Fact or Fiction: The NBA will have another 100-point scorer

Each week during the 2025-26 NBA season, we will take a deeper dive into some of the league’s biggest storylines in an attempt to determine whether trends are based more in fact or fiction moving forward.

Last week: Expect Jayson to be Jayson Tatum again this season

Fact or Fiction: The NBA will have another 100-point scorer

We are here to see if anyone could ever score 100 points again, which is a bit of a silly question, because if someone has done it before, chances are it could happen again.

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But Wilt Chamberlain’s 100 points were anomalous in a way that made it feel like it was not possible to match his output in the modern era, even with the 3-point line.

Wilt Chamberlain scored 100 points against New York on March 2, 1962, in Hershey, Pa. (AP Photo/Paul Vathis, File)

(ASSOCIATED PRESS)

After all, only Kobe Bryant had ever scored 80 points in a game — until Tuesday night, when the Miami Heat’s Bam Adebayo erupted for 83 points (on 43 field-goal attempts and 43 free-throw attempts), forever altering what we thought possible in the NBA.

If Adebayo can score 83, then surely someone — more of a scorer — could net 100, or so the thinking goes. Adebeyo ranks 33rd among all NBA players in points per game (20.0), even after his historic night. Heck, if Adebayo had converted 13 of his 22 3-point attempts, just as Damian Lillard did on his 71-point night, he would have gotten to 101.

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So, there we have identified something: One may need to play with both the force of Adebayo — the relentlessness to attack the basket over and over again, drawing fouls in the process — and the finesse of Lillard, who can and will take and make a ton of 3s.

Here is how everyone who has scored 70 points got there — on 2s, 3s and free throws.

Joel Embiid

70 points

23-39 2P

1-2 3P

21-23 FT

Devin Booker

70 points

17-29 2P

4-11 3P

24-26 FT

David Robinson

71 points

25-39 2P

1-2 3P

18-25 FT

Donovan Mitchell

71 points

15-19 2P

7-15 3P

20-25 FT

Damian Lillard

71 points

9-16 2P

13-22 3P

14-14 FT

Elgin Baylor

71 points

28-48 2P

0-0 3P

15-19 FT

David Thompson

73 points

28-38 2P

0-0 3P

17-20 FT

Luka Dončić

73 points

17-20 2P

8-13 3P

15-16 FT

Kobe…

Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/nba/article/fact-or-fiction-the-nba-will-have-another-100-point-scorer-175207609.html

Author : Ben Rohrbach

Publish date : 2026-03-13 17:52:00

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