Tag: Wilt Chamberlain

Tyrese Maxey joins Allen Iverson, Wilt Chamberlain in Sixers history

Tyrese Maxey joins Allen Iverson, Wilt Chamberlain, and others in Philadelphia 76ers history.

The Philadelphia 76ers walked away with a 133-126 double-overtime win over the San Antonio Spurs on Sunday. It was a terrific all-around effort in which Philadelphia overcame the absence of Joel Embiid, Tobias Harris, Kyle Lowry and others.

The Sixers received big performances from Nic Batum, Ricky Council IV and Kelly Oubre Jr., but Tyrese Maxey stole the show.

Maxey scored a career-high 52 points while playing 53:57 on the night. Maxey joined Allen Iverson, Wilt Chamberlain and Embiid in the Sixers’ record book. They are the only players in Sixers history who have three 50-plus point games in a season.

Maxey is averaging 25.9 points and 6.3 assists in the 2023-24 season. With three games left, he is likely headed to his first All-NBA team and is trying to lift the Sixers out of the play-in tournament.

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LeBron James scoring 40,000 points fell on same day in NBA history as Wilt Chamberlain’s 100-point game

Okay, this is pretty cool.

March 2 has turned into a fortuitous day in NBA history.

On Saturday, Los Angeles Lakers superstar LeBron James amazingly became the first player in NBA history to score 40,000 points in their career.

As DraftKings noted on social media, March 2 is also the date of Wilt Chamberlain’s iconic 100-point game with the Philadelphia Warriors (now the Golden State Warriors).

It’s rather incredible that these two historic NBA achievements now share a birthday, as March 2 will now forever be enshrined in league history as one of the most important dates for two of its true icons.

If you’re an NBA fan and March 2 is your birthday, consider it a lucky day.

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On this date: Wilt Chamberlain reaches 30,000 career points

On Feb. 16, 1972, former Laker Wilt Chamberlain became the first NBA player to reach 30,000 career points.

About a year ago, LeBron James surpassed Kareem Abdul-Jabbar to become the NBA’s all-time leading career scorer in a contest between the Los Angeles Lakers and Oklahoma City Thunder.

The fact James is a Laker and Abdul-Jabbar played most of his career with the Lakers reinforces the franchise’s image as the gold standard of basketball.

Abdul-Jabbar became the league’s all-time leading career scorer in 1984 when he surpassed Wilt Chamberlain, who himself played five seasons with the Purple and Gold.

After frustrating playoff losses in his first three years with the franchise, Chamberlain enjoyed a phenomenal 1971-72 campaign, during which L.A. won 33 games in a row and won its first world championship since arriving in Southern California.

That season was also notable for Chamberlain becoming the first NBA player to reach the 30,000-point mark. He did so in a game versus the Phoenix Suns, which the Lakers unfortunately lost by one point.

By this point of his career, Chamberlain wasn’t scoring much anymore. The man who once averaged 50.4 points a game for an entire season and scored 100 points in a single game was down to 14.8 points a game in the 1971-72 season. Some of it was due to head coach Bill Sharman, who asked him to sacrifice scoring to focus on defense, rebounding and firing outlet passes to ignite L.A.’s running game.

But Chamberlain still won the NBA Finals MVP that spring. He had 24 points and 29 rebounds in Game 5 of the championship series to help finish the New York Knicks.

Luka Dončić joined Joel Embiid by recreating the iconic Wilt Chamberlain photo after 73-point game

Luka Dončić is the latest NBA player to pay homage to Wilt Chamberlain after a record night.

Dallas Mavericks superstar Luka Dončić became the latest NBA player to score an outrageous amount of points on Friday night when he dropped a career-high 73 in a victory over the Atlanta Hawks.

After the dominant performance, Dončić posed with a piece of paper with “73” written on it. It homages the iconic Wilt Chamberlain photo after his all-time 100-point performance, which Philadelphia 76ers star Joel Embiid also recreated after his 70-point performance this past week.

Will this become a new trend once NBA players go off on the court with explosive performances? If so, we’re down for it, as it’s a really cool way to honor the past and repurpose it for the future.

