rules, with that officiating, with that amount of spacing, shooting, playstyle etc etc etc, it resulted in a league average offensive and defensive rating. It’s not really about what era was best or softest or easiest or hardest, its about looking at players who were far ahead of their peers, far ahead of the league at the time that they played. You can’t blame a player for being born in the wrong year and I’m not interested in your time machine argument that breaks down after about 3 lines of logic. I regularized all defensive ratings to 110, but I could have used any number. I picked 110 because that’s where the league was sitting before it absolutely exploded in the last few years so its still a relatively modern number. Players in a league where it was more difficult to score will have scaled numbers higher than their raw score and more recent players will see a small adjustment down. The point is everyone is measured against the same goal post. 

Playoff Opponent: Putting up 60% true shooting against the best defense in the league who allowed only 50% true shooting to the rest of the league that year is clearly more impressive than putting up 60% true shooting against the worst defense of that year that allowed 58% to the rest of the league. In this sense, just looking at TS% is pretty flawed, especially in the playoffs. So to adjust for opponent difficulty, in addition to scaling the defensive rating to 110, we will use rTS and aTS. rTS is relative true shooting to the league average that year (regular season) and aTS is adjusted true shooting adjusting to the playoff opponent. So putting up 29 pts/75 on 60% true shooting against the team allowing 50% will be listed as 29 on +10. Note that with playoff series pre 1970 – I used some estimates because we don’t have perfect data for those seasons – the stats guys were out to lunch, especially those before 1960 where they didn’t even log field goal attempts, just field goals made. 

In general when we think of the best or greatest scorers, I’m not looking too much at a lifetime achievement award. I will most heavily be indexing on a 3 year peak, regular season and playoffs. We want a playoff sample that gives us some good conviction so a rough 1000 minute cutoff seems right with allowable wiggle room. 1000 minutes nearly guarantees the player got to round 3, I don’t care too much about repeatedly beating up on round 1 teams. 

I will also mildly consider things like scoring titles – it is in your league and your era and an indication that you were really going for it in your prime. I will also look at if you were able to string along multiple 3 year peaks or multiple years in the top 3, 5, 10 in scoring. Its not that being top 9 seven times is better than being top 3 four times. It’s more that across your career, as the league adapted and grew and every team got tape on you, you were still hard to guard and able to get your shots. 

The Honorable Mentions: 

There were a number of players who had the numbers to be considered on this list but I decided to leave them off. They fall into a number of categories: 

Category 1: I need to see more

Luka Doncic

2020-2022 Regular Season: 30 on +1.33 Playoffs: 33.7 on +2.9 940 minutes

Joel Embiid

2020-2022 Regular Season: 31.6 on +4.4 Playoffs: 28.4 on +5.3 888 minutes

Both of these players don’t have a 1000 minute playoff sample. I’m almost certain by the end of their careers they will have earned a spot but I need to see more. Embiid in particular has one insane series vs a 34 win Wizards team where he absolutely annihilates them on +17 aTS, but the rest of his playoff career is about 26.9 on +2, which isn’t good enough in itself AND he has never made a deep playoff run so tbd for him. Luka is almost to the 1000 minute mark but we’ll have to see if he can maintain good efficiency over his regular season +1 or so. 

Category 2: The efficient point guards 

Oscar Robertson, Magic Johnson, Chris Paul, Chauncey Billups, Steve Nash

These guys hovered between 21 and 26 points in the playoffs on really good +6-10 efficiency. I think the best case for the list is Paul, despite his minutes from 2015-17 isn’t quite what I’m looking for. These guys had high quality scoring but I don’t think putting them on a great scorers list when they were truly looking to pass and create. Their volume outside of Paul just isn’t high enough for this list either.

Category 3: The Hyper efficient Power Forwards. 

