The NBA is experiencing a scoring surge. On Monday, former Utah Jazz guard Donovan Mitchell scored 71 points, the most since Kobe Bryant’s 81 in 2006, against the Chicago Bulls. The same night, Golden State Warriors star Klay Thompson racked up 54 against the Atlanta Hawks.
As of Jan. 6, there have been 14 times this season when a player has scored 50 or more points in a game, according to Statmuse.
And it’s only the 10th week of the season.
“We’re on pace more in the mid-30s somewhere — you know 34, 35, 36 — 50-plus point games this season, and the last time that happened was the early 1960s when Wilt Chamberlin and Elgin Baylor were just out there working records,” NBC Sport’s Kurt Helin said on the Pro Basketball Talk podcast.
By comparison, a player scoring 50 or more points in a game only happened 19 times last season, according to Statmuse, and the highest total was 60 points by both Kyrie Irving and Karl-Anthony Towns.
In the past two weeks, Luka Dončić recorded the league’s first 60-point, 20-rebound triple-double, Giannis Antetokounmpo scored a career-high 55 points and Mitchell capped it off with his historic performance.
Three players have scored at least 50 points in a game multiple times this season: the Phoenix Suns’ Devin Booker, the Philadelphia 76ers’ Joel Embiid and the Dallas Mavericks’ Dončić. Booker and Embiid have done it twice, and Dončić has accomplished the feat three times.
Additionally, for the first time since the 1994-1995 season, two teammates have each scored at least 50 points in a game in one season.
With his 71 points on Monday, Mitchell and teammate Darius Garland became the first teammates this season to score at least 50 points in a game. A few hours later, Golden State’s Klay Thompson and Stephen Curry accomplished the same feat with Thompson’s 54 points.
What’s the cause of this scoring surge?
The easy answer is the increase in 3-pointers. Helin said current players grew up shooting the 3 and are more comfortable shooting it than players were 10 years ago, forcing teams to pick their poison on defense.
“It is hard to guard Luka (Dončić) when they have shooting on the floor and guys are knocking down shots,” Helin said. “When you put shooting everywhere, then I can’t double Luka the same way, and he’s going to be able to go off.”
CBS Sports’ Brad Botkin said that while the 3-pointer era is a heavy contributor, it’s not the only factor leading to the NBA’s scoring surge.
Botkin says the usage rate — the percentage of a team’s plays used by a player — is a major factor. He pointed out that Embiid, Dončić and Antetokounmpo make up 36% of this season’s 50-point games. Their usage rates this season are respectively the eighth, fifth and third best in league history, respectively, according to Basketball-Reference.
He says the surge also isn’t because of more free throws.
“Before jumping to the low-hanging conclusion that point totals are being inflated by more whistles and more free throws, understand that this season there are, on average, 20.5 fouls being called per game,” he wrote in his article. “Of the 77 seasons we’ve seen since the dawn of the NBA, only eight have produced fewer foul calls per game, including last season at 19.3, which was the lowest total ever.”