Dončić is one of the best players in the NBA because he can achieve something as impressive as scoring 73 in a single game, and we’re betting he’ll find another way to reach this mark before his career is over.

Until then, we’ll have this awesome recreation and hope more NBA players follow suit with Dončić and Embiid.

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Joel Embiid recreated Wilt Chamberlain’s iconic 100-point photo after scoring 70 on Spurs

Alright, this is awesome.

Philadelphia 76ers superstar Joel Embiid knew exactly how to commemorate his titanic 70-point performance on Monday night.

After dropping 70 on the San Antonio Spurs, Embiid’s teammates celebrated him in the locker room by giving him the silent treatment before going wild to highlight his surreal accomplishment.

Embiid also decided to pay tribute to one of the great basketball players of all time (and a Philadelphia great) in Wilt Chamberlain.

The 76ers standout held up a piece of paper with “70” written on it, nodding to the iconic photo of Chamberlain posing with the number 100 after his all-time 100-point performance for the then-Philadelphia Warriors in 1962.

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It was a historic night in the NBA as Embiid and Minnesota Timberwolves standout Karl-Anthony Towns both scored career and franchise highs on the 18th anniversary of Kobe Bryant’s iconic 81-point game.

It was also a night for Embiid where he accomplished something Chamberlain never did for Philly, which shocked Embiid himself.

Embiid is one of the best players in the NBA for a reason, and his career-best performance against the Spurs further proved it.

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On this date: 1972 Lakers achieve longest pro sports winning streak

On Dec. 22, 1971, the Lakers attained the longest winning streak in the history of professional team sports, and their record still stands.

When the Minneapolis Lakers moved to Southern California and became the Los Angeles Lakers in 1960, the area didn’t really notice. Los Angeles was a football and baseball city back then, and it certainly didn’t help that the Lakers reached the NBA Finals seven times in their first 10 seasons in town, only to lose each time.

As a result, they acquired perhaps the worst reputation in sports and in life: a reputation for being a bridesmaid, but never a bride.

But that all started to change during the 1971-72 season.

The Lakers entered the season still possessing Jerry West, Elgin Baylor and Wilt Chamberlain and the NBA’s first real “superteam.” But all three men were at the tail end of their careers, and in particular, Baylor seemed to have very little left in the tank.

Under new head coach Bill Sharman, the Hall of Fame Boston Celtics guard, the team started 6-3. But it still needed an extra something, and Sharman wanted it to be a feared fast-breaking team. He wanted 23-year-old forward Jim McMillian to replace Baylor in the starting lineup, and with Baylor struggling mightily, the superstar simply decided to retire right then and there.

Surely, with his playing career over, the Lakers’ last hope of winning a world championship also seemed to go out the door.

Sixers legend Wilt Chamberlain ranked 3rd-best center in NBA history

Philadelphia 76ers legend Wilt Chamberlain has been ranked as the 3rd-best center in the history of the game.

Wilt Chamberlain’s accomplishments are the stuff of legend in the NBA. The gigantic big man has scored the most points in a game in NBA history (100), and he has career averages of 30.1 points and 22.9 rebounds.

In his 3.5 seasons with the Philadelphia 76ers, he led them to a title in 1967 while winning the MVP award in all three of his full seasons with the Sixers. Chamberlain averaged 27.6 points and 23.9 rebounds for Philadelphia, and he has his No. 13 jersey retired at the Wells Fargo Center.

HoopsHype ranked the top 20 centers in the history of the game, and Chamberlain came in third:

Chamberlainā€™s single-season rebounding and scoring records are unassailable. Plus he has the second-best scoring average behind only Jordan. And had MJ played one more year with the Wizards, Chamberlain might actually be No. 1 in that stat. Chamberlain is also the only guy to lead the league in total scoring, rebounds and assists for a season, and retired as the all-time leader in scoring and rebounding at the time.

Most will use the argument that Chamberlain played in an era when the competition was not as tough as other centers, but his numbers are so dominant the argument can be dismissed easily. He is undeniably one of the best players to ever play this game.

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Game-worn Wilt Chamberlain jersey sells for nearly $5 million

The jersey Wilt Chamberlain wore when the Lakers won the 1972 NBA championship was sold at auction for a huge amount of money.

