Poll: Best scorer in NBA history

[Who]

Jordan would be my pick for these reasons:

(1) High scoring numbers (2) high efficiency (3) self-creator from anywhere on the floor unlike many post-up bigs who required guards to get them the ball in good spots (4) did it on the biggest stages - clutch situations, playoffs and finals (5) exceptional scoring numbers as both a rookie and as a 40 year old on mediocre teams. Extremely consistent.

Honourable mentions

Kevin Durant - Durant should have been the #1 scorer ever but he never made that final leap. His elite skill level in terms of shot creation, shooting ability and physical talent should have made him the #1 scorer ever. Lacked the mental fortitude of an MJ though.

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar - incredible combination of both productivity and efficiency throughout his career. Incredible consistency. As a post up big, required his guards to get in the ball in good spots so he had more reliance on others than a Michael Jordan did.

Wilt Chamberlain - would have been even more dominant if he played in the modern NBA (1979 onwards). Especially in the 90s onwards. As Wilt says - the refs let Shaq get away with murder on offensive post ups. I wasn't allowed to do those things.  Those were called as a charges in my day (and rightly so). More skillful than Shaq. More athletic than Shaq.

Shaq - a man whose offensive game was defined by creating the most valuable shots in the game - high percentage shots at the basket and FTs. Unstoppable offensive game. Aggressive assertive mentality (unlike Wilt who changed halfway through his career to pass more). Utilized his physical talents well and often. Performed on the biggest stage. Dominated the league like few others as a scorer-first center in the early 00s.

Hakeem Olajuwon - A notch below some of the others. Scoring versatility gets him the honourable mention. He was unstoppable. Any type of individual defender. Any type of team defense. Did not matter. He was the man of a thousand moves. He could score against anybody. But he lacked the high scoring efficiency of the other names mentioned.

LeBron James - incredible efficiency because of his ability to create high percentage shots around the basket. He did so better than any other non-center ever to play. That gave him a consistency throughout his career that many other perimeter scorers struggled to match (their point totals game to game more variable, more up and down). His ball-handling and physical talent allowed him to get his own offense from anywhere.
 

Next level down I'd rate guys like Bird, Dirk, West, Kobe, Oscar and whoever else I forgot to mention.

[Jvalin]

Gotta be Jordan. He did what he did while only taking 1778 three pointers his whole 15 year career.

As a comparison, modern day scorers like Steph Curry twice shot over 800 threes in a season and Harden had a year with over 1000 threes attempted.

MJ doing what he did while averaging only 1.7 threes taken per game for his career is eye popping

How about Wilt doing what he did while taking zero three pointers?

MJ was an elite slasher. He was definitely not an elite 3pt shooter. His career average from three is 32.7%.

[nickagneta]

Gotta be Jordan. He did what he did while only taking 1778 three pointers his whole 15 year career.

As a comparison, modern day scorers like Steph Curry twice shot over 800 threes in a season and Harden had a year with over 1000 threes attempted.

MJ doing what he did while averaging only 1.7 threes taken per game for his career is eye popping

How about Wilt doing what he did while taking zero three-pointers?

MJ was an elite slasher. He was definitely not an elite 3pt shooter. His career average from three is 32.7%.

For Wilt, different era. Different rules. Different strategies. Different game. His stats are eye popping but the level of quality competition was also much lower.

Don't get me wrong, placing Wilt in the modern game and I think he is instantly the best offensive big man of the era. Just not better than MJ, who has a much more well rounded offensive game and can create his own offense.

[Somebody]

I think Reggie Miller deserves to be on this list as well. His scoring jump in the playoffs was unrivalled (only Jordan was his contemporary when it came to RS to playoffs leaps for SGs iirc) - he was averaging 27-28 points per 75 possessions on elite efficiency during his prime in the playoffs, and his playoff improvement held throughout his career.

