In the history of the NBA, there have been and are countless exceptional talents who can achieve something special on a special evening: There were many extraordinary games by Michael Jordan (90s), Kobe Bryant (noughties) and LeBron James (until today). But now Bam Adebayo, a basketball player, has made his way to the top of the list of NBA games with the most points that no one would have expected.

Adebayo scored an incredible 83 points in his Miami Heat’s win over Washington this week. You have to know: Adebayo scores exactly 20 points per game on average. The 28-year-old is a solid, but far from one of the best offensive players in the NBA.

Adebayo’s incredible breakaway was also a phenomenon for mathematicians. The American Micah Adams, who specializes in sports statistics, calculated that the 83-point madness had a probability of 1 in 54 quadrillion.

Adams wrote as an explanation for the barely explainable phenomenon: The distribution of points in the NBA does not follow a normal distribution. The events like points in an NBA game are more prone to extreme upward outliers. And external factors and circumstances influence the results.

Even though many experts and active players in the NBA said after Adebayo’s incredible performance that 83 points had to be scored first and such a performance had to be recognized, there was also a lot of criticism. Former NBA star Gordon Hayward said that breaking Kobe Bryant’s points mark of 81 points (January 2006) did not reflect well on the league.

“Bam isn’t even a great scorer, is he? I don’t think the fact that he’s breaking Kobe’s record is a positive for the league. It almost felt like a recreational game when you saw that. And the fact that he also takes 43 free throws and 22 three-pointers, even though that’s not even his style of play, that somehow… just doesn’t seem good for the league.”

Seven-time NBA champion Robert Horry also expressed clear doubts. In a broadcast on “Spectrum SportsNet,” the former forward questioned the circumstances under which the record came about.

“83 points are of course impressive. But at some point you have to respect the game. And I think there were phases in this game where that didn’t happen,” said Horry.

The 55-year-old was referring to the final minutes. There the Miami Heat are said to have tried to give Bam Adebayo more throws with intentional fouls and deliberately extended attacks.

Despite the exceptional score, Horry did not want to accept the achievement without reservation. “83 points is a huge number and I don’t want to take anything away from Bam,” he explained. “But for me there should be an asterisk behind this achievement.”