Wasn’t the was widened for Wilt?
James Harden exceeds 250 strip climb visits per season.
They widened the lane, banned goaltending, made rules about inbounding the ball, banned the free throw dunk (that part wasn’t a joke)…all because of Chamberlain.
They didn’t ban the free throw dunk, the made it impossible by banning the player shooting the free throw from crossing the free throw line before the ball hits the backboard or rim. But it was because of Wilt, who would throw the ball against the backboard and then get his rebound and dunk.
Because of George Mikan they widened the lane from 6 to 12 feet, because of Wilt they widened it to 16 feet.
That’s kind of like saying MLB doesn’t ban metal bats, they have a rule that bats have to be made of wood.
At any rate…the story I’ve read, in multiple places, is that while in a college exibition game, Wilt once took a running start on a free throw, which was perfectly legal, and dunked his foul shot. Coaches in the NCAA feared he would start doing that regularly, so they instituted the rule about not crossing the free throw line. The NBA did not pick up the rule until Wilt was in the league, as they feared the same thing.
The college game banned all dunks at any time because of Alcindor.
Lots of interesting history behind that rule. Many coaches despised the dunk for a long time, claiming it wasn’t a “skillful” shot. Alcindor claimed it racially motivated, as most of the guys who could dunk were black. The ban led Alcindor to develop his famous “sky hook” shot.
The memory reel in my brain has lots of shots of UCLA Walton soaring high above the rim and dropping the ball into the basket, directly above it, with two hands.
I’ve seen highlights of that sort of thing. It’s weird to think about now, but guys like Walton, and even Julius Erving, went their entire college career not being allowed to dunk.
Walton was 21-22 in the Final Four one year. Many were of the “I could dunk, but I won’t” variety.
I don’t remember ever watching Walton play in college. My first college basketball memory is of Marquette winning the '77 tournament. It wasn’t quite the TV staple back then.
That was the game against Memphis St where Larry Kenon went toe-to-toe with Walton and put up a line that was nearly as good. It was a fantastic game. That may have been the same year that Dave Cowens led Florida St to the Final Four, too.
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I was a huge John Wooden fan from his early winning big days at UCLA. I watched UCLA on TV every chance I had. Wooden and I were in the same college fraternity so that fact drew me to him before he became a household name.
I was not able to watch the game last night. Did Ohtani look like a reincarnated Kerry Wood or was it a by-product of the Astros anemic offense?
He was really good and the bats were really bad.
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Ohtani looked pretty good, but I lean towards Astros inept offense. I did not think Ohtani had no hit stuff, and certainly not on the same level as Wood that day. It’s hard to describe just how bad the Astros offense is right now.
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