20 Second Timeout

Five Players Who Led the NCAA and the NBA in Scoring

I remember learning during my early years as a basketball fan that Rick Barry is the only player to lead the NCAA, ABA, and NBA in scoring in a single season. That record will never be matched, because the ABA's nine season run ended in 1976 with the ABA-NBA merger. I recently watched the 2018 SEC Storied documentary about Pistol Pete Maravich, and the documentary noted that Maravich was one of the few players to lead the NCAA and the NBA in scoring. I had never checked before to see who else pulled off that double feat other than Barry and Maravich, but this is an elite group of just five players. Each of the first four players was selected to the NBA's 1996 50 Greatest Players List: George Mikan, Paul Arizin, Rick Barry, and Pete Maravich. The fifth player, Stephen Curry, did not begin his NBA career until more than a decade after the NBA released its 50 Greatest Players List, and he will almost certainly be selected to the NBA's 75th Anniversary Team to be announced in October 2021.

Mikan led the NCAA in scoring twice (23.3 ppg in 1945, 23.1 ppg in 1946) before the NCAA officially began crowning a scoring champion in 1948, so he is considered as an "unofficial" scoring leader for those two seasons. Mikan led the National Basketball League (NBL) in scoring in 1947-48 (1195 points, the league single season record; 21.3 ppg), and after his Minneapolis Lakers jumped to the Basketball Association of America (BAA) in 1948-49 he led that league in scoring as well (1698 points; 28.3 ppg). The BAA and NBL merged to form the NBA prior to the 1949-50 season. Mikan won the NBA scoring title in 1950 (1865 points; 27.4 ppg) and 1951 (1932 points; 28.4 ppg). Mikan put up those scoring numbers in the pre-shot clock era, when opposing teams could slow the game down and limit his scoring opportunities. Note that until the 1969-70 season, the NBA crowned its scoring champion based on total points scored, not scoring average, but the NCAA has always crowned its scoring champion based on scoring average.

The NBA practices an interesting form of inconsistent historical revisionism, counting the 1947, 1948, and 1949 BAA seasons as NBA seasons but ignoring the NBL's records from those seasons. The NBA considers the 1949 deal between the BAA and NBL to be an NBA expansion, not a merger of two competing leagues, and the NBA pretends that NBL statistics do not exist, even though the NBL has a longer history (1937-49) than the BAA (1946-49). Despite the NBA's attempt to wipe the NBL out of the history books, the BAA was not clearly superior to the NBL or even other rival leagues; the 1948 and 1949 BAA titles were both won by teams that had been members of other leagues in the previous season but then proved to be better than all of the original BAA teams.

Similarly, the NBA has spent decades pretending that ABA statistics do not exist, even though ABA players dominated the NBA for several years after the 1976 ABA-NBA merger. It is noteworthy that even though the NBA does not count ABA statistics it did not classify former ABA players who had no NBA experience as rookies in 1976-77; if the NBA had done that, three-time ABA MVP Julius Erving might have added NBA Rookie of the Year honors to his trophy case (or the award might have gone to David Thompson or George Gervin, two other ABA veterans who made the All-NBA Team in 1976-77, their first NBA season). It makes no sense to ignore Erving's ABA numbers but then not classify him as a rookie during his first NBA season. The point is NOT that the NBA should have considered Erving to be a rookie in 1976-77; the point is that Erving's statistics from his first five professional seasons should be afforded equal status with his NBA statistics, much like the NFL affords equal status to AFL statistics. 

My interview with Bill Tosheff provides background and context about the NBA's historical revisionism regarding the league's early years--which, tragically, extends to denying pension benefits to many of pro basketball's pioneers--and I have discussed the NBA's historical revisionism regarding the ABA in numerous articles, including ABA Numbers Should Also Count. The surviving ABA players are still battling with the NBA to secure pension benefits that they should have been receiving for decades.

Anyway, if we count Mikan's two "unofficial" NCAA scoring titles then he is the first of just five dual NCAA/NBA scoring title winners, regardless of whether he is credited with three NBA scoring titles (the NBA counts his 1949 BAA scoring title plus his 1950-51 NBA scoring titles) or with four NBA scoring titles (there is no reason that his 1948 NBL scoring title should be ignored).

Paul Arizin led the NCAA in scoring in 1950 (25.3 ppg). He led the NBA in scoring in 1952 (1674 points; 25.4 ppg) and in 1957 (1817 points; 25.6 ppg), winning one of the closest scoring title races in NBA history (1957) but also finishing second in two of the closest scoring title races in NBA history (1955, 1956). Two-time NBA scoring champion Arizin could have easily been a four-time NBA scoring champion, but he also could have easily been a one-time NBA scoring champion.

Rick Barry led the NCAA in scoring in 1965 (37.4 ppg). He won the NBA scoring title in 1967, his second season (2775 points; 35.6 ppg). Barry sat out a year before being permitted to jump to the ABA, and then he won the ABA scoring title in 1969, averaging 34.0 ppg. The ABA always crowned its scoring champion based on scoring average, not total points. Barry only played in 35 games in 1968-69, but he scored enough total points to qualify for the leaderboard, and he easily had the best scoring average (1968 ABA scoring champion Connie Hawkins finished a distant second in 1969 despite averaging 30.2 ppg).

Pete Maravich not only won three straight NCAA scoring titles (1968-70), but he set a new single season scoring mark three years in a row (43.8 ppg, 44.2 ppg, 44.5 ppg). His NCAA career scoring average record (44.2 ppg) has stood longer than Babe Ruth's career home run record stood, and is on the short list of records that will likely never be approached, let alone broken. Maravich led the NBA in scoring in 1977 (31.1 ppg). 

Maravich was on pace to lead the NBA in scoring in 1978 before suffering a serious knee injury. Maravich was averaging 28.1 ppg in 1977-78 before he got hurt. He missed over a month, then came back for three games (during which he scored 0, 12, and 17 points), and then he missed the rest of the season. Those three games lowered Maravich's scoring average to 27.0 ppg in 50 games, and he did not score enough total points to even qualify for the leaderboard. Maravich's leading role for most of the 1978 scoring title race is largely forgotten now because of the famous scoring duel between George Gervin and David Thompson on the final day of that season. Thompson scored 73 points in a game early in the day before Gervin, who knew exactly how many points he needed to score to clinch the scoring title, scored 63 points. Gervin averaged 27.22 ppg in 1978 and Thompson averaged 27.15 ppg, so if Maravich had stayed healthy and maintained his previous scoring pace he would have cruised to his second consecutive scoring title (and thus Thompson and Gervin would probably have not had their final game scoring outbursts, because the scoring title would not have been up for grabs).

Stephen Curry led the NCAA in scoring in 2009 (28.6 ppg) before winning NBA scoring titles in 2016 (30.1 ppg) and 2021 (32.0 ppg). Curry is the only one of these five players who benefited from having the three point line in both college and the NBA during their scoring title seasons. The ABA used the three point shot throughout its existence but Barry shot just 3-10 from beyond the arc during his 1969 scoring title season, though he later made 73 three pointers--a large number at that time--during the 1972 ABA season, and he matched that total during the 1980 NBA season, the first year that the NBA used the three point shot, and the last season of Barry's NBA career.

It is interesting (but perhaps not surprising) that the vast majority of NCAA scoring champions do not win NBA scoring titles but that the few who did are not "just" Hall of Fame caliber players but players who rank at least among the top 50-75 NBA players of all-time.

Labels: George Mikan, Paul Arizin, Pete Maravich, Rick Barry, Stephen Curry

posted by David Friedman @ 3:47 PM

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