The 2023-24 NBA season featured a seemingly endless stretch of 50-point performances. Individual scoring prowess was so widespread that both December and January featured five separate 50-point games, but after the league started calling fewer fouls and allowing more physical defense in the second half of the season, those outbursts became scarce. We saw only five after the All-Star break a season ago, and in that world, it wasn’t clear how quickly we’d see one during the 2024-25 season.
Well, it took less than a week.
Paolo Banchero, the third-year All-Star for the Orlando Magic, just reached 50 for the first time in his young career, ultimately landing on 51 in a 119-115 victory over the Indiana Pacers on Monday night. The bulk of his scoring came in the first half, in which he tallied 37 points on 17 shots.
And as impressive as 50 points is, he very nearly joined an even more exclusive club. Banchero finished the game with 51 points, 13 rebounds and nine assists. Had he earned a 10th assist, he would have become the eighth member of the 50-point triple-double club alongside Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Elgin Baylor, Wilt Chamberlain, Luka Doncic, Richie Guerin, James Harden and Russell Westbrook.
As it stands, Panchero’s incredible first half was enough to make him only the third player to reach 35 points, five assists and five rebounds in a half, joining Harden and Donovan Mitchell. He also tied Tracy McGrady for the highest-scoring half for the Magic during the play-by-play era (dating back to the 1996-97 season).
Banchero is now the 11th-youngest player in NBA history to reach 50 points at 21 years and 351 days and the youngest player to get there since Devin Booker scored 70 as a 20-year-old back in 2017. On top of that, Banchero is the second-youngest player ever to reach 50 points, 10 rebounds and five assists in a game behind LeBron James, who did so when he was 20.
Offense, by and large, has been down this season as it was late last year. The league’s average offensive rating entering Monday’s slate was 112.2, down over three points from last season’s record high of 115.3. Banchero isn’t exactly playing on an offensive juggernaut, either. His Magic ranked 22nd in offense last season, and his co-star in Orlando, Franz Wagner, missed most of this game due to an illness. None of that mattered to Banchero, who was still able to post the biggest scoring game of the season thus far and earn the Magic a big win over another Eastern Conference playoff team.
