Now something has happened again in the US basketball league NBA, and of course the statistics freaks are digging out their lists. Only nine professionals managed to score 70 points in one game, some of their names are also known to those who don’t stay up every night to watch the muscle guys in America fly. Kobe Bryant (81), David Robinson (71) and the eternal hundred-point man Wilt Chamberlain belong to this circle – and now Joel Embiid, 29, center of the Philadelphia 76ers. His 70 points against the San Antonio Spurs make him the newest member of an elite club.
And if Karl-Anthony Towns from the Minnesota Timberwolves had aimed a little more precisely that same evening against the Charlotte Hornets (he scored 62 points), he too would now be in this ancestral gallery. These are enormous values, achieved by athletes with exceptional skills, who are active in the best league in the world for exactly that reason and not in Quakenbrück or Cameroon, the country of origin of the 2.13 meter man Embiid. It is not for nothing that he is currently considered the best basketball player in the world – he achieved his record in a direct duel with perhaps the best of the future: Victor Wembanyama, 20, the 2.24-meter natural wonder who will soon dominate the entire sport.
These astonishing points tallies tell two things: The big boys of basketball are no longer immobile blocks who park under the basket and use their sheer length to score baskets. Already in the time of Dirk Nowitzki (2.13 meters), a change was taking place in the giant sport, in which suppleness, speed and ball skills have long been considered crucial skills – and no longer pure giganticism.
Embiid versus Wembanyama, this duel took place at a different altitude, higher up than the rest. The big boys of the modern age move like little ones, they can throw, dribble, trick and feint without tripping over their own legs. This has given basketball completely new types of players, people like Nikola Jokic (also 2.13 meters), who dances around the floor like an XXL playmaker and pulls off magic passes that others lack the imagination for.
Before the playoffs, the league is often a competition in slow motion
At the same time, caution should be exercised when it comes to records from the NBA: The league sees itself as an entertainment company, it’s about the greatest possible spectacle, as anyone who has ever attended a game in one of the halls can confirm. Between giant popcorn buckets and cheerleader performances, sports are sometimes offered there, but far from the playoffs, it is all too often a rather sluggish variant.
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Karl-Anthony Towns (left) scored 62 points against Charlotte – also because he sank ten three-pointers.
(Foto: Brad Rempel/USA TODAY Sports via Reuters Con)
You won’t find tough defense, sophisticated defensive systems or the very last appearance after three away games within three days in many NBA games. Despite all the talent, the league is sometimes a slow-paced competition.
You don’t have to express it as drastically as the coach Svetislav Pesic, who is well known in Germany, who says: “The NBA is not basketball.” But classifying all records also means recognizing that a result like the 133:123 by Embiid’s 76ers against Wembanyama’s Spurs is not just an expression of quality. The game in which Germany became world champions against Pesic’s Serbs last fall ended 83:77.
2024-01-23 15:30:58
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