Breanna Stewart of the Liberty has now scored more points than any other player in a single season in W.N.B.A. history. But is she really the league\u2019s best scorer ever? It depends on how you look at it.<\/p>\n
Stewart scored 40 points in a 94-93 victory at the Dallas Wings on Tuesday night. That took her to 885 points for a season, more than any other W.N.B.A. player in history.<\/p>\n
But she has benefited from the new 40-game schedule, which was introduced this season. For most of its history, the league played 34 games.<\/p>\n
Diana Taurasi, whose record Stewart broke, scored 860 points in 2006, the third season in her long career with the Phoenix Mercury. But she did it in 34 games, for a scoring average of 25.3 points per game. Stewart took 38 games to reach her total, giving her a 23.3-per-game average.<\/p>\n
For Stewart to match Taurasi\u2019s scoring average record, assuming she plays both of the remaining games on the Liberty\u2019s schedule, she would need to average more than 60 points a game, a feat beyond even her skills, one would think.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have this back-and-forth feeling with the scoring record, because any time I\u2019m in the same limelight as D, it\u2019s amazing, just because of what she\u2019s done in her career and what she continues to do,\u201d Stewart said after the game.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut obviously, it\u2019s more games. More games is more points. As we have 40-game seasons, and we continue to build off that, there\u2019s going to be a lot of records that are broken.\u201d<\/p>\n
Stewart is not the only one racking up the points this season. Jewell Loyd of the Seattle Storm has 852 with three games to play. A\u2019ja Wilson of the Las Vegas Aces has 846 with two games to play. Both should also sail past Taurasi\u2019s mark, and there is no guarantee Stewart will even hold the record by season\u2019s end.<\/p>\n
Longer season or not, it has been a boom year for individual scoring in the W.N.B.A. Stewart\u2019s game on Tuesday was the 13th time this season a player had scored 40 or more points; last season, nobody did it. Wilson had a 53-point game last month, tying the league\u2019s single-game scoring record.<\/p>\n
Alyssa Thomas of the Connecticut Sun has also been taking advantage of the longer schedule. On Tuesday night, she broke the single-season assist record with 304, topping Courtney Vandersloot\u2019s 300 for the Chicago Sky in 2019. Thomas also has 375 rebounds, fourth on the single-season list with two games to play.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s all a bit reminiscent of Roger Maris\u2019s home run chase in 1961. As Maris approached Babe Ruth\u2019s record of 60 home runs in a season, Ford Frick, who was the baseball commissioner, suggested Maris\u2019s record could receive a \u201cdistinctive mark\u201d in the record book, unless Maris <\/strong>reached 60 in 154 games, the traditional length of a season. The American League had lengthened its season to 162 games in 1961.<\/p>\n Maris had 59 homers at the 154-game mark, and hit his 61st, breaking Ruth\u2019s record, in the Yankees\u2019 final regular-season game. As a result, many fans thought of Maris\u2019s record as having an asterisk, although one was never actually applied officially.<\/p>\n Stewart\u2019s record is the latest accomplishment in a glittering basketball career. A 6-foot-4 forward, she won four national championships in four years at UConn and was the N.C.A.A. tournament\u2019s most outstanding player each year. She had two titles in her six seasons with Seattle, won the league M.V.P. in 2018, and may do so again this season after signing with the Liberty as a free agent. She also has two Olympic gold medals.<\/p>\n Stewart benefited from the longer schedule. But points do not score themselves. And for now, she has more of them in a W.N.B.A. season than anyone else.<\/p>\n