Kevin McHale, Anthony Davis, Shawn Kemp, Amar’e Staudemire

This is where it gets really tough. I think I’d rather have McHale’s 23 on +12 than Carmelo’s 29 on +2 if I’m building a championship team, but this list isn’t about the best offensive players, or how to build the greatest team of all time, it’s about buckets. And while great scorers, it doesn’t seem apparent that McHale or Kemp could really ramp up their volume to the 26, 27, 28 point range. Amar’e Staudemire and Anthony Davis on numbers alone would be top 15 or so, but I think there is something to be said about what they can self generate. I don’t think scorers or scoring should have to be 100% self generated or 100% iso-ball. Being a lob threat or coming off screens are very efficient, high quality looks that contribute to a well rounded scoring game, but for Amar’e, his ability to score basically went down the tubes without Nash creating for him. Davis is even harder to leave off but the consistency of his jumper and ability to create for himself along with his stark drop off right after his peak make me hesitant to put him on here, along with his lack of regular season dominance. 5 top 10 finishes is certainly good but I ended up leaving him in this archetype which I left off of the list. No problem with any list that includes any of these guys but it was a stylistic choice I made. 

The List: 

25. Charles Barkley

3 Year Peak: 

1986-1989 Regular Season: 22 on +10.5 Playoffs: 22.4 on +10.9 842 minutes

1990-1993 Regular Season: 26 on +9.5 Playoffs: 24.7 on +3.6 1771 minutes

1994-1996 Regular Season: 24.5 on +3.6 Playoffs: 28 on +6.9 979 minutes

RS Highlights: 4x TS% title

PS Highlights: 1x TS% title

Barkley is the first on this list. He started out as a lower volume hyper efficient guy like McHale. However, unlike McHale he was able to gradually increase his volume over the course of his career. I don’t think he was dynamite off the dribble which is why his efficiency did come down a bit from the late 80s but he maintained good enough numbers to be on this list. His larger playoff samples are less impressive implying he struggles against better and better teams more equipped to deal with his physicality – but this is the norm for everyone but the very best. 

24. Allen Iverson

3 Year Peak: 

Regular Season: 29.7 on -1.7 Playoffs: 31.4 on -2.1 2001-2003 1782 minutes

RS Highlights: 4x scoring title, 8x top 3, 11x top 10, 2nd most points in 2000s

PS Highlights: 2x scoring title

23. Carmelo Anthony

3 Year Peak: 

27.3 on +.3 Playoffs: 28.8 on +2.2 2009-2011 1022 minutes

RS Highlights: 1 scoring title, 6x top 5 10x top 10, 9th all time scoring

Iverson and Carmelo have a unique place among the all time scorers – they routinely finished at the top of the year end ppg leaderboards and accumulated a lot of points throughout their careers. However, the inefficiency of their scoring makes them a bit polarizing. I included them over another high-volume low-efficiency guy in Dominique for a few reasons. Iverson seemed to be able to scale down a little bit when he went to Denver. With a small increase in his efficiency and a dip in volume. Carmelo had the best efficiency of the 3, although still a bit underwhelming at +2.2. He only had 2 series in his career at over +3 but the breadth of his scoring game, 3P and FT shooting put him over Wilkins for me. 

22. Adrian Dantley

3 Year Peak: 

1984-1987 Regular Season: 25.8 on +8.3 Playoffs: 25.7 on +6.8 1352 minutes

RS Highlights: 2 scoring titles, 5x top 5, 3rd most points in the 80s

Dantley is one of the least talked about great scorers – he had the 3rd most points in the 80s and is the first guy onthe list to put together over 25pts/75 volume with well over +5 efficiency. Kind of the goldilocks between the Barkley/McHale types and the higher volume players with too many bricks (Iverson, Melo, Dominique). His playoff sample is also larger than Barkley’s with a higher peak than he had from 1990-1993. 

21. Karl Malone

3 Year Peak: 

1990-1992 Regular Season: 29.1 on +7.3 Playoffs: 27.5 on +5.1 1274 minutes

1998-2000 Regular Season: 29.7 on +6.6 Playoffs: 28.8 on +2.9 1634 minutes

RS Highlights: 14x top 10 scoring, 5x 2nd place, 13x top 5, 3rd all time scoring, most points in the 90s

PS Highlights: 8th all time scoring

Malone surprisingly 2nd in scoring 4 consecutive years and had a really nice peak in 1992. However, he generally dropped off quite a bit in the playoffs. 17 of his 24 playoff series in the 90s were between -3 and +3 in efficiency. This is a bit hard to balance with him being 8th all time in PS scoring and 3rd in RS scoring but the players above him on this list generally got better in the playoffs and had a wider array of scoring options which is why their game held up better against good opponents. When Malone faced tough defenses he didn’t have a lot of counters and although he became a money mid range shooter in the late 90s, the diversity of his scoring options limited him offensively. 

