Bam Adebayo’s 83 and Scoring Averages in 60+ Point Game Seasons

Introducing Bam Adebayo’s 83 Point Game

On March 10, 2026, Miami Heat center Bam Adebayo scored 83 points in a game against the Washington Wizards, which now stands as the second-highest individual scoring effort in NBA history behind Wilt Chamberlain’s 100 points on March 2, 1962 (see box score and highlights). Mr. Adebayo’s historic night, which saw him go 20-43 from the floor (7-22 from three) and make a record 36 free throws out of an also-record 43 attempts, generated plenty of discussion. Freddie deBoer used the game to raise concerns about stat inflation. Ethan Strauss similarly used the event to raise concerns about the current style of play. Some Kobe Bryant fans were sensitive about Mr. Adebayo coming from nowhere (in terms of who one would have tabbed for an 80-point scoring outburst) to displace Bryant from second on the most-points-in-a-game list. On the other hand, Brian Windhorst and many current and former players celebrated the historic accomplishment.

I will leave it to others to debate the merits of Mr. Adebayo’s 83-point outburst and what it says (or does not say) about the state of the modern NBA, although I will note that regardless of what caveats one applies, there is likely a reason that just three players in NBA history have eclipsed 80 points in a game, and making 20 field goals and 36 free throws against an NBA defense, even one as admittedly putrid as the 2025-26 league-worst Washington Wizards, is no small feat. Thus, I humbly tip my hat to Mr. Adebayo before continuing on to a statistical analysis.

Why Mr. Adebayo’s 83 Was “Unexpected” (as if any 80-point night would be “expected”)

I noted in an article about my recollections of learning about Kobe Bryant’s 81-point game in 2006 that it felt oddly unsurprising in light of Mr. Bryant’s having scored 61 points in just three quarters of action weeks earlier. One reason Mr. Adebayo’s performance generated discussion (aside from the obvious point that he scored 83 points in a single game) is because were one to have guessed before March 10, 2026, which NBA player would be most likely to join Wilt Chamberlain and Kobe Bryant in the 80-point club, Mr. Adebayo’s name would have been unlikely to come up. That is not to say that Mr. Adebayo is not an excellent player. Going into 2025-2026, he had been selected to First or Second Team All Defense six times in seven seasons, and finished in the top-five in Defensive Player of the Year voting in six of those seven seasons. He was also voted to three NBA All Star teams. But in those seven seasons, Mr. Adebayo averaged 18.6 points per game, with his best single-season output being 20.4 points per game in 2022-23. He averaged 19.7 points per 36 minutes in those seasons. His career-best scoring effort had been 41 points in a January 23, 2021 loss against the Brooklyn Nets. Taken together, Mr. Adebayo has been recognized as one of the NBA’s best centers, but he was never among the league’s scoring leaders. That had not changed in 2025-26 going into the March 10 game, when Mr. Adebayo was averaging 18.9 points per game in 57 contests, which was right around his average over the previous seven seasons. Contrast that with Kobe Bryant, who averaged 34.8 points per game in 38 games leading into his 81 point performance, and Wilt Chamberlain, who averaged 50.2 points per game in 75 games leading into is record 100 point performance.

My Idea For a Survey

While I had not closely studied the list of highest-scoring performances in NBA history, I was certain off the top of my head that Mr. Adebayo was the least prolific scorer to eclipse 70 points in a game. But how would be fare if we added more games to the field? I thought about how far to go and decided to evaluate every game in NBA history in which a player scored at least 60 points. 60 seems like a good-enough cut-off number. It is also a much better filter than 50. There are many more “who?” 50-point efforts in NBA history than 60-point efforts. As we will see, the 60-point club is largely a collection of the elite scorers in NBA history, which of course makes defensive specialist Mr. Adebayo’s presence in second-place on the top scoring list all the more notable.

