SALT LAKE CITY — The king is coming. LeBron James will be at EnergySolutions Arena Friday, along with the rest of the Miami Heat. After nine years in the league, he remains an incomparable, dominating, nearly unstoppable force.
Tell that to legendary Philadelphia 76ers stat man Harvey Pollack. He'll remind you that as great as James is, he's no Wilt. That's not an indication of disrespect — or even a comparison of ability — but of perspective. James is the best of many great athletes. Wilt Chamberlain was alone in his time. Thus, nobody has dominated like him. He wasn't just from a different planet, he was a planet unto himself.
Everyone else just revolved.
Fifty years ago Friday, Chamberlain set a single-game record that still stands, scoring 100 points in a Philadelphia Warriors game against the New York Knicks. Since there was no TV coverage, and the game was played in small-town Hershey, Pa., details vary. Some say the basketball used to make history ended up in the hands of a couple from Kansas, or a kid who was at the game. Others say Chamberlain took the ball home. Pollack, who collected the ball from a referee after Wilt made his final basket, says it was lost sometime after team owner Eddie Gottlieb put it in a display window at the Sheraton Hotel in Philadelphia.
Whatever the case, nobody has come close to Wilt's 1962 mark. Not Kobe Bryant's 81-point game against Toronto in 2006, not David Thompson's 73-pointer in 1978, or anyone else's. Pollack notes that when Chamberlain retired in 1973, he held 128 records — and the league didn't even start keeping blocked shots until after his retirement.
"These guys who rip Wilt today are Johnny-come-latelies, and I disregard everything they say," says Pollack, who was an eyewitness to Chamberlain's historic game.
It has a been a busy week for Pollack, who turns 90 this month. He is fielding calls and interviews from across the nation. That's because on that fateful night in Hershey, he was not only the public relations director for the Warriors, but also the game statistician and a stringer for United Press International, The Associated Press and The Philadelphia Inquirer. Thus, he literally and figuratively wrote the story on the greatest individual game in history.
Chamberlain dominated basketball like no other. Pollack keeps a stat he calls a triple-double-double: 20 or more points, assists and rebounds in a game. Nobody but Chamberlain has done that. He grabbed 55 rebounds in one game, scored on 35 consecutive shots in one stretch and averaged 50 points in a season.
"He not only has the 100-point game, but he had more 70-point games, more 60-point games, more 50- and more 40-point games than anyone in history," Pollack says.
Five decades later, Chamberlain's records still inspire awe. His 100-point milestone caused a clamor, but in 1962 there wasn't even a photographer involved until the second half. An AP photographer attended as a spectator, but when Chamberlain reached 41 points at midway, he went to his car to get a camera.
James held a prime-time press conference that was seen on TV by 10 million viewers when he joined the Heat. Conversely, there were only about 4,000 fans in Hershey that momentous night, and no full-time newspaper reporters.
So at least there is one area in which King James trumps Wilt the Stilt: witnesses.
Pollack says he should have seen the big game coming. Aside from the fact Chamberlain put up huge numbers every night, this time there was something else.
The team had arrived several hours early from Philadelphia because fears of traffic congestion had necessitated an early departure. Left with more than ample time, players found a penny arcade inside Hershey Sports Arena. Among the amusements were pinball and clay pigeons.
When Pollack arrived, he found his clock operator challenging Wilt to a sharpshooting contest. Chamberlain went first and knocked down every pigeon. His opponent never even raised his rifle.
"Then Wilt played pinball; he challenged everyone," Pollack recalls. "Whatever machine it was, he wiped everyone out. He won every game. They were impossible scores to believe. So when I look back on that scene in that arcade, I hit myself knowing that I didn't really stop to think that something unusual was going to happen that night."
By the time Chamberlain had scored 60 points, everyone knew history could be waiting. The public address announcer was calling out every basket and the crowd had begun to chant.
"Dipper-dunk by Wilt, 67 points!" he would shout. The crowd, in unison would repeat: "Sixty-seven points!"
When Chamberlain made the shot that gave him 100, fans stormed the court. All of them.
"Not one person stayed in the stands," says Pollack.
Trouble was, there were still 48 seconds left in the game, so the court had to be cleared. Pollack says Chamberlain stood off to the side of the court for the remaining seconds, arms extended in a pose of supplication, while the Knicks — now outnumbering the Warriors five players to four — scored the final two baskets.
Referee Willie Smith walked over to Pollack after Chamberlain's historic basket and said, "I think we've got to take this ball out of the game."
"What, is something wrong with it?" Pollack said.
Smith told him they would probably need it for the Hall of Fame.
So the actual historic basketball first went to Pollack, who shortly thereafter had a trainer put it in Chamberlain's duffel. After filing his stories, Pollack went inside the locker room.
"It was like bedlam in there," he says.
Chamberlain's accomplishment will be noted during tonight's Sixers contest against Golden State. Pollack says it likely remains history's greatest sports feat.
"It's got to be one of the most unbelievable. Baseball has perfect games, but that's been done quite a few times," he says. "And look at the home run deal; how many times have they broken that."
But a hundred points in a basketball game?
"That record," he says with the certainty of a lifelong stat man, "will stand forever."
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