20. Wilt Chamberlain

3 Year Peak: 

1960-1962 Regular Season: 24.1 on +4.6 Playoffs: 24.1 on +6.06 1135 minutes

1964-1966 Regular Season: 22.7 on + 4.9 Playoffs: 24.4 on +7.7 2436 minutes

RS Highlights: 7 consecutive scoring titles, 9x top 5, most points in the 60s

PS Highlights: 1x scoring title

Wilt was hard to place on this list. On one hand he has the 50ppg season, 31000 points, retired as the all time scoring leader and won seven consecutive scoring titles. On the other hand, his volume is not as impressive when you adjust for pace and minutes and he really doesnt wow you with his volume. He also had to push his volume waaaay down in order to win with the lakers. His efficiency didn’t go through the roof when his volume went down either. His peak adjusted numbers don’t warrant him quite this high on the list but the level of scoring he brought on a per game basis does have some value. There is something to be said for playing all 48 and even if your rate of scoring isn’t there, I think there’s still value in that so I slotted him here.  

19. Ray Allen

3 Year Peak: 

2000-2005: 23.7 on +5.5 Playoffs: 27.1 on +9.7 1390 minutes

RS Highlights: 5x top 10 scoring

PS Highlights: 2x TS% title

Allen is the first player on the list to really pop in PS efficiency. His volume 3 point shooting and all time FT shooting put him well above the league in the early 00s. He was also able to maintain his efficiency as a top guy on offense and when he was asked to scale down in volume, posting +18, +20 and +21 efficiency series in 2008, 2010 and 2011 respectively and leading the league in PS TS% in 99 and 2011. Even in his 3 years of playoff play for his peak I don’t have full confidence he could ramp up the volume consistently without some high variance hot shooting which is why I don’t have him higher than some others on the list with higher volume and lower efficiency. 

18. Giannis Antetokounmpo

3 Year Peak: 

2018-2020 Regular Season: 30.1 on +5.9 Playoffs: 28.7 on +4.3 1071 minutes

RS Highlights: 7x top 5 scoring

PS Highlights: 1x scoring title

17. Hakeem Olajuwon

3 Year Peak: 

1986-1988 Regular Season: 23.1 on +1.7 Playoffs: 28 on +7 1317 minutes

1993-1995 Regular Season: 26.4 on +3.3 Playoffs: 29.1 on +3.3 2436 minutes

RS Highlights: 2x runner up scoring title, 4x top 4, 9x top 10, 13th all time scoring

PS Highlights: 3x scoring title, 15th all time scoring

Giannis is more consistently dominant in the regular season and in the 2010s/20s he has the ball more and can go straight to the paint, where he’s nearly unstoppable. Hakeem had to wait for an entry pass to the post before he went to work so his volume was lower in the regular season, he also wasn’t as physically imposing as Giannis and couldn’t power through and get as many easy baskets. That also just wasn’t the style at the time being that all teams ran a 2 big lineup whereas today Giannis is much more likely to be the biggest and heaviest guy on the court. However in the playoffs Hakeem’s vastly greater skill at scoring the basketball – footwork, post moves, fadeaways, up and unders, mid-range and FT shooting boost his efficiency above Giannis which is why I have him higher. There’s also something to be said about Hakeem improving in the 2nd season and Giannis taking a dip in his numbers. 

