Lakers' Luka Doncic Gets Honest About Possibly Averaging 40+ Points This Season

Oct 31, 2025; Memphis, Tennessee, USA; Los Angeles Lakers guard Luka Doncic (77) reacts during the fourth quarter against the Memphis Grizzlies at FedExForum. Mandatory Credit: Petre Thomas-Imagn Images | Petre Thomas-Imagn Images

Los Angeles Lakers All-NBA First Team guard Luka Doncic missed a full week's worth of games with injuries to both his finger and leg. But you wouldn't know it to look at him on Friday, when his 44 points paced the LeBron James-free Lakers to a 117-112 road win against the Memphis Grizzlies.

After that heroic comeback performance, the 6-foot-6 pro finds himself occupying some rare air.

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ESPN's Dave McMenamin reports that Doncic is now only the second player in league history to have started out his NBA season with three straight 40-plus-point performances. The first? Hall of Fame former Lakers center Wilt Chamberlain, who logged seven such games during his 1962-63 season while with the then-San Francisco and five straight 40-plus nights for the team when it was still the Philadelphia Warriors, circa 1961-62.

Doncic was asked by McMenamin about his feelings on his heady company.

"I mean, I feel great," Doncic said. "But obviously, if we get a win, I feel even better. So that's the whole point, trying to help the team to win. And sometimes it's going to be scoring, sometimes other things."

So far this year, it's been a little bit of everything not named defense.

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Through his three available games for the 4-2 Lakers (again, sans LeBron James), the 26-year-old is averaging 45.3 points on a .584/.351/.786 slash line, 11.0 rebounds, 7.7 dimes and 0.7 steals per.

Doncic's backcourt mate Austin Reaves indicated recently that he felt Doncic was capable of averaging 40 or more points a night over the course of a full season.

'That's Going To Be Tough'

“That’s going to be tough,” Doncic said. “Sometimes they’re going to double me more. Sometimes I won’t be able to score that much. I had I think three or four shots that were crazy shots that I felt like doing, but they were terrible shots. … I’ve got to work on that. But that’s tough. I don’t know.”

In fairness, only one man in the history of the league has ever averaged 40 or more points in a full year. And that was Wilt Chamberlain. He "only" did it twice — during both the aforementioned seasons.

With the Philadelphia Warriors in 1961-62, Chamberlain averaged a whopping 50.4 points, 25.7 rebounds, and 2.4 assists (blocks weren't reported back then) in 80 games. The next year, he averaged 44.8 points, 24.3 rebounds and 3.4 assists for San Francisco.

For more news and notes on the Los Angeles Lakers, visit Los Angeles Lakers on SI.