Over 1 hour Straight of NBA Facts (Parts 1-9 + Bonus Facts)

[Music] tim duncan is universally recognized as one of the greatest players of all time he was consistently a dominant force throughout his career especially on the defensive end as he has a total of 15 all-defense teams which is a significant lead over the second most in league history which is by kevin garnett and kobe bryant at the end of the day tim duncan was simply a winner as he won a total of five championship ranks and had a career winning percentage of 70.5 percent no stat may greater emphasize the extent of his winning ways than this next one in the entirety of his 19-year career tim duncan has a winning percentage against all 29 other nba teams lebron james hasn't done that kobe bryant didn't do that and even the great michael jordan didn't do that either phil jackson coached michael jordan scottie pippen kobe bryant and shaquille o'neal some of the greatest players of nba history but phil was pretty good at getting as much as he could out of the talent he had and there may be no stat that better proves this point than this one michael jordan scottie pippen kobe bryant and shaquille o'neal with phil jackson as their coach combined they played for 33 seasons and won 20 championship rings without phil jackson as their coach those same players combined for 37 seasons and only one championship ring many of you have heard your dad or grandpa go on and on about how physical the game used to be whether it be in the 70s 80s or 90s but you should tell them about the 1890s because that brand of basketball makes the bad boy pistons look soft basketball was invented in 1891 and in the early years basketball players were adapting from playing more physical traditional sports like rugby and american football because of this the game was extremely physical and it also had a chaotic atmosphere with its fans steel mesh cages had to be constructed around the courts to keep excited spectators from interfering with play players would be slammed against the cages and sometimes cut themselves on the metal wire this frequently resulted in basketball courts being covered in blood each night the players were nicknamed cagers during this period of basketball history fortunately everyone was pretty relieved when rope mesh nets replaced the steel cages in the early 1900s the value of home court advantage has been steadily declining throughout the years the home team is winning far less often than they used to in the 1987-88 season the home team won 67.9 percent of the time that means the average nba home team was playing on a level of a 55 win team that's an incredible advantage throughout the 2000s the average was around 60 percent and in the last few seasons leading up to the pandemic the home team's average win percentage is closer to 55 percent there's been studies done as to why home court advantage has been shrinking throughout the years but it essentially boils down to the fact that players are living more comfortable and luxurious lives even on road trips in case you didn't know steph curry is really efficient at making three pointers but just how efficient well james harden could make his next 800 straight three-point shots without missing once and he would still not be as efficient as shooting three-pointers as steph curry is rasheed wallace was a great basketball player who may get his own video at some point but he also had a temper and a legendary one at that wallace has the most ejections in nba history with 29 that's more than twice as much as the closest competitor which is demarcus cousins with 14. if michael jordan did not exist coral malone would go from zero scoring titles to five which would put him only behind wilt chamberlain for the most of all time a lot of people say that john stockton is the all-time assist leader because of his longevity but if that's your opinion consider this of the six highest assists per game seasons of all time john stockton has five of them only one player in nba history has over 25 000 points 10 000 rebounds 5 000 assists 1500 steals and 1500 blocks got any guesses on who that player is that player is the all-time great power forward kevin garnett kobe bryant and dirk nowitzki were both adapting to the evolving nba as their careers came to a close each player's final season was very low scoring by their standards but they were also the seasons where they shot easily their highest percentage of 3 point attempts in 11 out of the last 20 seasons of nba finals history at least one regular starter has missed a game in the finals due to an injury your best players missing time in the finals doesn't mean there needs to be an asterisk by it because honestly it's pretty much expected at this point ruben patterson referred to himself as the kobe stopper during his days matched up with a mamba in his career he played against kobe 23 times and in those games patterson allowed kobe to score 29.3 points per game in that same stretch of time from 1999 to 2008 kobe was averaging 26.8 points per game against the rest of the league so yeah this probably wasn't the best nickname for patterson contrary to popular belief players now are typically the same size as players from years past i'm sure you've heard people discredit old school greats like bill russell and wilt chamberlain because they played against smaller competition well that's actually false the average height of the modern player is six foot six inches tall throughout the majority of the 1960s it was also six foot six inches tall and throughout the 80s 90s and 2000s it was actually an inch taller at 6 7. the argument can still be made that players today are generally more athletic than players from years past but as far as taller no that's absolutely incorrect they say defense wins championships and more often than not this is actually true 42 championship teams of nba history were ranked in the top five of the league offensively while 53 championship teams were ranked in the top five in the league defensively speaking of defense winning championships the 1961 63 and 64 celtics are the only teams to ever win the championship as the best defensive team while also being the worst offensive team in the league obviously bill russell's greatness had a lot to do with that there still has never been a team to win the championship as the best offensive team while also being the worst defensive team there has only been one player to ever lead his team to back to back championships while being the only all-star on his team and that was a kim elijah won in the 1994 and 1995 season when will chamberlain averaged over 50 points and over 25 rebounds in 1962 believe it or not he was actually not the league's mvp that season that honor went to the celtics bill russell and oscar robertson who averaged a triple-double that season also finished with more first-place votes than wilt chamberlain did the first basketball game in the history of the world took place in 1891 in springfield massachusetts which apparently had a peach basket that was nailed to some railing of a gymnasium the game lasted for 30 minutes and had an epic final score of one to zero john mankin was a six eight center who played seven seasons in the baa and nba from 1946 to 1953 he played for several teams and among them was the boston celtics now here's the thing mankind liked to shoot the basketball but he wasn't very good at it unfortunately he had the worst career field goal percentage of all time at 27.2 percent in 1949 with the indianapolis jets he averaged 10 points per game on 18.2 shots per game and only hit 24.6 percent john mankin was out there as a center shooting without even a quarter worth of efficiency and the dudes shooting nearly 20 times a game his coach must have been pulling his hair out that's not even a good batting average let alone a field goal percentage we talk a lot about players with efficient offense but this stat shows the greatness of one player's efficient defense in the history of the nba with a minimum of 150 games played there has been only one player to have more blocks than personal fouls and more steals than turnovers any guesses on who that player is it's the hall of famer and the powerful lockdown center ben wallace pistol pete marovich was an incredible perimeter scorer who averaged 44.2 points throughout his college career and as high as 31.1 points in his nba career the most astonishing part is how he achieved these numbers without a three-point line and people have speculated how many points he would have averaged if many of those baskets were counted as three-pointers pete's final season of his nba career was also the season the nba introduced the three-point line he was well past his prime at this point and he had knee issues that labored him throughout the year and caused him to miss many games despite the sample size he still made 10 of his 15 three point attempts which is a remarkable 66 one can only wonder what career numbers and percentages he would have had if the three-point line had always been available to him a lot of younger fans don't know who this guy is but ac green was a staple role player for the showtime lakers throughout the 80s he certainly was never considered as a superstar but he definitely had the greatest ability which is availability ac was known as the iron man of the nba as he played in an all-time record of 1192 consecutive games without missing a contest for any reason that's roughly three and a half full seasons ahead of the closest person on the list remarkably green played in a total of 1 278 games in his nba career and missed only 3 games during that span which all took place in a second season there has been a total of nine teams in nba history who had four of their players make the all-star team in the same season and these are the teams listed on the screen with that being said only one team of league history has had three all-star starters in the same season and that was the all-time great 1983 philadelphia 76ers with moses malone julius irving and maurice cheeks after the last dance chicago bulls disbanded at the end of the 1998 season the overall talent remaining in chicago was bad really bad and nothing sums that up better than the game on april 10th 1999 in