16. Nikola Jokic

3 Year Peak: 

2021-2023 Regular Season: 27.5 on +9.6 Playoffs: 29.5 on +4.3 1306 minutes

15. James Harden

3 Year Peak: 

2015-2017 Regular Season: 29 on +6.3 Playoffs: 28.4 on +6.1 1236 minutes

2018-2020 Regular Season: 33.7 on +6.1 Playoffs: 30.4 on +3.1 1493 minutes

RS Highlights: 3x scoring titles, 6x top 2, 8x top 5

14. Elgin Baylor

3 Year Peak: 

1961-1963 Regular Season: 28.2 on +2.2 Playoffs: 28.9 on +5.1 1468 minutes

RS Highlights: 2x runner up scoring title, 8x top 4, 9x top 10

PS Highlights: 4x scoring title

13. Dwyane Wade

3 Year Peak: 

Regular Season: 28.1 on +3.9 Playoffs: 28.5 on +5.4 2005-2007 1712 minutes

Regular Season: 30 on +3 Playoffs: 29.7 on +5.2 2009-2011 1323 minutes

RS Highlights: 1x scoring title, 4x top 5, 6x top 10

PS Highlights: 1x TS% title. one of 5 players in history to lead league in ppg and TS% in the playoffs in same year ( 49 mikan, 58, 59 cliff hagan 64 west 70 kareem, 10 wade) Two unique 3 year peaks over 25 on +5, 12th all time scoring

12. Kawhi Leonard

3 Year Peak: 

2016-2019 Regular Season: 27.7 on +6 Playoffs: 29.6 on +8.5 1707 minutes 

RS Highlights: 3x top 10 in scoring

PS Highlights:

This range of 12-16 is pretty tough because there are a lot of contrasting variables and styles. 

Harden is famous for falling apart in the playoffs and he did. In 2017 and 2018 where he had his best regular season years and probably should have won back to back MVPs, he was basically on +1-2 efficiency in the playoffs, so similar to Carmelo Anthony’s numbers. He did really score well in 2020 where he got blown out by the Lakers in round two. I don’t want to downplay his numbers as some of the best playoff series ever have been losses in blowouts (Shaq 04, LeBron 18, Kareem 77 etc) but I think having a game that is very depending on foul drawing and hoping the officials will call the contact accentuation is why he takes a big hit. 

Elgin Baylor was not nearly as efficient as West, but despite finishing below Wilt every year for the scoring title, his scoring carried over to the playoffs better and from my estimates it seems like he improved in the playoffs so I’m putting him ahead of Harden. 

Wade was able to push really high volumes with some underwhelming efficiency. His 3P and FT shooting are probably the reason for this. The reason I put him above harden was the team situation. Harden played with 4 or 5 out lineups in an era where the offensive player had a lot more leeway. If Wade, one of the fastest guys the league has ever seen had more of an offensive lineup around him instead of Michael Beasley and Joel Anthony I have some confidence his efficiency and/or his volume would have gone up with more space and ability to get to the hoop. He also had some of his best series against elite defenses. The 2006 Pistons and the Celtics in 2010, 11 and 12 showed real resilience against top teams. 

Kawhi and Jokic have better numbers than the rest but my conviction with them is a bit lower- Jokic has elite efficiency in the regular season, his postseason numbers are comparable to Wade or Kobe, he just hasn’t done it quite as consistently as those guys. I’m curious what the next few years of playoff scoring show for him. If he can put together multiple peaks like this he can probably jump into the top 10 but with only the one 3 year peak and no scoring title or even being top 5 in scoring give me pause on putting him higher on the list. 

Kawhi has beaten up on a few bad teams in the first round which pumps his numbers up a bit, but he can probably get the higher quality shots whenever he wants more than anyone on this list and he’s such a drastically better shooter than Wade so I put him first in this group. 

