In 1946 the BAA, the predecessor of the NBA, was founded, and 3 years later, they annexed the NBL and officially changed its name to the NBA. In the past nearly 80 years, the NBA, a common league that was founded just to avoid wasting ice hockey arenas, has become one of the most well-known sports leagues in the world after continuous reform and development.
During this period, there were also many excellent basketball players in the NBA, so here is a list of the scoring champions in the NBA in the past eras, among which supergiants such as Jordan and James failed to make the list.
1950s: Dolf Shays (13,915 points)
Shays graduated from New York University in 1948, he was very good at playing basketball, and was selected by the New York Knicks of the BAA and the Black Hawks of the NBL in the same year, and the latter was 50% higher than the Knicks at that time, so in the end Shays chose to join the Black Hawks, but later due to the bankruptcy of the team, he transferred to the Syracuse Nationals, and in 1949 the BAA annexed the NBL, and Shays officially started his NBA career from then on.
In the 1950-1951 season, Shays averaged 17 points, 16.4 rebounds and 3.8 assists per game, and he was named to the first All-Star of his career with his outstanding performance, when he could play both at the forward and center positions on the court, and he had already mastered the knack of two-handed shooting at a time when everyone was still shooting with one hand.
During Shais's 15-year NBA career, he was selected to the All-Round Team a total of six times, all of which were selected in the 50s, and his best performance was 24.9 points, 14.2 rebounds and 3.1 assists per game in the 1957-1958 season, and he combined for 1,791 points and 1,022 rebounds in the regular season that year. Shays also led the team to a championship in 1955, when he helped the Nationals win a 3-1 victory against the Fort Wayne Pistons in the finals, and he averaged 19 points, 12.8 rebounds and 3.6 assists per game in the playoffs that year.
1960s: Chamberlain (24,719 points)
One of the NBA's draft systems at the time allowed teams to forgo a first-round pick and get a local college player. In order to get Chamberlain, the Philadelphia Warriors hyped that Chamberlain was a Philadelphia, and he was a well-known athlete in Philadelphia when he was in high school, plus the University of Kansas where Chamberlain played, they did not have an NBA team in the local area, so in the end, the Philadelphia Warriors chose Chamberlain as they wished.
In his first season in the league, Chamberlain averaged 37.6 points, 27 rebounds and 2.3 assists per game, and in the end he was not only selected to the All-Star team, but also elected MVP. In the 1961-1962 season, Chamberlain once again ushered in an evolution, and in the regular season, he averaged 50.4 points, 25.7 rebounds and 2.4 assists per game, and scored a total of 4,029 points in one season.
After averaging at least 30+20 per game for seven consecutive seasons, Chamberlain finally started to show some decline, but he was still able to keep his stats above 20+20, and in the last season of the 60s, the 32-year-old also averaged 20.5 points, 21.1 rebounds and 4.5 assists per game. With his super personal performance at his peak, Chamberlain's career has left too many records that ordinary people can't match, with an average of 50+ per game in a single season, 100 points per game, and so on.
1970s: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (21,814 points)
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar was also at the top of his debut, averaging 28.8 points, 14.5 rebounds and 4.1 assists per game in the 1969-1970 season, and he soon proved himself to be the best player in the NBA. In the 1970-1971 season, Abdul-Jabbar averaged 31.7 points, 16 rebounds and 3.3 assists per game in the regular season, and with the assistance of "Big O" Robertson, he successfully led the newly established Bucks to win the first championship in team history.
In the end, Abdul-Jabbar played a total of 6 seasons with the Bucks, during which he won 3 MVP awards, 1 FMVP, 4 first-team and other honors, including 2,822 points in a regular season in the 1971-1972 season. With a "sky hook", Abdul-Jabbar can score at any time on the field whenever he wants, and other players can't interfere with his shots at all.
Abdul-Jabbar moved to the Lakers in 1975 and was undoubtedly the team's star at the time, but Abdul-Jabbar made some sacrifices on the offensive end in order to win, and his stats went downhill every season. In the 1978-1979 season, the 31-year-old Abdul-Jabbar averaged 23.8 points, 12.8 rebounds, 4.5 assists, 1 steal and 4 blocks per game in the regular season, and finally his total score in the 70s was fixed at 21,814 points.
1980s: English (21113 points)
Drafted by the Bucks with the sixth pick in the second round in 1976, Inglish was not trusted by the team and averaged just 18.9 minutes per game the following year, so after becoming a free agent in 1978, Inglish chose to join the Pacers. In the 1979-1980 season, Inglish averaged 14.9 points, 7 rebounds and 2.6 assists per game, when he was still not making a name for himself and was traded to the Nuggets by the team in the middle of the season.
