With less than a month remaining in the regular season, there’s a close race between a couple players for the league’s scoring title. For most of the season Bradley Beal has led the league in scoring; averaging over 31 points a game consistently. That’s until Steph Curry had a record-setting April where he averaged 37.3 points a game and brought his scoring average up nearly 3 points.
Beal and Curry would swap places at the top for league scoring a few times during that run. And that got us thinking about a couple things. First are the odds that Curry can continue his high level of play through May and take home his second scoring title – the odds are good considering the way Curry has been playing, it’s a safe bet that he’ll stay hot and remain the scoring leader over Beal. It’s been a fascinating under-the-radar race.
No two players ever shared a scoring title in NBA history
That also had us wondering: in the 75+ years of the league has two players beat the odds and averaged the same points per game and tied for scoring title all the way down to the same percentage points?
If Beal and Curry end up in a statistical tie, it would be the first time in NBA history. As there’s never been a tie for the NBA scoring title; every season of the NBA has ended with an outright winner whether it was a player having to score over 60 points in the last game of the season and/or edging out the other player by 0.1%.
What were the NBA’s closest scoring title races?
Even though there haven’t been a shared scoring title in NBA history, there have been some really close calls. Here’s a list of the tightest, closest scoring races in NBA history. To qualify, the scoring race would have to be separated by less than one full percentage point:
| Diff. | Season | Scoring Winner | PPG | Runner Up | PPG |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0.1 | 1978 | George Gervin | 27.2 | David Thompson | 27.1 |
| 0.1 | 2012 | Kevin Durant | 28.0 | Kobe Bryant | 27.9 |
| 0.4 | 1998 | Michael Jordan | 28.7 | Shaquille O'Neal | 28.3 |
| 0.4 | 2010 | Kevin Durant | 30.1 | LeBron James | 29.7 |
| 0.5 | 1986 | Dominique Wilkins | 30.3 | Adrian Dantley | 29.8 |
| 0.5 | 1995 | David Robinson | 29.8 | Shaquille O'Neal | 29.3 |
| 0.5 | 1999 | Allen Iverson | 26.8 | Shaquille O'Neal | 26.3 |
| 0.6 | 2013 | Carmelo Anthony | 28.7 | Kevin Durant | 28.1 |
| 0.7 | 2021 | Steph Curry | 32.0 | Kevin Durant | 31.3 |
| 0.9 | 1956 | Paul Azrin | 25.6 | Bob Petit | 24.7 |
One could say “poor Shaquille O’Neal” because the big man came up in second place by fewer than 1.5% points across three NBA seasons losing out to Michael Jordan, Allen Iverson and an infamous loss to David Robinson that came down to the Admiral scoring 71 points in the final game of the season. But others might say, well if in another universe Shaq made a respectable percentage of his free throws, those scoring titles would never have been a race, in question or remotely close.
In fact, if Shaq was able to have made 75% from the free throw line in his career, he wouldn’t have only two NBA scoring titles, but ended his career with SEVEN. Peep the video breakdown of that.
Now 75% is a little absurd for Shaq considering his career percentage from the charity strip was 52.7%. Let’s say he shot even just 55%, that extra few dozen made free throws would have gotten him an additional three scoring titles – the ones listed above 1995, 1998, 1999 – for a total of five scoring crowns.
One of the most well-known scoring races happened between legendary aerial artists George Gervin and David Thompson. In order to win the 1978 scoring title outright, Gervin had to score 59 or more points in his final regular season game. The Iceman went for 63 that night and beat Thompson by 0.1% for that season’s scoring crown.
NBA scoring race qualifications
In order to qualify for the scoring race title, according to the NBA’s statistical minimums, the player must have played in a minimum 70% of the team’s games. In the course of an 82 game season, that player would have to have played in 58 of those games.
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