11. Reggie Miller

3 Year Peak: 

Regular Season: 23.5 on +8.9 Playoffs: 30.4 on +10.6 1993-1995 1392 minutes

Regular Season: 23.8 on +8.4 Playoffs: 27.2 on +8.3 1995-1999 1750 minutes

Regular Season: 19.8 on +7.8 Playoffs: 27.2 on +9.6 2000-2002 1267 minutes

RS Highlights: 2x TS% title

PS Highlights: 2x TS% title

Reggie Miller. Probably the most underrated player ever and certainly the most underrated scorer. This guy was way ahead of his era bombing threes like there was no tomorrow and shooting nearly 90% from the line for his career. His volume in PPG is less than impressive and even adjusting for pace and minutes does not warrant him a spot on this list. But his huge efficiency stands out, he has similar numbers to Barkley here. But in the playoffs he consistently ramped up his scoring and even increased his efficiency to put up some of the best numbers in league history and he did it for a decade. Just based on the numbers, his 30.4 on +10.6 would be the best or 2nd best 3 year peak ever, depending on how you view Jordan’s peak in the early 90s. Essentially putting up 27 on + 9 the rest of his playoff career – he had such a modern game, which is why it was so ahead of his time. He was playing 2010s Harden ball in an era which was ensconced in MJ mid rangers and Iverson isos. The difference I think with Miller and why his numbers are so much better than Harden’s and why he’s such a massive playoff riser and Harden’s numbers fell is two-fold. First, he generated so much of his scoring volume from running off screens. This is valuable because you can’t really stop someone from running around a screen, and because the defense can’t get set for that. With Harden dribbling up the middle of the court, the whole team on defense can be as ready as possible for whatever move he will make and the defender has plenty of time to size him up. With Miller, everything was fast, even when he got to the line, he forced the issue whereas with Harden it seems like he was hoping for a foul, Miller was more deliberate and created the contact while also accentuating it. The 90s Knicks had some of the best defenses in league history and it just didn’t make any difference in Miller’s offensive game, he was repeatedly a walking flamethrower against them including at 31.7 on +18! That he dropped on them in 93. I could honestly have Reggie much higher on the list, but as I said in the beginning, I generally think of a scorer as someone who is going for it, relentlessly trying to score and while his RS efficiency is phenomenal, his scoring rate during the regular season doesn’t stand up to the rarefied air ahead of him. 

10. George Gervin

3 Year Peak: 

28.9 on +6.5 Playoffs: 28.6 on +8 1978-1980 862 minutes 

RS Highlights: 4x scoring titles, 7x top 10

PS Highlights: 5x scoring titles

Gervin didn’t have the longest most consistent career and his playoff sample is not very minutes due to San Antonio not being that great of a team – in part because Gervin was an atrocious defender. But a few things allow me to put him this high. Most players had their scoring and/or offensive game drop off when they transitioned from the ABA to the NBA, Gervin got better leading the league in scoring 4 out of his first 6 years in the regular season and 5 straight years in the playoffs after the merger. His numbers also basically stayed the same or got better in the playoffs. As he moved into the early 80s his volume moved even higher into the 29-32 range but his efficiency dropped off a bit. I struggled with him vs Miller for the back of the top 10, his regular season dominance edged him in front. 

9. Kobe Bryant

3 Year Peak: 

2006-2008 Regular Season: 31.4  on +3.3 Playoffs: 29.5 on + 4.9 1392 minutes

2001-2003 Regular Season: 28.8 on +3 Playoffs: 28.6 on +2.1 2058 minutes

RS Highlights: 2x Scoring titles, 4x 2nd place, 12x top 5, 13x top 10, 4th all time in scoring

PS Highlights: 3x scoring title, 4th all time scoring

8. Stephen Curry

3 Year Peak: 

2015-2017 Regular Season: 29.5 on +10.1 Playoffs: 29.5 on +8.9 2041 minutes

2018-2022 Regular Season: 28.5 on +8 Playoffs: 27.9 on +5.3 2164 minutes

RS Highlights: 2x scoring titles, 8x top 10. 2x TS% title

PS Highlights: 

