INTRODUCTION PEACH BASKETS In December 21 1891 a physical education teacher in Springfield Massachusetts named James Naismith showed his class a game he had just invented Naismith nailed a peach basket to the balcony at each end of the gym and divided his class into two teams of nine players each The object of the game was to throw a ball into one of the fruit baskets The players used a soccer ball and the game lasted 30 minutes William R Chase scored the game's JAMES NAISMITH first and only basket Chase's basket was the first statistic ever recorded in a basketball game Fans use statistics or stats to measure and compare the performances of players and teams Stats can show everything from how good a player is at shooting free throws to what kinds of shots are most likely to help a team beat an opponent What are basketball's most important statistics First you should know how the rules of the game have changed over time These changes have affected how stats are recorded and how fans respond to the game O
STATS FACT The first pro game was played in 1896 when the Trenton YMCA defeated the Brooklyn YMCA 15 1 All players were paid 15 except Fred Cooper who received 16 A SLOWER GAME Early basketball games often had low scores The games moved more slowly than modern National Basketball Association NBA games The peach baskets had bottoms so each time a shot went in someone had to climb a ladder to get the ball Baskets with an open bottom were not used until 1912 Before 1954 NBA games didn't use a shot clock Teams would often stop shooting once they took the lead so that the other team would have fewer chances to score But in 1954 the league began to use a 24 second shot clock This forced teams to shoot more often and score more points A year later the Boston Celtics became the first team to average 100 points per game for a season Four years after that every team in the league averaged more than 100 KOSTO 1955 BOSTON CELTICS
CHAPTER ONE PLAYER SUPER STATS A C GREEN JUST A MINUTE PLEASE A C Green played in 1 192 straight games in his career During this streak he played for the Los Angeles Lakers Phoenix Suns Dallas Mavericks and Miami Heat Green holds the NBA record for most games played in a row No wonder his Twitter handle is NBA _ Ironman An NBA season consists of 82 games for each team But most NBA players don't play every game as Green did for so long Some only play for a few minutes per game If you want to know how much someone really played in a career check out the minutes played stat It shows how many minutes players spent on the court rather than how many games they played Most Minutes played in a Career PLAYER TEAM Kareem Abdul Jabbar Los Angeles Lakers Karl Malone Utah Jazz Kevin Garnett Minnesota Timberwolves Jason Kidd Dallas Mavericks Elvin Hayes Washington Bullets The player spent most of his career with this team MINUTES PLAYED 57 446 54 852 50 418 50 111 50 000
TRIPLE DIGITS On March 2 1962 Wilt Chamberlain of the Philadelphia Warriors scored 100 points in a game No one else has come close to matching that total Chamberlain made 36 baskets and 28 free throws against the New York Knicks in a 169 147 Philadelphia win A player has scored 60 points or more in a game only 65 times in NBA history Kobe Bryant six times Michael Jordan five times and Elgin Baylor four times were scoring machines So what does that make Chamberlain He did it 32 times HISTORY HIGHLIGHT Kareem Abdul Jabbar is the NBA's all time leader in points scored and has won more Most Valuable Player MVP awards than anyone else He was great in college too In 1966 in his first varsity game for the University of California Los Angeles UCLA he scored 56 points He was so dominant near the basket that the National Collegiate Athletic Association NCAA outlawed slam dunks for a decade Most Points Scored in a Game Wilt Chamberlain Philadelphia Warriors March 2 1962 Kobe Bryant Los Angeles Lakers January 22 2006 Wilt Chamberlain Philadelphia Warriors December 8 1961 David Thompson Denver Nuggets April 9 1978 Wilt Chamberlain San Francisco Warriors November 16 1962 Player Team Date Wilt Chamberlain Philadelphia Warriors January 13 1962 Wilt Chamberlain San Francisco Warriors November 3 1962 David Robinson San Antonio Spurs April 24 1994 Elgin Baylor Los Angeles Lakers November 15 1960 Wilt Chamberlain San Francisco Warriors March 10 1963 70 72 74 76 78 80 82 84 86 88 90 92 94 96 98 100 Number of points
