The NBA has seen an explosion of massive scoring performances over the past week, but it’s part of a trend that has continued throughout the season. What explains that?
On the same night that Donovan Mitchell was out with 71 points, Klay Thompson scored 54. And just one day later, Giannis Antetokounmpo scored 55 points, 10 rebounds and 7 assists against the Washington Wizards. And we’ve already seen 60 triple-pointers from Luka Doncic and 59 from Joel Embiid.
If it feels like we’re watching a historic scoring performance almost every night this season, it’s because we’re kind of watching it.
Giannis’ 55-point game was the 14th 50-point game of the 2022-23 season, which has yet to reach the halfway mark. Last season, we saw 19 50-point games in a full 82-game season. The 2014-15 and 2015-16 seasons saw 14 50-point games. Mutual.
There are 1,230 games in a full 82-game season. In 2014-15 – with six 50-point games total, we saw one, on average, about every 205 game. That number has fallen steadily over the past decade to a new low of one every 40 games this season.
In short, we’re seeing more than twice as many 50-point games as we were just six years ago.
Why do we see so many 50-point games in the NBA?
It would be easy to attribute the change to a mere increase in talent, but it is hard to believe that this increase would appear steadily over 10 years or that a difference in talent alone could explain such a change.
I think we can, however, point to two specific changes driving this increase — more triple digits and more high-volume creators. It doesn’t quite match up with the increase in games with 50 points but over the past decade we’ve seen a sharp increase in eligible players with a usage rate of over 30 percent.
Concentrating more offensive responsibility in the hands of one player on each team means more opportunities for high-scoring games. And we expect that with 3-pointers making up a larger and larger share of NBA offense, we’ll see this trend lead at least in part to an increase in 50-point games. But at least in the past two seasons, things have gone in the opposite direction.
The percentage of points scored from the free throw line in 50-point games over the past decade has remained fairly constant. And we saw a jump in the percentage of points coming from the three-point line in 2018-19 and 2019-20 when there was a huge jump in the number of 50-point games. But that pattern has changed over the past couple of seasons and this year looks like a complete anomaly.
And here we have a reasonable argument that what we’re seeing this year is at least partially driven by talent, or at least the unique characteristics of existing talent. Of the 144 50-point games over the past decade, only 25 have come with 60 percent of the points scored with two throws. Of those 25, nine have come in the last two years with five from this season – three from Giannis, two from Joel Embiid and one each from Ja Morant, Demar DeRozan, Anthony Davis and Luka Doncic.
We have more scorers than we did a decade ago, but we’re also seeing more who don’t rely on the 3 for the bulk of their score. Giannis is a force of nature, capable of slicing his way into paint two or three steps from anywhere on Earth. Joel Embiid is perhaps the most dominant goalscorer we’ve seen in a generation. Ja Morant is quite the extreme as a 6-foot-3 guard who is regularly among the league leaders in points in the paint. Luka Doncic is comfortable pulling off anywhere, but he’s averaging his career in free throws this season and a low percentage of his shots from outside the arc.
By and large, the NBA offenses have moved toward the three-point line. But the best offensive players are defying the trends in the leagues.
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Embarrassing Celtics defense
The Celtics squandered 150 points against the Oklahoma City Thunder on Tuesday night, who were playing without star scorer Shay Gilgos Alexander. Here’s what you need to know:
- 7 players with double numbers: The Thunder posted the fortune, including five different players who scored 20 or more points. Josh Geddy led the way with 25.
- Thunder got hot: It’s easy to get all of this under the feet of the Celtics’ defense but they fell victim to unsustainable hot shooting from OKC – made Thunder 16 of 22 3 heads wide open.
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