When the Los Angeles Lakers moved to Southern California in 1960, not many sports fans in the region paid much attention.

Back then, the area was crazy for the Los Angeles Dodgers, who had recently arrived from Brooklyn and won the World Series in 1959, the Los Angeles Rams and college football. NBA basketball wasn’t big-time yet, and it was struggling to gain a foothold in the consciousness of American sports.

But with superstars Jerry West and Elgin Baylor strutting their stuff, the Lakers started to reach the NBA Finals with regularity and draw attention from locals. They reached the championship series seven times between 1962 and 1970, but unfortunately, they lost each time ā€” even after Wilt Chamberlain came to town in 1968.

Finally, in 1972, they won the city’s first NBA championship in five games over the New York Knicks. Chamberlain had 24 points and 29 rebounds in the clinching game at The Forum and was named the series MVP.

The jersey he wore for that glorious and historic game sold at auction on Wednesday night for an amazing $4.9 million.

It was the third-largest sum of money a game-worn jersey has fetched, behind only singlets worn by Kobe Bryant and Michael Jordan.

Chamberlain, who played his last five seasons with the Lakers, died in 1999 due to heart failure. Even to this day, the NBA’s record books are still heavily tattooed with the dominant center’s accomplishments, some of which look like entries from “Ripley’s Believe It or Not!”

HoopsHype ranks LeBron James as its second greatest player in NBA history

LeBron James was No. 2 on HoopsHype’s list of the 77 greatest players ever, and just one of many Lakers greats to make the ranking.

The NBA is about to begin its 78th season, and there are plenty of interesting storylines going into the 2023-24 campaign. One of them is whether LeBron James will continue to play at a high level and lead the Los Angeles Lakers to another world championship, which would be his fifth.

He already has a sterling resume, and his individual accomplishments are almost second to none. While he has won four championships, he has also lost six times in the NBA Finals. Depending on how one perceives James, he or she may consider it a disappointment, or one may consider simply making it to the title series 10 times a massive accomplishment, regardless of how many times he took home the Larry O’Brien Trophy.

The debate about where James ranks among the greatest NBA players ever rages on. HoopsHype just gave its ranking of the 77 greatest players ever, and it had James at No. 2.

Via HoopsHype:

“There have been major developments in LeBron Jamesā€˜ GOAT case since last year, most notably in the form of the four-time league MVP becoming the NBAā€™s all-time regular season leading scorer. (He already was No. 1 by a mile in the playoffs). Oh, and he also has the most playoff series wins in league history after a surprising run to the Western Conference Finals last season, though that did end in a sweep loss.

“Now three of the eight HoopsHype staffers taking part in this vote pick him as the best ever. Itā€™s getting close.

“… Few players have ever matched Jamesā€™ absurd basketball IQ, one that he could use to continue to dominate for the next few seasons as his career winds down.”

If James is fortunate enough to avoid any major injuries, he could continue to add to his legacy and strengthen his argument as arguably the greatest ever over the next couple of years or so.

What NBA records might never be broken?

From Bill Russell’s 11 rings to Wilt Chamberlain’s 100-point game, there are a few that will likely last a long while.

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What NBA records might never be broken? Hall of Fame big man Wilt Chamberlain’s 100-point game, his 50.4 points per game average in the 1961-62 season, or perhaps his 65 straight games with 30 or more points scored?

What about Los Angeles Lakers legend AC Green’s 1,192 consecutive games played, Boston Celtics icon Bill Russell‘s league-record 11 championship rings, Orlando Magic floor general-turned-coach Scott Skiles’ 30 assists in a single game, or perennial GOAT candidate LeBron James’ all-time scoring title that he wrested away from Kareem Abdul-Jabbar not all that long ago?

The hosts of the I Am Athlete “Paper Route Clips” podcast talked over this eternal question on a recent episode.

Take a look at the clip embedded above to hear whether they believe one of these longtime NBA records will be broken in the foreseeable future.

Listen to the “Celtics Lab” podcast on:

Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3zBKQY6

Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3GfUPFi

YouTube: https://bit.ly/3F9DvjQ

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