chicago stadium the bulls were embarrassed in a loss to miami with a final score of 82-49 since the shot clock was introduced in 1954 the worst total by a team is 49 and the worst field goal percentage by a team is 23.4 percent and unfortunately chicago achieved both of these records on this same night as a longtime lakers fan i know this next fact very well for some reason we absolutely suck on christmas since the beginning of the 1980s our record is 10 and 15 on december 25th it's hard to explain why la is so terrible on the holiday especially considering their win to loss ratio of all of their regular season games during that same time frame the greatest battle for the scoring title came on april 9 1978. heading into each player's final game of the regular season david thompson and george girvin were caught in a tight battle for the scoring crown thompson was averaging 26.6 points per game and girvin was averaging 26.8 points per game only a total of 14 points separated the two players thompson's game came first as his denver nuggets took on the detroit pistons he came out on fire dropping 20 of his first 21 shots and ultimately finished the game with 73 points girvin's game took place just a couple hours later as his san antonio spurs were taking on the new orleans jazz george was now going to have to score 59 points just to take the scoring crown back from thompson well he went on to score 53 by half time with the playoff seeding already decided girvin didn't play much in the second half and comfortably finished the game with 63 points securing his title over david thompson this player is one of the greatest scorers of nba history and in specifically the decade of the 1980s no players scored more points than this player who put up 21 000 18 points any guesses on who that player is that player is the lethal small forward alex english charles barkley has a legitimate case for the title of the greatest player to have never won a championship but unfortunately he had an achilles heel and that was his abusive obsession with shooting three-pointers there is no worse three-point shooter than charles barkley and i'm not even being sarcastic when i say that objectively speaking of all players who shot at least one thousand three-pointers in their career barkley is literally the most inefficient shooter of nba history for some reason despite being so terrible from distance he simply couldn't stop shooting them even reaching as high as 25th place in the league and three point attempts in 1993 it's like he was salivating every time he was around the three-point line and couldn't help himself the 96 to 97 phoenix suns are all the proof you need to know that it isn't over till it's over they started their season with a pathetic 0-13 record however after a coaching change and a blockbuster trade that acquired jason kidd the suns dramatically changed their fortunes and finished the season with a 40 and 42 record they're the only team in nba history to have at least a 10 game losing streak and still make the playoffs that season when it comes to scoring in the regular season and in the playoffs as a whole no one set the bar any higher than michael jordan as he has the highest scoring average in league history at 30.12 and the highest playoff scoring average in league history at 33.4 with that being said the biggest stage in basketball is the nba finals and believe it or not there was one player who averaged more than michael did when the games mattered most any guesses on who that player is it's the lethal small forward and the granny shot free throw shooter rick berry who put up 36.3 points per game over the course of his career in the nba finals on an individual level larry bird dominated his era and no fact may better prove that point than this one for six straight seasons from 1981 to 1986 bird was either the mvp or the runner-up and he also finished in the top two spots in seven out of eight seasons from 1981 to 1988. speaking of the celtics legend bird has arguably the most devoted fan albeit a criminal on december 12 2002 in oklahoma city a man named eric torpy decided to rob a little caesars pizza restaurant with a couple of his buddies they were under the influence of drugs and long story short eric's buddy shoots a couple employees and eric ditches the scene but unfortunately for eric he dropped his hat police find the hat and a few months later eric's dna is traced back to him and he ends up in prison sentenced to 30 years at this point you're probably wondering what the heck does this even have to do with bird or the nba well you see eric was a loyal celtics fan and a larry bird fan and during his playing days bird wore the jersey number 33 so eric did what any logical celtics fan would do and requested that the judge extended his sentence to 33 years to honor his favorite player the judge was feeling accommodating that day and granted eric the extra three years eric has now been in prison for 16 years and has said that he regrets his decision i guess it's a good thing he wasn't a dennis rodman fan when asked about eric's commitment to larry's honor bird declined to comment even the best players have horrible knights tim hardaway proved that in 1991. in a matchup against the minnesota timberwolves hardaway took 17 shots and missed every single one of them that's the most field goals missed without a make that the nba has ever seen there are only two players in nba history to shoot over 60 from the field and over 80 from the free-throw line over the course of a season and this player is one of them he is also the only player to ever shoot 60 from the field while exceeding 17 shots per game he was a big man who played for one of the league's most iconic franchises any guesses on who that player is that player is the celtics legend kevin mchale as we all know bill russell won 11 championship rings during his playing career but he actually wasn't undefeated in the nba finals he had an 11-1 record and that only loss came in the 1958 finals to the st louis hawks in six games he only played in four out of 6 games though as his foot injury in game 3 may have been the swaying factor of the series the hawks definitely deserve credit though as their superstar bob pettit dropped 50 points in the championship clenching game obviously michael jordan's final game as a chicago bull was a legendary and iconic as pippin was dealing with back problems and as a result jordan had to carry the bulls offense that game but the extent to which he carried the offense is something that i think most people don't realize jordan scored 45 of the bull's 87 points in that championship clinching game that means a 35 year old jordan and his final game with the bulls scored 51.7 percent of his team's points since the nba aba merger in 1976 that has the highest percentage in nba finals history in 1936 basketball became an olympic sport and the gold medal game was played between usa and canada it was played outdoors on a clay court and in rainy conditions and the final score was usa 19 canada 8. many of us know that moses malone was great at rebounding the basketball but did you know that he was likely the greatest offensive rebounder of all time at least as long as offensive rebounds have been tracked during the 81 to 82 season moses averaged 6.9 offensive rebounds per game no one else in the history of the nba has ever officially averaged as many offensive rebounds as moses did that season goaltending was a rule that was introduced to the nba in 1944 which made it illegal for a defensive player to touch the ball on its downward flight towards the basket i've seen many people in the comments suggest that wilt chamberlain and bill russell were able to block so many shots during their era because there wasn't goal tending at the time but that's just objectively not true maybe there were some questionable non-calls that we can see on old film but the rule was certainly in place if there hadn't been a goaltending rule then i doubt any team would have ever scored more than 50 points versus wilt chamberlain the goaltending rule was introduced in 1944 not because of bill and wilt but because of one of the original superstar big men george miken those were some of the lowest scoring days of pro basketball history and taller players like miken blocking nearly every descending shot towards the basket had a lot to do with that the goaltending rule was introduced with the intent of creating more offense and increasing the value of perimeter players and it did just that wilt chamberlain is the only player to ever average 48 minutes per game over the course of a season which he did in 1962. he actually averaged 48.5 that season due to several games going to overtime other than one instance where he had been ejected by the referee wilt played every single moment of every single game that season that's a huge testament to his alien-like stamina now something that is worth considering is that wilt's 48.5 minutes per game season was also the season where he averaged over 50 points and over 25 rebounds these numbers from wilt chamberlain seem almost like a myth and completely impossible to achieve but consider this these are the numbers of giannis antetokounmpo's 2020 mvp season which were quite impressive but if you adjust these numbers to be per 48 minutes now giannis is averaging about 46 points over 21 rebounds and 9 assists again it's not like giannis could simply do this when not everyone has the stamina of wilt chamberlain but at the very least when giannis numbers are adjusted to 48 minutes we can then begin to see how wilt chamberlain's 1962 season is more of a realistic accomplishment than many of us have originally thought in 1965 wilt chamberlain signed a three-year 100 000 contract which at the time made him the highest paid nba player to ever live bill russell had an intense personal rivalry with will chamberlain and when russell heard of wilt's contract he was enraged and demanded that the celtics pay him one dollar more than chamberlain or elsie would consider retiring on the spot the celtics obliged and increased bill's contract from 75 000 to 100 000 and one dollars which then made him the highest paid nba player to ever live from 1966 to 1984 the first overall pick of the