10 Awesome 'NBA Firsts' You May Have Never Heard Of

This post originally appeared at The Christian Science Monitor. 

Be honest.

Until “Linsanity,” did you know that there was a National Basketball Association record for the most points scored in a player’s first five career starts?

If you didn’t, join the crowd. That’s the kind of record that is buried in the statistical weeds. Until someone like Jeremy Lin, the latest New York Knicks phenom, comes along, such records and “firsts” are so esoteric as to be invisible.

By contrast, there are iconic records that fans can recite in their sleep. One of the greatest of these  – Wilt Chamberlain’s 100-point game – celebrates its golden anniversary Friday (March 2). 

Wilt’s mega scoring outburst is right up there with Joe DiMaggio’s 56-game hitting streak when it comes to its presumed unbreakability. 

While impressive, Lin’s five-game, 136-point run, which broke Shaquille O’Neal’s 20-year-old record of 129 points, doesn’t feel nearly as invincible. And certainly it’s not as appealingly simple as the memorable round number Wilt attained in a single game. 

The golden anniversary of Chamberlain’s 100-point effort, therefore, seems the perfect opportunity to examine 10 NBA firsts. 

1. The first NBA player to score 100 points in a game: Wilt Chamberlain

One of the gaudiest numbers ever posted in any professional sport at any time, ironically, was recorded in a game played in Hershey, Pa.Wilt’s Philadelphia Warriors played a few of their “home games” in Hershey in 1962 to widen their fan base, but this was such a meaningless regular-season game that there were only two photographers at the game and no TV coverage or film footage. As a result, the game visually remains mostly a blank. 

Chamberlain had been an almost unstoppable offensive force since entering the NBA during the 1959-60 season, when he became the first and only rookie to ever lead the league in scoring, with a 37.6-points-per-game average. The 1961-62 season was the high-water mark of his career offensively, as he averaged 50.4 points throughout the entire season. In Wilt’s 100-point game, interestingly enough, he was hardly the only Warrior to score. Philadelphia beat the lowly Knicks, 169-147, and this was before the 3-point basket.  Chamberlain’s field-goal shooting percentage was only a mediocre .511 (36-for-63), but his free-throw accuracy – normally a weakness of his game – was spectacular, as he made 28 of 32 foul shots.

2. The NBA’s first Asian-American player: Wataru “Wat” Misaka

That’s right, all those reports you may have read about Jeremy Lin being the NBA’s first Asian-American player were mistaken. Wat Misaka earned that distinction long, long ago, in 1947, when he played three games for the Knicks before being cut by the same team that now employs Lin. Misaka, a Japanese-American, grew up in Ogden, Utah, when wartime Japanese internment camps existed in the Western US.

Like Lin, he was a clever playmaking guard, but a much shorter one at only 5 ft. 7 in. (Lin is 6 ft. 3 in.).  That, Misaka thinks, may have been a factor in why the Knicks cut him. In college, however, he enjoyed a great run with the Utes, who won the 1944 NCAA championship by beating Dartmouth in overtime. In 1947 he was a mainstay on the team that won the NIT tournament in New York, which may have been the most coveted title in college basketball at the time. Utah defeated Kentucky in that championship game. Misaka, a retired engineer, now lives in Bountiful, Utah, and watches Lin’s career with great interest. 

3. The NBA’s first back-to-back championship team: Minneapolis Lakers

Although everyone thinks of the Boston Celtics’ eight straight championships, which began in 1959, the Minneapolis Lakers, with center George Mikan, the game’s first dominant big man, were the NBA’s first repeat winners in 1949 and 1950, and they did themselves one better with a three-peat run from 1952 to 1954. Mikan not only was big and strong at 6 ft. 10. in., he was far more coordinated than most players his size, and was known for his ability to make hook shots with either hand. His effectiveness near the basket led to several rule changes. In college, at DePaul, he swatted away so many shots from the rim that goaltending was outlawed. In the NBA, the lane was widened from 6 feet to 12 feet to prevent in from camping under the basket. Also, because some teams resorted to stalling in trying to compete against the Lakers, the league adopted the 24-second shot clock.

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