Bulls veteran DeMar DeRozan believes someone will score 100 points before the seasons ends

After his decorated 15-season career in the NBA, DeMar DeRozan has seen the league evolve throughout the years. The Bulls wingman is an expert scorer, having dropped over 22,000 points as a professional, and believes the players around the game are only getting better and better. 

Despite being a bona fide bucket-getter, he’s never come close to scoring 100 points in a single game, as that record goes to Wilt Chamberlain, who reached the highest-scoring mark during a single game back in 1962. The Chicago veteran, who enjoys a career-high 52 points, believes someone will soon break the all-time record.

The 34-year-old made his feelings known after a crazy couple of weeks in the NBA. Not only did Dallas guard Luka Doncic score the fourth all-time highest points with 73 over the weekend, Philadelphia big man Joel Embiid dropped 70 also in January, while Karl-Anthony Towns and Devin Booker recently hit over 60 points.

DeMar Derozan thinks that with FOUR 70-PT performances over the last year, someone will reach 100 PTS in a game very soon!

What player will it be? 🤔 pic.twitter.com/bMbq0QNi1i

— Courtside Buzz (@CourtsideBuzzX) January 27, 2024

If one thing is for sure, is that something is changing. Either it is the talent around the league, or the rule book is favoring offensive plays, or even both? DeRozan says it has to do with everything, but likes to believe it’s mostly due to the skill set of modern athletes.

“The skill set is so incredible now. The pace, more possessions, the amount of threes. When you’ve got players that are so dominant at what they do. You look at ‘Book’ [Suns guard Devin Booker], Joel [Embiid], look at Luka, these guys are so dominant and so great and so skilled, and they understand and know how to manipulate the game to their benefit, as well. That just comes with your IQ. That’s just the evolution of the game,” he said this week.

Bulls guard Coby White complemented what his teammate said, but further explained this phenomenon by saying that today’s basketball is completely different to that of the past.

“I feel like the game changing helps it a lot. Now everybody is positionless. Spacing, the game is a lot faster, more possessions, more threes are going up. With more threes and a faster pace, more turnovers and fast breaks. The game has changed. It helps the person who is scoring a lot, with the rules and how the game has changed,” the 23-year-old shared.

The NBA is not seeing a cause for alarm as this season’s scoring is up less than 1% compared to last year

After a long list of impressive individual performances since the start of the year, NBA executive Joe Dumars said that the league isn’t alarmed by these stats because this season’s scoring average is only up slightly compared to the last campaign.

“It’s where the game is today,” said the NBA’s executive vice president and head of basketball operations. “It’s the pace of the game. It’s the amount of 3s guys are shooting now. You’re going to have some offensive eruptions like that.”

The last time two players produced 60+ point performances in the same day was back in 1978, as Embiid and Towns achieved the same on January 22. Four days later, Doncic and Booker put on their own show.

The overall scoring average for this current competition is up just 0.78% compared to last season, from 114.7 points per game to 115.6 points per contest. However, it was last season when the jump really took off, as scoring rose 3.7% over the rate of 110.6 per match, compared to what players produced in the 2021/22 campaign.