FanHouse WiltChamberlain

Tip-Off Timer counts down the days until the first game of the 2009-10 season. On Friday, there are 11 days remaining.

The NBA All-Star Game every year is filled with players who never score 2,000 points in a single season.

Karl Malone did it a record 11 consecutive seasons, the most significant statistic he recorded during one of the greatest careers in NBA history.

Tip-Off Timer counts down the days until the first game of the 2009-10 season. On Wednesday, there are 55 days remaining.

There are no cheap records in the NBA. But one of the most eye-popping records Wilt Chamberlain holds, all things considered, is his mark for most rebounds in a game: 55, captured against Bill Russell's Celtics early in the 1960-61 season. The final score of that game (on November 24, 1960) was 132-129.

Interestingly enough, it was Russell's record that Wilt broke. (Russell had 51 rebounds against the Syracuse Nationals late in the 1959-60 season.) But as was so often the case in the Wilt/Russell rivalry, while Wilt got the record, Russell got the win.

Tip-Off Timer counts down the days until the first game of the 2009-10 season. On Friday, there are 67 days remaining.

Scoring 100 points in an NBA game was such a phenomenal feat that it may never be matched. Yet that century mark isn't what defined Wilt Chamberlain as the greatest scoring machine in NBA history.

A lot of people can do things once.

Kobe Bryant scored 81. David Thompson had 73. Elgin Baylor and David Robinson each managed 71. Michael Jordan hit 69 and Pete Maravich scored 68.

The magic number is 67.

Dwight Howard is on the verge of making history and no one seems to notice. He's averaging 2.9 blocks and 14.0 rebounds a game, putting him on pace to become not only the youngest player to lead the league in blocked shots (beating out Marcus Camby by nearly a year) but also only the fifth player in NBA history to lead the league in blocks and rebounds in the same season.

If there's anyone that's done more scoring in the history of the NBA and that would deserve to be recognized by the world in stamp form, it's Wilt Chamberlain. A group of Philadelphians are promoting the possibility and hope that the US Postal Service will approve.

Originally, the group wanted to have Chamberlain's stamp released either during Black History Month or as a commemoration of Wilt's 100 point game on March 2, 1962. Based on stamp approval guidelines (I didn't know they existed either), Wilt could land on a stamp by 2010, assuming he garners enough support.

'I'd be very proud if that happens and I'm sure he would be, too, if he was alive," said Selina Gross, Chamberlain's sister. "I think he'd be very honored. He probably wouldn't believe this could happen to him.'

The cause was started by sports writer Donald Hunt of The Philadelphia Tribune, a 123-year-old newspaper that primarily targets the black community. Hunt, who recalled as a child watching in person Chamberlain play for the 76ers against Oscar Robertson and the Cincinnati Royals, believes 'The Big Dipper' has the credentials to join Jackie Robinson, Babe Ruth, Joe Louis and Jesse Owens among the sports legends with their own stamps.

'People should remember the great ones,' Hunt wrote for a Feb. 15 story. 'They don't come any bigger or better than Wilt Chamberlain.'

Other pro-Wilt-stamp figures of public recognition include Kansas University coach Bill Self (Wilt's alma mater), John Hadl (KU's associate athletic director for major gifts) and members of the Philadelphia 76er organization. Wilt was the all time leading NBA scorer until Kareem Abdul-Jabbar rolled into the L.

He's oftentimes immortalized for his 100 point game and his, ahem, off court "game", but Hunt is dead on when he says that most young people today don't truly understand what a dominant player Chamberlain was during his 14 years in the NBA. Clearly giving him his own stamp isn't the same as YouTube tribute in terms of youthful publicity, but it will still immortalize him and give people a reason to find out why he was so important if they don't know already.

HT: Brahsome

The NBA's biggest stars always get up to play at Madison Square Garden, regardless of how good (or in this case, bad) the building's home team is playing. Sure the Knicks are an abomination, but MSG is considered by most to be the basketball Mecca, so I'm sure Kobe Bryant is pretty happy about achieving his latest milestone there.

Kobe sank a three-pointer in the third quarter, which made him the youngest player in league history to score 20,000 career points. The previous record holder was Wilt Chamberlain at 29 years, 134 days, but Kobe was able to get there 12 days sooner. Not surprisingly, even though Kobe achieved this feat at a younger age, Wilt got there in far fewer games: just 499 to Bryant's 811.

Even though the Lakers did everything they could to blow a 25-point third quarter lead, they were able to hang on for a 95-90 victory. Kobe seemed shake off both his recent injury and his poor shooting, putting on a show with 39 points, 11 rebounds, and eight assists, while shooting 50% from the field. I guess there really is something special about playing at Madison Square Garden.

That's Kareem Abdul-Jabbar talking with legendary Lakers announcer Chick Hearn before a game against the Jazz on April 5, 1984. Of course, it wasn't just any old game, it was the game that Abdul-Jabbar broke Wilt Chamberlain's scoring record, and it happened at the Thomas & Mack Center in Las Vegas, of all places, where the Jazz played 10 games that season as an alternate home court.

I love how the interview bounces just about everywhere, and it's interesting how Abdul-Jabbar advocates for college freshman being forced to sit out a year before playing NCAA ball -- the next high school kid who complains about not being able to jump directly to the NBA should be happy he wasn't born 30 years earlier.

Gather round kiddies, and I'll tell the you story of the 1972 NBA Finals. Or at least the part where Wilt Chamberlain got injured, and ABC's staff promptly swallowed an entire sheet of LSD. Then they had to put together the intro for the next contest, which is why you see what you see about thirty seconds into this video. Free your mind and Game 5 will follow.

And to think, in a little more than a decade the televised league would look like this.

So I know we've all been conditioned to think of Kobe as an inhuman killing machine. That or a fake whose personality is all an act. But amidst all the hub-bub over The Spree, Bryant had one quote that really caught my eye. Because for once, it was kind of funny and normal. When asked about fellow offensive titan Wilt Chamberlain, the Lakers guard didn't automatically start talking about the game they're both known for. From the Los Angeles Times:

Bryant spoke reverently after Friday's game, saying he initially associated [Wilt] Chamberlain with an acting role in the 1980s movie "Conan the Destroyer."

"When I was 6, I just knew him as Bombaata. ... I didn't know him as Wilt Chamberlain," Bryant said. "Then as I got older, I started understanding what he was all about as a basketball player."

I don't know about you, but that brings a little tear to my eye. The one that's not been blinded by the show Bryant has been putting on. We've been fed this story of Kobe, student of the game since birth. When in fact, there was at least a split second in his life when Wilt was Bombaata, not some dude whose records he would one day chase.