The 1171-Point Gap
When it was announced five years ago that Kevin Durant was leaving the Golden State Warriors for the Brooklyn Nets, I was very disappointed. He scored the most points for the
Warriors during the 2018-2019 regular season. (Stephen Curry scored the second most number of points and Klay Thompson scored the third most number of points.)
Durant scored 2027 total points, Curry scored 1881 points, and Thompson scored 1680 points
during the 2018-2019 regular season. Which Warriors' player had the fourth highest point total? When I asked some of my friends this question, here were the answers I received: Draymond Green (486), Andre Iguodala (389), Demarcus Cousins (488), and Kevon Looney (500). None of those answers are correct! The correct answer is Quinn Cook, who scored 509 total points.
So, the point gap between the Warriors' third-leading scorer and the Warriors' fourth-leading scorer was 1171 points (1680-509). The gap was the largest such gap in the NBA during the 2018-2019 regular season. The next largest gap was 588 points (Detroit Pistons).
Is the gap the largest such gap in NBA history? I did some research on this important topic (lol) and here were three other 1000+ point gaps between third-leading scorers and fourth-leading scorers that I found:
The picture at the top of this page is of the three top scorers from the 1990-1991 Golden State Warriors: Tim Hardaway, Mitch Richmond, and Chris Mullin. They were nicknamed "Run TMC".
I believe that the 1171-point gap is the largest gap in NBA history, but I don't know for sure. Feel free to let me know if you found a bigger gap.