At its core, basketball is about putting the ball through the hoop more than your opponent. Not that all the other skills and talents don’t contribute to having success on the court, but the NBA certainly puts a premium on players that are elite scorers. More often than not, these are the league’s superstars and your franchise would be lucky to have a Kobe, Curry, Bird, Dirk, West or Wade.
Then there are rare times when you have two superstars on one team. Think to when LeBron James decided to team with Dwyane Wade in Miami. When Allen Iverson joined Carmelo Anthony in Denver. When Shaquille O’Neal was traded to a Lakers team that had a young Kobe Bryant already on the roster.
The 25 Best NBA Duos in League History
What goes into defining the NBA’s “best” duo of all-time – the easiest way to quantify this is by identifying teammates with the highest combined scoring averages over a course of a season. We’ll use this as an over-simplified definition of the NBA’s best duos.
The only restrictions in qualifying for our “best duo” list is that it couldn’t be top heavy meaning one player couldn’t average 44.8 points and the other 16 points (as Wilt Chamberlain and Tom Meschery did in 1962-63). The threshold was that both players had to average at least 20 points per game, and both players had to play at least half the season.
One would certainly wager casino no deposit bonus 2023 that the Michael Jordan-Scottie Pippen tandem would be all over this list, but Pippen only averaged over 20 points twice in his NBA career. It’s another reason we believe Pippen has gone from underrated to overrated in the last decade or so.
As expected, Shaquille-O’Neal and Kobe Bryant’s time as teammates dominates this list. It’s not a surprise to see Wilt Chamberlain in any discussion of NBA scoring, but I was surprised to see that he had a teammate average over 20 points alongside him – Paul Azirin. Here’s the league’s highest scoring duos of all-time.
| Combined | Season | Player | Avg | Teammate | Avg | Team |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 72.3 | 1961-62 | Wilt Chamberlain | 50.4 | Paul Arizin | 21.9 | Philadelphia warriors |
| 69.1 | 1961-62 | Elgin Baylor | 38.3 | Jerry West | 30.8 | Los Angeles Lakers |
| 61.5 | 1960-61 | Wilt Chamberlain | 38.3 | Paul Arizin | 23.2 | Philadelphia warriors |
| 61.4 | 2019-20 | James Harden | 34.3 | Russell Westbrook | 27.2 | Houston Rockets |
| 61.1 | 1962-63 | Elgin Baylor | 34.0 | Jerry West | 27.1 | Los Angeles Lakers |
| 59.9 | 1959-60 | Wilt Chamberlain | 37.6 | Paul Arizin | 22.3 | Philadelphia warriors |
| 58.1 | 1964-65 | Jerry West | 31.0 | Elgin Baylor | 27.1 | Los Angeles Lakers |
| 57.5 | 2002-03 | Kobe Bryant | 30.0 | Shaquille O’Neal | 27.5 | Los Angeles Lakers |
| 57.2 | 2000-01 | Shaquille O’Neal | 28.7 | Kobe Bryant | 28.5 | Los Angeles Lakers |
| 56.2 | 1965-66 | Wilt Chamberlain | 33.5 | Hal Greer | 22.7 | Philadelphia 76ers |
| 55.8 | 1983-84 | Kiki Vandeweghe | 29.4 | Alex English | 26.4 | Denver Nuggets |
| 55.1 | 1982-83 | Alex English | 28.4 | Kiki Vandeweghe | 26.7 | Denver Nuggets |
| 54.2 | 1986-87 | Larry Bird | 28.1 | Kevin McHale | 26.1 | Boston Celtics |
| 53.8 | 2013-14 | Kevin Durant | 32.0 | Russell Westbrook | 21.8 | Oklahoma City Thunder |
| 53.7 | 2006-07 | Carmelo Anthony | 28.9 | Allen Iverson | 24.8 | Denver Nuggets |
| 53.2 | 2005-06 | Allen Iverson | 33.0 | Chris Webber | 20.2 | Philadelphia 76ers |
| 52.5 | 1987-88 | Larry Bird | 29.9 | Kevin McHale | 22.6 | Boston Celtics |
| 52.4 | 2001-02 | Shaquille O’Neal | 27.2 | Kobe Bryant | 25.2 | Los Angeles Lakers |
| 52.2 | 1999-00 | Shaquille O’Neal | 29.7 | Kobe Bryant | 22.5 | Los Angeles Lakers |
| 52.2 | 2010-11 | LeBron James | 26.7 | Dwyane Wade | 25.5 | Miami Heat |
| 52.2 | 2015-16 | Steph Curry | 30.1 | Klay Thompson | 22.1 | Golden State Warriors |
| 51.6 | 2011-12 | Kevin Durant | 28.0 | Russell Westbrook | 23.6 | Oklahoma City Thunder |
| 51.1 | 1984-85 | Michael Jordan | 28.2 | Orlando Woolridge | 22.9 | Chicago Bulls |
| 51.1 | 1991-92 | Michael Jordan | 30.1 | Scottie Pippen | 21.0 | Chicago Bulls |
| 50.4 | 1972-73 | Kareem Abdul-Jabbar | 30.2 | Bob Dandridge | 20.2 | Milwaukee Bucks |
| 50.2 | 1994-95 | Shaquille O’Neal | 29.3 | Anfernee Hardaway | 20.9 | Orlando Magic |
Even more rare than having two superstars on a team that average over 50 point per game together are tandems that homegrown, or drafted by that team. It’s early into the 2022-23 season, but the Boston Celtics look to have one of these rare pairings in Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown. If they continue on their pace of combing for ~57 points a game, they would surpass Larry Bird and Kevin McHale during the great Celtics dynasty of the 1980s.
What we found a little surprising is Michael Jordan only appearing twice on this list… and barely at that – one season when Pippen averaged 21 points and Jordan’s rookie season when he paired with the late Orlando Woolridge. Jordan’s highest scoring season was 1986-87 when he averaged a mind-boggling 37.1 points per game, but the second leading scorer was Charles Oakley at just 14.5 points per game average.
We also have to put more respect on Jerry West and Elgin Baylor‘s names, not only does the pairing appear on this list together three times; they’re the only teammates in the history of the league to both average over 30 points per game in the same season.
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