Bleacher Report exposes Wilt Chamberlain's 100-point game

[JohnMax]

5 NBA Records We Need to Stop Revering

Wilt Chamberlain's 100-Point Game

Partly because of the iconic picture, partly because of the appealingly round number and partly because of the sheer, towering impossibility of it all, no individual record carries the weight of Wilt Chamberlain's 100-point game.

The Big Dipper pulled it off on March 2, 1962, and nobody has come close to topping it since.

Important point: What Chamberlain did was incredible. He was an athletic specimen decades ahead of his time, feasting on inferior physical talent in a league that wasn't yet keen on playing defense. Understanding those things helps to both celebrate the 100-point game and provide vital context.

And that context is everything.

Try to picture a modern NBA game devolving into what CBS Sports' Royce Young described here:

From accounts of how it went down, the Warriors spent almost the entire fourth quarter fouling to get the ball back and force-feeding Chamberlain the ball. New York coach Eddie Donovan said, 'The game was a farce. They would foul us and we would foul them.' Chamberlain's shot attempts by quarter: 14, 12, 16, 21. You think in a blowout in today's game that a team would keep feeding their star like that?

That's a joke. The NBA of 50 years ago could flit back and forth between competition and exhibition in ways that would be totally impossible now. Chamberlain's 100 came as the result of a concerted effort in a laugher of a game.

And that's not even considering the pace issue.

B/R's Adam Fromal helped me out with some math that matters: Wilt's Warriors averaged 131.1 possessions per 48 minutes that season, which was 1.039 times higher than the league average. So scoring 100 points in that environment would be akin to scoring 74.4 on a team that averaged a comparable pace in 2014-15.

Nobody scored 75 points in a game last season, but there are a handful of players who could have if (a) they'd played 48 minutes, (b) the opposition had basically given up and (c) their entire team spoon-fed them on every possession of a blowout.

We could dig into this from a bunch of other angles, and Fromal did it expertly here. But the overarching point is this: Wilt's 100 happened in a version of the NBA that barely resembles the one we know today. Virtually everything about that scoring environment made it easier for him to pile up points.

That doesn't mean Wilt was a bum. He was a freak of nature and, obviously, nobody else in his era could have done what he did.

But let's not make the mistake of revering a record that looks a whole lot more impressive than it really is.

.

[PHILA]

New York Daily News - Nov 3, 1996

Here's Wilt on:

The 100-point game

"I see now on TV where some company is saying you can buy a tape with that game on it. Let me tell you, the only camera that was ever in the arena that night was the one of me showing '100 points' on a sign," Chamberlain said. "When people see me, they say, 'There's the guy who scored 100 points.' It's a tag and I don't like that tag. It's not a putdown. But it's a simplification of how people see me. It doesn't exemplify what I tried to do in basketball. People forget, I had games where I only took one shot. Some games I didn't take any. I led the league in scoring seven straight years and then I was asked to do other things. That was a testament to how good I was."

[LAZERUSS]

In that same season Wilt hung B2B games (on two consecutive nights) of 62 points, on 27-45 shooting, against 6-10 HOFer Bill Russell; and 73 points, on 29-48 shooting, against 6-11 HOFer Walt Bellamy.

In fact, in his 10 seasonal H2H's that year against Russell, he averaged 39.7 ppg; and in his 10 seasonal H2H's against Bellamy that year, he averaged 52.7 ppg.

In his 64-65 season, Wilt had games of 52 and 58 points against HOFer Willis Reed; and 51 and 53 points against HOFer Bellamy. In that post-season, covering seven games, Wilt averaged 30.1 ppg, 31.4 rpg, and shot .555 from the field against HOFer Russell.

In his 65-66 season he hung games of 50 points on Bellamy; 46 points on Russell; and 45 points on Thurmond.

In his 68-69 season he put up two 60+ games within a span of a few days. He had a 60 point game against Connie Dierking, and a 66 point game against Jim Fox. BTW, in his 66 point game, he shot 29-35 from the floor...which is the highest FG% game in NBA history for a 60+ point game (.829 from the field.)

Those two 60+ point games came just a year before Kareem's rookie season. KAJ faced both Dierking and Fox on numerous occasions, and his high game against both was 41 points. Oh, and his high game against Bellamy was 41 points, while his high game against Thurmond was 34. Furthermore, Kareem played 20 years in his NBA career, and his high game was 55 points. As a side-note, a 39 year old Kareem hung games of 43 and 46 points on a 23 year old Hakeem. And that 46 point game came in only 37 minutes, and on a 70% FG% (21-30 shooting from the field.)

Finally, in Chamberlain's 71-72 season, at age 35, and in a year in which he averaged 14.8 ppg...he faced 6-11 HOFer Bob Lanier, in arguably Lanier's greatest season, in five H2H games. In those five H2H's, Wilt averaged 28.8 ppg on a .750 FG%.

Of course, Chamberlain had 32 career games of 60+ points...which equals what the rest of the NBA has accomplished in it's entire history...combined! Oh, and in his 14 seasons, the rest of the NBA hung a combined five games of 60+ points in that same span. Kind of blows up the "pace" theory doesn't it?

