Listing the active players who have been in the 50-40-90 club | NBA season 2020-21
Kyrie Irving made history on Sunday when he ended the 2021 NBA season averaging 50.6% FG, 40.2% 3P, and 92.2% FT shooting. He became the ninth player to enter the '50-40-90' club, joining some of the best shooters in the league to do so.
The 50-40-90 club is an informal stat line to rate players who have displayed tremendous shooting skills throughout the regular-season campaign. One of the all-time greats, Larry Bird was the first player to enter the 50-40-90 club in the 1986-87 season.
He shot 53% from the field, 40% from deep and 91% from the free-throw line that season. Bird repeated his heroics the following season as well, becoming the first player to have averaged 50-40-90 twice in the NBA.
The record was later broken by current Brooklyn Nets head coach Steve Nash, who achieved the feat four times in his career. Other honorable mentions to have claimed the 50-40-90 record at least once include Mark Price, Reggie Miller and Dirk Nowitzki, among non-active players.
Currently, four active players in the NBA have to join the 50-40-90 club in their careers, including Kyrie Irving. Find out who the rest of the players are below.
Active players in the NBA who have achieved a '50-40-90' shooting standard
#1 Kevin Durant
Kyrie Irving's Brooklyn Nets teammate Kevin Durant was the first player among the current set of active players to record a 50-40-90 shooting season. He did it in the 2012-13 campaign while he was playing for the OKC Thunder. KD was the third player after Bird and Nowitzki to achieve the record, averaging 25 points per game or more. He averaged 28 points per game on 51% field goal, 41.6 three-point and 90.5% free-throw shooting that campaign.
#2 Steph Curry
A shooting record without Steph Curry's name next to it seems like a very unlikely scenario. Curry achieved the record in the 2015-16 NBA campaign when he won his second straight league MVP award with a unanimous vote. To date, he has the highest points per game (30.1) average while joining the 50-40-90 club.
Curry's exact shooting averages were 50.4% from the field, 45.4 from deep and 90.8% from the charity stripe.
#3 Malcolm Brogdon
Malcolm Brogdon's name is one of the most surprising ones on this list. Brogdon had one of his best shooting seasons in the 2019-2020 NBA campaign when he played for the Milwaukee Bucks. He averaged 15.6 points per game on 50.5% field goal, 42.6% three-point and 92.8% free-throw shooting. It was a remarkable feat as it was just Brogdon's third season in the league.
#4 Kyrie Irving
Kyrie Irving was the latest to join this list, as mentioned earlier. He became the fifth player to average 25 points per game while doing so. Irving is leading the charge alongside Durant and James Harden for the Brooklyn Nets to win an NBA Championship. It would be a great achievement to go along with his 50-40-90 season.