However, it was this deal that allowed Inglish to completely find the right team for him, and since coming to the Nuggets, his average data per game has skyrocketed to 21.3 points, 9.4 rebounds and 3.4 assists, and he has also established himself here as the core of the team. In the 1982-1983 regular season, he averaged 28.4 points, 7.3 rebounds, 4.8 assists, 1.4 steals and 1.5 blocks per game, and he also won the only scoring title of his career that year.
During his time with the Nuggets, Inglish was fully trusted by the team, so he once set a record of eight consecutive seasons with a total score of more than 2000+, which not only requires him to have top scoring ability, but also his physical fitness, otherwise if he stops and stops because of injury, it will definitely not be able to achieve this record, and until now Inglish is still the Nuggets' all-time scoring leader, Jokic is still a big gap compared to him.
1990s: Karl Malone (20,925 points)
Malone was drafted by the Jazz with the 13th pick in the first round in 1985, and in addition to failing to average more than 20+ points per game in his rookie season, he gradually became one of the best scorers in the league from the second year. In the 1989-1990 season, Malone averaged 31 points, 1.1 rebounds, 2.8 assists and 1.5 steals per game in the regular season, which was not only the only season in his career that was at least 30+10, but also the only time he scored more than 2,500 points in a single season when he played the regular season.
Later, Malone successfully broke the record set by Inglish that year, and he scored more than 2,000 points in 11 consecutive seasons, during which he never helped the Jazz win the championship, but he still occupied the position of the league's top forward with his excellent individual performance. In 1997, Malone averaged 27.4 points, 9.9 rebounds and 4.5 assists per game, and he beat Jordan to win the first MVP trophy in his career in the regular season.
And Malone was able to become the scoring champion in the 90s, a large part of the reason is because of Jordan's two retirements, otherwise the latter's scoring ability, the name that appears on this list is likely to be him.
2000s: Kobe Bryant (21,550 points)
Kobe Bryant officially landed in the NBA in 1996, and because he participated in the draft after graduating from high school, the Lakers let him start from the bench at the beginning, but fortunately, Kobe's talent is really better, after withstanding the test of the NBA, he began to play as a starter in more games, and in the 1999-2000 season, Kobe Bryant only came off the bench in 4 games in the regular season, and his average points per game exceeded 20+ for the first time that year.
With the rise of Kobe, the Lakers successfully won three consecutive championships, during which Kobe Bryant's best year, he averaged 28.5 points, 5.9 rebounds and 5 assists per game in the regular season, and he was able to get three rings. Later, after Kobe Bryant broke up with O'Neal, he began to take charge of himself, and he played quite an amazing scoring performance because of it.
In the 2005-2006 season, Kobe averaged 35.4 points per game, and the total score in a single season came to 2832 points.
2010s: James Harden (20209 points)
After Harden was drafted in 2009, he was the team's sixth man for the first three seasons with the Thunder, during which time he averaged just 13.5 points per game. However, being traded to the Rockets in 2012 completely changed the trajectory of Harden's career, and he exploded in his first season with the Rockets, averaging 25.9 points, 4.9 rebounds and 5.8 assists per game in the regular season that year.
Harden slowly became the best two-way guard in the league, and in 2018, 2019, and 2020, he entered his true prime, averaging at least 30 points per game in the regular season for three consecutive seasons, 30.4, 36.1, and 34.3 points. At that time, Harden was easy to score as long as he wanted to, and it was no longer so simple for him to score 30 points in a game.
And compared to other stars, Harden's super high attendance rate has been seriously overlooked, with a lot of offensive tasks to be taken on every game, he is basically close to full attendance every season, and he has only missed 34 games in the entire 10 years, so this has also helped him hit a high score of 20,000+ even though he has played a lot of games off the bench.
2020-present: Doncic (8,185 points)
As a leader of the new generation, Doncic undoubtedly has the strongest scoring ability among young players, averaging more than 25 points per game every year except for his rookie season. Doncic is still improving this season, averaging 33.9 points, 9.2 rebounds, 9.8 assists and 1.4 steals per game in the regular season, in which his average points per game not only set a new career high again, but also won the first scoring championship trophy of his career.
After only 70 games, Doncic's total points still came to 2,370 points, which further widened the gap between him and the others. Judging from Doncic's current strength and age, as long as there are no injuries in the future, he will probably always be the scoring champion in the 20s.