The 10 Most Incredible Individual NBA Seasons Ever— The #Hoop10 Project

What constitutes a great individual season, and what were the 10 best seasons ever put together in basketball history?

What defines the best individual basketball season of all time? Is it the player that scored the most points? Is it the best player on the greatest team? Is it a great player on an otherwise average team that took them to great heights anyways? Should the best player be the MVP? Must he win a championship to have had one of the greatest individual seasons ever? Do individual awards matter?

Recently I was invited to participate in the Hoop Mag #Hoop10 project where we were asked to rank the 10 best individual basketball seasons in history. We were given no criteria or answers to the above questions — left for us to decide. And so I dug into the realms of basketball history.

My #Hoop10 best individual season criteria

The first thing I decided was that I’d allow only one best season for each player. That wasn’t specified in the rules, but my entire list would’ve been three players otherwise, maybe even two.

I also put a big literal emphasis on best individual season. Team success, at least the ultimate success of winning a title, was not necessarily a requirement for me. If anything, I credited guys even more for doing it all for teams when they had very little other help. It’s hard to define how great someone is as an individual when they take a 55–win team to 62 wins and a title, but I can see just how great a player is if they lead a team to 55 but their teammates would’ve won 20 without them.

Basketball is a team game and ultimately about that ring, but the task was to rank the best individual seasons. You can have a great individual season without being on the best team. And if your team is spectacular and has a bunch of all-time greats, then actually maybe you can’t have an historically great individual season. Half of my list below didn’t win a title. Don’t @ me.

And finally, yes my list skews modern. I grew up watching basketball in the late 80s and 90s and moving forward, so that’s all I’ve seen and numbers can only tell you so much. I also believe the game has only gotten more modern, more athletic, and more competitive, so a season comparable statistically today to one from 40 years ago just means more.

Let’s get to the list.

Honorable mentions

• Oscar 61–62 — This is the famed triple double season but I feel it’s overrated in an era where the league averaged 119ppg. Oscar was great but the 30/12/11 was buoyed by a top pace, and the rebounds were the real outlier. It matters that the Big O was only 3rd in the MVP race.
• Admiral 93–94 — The stats say this should’ve been #10 on my list but it didn’t feel right, the way Hakeem personally ended him in the playoffs. Still, David Robinson had 30/11/5 and the NBA’s most recent quadruple double, top 15 PER and WS/48 all time, and the #5 VORP ever.
• KD 13–14 — This was Durant’s MVP year, and with hindsight, it’s sad that it was probably also his apex individually. One of the most efficient scoring seasons of all time, but never felt quite dominant enough to be top ten.
• Magic 86–87 and Bird 85–86 — Grouping these two because Magic and Bird belong together. Both players won MVP, a title, and Finals MVP. But for me, what made Magic and Bird was great was how great they were as team players, not as individuals. Their teams were loaded, and each of them made them what they were. They were part of some of the all time great basketball seasons, just not all time great individual seasons for me.

My Official #Hoop10 Top Ten Individual Seasons Ever

10. Julius Erving 75–76

We’re going off the board to start out, with the best ABA season ever, a precursor to what LeBron would someday become. A small forward, Dr. J led the ABA in both offensive and defensive win shares and was the #1 ABA player all-time in VORP and BPM, nearly double the runner-up on both.

Erving was 1st in the league in points, 2nd in steals, 3rd in boards, 5th in assists, and top 10 in blocks with 29/11/5/2.5/2. He led the New York Nets to the ABA Finals where his 38/14/5 carried the day and rank among the top 5 PER of all basketball playoffs.

9. Kevin Garnett 03–04

This is my personal favorite basketball season ever. KG was absurdly good at pretty much everything. He put up 24/14/5 and led the team in points, rebounds, blocks, and steals — and was significantly better on defense. KG changed the game for high schoolers and he changed it for big men forever.

For all the talk of the Kobe vs Duncan era, I’m not sure either ever reached the talent peak of KG in Minnesota — but it always seemed like he needed to play a bit more selfishly (how I’ve always felt about KD too). Still he led the Wolves to the only postseason series wins in franchise history… and their last playoffs to date.

8. Hakeem Olajuwon 93–94

Olajuwon was a monster defensively, but this is the only season in my #Hoop10 that doesn’t totally belong in terms of statistical efficiency. Hakeem’s 27/12/3.5 has been matched or beaten 24 times, and Olajuwon no doubt benefited from dominating the not-so-Jordanesque Patrick Ewing in the Finals.

Still Olajuwon holds a distinction no one else in history can equal — he’s the only player ever to win MVP, Finals MVP, and Defensive POY all in the same year. No star player has ever won a championship with less around him.

7. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar 71–72

So this is the part where I admit I never got to see Dr. J, Kareem, or Wilt and don’t have a good sense of where to rank them within their eras. I also assume basketball only got more athletic, more modern, and more competitive in the last 25ish years — and again, it’s what I’ve seen. Que sera sera.

Kareem dominated a 17-team league that lacked today’s size and athleticism, but boy did he dominate it. This is the best win share season of all time with Kareem putting up 35/16.5/5.5 with 4+ blocks a game. Kareem’s season before and after were also among the top seven ever in win shares. I’m not positive where he belongs in the top ten, but he’s definitely in it.

6. Tim Duncan 02–03

Considering Duncan’s per-36 chart is basically identical year after year, it’s nearly impossible to pick a best individual season. And really, Duncan’s greatness lies in his non-individualism… except in the 2003 playoffs.

TD had the single most dominant playoffs of all time culminating with 24/17/5/5 in the Finals and an absurd 21/20/10/8 against Kenyon Martin to close out the season with one of the all-time exclamation marks. He had the most win shares of anyone in a single playoff and the #1 playoff VORP (ahead of four LeBron years) and did it all with 20-year-old Tony Parker and 37-year-old David Robinson.