draft was decided with a coin flip it was between the worst teams from each conference this 50 chance had massive implications on basketball's history if the coin flips had gone the opposite way then these would have been a few of the likely outcomes magic johnson would have been a chicago bull kareem abdul-jabbar would have been a phoenix sun and akeem elijahwan would have been a portland trailblazer only three players in nba history have averaged over 20 points and over 12 assists in the same season the first two are magic johnson and isaiah thomas any guesses on who that third player is it's the overlooked all-star point guard kevin johnson in 2012 the nba established that they would be fining their players for flopping the rules stated that any player who flops during the regular season would first be warned followed by fines in increments of five thousand dollars for each successful flop during the season i remember when this announcement first happened thinking that this would be the move to eradicate this pathetic acting out of the league well the problem is the leak has since painfully under-enforced the rule in these past nine seasons of the rule being established there have been only 31 finds given to the players despite their reputation guys like chris paul and lebron james have never been fined james harden has been fined only once and in the entirety of this current 2020 to 2021 season there have been zero fines distributed to all of the players with such a severe lack of enforcement it makes you wonder why they even made the rule in the first place in case you're wondering the player who's received the most fines is none other than lance stephenson who's been fined a total of four times since the rule was established he's also the only player who's been fined twice in the same season in 1963 wilt chamberlain averaged over 44 points and over 24 rebounds on 53 shooting yet he finished only seventh in the mvp race and didn't even get a single first place vote at this time the mvp voting was not done by the media but by the players themselves so it would be pretty interesting to hear what their logic was as they all collectively refused to vote for chamberlain only five players in nba history have led their team over the course of the season in all five major stat categories they were dave cowans in 1978 scottie pippen in 1995 kevin garnett in 2003 lebron james in 2009 and giannis in 2017. a lot of kobe haters point out the fact that the mamba has the most missed shots of nba history which is true but using that as a criticism involves ignoring several major factors one you have to be good at basketball to be trusted to take that many shots two kobe was an extremely high volume shooter so of course there's going to be a high volume of missed shots and three kobe played for 20 seasons in the nba most basketball legends don't come anywhere close to his amount of seasons games and minutes so what if we put all players on a level playing field and had each player take an equal amount of shots to kobe bryant's total let's take the 50 greatest scores of all time if we did this kobe is no longer on top of the list in fact he's not even in the top 10. the player who would have the most missed shots in this scenario is philadelphia's alan iverson with 15 065 missed shots james harden has a reputation of being a player who lives at the free-throw line he certainly takes plenty of trips to the charity stripe and maybe he manufactures some of his trips here and there but he certainly doesn't go to the line at a rate higher than any other guard has ever done before harden's highest free-throw attempts per game season was this past season where he shot 11.8 per game there are three guards who average more free throws in a season than james harden has and that's michael jordan in 1987 oscar robertson in 1964 and jerry west in 1962 and 1966. in shaquille o'neal's 19-year career he shot a total of 22 three-point shots and he made only one of them and it might be the luckiest and ugliest three that you've ever seen when it comes to sports there have been some legendary predictions throughout the years like joe namath predicting a super bowl victory in 1968 or babe ruth calling the location of his home run but one of the more underrated predictions of nba history came in the first round of the 1993 western conference playoffs it was a best-of-five matchup between the first seeded and heavily favored phoenix suns against the eight seeded los angeles lakers the thing is the lakers were ready for an absolute fight and played with more energy and effort in the first two games of the series at the end of the second game the suns were demoralized and were facing elimination as the series was heading back to los angeles the pressure was immense as phoenix was facing the possibility of becoming the first number one seed to be upset by an eight-seated team in nba playoff history but in the post-game press conference of the second game sun's head coach paul westfall made his bolt guarantee so we're down o2 and i know the next question is are you guys dead no we're gonna win the series we're gonna win one tuesday and the next game's thursday we'll win there then we'll come back and we'll win the series on sunday everybody will say what a great series it was according to the sun's players in the interview since this was the boost of confidence that the team needed with well-rounded team efforts phoenix stormed back and won both games in los angeles then in the closing moments of the fifth game phoenix's dan marley hit a clutch jumper to send the game to overtime where the suns eventually prevailed winning the series and five games paul westfall was a legendary player a legendary coach and a man who wasn't afraid to put his neck out there for his team the year is 1984 and this new kid in chicago has the city a buzz they knew him as the rookie that they were hoping would become the future of the franchise but most know him today as the goat and the face of professional basketball but on the evening of october 25th over 35 years ago his legacy almost ended before it started the bulls were playing their first regular season game of the year early in the game jordan went up for his first official nba dunk attempt and it ended up extremely ugly as you can see by the way the play unfolds the defender's leg is caught underneath him resulting in an awkward and painful landing fortunately after a few moments jordan was okay and continued to play in the game but if that angle had just been slightly different on the landing it could have resulted in a broken shooting arm or even damage to his neck despite the terrible experience on his first dunk attempt jordan managed a few successful dunks in his career after that night there's been plenty of incredibly deep shots made throughout the nba's history but none of them were further than this one unofficially the furthest three-point shot ever made was by baron davis in 2001 when he threw in this hail mary from 89 feet away pretty much everyone knows that wilt chamberlain has the highest points per game season of nba history at 50.4 in 1962 but incredibly even his rookie season is higher than every other player of league history at 37.6 there are six players who have scored at least 70 points in a single game and those players are kobe bryant with one david thompson with one elgin baylor with one david robinson with one devon booker with one and wilt chamberlain with six in case you missed it that means will chamberlain has more 70 point games than everyone else from nba history combined since the nba merger in 1976 there has been only one player to get a first place mvp vote while averaging less than 10 points per game any guesses on who that player is that player is the all-time great defender ben wallace the defensive player of the year award is historically dominated by the center position since 1983 there have been 38 awards given to the players and 24 of those were given to guys who played the center position despite making up only 20 percent of the players on the court they have 63 percent of the awards it's an interesting statistic and makes you wonder why this is the case let me know your opinion in the comments section in recent days we've lost another laker legend who i once made a video on where i called him the most underrated player of nba history and i still believe that to this day in kobe bryant's own words he heard of elgin baylor as the michael jordan before michael jordan the julie serving before julia serving and to me that sounds pretty accurate so let's go over a series of elgin baylor facts before kobe bryant scored 81 points in 2006 baylor held the record for the most points ever scored by a laker when he dropped 71 points against the knicks in 1960 he also has the all-time record for the most points ever scored in an nba finals game when he dropped 61 points against bill russell and the celtics in 1962 just for good measure he also snagged 22 rebounds that same game during that 1962 campaign he averaged 38.3 points during the regular season that average trails only wilt chamberlain for the highest single season scoring average of nba history technically though it isn't recognized on most lists because baylor only played 48 regular season games and the minimum requirement to make that list is 50 games what's incredible is why he played only 48 games that season not only did he serve his team scoring 38 a night on his opponents but he was also serving his country as a member of the us army stationed at fort lewis washington baylor also has the highest career rebounds per game average for anyone who didn't play at center with an incredible 13.5 per game not only was he not a center but he only stood six foot five inches tall which makes it even more impressive no player his size or smaller even had an average as high as 9 rebounds per game and baylor got 13.5 he's in the argument for the title of the greatest player to have never won a championship but even that is somewhat subjective the 1972 lakers are known as one of the greatest teams of basketball history who did go on to win an nba championship but the 37 year old baylor only played in the first nine games of that season before his knee issues