How Likely Is It That Someone Will Score 100 Points Again

Paul Vathis/AP Images

Quick.

Without looking information technology upward, tell me who the Philadelphia Warriors were playing confronting 52 years ago when Wilt Chamberlain dropped an NBA-record 100 points.

If that'southward not enough of a challenge, get ahead and name at least 2 players on the opposing roster, and try to make one of them the man who started the game matched up against the Big Dipper.

It's tough, isn't it?

We've been trained to hear Wilt's name and immediately think about the triple-digit figure he posted in the scoring column on March 2, 1962, but we overlook the details—details that accept away from the achievement, controversial equally that may be.

The answers to the challenges, by the way, are equally follows.

Wilt was playing against the New York Knicks, a team that entered the game with a 27-45 record and would become on to occupy the second-worst spot in the standings. Willie Naulls and Richie Guerin were the biggest names of that putrid agglomeration, but the homo guarding Wilt was Darrall Imhoff.

If you completed both of those challenges in successful style, kudos to yous. Yous're function of the overwhelming minority. But chances are, you've simply heard bits and pieces of the 100-indicate story, and they're usually the ones that make Wilt'southward outing look as special equally possible.

Don't become me wrong, though.

Chamberlain's outing remains one of the about incredible performances in NBA history. It should say something that Kobe Bryant's 81-point outburst is the closest anyone other than Wilt has gotten to the vaunted 100-point barrier.

However, that doesn't forestall it from being overhyped. Until the context is as widely known as the scoring total, Chamberlain'south accomplishment will remain a mythologized accomplishment, one that gives the Hall of Fame center only a bit also much credit.

The Situation

Darrall Imhoff years later with the Los Angeles Lakers. Wen Roberts/Getty Images

From the get-become, the Knicks were in trouble.

The Warriors entered the contest with a 46-29 record, while New York was well dorsum, sitting in dead last at 27-45. On acme of that, the underdogs didn't even have all of their top personnel at their disposal, a fact that often goes unreported when marveling at Wilt's gaudy scoring figure.

Co-ordinate to Ben Bolch of the Los Angeles Times, it wasn't just Phil Jordon, the Knicks starting center, who was missing by the end of the game:

The playoff-bound Warriors were facing the lowly Knicks, who would finish with the league'due south second-worst record and were missing Phil Jordon, their starting eye-frontward. The official story was that he was suffering from the flu, though his teammates knew meliorate.

'The inside scoop was he was hung over,' said Darrall Imhoff, the six-10 eye who took Jordon's spot.

Imhoff started but played just 20 minutes because of foul trouble. That left Cleveland Buckner, a half dozen-9 rookie from Jackson Country, and a host of other undersized defenders to contend with Chamberlain, the irrepressible giant who was then in his tertiary NBA season.

How's that for a nice setup?

Chamberlain easily could've been expected to explode on that fateful night, every bit the matchup was perfectly tailored for an evening of domination. Just to score 100 points? That still wasn't viewed as something within the realm of realistic possibilities.

Imhoff probably isn't a name that's familiar to newer generations of basketball fans. Quite frankly, it's ane that might elude the older aficionados amongst us, as the large human is all the same nigh famous for allowing Wilt to post such a gaudy full.

A 6'ten", 220-pound center, Imhoff made the All-Star team in 1967, merely that was the only occasion on which he was honored. During the 1961-62 flavor, which contained his infamous matchup against the Philly standout, he was playing less than twenty minutes per contest and averaging just 5.9 points and 6.2 rebounds each game.

He was forced into action during this game past Jordon's troubles, only foul problem limited him. In Gary M. Pomerantz'due south book, Wilt, 1962, Imhoff is quoted as proverb the following to a referee after he drew a third whistle early in the proceedings: "Well, why don't you merely give the guy a hundred now and we'll all go abode!"

Little did he know...

It was Imhoff's 2nd season in the NBA, and thatstillgave him more experience than Cleveland Buckner.

Less than i year removed from low-level higher basketball game at Jackson State, Buckner was forced into activity against Chamberlain, who towered over him in both height and reputation. The half-dozen'9", 210-pound center was a sixth-round selection in the 1961 NBA draft.

Yes, that made him a rookie when he was forced to become up against Chamberlain.

The Crazy Stats

Screen shot from the Basketball-Reference box-score athenaeum.

Just look at that film.

Zilch complicated, just an antiquated box score bearing 1 of the most famous numbers in basketball history: 100.

Fortunately, we've gained a niggling more statistical insight over the years than that one piece of paper offered us in 1962. According to Donald Chase on ESPN, "The 'Large Dipper' shot 36-for-63 from the field and an incredible 28-for-32 from the free throw line."

Merely think nigh those numbers for a second. In a way, they're even crazier than the triple-digit figure Chamberlain posted in the scoring column.

Sixty-3 shots from the field in a single game? Some players go a dozen outings without attempting that many shots.

Basketball game-Reference shows that in the last iii decades, but 22 games have been recorded in which a player lofted upward at to the lowest degree 40 attempts from the field. No one has broken by 50, though Michael Jordan came close when he took 49 shots against the Orlando Magic in 1993.

