from boston sports guy's anthony davis column (https://www.theringer.com/nba/2018/3/1/17069384/anthony-davis-new-orleans-pelicans-stats-boogie-cousins) :

"I mentioned on Monday’s Ringer NBA Show that if the NBA created a stat called “Holy Fucking Shit Games” to commemorate victories fueled by one player utterly eviscerating his opponent, Davis would have the highest number this season. Multiple listeners suggested Basketball-Reference’s game score*** as a way to figure it out. After some trial and error, I made 36.0 the cutoff, with the wrinkle that it had to be a WINNING evisceration. Only 36 HFS Games qualified. Your current leaders:

Anthony Davis, 7
James Harden, 5
Stephen Curry, 3

Nobody else has more than two. I kept digging. Basketball-Reference keeps track of every game score since the 1983–84 season, also known as The Basketball Jesus’s First MVP Season. You won’t believe this, but Michael Jordan holds the “Most HFS Games in One Year” record. The rest of our leaders:

15 — Michael Jordan (1988)
11 — Michael Jordan (1987)
10 — David Robinson (1994)
9 — Charles Barkley (1989)
9 — Michael Jordan (1990, 1993)
8 — Kobe Bryant (2007)
7 — Larry Bird (1985, 1987)
7 — Patrick Ewing (1990)
7 — LeBron James (2010)
7 — Stephen Curry (2016)
7 — Anthony Davis (2018)

Quick tangent: I enjoyed this admittedly random list because (a) it cements MJ’s already unassailable GOAT résumé (sorry, LeBron); (b) gives Larry Legend a win over Magic (let’s gooooooo!); (c) ignores The Mail Fraud, Karl Malone (read my book for my details); (d) pays proper homage to ’89 Barkley (who truly missed his calling as a League Pass/Basketball Twitter God), ’90 Ewing (sneaky great), ’94 Robinson (a fantasy hoops behemoth) and ’16 Curry (immortal for those first 25 games); and (e) provides a little historical perspective to Davis’s season. His night-to-night ceiling ranks higher than any power forward since Barkley’s Philly run. It’s higher than 2007 Dirk, 2004 KG, 2001 C-Webb, or any Duncan season — and by the way, Duncan is the greatest power forward ever."

'''

all-time leaders in HFS games: http://bkref.com/tiny/yYvtk

1 Michael Jordan* G 1985 2003 79
2 LeBron James F 2004 2018 39
3 Larry Bird* F 1984 1992 32
4 Charles Barkley* F 1987 1998 30
5 Kobe Bryant G 2001 2016 28
6 James Harden G 2012 2018 23
7 Shaquille O'Neal* C 1993 2009 23
8 David Robinson* C 1990 1996 23
9 Hakeem Olajuwon* C 1986 1997 21
10 Stephen Curry G 2010 2018 20
11 Magic Johnson* G 1984 1991 20
12 Karl Malone* F 1988 2003 20
13 Clyde Drexler* G 1985 1998 19
14 Dominique Wilkins* F 1986 1993 19
15 Anthony Davis F 2014 2018 18
16 Allen Iverson* G 1998 2007 18
17 Chris Paul G 2008 2016 18
18 Patrick Ewing* C 1987 1995 16
19 Kevin Durant F 2008 2017 13
20 Vince Carter G 2000 2010 12
21 Tracy McGrady* F 2002 2008 11
22 Dwyane Wade G 2006 2011 11
23 Bernard King* F 1984 1991 10
24 Amar'e Stoudemire F 2005 2011 10
25 Russell Westbrook G 2011 2017 10


***GmSc
Game Score; the formula is PTS + 0.4 * FG - 0.7 * FGA - 0.4*(FTA - FT) + 0.7 * ORB + 0.3 * DRB + STL + 0.7 * AST + 0.7 * BLK - 0.4 * PF - TOV. Game Score was created by John Hollinger to give a rough measure of a player's productivity for a single game. The scale is similar to that of points scored, (40 is an outstanding performance, 10 is an average performance, etc.).

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it is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts. - sherlock holmes