Kareem Abdul-Jabbar Passes Wilt Chamberlain to Become All-Time Scoring Leader

[1987_Lakers]

Just look how cherished this record is. Game wasn't even in LA and the fans are cheering in anticipation and cheering once he hits the sky hook. Jazz bench in awe after he hits the shot. The game is stopped. Kareem mobbed by teammates and coaches. Wilt somewhere in the crowd probably being bitter, but pretending he came to support. Chick Hearn stating this record will never be broken again.

[1987_Lakers]

Wilt somewhere in the crowd like this... (10:03 mark)

[warriorfan]

Jason Terry pisses on LeBron James to be the 4th highest scoring player in the 2011 NBA Finals (LeBron was the fifth)

[Axe]

Jason Terry pisses on LeBron James to be the 4th highest scoring player in the 2011 NBA Finals (LeBron was the fifth)

No klay?

[warriorfan]

No klay?

you’re gay

[Axe]

How's your huffy bike doin' eh buddy ;)

[Full Court]

Yet Wilt is still ahead of Kareem in the all time rankings.

Just like Kareem will still be ahead of Bronie on the all time rankings when Bronie gets the record.

[Manny98]

Jason Terry pisses on LeBron James to be the 4th highest scoring player in the 2011 NBA Finals (LeBron was the fifth)

[8Ball]

"I don't think this will ever happen again" - About 38 years ago.


This is the hardest record to break for an individual player.

[warriorfan]

"I don't think this will ever happen again" - About 38 years ago.


This is the hardest record to break for an individual player.

it’s gonna take a lot longer for a supposed top 10 player of all time in their prime time to get outscored by an undersized zero time all star shooting guard in the NBA Finals

[Full Court]

"I don't think this will ever happen again" - About 38 years ago.


This is the hardest record to break for an individual player.

Wilt's scoring record has lasted longer. MUCH harder to break.

[coastalmarker99]

In my first four or five years in the NBA, I so dominated scoring-wise that even my strongest detractors had to concede that I could score almost whenever I wanted to.


An example of how I dominated was bought to light on January 9 1991 when Micheal Jordan scored his fifteen thousandth point all the papers praised his achievement and related that he reached that milestone in his 460th game faster than anyone else in NBA history besides yours truly.


Who did it in 358 games that's right 102 games quicker I was besieged by so many factions that I started to score less and less I did it only to appease my detractors not because of my inability to keep scoring.

There is no doubt that if I had chosen to keep scoring I could have and just as easily in my last years of play as in the beginning of my career.

I become a smarter player as I got older and my field goal percentage started to climb to unreal numbers also the center competition in my mind's eye became less and less formidable.

Russell was getting old and Kareem was not strong enough to keep me from going to the basket which I did more of in my later years than I was allowed to in my early years.


I want you all to realize that I dunked the basketball about half as many shots a game when I was really scoring points as Micheal Jordan does now as I mainly used fadeaway jump shots and finger rolls to score my shots


The point is I could have put the scoring record so far out of reach that Kareem would have to play thirty years not twenty years to break the record but I sacrificed all of that scoring ability for whatever my teams wanted of me.



I call that real unselfishness, not like that crap you hear announcers say when a player gives off a pass to a teammate my last game in the NBA was indicative of what I had allowed myself to become as a scorer I took one that's right one shot during the entire game.


There were many games during the last four or five years of my career when I took one or no shots but I led the NBA in rebounding and blocked shots and I established a shooting percentage record that may stand for many a year 72%.


What would you have done if you were the greatest scorer the game has ever seen would you stop shooting and pass the ball to some guy who on his best day couldn't score in an entire game what you averaged for one quarter for better or worse that's what I did.


At times I got a little angry when I read that I couldn't score anymore so I would go out and score 50 or 60 points just to show people I could still do it then I would go back to role-playing scoring twelve and thirteen points a contest.

[coastalmarker99]

The 1970 Lakers made a 33-year Chamberlain the number 1 scoring option on the team until he tore his patella tendon.


In those 9 Games that Wilt went back to his Scoring days instead of the all-round play-style that he adopted

Wilt
32 PPG 21 RPG 3 APG
56.5 TS (+5.4 rTS)

Jerry West:
31 PPG 7 APG 3 RPG
64.3 TS (+13.2 rTS)




From those stats and the fact that Wilt posted the highest-scoring games in 1967 1968 1969, we see that he easily could have kept averaging close to 35 points a game for his entire prime had he wanted to.