Here's a great article on Miller:
https://backpicks.com/2018/01/18/backpicks-goat-29-reggie-miller/

Fair enough. If you ask me, I think Reggie was a shooter rather than a scorer. Having said that, I've already included Steph who is also predominantly a shooter. I'll include Reggie in the honorable mentions.

Eh he wasn't just flying off screens for catch and shoot threes, read the article to see his mode of attack (or to be exact the footnotes) - it was much more diverse than what you think.

Nobody is going to consider Miller the best scorer in NBA history so why do we have to mention him?

I mean nobody is going to consider Alex English to be the best scorer in NBA history, yet he was mentioned.

I think a guy with a 7 year stretch of averaging over 27+PPG is more deserving than a guy with no seasons higher than 24.6PPG.

I also think you might be overrating his playoff jump, as he never averaged more than 25.5PPG in a playoff run with more than 4 games.

He also played in one of the slowest paced eras in NBA history. Normalising his scoring rates to 75 possessions gives you almost 28 points in that playoff run on +9.27% TS (English's best playoff scoring run in the playoffs in a large-ish sample size was 26.2 points per 75 possessions on +5.75% TS.). He was a grade A scorer who pumped in season after season of high volume scoring on +6-8% TS when the second season rolled around. He obviously had some sample size issues during his prime (he didn't get deep into the playoffs in the mid-90s every year), but a look at how resilient his scoring was even in deep playoff runs later on during his career (that playoff jump holds for almost every single year of his career) would provide ample evidence that his scoring was incredible.

Note: his career averages do lose out to English's in raw volume a bit even after adjusting for pace, but he absolutely blows English out of the water when you look at TS% relative to league average.

[nickagneta]

One of the great debates is which great outside shooters who were great scorers would have benefitted the most from playing in the modern era of news, dieting and training?

How much higher are the following players career PPG if playing and training today?

Michael Jordan
Larry Bird
Rick Barry
Jerry West
Alex English
George Gervin
Pete Maravich

Just to name some

[Somebody]

One of the great debates is which great outside shooters who were great scorers would have benefitted the most from playing in the modern era of news, dieting and training?

How much higher are the following players career PPG if playing and training today?

Michael Jordan
Larry Bird
Rick Barry
Jerry West
Alex English
George Gervin
Pete Maravich

Just to name some

Dan Issel? He would've been an amazing stretch big in the modern NBA.

[Moranis]

When comparing to actual era and competition, Wilt is still the correct answer followed closely by Harden.  What Harden is doing the last few seasons has really only been matched by Wilt.  Jordan is 3rd.

[RPGenerate]

When comparing to actual era and competition, Wilt is still the correct answer followed closely by Harden.  What Harden is doing the last few seasons has really only been matched by Wilt.  Jordan is 3rd.

Yeah, I'm gonna have to say no to all of that.

[Jvalin]

One of the great debates is which great outside shooters who were great scorers would have benefitted the most from playing in the modern era of news, dieting and training?

How much higher are the following players career PPG if playing and training today?

Michael Jordan
Larry Bird
Rick Barry
Jerry West
Alex English
George Gervin
Pete Maravich

Just to name some

I bet most of the all-time greats would have been averaging astronomical number of points in today's game.

My question would be about Wilt and Shaq. Imagine Wilt/Shaq being defended by PJ Tucker/modern small ball 5s?



The whole game would have changed in a nanosecond. It's possible that the small ball era would have ended right there.

[nickagneta]

One of the great debates is which great outside shooters who were great scorers would have benefitted the most from playing in the modern era of news, dieting and training?

How much higher are the following players career PPG if playing and training today?

Michael Jordan
Larry Bird
Rick Barry
Jerry West
Alex English
George Gervin
Pete Maravich

Just to name some

Dan Issel? He would've been an amazing stretch big in the modern NBA.

Gauging Issel is tough because his best scoring years were in the first half of his career in the ABA. In the NBA he was never a great scorer. Very good, sure. I guess in the modern age he could have been transformed into a great scorer with the three point line.

[CelticsPoetry]

Gotta be Jordan. He did what he did while only taking 1778 three pointers his whole 15 year career.