caused him to retire despite that he was still a member of the lakers at the start of the season so at the end of the season the organization awarded him with a championship ring as well you may or may not recognize elgin baylor as an nba champion but it can't be disputed that he was certainly one of the greatest basketball players to ever live rest in peace legend in the totality of lebron james's career so far he's played in a total of 1566 games and he's averaged about 27 points seven assists and seven rebounds yet somehow despite playing in over 1500 games lebron has never finished a game with 27 points 7 assists and 7 rebounds it's pretty mind-blowing considering how much time he's put into the game and considering how it seems like a common stat line for the king but as of 2021 we're still yet to see it happen laker fans were in a different headspace in the mid-2000s after the departure of shaquille o'neal kobe had a terrible supporting cast and in the next several seasons kobe was either missing the playoffs or getting bounced in the first round despite the fact that he was leading the league in scoring many of us laker fans were beginning to question if kobe could win a championship for us without shaq and kobe was starting to doubt as well after being eliminated from the playoffs for the second straight year to the phoenix suns the mamba took his frustration to the media and publicly demanded a trade in the summer of 2007 this started a whirlwind of rumors and a stressful offseason for laker fans at any moment we were expecting news to break that kobe had been treated to the bulls like he wanted despite kobe's demands management refused to trade kobe this brings us to october 30th 2007. it's the season opener and a matchup of the lakers and rockets the thing about us laker fans is that we can be pretty emotionally reactive to things if you don't want us then we don't want you and the fans let kobe know that as he was booed in his introduction it was a surreal night as kobe was booed in staples center the first several possessions whenever he touched the ball despite that he still dropped 45 points in the game and the same crowd that booed him was then chanting his name during the third quarter while he was at the free throw line a few months later they landed pal gasol on a trade and the rest is history chick hearn was the los angeles lakers commentator for over 40 years from 1961 to 2002. from november of 1965 to december of 2001 hearn commentated every lakers broadcast without missing a single game in case you're wondering that's 3338 straight games not only is chick arguably the greatest nba commentator of league history but he's also had more influence on you as a basketball fan than you probably realize during his days as a commentator chick hearn invented the terms slam dunk air ball triple drive no look pass no harm no foul give and go ticky tack foul throws up a brick frozen rope and finger roll it's honestly difficult to have a basketball conversation without this man's legacy being a part of it remember the craziness of linsanity well it may have been a bigger deal historically than you realized since the nba merger in 1976 jeremy lin has the most points scored in a player's first three starts with a total of 89 and he also has the most points in his first four starts with a total of 109 second place is allen iverson with 101 30 shaquille o'neal with 100 and fourth is michael jordan with 99. that's some pretty dang good company to say the least before 1923 teams would choose which of their players would shoot the free throws regardless of which of their players were fouled if that had remained the rule then shaquille o'neal may have just been the goat only two players in league history have won the mvp finals mvp and olympic gold medal all in the same year any guesses on who those two players are yeah i felt like giving you guys an easy one those two players are michael jordan and lebron james kobe scored at least 50 points 26 times in his career but believe it or not kobe actually didn't just lose his first 50 point game but he was probably outplayed by the opponent as well in december of the year 2000 the 14 and 5 lakers were in a close battle with the inferior 5 and 13 golden state warriors across the court anton jameson was coming off of a 51 point and 14 rebound performance against the supersonics what ensued was one of the most epic solo duels of kobe's career as both stars were trading baskets back and forth throughout the game kobe was on fire and was having probably the best game of his career up to that point but jameson was enjoying his encore performance from just a few nights prior the game eventually went to overtime and it came down to the final possession kobe shot a difficult three and missed wide right and the warriors won the game kobe finished with 51 points 7 rebounds and 8 assists on 51 shooting just to be outdone by jameson's 51 points 13 rebounds and five assists on 72 shooting isaiah thomas holds the record for the most points ever scored in a quarter of an nba finals game with 25. and what makes it even more incredible is how he did it on a swollen ankle it happened just minutes into the third quarter of game six of the 1988 nba finals when isaiah severely sprains his ankle he appears as if he can barely stand but isaiah being the fierce competitor that he is stayed in the game and basically played on one foot despite the fact that he was playing through pain and on a swollen ankle isaiah caught fire and carried the pistons on his back the 25 points he scored in the third quarter is still a finals record to this day isaiah ended the game with an incredible 43 points 8 assists and 6 deals on 56 shooting many people remember michael jordan's legendary flu game in the 1997 nba finals but if you ask me this game from isaiah thomas on a bad ankle was the most heroic finals performance in nba history guys don't drop 25 points in a single quarter of the nba finals especially when the player can't even walk right due to an injury but that's just the kind of player that isaiah thomas was in the mid 90s the talented grant hill was being extremely hyped up by the basketball community at a young age but just how hyped well he was the leading vote getter for two straight all-star games including the 1996 season where he received more votes than michael jordan did during his historic 72 and 10 mvp season if that doesn't tell you the level of expectations that people had for this man back then then absolutely nothing will including both the regular season and the playoffs these are the top players in nba history for the most game-winning buzzer beaters of all time any guess on who this player is who's tied for second place that would be none other than iso joe joe johnson of the games of league history where players scored at least 60 points these are the top 10 most efficient games of history based on each player's true shooting percentage james harden's dominant number one performance obviously deserves a ton of recognition and praise but i'm also impressed by david thompson's 73 point game where he had a true shooting percentage of 78 percent despite the fact that he was a guard in an era without a three-point line which certainly helps a player's true shooting percentage scoring leaders usually don't win championships unless your name is michael jordan in the history of the nba there have been a total of five players who won the championship while leading the league in scoring and those players are joe folks george miken karim abu jabar michael jordan and shaquille o'neal the craziest part is that michael jordan has done it more times than all other players of nba history combined it's common knowledge that wilt chamberlain is one of the greatest basketball players to ever live and is forever immortalized in the basketball hall of fame but did you know that wilt is also a hall of famer for another sport that's right as he's a member of the international volleyball hall of fame the game of volleyball was a hobby of his throughout his 30s but when he retired from the game of basketball it became his new obsession in 1975 the international volleyball association was founded and wilt became the owner of the southern california bangers which if you know a thing or two about wilt chamberlain is a hilariously perfect name for a team that he owned not only was wilt the owner but he eventually began playing for the bangers as well and emerged as one of the top players in the league two years later wilt officially became the president of the league and then began playing for the orange county stars in that same year wilt stars won the volleyball championship he was named to the volleyball all-star game and was the mvp of that nationally televised all-star game which had a huge impact for the growth of the sport in the 1970s usa's volleyball olympian eugene selznick said this about wilt chamberlain what will chamberlain did for volleyball on the beach and indoors is something that myself or the usvba could never even imagine doing former bangers player and head coach craig thompson described wilt chamberlain's skill set in volleyball when it came to passing setting and digging wilt was weak in those areas he was a mediocre blocker too at hitting he was unstoppable he hit a heavy ball and he was the best spiker in the world the power in his hit nobody had ever seen that before he was a real weapon when you understand the influence he had in growing the sport and his greatness and hitting the volleyball it's no wonder why chamberlain made it into that hall of fame as well this is the top 10 players with the most defensive player of the year awards tied to top of the list is both ben wallace and takeme mutombo now the thing is some players still have an elite defensive season but still barely miss out on the defensive player of the year award so what would the list look like if we made it the most top three finishes of all time now dekembe mutombo isn't only on top but he has a significant gap between him and everyone else of nba history hakeem kevin garnett mark eaton david robinson and gary payton all climb up the list as well carl malone known as the mailman is one of the greatest power forwards to ever play but