"Never say never, because limits, like fears, are often just an illusion."
That's a great-sounding quote from Michael Jordan. It's also a quote I'm afraid I have to disagree with because some records will NEVER be broken.
Wilt Chamberlain's 100 or 20,000?
Never!
John Stockton's Assists and steals record?
Never!
The Chicago Bulls' 72-10 record?
Never! Oh, wait, the Golden State Warriors broke that record when they went 73-9, which is untouchable. The greatest player from that 2016 Warriors team, Wardell Stephen Curry II, has an even more untouchable record: 3,788 career three-pointers (and counting).
Earlier this week, James Harden passed Ray Allen and placed second on the career three-pointers list. After the game, a reporter asked him if he thought he could catch Steph. The Beard's response:
"I'm one of the most confident guys that we have in this league. But no. I probably won't catch Steph. I don't think anybody will… He can shoot the sh*t outta the ball."
He knows he's not going to catch Steph because he's currently behind by 805 threes, and that's more than Harden has made over his last five seasons. So, if Steph retired today and Harden continued to average 2.5 threes a game for 60 games a season, a 40-year-old Harden would catch Steph in 2029. That sounds as likely as Joel Embiid catching A.C. Green's NBA record for consecutive games played (more about this later).
During the most
recent episode
of NBC Sports Bay Area's "Dubs Talk," Steph had this to say about anyone eyeing his record:
“You hope to push the number to where – and you know all records are meant to be broken; that’s how sports works, that’s how life works – but I hope, with the volume and accuracy, that it might be a number that will be very, very hard to break."
STEPH CURRY'S 3-POINT RECORD
STEPHEN CURRY BREAKS THE ALL-TIME 3 POINT RECORD! 🔥
How did Steph reach his untouchable record of 3,788 three-pointers (and counting)? It started in 1987 with the sperm from one of the NBA's best shooters, Dell Curry! I'm semi-joking, but getting shooting tips from Dell when he wasn't filming Burger King commercials with him or trying to play 1-on-1 vs his teammates, like Vince Carter, helped a lot. The rest is "when passion meets determination."
In 15 NBA seasons, Steph has led the league in making threes an NBA record eight times. Five of those eight seasons are in the six highest made threes seasons in the history of the NBA. One of those six is the only 400-made threes season in NBA history.
- Steph: 402
- Harden: 378
- Steph: 357
- Steph: 354
- Steph: 337
- Steph: 324
- Klay: 301
That is one of the reasons why the 4 x NBA Champion is known to most as the greatest shooter of all time. Here are a few more reasons in the form of other records that may or may not ever be broken.
- Most games with 10+ Threes: 25
- Consecutive regular season games with a three: 268
- Most threes in the NBA All-Star games: 51
- Most threes in a single All-Star game: 16
- Most threes in the NBA Playoffs: 618
- Most threes in the NBA Finals: 152
- Most threes in an NBA Finals game: 9
JOHN STOCKTON'S ASSISTS AND STEALS RECORDS
35 Minutes of John Stockton Stories told by NBA Legends
The following quote is what the active assist leader in the NBA, Chris Paul, had to say when asked about Stockton's untouchable assist record:
"I don't like saying never, but ain't nobody catching that. I don't know who did the statistics in Utah."
Stockton's 15,806 assists is over 3,000 more than CP3 (12,022) and Jason Kidd (12,091). All CP3 has to do to break the record is continue to average 400 assists a season until 2033. I guarantee we will not see a 48-year-old CP3 still (ringless) in the league.
So, how did Stockton accumulate so many assists?
- Played 19 seasons and missed only 22 games.
- Averaged 12+ assists for eight straight seasons.
- Constantly ran the pick and roll with our least favorite Mailman in the world, who is third all-time in career points.
Stockton's other untouchable record is in the steals department. His 3,265 steals is 584 more than Jason Kidd and 631 more than CP3. If Paul gets around 100 steals a season, he can have the record in 2031. Like CP3 said, "Ain't nobody catching that."
WILT CHAMBERLAIN'S TAKE YOUR PICK
Wilt Chamberlain's INSANE Athleticism Caught on Film!
It's not worth discussing or trying to understand what Wilt did on and off the court. Just look at the bullet list, shake your head, and we will move on.
- Averaged 38 PTS & 27 REB as a rookie
- Averaged 50 PTS & 26 REB in his 3rd season
- Averaged 48.53 minutes a game in 1962
- Never fouled out of a game
- Once scored 100 (yes, it happened)
- Once had 78 PTS & 43 REB in a single game
- Scored 60 PTS 32 times
- Has all 8 40/40 games in NBA history
- He also reportedly had numerous unofficial quadruple-doubles and a quintuple-double: 53 PTS, 32 REB, 24 BLK, 14 AST, 11 STL
- 20,000 (look it up)
AC GREEN'S CONSECUTIVE GAMES PLAYED (On And Off The Court)
AC Green Only Missed 3 Games In 15 YEARS?!
On the opposite end of Wilt's 20,000 is AC Green's 0, which he accomplished with the help of his "abstinence teddy bear." A bear that Shaq said he once cut a hole in and walked out of the locker room shower with it on (you can guess how). If you know the lifestyle of most NBA players, you know that Green's 0 is a record that no player wants.
Green's more known record is his 1,192 consecutive games played. The incredible stretch started on November 19, 1986, and ended on April 18, 2001. Considering this record is 286 more than any other player, and only 16 players played all 82 games last season, it's safe to say nobody in the load management era is touching his record.
I do have to mention that his former Dallas Mavs' Coach, Don Nelson, deserves some credit for this record. During the 1999 season, Don would put Green in for five or fewer minutes to keep the streak alive; He played less than one minute in one of those games.
