It seems like every season in the NBA, somebody is able to break a long-standing record in league history. That often brings up the question, what player in the NBA has been able to break the most records by himself? And which records are ridiculously unbreakable?
Who Broke the Most NBA Records? There isn’t much of a doubt here, Wilt Chamberlain has set and held onto the most NBA records of all time. Granted, he was playing in a far different era and could practically do whatever he wanted on the court, but he is the greatest of all time when it comes to the record books. There are a lot of things that he’s done that nobody has ever come close to.
Wilt isn’t the only player to have records that have stayed for years on end though, which is the reason that we brought up some other records that won’t ever be broken by upcoming players.
Unbreakable Records
Starting off with the All-Time Assists record. John Stockton currently holds this record and ended his playing career at 15,806. The next closest player in this category is Jason Kidd at 12,091. Stockton averaged double digit assists numbers in ten straight seasons, while playing in all 82 games 16 years of his career! Speaking of his career, he missed just 22 games total!
There is likely to never be anybody as durable or consistent at passing the basketball than Stockton. This brings me to the next unbreakable record, and that is the consecutive games played streak. If you have taken the time to watch the NBA, you would know that nowadays a lot of star players get rest days or just can’t heal from an injury when coming off a tough back-to-back. A.C. Green just didn’t care about loud managing though. The Los Angeles Lakers forward played in an unbelievable 1,192 straight games in the league. Not only did he have incredible luck to avoid all major injuries and consistently get himself onto the court, but he did it at a time when players couldn’t take care of their bodies as well as players can today. Rarely does a head coach look at his player after a streak around 80-100 active games, but this speaks also to the mentality of A.C. Green.
Wilt’s Records
First of all, Chamberlain still holds onto the most points scored in a single game record. Wilt was on the Philadelphia Warriors when he dropped 100 points exactly against the New York Knicks back in 1962. Some players have come close like Kobe Bryant and Devin Booker, but none have even surpassed the 85-point mark since he established this feat. Chamberlain also holds the most field goals made in a single game with 36, which happened to be from the same game he broke the points record, no shocker there.
Chamberlain also made 28 free throws in a single game, the most of all time. We are just getting warmed up here as well. Wilt holds the record for most rebounds in a single game with 55, a record that is likely to never be touched in the history of the league. He has played the most minutes in a single season at 3,882 averaging 48.52 minutes per game and having that be another record. I believe he holds each and every single season points record that there could be, including the amount of 40, 50 and 30 plus point games. There are a lot more records of Wilt’s to count that would take far too long, but we should wrap it up with this final record. The fact that Wilt Chamberlain was the youngest player to ever reach 10,000 rebounds throughout his playing career. He was able to hit such a historic mark at the young age of 28! Chamberlain was truly special, as he accomplished this just 81 days after turning 28.
Team Records
Now that we established Wilt Chamberlain is the undisputed master when it comes to NBA records, let’s dive into some other team records that have stood for some time. When it comes to the best record in the league, nobody has been able to finish with a better regular season record than the 2016 Golden State Warriors.
They were 73-9 and somehow didn’t win the championship in the 2015-16 season. The Charlotte Bobcats were the worst team historically, ending the year at an abysmal 7-59 overall record and cementing themselves into the history books for good. Lastly, the San Antonio Spurs hold the record for the highest winning percentage in the NBA. Since they have entered into the league, they have been able to post a record of 2,189-1,352. That win-loss totals out to a 61.8 winning percentage. As for the lowest win percentage, that is held by the Minnesota Timberwolves. They are 980-1,496 and have a percentage of just 39.6 to date.
Worst Record of All Time
This certainly isn’t the place for any player in the league to want to find themselves and it’s pretty clear why. Some players love that they are able to establish themselves into the history books while others hate that it is for such a stupid reason. That was the case here for Giff Roux. In my opinion, this was one of the worst records that I have ever had the privilege of seeing.
Back in 1948, Roux was a member of the St. Louis Bombers. Opposing teams clearly knew the type of player that he was and they implemented the Hack-a-Shaq strategy years before teams started to hack Shaq and nowadays to guys like Ben Simmons. Roux was sent to the free throw line a whopping 20 times in this one game, yet somehow, he found a way to miss every single one of those attempts. The worst part about this is that the team lost by only four points in this contest, you never want to leave 20 points sitting out there for the taking. What is wild is that Roux was a 51.1 percent shooter at the line over his career, so the fact that he had the bad side of a 50-50 on 20 consecutive attempts is bonkers. Shaq is second in this record category, missing 11 straight, but still nowhere near Roux.