No HOU/SAS 28.2 on +7

7. Jerry West

3 Year Peak: 

Regular Season: 26.7 on +8.5 Playoffs: 30.5 on +7.9 1964-1966 1305 minutes

Regular Season: 24.9 on +7.3 Playoffs: 25.8 on +6.1 1968-1970 2044 minutes

RS Highlights: 1x scoring title, 6x top 4, 7x top 10, 2x TS% title 

PS Highlights: 4x scoring title, 1x TS% title, 9th all time scoring

Now we get to the real heavy hitters. While you can sort this final 9 in a number of permutations, I feel pretty good about these being the top 9. Kobe, West and Curry are pretty interchangeable depending on what you value. Kobe was a volume monster, placing top 2 in scoring 6x and 12x in the top 5. Also has much better career totals being 4th in regular season and playoff scoring. He did however, maintain or arguably improve in the postseason which Curry did not. Curry has absolute bonkers regular season numbers averaging +10 over a 3 year span. One could argue this is the best 3 year regular season run in NBA history. Just looking at the numbers it seems his playoff peak is right up there as well but there are a few caveats. His two best series from 2015-2017 were Houston in the 2015 WCF and the Spurs in 2017. These matchups had some very notable injuries to his opponent. Houston was the 8th best defense in the league but lost Patrick Beverley and played a 37 year old Jason Terry. This in addition to Dwight Howard playing on a torn MCL and meniscus seem to inflate his numbers. In a sense, when adjusting for how Curry played vs Houston’s numbers in the regular season isn’t accurate to the Houston he played in the playoffs. The same is true for the 17 Spurs with no Kawhi. The whole team fell apart without their best player and best defender in Leonard and while Curry and KD played incredibly well, if we remove those 2 series from the sample, Curry’s numbers drop down to 28 on +7, not 29.5 on +9. This is closer to his other peak of 28 on +5 in his later years. Curry also failed to have an all time scoring series in the finals against the cavs, who were never a great defensive team. This might be due to fatigue, health or just the long slog of the playoffs and I could be over indexing on these things but this is why I mentally curved some of his numbers down a bit when comparing him to Kobe and West. West was more routinely top 5 in RS scoring and improved his  numbers in teh playoffs, even when going against the Bill Russell Celtics and the greatest defenses in league history. His opponent just didn’t seem to phase him or have any effect. This was all without a 3 point line where I think he could have added even more value. His high volume coupled with his well ahead of his time efficiency puts him first among this group. 

6. Shaquille O’Neal

3 Year Peak: 

1994-1996 Regular Season: 29.7 on +5 Playoffs: 27.7 on +4.3 1390 minutes

1997-1999 Regular Season: 30.5 on +5.2 Playoffs: 32.8 on +5.4 1142 minutes

2000-2002 Regular Season: 30.6 on +6 Playoffs: 30.7 on +5.7 2452 minutes

RS Highlights: 2 scoring titles, 8x top 3, 11x top 5, 12x top 10. 8th all time scoring

PS Highlights: 5th all time PS scoring. Led league in PS scoring in 2000

5. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

3 Year Peak: 

1970-1972 Regular Season: 26.4 on +8.2 Playoffs: 25.3 on +5.3 1522 minutes

1977-1979 Regular Season: 25.1 on +8.4 Playoffs: 27 on +11.9 968 minutes

RS Highlights: 2x scoring titles, 10x top 4, 13x top 10, Most points in the 70s, 5th most in the 80s

PS Highlights: 5x scoring titles, 2x TS% titles, 3rd all time scoring

4. Dirk Nowitzki

3 Year Peak: 

2009-2011 Regular Season: 27.1 on +4.2 Playoffs: 29.8 on +9.7 1453 minutes

2006-2008 Regular Season: 28.2 on +5.4 Playoffs: 26.9 on +5.5 1433 minutes

2001-2003 Regular Season: 25.1 on +7.5 Playoffs: 26.1 on +7.8 1478 minutes

RS Highlights: 9x top 10 scoring, 6th all time scoring

PS Highlights: 17th all time scoring

DJ Diesel and Kareem are the next two for me and you could go either way. Shaq has a higher volume, Kareem had the unstoppable skyhook and was lightyears ahead of his time in efficiency. I talked earlier about some other bigs who were left off of this list due to inability to self generate their scoring options. You still had to get the ball to shaq, he wasn’t handling it at the top of the key. But he was so good at getting into deep position and demanding the ball that I don’t think I can hold that against him. His FT shooting was bad and one wonders if he would have been the best scorer, or even the best player ever if he was even 70% from the line. However, this didn’t hurt him as much as people would think. He was still more efficient than Kobe and had the 2nd highest volume of anyone. He just could not be guarded effectively. 

