Who is the Worst Career 20ppg+ Scorers

[Jabroni Lames]

Worst 30ppg+ scorers (single season)?

Allen Iverson
Carmelo Anthony

[Courant]

Currently, there are 64 players in NBA history who have averaged at least 20 points per game for their careers:

https://www.basketball-reference.com/leaders/pts_per_g_career.html

I would suspect "worst" is a relative term based on the person's subjective reasoning (skill sets, efficiency, etc). While I do not expect anyone to have seen all of these players (I have seen the vast majority of them in their careers), I also would assume there would be some reasonable argument why some people think that player is the worst.

[Hussien Fatal]

I see a lot of people that didn’t read the title, with mentions of players like mashburn, Kevin Martin, mike James even Jokic and other below 20ppg career scorers. Remember we are talking CAREER average of 20ppg or more.

It's a bit wild that maybe more than half the thread is responses from people not reading the title.

I too find it crazy that people can’t read a 6 word thread title. It’s really a simple straightforward question that for some reason people can’t decipher

[Courant]

I hear you. However!

I went ahead and looked up 96-97 season. SAC (in Mitch's top statistical season) got beaten to 8th seed by the Clippers sporting a roster of:

[order by total points that season]

Loy Vaught
Malik Sealy
Rodney Rogers
Darrick Martin
Bo Outlaw
Lorenzen Wright
Lamond Murray
Terry Dehere
Brent Barry
Eric Piatkowski
Pooh Richardson
Stanley Roberts
Kevin Duckworth
Dwayne Schintzius
Rich Manning

Bang.

Kings second best player Brian Grant only played about 20 games that year. It was Mitch and a bunch of journeymen. That Clippers roster wasn’t anything special but swap Bill Fitch for Garry St Jean and I’m sure the Kings make the playoffs a couple more times.

I am noticing that the poster is ignoring who was Mitch Richmond's teammates on those Sacramento Kings teams. Let's look at the rest of the 1996-97 lineup:

* Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf was the starting point guard. It was Abdul-Rauf's final season as a starter in the NBA (Denver traded him to Sacramento that summer), and he averaged only 2.5 assists per game (Richmond ended up leading the team in assists). He was the Kings' second-leading scorer at 13.7 points per game (Richmond averaged 25.9 points per game).

* Olden Polynice was the starting center for most of his time in Sacramento. Polynice was a defensive center who could rebound and play in the interior but athletic enough to help out in pressing situations. He was the Kings' third-leading scorer at 12.5 points per game while grabbing 9.4 rebounds per game.

* Corliss Williamson and Billy Owens were burly small forwards who split time starting.

* With Brian Grant missing the majority of the season, the starting power forward was Michael "The Animal" Smith, a 6-foot-8 power forward who never started before that season.

* A bench consisting of Tyus Edney (5-10 point guard), Bobby Hurley (a lottery pick that was a bust) and Duane Causwell (a journeyman center).

Short of prime Michael Jordan and prime LeBron James, I doubt most all-time great players could have dragged a team this nondescript into the playoffs, much less Richmond. Richmond was not the type of player who could make any team a contender, but a rock-solid player who would be a consistent performer on any team.

[Long2_noD]

Mitch Richmond.

Yes, a six time All-Star Mitch Richmond.

During his prime seasons in SAC he played in a grand total of 4 playoff games. One win.
Also averaged below 4 rebs. Pretty bleak for a guy with his frame.

Didn't do much besides scoring.

MJ called him his toughest cover

Famously so. It's true.

To back it up with some hard data, let's take a look at their storied H2H rivalry in the postseason:

[whitehops]

sorry didn't go through all six pages but i'm sure antoine walker has been mentioned.

don't know if he qualifies because his career average is 17.5 but he averaged over 20 in his 8 seasons with the celtics... on .485 TS%.

[LegenW84ITBOBBY]

Cory Maggete

[WestbrookGOATed]

Kevin Martin

Didn't really read the title of the thread, did you?

He scored 20+ppg in 3 or 4 different seasons. 17 for his career. Close enough.

[tsherkin]

Iverson is 2nd all time with 4 scoring titles which is as many as KD. You are not gonna get anybody to agree with you that he is the worst 20ppg scorer ever.

At no point did I say he was the worst 20 ppg scorer ever.

[tsherkin]

But overall, it sounds like we are in agreement. Good discussion.

Absolutely. Iverson was a lot better than Mashburn and Mash was more of a disappointment due to his size advantage, for sure.