If he keeps up his current scoring pace, Los Angeles Lakers guard Austin Reaves is going to break a 71-year-old NBA record.
At his current torrid pace, it’s very likely that Los Angeles Lakers guard Austin Reaves is going to break a long-held NBA record, that of highest scoring average ever by an undrafted player, which, by our accounting, is a record that has been held for an astounding 71 years.
Reaves is ninth in the NBA in scoring at 28.1 points per game, which is almost hard to fathom for an undrafted player to be doing in 2025-26, with how difficult it is for players to fall through the cracks. Reaves’ 9.8 free-throw attempts per game rank sixth in the NBA, and he sinks them at an elite 87.2 percent clip, making him one of the league’s top offensive weapons this season.
That may sound like hyperbole, but it isn’t.
Reaves is 19th in BPM this campaign (11th in offensive BPM), 17th in VORP, 12th in WS/48 and ninth in offensive Win Shares. All in all, the former Oklahoma Sooner has been a monster in 2025-26.
Among all-time scoring averages for undrafted players, Reaves is technically No. 2 on the list behind Hall-of-Fame big man Moses Malone, who put up 31.1 points per game in 1981-82 when he won league MVP honors. As you may or may not know, Malone technically wasn’t taken in the NBA Draft, so he should be ahead of Reaves here. However, for our purposes, we’re not counting the all-time big man because he was drafted into the pros, just in the ABA Draft instead of the NBA one.
Another Hall-of-Fame big man who went undrafted, Connie Hawkins, also ranks high on this list for his efforts in 1969-70 when he put up 24.6 points per game. His circumstances were unique, however, as he should have had a star college career at Iowa and gotten drafted very highly.
However, Hawkins wound up going undrafted because he was implicated in a betting scandal before the draft, one that even got him barred from the NBA. After getting expelled from Iowa without playing a minute for the program in 1961 (for accepting a $250 loan from a former NBA player, Jack Molinas, who was banned from the league for betting on games), Hawkins would float around before eventually playing in the ABA, and then in the NBA as a 27-year-old rookie once his ban was lifted due to lack of evidence.
Among undrafted players with no unique circumstances surrounding their undrafted status, Hall-of-Famer Neil Johnston ranks highly in this exercise, as the six-time All-Star put up 24.4 points per game in 1953-54. Johnston went undrafted because he was more focused on baseball over basketball originally, so the NBA ignored him until he (smartly) switched his focus.
Johnston owns the record for highest scoring average among players with no special circumstances around their undrafted status, though it appears Reaves is on his way to smashing it if he keeps up the early-season tear he is currently on (depending on how LeBron James’ return affects his usage).
We don’t think it’ll change much, though; if anything, James’ playmaking might give Reaves even better looks at the basket. In his own right, Reaves has become one of the NBA’s top scorers.
We’ll see how the rest of the season turns out, but for now, Reaves is on a truly historic pace.