he does have a bit of a reputation of choking like when he missed two free throws with game one of the 1997 finals on the line which then led to michael jordan's game-winning basket at the buzzer scotty pippen then said the famous line the mailman doesn't deliver on sundays a few other instances of carl malone's worst moments would be the 1991 nba all-star game when he committed the biggest all-star game blunder in league history when for some reason he blocked his own teammates game-winning basket which resulted in the western conference losing the game also game 6 of the 1998 nba finals when his jazz are up by one point in the closing moments but carl turns the ball over which leads to michael jordan's championship winning shot also on november 3rd 2002 against the seattle supersonics when he had the worst game of his career according to the game score stat his game score was a negative 7.8 and he had zero points and four turnovers on a terrible zero of seven shooting the craziest part is that i don't think anyone realizes how prophetic this statement was from scottie pippen because all four of these worst moments of karl malone's career each took place on a sunday many basketball fans argue about who's the goat player who's the goat coach and even things like who's the goat general manager but we rarely talk about who's the goat nba employee overall when all factors are considered that might just be larry bird as larry legend is the only person in nba history to win league mvp coach of the year and executive of the year all in his career only two players in league history have averaged over 30 points and over 10 assists in a single nba finals series any guesses on who those two players are they're two players who continue to find themselves on their own list michael jordan and lebron james legendary boston celtics head coach red auerbach was known for his brilliant mind and his ability to lead teams to win championships but he was also a man who was fiercely competitive and had quite the temper with referees nothing better illustrates that than the fact that he is the only person who has ever been ejected from an nba all-star game it was the 1967 all-star game where his eastern conference lost to the western conference 135-120 from the nba's birth until the year 1973 every all-star game had to be represented with at least one player from every team in the league in theory this inclusive rule sounds like a pretty good idea well that was until the 1973 all-star game because the philadelphia 76ers were represented by their 6 9 power forward john block not only was jon nowhere close to superstar material but his 76ers finished that season with a 9 and 73 record now it's starting to make sense why the nba got rid of that representation rule the following season we all know the modern nba has been shooting more three-pointers than in years past but few stats sum that up better than this one 30 years ago the run tmc warriors were providing some offensive excitement to the western conference the team's three stars were chris mullen tim hardaway and mitch richmond who were all considered as elite three-point shooters and that entire warriors team attempted 9.8 3 point attempts per game this season steph curry by himself is shooting 12.3 three-point attempts per game this player won the league mvp but he did it with the fewest games played in a full-length season of any mvp in league history he participated in only 58 of his team's 82 games that season any guesses on who that player is it was the consistently injured but incredibly talented bill walton in 1978 the triple-double is an impressive feat but for some players specifically it's just another day at the office but what's even more impressive is a player achieving a triple-double with zero turnovers since the 1990s less than 20 players have accomplished that feat and the player who's done it more times is none other than jason kidd who had five of these flawless triple-double games in his career russell westbrook has a total of 179 triple doubles but quite surprisingly in only one of those games did he have zero turnovers which really tells you how rare that accomplishment is that game was against the blazers in 2016. the nba has really grown since the 60s and no stat may better prove that point than this one wilt chamberlain played in the nba from the late 50s until the early 70s and in the totality of his career he made 2.5 million dollars over that stretch on the other hand there's steph curry who plays for the warriors just like wilt did but every six games steph makes more money than wilt chamberlain did over his entire career the toronto raptors have become a stable and successful franchise within the national basketball association but they actually were not the first nba team in canada and no i'm not talking about the vancouver grizzlies either the first ever canada team was actually the 1946-47 toronto huskies unfortunately the huskies finished with only a 22-38 record and combined that with canada not receiving basketball with open arms at the time and the team was only around for just one season it was the 2010 season and corey mcgetty was a member of the milwaukee bucks and his bucks were taking on the minnesota timberwolves magetti was only a role player at this point but he was still known to be aggressive and on this night he channeled his inner james harden and in only 10 minutes of play he shot 20 free throws and made 17 of them wilt chamberlain was incredible we all know this but among his incredible stats and accomplishments will also said that he had a 52 inch vertical leap that he bench pressed nearly 600 pounds he travels across the country driving as fast as 180 miles per hour he started his famous 20 000 stat when he was only 5 years old and a mountain lion once attacked him and he grabbed it by the tail and threw it into the bushes now is it a fact that wilt chamberlain actually did these things well we don't know for sure but it is a fact that wilt chamberlain said that he did shaquille o'neal was an absolute beast on the court made up of muscle mass fat and big bones all in a seven foot one inch frame remember in 2003 at the apex of the kobe and shaq drama when shaq put on even more weight and showed up to training camp extremely out of shape which infuriated kobe while at that point shaq was around the ballpark of 350 pounds which is insane but believe it or not he was actually not the heaviest player in nba history that title belongs to the six foot nine inch center power forward oliver miller when oliver entered the nba in 1992 as a member of the phoenix suns he weighed only 270 pounds but over the course of his 9 seasons in the nba he put on over 100 extra pounds reaching as high as 375 pounds which is also the all-time record what's probably even more impressive is the fact that he managed to be a pretty decent role player while carrying around all that extra weight with the toronto raptors in 1996 he managed to put up 12.9 points and 7.4 rebounds on 52.6 shooting not bad for a guy who's literally a charles barkley and a half tim grover is the famous physical trainer of both michael jordan and then kobe bryant and he had a very personal relationship with both athletes in a recent interview grover was talking about kobe bryant and he said that in some instances the two would go out to dinner together but kobe would reserve seats for four people not just two the first time kobe did this grover was confused and didn't understand why he reserved the extra seats occasionally familiar faces would greet kobe and grover at their table but when they would want to sit kobe would always tell them that those seats were taken eventually grover point blake asked kobe who those seats belonged to and in summary he said wherever i go they go i bring everything and all of me with me and those seats are for those individuals because they make me who i am grover explains that in kobe's mind these were the seats of his alter egos yes kobe took his alter egos to dinner with him and occasionally ordered drinks for all of them and kobe would make sure to drink all three drinks before he left so if you ever hear someone describe the mamba as different yeah he was really really different oscar robertson is most famously remembered for his triple double average in 1962 but that's hardly the whole picture as i think there's only a few people who know that he actually averaged a triple-double over the course of his first five seasons of his career this is tyrone bogues more commonly known as mugsy bogues and mugsy wasn't just a shifty and skilled basketball player but he was actually the shortest player in nba history standing at only five foot three inches tall that's not the crazy fact though what's even more interesting is that the 1987-88 season he actually was on the same team with the tallest player in nba history the seven foot seven inch minute bowl the 50 40 90 stat is a remarkable achievement of efficiency a 50 40 90 season is when a player shoots at least 50 percent from the field 40 from three point range and ninety percent from the free throw line over the course of a season only nine players in nba history have achieved this feat and these are the nine players on this list now accomplishing this is very rare and impressive but another level entirely is what larry bird did from the 1984 to 85 season through the 1987 to 88 season larry shot 51.7 from the field 41.4 percent from three point range and 90.1 percent from the free throw line that means larry legend doesn't just have a 50-40-90 season on his resume but he has a four-season stretch of 50-40-90 percentages during that stretch he averaged 28.1 points per game other than the great steph curry and kevin durant no player has ever scored that many points per game in a single season while putting up 50 40 90 percentages and again larry did that over a four year stretch when it comes to being the pinnacle of scoring efficiency it may not get any higher than larry bird if silly what-ifs count then one of the greatest and scariest what-ifs of nba history would be what if shaquille o'neal was actually a good free-throw shooter it's incredible how much this man dominated on a nightly basis without making his free throws