(Photo by Streeter Lecka/Getty Images)
Over the past few years, some of the best scorers in the NBA have been putting on a show, with Kobe Bryant’s 81-point game seemingly no longer out of reach for players in the league with a knack for scoring.
When Bryant had the second-best scoring performance in NBA history back in 2006, behind Wilt Chamberlain’s 100-point game, it was a remarkable feat by one of the best scorers the league has ever seen.
Bryant seemed like a player possessed during that season as he was scoring at a rate that we hadn’t seen in the modern NBA, as he outscored the Dallas Mavericks in three quarters by himself with 62 points only a few weeks before dropping a career-high 81 against the Toronto Raptors.
At that time, 81 points was unheard of as Bryant seemed to do something impossible, but now it seems to be within the reach of the best scorers in the league, with Luka Doncic proving that point recently with a career-high 73 points against the Atlanta Hawks.
Not long before Doncic torched the Hawks, Joel Embiid of the Philadelphia 76ers scored 70 points against the San Antonio Spurs.
In a recent appearance on “The Dan Patrick Show,” former NBA player and current analyst Jim Jackson said he believes Embiid will surpass Bryant’s 81 points.
.@JimJackson419 thinks the high scoring that we’re seeing in the NBA is result of the league’s rules. And if anyone is going to surpass Kobe’s 81 point game it’ll be @JoelEmbiid pic.twitter.com/f783rkqaUN
— Dan Patrick Show (@dpshow) January 31, 2024
Along with Doncic and Embiid, there have been a few other players over the past few years to put up a lot of points, with Devin Booker (70), Donovan Mitchell (71), and Damian Lillard (71) putting on a show.
Needless to say, it doesn’t seem like Bryant’s 81 will stand as the second-best scoring performance in league history for long, with defense taking a backseat and players scoring at an incredibly high rate.
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