Philadelphia’s Joel Embiid and Dallas’ Luka Doncic in a neck-and-neck battle for NBA scoring title

For the second time, the NBA will have an international player as its scoring champion. Philadelphia’s Joel Embiid, who was born in Cameroon, is on the cusp of becoming a back-to-back scoring champion, though he and Dallas’ Luka Doncic might take that race down to the wire.

Closest Scoring Race in Over a Decade

Embiid opened up a bit of breathing room on Sunday, when he had 28 points in the 76ers’ loss to Milwaukee while Doncic scored 28 in the Mavericks’ overtime loss to Atlanta. Embiid now has 2,110 points in 64 games; that’s an average of 32.97 per game. Doncic has 2,096 points, also in 64 games; that’s an average of 32.75 per game.

Philadelphia has four games remaining, Dallas has three. No NBA games were being played Monday, with the league taking off the day of the NCAA men's Division I championship game. This could be the closest scoring race in more than a decade. The last time the scoring title was decided by less than a half-point per game was 2011-12, when Oklahoma City’s Kevin Durant edged the Los Angeles Lakers’ Kobe Bryant by 0.17 points per game; Durant averaged 28.03, Bryant averaged 27.86.

Embiid Becoming the Official International Scoring Champion

Embiid held off Milwaukee’s Giannis Antetokounmpo to lead the league in points per game last season to become the first official international scoring champion. Dominique Wilkins also won a scoring title; he was born in France but played for the U.S. and is considered an American player.

(It should be noted that Embiid’s average of 30.6 points last season was barely ahead of LeBron James’ 30.3 per game, but James did not officially qualify for the NBA leaderboard because he did not appear in enough games.)

Race for the Top Picks in the NBA Draft

While we won’t know until May 16 who gets the No. 1 pick in the draft — spoiler alert, unless some incredible trade happens, the lottery winner will select Victor Wembanyama — we do know there’s a 42% chance that the top pick will go to Detroit, Houston or San Antonio.

The Pistons, Rockets and Spurs are assured of finishing in the three bottom spots of the league this season. But there’s still some odds that can be “improved,” in that the team that finishes with the worst record is assured of not leaving the lottery with worse than the No. 5 draft pick.

Detroit is almost assured of having the worst record; the Pistons are 16-62, well “ahead” of Houston (19-60) and San Antonio (20-58). There's a lot of jostling that will happen this week for lottery odds as well. Charlotte is locked into finishing with the fourth-worst record, but the fifth- through eighth-worst spots are all up in the air — with Portland, Indiana, Washington, and Orlando all currently having either 33 or 34 wins. And the worse a team's record is, the better chance it has of winning the lottery and the Wembanyama sweepstakes.

Other Scoring Title Contenders

Portland’s Damian Lillard is third in the scoring race at 32.2 points per game. He’ll finish at that average, as the Trail Blazers have shut him down for the rest of the season since they are out of playoff contention. Technically, Lillard could still move ahead of Embiid and Doncic, but it’s

Disclaimer: The copyright of this article belongs to the original author. Reposting this article is solely for the purpose of information dissemination and does not constitute any investment advice. If there is any infringement, please contact us immediately. We will make corrections or deletions as necessary. Thank you.