Kareem on the other hand could self generate because he just had to have the ball within 15 feet of the basket and throw up the ultimate broken cheat code move and drop it in the basket. If this guy was a video game the other team was constantly breaking their controller. He just pressed “x” and scored 2 points. He was also able to scale really well. His volume came down after Magic joined the Lakers but he still had some monster scoring playoff series in the 80s, well after his prime, crescendoing in the 85 finals where he put up a 20 on +20 against the Celtics. Kareem was also the all time scoring leader for nearly 40 years. Shaq and Kareem both had 10 top 4 scoring finishes in the regular season and Kareem ended up with 13 top 10 finishes to Shaq’s 12. You could go either way here but I went with Kareem. 

Dirk is another Goldilocks pick here. He has more volume than Kareem and superior efficiency to the Big Aristotle. He was not really in the race for a scoring title, mostly because he didn’t play as many minutes as a lot of other great scorers like Kobe and LeBron, but he also ramped it up in the playoffs for virtually his whole career. 26 on +8 as a 7 foot gangly German with no true position in 01-03 shows his incredible talent. Even with his struggles in the 06 finals and the 07 collapse against the Warriors he managed to put up a peak from 2006-2008 that would still make this list. However after fine tuning his offensive game and being scorching hot from 3 and the FT line he puts up one of the all time peaks from 09-11 en route to a title. 

3. Kevin Durant

3 Year Peak: 

2012-2014 Regular Season: 30.4 on +9.6 Playoffs: 28.9 on +7 2137 minutes

2017-2019 Regular Season: 27.5 on +8.5 Playoffs: 29.8 on +10.3 1578 minutes

RS Highlights: 4x scoring titles, 6x top 3, 10x top 10. 2nd most points in 2010s 

PS Highlights: 5x scoring titles, 7th all time scoring

Durantula has the most balanced scoring game in league history. He is incredibly efficient from all spots on the floor. He hits 3s at a very high volume and is an all time great FT shooter. He’s said in multiple interviews that this is his approach to the game, scoring from every spot on the floor. He’d probably win the all time HORSE match over Gervin and Kobe. The Slim Reaper’s ultra high release point and immaculate shooting skill make him basically unguardable, which is reflected in his numbers. At age 22 in the NBA finals he put up a calm cool and collected 32 on +13. His minor shortcomings are actually what he resents, his strength. He famously couldnt do 185 on the bench for the combine and people said he couldn’t play in the league because of that. Talk about a massive L take. However, that might be the thing that kept him from being number 1 on this list. He wasn’t able to handle physicality as well in the playoffs. Teams who were physical with him were able to give him some limitations and similar to Kevin Garnett, his thin frame made it a bit harder to finish through contact. He struggled against the Grizzlies in 2013 and 14 and while his 2018 finals were great, he wasn’t absolutely on fire the first few rounds of that post season. These are tiny nitpicks but when you get this high up on the list, hairsplitting is the only way to differentiate. I think there is a case for him being number 1 due to the breadth of his scoring portfolio.  

2. LeBron James

3 Year Peak: 

2008-2010 Regular Season: 30.8 on +4.5 Playoffs: 32.5 on +6.1 1592 minutes

2012-2014 Regular Season: 29.5 on +9.6 Playoffs: 30.5 on +9.3 2706 minutes

2016-2018 Regular Season: 27.5 on +5.9 Playoffs: 30.7 on +7.8 2488 minutes or if you prefer

2017-2020 Regular Season: 26.8 on +4.8 Playoffs: 30.8 on +8.7 2427 minutes

RS Highlights: All time scoring leader, 1x scoring title, 10x top 3, 13x top 5, 14x top 10. Most points in 2010s 

PS Highlights: All time scoring leader(34% over 2nd place), 3x scoring title

Had monster scoring numbers throughout all types of league environments, coaches, teammates and ages. 

