The NBA is thought of as the place where amazing happens. Since its emergence in 1947, there have been hundreds of great players and even more great plays. One player in particular though sticks out among the greats of the games though. Many of you may consciously believe I am talking about the consensus G.O.A.T player Michael Jordan but he isn’t whom I speak of. The player, whom I speak of, name is etched all over the NBA record book.(a total of 59) You have? Well if you haven’t guessed by now I am speaking of none other then Wilt “The Stilt” Chamberlain.
Wilt was a player who lit up the stat sheets on a nightly bases, posting video game like numbers with ease. He is considered one of the most dominate, if not the most dominate, player in the history of the NBA. Nevertheless their is some controversy about his dominates considering the time period of his reign.(playing against smaller and less talented players, as well as a obsolete data tracking tools) One event in particular though is often called into question.
Wilt is famously known for his NBA record of scoring 100 points. Not over the course of two or three games but just one game! Anyone who played basketball would love to do this however the question often asked is just how impressive was his 100 point outing? To answer this we need to look at the facts.
Basketball fans , would you mine telling me who the 76ers opponent was that night as well as their top two–or one to make it easier–players were?….. Pretty tough question huh? Well I’ll help you out a bit. The lowly New York Knicks(just a meagerly 27-45 record), led by Willie Naulls and Richie Guerin, were who the Sixers were set to face. On top of that their top “big man” wasn’t available to suit up leaving the poor rookie Darrall Imhoff(just 6’9) against wilt. Despite this information many people will stick by the fact that this does little to damp the fact that this was a great performance. Well lets dig a little deeper.
In the NBA there are scorer who are known as “volume scorer” meaning that they need a lot of shoots to score. Sometimes shoots totals reach upwards of 25. Can you imagine a players shooting the ball a total of 63 shoots? now that is unheard of. Oh wait Wilt did it. Wilt Chamberlain took 63 shoots and 32 free throws that night en route to a 100 point game. Lets put this into perspective to see how surreal this is. In the last three decades there has only been 22 games where a player attempted more then 40 attempts. His teammates were literally feeding him the ball on every possession. just take a look at the “box score”
Wilt himself even believed that he took to many shots that night. In his book he said ” “I really think I shot too often in that 100-point game—particularly in the fourth quarter, when everyone was egging me on toward 100.”
Despite all the controversy around his outing the performance is specular none the less. It is a record the well probably continue for decades to come. The whole point is that context is important, so don’t just focus on the surface of what’s going on.
I thought the amount of attempts he took to shoot was on the higher end, however, like previously stated, 100 points is a lot and should be an big achievement for anyone no matter how many attempts he made or how often Wilt received the ball. Kudos to Wilt.
This is so well written! Personally, I do not know nearly as much history on basketball as you do, but 100 points in a game is impressive to me no matter how tall someone is!
I never really got into professional basketball, but the history about Wilt Chamberlain proved to be very interesting. I think many times when people have long standing reconds viewers speculate about the competition. Since today, we have have people who have dedicated their entire lives to a sport, the athletes at least seem to be better. But, regardless of the time period or talent scoring 100 points in a game is still a great accomplishment.
I think it’s crazy how there’s only documented picture from the night he scored 100. That famous photograph you used was taken by a man who worked for a media outlet (I forget which one) but he wasn’t even working the game. He just happened to be attending the game as a fan with his son. Pretty cool.
I’m with Khalil it doesn’t matter what level you’re at whether it’s high school, college, or NBA, 100pts in a game is absolutely impressive in my eyes.
A lot of basketball fans tend to give Wilt no love for his 100 point game. I used to be on that boat when I was younger, because I always thought, “He’s a seven foot tall man, playing against six foot tall boys”. But as I got older, I realized, regardless of the competition you are playing, the task of scoring 100 points is beyond extremely difficult.