Luka Doncic drops 53 on the Blazers and his scoring average is now 40.1

A 62-foot bomb and 53 points: Luka Doncic is in territory no one has visited in 63 years

It started with a heave from just past three-quarter court. With two seconds left in the first half Friday night at Crypto.com Arena, Luka Doncic caught the ball near halfcourt, took one dribble and let a 62-foot shot fly. It went in. The building erupted. The Lakers, who had trailed the entire first half, suddenly had life, and Doncic, apparently, had ignition.

He scored 20 points in the third quarter alone, outscoring the entire Portland Trail Blazers team by five in the period. Doncic poured in a season-high 53 points to lead the Lakers to a 124-118 victory over the Portland Trail Blazers at Crypto.com Arena on Friday. He finished with 53 points, five rebounds and five assists.

The number that matters most right now is not 53. It's 40.1.

Though Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant and James Harden came somewhat close, no NBA player has averaged at least 40 points in a season since Wilt Chamberlain in 1962-63. Doncic just crossed that line. His 40.1 points per game through nine appearances mark the highest scoring start since Wilt Chamberlain. He is averaging 40.1 points per game, shooting 61.6 percent from the floor, with 7.8 rebounds and 7.7 assists.

Against the Trail Blazers, Doncic moved to 361 points through his first nine games of the season, third-most on record. Only Wilt Chamberlain, 472 in 1962-63 and 455 in 1961-62, had more.

The historical company is not incidental. It is the story.

What makes this run different

Doncic, 27, is taking full advantage of his new role as the undisputed face of the Lakers after LeBron James' offseason departure to the Philadelphia 76ers. Entering Friday, Doncic was leading the league in scoring, shot attempts, 3-point attempts, free throw attempts, usage rate, player efficiency rating and win shares.

He is not padding stats on a bad team, either. The Lakers moved into first place in the Western Conference by handing the Trail Blazers their second loss of the season. Los Angeles is 8-2.

Luka has recorded his 62nd game with at least 40 points, five rebounds and five assists, tying Michael Jordan for the most such games in NBA history, passing LeBron James and Wilt Chamberlain in the process. And he has done something nobody in the league's history has ever done: he tied Oscar Robertson for the longest streak of games with at least 35 points, five rebounds and five assists at seven games. In those seven games, Doncic also made at least five three-pointers in each one, making him the first player in NBA history to record seven straight games with at least 35 points, five rebounds, five assists and five triples made.

Doncic is the first Laker to reach the 40-point plateau in four consecutive games since Kobe Bryant in 2012. He has scored at least 40 in six games overall in the young 2026-27 campaign.

The 62-foot halftime shot went viral within seconds. When ESPN analyst Blake Griffin called it a half-court shot on the air, Doncic corrected him right there in a postgame exchange. "That was a three-quarter shot, I mean, not half-court," Doncic told Griffin, who laughed and apologized. Even in his biggest individual moment of the season so far, Doncic stayed Doncic.

The comeback that required all of it

None of this was easy. The Lakers fell behind by 16 in the first half. Portland was playing well and Doncic himself missed all three of his first-half three-point attempts before that buzzer-beater. They blitzed the Trail Blazers in the third, winning the quarter 34-15, with Doncic scoring 20 points on his own to outpace all of Portland.

Doncic scored 53 points and hit a key jumper in the lane with 27 seconds to play, carrying the Los Angeles Lakers to a 124-118 victory. Austin Reaves added 25 points despite struggling with his shot, going 8 of 22 for most of the night.

Even the Trail Blazers' own coach had essentially conceded MVP status before the game tipped. "[Doncic] is the MVP right now," Blazers coach Micah Nori said during his pregame comments. He was not wrong, and he knew it going in.

Lakers coach JJ Redick said after the game: "Luka can do some things that maybe a handful, if not no one, can do in basketball."

The question nobody has a real answer to

The honest question is whether Doncic sustains a 40-point average across a full 82-game season. His career high for a season is 33.9 points per game with the 2023-24 Dallas Mavericks. Maintaining a pace roughly six points higher over another 72 games is something no player has done since Chamberlain, who was an entirely different physical specimen playing by different rules against a thinner talent pool.

But nine games in, with the Lakers in first place in the West and the numbers pointing somewhere genuinely unprecedented in the modern era, that debate is real. It is not hype. The box score keeps confirming it, every single night.

The 62-foot three-pointer Doncic hoisted and made late in the second quarter Friday night seemed to ignite him, pushing him to even higher heights. The Blazers had no answer in the second half. The rest of the Western Conference, so far, has had no answer either.

Next up for Los Angeles: a road game at Detroit on Sunday. Doncic is averaging 40.1 points per game. The record he is chasing belonged to a 25-year-old Wilt Chamberlain in a season that ended 63 years ago.

Sources

• ESPN: Luka Doncic's 53-point explosion pushes scoring average past 40 as Lakers roll
• Yahoo Sports / Associated Press: Luka Doncic scores 53 as Lakers avenge loss to Trail Blazers
• Washington Post: Luka Doncic scores 53 in another spectacular offensive game, carrying Lakers past Blazers 124-118
• The Score: Luka dominates with 53 points, Lakers hold off Blazers
• BasketNews: Luka Doncic reaches multiple major scoring milestones in NBA Cup win
• ABC7 Los Angeles: Luka Doncic's 53-point explosion pushes scoring average past 40 as Lakers roll