As a comparison, modern day scorers like Steph Curry twice shot over 800 threes in a season and Harden had a year with over 1000 threes attempted.

MJ doing what he did while averaging only 1.7 threes taken per game for his career is eye popping

Let's say he shot about 6 threes a game, which at his % would make for about two made threes a game. That would add 4824 points to his total (37116). Add to that his years in retirement and his total would be way over 40k. I know this is "what if" history, but that's just crazy.

[nickagneta]

Gotta be Jordan. He did what he did while only taking 1778 three pointers his whole 15 year career.

As a comparison, modern day scorers like Steph Curry twice shot over 800 threes in a season and Harden had a year with over 1000 threes attempted.

MJ doing what he did while averaging only 1.7 threes taken per game for his career is eye popping

Let's say he shot about 6 threes a game, which at his % would make for about two made threes a game. That would add 4824 points to his total (37116). Add to that his years in retirement and his total would be way over 40k. I know this is "what if" history, but that's just crazy.

Ahhhhh....the Ted Williams argument. I like it.

[Who]

Gotta be Jordan. He did what he did while only taking 1778 three pointers his whole 15 year career.

As a comparison, modern day scorers like Steph Curry twice shot over 800 threes in a season and Harden had a year with over 1000 threes attempted.

MJ doing what he did while averaging only 1.7 threes taken per game for his career is eye popping

Let's say he shot about 6 threes a game, which at his % would make for about two made threes a game. That would add 4824 points to his total (37116). Add to that his years in retirement and his total would be way over 40k. I know this is "what if" history, but that's just crazy.

I remember they had an article on Basketball Prospectus (does that site still exist?) about Michael Jordan and what his career statistics would have looked like if he did not retire in 1993-95 and again in 1998-01. His career numbers were incredible.

They did another one for Magic Johnson. What if he did not retire in 1991 and played up until his comeback season in 1996. Another incredible total career pts, rebs and asts.


Jaw dropping figures



Plus they did one for LeBron - this was maybe 12 years ago - and estimated him to get 40,000 pts 10,000 rebs 10,000 asts - which he is on track for.

Really interesting stuff all round.


Update: Yeah, website does not exist anymore. I believe it was Kevin Pelton who is now at ESPN who wrote those "what if" articles.

[Moranis]

Gotta be Jordan. He did what he did while only taking 1778 three pointers his whole 15 year career.

As a comparison, modern day scorers like Steph Curry twice shot over 800 threes in a season and Harden had a year with over 1000 threes attempted.

MJ doing what he did while averaging only 1.7 threes taken per game for his career is eye popping

Let's say he shot about 6 threes a game, which at his % would make for about two made threes a game. That would add 4824 points to his total (37116). Add to that his years in retirement and his total would be way over 40k. I know this is "what if" history, but that's just crazy.

The thing is if you added six 3 point attempts you are likely taking away six 2 point attempts and thus the overall points wouldn't change that much since Jordan was such a good 2 point shooter (50.9%) and a mediocre 3 point shooter (32.7%).  He'd actually score less points given those percentages. 

[Jvalin]

Gotta be Jordan. He did what he did while only taking 1778 three pointers his whole 15 year career.

As a comparison, modern day scorers like Steph Curry twice shot over 800 threes in a season and Harden had a year with over 1000 threes attempted.

MJ doing what he did while averaging only 1.7 threes taken per game for his career is eye popping

Let's say he shot about 6 threes a game, which at his % would make for about two made threes a game. That would add 4824 points to his total (37116). Add to that his years in retirement and his total would be way over 40k. I know this is "what if" history, but that's just crazy.

The thing is if you added six 3 point attempts you are likely taking away six 2 point attempts and thus the overall points wouldn't change that much since Jordan was such a good 2 point shooter (50.9%) and a mediocre 3 point shooter (32.7%).  He'd actually score less points given those percentages.

Not to mention that he'd probably score a bit less points from free throws as well.