When Kobe Bryant dropped an 81-spot against the Toronto Raptors, he shot 28-of-46 from the field. That's 17 shots fewer than Chamberlain took on his legendary dark.

Why?

Because the residuum of the Warriors did everything they could do to industry such a ridiculous outing. Chamberlain admitted as much during the autobiographical Wilt. Co-ordinate to the large man himself, "Only my teammates wanted me to do it, as well. They started feeding me the ball fifty-fifty when they were broad open."

Two paragraphs subsequently, he writes, "I really recall I shot as well often in that 100-signal game—particularly in the 4th quarter, when everyone was egging me on toward 100."

PAUL VATHIS/Associated Press

Can you lot imagine the modern-twenty-four hours reaction if players actually started turning their nose up at wide-open up shots? Nosotros live in a society that crucifies players for manufacturing triple-doubles past taking shots in meaningless situations.

Remember what Nicolas Batum said after launching a last-second three-pointer to record a trip-dub against the San Antonio Spurs? As a refresher, hither's the quote, viaJoe Freeman ofThe Oregonian:

That is peradventure the worst thing I've washed in my career.

It went in— I was like, 'Oh, no.' I didn't mean to disrespect this team. This is the San Antonio Spurs, the best squad from the last 15 years in the NBA. I've never disrespected this team. I love this squad. I have a lot of friends on this team.

I know this is a bad thing to practice. I want to apologize to the Spurs organisation, because that didn't evidence proficient (respect) for the game, for myself, for the Blazers. I don't actually want to boldness this squad.

That was for one sick-advised three-pointer.

And if you think Wilt having teammates passing up open up looks to feed him the ball was as bad as information technology got in 1962, think again.

Farcical Nature of the Ending

Associated Press

"From accounts of how it went downwards, the Warriors spent near the unabridged quaternary quarter fouling to get the ball dorsum and force-feeding Chamberlain the ball," writes CBS Sports' Royce Young. "New York coach Eddie Donovan said, 'The game was a farce. They would foul usa and we would foul them.' Chamberlain's shot attempts past quarter: 14, 12, 16, 21. You think in a blowout in today'southward game that a team would keeping feeding their star like that?"

It's one thing for the opposing team to employ a Hack-a-Wilt strategy.

After all, Chamberlain was 1 of the worst free-throw shooters the NBA has e'er seen—he shot 51.one percent from the line on eleven.iv attempts per game for his career— and information technology'due south a serious abnormality that he was able to knock down 28 of his 32 attempts from the charity stripe that night. More power to him for converting when the odds were confronting him.

"Hell, I'thou the world's worst foul-shooter, and I hit 28 of 32 free throws that night—87.5 percent," Chamberlain wrote in Wilt."That but shows that anyone can become lucky. Just bank check the box scores over a few months; some actually weak players will accept fantastic games."

It's dissimilar for a player's teammates to foul the other team during a blowout, all with the intent of running up an individual's scoring total. That'south when things become farcical, as Donovan mentioned in Young's quote.

The fouls just piled up as the game got increasingly ridiculous. Both teams were intentionally getting refs to accident whistles, and the Knicks were doing everything possible to run the clock out before Wilt got to triple digits.

Frank McGuire, coaching one twelvemonth before the 100-point game. Associated Press

Frank McGuire, the head motorcoach of the Warriors, fifty-fifty put in his backups during the closing minutes of the fourth quarter, all with the intention of using them to foul New York and get the brawl back into Wilt's easily.

It's interesting that the relevant pages ofWilt make absolutely no reference to any of this. Chamberlain writes nearly the Knicks property on to the ball "almost the total 24 seconds every time they got it late in the game." He mentions that Naulls told him Donovan gave his team "explicit orders to freeze the brawl and pass up good shots and then I (Chamberlain) couldn't rebound and score and embarrass them."

Only he never talks almost his team employing similarly farcical tactics.

Hmm...I wonder why.

Still an Incredible Achievement

Bearding/Associated Press

Even witha lackluster group of centers checking him, his teammates feeding him the ball at the expense of their own numbers and the game taking on a foreign nature as the clock wound down toward triple zeros, Wilt still scored 100 points.

One hundred points.

That's non an achievement to exist taken lightly, regardless of the circumstances. No player in the history of the NBA has come up any closer than xix points from his tape-setting full, and he's more often than not thought of as the holder of one of sport's unbreakable records.

I don't want to take away from that.

What Wilt did was ridiculous, and information technology truly deserves to exist remembered and revered for as long as basketball is around. All the same, context is important.

Say I told yous that someone had a triple-double last night. You lot'd think information technology was impressive, right?

Well, now suppose I fill you in with more detail, revealing that the role player in question had 10 points, 10 rebounds and 10 assists. But he too went 5-of-40 from the field and turned the ball over 12 times.

Is it however impressive?

That'due south an extreme instance of the tape we're currently dealing with. Chamberlain does have a few $.25 of context that detract from the overall fable of his 100-point outing, just it'south still a ridiculously impressive operation.

Yous can never take that away from him, and yous shouldn't attempt.

Just the adjacent time you lot're thinking about the middle who once broke into triple digits in the scoring cavalcade, remember more than than but the number of points he scored.

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Source: https://bleacherreport.com/articles/1977443-is-wilt-chamberlains-100-point-game-overhyped

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