take the 2000 nba finals for example which is arguably the most dominant final series from a single player of all time but if shaq made 80 of his free throws that series then it would be no contest as he would have averaged an all-time record of 44.3 points in the finals and added in 16.7 rebounds and 2.7 blocks just for good measure a while ago i made a video where i said that dennis rodman is arguably the greatest rebounder of all time i didn't say he was my choice and i didn't even say that he was my favorite to take that title i simply stated that he has an argument for that title regardless amidst people who respect wilt chamberlain i got killed in the comments section it's one thing to talk about a player's rebounds per game or career rebounding totals but there's other ways to look at this comparison wilt chamberlain may very well be the correct choice and anybody who follows this channel knows that i love and respect wilt but i'm not wavering on the fact that rodman certainly has an argument and no stat may better prove that point than this one rebound rate also known as rebound percentage is a statistic that estimates the percentage of missed shots that a player rebounded while he was actually on the floor it is worth noting that this is an nba stat that's been tracked since 1970 which means only three of wilt chamberlain's rebounding titles are eligible for this list the highest rebound percentage in nba history is dennis rodman in the 94 to 95 season with an average of 29.73 percent rodman by himself has seven out of the top 20 spots on the all-time list so the next question is where is wilt chamberlain's best eligible season well believe it or not he's actually not in the top 10 or in the top 25 or the top 50 or even the top 100 will chamberlain's best rebound percentage season puts him in only 154th place on the all-time list rasheed wallace was famous for his explosive personality and for being the all-time record holder in ejections and for technical fouls in a single season but he was also a really great player and his greatest team accomplishment came in 2004 as his detroit pistons defeated the los angeles lakers in five games to win the nba championship he then did the most rasheed wallace thing that he could possibly do and had his championship ring designed to fit his middle finger that way he could show it off while also simultaneously giving people the bird if you're ever cut from your high school basketball team just remember so was michael jordan and he turned out to have a pretty incredible career but what if you're cut from your basketball team twice well you still shouldn't lose hope completely because so was charles barkley who was cut in his freshman year and again in his sophomore year and yet he went on to be one of the greatest players of all time at his position shaquille o'neal was a powerful specimen and he had a bit of a reputation of destroying backboards but believe it or not he actually isn't the nba player who pioneered this trend that would be the man known as chocolate thunder daryl dawkins the first time he did it was in 1979 against the kansas city kings it seems like a cool thing now and fans certainly loved it at the time but dawkins caught a lot of heat for it as it took nearly an hour and a half to clean up the court and replace the basket so that they could resume play this took place in kansas city though and dawkins recalled several 76ers fans telling him that he needed to do it again for the home crowd so just three weeks later in philadelphia dawkins did it again and later admitted that he was trying to break the backboard the second time the nba commissioner at the time was larry o'brien and he called dawkins that evening and told him to be in his office the following day there he told dawkins that he would find him five thousand dollars for each time he broke the backboard from that point on as a result that was the last time dawkins ever broke the backboard isaiah thomas was a big game performer and a fighter to the very end and this is just another great example of that in the first round of the 1984 nba playoffs in an elimination game isaiah had one of the strongest finishes the league has ever seen as he caught absolute fire and scored a blazing 16 points in the final 94 seconds of the game he was barely 23 years old at the time of this performance but it was definitely a sign of things to come from zeke despite isaiah's all-time great performance new york did go on to win the series and they certainly earned it as the great bernard king averaged 42.6 points and eight rebounds on 60.4 shooting over the course of the series lebron james describes himself as a past first player and although he is a great passer i find that claim somewhat questionable considering the fact that he averages roughly 20 shots a game over the course of his career regardless let's give him the benefit of the doubt and let's say he is a past first player so with that being said what would it take lebron to achieve the ultimate pass first record i'm talking about john stockton's number one ranking and career assists well throughout lebron's career he has averaged 538 assists per season so if we assume that lebron james maintains his average over the next 11 seasons and even if he plays until he's 47 years old he will still be short of john stockton's all-time record this means he'll have to play and maintain his level of production into his 30th season in the nba if he wants to catch jon stockton with all that being considered i honestly don't know what's more unlikely the lebron actually plays that long or that anyone ever takes this record from john stockton only two players in nba history have reached 1500 points and 400 assists in each of their first nine seasons of their career unsurprisingly the first is oscar robertson and the second is a streak that's still active from the great damian lillard shaquille o'neal and hakeem elijahuan squared off in a colossal battle during the 1995 nba finals the houston rockets went on to sweep the magic in four games but both centers played extremely well putting up these incredibly monstrous numbers over the course of the series despite hakeem's team winning in just four games shaq wasn't convinced that elijahn was actually the better individual player and was determined to prove himself as the better big man so shaq then sent this letter to elijahuan challenging him to a game of one-on-one hakeem actually accepted the challenge and the hype began to swirl around the basketball world this was such an anticipated and expected event that there was even television ads to promote the showdown it will be the heavyweight battle of the year shaquille o'neal hakeem elijah hakeem one on one saturday september 30th live on pay-per-view unfortunately hakeem elijah won injured his back leading up to the event and the matchup had to be cancelled just a day before they were set to square off shaq was later asked in an interview if he thought hakeem was just looking for an excuse to back out and the diesel said when i heard that akeem couldn't do it i was like cool hakeem's not the guy who would say ah he's scared one i know he's not scared two if he could do it he would do it but if it was christian lightner i would have said he's scared as usual shaq never misses an opportunity to throw a little shade at another big man of all the wing players who shot at least 50 from the field michael jordan has the two highest scoring seasons in nba history any guesses on who the next highest scoring wing is who shot over 50 it's the prolific stylish and the lethal george the iceman girvin generally when people think of the 1992 dream team the three faces that usually come to mind are michael jordan larry bird and magic johnson but if there was an mvp of the basketball olympic games then charles barkley probably would have been the winner of that award in the 1992 olympics as he easily led the dream team in scoring at 18 points per game he was first in field goal efficiency at 71.1 percent and he was third in rebounds that should tell you all you need to know about how good charles barkley was as he was arguably the best player on the court as he represented what is possibly the greatest team ever assembled only two players in league history have led the nba in scoring and assists in the same season once again unsurprisingly the great oscar robertson is one of them with his incredible 1968 season any guesses on who the second player is is the very underrated often overlooked both figuratively and literally nate tiny archibald in 1973. in the 2017 nba all-star game the final score was 192-182 which is the record for the most points ever scored in an all-star game technically the reason why i say technically is because from 1985 to 2005 magic johnson hosted another kind of exhibition game involving many of the nba's all-stars the event took place every nba off-season in that 20-year stretch the event was called a midsummer night's magic it was a charity event and among the festivities was a game involving many of the league's best players it was basically an all-star game that was even more for the fans than your typical all-star game which means plenty of highlights and basically no defense on august 7 1988 team white led by clyde drexler and dominique wilkins defeated team blue who had magic johnson and michael jordan the final score was 203-202 a score so outrageous that the jumbotron couldn't even display it correctly because it wasn't designed to go that high if we were to count these events as all-star games then this would be the highest scoring all-star game in nba history phil jackson is one of the greatest basketball minds to ever live and he had a very close relationship with both kobe bryant and michael jordan as he coached both players to all of their 11 championships now we know that kobe bryant and michael jordan were two of the most dedicated and hardest working athletes the game has ever seen but in september of 2014 phil jackson gave his perspective in an interview with the new york post and he made an incredibly bold statement that i think very few people know about since phil was with the knicks at this point he was asked if kobe bryant is the model for carmelo anthony and