Predicting the Top 10 Scorers for the 2026-27 NBA Season

The NBA discourse needs a break from cap-circumvention scandals and its various prediction-market entanglements, which means it's time to talk buckets.

Chances are, you fell in love with the game because a player you liked scored a bunch of points in a game you happened to be watching. Let's acknowledge the purity of that experience by turning our full attention to something simple and undeniably fun.

That's right: It's time to predict the top 10 scorers for the upcoming 2026-27 season.

10. Donovan Mitchell, Cleveland Cavaliers

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Peyton Watson's potential as an on-ball weapon is purely additive for the title-chasing Cleveland Cavaliers. It's not going to chip away at Donovan Mitchell's first-option reps.

Last year's 27.9 points per game might still be out of reach if Watson eats up some possessions, or if Evan Mobley takes another step as a creator. But Mitchell has topped 24.0 points per game every year since 2019-20 and feels highly likely to do so again.

Remember, if guys like Watson and Mobley (and James Harden) are dangerous enough to command more defensive attention, Mitchell could benefit. He shot 40.7 percent on catch-and-shoot threes during the regular season but attempted just 231 such shots, ranking outside the league's top 75.

If defenses have to account for other threats, that number could rise along with Mitchell's scoring efficiency. If he loses anything in volume, that should make up for it.

9. Deni Avdija, Portland Trail Blazers

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Deni Avdija proved himself as a first-option shot creator for the first time last season, averaging 24.1 points per game on the strength of a brutally forceful downhill driving game.

A ruggedly strong 6'8", Avdija bull rushes opponents and then hits them with one of the league's best slow-step packages. Compromised by his strength, defenders were routinely off balance and out of position, allowing Avdija to amass 9.2 free-throw attempts per game.

The Portland Trail Blazers roster is overloaded with guards, but none of them deserves to take touches away from Avdija—not after he barged into his first All-Star game and added a career-high 6.7 assists per contest to his profile. If anything, the Blazers should lean even harder on their best player going forward.

If Avdija comes closer to matching 2023-24's 37.4 percent from three after last year's disappointing 31.8 percent clip, defenders who have no choice but to be on their heels will pay for sagging off of him. Entering his prime years, Avdija comes with a 25.0-point-per-game floor.

8. Cade Cunningham, Detroit Pistons

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The Detroit Pistons didn't find a capable secondary creator over the offseason, but they surrounded Cade Cunningham with shooting.

Isaiah Joe, John Collins, Taurean Prince and Gary Harris were all above 40.0 percent from deep last season and should keep the floor spaced for Detroit's superstar. They won't, however, lighten the playmaking load. Add those two expectations together, and the result might be a higher-scoring version of Cunningham who is perfectly positioned to get more of his own buckets than ever.

Cunningham ranked fifth in drives per game last year, but generated the fewest free-throw attempts and shot the worst percentage in those situations of anyone else in the top five. Better spacing should widen his avenues of attack, creating more chances to finish at the rim or draw a foul.

Cunningham's previous career high is 26.1 points per game, set in 2024-25. He's going to top that with ease.

7. Jayson Tatum, Boston Celtics

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The Boston Celtics employed a single-star approach last season, and it produced a career year for Jaylen Brown. Why shouldn't the process repeat itself with a healthy Jayson Tatum in place of the departed Brown?

The Celtics replaced Brown, who put up at least 17.0 shots per game every year since 2020-21, with Paul George, who hasn't averaged more than 17.0 shots per game since 2021-22. Even if George stays healthy, a large share of the shots and on-ball reps that once went to Brown will fall to Tatum.

Both intuition and statistical history say that'll result in more touches and points. Tatum's usage rate in 102 career games without Brown is 31.2 percent, and he averages 26.3 points per game. In 499 games with his former teammate, those figures were a 28.2 usage rate and 23.0 points per contest.

6. Nikola Jokić, Denver Nuggets

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Nikola Jokić has averaged between 24.5 and 29.7 points per game over the last six seasons, and the continued degradation of his surrounding talent points to him clocking in toward the higher end of that spread in 2026-27.

Peyton Watson is gone via a sign-and-trade, making it two straight offseasons that the Denver Nuggets have downgraded their supporting cast for financial reasons. Though Watson's exit won't hurt Denver's scoring as much as Michael Porter Jr.'s departure last summer, Jokić still figures to carry at least as much of the scoring burden as he did in 2025-26.

DeMar DeRozan is still in the league because he can get buckets, but he profiles as a second-unit weapon.

Jokić registered a career high in free-throw attempts per game last season, which shows he's still finding new ways to exploit defenders. Don't rule out more growth in that area, increased three-point volume or new wrinkles to his mid-post game. Players with his level of talent and feel are always adding dimensions.

