The 100-point game happened in a small arena in Hershey, Pennsylvania on March 2, 1962. There was no national television coverage. Fewer than 5,000 people were in the building. The stat sheet — a hand-written document passed around a press box — showed 100 points for Wilt Chamberlain of the Philadelphia Warriors. Nobody believed it. The number was so improbable that it was treated like a mistake for decades. It was not a mistake.
A Season That Defies Comprehension
The 1961-62 season is the single greatest individual statistical season in the history of professional basketball, and it belongs entirely to Wilt Chamberlain as a Golden State Warrior. He averaged 50.4 points and 25.7 rebounds per game across 80 contests. He scored 100 points in a single game. He scored 70 or more points three times. He played every minute of every game.
To understand what 50.4 PPG means: the NBA scoring leader in any modern season averages around 30 points per game. Chamberlain more than doubled that. He scored 50 or more points 45 times that season. He did it against the best defenders of his era, playing 48 minutes a night on a schedule with no load management, no sports science, and no rest-and-recovery protocols.
In the 1961-62 season, Wilt Chamberlain scored more total points than any other player in NBA history has ever scored in a single season. The record will never be broken. The sport has changed too much. The schedule math simply no longer permits it.
More Than Numbers
Chamberlain's six seasons with the Warriors — from his 1959 rookie year through 1965 in San Francisco — established him as the most physically dominant player the sport had ever seen. He averaged 37.6 points and 27.0 rebounds in his rookie season and was named Rookie of the Year and co-MVP. He led the league in scoring seven consecutive seasons. He led the league in rebounding 11 times in his career.
Beyond scoring, Chamberlain was an elite shot-blocker before the NBA tracked blocks officially. Opponents altered their approach to the basket whenever he was within range. His combination of size (7'1", roughly 275 lbs), speed (reportedly ran a 4.6-second 40-yard dash), and leaping ability (cleared 6'6" in the high jump) was so anomalous that his peers had no framework to describe him.
- Seven consecutive scoring titles as a Warrior (1960–1966)
- Averaged 45.8 minutes per game in 1961-62 — more than 45 minutes in a 48-minute game, meaning he played most overtime periods as well
- Never fouled out of an NBA game in his entire 14-year career
- The 100-point game, the 55-rebound game, and the 50.4 PPG season all occurred as a Warrior
The Philadelphia and San Francisco Eras
Chamberlain was drafted by the Philadelphia Warriors in 1959, played four seasons there, then moved with the franchise to San Francisco in 1962. The Warriors traded him to the Philadelphia 76ers in 1965 — a move that remains one of the most baffling transactions in NBA history, sending the greatest player in the league away for three role players and cash.
The San Francisco Warriors retired his #13 in recognition of what he had accomplished — not for the franchise, but as the franchise. During his Warriors years, Chamberlain was not just the best player on the team. He was the reason the team existed in the public imagination. Every sellout, every national attention, every opponent's game plan began and ended with #13.
Why the Warriors Retired #13
The Warriors retired Wilt Chamberlain's #13 because what he did in a Warriors uniform has never been matched and will never be matched. The 100-point game. The 50.4 PPG season. The 27.0 RPG rookie year. These are not records that fall to the next generation — they are permanent markers of a physical anomaly who happened to play basketball at the highest level the sport has ever seen from a single individual.
Chamberlain's #13 hangs in Chase Center not as a tribute to championships won — the Warriors did not win a title during his tenure — but as a testament to the absolute ceiling of individual basketball performance. He set the standard for what a single player could accomplish in this sport, and he set it as a Warrior. That earns a place in the rafters, permanently and without argument.