phil responded by saying no no one can approach that i don't expect anyone to model their behavior after that although kobe modeled his behavior a lot about michael jordan but he went beyond michael in his attitude towards training and i know michael would probably question me for saying that but he did there probably isn't a human being who has more personal experience on this comparison than phil jackson and the fact that he point blank said that kobe bryant essentially has more drive than michael jordan has to be one of the most stunning claims that i've ever heard will chamberlain's 100 point game is arguably the greatest single performance of nba history something that's interesting is that prior to that game wilt knew he was going to have a special night because the arena had an arcade area and wilt spent time playing a game with a toy rifle and according to wilt he destroyed all the high scores that might sound like just another exaggerated story by wilt chamberlain but when you consider the fact that he was a career 51.1 percent free-throw shooter and then he proceeded to shoot 28 of 32 from the free throw line it certainly starts to seem like the stars had a line for wilt i don't know what the odds are of a 51 foul shooter going 28 of 32 from the free throw line but it doesn't take a genius to know that those odds are extremely low tim duncan is a hall of famer a five-time champion a two-time mvp 15-time all-star 15-time all-nba player and 15-time all-defensive player you know what else he is a nerd not only was he nicknamed mr spock in college but he's also a huge fan and player of dungeons and dragons so much so that he has a tattoo of merlin on his chest and a skeletal gesture on his back in 1984 the houston rockets nearly formed what would have been on paper the greatest big three the league has ever seen this takes us back to the 1984 nba draft most of us hardcore basketball fans know the draft order off the top of our heads hakeem elijah won to the rockets then sam bowie to the blazers and then michael jordan to the chicago bulls what many people don't realize is that there was nearly a blockbuster trade that night that would have drastically changed the course of basketball history you see the houston rockets had the first overall pick and at the time hakeem elijahuan appeared to be the clear choice to be taken first the thing is the rockets already had a star starting at center which was the future hall of famer ralph sampson who had just come off of his rookie season where he averaged 21 points and 11 rebounds other teams around the league also knew that the rockets were in a bit of a dilemma so the portland trailblazers made an offer of their second overall pick and their young star and clyde drexler in return for ralph sampson if the rockets had accepted the offer they would have had clyde drexler the first and the second overall pick which they almost certainly would have used to take akeem elijahuan and michael jordan obviously there's questions of fit and on-court chemistry but at a certain point a team has so much talent that even if they underperform by their standards they're still likely dominating the league with whom most people consider as the greatest player of all time one of the greatest centers of all time and arguably a top five shooting guard of all time what is a realistic projection of the success of this team at least 10 championships let me know how many rings you think they would have won in the comment section coming back from a 3-1 deficit in the playoffs is very rare and extremely difficult to do historically only 13 out of a possible 249 teams have come back to win the series after facing a 3-1 deficit and only one of those comebacks happened in the nba finals it was the cleveland cavaliers prevailing over the 73-9 golden state warriors and the 2016 nba finals thanks in large part to the incredible performances from kyrie irving and lebron james there have been some great and a lot of not so great performances in the history of the three-point shootout but no performances were worse than these two in 1988 dentluv shrimp scored only 5 points in the shootout he was actually a pretty good 3 point shooter throughout the majority of his career but i don't know why he ever entered the contest in this specific season as he was making only 16.7 percent of his three-point shots at the time of the all-star break just two years later michael jordan gave his own embarrassing performance as he finished the round with only five points the fact that his teammate craig hodges was killing it on the other end of the court at the same time that jordan was building his brick house only added insult to injury michael jordan absolutely dominated his era and everyone who's honest with themselves knows this but no stat may better sum up the extent of his dominance than this one from november of 1990 until his retirement in 1998 michael jordan never lost three games in a row that's a streak of 632 games which is easily the longest streak by a player in nba history to help put that incredible feat in perspective consider this the super team warriors with kevin durant couldn't accomplish that same feat of avoiding a three-game losing streak in any of their three seasons together we're talking about one of the greatest and arguably the most overpowered team in league history and even they couldn't achieve in an 82 game season what michael jordan did over 632 games yinkadare was a seven foot one inch center who was taken with the 14th overall pick and the 1994 nba draft he had moderate expectations coming into the league but immediately as a rookie he began building a not so impressive streak yinka was struggling to get an assist it wasn't completely his fault though as his net's teammates had opportunities to end the streak for him but just didn't convert unfortunately yinka had a 58-game streak without recording a single assist although he did manage to get 72 turnovers in that same time frame you've heard this stat if you watched my recent video on steve nash but if not it's worth mentioning again for just how stunning it is only 9 players in nba history have achieved a 50 40 90 season which is where a player averaged at least 50 percent from the field 90 from the free-throw line at 40 from three-point range over the course of a season steve nash has four seasons with 50 40 90 percentages which is twice as much as the nearest competitor of league history which is larry bird but wait it gets even more impressive not only does nash hold the record with four 50 40 90 seasons but from the 02 to 03 season through the 2012 to 2013 season nash averaged 50 40 90 percentages for an entire decade steve did what only a handful of players have done for just a single season the between the legs dunk or as some people know it the east bay funk dunk or just east bay for short goes back quite a ways vince carter made it iconic kobe bryant won the dunk contest in his rookie season with it and it was jr rider who introduced it to the nba world in 1994 right well not quite although many people consider j.r rider as the man who first pulled off the dunk in an nba contest it actually happened 10 years earlier in the first dunk contest of nba history by the underrated score and the athletically gifted orlando woolridge despite the history he made he wasn't able to win the dunk contest as his other dunks didn't score as well and it was larry nance who took home the crown that night only six times in nba history has a player averaged 40 points on at least 50 percent shooting for a playoff series the first time was the underrated legend bernard king the second was michael jordan and the third and the fourth and the fifth i bet you'll never guess the sixth yep big surprise this one is michael jordan as well you shouldn't condemn a player for a bad game why because everyone has one even the greatest players of all time and even on the game's biggest stage let's start with lebron james in game 1 of the 2008 east semifinals against the boston celtics james finished with only 12 points on an atrocious 2 of 18 shooting from the field he was 0-6 from 3-point range and had a whopping 10 turnovers which was several more than the rest of his teammates combined how about kobe bryant in game three of the 2004 nba finals against the detroit pistons kobe finished with only 11 points on 413 shooting and zero of four from three point range he also had a plus minus of negative 20 while he was on the court lastly is michael jordan in game four of the 1997 eastern conference finals against the miami heat he shot an ugly 9-f-35 from the field and zero of eight from three-point distance and unsurprisingly the bulls lost the game speaking of volume shooting on a bad performance this next fact may have set the standard there have been more than 20 games in playoff history where a player has taken at least 40 shot attempts of those players the one who had the most inefficient night was easily joe folks now understand folks is in the basketball hall of fame and was the baa's leading scorer in 1947 and 1948 and he led the nba and free throw percentage in 1951 but for some reason on march 30th 1948 he completely forgot how to shoot the basketball or at least how to shoot the basketball well on this night against the saint louis bombers he made a total of eight shots but he also attempted a total of 46 he basically had a baseball pitcher's batting average for a field goal percentage that night now i understand that coaches and teammates encourage their shooters to keep shooting because you don't want them to lose confidence but i'm not gonna lie if i was joe's teammate that night i may have tried to tackle him as he's about to attempt his 42nd jump shot the record for the most blocked shots in an nba playoff game is 10 which is a record held by three separate players unsurprisingly the first two are a couple of the greatest rim protectors to ever play hakeem elijah won and mark eaton any guesses on who that third player is it may be unexpected to some but it's actually the former lakers starting center andrew bynum kind of tells you some of the potential the young bynum had before his knee injuries ruined his career the chicago bulls set the nba record for the greatest