The clock dropped below the final minute, and the previously raucous crowd in Hershey, Pennsylvania, grew quiet. An onslaught of Knicks held off the inevitable basket for as long as the mismatched squad from New York could manage.
Joe Ruklick passed on a wide-open layup to loft an alley-oop in Wilt Chamberlain’s direction, and every onlooker in the arena held their breath as they awaited the cherry on top of this superhuman sundae. Wilt stuffed the ball through the hoop for his 36th basket and reached the summit of the grandest display of domination in basketball history: 100 points in a single game.
In terms of individual achievement, the 1962 NBA season was one of the greatest showcases in pro sports history. Interestingly though, as the current NBA regular season comes to a close, we are seeing parallels between the 1962 and 2017 seasons.
Russell Westbrook chasing a triple-double average for the Oklahoma City Thunder this season is among the obvious. Oscar Robertson is the only other player to manage this, and that was during the historic 1962 season. Robertson, a point guard for the Cincinnati Royals, flashed a scoring prowess that enabled him to rack up 30.8 points, a playmaking ability to record 11.4 assists and a tenaciousness that brought down 12.5 rebounds per game. The same can be said of Westbrook.
Another similarity to the ’62 season? Chamberlain’s logic-defying 100-point game saw its modern
counterpart this year as well, when Golden State’s Klay Thompson forgot how to miss in an early December game against the Pacers. In just 29 minutes, he scored 60 points. Sure, he fell well short of Chamberlain’s otherworldly feat, but his points per minute averaged 2.07 — to Wilt’s 2.06. The fact that Thompson did much of his damage as a jump shooter, as opposed to dominating smaller opponents, makes it all the more awe-inspiring.
But perhaps the most interesting parallel between the two seasons is the MVP race. In what has been described as a historically tough-to-call season for the highest individual honor, it pales in comparison to the decision voters had to make in 1962. Chamberlain averaged an unfathomable 50 points and 25 rebounds. Robertson, meanwhile, had his triple-double. But neither man won. That honor went to Bill Russell, who averaged 23.6 rebounds, 18.9 points, displayed a showstopping defense and led his team to the best record in the NBA. In total, the ’62 season saw six players average more than 30 points — a feat that had occurred just five times in the 15-year history of the NBA up till then. With so many of these all-time greats having career years, it’s hard to look at the ’17 season and not see similar circumstances. Westbrook, James Harden, Kawhi Leonard, Kevin Durant and LeBron James are all former MVPs or MVP candidates, and they are all setting new career highs in multiple categories.
