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The NBA holds incredible appeal the world over not just because of the star-studded athleticism of its players and the level of intense competition, but also because of the incredible stat lines it offers. From triple-doubles to quadruple-doubles to interesting trivia about high-scoring 50-point games and fouls aggregated in the quickest time, the NBA is a never-ending saga of unbelievable stats and figures.
With a full 74-year history of regular season games in the bag, here’s a look at some of the most believe-it-or-not numbers. Some of these stat lines are just so implausible that you would have wanted to see them for yourself to believe that they actually happened.
#1 Wilt Chamberlain averages 48.52 minutes per game
An NBA game lasts for a full 48 minutes over four quarters. How then, does a player end up averaging 48.5 minutes per game? But this is precisely what happened to Wilt Chamberlain in the 1961-62 season because he also ended up playing a lot of overtime minutes for his team.
In fact, Chamberlain’s 48.52 mpg that he clocked in the 1961-62 season ranks as the highest mpg averaged by any player in a single NBA season. Chamberlain also holds the top seven spots for most minutes per game in a season in NBA history. Incidentally, the 1961-62 season is also historic for Chamberlain because it was in that very season that he averaged a league-best 50.4 points and also recorded the only 100-point game in NBA history.
#2 Manute Bol tallying more blocks than points
Most people would know that the 7-7 Manute Bol ranked among the tallest players ever to compete in the NBA. Bol played 10 seasons in the league, playing for teams such as the Washington Bullets, Golden State Warriors and the Philadelphia 76ers.
He holds the NBA record for most blocks in a single game (tied with Shaquille O’Neal for 15 blocks). Bol achieved this distinction twice, once each in 1986 and 1987. What is more interesting is that of the 19 NBA players who have tallied more than 2,000 blocked shots in NBA history, Bol is the only player to have registered more blocks than points.
Bol ranks 16th on the shots blocked list in NBA history with 2,086 blocks, but has only 1,599 points over the course of his NBA career. The next fewest points anyone has on the 2,000 blocks list is George Johnson. But even Johnson finished with 4,369 career NBA points, twice as many as his career tally of 2086 blocked shots.
#3 Scott Skiles dishes out 30 assists
Barring Rajon Rondo’s 25-assist game that came while he was playing for the New Orleans Pelicans versus the Brooklyn Nets in 2017, no other NBA player has managed to cross the 25-assist mark in a single game in the last 29 years. The last player to register more than 25 assists in a single game was the great John Stockton, the NBA’s all-time leader in assists, who tallied 28, 27 and 26 assists in three separate games in different seasons.
Even Stockton, however, couldn’t eclipse point guard Scott Skiles' mark of 30 assists in a single game. Skiles averaged only 6.5 assists for his 10-year NBA career. So it was quite a headliner when he dished out 30 dimes while playing for the Orlando Magic in a game versus the Denver Nuggets on 30 December 1990. Skiles had a double-double in the game by virtue of scoring 22 points to go with his NBA-best 30 assists.
#4 Cal Bowdler picks up seven fouls in a single NBA game
Cal Bowdler was the 17th overall pick in the 1999 NBA Draft. He played only three seasons in the NBA, logging 142 regular season games for the Atlanta Hawks. He averaged 3.0 ppg and 9.7 mpg over his career, unimpressive numbers to say the least. But Bowdler has consigned himself to NBA history for one significant record. Bowdler holds the distinction for recording seven personal fouls in an NBA game.
You may ask how is that possible when the personal foul count is limited to six. Well, in a game played between the Portland Trail Blazers and the Atlanta Hawks on November 13, 1999, Bowdler played 15 minutes and notched up six fouls, but because the referees forgot how many fouls he had, he was allowed to stay on court. He was tossed only after he committed his seventh foul. Of all the records on this list, this is the one most likely to stay on forever.
#5 Jose Calderon goes a near-perfect 98.1% from the free-throw line
Jose Calderon played in the NBA for 14 years. The Spaniard became a member of the 50-40-90 club by achieving this feat in the 2007-08 NBA season. He played eight NBA seasons with Toronto, but also played for New York, Detroit and Cleveland among other teams.
Calderon has gone closest to achieving perfection. He made a record-breaking 98.1% of his free throws in the 2008-09 season. Calderon achieved this staggering level of efficiency when he nailed 151 out of his 154 free throw attempts that season while playing for the Raptors. To put things in perspective, no NBA player has even managed to broach the 96% efficiency mark for a single season, let alone getting in sight of Calderon’s record.
#6 Draymond Green’s historic non-scoring triple-double
An NBA triple-double isn’t an easy stat line to accomplish. It only happens when a player reaches double figures in any three of the five major stat indices: points, assists, rebounds, steals and blocked shots. Generally, players notch up a triple-double by hitting double-digits in points, assists and rebounds.
But the only time a player has hit a non-scoring triple-double is when the Golden State Warriors’ Draymond Green accomplished an 11-rebound, 10-assist and 10-steal stat line in a game versus the Memphis Grizzlies on 10 February 2017.
Incidentally, Green scored only four points in that game, which was fewer than the number of blocks he registered that night (five). The Warriors went on to win 122-107 and their head coach Steve Kerr put Green’s performance in proper perspective. “That’s as dominant of a performance as I’ve ever seen from somebody who scored four points,” Kerr remarked.
Also read: Top 10 stats which prove why LeBron James is the king of NBA Playoffs
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