regular season with a 72-10 record which made them the first team in league history to eclipse 70 wins in a season many younger basketball fans probably don't know this but not only did the bulls win 72 games in 1996 but they were extremely close to reaching the 70 win mark in the following season as well just how close well in the 96 to 97 regular season the bulls actually had 69 wins heading into their final two regular season games the first game was in miami against the solid heat team that they would later meet in the eastern conference finals and the heat won this regular season contest by 10 points the final game of the regular season was against their rivals the new york knicks the game was extremely tight throughout with both teams making incredibly clutch baskets down the stretch chicago would have the last shot though and as jordan had the ball you can see scottie pippen calling for it we know scotty really wanted these shots based on some of his recent comments kerr swings the ball to pippin who's got a good look but unfortunately he misses pretty badly if this shot had gone in then the bulls would have achieved something that no other team has done before for the second straight season when you see a clean attempt to pan out like this it kind of starts to make sense why phil drew up that one play for tony cu coach just saying the 1987 showtime lakers are considered by some as the greatest team in nba history one of the major reasons why people think that was because of their quick and explosive fast break offense and possibly the best example of that was on february 4th 1987 when the lakers achieved what was probably the quickest blowout in nba history the kings had absolutely no answer for the lakers high octane offense and on the other hand they could barely score a basket of their own calling it a beatdown would be a huge understatement as the lakers finished the quarter with a 40-4 lead with the game sealed so quickly it comes as no surprise that every single laker played under 30 minutes that night the 2004 detroit pistons are widely considered as one of the greatest defensive teams of all time some would even go as far as calling them the greatest defensive team of basketball history to support their case they have numerous nba records like the fewest points allowed per game during modern playoff history and the most games holding teams under 35 percent from the field but in my opinion their most impressive record is how the pistons held the opponent under 70 points in five straight games which is a modern nba record they held the blazers to 68 then the nuggets to 66 sonic's at 65 bulls at 65 and then the 76ers at 69. the thing is that streak could have been even longer as the sixth game was a matchup with the defending eastern conference champion the new jersey nets the game was a blowout and it was in the final seconds and new jersey was sitting at 69 points with 20 seconds left all detroit had to do was dribble out the clock but new jersey didn't want to be on the embarrassing side of history so they intentionally fouled the pistons that way they would get the ball back and try to score and that's exactly what they did with barely a second remaining imagine actually fist pumping because you helped your team get barely 70 points and a blowout but i guess that basically sums up what it was like to go against the 2004 pistons there have been 26 times in nba history where a player has made at least 11 3 point shots in a single game the crazy part is that steph curry by himself has nearly half of them representing 12 out of those 26 games you'll often hear people including yours truly talk about how wilt chamberlain was one of the most athletically gifted people in human history which is certainly true but not enough people talk about the remarkable athleticism of his rival bill russell not only his bill straight up jumped over a dude mid-game but back in 1956 bill could have been an olympian leaper in the high jump competition but he instead turned it down to enter his professional basketball career at the time according to track and field news russell was ranked as the seventh highest sleeper in the entire world and as the second highest sleeper in all of the united states in russell's graduation year he participated in the west coast relays and achieved one of his highest jumps at six feet nine and a quarter inches a leap so impressive that it tied him with charlie dumas that's a really big deal especially when you realize that dumas later went on to win the gold medal for the high jump competition in the 1956 olympics again this athleticism from russell was coming from a man who was six foot ten inches tall it's really quite mind-boggling when you consider the odds of two freakishly athletic giants like chamberlain and russell both playing basketball in the 60s and sharing the same rivalry imagine the game of basketball without dribbling i know sounds pretty ridiculous but for at least 6 years that was actually a thing as the first team to be accredited with dribbling played at yale in 1987. the official allowance of dribbling didn't come until four years later so in reality the first decade of basketball history was almost completely free of any dribbling the defensive player of the year award is typically an honor that goes to younger basketball players as it requires plenty of energy endurance and hustle but one player more so than any other was able to break that mold and became the oldest player to ever win the defensive player of the year award any guesses on who that player is is the all-time great rim protector and offensive anchor of the 2001 east champions dikembe mutombo who was nearly 35 years old at the time that he won the award robert dory was clutch he may have been just a role player but the guy was the definition of coming through when it mattered most we may simply remember the iconic moments when he hit some of the biggest shots of basketball history but it's more than that the numbers back up his clutch gene as well for his career he shot only 42.5 percent from the field but in game sevens especially he became someone else entirely big shot bob played in a total of nine game sevens and in eight of those nine games he shot at least fifty percent from the field and his team won seven out of those nine games in 2005 in a press conference after another deciding clutch shot from robert orri tim duncan hilariously explained why robert dory is the way he is rob just hangs out the entire game he does it all season long he doesn't do anything he doesn't feel like playing he shows up sometimes he and then and then you put him in a fourth quarter in a big game um whether it be regular season or the playoffs and and and he's like okay uh it's time to play now i've been hanging out the entire season it's time to play now and he just turns it on and as funny as that seems it it's just it's how it looks how it it's how it is he doesn't want to show up he doesn't feel like playing until it's a big game thank you rob rory will be next kobe bryant was never afraid of taking the big shot he wasn't afraid of getting hit in the face with a ball and honestly you're gonna have a hard time naming anything that kobe bryant was scared of but you couldn't categorize him as fearless because there was one thing that the mamba definitely feared bees when asked what he feared in an interview kobe said i don't f with bees man other than that i ain't afraid of nothing shaquille o'neal was a horrible free-throw shooter everybody knows this even my friends who don't watch basketball know this but if you ever tried to criticize shaq for his terrible free-throw shooting he always has one quick response he always made them when they counted honestly as a lakers fan who was watching every game when shaq was with us this is how i remember it as it always seemed like shaq came through in the clutch well i've recently got some stats on that we'll define clutch free throws as free throws attempted in the fourth quarter of a one possession game and non-clutch free throws will simply be everything else from the year 2000 through the end of his career in 2011 shaq took 6449 free throws and made 3356 which is a success rate of 52 on the other hand shaq took 607 clutch free throws and made 306 which is a success rate of 50.4 percent so basically no shaq was terrible at ordinary times and he was terrible when his team needed him i guess shaq said it so many times that even i started to believe it but i guess you learn something new every day bill russell is probably the most clutch big game performer that the nba has ever seen i understand that jordan fans probably won't like to hear that but before you completely disagree at least consider these facts from bill russell in his career bill russell played in a total of 10 series deciding seventh games in the postseason he never lost a single game seven in those ten game sevens he was leaned upon heavily as bill played in 488 out of a possible 495 minutes over his career in game sevens he averaged 18.6 points a ridiculous 29.3 rebounds and 3.7 assists on 44.7 shooting that stat line doesn't even factor in his impact defensively not only was his game seven production on a legendary level but his celtics needed every single bit of it as six out of those 10 games were decided by only one possession if you've actually watched this long i'm incredibly grateful and please let me know which one of these facts stood out to you thanks for watching as always make sure to like and subscribe for more basketball content and i'll see you guys in the next video [Music] you

Channel: Jonny Arnett

Views: 3,206,067

Keywords: Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant, LeBron James, Lakers, NBA Facts, Tim Duncan, Giannis, Russell Westbrook, Jimmy Highroller, Chris Smoove, Andy Hoops, Mike Korzemba, Secret Base, afunkydiabetic, BSolz, Dom2k, Rusty Buckets, Clique Productions, Basketball, NBA, Highlights, GOAT, Wilt Chamberlain, Bill Russell, Kareem, Hakeem Olajuwon, Chris Paul, James Harden, Steph Curry, Warriors, Nets, ABA, Carmelo Anthony, Magic Johnson, Larry Bird, Isiah Thomas, Legend of Winning, Heat Check, Troydan

Id: lbCpaz-z4uM

Length: 83min 7sec (4987 seconds)

Published: Thu Aug 05 2021