It was over 60 years ago on March 2, 1962, that Wilt Chamberlain set the single-game scoring record in the NBA by scoring 100 points against the New York Knicks, but Austin Reaves doesn’t believe he did it. Reaves recently appeared on BustaJack Golf, where he and co-host Mason Nutt stated they don’t think Chamberlain scored 100.
Mason Nutt: “Do you think Wilt actually scored 100?
Austin Reaves: “No.”
Mason Nutt: “Dude that’s my NBA conspiracy… I 100% do not believe that he scored 100.”
Austin Reaves: “Yep, I don’t either.”
Mason Nutt: “So I think Kobe’s (Bryant) 81,”
Austin Reaves: “Is the most ever!”
This has been somewhat of a growing trend on social media. It would appear more and more people believe Chamberlain never actually did it and that the NBA just made it up. As for why there is so much skepticism, the most commonly brought up reason is that there is no footage of that game.
Back then, the NBA was nowhere near as popular as it is today, so a lot of games weren’t televised. A marquee clash might have been shown on television, but the game in which Chamberlain set the record was anything but that. His Philadelphia Warriors were taking on a lowly Knicks team, that had a 27-45 record coming into that contest, so there was no reason to put the game on television.
As a result of that, the only visual evidence we have from that night is a picture of Chamberlain holding a piece of paper with the number 100 written on it. That’s clearly not enough proof for some that it actually happened and the belief is that the NBA made it up just to create some buzz and draw more fans.
Another reason that gets brought up, is that we don’t have the full recording of the game’s radio broadcast. Only the fourth-quarter audio is available, but you can hear play-by-play announcer Bill Campbell speaking about Chamberlain hitting the 100-point mark in it.
The fact that this game was played all the way out in Hershey, Pennsylvania, and not Philadelphia is also something that raises suspicion. That was rather common back in the day, though, as teams played some home games away from their home arenas in a bid to attract new fans. It meant, however, that only 4,124 fans were in attendance, which added to the conspiracies surrounding this historic game, that the Warriors won 169-147.
While people can point to all the reasons in the world why this was all just made up, I do believe Chamberlain scored 100 points that night. None of those Knicks players he went up against ever hinted at any conspiracy at any point in the years that followed and they weren’t exactly happy to be on the receiving end on that historic night.
Chamberlain had also hit the 70-point mark twice already that season, so his getting to 100 isn’t exactly something that I struggle to believe. In his 78-point outing against the Los Angeles Lakers, he went 16-31 from the line, so he could have gotten close to 90 if he had just hit some more foul shots.
Chamberlain happened to hit a lot of those foul shots against the Knicks, as he went 36-63 from the field and 28-32 from the line. Even bad free throw shooters have the odd good night and it just so happened that Wilt had it here.
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