5. Steph Curry 15–16

Curry was the unanimous MVP and was likely a shot away from being Finals MVP and the leader of the Greatest Team Of All Time, and he did that last part while injured and you can’t convince me otherwise.

Ok, no, he did not have a great playoffs. But he did have the single greatest most efficient offensive basketball season of all time especially for a little dude. That would be 30/5.5/7 with an insane 50/45/91 slash line, with almost all of those contested may I remind you.

Steph had a top 8 PER and WS/48 season ever and had the #1 OBPM all time, as far ahead of MJ at #2 as MJ is ahead of Kobe at 40. And his numbers would’ve only been better if he hadn’t had to sit out half of the 4th quarters after leading his team to 73–9, another thing you may have forgotten. This was an all-time individual season and one none of us will ever forget.

4. Shaquille O’Neal 99–00

If I hadn’t limited things to one season per individual, there would’ve been about 5-7 Shaq seasons up for discussion — but this was unquestionably his greatest.

Motivated Shaq was as unstoppable as any basketball player ever. Teams invented entire Hack-a-Shaq strategies and carried an extra pair of big guys just to have 12 more fouls to give.

Shaq could score every time he felt like it unless you had a guy draped over each arm, and even then still half the time anyway. He won MVP, All Star Game MVP, and of course Finals MVP with an ungodly 38/17 stat line. Shaq could’ve been the greatest player in NBA history, if only he had wanted it.

3. Wilt Chamberlain 61–62

Yes the league averaged 119ppg and Oscar (not on my list) averaged his triple double that year, so the stats come with a grain of salt. But the stats are absolutely absurd even within context.

The man averaged 50 points and 26 boards a game for an entire season. If 50ppg was the product of an era, why did the runner-up have under 32ppg that year? Wilt scored 4029 points — only MJ has ever even hit 3000 in a season, and he needed 61 in game #81 to do it. Over the last 60 years, the NBA leading scorer has put up 27–33ppg 75% of the time, across every era. 50ppg is incredible no matter how much context you need to add. Wilt scored 1534 more points than runner-up that year — he beat the runner-up by Kawhi’s point total this year.

Wilt also had 250 rebounds more than anyone else and averaged more minutes a game (48.5) than actual minutes in a game. Wilt scored 50+ points an incredible 45 times that season; MJ did it 31x his entire career. Wilt’s low was 26. So again, context or not, Wilt is on the list.

So should he be #1? I don’t know. The harder question was honestly if this was even his best season. In 67–68 he had 24/24/9 and led the league in points and rebounds and assists. He had 31 triple-doubles that year including 9 in a row and the NBA’s only double triple-double (22/25/21). The year before that he had 24/24/8 while shooting 68% somehow. Wilt was absurd.

2. Michael Jordan 87–88

Emphasis on best individual season, as MJ was much more an individual early in his career than the champion he ultimately became.

MJ was best on both ends of the court in 87–88, the only player in history to win Defensive POY along with the scoring title. He also won both the MVP and All Star Game MVP as well as the dunk contest, featuring the iconic free throw line jam. Jordan won everything an individual could win.

MJ put up an awesome 35/5.5/6/3/1.5 line that season, the most win shares by a non-center, #2 BPM and VORP all time (behind his following year). Jordan had a 60% true shooting that year, especially impressive considering he made only seven threes.

And yes, the Bulls lost to the Pistons in the playoffs but it wasn’t MJ’s fault — he matched his season line including the only player in history to record back-to-back 50-point playoff games. Only Wilt, Iverson, and West even have two or more 50-point playoff games in their career. And by the way, I’d listen to an argument for about seven other MJ seasons. GOAT.

1. LeBron James 08–09

Never in all my years of watching basketball have I seen one player dominate in more ways at once with less around him.

Surrounded by Mo Williams and Delonte West, LeBron single-handedly carried the Cavs to 66 wins and led the team in points, rebounds, assists, steals, and blocks. He had the #4 PER, #3 VORP, and #1 BPM of all-time.

LeBron’s 28/7.5/7 is awesome already, but let’s appreciate it in context. LBJ did it in a league that averaged 100ppg and on a defensive slow-paced team. Adjusted for pace and era to Oscar’s triple-double year, LeBron would’ve had 44/12/11 and crushed Big O. LBJ also led the league’s stingiest defense and probably should’ve won Defensive POY with an incredible 22 chase-down blocks that year alone.

Ah, but how can the #1 individual season ever go to a guy that choked in the conference finals? Oh right, cuz 35/9/7 in the playoffs is super choking, kinda like the incredible game-winning three he hit over Orlando. This was actually the #1 playoff PER season and #1 playoff BPM ever by a wide margin, an incredible 0.4 win shares per 48 minutes, also #1 all time.

It was the best individual NBA playoff performance ever capping off the best individual NBA season ever, even if it didn’t get him a ring. And that’s the beauty of basketball, really.

Official #Hoop10 consensus rankings

10. Duncan 02–03 9. LeBron 12–13 8. MJ 87–88 7. Bird 86–86 6. Kareem 70–71 5. Wilt 61–62 4. Magic 86–87 3. Steph 15–16 2. MJ 90–91 1. Shaq 99–00

Special thanks to Josh Eberley for putting together #Hoop10, to Daniel Rowell for all the awesome artwork, to Hoop Mag for running the pieces, to all the voters, and of course to Basketball-Reference.com for all the stats and research.

Follow Brandon on Medium or @wheatonbrando for more sports, humor, pop culture, and life musings. Visit the rest of Brandon’s writing archives here.

… If you’re still looking for Kobe, you can find my thoughts about him here.