Young LeBron in 09 put up 38 on +8 against Dwight in Orlando, then a 34 on +9 against Boston in 2012, 30 on +13 against a fantastic Indiana defense in 2014, 30 on +13 against Toronto in the conference finals in 2016, 33 on +8 against Boston again in 2018 and 29 on +11 against the Heat in the 2020 finals. Early in his career where he was hyper athletic but didn’t have the touch or the shot yet, he’s still efficient. As he moves into his prime he has arguably the best single scoring year ever in the playoffs (2014) and the best 3 year peak (2012-2014) in Miami. He then routinely crushed teams year after year en route to the finals until he was 35. The coaches changed, the teammates changed, the league evolved and he always stayed 2 steps ahead of everyone. Even without ever being lethal from long range he managed to have better playoff efficiency than the 3 point god Stephen Curry. I think this resilience to team, coaching and league environments and situations while putting up all time numbers give him an argument for the number 1 spot and I can’t see him any lower than 3rd. 

This is all without mentioning his absolutely untouchable career numbers in the regular season and the playoffs. He’s the only guy with 6k points in the post season, and 7k, and the only guy with 8k points. MJ is in second place and even if you doubled his points scored in the playoffs from 1991-1993 he would still be behind LeBron. I don’t think he gets enough credit for efficiency because his regular season numbers dropped down a bit and he was never a consistent 3 point shooter and his free throws leave some to be desired, but his ability to get to the rim and get himself easy baskets even against the best teams in the deepest playoff runs make his efficiency top tier. 

1. Michael Jordan

3 Year Peak: 

1989-1991 Regular Season: 32 on +7.2 Playoffs: 34.3 on +7.5 2081 minutes

1992-1995 Regular Season: 30.1 on +0.9 Playoffs: 35.5 on +4.3  2123 minutes

1996-1998 Regular Season: 32.2 on +2.7 Playoffs: 34.4 on +2.9 2409 minutes

RS Highlights: 5th all time scoring, 10x scoring titles, 11x top 3 

PS Highlights: 2nd all time in scoring, 10x scoring title. of his 37 Playoff series, only 4 had a pts/75 less than 30, and he had 4 with a pts/75 over 40

I don’t think I’m surprising anyone here but MJ was a walking, running, jumping flamethrower nearly every year in Bulls uniform. His rim pressure was relentless and his first step, hops, post game and automatic jumper gave him the ability to generate an almost unlimited amount of high quality looks which resulted in the most consistently bonkers scoring averages you can find. The rest of this list is mostly in the 26-30 pts/75 range with varying efficiency with a few outliers on volume (Shaq and LeBron get into that 32-33 range) but with MJ he was pushing past 33, 34, 35 against any team in any round. His efficiency did drop off a bit in the second 3 peat run due to a loss of bounce, but he still had decent efficiency and kept the volume high. High post work and high release point of his jump shot made defending him an impossible task which is reflected in his 7 consecutive scoring titles and 3 more just for fun when he returned. There are some who argue KD as the greatest scorer because of his 3 ball which is an argument I understand but MJ was more resilient to defenses and pushed the volume metric much higher than Durant. LeBron also has an outside case as discussed earlier but I’m quite comfortable having Michael Jordan as my greatest scorer ever. 

There’s one final name I wanted to discuss. A lot of people talk about players whose career was cut short by injury and what could have been. Grant Hill was awesome, but he wasn’t going to be the greatest of all time. Bill Walton to me, had a top 8-12 all time peak, but I don’t think many think he could have been number 1 all time. Penny Hardaway, Brandon Roy, Derrick Rose etc. These were all really good players who would maybe have made the NBA 75 anniversary team. But in terms of scoring, Bernard King could have been the best scorer ever, at least by the numbers. 

1983-1984 Regular Season: 31.2 on +5.5 Playoffs: 33.5 on +9.5 661 minutes

He went on to lead the league in scoring in 1985 before hurting his knee which basically ended his career. He still played but was never the same. Now if I took everyone’s best 661 minute sample maybe I wouldn’t be as enamored with him, but these are better numbers than Jordans peak, or anyone’s peak. It’s over four playoff series including the title winning 84 Celtics. It’s unlikely he would have been as relentless and consistent as Jordan and it’s unlikely he would have been able to stay ahead of the league for a decade, all of this is unlikely. But I think King deserves a special mention over the honorable mentions as someone who could have actually been the best ever, or even top 5 if he would have stayed healthy, but we’ll never know. 

-MM