NBA 50 greatest peculiar stats

markmac

One of my favorite sets is the 1996 topps stars set of. 150 cards of the 50 greatest players. Here are some stats that I found interesting.
Wilt led the league in a major category 41 times.
Oscar Robertson led the league in a major category 0 times. Found that hard to believe.
Pete Maravich shot .412 from the field for his career but only had one year where he shot below that. His fg% the year he averaged 31.1 LPG and led the league in scoring was .291. So he missed roughly 70 of every 100 shots and still lead the league in scoring. Wow.
Bill Russell only shot .440 from the field in his career. .561 from the line.
Led the league only 4 times in a major category. (No blocks recorded)
Nate Thurmond only shot .421 from the field for his career.
Bill Walton only played I'm 468 games.
James Worthy with Magic had fg% of .579, .556, .572, .579, .539, . 531, .548, .492. Without Magic: .447, .447, .406
Dave bing was the first guard to lead the league in scoring.
Larry Bird during 1985/86 season ranked in the top 10 in ft%, ppg, 3pt fg%, RPGs and spg
Sam jones only had two 40+ point games in his career.
Kevin McHale became the first player to shoot over 60% from the field and over 80% from the line in the same season. Not sure if anyone else has ever done that.

Webb63

that's good stuff!! I love that set too…especially the refractors and Auto's. I used to buy the retail boxes all the time (red boxes) and they had the auto sitting on top in the manilla envelope. I own several of the Hobby boxes but i haven't seen a retail box since 1996. I wonder if they are even out there anymore? I'm also surprised the auto's are more expensive - they have to be pretty rare.

Dboneesq

<< <i>One of my favorite sets is the 1996 topps stars set of. 150 cards of the 50 greatest players. Here are some stats that I found interesting.

Pete Maravich shot .412 from the field for his career but only had one year where he shot below that. >>



Great Post!

However, this one seemed hard to believe. I looked it up and the source I used shows he shot .441 from the field for his career.
Edited to add: And he never shot below .412 in any year.

mlbfan2

<< <i>One of my favorite sets is the 1996 topps stars set of. 150 cards of the 50 greatest players. Here are some stats that I found interesting.
Wilt led the league in a major category 41 times.
Oscar Robertson led the league in a major category 0 times. Found that hard to believe.
Pete Maravich shot .412 from the field for his career but only had one year where he shot below that. His fg% the year he averaged 31.1 LPG and led the league in scoring was .291. >>



Oscar led the league in assists six times. That's a major category, no?

Pete shot .433 that year, not .291.

Dboneesq

Expanding on what mlbfan2 stated.

Oscar led the league in Assists per Game SEVEN times.

He led the league in Free throw Percentage TWICE.

In 67/68 he led the league in POINTS PER GAME as well as ASSISTS PER GAME. I can't image that happening too often.

markmac

Now read another card that says Robertson had 8 assist crowns.
Rick Barry has highest career ppg average in NBA finals history 36.3 ppg

Wilt did not win MVP the season he averaged 50.4 ppg and 25.7 RPGs (russell)
Dr J. Ranked third all time in career steals. (1996)
Magic handed out more than twice as many assists in nba playoff games than any other player. 10 games of 20 or more.
Moses Malone had 21 offensive rebounds in one game.

It's hard to fathom the numbers Chamberlain put up. I think only Wilt and Jordan can be considered both the greatest offensive and defensive players of all time. There is a youtube video showing all known footage of Wilt scoring you should check out.

markmac

Stats on that card must be incorrect. I was floored when I saw the .291 figure.
I bought a couple of blue boxes. What was the difference between the red and blue?

Dboneesq

<< <i>One of my favorite sets is the 1996 topps stars set of. 150 cards of the 50 greatest players. Here are some stats that I found interesting.
Sam Jones only had two 40+ point games in his career. >>


I guess Topps didn't do a good job looking up these guys stats! LOL

SAM JONES - I couldn't find his game by game log for the first SIX YEARS he played in the NBA. But in 64/65 he had 2 games in which he scored 40+; 65/66 ONE GAME and 67/68 ONE GAME. So it's at least 4 and possibly more.

markmac

Any basketball fan who has not read Bill Simmons Big Book of Basketball should. It's the best basketball book I've ever read. The footnotes are hilarious.

Dboneesq

<< <i>It's hard to fathom the numbers Chamberlain put up. >>


Agreed! In his first NINE YEARS in the league, each year he averaged 30+ points AND 20+ rebounds. AMAZING!

markmac

I think he averaged over 39 per game over his first 6 years.

PMKAY

<< <i>Any basketball fan who has not read Bill Simmons Big Book of Basketball should. It's the best basketball book I've ever read. The footnotes are hilarious. >>



Am not a huge basketball fan. I watched quite a bit starting in 1980 right through Jordan's final stint in Chicago. Got back into it the last few years only because I enjoy readings Simmons articles. I have yet to read his book but I've heard nothing but good about it.

slum22

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<< <i>It's hard to fathom the numbers Chamberlain put up. >>


Agreed! In his first NINE YEARS in the league, each year he averaged 30+ points AND 20+ rebounds. AMAZING! >>



Those numbers are definitely mind boggling. Although, you also have to take into account that the pace of play then was far greater than the current pace. I don't know the exact statistics but I would bet there were an average of 10-20 more possessions per game in the 60's when Wilt and Oscar were putting up those monster numbers. Those extra possessions create an inflationary effect on the counting per game stats from that period. Kind of like how QB stats from the current era are hard to compare with the 70's, 80's and 90's. Some QB's are getting 150-200 more attempts per year vs. their 1970's and 1980's counterparts. That is bound to create some inflated stats.

Tabe

Try 30 to 40 more possessions. Combined with terrible shooting percentages, you got a ton of rebounds. Dennis Rodmans's seasons of 18 rebounds per game were actually better than Russell getting 24 a game.

Allen

If you like this kind of stuff, I must recommend Bill Simmons' book titled The Book of Basketball. You will really enjoy his Lets blow up the Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Illinois and rebuild it in Indiana, but do it right and have players ranked in a pyramid concept that leads to his Pyramid of the Top 96 Players (this set is now on the PSA registry by the way). I know you are tempted to google his pyramid and look at it but don't, it is way more fun to read it a page at a time. His stat breakdown and justification for each player is very cool. It is a very long book that also has essentially another book of footnotes.

mlbfan2

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<< <i>

<< <i>It's hard to fathom the numbers Chamberlain put up. >>


Agreed! In his first NINE YEARS in the league, each year he averaged 30+ points AND 20+ rebounds. AMAZING! >>



Those numbers are definitely mind boggling. Although, you also have to take into account that the pace of play then was far greater than the current pace. I don't know the exact statistics but I would bet there were an average of 10-20 more possessions per game in the 60's when Wilt and Oscar were putting up those monster numbers. Those extra possessions create an inflationary effect on the counting per game stats from that period. Kind of like how QB stats from the current era are hard to compare with the 70's, 80's and 90's. Some QB's are getting 150-200 more attempts per year vs. their 1970's and 1980's counterparts. That is bound to create some inflated stats. >>



Yes. In 1959-60, teams averaged 73.5 rebounds per game. Over Rodman's career, the league average was only ~42 per game.