Three Obscure and Unbelievable NBA Records

Hello everyone, and welcome back to another Wednesday edition of the Enjoy Basketball Newsletter, helping you get through the middle of the week one interesting hoops fact at a time. Today, we’ll be going back in time to check out some of the more obscure and unbelievable NBA records.

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Rasheed Wallace: 41 technical fouls in a season

Rasheed Wallace's astounding ability to get under referees skin is the stuff of NBA legend at this point. Sheed was a great NBA player, don't get us wrong, but where he truly made his mark as a basketball legend is his Wilt Chamberlain-esque domination of the technical fouls record.

Wallace was an absolute menace towards officials early in his career, and by the time he started to enter his prime as a player, he started to peak as a referee antagonist as well. It was no coincidence that when Wallace made his first all-star team during the 1999-00 season he also shattered the NBA record for technical fouls in a season by racking up a whole 38 of them.

But it was the 2000-01 season that would be Wallaces magnum opus. In just 80 games, the North Carolina grad got a mind-boggling 41 technical fouls and quite a few of his career-record 29 ejections. How did he do it? Well it’s quite simple really. Rasheed Wallace hated the refs, and the refs hated him. He wasn’t an especially dirty player, he just couldn’t help but push officials' buttons.

It may have cost Wallace thousands of dollars in fines, but at least we got the most iconic and head-scratching ejection of all time out of it.

Dale Ellis: 69 minutes played in a single game

Imagine playing the most minutes in NBA history, dropping a career-high 53 points, and still losing. Because that’s exactly what happened to Dale Ellis in a 1989 quintuple overtime loss to the Milwaukee Bucks.

Ellis was coming off what had been the best season of his NBA career in 1988-89, when he led Seattle to the second round of the playoffs, averaged over 27 points per game, and made the All-star and All-NBA teams for the only time in his career. And his hot streak didn’t slow down come the start of the 1989-90 season. Because, in just the fourth game of the season, Ellis would make history.

The Supersonics and Bucks battled back and forth for an astounding 73 minutes of NBA basketball in the five overtime showdown. Of those 73 minutes Ellis missed just four, an absolutely insane feat of stamina and willpower. And he was no slouch in those minutes either. Ellis lit up the Bucks to the tune of 53 points and 7 rebounds.

The player right behind Ellis on the minutes played in a single game leaderboard? His teammate Xavier McDaniel! X-Man played 68 minutes himself that night and put up a monster 37 points, 14 rebounds, and six assists. The two combined to play nearly three entire NBA games worth of minutes in one night. And another player, Milwaukee's Jay Humphries, played 62 minutes, good enough for 20th on the all-time list.

1952-53 Baltimore Bullets: Worst record to ever make the NBA playoffs

By winning percentage, no playoff team in any of the four major American sports has ever been worse than the 1952-53 Baltimore Bullets.

The 1948 NBA champions had come on hard times by the 1952-53 season, but somehow not hard enough to deny them a postseason berth. You see, the NBA only had ten teams back in the late 40s and early 50s and, with eight playoff spots up for grabs, only the worst team in each conference ended up missing out on the playoffs.

So even though the Baltimore Bullets went, you heard this right, 16-54, they still managed to sneak their way into the playoffs. To give them a bit of credit, they could have had a few more wins if they didn’t lost nine games in overtime compared to only two wins.

You must be wondering, did the Bullets manage to go on a miracle run and capture an absolute miracle of an NBA championship? Well, no. They lost 2-0 in the first round to the New York Knicks by a combined 27 points and then folded as a franchise two years later in 1954. But hey, it’s better to be known as the worst of the winners than the best of the losers am I right?

2022-23 Opening Night, Christmas Day and MLK Day Schedule Released

The start of the 2022-23 NBA season is only two months away, and that means its time for us to get a look at what next year's schedule will be like.

Even though the whole schedule has not yet been released, several of the anticipated major matchups are already known, including the games scheduled for opening night (October 18), Christmas Day, and Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

Both of the clubs who participated in the NBA Finals last season will be on display on opening night. LeBron James and the Los Angeles Lakers will play the defending champion Golden State Warriors in a matchup of hopeful Western Conference heavyweights. The 2020 champs will have to see the 2022 champs get their ring live and in person as the Warriors will receive their championship rings from the previous season before the game. The Boston Celtics, who are the current Eastern Conference champions, will play the Philadelphia 76ers in the other game, a matchup between two teams who are confident that they can go on deep playoff runs and possibly win the conference. If you had to choose let us know which of these two matchups you'd be watching in the poll below. 👇

The NBA has also announced that no games will be played on election day (Nov 8) this season to encourage fans to practice civic engagement and vote in the midterm elections.

Christmas day sees a full slate of five games all with serious potential for entertainment. The most intriguing games include, Giannis and Tatum facing off in a superstar clash and Eastern Conference semifinals rematch between the Boston Celtics and Milwaukee Bucks, Luka and LeBron butting heads in an intriguing Lakers-Mavericks matchup, and Ja Morant and co. getting another crack at the defending champs after last season's second round loss as the Grizzlies take on the Warriors.

MLK Day brings a fun southeastern class between the lively offensive-minded Hawks and the gritty defensive-oriented Heat as well as a clash between the Wests #1 and #2 teams last season as the Suns and Grizzlies square off.

Draymond Green gets married with fellow NBA stars in attendance

The Warriors championship ring wasn’t the only ring Draymond Green got this year. The former Michigan State star wed his longtime fiancée, actor Hazel Renee, in a weekend ceremony in Southern California,

And in fitting Draymond Green fashion, it was a loud and lavish event. Roddy Rich and DaBaby performed at the reception, while Warriors teammates Steph Curry and Klay Thompson, as well as fellow NBA stars LeBron James and Jayson Tatum, who competed against Green in the NBA Finals earlier this summer, were on the guest list.

Thankfully it looks like all of Greens fines hadn’t depleted there wedding fund after all, as Renee joked earlier this summer. We wish them all the best in a long and happy marriage.

Ranking the Most Dominant NBA Stars at Every Position - Zach Buckley (Bleacher Report)

Inside the Kyle Shanahan-Steve Kerr summer confab that forged a bond between coaches - Tim Kawakami (The Athletic)

Adam Silver on His Bond With Bill Russell: ‘He’s the Founding Father of the Modern NBA’ - Brooks Warren (SLAM Online)

Thank you all for reading! We hope you discovered at least one new piece of NBA trivia today. Now go accomplish your weekly goals with the same passion that Rasheed Wallace has for messing with referees.

Until next time,

- Spencer Poole

Trivia Answer: The record for the most points scored in under ten minutes played in a single game is former Boston Celtic Larry Siegfried! Siegfried scored 18 points in nine minutes in a December 11th, 1965 victory against the San Francisco Warriors.

Trivia Question: 26 is the record for the most consecutive points scored by a player for a single team. Which legendary player accomplished this feat? (Hint: It was in a playoff game)