With this being the 10 year anniversary of Kobe's 81 point explosion, do you see anyone ever equaling or besting his output in the future? There are only 5 current players with a chance in hell IMO. Curry, Durant, Westbrook, Thompson, and Harden. Curry, Thompson, and Durant are capable because of their shooting abilities. Harden would have to make about 40 free throws. And it would be interesting to see how Westbrook would get there. With all that said, I personally don't believe we will ever see 80 points again.

I believe we will, though that player is not currently in the NBA (or at least not on the right roster). We will see an 80 point scorer when all of these happen:
-A great shooter shoots 15 threes a game and happens to make 12 in one of them
-Said great shooter is on a ****ty team so he has to stay in the game
-Said great shooter is the only good player on his team, and therefore takes 40+ shots in a close game
-The player makes 18 two point shots (lay ups, floaters, whatever) to go 30/40+. This will put the player at 72 points so all he has to do is
- make 8-15 free throws

It's not impossible for a player on a bad team in a high scoring game to make 3 threes, 4-5 2-point shots, and 2 free throws a quarter

Yes, but it might be in the next generation or two.

Unlikely because you'd have to have an incredibly selfish player to jack up so many shots. There won't be another Kobe type explosion because players are being told to share the ball more than ever.

On this same line of thought: I was looking at NBA career records last week (points, rebounds, etc) and there's no active players close in any stat. Tim is forever away on rebounds and the like while Kobe will finish 5000 points behind Kareem.

I wonder if we'll see anyone break any of these big records anytime soon.

Boban the Barbarian will do it to the Lakers tonight.

The player to do it would have to show selfishness with the basketball at a level we haven't seen since Kobe without Shaq.

I actually think Russell Westbrook would be the most likely person.

It could happen in a game like David Robinson had at the end of the 1994 season when he scored 71 to win the scoring title...or some ridiculous scoring fest like the Pistons and Nuggets had in 1983. Triple OT, ended 186-184.

Westbrook is definitely the kind of player I could see doing it on a given night.

The real question is, how many free throws would it take Andre Drummond to get to 81 points? Based on his current FT%, that number would be 225.

Multiple OTs and Westbrook

JR Smith on a really bad team