Wilt Chamberlain's NBA resume reads like a folktale, and that's because for all intents and purposes, he's the NBA's Paul Bunyan… a larger than life figure whose career achievements and legacy sometimes border on the apocryphal at times. Fortunately, in sports, the numbers don't lie — though they do sometimes paint a skewed picture, but more on that later — and what Wilt accomplished on the hardwood was undeniable. He was, for his time, the most dominant player in the NBA. Someone who put up the kinds of eye-popping stats that stood out even during his era, where offensive numbers were severely inflated. And hey, while we're on the topic of severely inflated numbers, NBA Hall of Famer Tracy McGrady weighed in on one Wilt Chamberlain total that is without question an exaggeration.
“I believe everything I heard about Wilt basketball-wise. The jury is still out about the 20,000.” Tracy McGrady said in an Instagram video. “”Basketball-wise, I just think he was a freak of nature. He was strong. He was bigger than every one. He just overpowered everyone that he played with.”
The 20,000 number that Tracy McGrady referenced is the number of women that Wilt Chamberlain suggested that he had slept with at the time of his 1991 book “A View From Above.” There's no need to go into the details of how Chamberlain arrived at this number, because there's simply no way this could be true. If Wilt slept with one woman a day every single day for 35 straight years, that would leave him still over 7,000 shy of the 20,000 total he bragged about in 1991. As the kids say, the math just ain't mathin'.
Tracy McGrady's High-Scoring NBA Career
Tracy McGrady knows a thing or two about high-volume scoring… on the hardwood, that is. During his NBA career, McGrady went seven consecutive seasons scoring at least 24 points per game, including back-to-back years as the league's leading scorer. For his career, he's 75th on the NBA's all-time leading scoring list, probably 40 spots lower than he would've been had injuries not ravaged him during the middle and end of his career. But McGrady's 2002-03 season remains one of the most prolific scoring seasons in league history… even in comparison to Wilt's best.
Consider, that Tracy McGrady averaged 42.0 points per 100 possessions during the 2002-03 season — one of the two seasons in which McGrady led the league in scoring — as the Orlando Magic's top (and only reliable) scoring option. Wilt Chamberlain famously averaged 50.4 points per game during his landmark 1961-62 season, but keep in mind, the Philadelphia Warriors averaged 131.1 possessions per game, and Wilt played 48.5 minutes per game that season. This means that Wilt's points per 100 possessions during the 1961-62 season was 38.4, nearly four points lower than McGrady's career best.
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