Kobe
KD
Harden
Wilkins
Dirk
Honorable mentions : English, Steph, Gervin
Not in any particular order:
Michael Jordan
Kobe Bryant
Allen Iverson
Kevin Durant
James Harden/Steph Curry
Ok, top 6 pure scorers of all time. I couldn't decide on #5.
Kobe
KD
Harden
Wilkins
Dirk
Honorable mentions : English, Steph, Gervin
How exactly are you describing a "pure" scorer?
Amateur: Kirby Bryant All Time Bricker watch (spurstalk.com)
Pure scoring is an odd descriptor. It makes me think more of guys where scoring feels “smooth” like KD or Gervin or Bernard King, vs volume shooters who scored like AI or Kobe.
Cedric Ceballos shouldn’t be on a top 5 list but he’s another underrated pure scorer.
Michael Jordan
Kobe Bryant
Kevin Durant
Carmelo Anthony
Kyrie Irving
Bubba Chuck
Mike
KD
Steph
Kobe
Chuck is my #1 and no one can tell me different. I’m a pretty hardcore fanboy so I admit bias. That doesn’t mean I’m wrong. But I think Kobe said it pretty well and succinctly.
“We all should be fortunate Allen Iverson wasn’t 6’5.”
I seriously considered T-Mac because even tho he’s not the shooter KD is, I view him similarly as an impossible guy to stop once he gets it going because of the size, length, athletic, skill combination. If T-Mac really set his mind that he wanted to score, he was going to score. Bird and Nique probably in the conversation as well. As some have listed, Dirk and Harden also legit mentions. I think even Dame at this point has developed into that type of next level scorer as well.
I wish I could genuinely consider guys like Elgin or Bernard King or Rick Barry, but I didn’t watch any of them play. I assume no one on these boards did either. My parameter of reference starts somewhere in the early 80s.
42 FG shooter. Most over-rated player of all-time to this day.
I love Iverson but a guy who is that inefficient at scoring can’t be called a pure scorer
Live: I watched Pierce and KG knocking down one elbow jumper after another in game and warmups.
Live: Starbury was money every time he got to his spot at the side of the top of the key.
Me tbh.
I challenge this notion with some context. Just take a look at smaller guards who played the bulk of their prime careers from the mid 90s to the mid 2000s, and you’ll see a pattern of lesser shooting FG efficiency. Mid 90s were right in the middle of a defensive evolution in the league that was kind of on the heels of the Bad Boy Pistons, Oakley and Mason Knicks, and the Davis brothers with the Pacers. Basically, if you were a small guard trying to score in the paint, actually any perimeter player really, your ass was planted in the key. Fast forward to the mid 2000s where teams like the Spurs and Pistons were routinely holding teams in the 70s and 80s. Overall league scoring was down, and at least the perception of aesthetically pleasing basketball was failing. And that’s why the league made a concerted effort to not only ins ute rules to help scoring and hurt defense, but initiated the interpretation of those rules by the refs to reflect that need for more scoring.
So just a quick few names I checked, career FG%:
Jason Kidd 40.0% FG
Nick Van Exel 40.5% FG
Kenny Anderson 42.1% FG
Steve Francis 42.9% FG
Starbury 43.3% FG
Now we can just say that all those guys were inefficient, and there’s some truth to that. But they’re also some of the bigger star names of smaller guards who could score in the mid to late 90s to the mid 2000s. Kidd not so much a small guard, but I included him anyway. Point is the way the game was played, the style of defense and what was allowed I think impacted the scoring efficiency of smaller guards during that time period.
Pure scoring ability to me is not about efficiency, at least not “just” about efficiency. Otherwise everyone who posted in this thread would have guys like Shaq and Wilt and Boban listed.
I’ll take up for Iverson. He was one of the most utterly amazing basketball players to watch for me. And at his size, to be as explosive a scorer as he was for as long as was defies reason. I’ll say it this way. You might make Iverson inefficient. But you weren’t going to just completely stop him. It might be a Kobe-esque type of shooting night, but he’d still drop 25-30 on you. He’d still find a way to get buckets.
Yo.
Iverson was only 6'-1" tall if that. He scored from everywhere including down the middle of the lane in the trees. He single handedly carried Philly to the Championship against LA. He had NO help on offense. Also, not only was he a pure scorer but he was durable as . Not like these candy asses in Todays NBA.
Today’s NBA is too physical and athletic for Iverson. He wouldn’t last a year
90s defense is so overrated and so full of myths holy
iverson was a lot of fun to watch and could hit some incredible shots. but i cant put him on the list above kyrie because basically every scoring skill he was great at, kyrie is equal or better at, especially shooting.
tmac definitely could also be considered for this, there was no scoring skillset he couldnt do incredibly well. im pretty set on mike, kobe, kd and kyrie. that 5th spot is hard with melo, tmac, bird, harden, dirk, king, dantley, steph, etc...
doesnt shoot as good, finish as good, or handle as good as steph so i think hes out of the discussion
Single-handedly if you're not counting referee rigging. The Bucks don't lose otherwise. Sternstein didn't want that Big Three ing up the Shaq-Kobe ring.
But hey, Iverson did single-handedly win a game against the Lakers in the Finals. Goody.
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