After mulling it over, I decided to examine the following:

First, I will collect every instance in which an NBA player scored 60 points in a game. Then I will look at how each player performed in the season in which he scored 60 points in a game, which analysis will entail the following” First, I will look at the player’s raw points per game. Second, I will look at the player’s points per 36 minutes. As we will see, there are 10 seasons in which a player scored at least 60 points more than once. Because my survey focuses on player seasons, we are not concerned with “extra” 60 point games. For example, Wilt Chamberlain posted 24 60+ point efforts between 1961-62 and 1962-63, but in this analysis we are only concerned with his points per game and points per 36 minutes in those two seasons.

From this, we will glean:

• The highest scoring single-game performances in NBA history.
• The highest and lowest points per game averages for players who scored 60 points in a game in the season of their 60 point performance.
• The highest and lowest points per 36 minutes for players who scored 60 points in a game in the season of their 60 point performance.

My idea is to look at the season in which a player scores 60 points in isolation and see how “unexpected” Mr. Adebayo’s performance really was based on his points per game and points per 36 minutes in 2025-26 vs the single-season averages of the other players who have scored at least 60 points in a game.

Chart

Below, I present a chart showing, from left column to right: Player, > 59-point scoring game, Date of Game, Points Per Game in that season, Points/36 Minutes in that season, and other > 59 point scoring efforts in that season.

Player	PTS	Date	Season PPG	Season P/36
Wilt Chamberlain	100	1962-03-02	50.4	37.4
Bam Adebayo	83	2026-03-10	20.1	22.3
Kobe Bryant	81	2006-01-22	35.4	31.1
Wilt Chamberlain	73	1962-11-16	44.8	33.9
Luka Doncic	73	2024-01-26	33.9	32.5
David Thompson	73	1978-04-09	27.2	25.8
Elgin Baylor	71	1960-11-15	34.8	29.2
Damien Lillard	71	2023-02-26	32.2	31.9
David Robinson	71	1994-04-24	29.8	26.5
Donovan Mitchell	71	2023-01-02	28.3	28.5
Joel Embiid	70	2024-01-22	34.7	37.2
Devin Booker	70	2017-03-24	22.1	22.8
Michael Jordan	69	1990-03-28	33.6	31.0
Pete Maravich	68	1977-02-25	31.1	26.9
Wilt Chamberlain	67	1961-03-09	38.4	28.9
Wilt Chamberlain	67	1967-12-16	24.3	18.7
Wilt Chamberlain	66	1969-02-09	20.5	16.3
Wilt Chamberlain	65	1966-02-07	33.5	25.5
Kobe Bryant	65	2007-03-16	31.6	27.9
Michael Jordan	64	1993-01-16	32.6	29.8
Giannis Antetokounmpo	64	2023-12-13	30.4	31.2
Elgin Baylor	64	1959-11-08	29.6	26.0
Rick Barry	64	1974-03-26	25.1	24.8
Elgin Baylor	63	1961-12-08	38.3	31.0
Wilt Chamberlain	63	1964-11-26	34.7	27.6
Jerry West	63	1962-01-17	30.8	26.9
George Gervin	63	1978-04-09	27.2	28.1
Joe Fulks	63	1949-02-10	26.0	N/C
Stephen Curry	62	2021-01-03	32.0	33.7
Tracy McGrady	62	2004-03-10	28.0	25.3
Carmelo Anthony	62	2014-01-24	27.4	25.5
Devin Booker	62	2024-01-26	27.1	27.1
Karl-Anthony Towns	62	2024-01-22	21.8	24
Michael Jordan	61	1987-03-04	37.1	33.4
James Harden	61	2019-01-23	36.1	35.4
Karl Malone	61	1990-01-27	31	29.3
Damien Lillard	61	2020-01-20	30	28.8
Shaquille O’Neal	61	2000-03-06	29.7	26.7
Nikola Jokic	61	2025-04-01	29.6	29.0
Jalen Brunson	61	2024-03-29	28.7	29.2
LeBron James	61	2014-03-03	27.1	25.9
Kobe Bryant	61	2009-02-02	26.8	26.8
George Mikan	61	1952-01-20	23.8	21.3
James Harden	60	2019-11-30	34.3	33.9
Luka Doncic	60	2026-03-19	33.5	33.7
Bernard King	60	1984-12-25	32.9	31.6
Luka Doncic	60	2022-12-27	32.4	32.2
Bradley Beal	60	2021-01-06	31.3	31.5
Allen Iverson	60	2005-02-12	30.7	26.1
James Harden	60	2018-01-30	30.4	30.9
Larry Bird	60	1985-03-12	28.7	26.1
Gilbert Arenas	60	2006-12-17	28.4	25.8
Kyrie Irving	60	2022-03-15	27.4	26.3
Tom Chambers	60	1990-03-24	27.2	26.0
Stephen Curry	60	2024-02-03	26.4	29.1
Jayson Tatum	60	2021-04-30	26.4	26.6
Kemba Walker	60	2018-11-17	25.6	26.4
Karl-Anthony Towns	60	2022-03-14	24.6	26.4
De’Aaron Fox	60	2024-11-15	23.5	23.4
Klay Thompson	60	2016-12-05	22.3	23.7
Kobe Bryant	60	2016-04-13	17.6	22.4

