The Best NBA Scorers of All-Time

Recently I broke down the best NBA scorers using “Net Points”. This metric simply views how well a player scores but also factors in misses. The formula is:

[Net Points] = [Points] - [Field Goal Attempts] - 0.44 * [Free Throw Attempts]

Oscar Robertson and Wilt Chamberlain destroyed the 60s and Kareem owned the 70s. This wasn’t good enough for Arturo though. The number of possessions an average NBA team has had per game has dwindled over time. The 1970s, when we first had complete data for possessions, the average team got around 125 chances a game to score. This has dropped by almost 20 a game! While I feel this gets into comparing Babe Ruth’s 60 to Roger Marris’ 61 by including season length, it is a valid point.

With that in mind, I redid the leader board adjusting for possessions. I looked at the percentage of a team’s possessions a player likely had access to and normalized it to a 100 possessions scale. Then I multiplied it out by the total possessions to get Pace-Adjusted Net-Points. Complexity abound, I know! For reference, pretend some baseball games went to 9 innings, while others went to 10. I’ve adjusted for this difference and acted like all games are 9 innings. With that, here’s a list of the top pace-adjusted Net Points players. To stick in baseball land, I’ll list all of those above 300!

Player	Season	Pace Adjusted Net Points
Charles Barkley	1988	448.0
Adrian Dantley	1984	425.2
Adrian Dantley	1982	416.3
Adrian Dantley	1981	415.7
Michael Jordan	1988	409.9
Kevin Durant	2013	406.6
Karl Malone	1990	402.5
Michael Jordan	1989	402.4
Michael Jordan	1990	388.1
Charles Barkley	1990	377.5
Charles Barkley	1989	372.7
Kevin McHale	1987	367.5
Reggie Miller	1990	363.8
Kevin Durant	2010	355.2
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar	1980	349.1
Michael Jordan	1991	343.8
Chris Mullin	1991	337.1
Shaquille O’Neal	1994	336.6
LeBron James	2013	323.2
Peja Stojakovic	2004	322.6
Adrian Dantley	1986	321.7
Amar’e Stoudemire	2008	320.7
Reggie Miller	1991	320.4
Karl Malone	1991	319.9
Karl Malone	1993	318.6
Chris Mullin	1990	311.7
Glen Rice	1997	311.2
Patrick Ewing	1990	310.3
Bob McAdoo	1975	307.4
Artis Gilmore	1982	307.4
Artis Gilmore	1979	306.8
David Robinson	1991	306.8
Larry Bird	1988	302.6
Kiki Vandeweghe	1984	301.5

Best of the Best

Only eight players have cracked 400 net points. Barkley, Dantley, Jordan, Durant, and Malone. What should be noted is that Dantley did it three times! What’s more, he’s tied with Jordan being on the list of over 300 net points four times. Dantley was one of the greatest scorers ever. In a league that loves scoring, it took years for him to make it to the hall of fame. I consider that a snub.

One other fun list to note:

• Adrian Dantley – 4
• Michael Jordan – 4
• Charles Barkley – 3
• Karl Malone – 3
• Kevin Durant – 2
• Reggie Miller – 2
• Chris Mullin – 2
• Artis Gilmore – 2

Here’s a list of all players that showed up multiple times. Kevin Durant’s recent scoring performances have been nothing short of amazing. In fact, we haven’t seen scoring close to this level since 1990, over two decades ago.

Asterisks

The NBA didn’t start keeping enough boxscore stats until 1974. As such, we can’t easily calculate possession for older eras, including those with Wilt and Oscar Robertson. There are three pre-1974 records worth noting:

• Kareeem Abdul-Jabbar 1972 – 480.9 Net Points
• Kareem Abdul-Jabbar 1971 – 453.4 Net Points
• Wilt Chamberlain 1967 – 421.0 Net Points

The players likely exceeded 300 pace-adjusted net points. This obviously would put Kareem on the list multiple times as well.

Dantley again

This was a lot of fun to review. It’s hard not to be seriously wowed by Adrian Dantley’s numbers. What’s even more remarkable is that even though he played in the three-point era, he didn’t take threes. Dantley took over 15,000 shots in his career, only 41 of these were threes! This makes Dantley just that much more impressive.

-Dre