Luka Dončić opens the 2026-27 scoring race with the belt already around his waist and a Lakers offense now built to keep the ball in his hands. Dončić averaged 33.5 points last season to secure his second scoring championship, piling up an NBA-best 44 games with at least 30 points and 16 nights at 40 or more. Nobody else reached 40 points more than 10 times. His personal high-water marks included 51 and 60, and he paired the volume with a 56.3% effective field-goal rate, the second-best mark of his career. With LeBron James no longer on the roster, there is little mystery about whose production will set the temperature in Los Angeles.
The strongest immediate challenge may again come from Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, who followed a 31.1-point season with a second consecutive Kia NBA MVP award. Gilgeous-Alexander enters the year having scored 20 or more in 140 straight games, after passing Wilt Chamberlain’s 63-year-old record of 126 last March. He shot 55.3% from the field last season; none of the other top five scorers cleared 49%. The interesting detail in his runner-up finish is workload: Oklahoma City had enough control of games to sit him for 26 fourth quarters. More close-game minutes would give him a practical path to more points.
Anthony Edwards is coming off a career-best 28.8 points per game, third behind Dončić and Gilgeous-Alexander, after sharpening the part of his game that changes the math for defenses. He led the league in made 3-pointers in 2024-25, then made a career-high 39.9% from beyond the arc last season. His new partnership with LaMelo Ball will be worth watching through the lens of the scoring race. Ball can make Edwards’ life easier with his shooting and creation, though another aggressive perimeter scorer also means fewer possessions reserved for Edwards.
Nikola Jokić remains the candidate whose scoring case can get lost beneath everything else he does. He was eighth in the league at 27.7 points per game while shooting 56.9%, and also led the NBA with 10.7 assists and 12.9 rebounds per night. Denver has long benefited from Jokić making the right read instead of the loud one. If his shot diet shifts toward a few more self-created attempts, his touch around the basket and from the midrange gives him the efficiency to move into the title conversation.
The rising big and the proven volume scorers
Victor Wembanyama’s scoring average has climbed in each of his first three NBA seasons, reaching 25.0 points per game in 2025-26 on a career-best 51.2% from the floor. The major adjustment came in his shot selection. Wembanyama lowered his 3-point attempts from 8.8 per game in 2024-25 to 5.5 last season, a meaningful step for a 22-year-old still discovering where his size and skill can create the cleanest offense. A more forceful scoring approach could bring the Spurs’ centerpiece much closer to the leaders.
Giannis Antetokounmpo has already shown what the scoring title ceiling looks like. He is the only player in NBA history to average at least 30 points while shooting better than 60% for a full season, doing so in both 2023-24 and 2024-25. Injuries held him to 36 appearances last year, when he averaged 27.6 points, his lowest figure since 2017-18. Healthy again, Antetokounmpo starts a new phase in Miami with the sort of rim pressure that can turn a scoring race quickly.
Jalen Brunson enters the regular season fresh from a postseason that put his big-shot résumé in heavier ink. His 45 points in Game 5 of the Finals delivered the Knicks’ first championship since 1973, and matched Michael Jordan’s 45 in Game 6 of the 1998 Finals for the highest total in a title-clinching road win. Brunson led all playoff scorers at 28.4 points per game and has cleared 26 points per game in each of the last three regular seasons. A player who can bend playoff possessions late in May has a credible case to carry that scoring weight from October through April.
Jayson Tatum’s candidacy depends on both his recovery and a new Boston hierarchy. He made it back only 10 months after a torn Achilles, returning for the final 16 regular-season games of 2025-26 after missing the first 62. Tatum averaged 21.8 points while easing into the lineup and allowing Jaylen Brown to handle more of the offense. Brown is now in Philadelphia, leaving Tatum, 28, without his longtime co-star for the first time. Before the injury, he had put together five straight seasons above 26 points per game, including 30.1 in 2022-23. If those legs and that usage return together, the opportunity is there.
Brown and Tyrese Maxey bring the next wrinkle to the race because Philadelphia has assembled too much scoring talent for their roles to be simple. Brown finished fourth in the league last season with a career-high 28.7 points per game, taking personal-best averages of 21.7 field-goal attempts and 7.5 free-throw attempts. He converted 79.5% at the line, also a career high, while operating as Boston’s clear first option.
Maxey finished one spot behind him, fifth in the NBA at a career-best 28.3 points per game. He added 220 made 3-pointers, 12th-most in the league. Now Brown, Maxey, LeBron James and Joel Embiid must sort out possessions in Philadelphia. Extra spacing and less concentrated defensive attention could create cleaner lanes for Maxey’s speed and more open perimeter looks for both guards. The other side of it is obvious: four established stars cannot all play with title-race usage. Philadelphia’s rotation may decide whether Brown or Maxey gets the statistical runway needed to chase Dončić and Gilgeous-Alexander.
