Today is officially Kobe Bryant Day in the city of Los Angeles. Why? August 24th is 8/24, which happen to be the two numbers he wore in his Lakers career. It’s also one day after Bryant’s 38th birthday. What better time to revisit his finest individual performance?
On January 22, 2006, Kobe Bryant scored 81 points in a win over the Toronto Raptors, the single-game record in the modern era, and behind only Wilt Chamberlain’s untouchable 100 points in 1962.
Sure, there was some measure of stat-padding by the end, when the Lakers pulled away in the fourth quarter. But for most of the game, Los Angeles needed every one of those points. This was 2006, Bryant’s finest individual statistical season, but his Lakers team was terrible that year, in the dog days between the end of the Shaq era and his later two championships in 2009 and 2010. The team may not have been good, but Kobe put up unreal numbers. He averaged 35.4 points per game that year, the eighth-highest mark for a single season in NBA history (and five of the seven ahead of him were individual seasons by Chamberlain, with the other two belonging to Michael Jordan and Rick Barry).
There are no shortage of great Kobe memories to choose from on this day, but the 81-point game isn’t going to be topped anytime soon, if it ever is.
