Last season, Kevin Durant had an injury-riddled season, playing in just 47 regular season games. Despite this, Durant did post the first 55/40/90 season in NBA history, with his 56.0/40.4/91.9 shooting splits. This also marked his second appearance on the prestigious 50/40/90 club, with his first coming a decade earlier when he was a 24-year-old budding superstar with the Oklahoma City Thunder. In the last decade, Steph Curry, Malcolm Brogdon, and Kyrie Irving also joined the club, begging the question, which NBA player could join the 50/40/90 club in 2023-2024?
To think logically about who could be the next player to hit 50/40/90, we will first look for any historical trends and see which players flirted with 50/40/90 last season. Oddly enough, age has played little to no role in players who have had 50, 40, or 90 seasons.
Players like Mark Price and Kevin Durant joined the club at age 24. Players like Curry (27), Brogdon (26), Irving (28), Dirk Nowitzki (28), and Reggie Miller (28) all joined the club closer to or in the middle of their primes. Then there were Larry Bird and Steve Nash, who didn’t join the 50/40/90 club until they were in their 30s.
It does seem that historically, it is high-level players who are reaching 50, 40, or 90, with the majority of the club being all-time great players. The two players that potentially stand out as not fitting this mold are Price and Brogdon. However, Price was incredibly underrated and still averaged 18.9 PPG and 8.4 APG, both of which led his team, during his 50/40/90 year.
Brogdon is the lone player who was not a top two player on his team, averaging 15.6 PPG, 4.5 RPG, and 3.2 APG on a stacked Milwaukee Bucks team where he was the 4th scoring option during his 50/40/90 season.
As for players who flirted with 50/40/90 in 2022–2023, there were 13 qualifying players who shot 47.5%+ from the field, 37.5%+ from three, and 86.0% on FTs. After removing the players who had already joined the club, nine names remained. From this pool, these are the five players who have the best chance at 50/40/90 next season!
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Author: Tyler Key
August 7, 2023 | 8:00 am
