I just got done watching the surprisingly entertaining game in Denver between the Nuggets and Knicks, a game in which Carmelo Anthony scored 50 points and the Nuggets won 128-125.
When the announcers (I watched the MSG feed, and it’s always disappointing when Mike Breen isn’t there) were recapping the game, they casually mentioned that it was a new career-high of points in a game for Melo.
If my powers of deduction are correct, that means that this is the first time in his career that Melo has scored 50 points in a game.
That can’t be right, right? I mean, this is a guy that has a reputation around the league for being one of the best pure scorers in the game today. Surely he’s dropped for 50 before.
I needed to consult www.basketball-reference.com to be sure.
I’ll be damned.
Melo’s previous high coming into tonight was 49 against the Wizards on February 2nd, 2008.
So that got me thinking: now that ‘Melo has entered the “50 Club”, who is the best scorer in the game today to never have a 50 point game.
I posed the question to some fellow NBA Junkies and got some decent “off-the-top-of-my-head” responses. Names like Kevin Durant, Amare Stoudamire, Brandon Roy, Chris Bosh, Danny Granger, Joe Johnson, and Baron Davis were all thrown out there.
I went back to www.basketball-reference.com and did some research to find out just who is the best scorer in the game today without a 50-point game.
I approached the question a few different ways. First, I looked up who is highest on the active list for total points scored without a 50 point game.
The answer: At 17,168 points scored in his career, good for the 10th highest among active players, Michael Finely is the highest player to appear on the list without a 50-point game in his career. In fact, Finley has only scored 40 points in a game once, scoring a career-high 42 points on November 27th, 2002 for the Mavericks against the Pistons.
A good piece of trivia I suppose, but it doesn’t really answer the questions of the “best scorer in the game today” without a 50-point game. No offense to Finley, but I hardly consider him to be an elite NBA scorer these days. As a matter of fact, I had an, “Oh yeah, he still plays for the Spurs” moment when I saw his name on the active scoring list.
Next, I ranked the active leaders for points per game to see who has the highest per game scoring average without a 50-point game.
The answer: Kevin Garnett, at 20.8 points per game in his career, has never posted a 50-point game. KG’s career high came back in 2005 with the Timberwolves when he dropped 47 on the Suns.
Garnett has the 14th highest per game scoring average of any active player but, again, he doesn’t fall into the “best scorer in the game today” category.
Time to narrow the search. I took the highest per game scoring average over the past two seasons plus the beginning of this one and ranked the players that way.
And the player with the highest points per game average over the past 2+ seasons to never have a 50-point game in his career?
Kevin Durant.
The ninth highest scorer per game over the past 2+ seasons at 23.1, Kevin Durant has never had a 50-point outburst. Durant has a 46- and a 47-point game to his credit, but has yet to hit for 50.
Chris Bosh (10th), Danny Granger (11th), Chris Paul (13th), Joe Johnson (16th), Al Jefferson (17th), and Richard Jefferson (20th) are the other players who rank in the top 20 in points per game over the past 2+ seasons that have never had a 50-point game.
For the record, coming into tonight’s action, Carmelo Anthony ranked fourth on the per game scoring list over the past 2+ seasons, trailing only LeBron, Wade, and Kobe, in that order.
