If you were ever curious for a particular NBA player’s career high in points, you’ve most likely done a search and found them at a data-aggregator site like RealGM, sorted through Basketball Reference, or came across a specific article about that player’s career night.

After doing this two or three times, we found that it was ridiculous — in this age of internet and data — that there wasn’t one list of NBA player career high in points we could refer to. We got tired of Googling, getting to a site, and scanning the info every time we wanted to know Carmelo Anthony‘s, Dominique Wilkin’s or Kyrie Irving‘s career highs — much less finding info for older players such as Cazzie Russell, Earl Monroe or Bob McAdoo.

We decided to create a comprehensive resource for the the most-well known NBA players’ career highs in points. A week later, we’re publishing our list of more than 300 NBA players career highs in points in single game (now approaching 500). The list isn’t just NBA superstars and all-stars but includes other notable NBA players; from tallest to shortest to #1 draft picks. From infamous characters and a couple dozen players that had their “one night in heaven”.

List of NBA Career Highs (Points) to Rule Them All

Our list only contains non-ABA, NBA regular season career high in points. For example, Sleepy Floyd‘s scored 51 points in a record-setting playoff performance but you’ll find him on our list at 41 points — his regular season high. If you’re interested in postseason career highs, check this list of players with the most points in a single NBA playoff game.

After spending hours collecting and compiling this list, we also began to see some patterns and that gave us ideas to create some fun sub-categories and interesting custom sub-lists. We’ll start with those before getting to the mother-list (or go to list now):

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The NBA Scoring Gods

No surprises here. The list here is sorted by players with the most career points total with their all-time rank as well as their single game career high. No flukes and no scrubs; just the the Michael Jordans, Kobe Bryants and Wilt Chamberlains of the league. All Mount Rushmore-types, all the time.

Surprising in a Good Way (or “One Night in Heaven”)

No disrespect to any player on our “surprising” list. We recognize that every player in the NBA is an amazing basketball talent; 99% of whom were their high school’s best player, their college’s best player and dominated since Kindergarten. Now that we got that out of the way, TONY DELK SCORED 53 POINTS IN A GAME?! (yes). Get ready to be shocked and awed.

Malachi Flynn scoring 50 points off the bench in a season in which he averaged 5.2 points in his career up to that point. That qualifies as unusual for sure. Less surprising, but still catches your eye is Purvis Short’s 59 points, Andre Miller scoring 52, Corey Brewer putting up 51 and Tracy Murray going for 50.

Devin Booker may become a great player at some point, but is he 70 points good this early in his career? Nah. That’s legend status and it’s way too early to not be surprised by his recent outburst. And because you’re asking — the answer is “yes,” I was alive and watching NBA basketball when Jerry Stackhouse led the league in scoring, but still surprised to see he scored 57 points.

Don’t play, you were surprised too.

Okay, But Admittedly Underwhelmed For Their Stature

This list of guys is a bunch of Hall of Famers and though their career highs are respectable, they’re not comparable to the shadow these players casted (or casting) on the league.

Yes, it’s shocking that Charles Barkley “only” scored 47 points in the regular season and for being the all-time leading scorer in NBA history, yes, I want to see more than 55 from Kareem. For as dominant and as much as he was known for his killer instinct that Kevin Garnett, we’d expect his career high was in the upper-50s, but in fact it’s just 47. Similarly for more modern players like Shawn Kemp‘s and Derrick Rose‘s career high of 42 points

Dr. J gets a pass because much of his high-flying scoring happened in the ABA.

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Surprising Career Highs (in a Bad Way)

In terms of great players, it’s surprising to see the career highs of Hall of Famers Bill Russell, Bill Walton, John Stockton and James Worthy with career highs that never hit 40. Russell was always spoken about in terms of his defense, but in an era where gathering twenty rebounds was common, one would think he would have had a couple field days on offensive put backs.

Stockton’s 34 points? Okay fine, he’s a pass first and second guard. Bill Walton with 36? Not what I expected, but I didn’t fall out of my seat. Out of everyone, James Worthy is the biggest surprise on this list. He of the “look one way and spin the other” move and was often on the other side of Magic Johnson assists during the Showtime Lakers era, so to see a paltry 38 points is definitely disappointing. I mean, Darius Miles’ career high is 47.

In the case of Drummond and Draymond, both are relatively young (and more importantly active), so they get a pass. We’re sure they’re going to have a few more nights of career highs before their careers are over.

Because You Didn’t Know You Wanted To Know

Here’s a list of off-court characters (Darryl Dawkins), draft busts (Kwame Brown), infamous players (Dennis Rodman) and other notables that you might be interested in knowing their career highs. Not much to say here, save for the list speaks for itself.