Most Consecutive Games Played
- AC Green: 1,192
- Randy Smith: 906
- Johnny "Red" Kerr: 844
- Michael Cage: 736
BILL RUSSELL'S RING COUNT
Bill Russell "I would kick your ass"
The late, great Bill Russell has a few records that nobody will ever break. One of those is 55 rebounds in a game. The one I want to highlight is his 11 NBA championship rings. If it wasn't unbelievable enough to have more rings than fingers, he pulled this off in 13 NBA seasons and was a player/coach for two of those championships. Now, that's a dynasty.
There's no chance we will see a dynasty like that again in the foreseeable future, especially with players jumping from team to team every couple of years. Our last back-to-back championship was six years ago, and no team has ever won more than three in a row.
TRIVIA:
Robert Horry aka Big Shot Bob has the most NBA championships by a player who wasn't on Russell's Celtics.
DALE ELLIS' MINUTES PLAYED IN A GAME
Dale Ellis (53pts) vs. Bucks (1989, 5OTs)
On November 9, 1989, the Milwaukee Bucks beat the Seattle SuperSonics 155-154 in a game with five overtimes! The underrated Dale Ellis scored 53 points in the loss while playing an NBA-record 69 minutes (Tom Thibodeau's hand is viciously shaking in joy hearing that). I must also mention Dale's teammate, Xavier McDaniel aka X-Man, who played 68 in this game (and had a funny cameo in the movie SINGLES).
The only players since 2000 to play 61+ minutes are Vince Carter (63 in 2001) and Jalen Rose (61 in 2001). The closest to 60 over the past few years came in a 2022 triple-overtime game between the Heat and Raptors. Pascal Siakam played 57, and three other Raptors (Scottie Barnes, OG Anunoby, Gary Trent Jr) logged 56.
Back to Dale, his 1989 season was also his best. He was All-NBA 3rd team after averaging 27.5 points, shooting 50% from the field, 48% from three, and 81% from the free throw line. And this is why the great Costacos brothers made a cool poster of him called
The Silent Assasin.
LEBRON'S CAREER POINTS
LeBron James Breaks Kareem’s All-Time Scoring Record | NBA on TNT
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar's scoring record (38,387) seemed untouchable until a few years ago. As great as LeBron was (and still is), most of us didn't think he would keep playing. He did, and in his 20th NBA season, the King broke the Captain's nearly four-decade-old record with a stepback jumper as Thomas Bryant hilariously called for the ball.
Two years later, LeBron (with 40,803 points and counting) still scores 23 points a game and shows little signs of slowing down. He reportedly wants to play for a couple more years (with Bronny and Bryce?), so he might end up with around 42,000 career points. Considering only seven NBA players have 30,000 career points, the chances of someone dethroning the King seem unlikely.
How about Luka?
The high-scoring Mav currently has 11,863 points in seven NBA seasons. If he can continue to average around 2,000 points a season, he will have a shot at it in 2039. The thought of Luka's body lasting 15 more years is funnier than anything the next mentioned guy has ever done to get a tech.
RASHEED WALLACE'S TECHS
Rasheed Wallace's career-long beef with NBA referees was iconic
Sheed used to scream, "ball don't lie!" when a player would miss a free throw after what he considered a bad call. Many of those "bad calls" were followed by the refs blowing a whistle and signaling a tech on the 4 x All-Star that made Draymond Green seem like a choir boy. I'm exaggerating, but 21 is the most techs Draymond has ever received during a season. These are Sheed's highest-tech seasons:
- 2001: 41 Techs (7 Ejections)
- 2000: 38 Techs (6 Ejections)
- 2005: 27 Techs
- 2002: 27 Techs
Considering the NBA now suspends a player for one game after they reached 16 techs and every two techs after that, there is no chance a player will even get half of Sheed's 41 techs in a season. There's also a $5,000 fine for each tech after 16, but since the average game salary in 2024 is over $100,000, that 5K is chump change for most players.
Despite having the most techs in a season, Sheed does not own the record for most career techs. That record belongs to that Mailman that everyone hates.
- Karl Malone: 332
- Charles Barkley: 329
- Rasheed Wallace: 317
- Gary Payton: 250
- Dennis Rodman: 212
BONUS RECORDS
The Time Klay Dropped 37 PTS In One QTR 🔥
The following are a few more probably safe records that I find impressive and/or too amusing to not list.
Klay Thompson's
37-point quarter vs the Kings in 2015 seems untouchable. But we have seen two other players, Kevin Love (34) and Karl-Anthony Towns (32), put up 30-point quarters since.
Walt Bellamy
played 88 games during the 1968-69 season because of a mid-season trade between the Knicks and Pistons.
Scott Skiles
dished out an NBA record 30 assists in a 1990 game with the Orlando Magic. The most assists by a player over the past decade is 25 by Rajon Rondo.
Michael Jordan's
10 scoring titles is more than double the combined scoring titles of Allen Iverson (4) and Kevin Durant (4).
Shaquille O'Neal
broke two backboards during his rookie season, which started with him becoming the only player ever to win Player Of The Week his first week in the league. A league that introduced "Shaq-proof rims" the following season.
You have probably seen that meme of Tony Snell that shows he put up a donut in every statistical category.
Joel Anthony
probably laughs every time he sees it because he has the record for most minutes played without recording a single stat. In 2011, the Heat center had 29 minutes of cardio against the Blazers and ended up with only zeros in the final box score. The funniest thing about this performance is that the Heat still won the game, thanks mainly to LeBron scoring 44 of his untouchable points record.
BALLISLIFE.COM
