- In 1994, David Robinson won the NBA scoring title by scoring 71 points in the last game against the Los Angeles Clippers
- Dominique Wilkins revealed former Clippers owner Donald Sterling had his starters benched to ensure that happened
- Dominique Wilkins said he was told Donald Sterling wanted to keep the NBA scoring title in the Western Conference
The NBA’s scoring champion for the 1993-94 season was San Antonio Spurs legend David Robinson. He beat Shaquille O’Neal by putting up a monstrous 71 points in his last game against the Los Angeles Clippers.
Dominique Wilkins, who was playing for the Clippers by then, has now revealed how the franchise’s former owner, Donald Sterling, played a massive role in making that happen.
“I remember the end of the year, playing against the San Antonio Spurs, and Bob Weiss came in the locker room and said, ‘Look, I want y’all to get along, but I’ve been told to take all you guys out after the first four minutes of the first quarter,’” Wilkins said.
“And I’m like, ‘Why?’ And he said, ‘Donald Sterling wanna see David Robinson keep the scoring title in the West, he didn’t want Shaquille to get it in the East.’
“I said, ‘Last time I checked, neither guy played on our team. Who cares?’ And so he did, he took us out with four minutes to start in the game, and David Robinson had 71. Crazy.”
(starts at 1:36 minutes)
David Robinson got a lot of help when it came to winning the scoring title that season, his team let him put up 41 shots in the game. Head Coach John Lucas even asked his team to foul the Clippers in the final few minutes so he could get some more shots.
The ploy was ultimately successful, and David Robinson won, but these stories leave somewhat of a sour taste in the mouth.
David Robinson Won The Scoring Title By A Difference Of 0.5 Points That Season
Shaquille O’Neal and David Robinson were neck and neck while competing for the scoring title in 1993-94.
In the final game of the season, Shaquille O’Neal put up 32 points for the Magic against the Nets before being pipped by Robinson’s 71-point performance.
David Robinson ended the regular season averaging 29.8 points per game, helped in the end by his ridiculous stat line in the final game.
Shaquille O’Neal ended the season averaging 29.3 points per game and is surely upset with how he lost the scoring title.
What makes it interesting is that Dominique Wilkins was 4th in the race, having averaged 26.0 points per game all season. So, having him and the other starters taken out of the game made a huge difference in allowing San Antonio to dominate.
Shaquille O’Neal And David Robinson Had Beef But Shaq Called The Admiral His Favorite Player
Naturally, this type of competition between Shaquille O’Neal and David Robinson led to issues between the two. David Robinson reportedly thought Shaquille O’Neal was too frivolous, and Shaq wanted to take down the established legendary centers.
Despite the various battles they had over the years though, Shaquille O’Neal once called David Robinson his favorite player ever.
“David Robinson is my favorite player ever. I loved David Robinson. I loved him so much that I had to make up a fake story to be able to play against him.”
The story Dominique Wilkins shared does take away from David Robinson’s legendary game a little bit. But no high-scoring game in NBA history could have been achieved if the player scoring the points wasn’t allowed to take more shots than normal.
It’s a legendary achievement, and both Shaquille O’Neal and David Robinson have long since buried their feud.
It is, however, interesting to learn just how much nonsense Donald Sterling got up to as Clippers owner before the team was eventually taken away from him by the league.
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