On October 28, 1973, Elmore Smith set the record for blocks in a match

It’s a date well known to fans of NBA stats. The 1973/74 season marked the arrival of blocks and cuts in official statistics. Previously, the feats of Wilt Chamberlain, Bill Russell or Kareem Abdul-Jabbar remained a myth, a personal calculation carried out by individual journalists in their corner.

The 1973/74 season began on 9 October 1973 and it took only three weeks to witness the legendary performance. Even the record, which still stands, more than fifty years later. On October 28, 1973, Elmore Smith (2m13) blocked 17 shots against the Blazers!

“There’s been a bunch of talented players that I thought would break that record since then, but it never happened.”, commented the former Los Angeles playeralmost fifteen years ago. « I thought of Hakeem Olajuwon, with his ease and his timing”he adds The Athletic. “Manute Ball could beat him too. Shaquille O’Neal, if he wanted to, could do it.”

The Lakers’ pivot that would provide the connection between the retirement of Wilt Chamberlain in 1973 and the arrival of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (for whom he would be traded) in 1975, Elmore Smith would establish himself as the season’s best blocker with 4.9 blocks per game. Therefore, he was the first to add his name to this list.

For this match against the Blazers, he not only set an NBA record, but also broke his own record of 14 blocked shots, achieved two days earlier against the Pistons. In this match, he even completed a triple-double with 12 points, 16 rebounds and thus 17 blocks.

“They didn’t seem to understand. They kept trying to score near the rim and I kept blocking their shots.”he remembers. « I didn’t realize how many shots I blocked until the end of the game. Then they asked me. We don’t count things like this. »

A record that is now unattainable?

It must also be said that with 49 points, Gale Goodrich showed a show in the Lakers’ victory (111-98). The Los Angeles Times also focused more on the quarterback’s performance than the pivot’s, relayed at the very end of its article at the time.

Furthermore, no match pictures are available to better assess this record, which was only matched by two players listed by Elmore Smith at the time: Manute Ball, twice (15 blocks in 1986 and 1987), then Shaquille O’Neal, also 15 blocks, in a huge triple-double in 1993.

And as the game moves more and more towards the 3-point line and defenses have evolved enormously, this bar could be insurmountable for a very long time…

The record was not an isolated feat in Elmore Smith’s season as he reached or surpassed the 10-block mark seven times. A strong blocker in his younger years, his knees robbed him of the long end of his career. “Elmore the Bouncer” will retire at just 30 years old, after eight seasons in the NBA and with 2.9 blocks per game, still the fifth-best average in league history.

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