5. Giannis Antetokounmpo, Miami Heat

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It sounds strange to say about a player whose newest star teammate once scored 83 points in a game, but Giannis Antetokounmpo is used to being surrounded by a bit more offensive punch.

Damian Lillard was a major source of points when healthy, and the combination of Khris Middleton and Jrue Holiday offered strong support before that brief two-star era.

Bam Adebayo has never been a score-first threat and peaked at 20.4 points per game in 2022-23. Andrew Wiggins and Klay Thompson are past their primes. Davion Mitchell is in the league because of his defense. The list goes on.

Antetokounmpo fell below 30.0 points per game for the first time since 2021-22 last season. He'll be motivated to prove he's still a first-tier MVP candidate after a messy exit from Milwaukee, and he may also need to reach new scoring heights just for the Miami Heat offense to function.

4. Victor Wembanyama, San Antonio Spurs

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Though he'll always be defined by his defensive impact, Victor Wembanyama showed enough last season to suggest he has massive upside as a scorer.

The San Antonio Spurs still don't seem to have a handle on the best way to use Wemby, too often tasking him with creating plays from the perimeter rather than making him a finisher on spot-ups, post-ups or hard rolls to the rim. Once they dial in the correct usage mix for Wembanyama, the sky's the limit.

Don't forget the likelihood of a generational mega-talent improving in his age-23 season. Wembanyama could juice his three-point accuracy, get to the foul line more often or dominate the offensive glass for put-backs as he adds strength.

Even if the Spurs simply keep Wemby in the same suboptimal role, the potential for him to crack 30.0 points per game remains high because he produced a historically unusual scoring average for a player logging fewer than 30 minutes per game.

Among players who averaged fewer than 30 minutes per game and appeared in at least 50 contests, Wemby's 2025-26 scoring average of 25.0 points per game was the highest of all time.

3. Anthony Edwards, Minnesota Timberwolves

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Two factors work in favor of Anthony Edwards adding to last year's 28.8 points per game, which would put him in a great position to collect his first scoring title.

The first is that Ant has made a habit of getting better in every season of his career. His scoring average and true shooting percentage have trended up in each of his six years as a pro. At this point, if you're not expecting continued offensive growth from the 25-year-old superstar, you're ignoring a very compelling pattern.

The second reason: LaMelo Ball.

Edwards' newest teammate is far from a perfect player, but Ball has a history of making the scorers around him much more efficient. Last year, Ball's Charlotte teammates saw their collective true shooting percentage climb by nine points when sharing the floor with the pass-happy point guard. Edwards is bound to enjoy some of the same benefits.

2. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Oklahoma City Thunder

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If you had to bet on one player to average at least 30.0 points per game this season, it'd have to be Shai Gilgeous-Alexander. He's crested that mark for four straight seasons, and the league probably didn't figure out how to stop him over the summer.

SGA combines unsurpassed scoring craft, disorienting change-of-pace, elite accuracy on short jumpers and has suckered defenders into fouls better than anyone in the league. He's led the NBA in free throws made per game every year since 2023-24.

Last year's 59.7 effective field-goal percentage was the highest of Gilgeous-Alexander's career, suggesting he's not done adding layers to his game.

The only thing preventing SGA from ranking first on this list is his measured approach to the game. Other scorers are insatiable, hungry for as many buckets as they can get. Gilgeous-Alexander isn't quite that greedy, finishing sixth last year in field-goal attempts per 36 minutes.

He scores only as much as his team needs him to.

1. Luka Dončić, Los Angeles Lakers

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The Los Angeles Lakers removed a high-volume scorer from the picture by letting LeBron James go and effectively replaced him with big man Walker Kessler, creating a perfect scenario for Luka Dončić's scoring potential.

Dončić led the league at 33.5 points per game last season, but that fell short of his career high of 33.9 in 2023-24. In addition to health, Dončić had a pair of rim-running bigs sopping up most of the center minutes with that Dallas Mavericks team. Dereck Lively II dunked 52.7 percent of his field-goal attempts in 2023-24, and Daniel Gafford slammed 46.2 percent of his.

When Dončić has a lob threat to draw in the defense, it supercharges his own scoring in the lane.

DeAndre Ayton and his career 15.5 percent dunk attempt rate were of little help a year ago, but Kessler's career figure of 34.2 percent comes much closer to the Lively-Gafford number that unlocked the highest-scoring version of Dončić we've ever seen.

Stats courtesy of NBA.com, Basketball Reference and Cleaning the Glass. Salary info via Spotrac.

Grant Hughes covers the NBA for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Bluesky and subscribe to the Hardwood Knocks podcast, where he appears with Bleacher Report's Dan Favale.