There have been 93 regular season 60-point performances in NBA history. Just 10 players have scored 60 points more than once in a single season:

• 15X: Wilt Chamberlain (1961-62)
• 9X: Wilt Chamberlain (1962-63)
• 3X: Damien Lillard (2019-20)
• 2X: Damien Lillard (2022-23), James Harden (2018-19), Kobe Bryant (2006-07), Kobe Bryant (2005-06), Michael Jordan (1986-87), Wilt Chamberlain (1968-69), Wilt Chamberlain (1965-66), Wilt Chamberlain (1964-65)

Because we are interested in seasons in which a player scored 60 or more points, I note that we have 61 individual player seasons in which a player scored 60 points in a game at least one time.

Points Per Game in 60-Point Seasons

First, we will look at unadjusted points per game. This merely measures how many points the player averaged in games he appeared in, without taking into account minutes played.

There have been NBA player seasons in which a player scored 60 points at least once. Of these, Mr. Adebayo has the second lowest scoring average – just 20.1 points per game – in those 60-point seasons, only ahead of Kobe Bryant who averaged 17.6 points per game in his final season, which was capped by scoring 60 points in his final game. Mr. Adebayo also stands out in the smaller list of 70-point player seasons.

1. Wilt Chamberlain (1961-62): 50.4 PPG
2. Wilt Chamberlain (1962-63): 44.8 PPG
3. Kobe Bryant (2005-06): 35.4 PPG
4. Elgin Baylor (1960-61): 34.8 PPG
5. Joel Embiid (2023-24): 34.7 PPG
6. Luka Doncic (2023-24): 33.9 PPG
7. Damien Lillard (2022-23): 32.2 PPG
8. David Robinson (1993-94): 29.8 PPG
9. Donovan Mitchell (2022-23): 28.3 PPG
10. David Thompson (1977-78): 27.2 PPG
11. Devin Booker (2016-17): 22.1 PPG
12. Bam Adebayo (2025-26): 20.1 PPG

Among the smaller 70-point season club, Devin Booker also “stands out.” He scored 70 points in a game in his sophomore season, in which he averaged “just” 22.1 points per game for the season as a whole. Since then he has averaged 26.3 points per game, including 27.1 in 2023-24 when he posted his second career 60-point effort. But one can make a fair case that Mr. Booker, who had averaged 13.1 points per game in his rookie season prior to scoring 70 in his second season, had “less” of a scoring track record at the time than did Mr. Adebayo, although he has gone on to be a much more prolific scorer.

