Kobe Bryant spent the better part of his legendary career providing the Los Angeles Lakers with elite scoring contributions on a nightly basis. He supplied Los Angeles with the ultimate failsafe, as even a poor defensive night or a lackluster team shooting performance could be saved by Bryant's uncanny ability to score with overwhelming volume.
For the first time since Bryant suffered a career-altering Achilles injury in 2012-13, the Lakers finally have the elite volume scorer they've needed to fill the void he left behind: Luka Doncic.
Doncic is currently averaging an absurd 33.4 points per game on .477/.370/.772 shooting. He's leading the race for the scoring title and recording the highest scoring average by a Lakers player since Bryant's legendary 2005-06 season, during which he posted 35.4 points per contest.
Doncic's greatness as a Lakers scorer was officially entered into the history books when he became the first player donning the purple and gold to score 60 points in a single game since Bryant in 2016.
First 60-point game by a Laker since Kobe’s last game 🤝 pic.twitter.com/X3DXxLGmoz
— Los Angeles Lakers (@Lakers) March 20, 2026
Doncic has now scored 100 points over the past 24 hours, having dropped 40 on the Houston Rockets the day before his 60-point decimation of the Miami Heat. He's averaging 37.2 points per game on .502/.410/.755 shooting in March and has averaged 40.9 points per contest during the Lakers' current eight-game winning streak, recording both 50 and 60-point eruptions.
Doncic isn't alone in stepping up during the Lakers' surge to the No. 3 seed, but his dominance as a scorer has revealed exactly what Los Angeles has been missing since the Bryant era.
Luka Doncic is the elite volume scorer Lakers have missed since Kobe
There's an obvious case for LeBron James proving this premise false, as he's the NBA's all-time leading scorer. He missed at least 26 games during each of his three highest-scoring seasons, however, which speaks to the factor Father Time plays in what the Lakers have realistically been able to ask of James on a nightly basis.
James also peaked at 25.7 points per contest when he missed fewer than 20 games, which is both nothing to scoff at and lower than the type of mark an elite volume scorer puts on the board.
Another counterargument would be that James and Anthony Davis split the scoring workload almost down the middle. Doncic is sharing significant touches and shots with James and Austin Reaves, however, and both Davis and James regularly battled injuries during their time together
Furthermore, Davis peaked at 25.9 points per game with the Lakers, but missed missed 26 outings that season. Yet again, the Lakers couldn't truly rely on any one player to dominate in the scoring department on a regular basis.
With Doncic taking a leisurely stroll toward a second career scoring title, however, the Lakers finally have the elite volume scorer they've been missing since Bryant's extended prime. Furthermore, while James turned 34 early in his first season with the Lakers, Doncic only recently turned 27. To put it simply: His body is more likely to hold up under high-volume conditions.
There's only one Kobe Bryant, but the standard he set for the Lakers having an elite scorer along the perimeter is being lived up to by Doncic in 2025-26.