Fact or Fiction: The NBA will have another 100-point scorer

Each week during the 2025-26 NBA season, we will take a deeper dive into some of the league’s biggest storylines in an attempt to determine whether trends are based more in fact or fiction moving forward.

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Fact or Fiction: The NBA will have another 100-point scorer

We are here to see if anyone could ever score 100 points again, which is a bit of a silly question, because if someone has done it before, chances are it could happen again.

But Wilt Chamberlain’s 100 points were anomalous in a way that made it feel like it was not possible to match his output in the modern era, even with the 3-point line.

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After all, only Kobe Bryant had ever scored 80 points in a game — until Tuesday night, when the Miami Heat’s Bam Adebayo erupted for 83 points (on 43 field-goal attempts and 43 free-throw attempts), forever altering what we thought possible in the NBA.

If Adebayo can score 83, then surely someone — more of a scorer — could net 100, or so the thinking goes. Adebeyo ranks 33rd among all NBA players in points per game (20.0), even after his historic night. Heck, if Adebayo had converted 13 of his 22 3-point attempts, just as Damian Lillard did on his 71-point night, he would have gotten to 101.

So, there we have identified something: One may need to play with both the force of Adebayo — the relentlessness to attack the basket over and over again, drawing fouls in the process — and the finesse of Lillard, who can and will take and make a ton of 3s.

Here is how everyone who has scored 70 points got there — on 2s, 3s and free throws.

So, you also need to take a ton of shots, both in the field and at the free-throw line.

The 63 field goals Chamberlain attempted in his 100-point game also stand as a record. Chamberlain attempted 50 or more field goals on 14 occasions, another record. Only four other players across six occasions in NBA history — Joe Fulks (three times in the 1940s), Elgin Baylor (December 1961), Rick Barry (February 1967) and Bryant (April 2016) — have ever attempted 50 or more field goals in a single game.

Only once in the past 50 years has anyone attempted 50 field goals, and that took the spectacle of Bryant’s farewell game to make happen. He scored 60 points in his exit and easily could have gotten to 80 again, had he been more efficient. (Story of his career.)

That is what shooting 50 shots in a game is, after all: a spectacle. But so is playing the Washington Wizards, as Adebayo did on Tuesday. Tanking is a joke, so why not lean against it, and try your ass off against them, shooting 50 shots in the process. Players should be salivating at the thought of facing a team that has given up on its season.

On only 203 occasions in the 79-year history of the NBA has someone attempted 40 field goals in a game. Chamberlain accounts for 103 of them. It happens about once a year on average. It did not happen last season. It has happened twice this year, once by Adebayo and once when Cade Cunningham scored 46 points on 14-of-45 shooting.

Had Cunningham been hot instead, he could have easily gotten to 70-plus points.

And that’s the thing. When you shoot a ton, you score a ton, or you better score a ton.

Only nine active players have attempted 40 field goals in a game — Russell Westbrook (three times), James Harden, Dejounte Murray, Jalen Brunson, Tyrese Maxey, Booker, Embiid, Cunningham and Adebayo — and they averaged 57.9 points in those games. What if they attempted 50 shots? Or 60 shots? They might average in the 70s or 80s.

If enough people were to attempt 50 shots in a game, someone would get hot, and once that happens, you can get to 80 points pretty quick, especially if the 3-point line is involved. Go 35-for-50 — within the realm of possibility — making 20 2s and 15 3s, and you are at 85 points before you ever get to the free-throw line. Now, imagine 60 shots.

It is probably no coincidence that the only 100-point game happened on the one night in NBA history someone decided to attempt more than 60 field goals in a single game.

Give Nikola Jokić 63 shots, as Chamberlain took on March 2, 1962, and, statistically speaking, on average, he would score 79 points before he even attempts a free throw.

The free throws are what separated Chamberlain. He made 28 of 32 of them on the night he broke the record. If that seems like a lot, it is because it is. Only six times in NBA history has someone attempted more than those 32 free throws in one game, and all of them were centers who were put their on purpose — Wilt, Dwight Howard, Andre Drummond and DeAndre Jordan — until Adebayo changed the game Tuesday.

His 43 free-throw attempts were the most in NBA history — four attempts more than the previous record (which Howard, a 56.7% career free-throw shooter, set twice). If someone can get to the line that many times, of course a 100-point game is possible.

It might even be probable.

Now, it might sound simple: All you must do is take more field goals than most anyone has ever taken in a single game and take more free throws than most anyone has ever taken in a single game, do it on the same night, and you will see extraordinary results.

But it is true. On four occasions, someone has attempted 40 or more field goals and 30 or more free throws on the same night — Chamberlain (three times) and Adebayo — and that has yielded three of the four highest-scoring games of all time. Go figure.

Which is what made Bryant’s 81-point game so special. He did it on only 20 free-throw attempts, meaning he just shot his way there. And people can shoot better now. Let Stephen Curry attempt 46 shots, and see how long it takes for him to get to 81 points.

Let him shoot 63 times, and he might walk into 100 points.

But people do not let you shoot, once it gets to a certain point, as we saw with Adebayo on Tuesday. Opponents have pride. Even the Wizards. So, you have to take it, and to take it you have to play with a ferocity that Curry may not be able to match.

It is why Adebayo found himself in such a perfect storm. He tries so freaking hard. And, if the other team is not trying, and nobody else is around to score, what is best for the team is that Adebayo goes nuts, and he always does what is best for the team.

Bryant was different. He tried like hell, too, but his team at the time of his 81-point game was built for him to be its singular scorer. He had already attempted 40 or more shots in a game twice in the month before his career performance, scoring 58 and 50 points, both on sub-50% shooting. He was, believe it or not, due for his 81-point night.

Let Luka Dončić or Shai Gilgeous-Alexander go on a heater, shooting 45 times a night over a month-long stretch. See how long it takes one of them to get to their 80-plus points.

That is how this works. Probabilities in time are inevitabilities, and as the probability of a 70- or 80-point game increases, an inevitability of a 101-point outlier becomes likelier.

You are telling me someone will not score 20 2s, 15 3s and 15 free throws in a night, equaling 100 points? Even if that player does not exist at this point, if Victor Wembanyama has taught us anything, it is that such a person will exist at some point.

He just has to have the will to get up 40, 50 or 60 shots on a night, to get to the free-throw line 20-30 times, too, and his opponent must lack the will to stop him. A perfect storm. They happen, as we saw Tuesday. What if someone more efficient comes along? It will happen, inevitably, and maybe it will put an end to tanking in the process.

Determination: Fact. There will be another 100-point scorer. Adebayo proved that.