Points Per 36 Minutes in 60-Point Seasons

While Mr. Adebayo’s 20.1 points per game in 2025-26 was second lowest for any season in which a player scored 60 points in a game and lowest by a good margin in the smaller 70-point club, I had reason to believe that he would fare a bit better if we looked at points scored per 36 minutes instead of points per game, noting that Mr. Adebayo played a modest 32.4 minutes per game in 2025-26.

(The NBA did not track minutes until 1951-52, so we do not have points per 36 minutes for Joe Fulks in 1948-49, which was technically in a Basketball Association of America (“BAA”) game. The BAA merged with the National Basketball League (“NBL”) to form the NBA in 1949-50, but BAA statistics are usually included with NBA statistics. Counting Fulks, who had the first 60-point game, Fulks and George Mikan (1951-52) have the only two 60-point games in the pre-shot clock era, with the shot clock having been introduced in 1954-55.)

Bam Adebayo moves up a few positions if we go by points by 36 minutes. He is now one spot behind 2016-17 Kobe Bryant, who gains almost five points in points per 36 minutes, but now ahead of George Mikan and two Wilt Chamberlain(!?) seasons. Chamberlain, readers will note, has the top points per 36 minutes season on the chart and also the bottom two seasons. How is this possible? Chamberlain’s scoring dropped dramatically beginning in 1966-67 (which was arguably his best individual season), but he still averaged 46.8 and 45.3 minutes per game in those two seasons on the bottom of our points per 36 minutes list. Thus, his “modest” points per game combined with high minutes total led to surprisingly low points-per-36 totals. With that being said, he demonstrated that he could occasionally still produce monster scoring nights recalling his early-60s output.

Now let us limit our points per 36 minutes chart to the 70-point club:

1. Wilt Chamberlain (1961-62): 37.4 P/36
2. Joel Embiid (2023-24): 37.2 P/36
3. Wilt Chamberlain (1962-63): 33.9 P/36
4. Luka Doncic (2023-24): 32.5 P/36
5. Damien Lillard (2022-23): 31.9 P/36
6. Kobe Bryant (2005-06): 31.1 P/36
7. Elgin Baylor (1960-61): 29.2 P/36
8. Donovan Mitchell (2022-23): 28.5 P/36
9. David Robinson (1993-94): 26.5 P/36
10. David Thompson (1977-78): 25.8 P/36
11. Devin Booker (2016-17): 22.8 P/36
12. Bam Adebayo (2025-26): 22.3 P/36

Mr. Adebayo is still in last place, but there is an even smaller gap between his 2025-26 season and Mr. Booker’s 2016-17 season if we look at points per 36 minutes instead of points per game. Moving to the top of the survey, readers can see the effect that Wilt Chamberlain’s extreme minutes totals had on his points per 36 minutes. While he holds the top spot with his 1961-62 season, Joel Embiid almost broke the record in 2023-24 while joining Wilt Chamberlain 62 years earlier as the only player to average more than a point per minute in our survey.

Conclusion

No matter how one slices it, Bam Adebayo had a “low” scoring season among players who scored at least 60 points in a game in a season, much less 70 or 80. Only Kobe Bryant in 2015-16 scored less per game, and only Wilt Chamberlain (twice) and George Mikan (pre-shot clock era) scored less per 36 minutes. I dare say that none of those players would have been obviously viewed as less likely to score 60. Bryant had ghastly efficiency numbers in his final season, but he also had a monstrous usage rate (he took 50 shots in his 60-point swan song) and one of the great offensive resumes in NBA history. Wilt Chamberlain greatly reduced his field goal attempts beginning in 1966-67, but he was still capable of huge scoring nights when he turned up the volume. George Mikan had led the league in scoring the three seasons leading into 1951-52 (which saw a dip in his scoring, notwithstanding his career-high scoring night).

