After Dame's otherworldly performance tonight, he's squarely in the middle of the league scoring champ race. With little else to be excited about at the moment, I think this is worth following. Going into tonight, the top 3 were: 1. Luka - 1694 in 51 games, 33.22 ppg 2. Embiid - 1557 in 47 games, 33.13 ppg 3. Dame - 1445 in 46 games, 31.41 ppg
Tonight, while Dame was scoring 71, Luka put up a pedestrian 26 is a loss to the Lakers. This means that while Dame moved closer to the leaders, Luka dropped behind Embiid for the top spot. We now have: 1. Embiid - 1557 in 47 games, 33.13 ppg 2. Luka - 1720 in 52 games, 33.08 ppg 3. Dame - 1516 in 47 games, 32.26 ppg Embiid plays tomorrow night. Dame and Luka both play Tuesday. Stay tuned.
Doing the math, Dame would need another 68 Tuesday to get up to 33ppg. Obviously not going to happen, but fun to think about.
Embiid has Harden and Doncic has Irving. We don't have a scorer close to what those two bring to the other two leading scorers. If Dame is serious about making a run to the playoffs then he'll have 40ppg over the final 22 games of this season and will pass both Luca and Joel.
The Warriors are toradol popping stat padders that don't give a crap about defense (26th in opponents ppg). The table is set for another wicked Lillard performance.
Wondering if it's going to be more about sustaining what he has at this point. Luka obviously now has Kyrie who will demand touches. Seems to me the one to watch here is Embiid. Dame might benefit in this race with Simons out for a bit? It won't help the team having Simons out, but he might try to score more?
I agree with you about both Luka and Embiid. I'd say that 33ppg mark is about what he'd need to shoot for. Assuming he plays each of the remaining 22 games, he'd need to average 34.6 ppg the rest of the way to finish above 33 for the season.
The fact that Embiid has 41 more points in the same amount of games as Dame is a reminder of how good Embiid is.
Considering in his last 22 games he's scored under 32.26 points only 6 times, and the worst was 24 points, I'd say he's got a chance. Put another way, during this stretch he has the same number of sub 28-point games as 50 point games. Incredible.
Checking back on Dame's spot on the all-time scoring leaderboard, he jumped Dale Ellis and Reggie Theus last night to take 62nd in NBA history (66th if ABA is added in) at 19026. There are 11 players ahead of him in the 19000's, the top of whom is John Stockton at 19711. For Dame to pass all of them this season, he would need 686 points, which would be 31.18 ppg over 22 games, 32.67 over 21g, or 34.3 over 20. Bottom line--If Dame is going to have a shot at the scoring title, he'll also probably have to jump up another 11 spots on the all-time list, and be knocking on the door of the top-50.
Embiid scored 27 tonight, dropping him back behind Luka. 1. Luka - 1720 in 52 games, 33.08 ppg 2. Embiid - 1584 in 48 games, 33.00 ppg 3. Dame - 1516 in 47 games, 32.26 ppg Excited to see what Dame does tomorrow
Lillard 35-40 this game. IMO if the Warriors stop Dame and hold him to anything under 30 they win this game.
Last night, Luka put up 39 in a loss to the Pacers, while Dame only got 25 (for which we blame @THE HCP!) against the warriors. Also, I probably shouldn't ignore Giannis, who put up 33 last night against Brooklyn, and is closer to Dame than Dame is to Luka 1. Luka - 1759 in 53 games, 33.19 ppg 2. Embiid - 1584 in 48 games, 33.00 ppg 3. Dame - 1541 in 48 games, 32.10 ppg 4. Giannis - 1533 in 49 games, 31.29 ppg (note: excluding the two games on either side of the all-star break in which he played 15 minutes total, he'd be in 3rd at 1527 in 47 games, or 32.49 ppg)
Dame got 41 last night, basically offsetting the 25 from the night before. That slacker Embiid took the night off, and Giannis only played 28 minutes against Orlando, limiting him to 31 points. He's still in 4th, though actually scoring the most per 36. 1. Luka - 1759 in 53 games, 33.19 ppg 2. Embiid - 1584 in 48 games, 33.00 ppg 3. Dame - 1582 in 49 games, 32.29 ppg 4. Giannis - 1562 in 50 games, 31.24 ppg
Took the last couple days off from this thread, but figured I could update it after Luka got 34 in today's Dallas/Phoenix game before our game tonight in Orlando. 1. Luka - 1835 in 55 games, 33.36 ppg 2. Embiid - 1650 in 50 games, 33.00 ppg 3. Dame - 1615 in 50 games, 32.30 ppg 4. Giannis - 1598 in 51 games, 31.33 ppg Dame's gonna have to drop a few more 40+ games if he wants to stay closing the gap.