[JerrySeinfeld]

New York Daily News - Nov 3, 1996

Here's Wilt on:

The 100-point game

"I see now on TV where some company is saying you can buy a tape with that game on it. Let me tell you, the only camera that was ever in the arena that night was the one of me showing '100 points' on a sign," Chamberlain said. "When people see me, they say, 'There's the guy who scored 100 points.' It's a tag and I don't like that tag. It's not a putdown. But it's a simplification of how people see me. It doesn't exemplify what I tried to do in basketball. People forget, I had games where I only took one shot. Some games I didn't take any. I led the league in scoring seven straight years and then I was asked to do other things. That was a testament to how good I was."

It's a shame he had that Bron syndrome.. could have been the GOAT

[Gileraracer]

easy to score when you play with midgets and without rules that prevent you from doing whatever you want

[feyki]

easy to score when you play with midgets and without rules that prevent you from doing whatever you want

[Lebowski]

Wilt Chamberlain's 100-Point Game

Partly because of the iconic picture, partly because of the appealingly round number and partly because of the sheer, towering impossibility of it all, no individual record carries the weight of Wilt Chamberlain's 100-point game.

The Big Dipper pulled it off on March 2, 1962, and nobody has come close to topping it since.

Important point: What Chamberlain did was incredible. He was an athletic specimen decades ahead of his time, feasting on inferior physical talent in a league that wasn't yet keen on playing defense. Understanding those things helps to both celebrate the 100-point game and provide vital context.

And that context is everything.

Try to picture a modern NBA game devolving into what CBS Sports' Royce Young described here:

From accounts of how it went down, the Warriors spent almost the entire fourth quarter fouling to get the ball back and force-feeding Chamberlain the ball. New York coach Eddie Donovan said, 'The game was a farce. They would foul us and we would foul them.' Chamberlain's shot attempts by quarter: 14, 12, 16, 21. You think in a blowout in today's game that a team would keep feeding their star like that?

That's a joke. The NBA of 50 years ago could flit back and forth between competition and exhibition in ways that would be totally impossible now. Chamberlain's 100 came as the result of a concerted effort in a laugher of a game.

And that's not even considering the pace issue.

B/R's Adam Fromal helped me out with some math that matters: Wilt's Warriors averaged 131.1 possessions per 48 minutes that season, which was 1.039 times higher than the league average. So scoring 100 points in that environment would be akin to scoring 74.4 on a team that averaged a comparable pace in 2014-15.

Nobody scored 75 points in a game last season, but there are a handful of players who could have if (a) they'd played 48 minutes, (b) the opposition had basically given up and (c) their entire team spoon-fed them on every possession of a blowout.

We could dig into this from a bunch of other angles, and Fromal did it expertly here. But the overarching point is this: Wilt's 100 happened in a version of the NBA that barely resembles the one we know today. Virtually everything about that scoring environment made it easier for him to pile up points.

That doesn't mean Wilt was a bum. He was a freak of nature and, obviously, nobody else in his era could have done what he did.

But let's not make the mistake of revering a record that looks a whole lot more impressive than it really is.

What is there to expose? The 100-point game by one of the greatest players of all time is impressive, that is it, nothing more, nothing less. And why would comments from a salty coach who wished for nothing more then to have Wilt on his team add to anything?

[feyki]

Career high's are overrated . Kobe put 81 against euroleague level team. Wilt put 100 points against high school level team. 60-65 Knicks and 90-95 Mavs are worst teams ever.

[Phenith]

What a loser, he only scored triple digits in a professional basketball game, how can people think he was any good, SMH.

Open your eyes people, they guy was a legendary baller, it doesn't matter how much you try to diminish his achievements, he will still be a legend of the game.

[KobesFinger]

Career high's are overrated . Kobe put 81 against euroleague level team. Wilt put 100 points against high school level team. 60-65 Knicks and 90-95 Mavs are worst teams ever.

[Cocaine80s]

Scoring 100 isnt even that hard for Wilt against that competition. I mean just go to an 8 foot rim and play a pick up game with middle schoolers for 48 minutes. Shit Id probably drop one fiddy if I was playing serious

[Naero]

But how overrated can any single-game performance be?

While there is sensationalism in the honeymoon of them, the recency phenomenon isn't eternal; after it goes a few years in the rear-view mirror, many other sensationalities happen that it eventually becomes forgotten about, and people look more at the totality of a player's career when they came to mind.

Any legacy-assessor—stans and detractors alike—with any semblance of historianship won't lend more than an ounce of salt to any singular game when evaluating a player's legacy, which can only be a particle of their full picture.

Whenever Wilt is etched in the GOAT discussion, they are able to back it up with his consistently impactful dominance, such as averaging 50 points per game in that same season, while this 100-point output—albeit, more iconized than any seasonal averages due to the perfectly even number—is mentioned as nothing more than a footnote in his body of work.

Can single-game outbursts overrate a player in the wake of it? Yes. We've seen it with Kobe, whose popularity soared exponentially as fans and the media gushed over this, even insofar as to draw immoderate comparisons to Michael Jordan.

However, I've seen more ridicule him for his finals record and shortcomings therein than I have seen those vaunt this 100-point game; if anything, I've seen more people underrate it, as many modern-day fans like to downplay past eras just to prop up the superstars they've grown up reverentially watching.

Yes, it's a good and necessary perspective to promote if this game is to be overrated; however, this historical performance is so relatively unrenowned to the point where I'd call it reverse sensationalism for one to go out of their way to detract it.

[sd3035]

There we have it folks, JaVale McGee could have dropped 125 in that fraudulent era

[sd3035]

Imagine the insane numbers a modern day stat padder like Lebald could put up in that exhibition era

[DoctorP]