Is That an Asterisk Next to Breanna Stewart’s Points Record?

Breanna Stewart of the Liberty has now scored extra factors than another participant in a single season in W.N.B.A. historical past. But is she actually the league’s greatest scorer ever? It will depend on the way you have a look at it.

Stewart scored 40 factors in a 94-93 victory on the Dallas Wings on Tuesday evening. That took her to 885 factors for a season, greater than another W.N.B.A. participant in historical past.

But she has benefited from the brand new 40-game schedule, which was launched this season. For most of its historical past, the league performed 34 video games.

Diana Taurasi, whose file Stewart broke, scored 860 factors in 2006, the third season in her lengthy profession with the Phoenix Mercury. But she did it in 34 video games, for a scoring common of 25.3 factors per recreation. Stewart took 38 video games to achieve her complete, giving her a 23.3-per-game common.

For Stewart to match Taurasi’s scoring common file, assuming she performs each of the remaining video games on the Liberty’s schedule, she would want to common greater than 60 factors a recreation, a feat past even her expertise, one would assume.

“I have this back-and-forth feeling with the scoring record, because any time I’m in the same limelight as D, it’s amazing, just because of what she’s done in her career and what she continues to do,” Stewart stated after the sport.

“But obviously, it’s more games. More games is more points. As we have 40-game seasons, and we continue to build off that, there’s going to be a lot of records that are broken.”

Stewart shouldn’t be the one one racking up the factors this season. Jewell Loyd of the Seattle Storm has 852 with three video games to play. A’ja Wilson of the Las Vegas Aces has 846 with two video games to play. Both must also sail previous Taurasi’s mark, and there’s no assure Stewart will even maintain the file by season’s finish.

Longer season or not, it has been a increase yr for particular person scoring within the W.N.B.A. Stewart’s recreation on Tuesday was the thirteenth time this season a participant had scored 40 or extra factors; final season, no person did it. Wilson had a 53-point recreation final month, tying the league’s single-game scoring file.

Alyssa Thomas of the Connecticut Sun has additionally been benefiting from the longer schedule. On Tuesday evening, she broke the single-season help file with 304, topping Courtney Vandersloot’s 300 for the Chicago Sky in 2019. Thomas additionally has 375 rebounds, fourth on the single-season listing with two video games to play.

It’s all a bit paying homage to Roger Maris’s residence run chase in 1961. As Maris approached Babe Ruth’s file of 60 residence runs in a season, Ford Frick, who was the baseball commissioner, recommended Maris’s file might obtain a “distinctive mark” within the file guide, except Maris reached 60 in 154 video games, the standard size of a season. The American League had lengthened its season to 162 video games in 1961.

Maris had 59 homers on the 154-game mark, and hit his 61st, breaking Ruth’s file, within the Yankees’ closing regular-season recreation. As a end result, many followers considered Maris’s file as having an asterisk, though one was by no means really utilized formally.

Stewart’s file is the most recent accomplishment in a glittering basketball profession. A 6-foot-4 ahead, she received 4 nationwide championships in 4 years at UConn and was the N.C.A.A. event’s most excellent participant annually. She had two titles in her six seasons with Seattle, received the league M.V.P. in 2018, and should accomplish that once more this season after signing with the Liberty as a free agent. She additionally has two Olympic gold medals.

Stewart benefited from the longer schedule. But factors don’t rating themselves. And for now, she has extra of them in a W.N.B.A. season than anybody else.