List: Career High in Points for 457 NBA Players (Game)

Alright, enough of us forcing our little games, judgey-judgments, fun (and not so fun) facts on you. Here’s our continually-updated list of single game career highs for 300 players we think you’d be searching for and interested in.

Our list is sorted by descending points from the highest (Wilt) to the lowest (you’ll have to scroll to see). You can also sort the list by the player’s name or sort the list by team to see who holds the franchise record for points in a single game.

For players that hit their career high in multiple games — like Muggsy Bogues’ career high 24 points three times — we marked each additional time with an asterisk (e.g. 24**). In these rare situations, we went with the most recent date the player set that career high.

Compiling and combing through this list, we came across some worthwhile stories and fun little facts about how some of these players got to their career highs. Here’s a small sampling of the things noticed.

The Highest Scoring NBA Game Ever Yields Career Highs

During a three overtime marathon that yielded the highest-scoring game in NBA history, three NBA players would hit their career highs on that night. On December 13, 1983, the Denver Nuggets defeated the Detroit Pistonns 185-184. Kiki Vandeweghe (51 points), Isiah Thomas (47) and John Long (41) would each set their single game point milestone.

Scoring Racers: Thompson/Gervin and The Admiral

On April 9th, 1978, the NBA scoring race came down to this last day of the season between David Thompson and George Gervin and both players would score their NBA career high. Thompson would go on to take the crown by scoring his career high of 73 points for the Denver Nuggets. For his part, Gervin scored 63 for the San Antonio Spurs.

In 1997, San Antonio’s David Robinson scored a career 71 points in his scoring race with Shaquille O’Neal. From NBA.com:

Entering the game trailing Shaquille O’Neal by 33 points in the race for the NBA scoring title, David scored 71 points on the Clippers and won the scoring title in the very last game of the regular season.

Overkill much, Admiral? David Robinson would finish the season with an average of 29.8 points annihilating O’Neal’s 29.3 points average.

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Vince and Antawn Forever Connected

Both Vince Carter and Antawn Jamison‘s career highs are both 51 points. And they both hit that career high twice in their careers.

This ia all very fitting as both came out of the same 1998 Draft in which they were drafted right next to one another (Jamison at #4 and Carter at #5). They came into the draft as North Carolina teammates and were traded for one another on draft night! In the case of Jamison, his career high night of 51 points; he wasn’t the only one to score 51 points in the same game. His total was matched by Kobe Bryant, who scored 51 for the Lakers — which as we know is 30 short of his career high.

Manute Bol’s Unexpected Career High

When Manute Bol scored his career high 18 points, you would think that the majority of those points came in the painted area on putbacks or layups. And you would be wrong. Completely wrong. Dead wrong. To get to his career-high 18 points, Bol hit six three pointers… all in one half.

Bol would hit half of his three attempts in that game; 6-12. Yes, he shot twelve three-pointers in one game.

Jeremy Lin is a Hit on Broadway

We all know about “Linsanity” by now and it’s no surprise that Jeremy Lin set his career high of 38 points during that two week stretch. Especially memorable was during a nationally televised game against Kobe Bryant and the Los Angeles Lakers. Lin didn’t disappoint the crowd at Madison Square Garden; hitting 13 of 22 shots and pouring in 38 points as the Knicks defeated the Lakers 93-85.

Tony Delk and Vlade Divac Go Off On Another

What do these two have in common? They both set their career highs against one another. As mentioned, TONY DELK SCORED 53 POINTS IN A GAME! Delk hit 20 shots that night and took only 27 against the Kings. And Delk’s unexpected outburst was the same game that Vlade Divac hit his career high in points with a less-than-impressive 34 points.

Even On His Career Night, Bad Karma Follows Dwight Howard

When Dwight Howard recorded his career high 45 points against the Golden State Warriors, one in which Orlando won the game 117-109, there was still plenty to gripe about Howard that night. Even though he scored 45 points, the notoriously-bad free throw shooter could have had MUCH more as he shot an NBA-record 39 free throw attempts. Howard would miss 18 of those 39 free throws.

That’s all we got for now. With a list spanning every decade, there’s a lot of  players, numbers and data, so look for more posts to come originating from this compilation. We’ll also continually update the list as we notice missing players (or are told). In the meantime, here’s some related posts around career highs for you to snack on:

• LeBron James’ Career Highs
• Isiah Thomas’ Career Highs
• Michael Jordan’s Career Highs
• Damian Lillard sets Blazer Franchise record 59 points