AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill
- Shaquille O’Neil revealed which NBA players he believes could score more than 81 points in a game on “The Dan Patrick Show.”
- O’Neil’s former teammate Kobe Bryant famously scored 81 against the Toronto Raptors in 2006.
- O’Neil listed a number of the NBA’s veteran household names but included one up-and-coming superstar as well.
- Visit Insider’s homepage for more stories.
According to Shaquille O’Neil, there are only five current NBA players capable of surpassing the late Kobe Bryant’s 81-point performance.
Bryant, who played alongside O’Neil on the Los Angeles Lakers from 1996 through 2004, winning three NBA titles, famously scored 81 points in a 122-104 comeback victory against the Toronto Raptors in 2006.
Bryant’s 81 points were the most scored by a player in a single game in 44 years and the second-most all time, behind only Wilt Chamberlain’s 100-point game in 1962. Since then, no other player has come close to reaching Bryant’s mark with just one 70-point performance, one 65-point performance by Bryant himself a year later, and a pair of 62-point performances occurring as the high-water marks in the 15 years since.
It is uncertain if any player can reach Bryant’s 81-point mark ever again, but O’Neil believes there is a shortlist of current players in the NBA capable of doing so.
In an appearance on “The Dan Patrick Show” on Monday, O’Neil revealed who he believes can reach 81 points in an NBA game. Three of the players O’Neil listed all reside on the same team, those being James Harden, Kyrie Irving, and Kevin Durant of the Brooklyn Nets.
Steph Curry of the Golden State Warriors was another of O'Neil's candidates. Curry already holds one of the high watermarks in scoring since the 2006 game with his 62-point performance against the Portland Trailblazers just this season.
O'Neil's final candidate to break Bryant's mark is significantly younger than any of the other candidates he mentioned but came the closest to doing so - that being 24-year-old Phoenix Suns point guard Devin Booker.
Booker currently holds the mark for the most points scored in a single game since Bryant's 81-point game, with a 70-point performance against the Boston Celtics in 2017, when Booker was only 21 years old.
—Jared Dudley (@JaredDudley619) March 25, 2017
O'Neil also broke down what it would have taken for himself to not only surpass Bryant's 81-point mark in a single game but Chamberlain's 100-point record during his own playing career.
"I would have to be shooting 75% from the free-throw line," O'Neil said. "I would have had to have a lot of three-second [violations] not called, I would have to have a lot of easy points, and I would have to have no double or triple teams to have a chance."
Dit artikel is oorspronkelijk verschenen op z24.nl