50-point games in the ABA era

The newest installment in our ongoing series on 50-point games takes us to the late 60s and early 70s, a transformative period in NBA history and for 50-point games. Wilt Chamberlain’s scoring fades away, Jerry West bows out and new stars like Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Rick Barry emerge. A new upstart pro basketball league (ABA) joins the fray and their inclusion of a 3-point line makes 50-point games easier than ever.

During this period, the 50+ point club becomes less exclusive. Up to this point (1949-66), we’ve only had 18 players with 50+ in a game (169 times—116 by Wilt Chamberlain). All of the previous 50+ scorers were eventual Hall of Famers with the lone exception of 5-time All-Star Rudy LaRusso.

In this time period though, we’ll have 35 new members of the club with only 21 of them eventually making it to the Hall of Fame. Overall from 1967-1974, we’ll see 84 50-point games overall with Barry leading the charge at 17, Kareem chipping in eight and Wilt still putting up 7 including a heroic final 50+ point game. From 1967-74, 1.06% of games featured a 50+ point game.

In this episode we’ll spotlight some of the new scorers to emerge in this era including Larry Jones, Willie Reed, Louie Dampier, Elvin Hayes, Darel Carrier, Connie Hawkins, Mel Daniels, Lou Hudson, Billy Cunningham, Spencer Haywood, Roger Brown, John Brisk, Joe Caldwell, Walt Wesley, Dave Bing, Stew Johnson, Dan Issel, Steve “Snapper” Jones, Charlie Scott, Pete Maravich, Chet Walker, Zelmo Beaty, Tiny Archibald, Willie Wise, Larry Miller, Julius “Dr. J” Erving, George McGinnis, Phil Chenier, Geoff Petrie and John Havlicek.