While Mr. Adebayo does appear to the the most unlikely member of the exclusive 70-point club – a club so exclusive that it excludes six of the top-seven scorers in NBA history (no LeBron James, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Karl Malone, Kevin Durant, Michael Jordan, or Dirk Nowitzki, and Messrs. Abdul-Jabbar, Durant, and Nowitzki also have no 60-point games) – our cursory survey highlights that Devin Booker was also an anomaly in this context. Mr. Booker scored 70 in his second season after averaging just 13.9 points in his first season, and his final averages of 22.1 points per game and 22.8 points per 36 minutes in that season rank among the bottom for players who scored 60 in a season, much less 70. Moreover, Mr. Booker was just the 6th player in NBA history to score at least 70 and the first since Kobe Bryant 11 years earlier. Of course, Mr. Booker’s 70-point effort in a late-season game in 2017 may have been foreshadowing. The 70-point club has gone from 6 players to 11 in less than a decade. As for Mr. Booker himself, he is now the 83rd leading scorer in NBA history, likely one season away from the “20,000 point club,” and later added a second 60 point game to his resume.

While my survey is good enough to state the obvious (that Bam Adebayo was not a likely candidate to score 60, much less 80, points), someone with more time and inclination could extend my idea further. For example, it may be instructive to look at seasons leading into a 60-point scoring game, including high-scoring performances, to create a sort of “surprise” index (e.g., Rick Barry’s 60-point game and Wilt Chamberlain’s late-career 60-point games look less “surprising” when one considers their high-scoring seasons earlier in their careers). There may also be more instructive stats to consider beyond points per game and points per 36 minutes (I decided not to use points per 100 possessions due to changes in how possessions are estimated depending on which stats are tracked). If you happen to undertake your own survey, I would be interested in reading about your work.

After scoring 83, Mr. Adebayo reflected on his extraordinary game:

This is a special moment. It’s Wilt, me, then Kobe, which sounds crazy.

It may “sound crazy,” but the box score speaks for itself. I congratulate Mr. Adebayo on becoming the third-member of the 80-point club and thank him for prompting my newest NBA research article.

Fun Bonus Stat: 25-26 Bam vs 98-99 Bulls

On November 24, 2025, I wrote an article about the worst defending champion in NBA history, the 1998-99 Chicago Bulls. To be fair to those Bulls, they lost their top-three players from their 1997-98 title team – with one of those players being the defending regular season and three-time defending NBA Finals MVP Michael Jordan – so their regression was understandable. In my article, I noted that while they had the worst relative offensive rating of any NBA defending champion, they surprisingly did not have the worst relative defensive rating (not even the second or third worst!).

But let us focus on that offense.

1998-99 was a weird NBA season. The season started in 1999, with 1998 having been wiped out by a work stoppage. The pace of play cratered (not that 1998-99 was especially fast) and so did the quality of offense. While the Bulls were just a bit below average on defense, they had the NBA’s worst offense by a wide margin. The Bulls averaged just 92.4 points per 100 possessions, which was 9.8 points per 100 worse than the NBA average of 102.2. The Bulls also played relatively slowly, averaging his 88.1 possessions per game, 0.8 possessions below the league average that year. But what did this mean on the score board? The 1998-99 Bulls averaged 81.9 points per game. Thus, Mr. Adebayo scored more points in a single March game in 2026 than the 1998-99 Bulls averaged in an entire season with a shot clock. While both Kobe Bryant and Bam Adebayo have joined Wilt Chamberlain in the 80-point club this century, only Mr. Adebayo and Chamberlain can claim to have scored more points in a game than the 1998-99 Chicago Bulls averaged over a 50-game regular season.

Of course, caveats apply the 2025-26 Heat led the NBA in pace, averaging 103.4 possessions per game, which is 14.5 more than the NBA average in 1998-99 and 12.9 more than the league average in 2005-06 (the season in which Bryant scored 81). One could go so far as to say that it is a “different ballgame,” which brings us full circle to some of the essays I linked to in the opening paragraph of this article.