Wilt Chamberlain: Difference between revisions

In his third Warriors season, the Warriors were coached by [[Frank McGuire]], the coach that had masterminded Chamberlain's painful NCAA loss against the Tar Heels. In that year, the center set several all-time records which have never been threatened since. In the [[1961-62 NBA season]], he averaged [[List of National Basketball Association top individual scoring season averages|50.4 points]] and grabbed 25.7 rebounds per game. <ref name=stats/> And perhaps most astounding, on March 2, 1962, in Hershey, Pennsylvania, Wilt scored 100 points, shooting 36 of 63 from the field, and making 28 out of 32 free throws against the New York Knicks. Chamberlain's 4,029 regular-season points made him the first and only player to break the 4,000-point barrier.<ref name=nbacomsummary/> To place this in perspective the only player other than Chamberlain to break the 3,000-point barrier is [[Michael Jordan]], who scored 3,041 points in the [[1986-87 NBA season]]. Chamberlain once again broke the 2,000 rebound barrier by grabbing 2,052 rebounds. Additionally, he was on the hardwood for an average of 48.5 minutes, playing 3,882 of his team's 3,890 minutes.<ref name=stats/> Because Chamberlain played in overtime games, he averaged more minutes per game than the 48 minutes in regulation; in fact, Chamberlain would have hit the 3,890 minute mark if he had not been ejected in one game after picking up his second technical foul with 8 minutes left to play.<ref>Cherry, 106.</ref>

 

 

His extraordinary feats in the 1961–62 season were later subject of the book ''Wilt, 1962'' by Gary M. Pomerantz (2005), who used Chamberlain as a metaphor for the uprising of Black America.<ref>{{cite web | last=Pomerantz | first=Gary M. | title=Wilt, 1962 | url=http://www.amazon.de/Wilt-1962-Night-Points-Dawn/dp/1400051606 | accessdate=2008-01-26}}</ref> In addition to Chamberlain's regular season accomplishments, he scored 42 points in the [[1962 NBA All-Star Game]]—still the all-time record—on 17–23 shooting and pulled down 24 rebounds.