Basketball facts and records
The best NBA, EuroLeague and FIBA facts and records: history, numbers and surprising details from the world of basketball.
11 Bill Russell won 11 NBA titles with the Boston Celtics in 13 seasons, more than any other player.
8 The Celtics won eight titles in a row from 1959 to 1966, the longest championship streak in North American pro sports.
73 The 2015-16 Golden State Warriors went 73-9, the best regular-season record in NBA history, one win better than the 1995-96 Bulls.
24 The 24-second shot clock arrived in 1954. Syracuse Nationals owner Danny Biasone came up with the number.
1979 The NBA added the three-point line in the 1979-80 season. Chris Ford of the Celtics made the first one.
2,31 m At 7 ft 7 in (2.31 m), Gheorghe Mureșan and Manute Bol are the tallest players in NBA history.
1,60 m Muggsy Bogues, the shortest player in NBA history at 5 ft 3 in (1.60 m), lasted 14 seasons in the league.
#3 Michael Jordan went third in the 1984 draft. Houston took Hakeem Olajuwon first and Portland picked Sam Bowie second.
4 Vince Carter is the only player to appear in NBA games across four different decades, from 1998 to 2020.
40 000 In March 2024 LeBron James became the first player to score 40,000 regular-season points.
6 Kareem Abdul-Jabbar won six regular-season MVP awards, the most in NBA history.
15 806 John Stockton's 15,806 career assists are still the NBA record.
1989 Šarūnas Marčiulionis joined the Golden State Warriors in 1989, one of the first players from the Soviet Union in the NBA.
2016 In 2016 Stephen Curry became the first unanimous MVP in NBA history.
1984 The NBA championship trophy has been named after former commissioner Larry O'Brien since 1984.
1958 The first European Champions Cup was played in 1958. ASK Riga won it, then won the next two as well.
1988 The Final Four format began in 1988 in Ghent, where Tracer Milano took the title.
9 Željko Obradović has won nine EuroLeague titles as a head coach, with five different clubs.
1992 Partizan won the 1992 title while playing home games in Spain because of UN sanctions. Aleksandar Đorđević hit the winning three at the buzzer in the final.
118:74 Maccabi Tel Aviv won the 2004 final in front of their own fans in Tel Aviv, crushing Skipper Bologna 118-74.
7 Panathinaikos won their seventh European title in Berlin in 2024, beating Real Madrid in the final.
2017 Fenerbahçe became the first Turkish club to win the EuroLeague in 2017, at the Final Four in Istanbul.
19 In the 2012 final Olympiacos came back from 19 points down against CSKA Moscow and won on Georgios Printezis's last-second shot.
10 Varese reached ten European Champions Cup finals in a row, from 1970 to 1979, and won five of them.
2015 Real Madrid won the 2015 Final Four on home soil in Madrid, with Lithuania's Jonas Mačiulis in the squad.
2 Anadolu Efes won back-to-back titles in 2021 and 2022, and Vasilije Micić was Final Four MVP both times.
La Bomba Juan Carlos Navarro's high one-handed floater was so famous it got its own name: la bomba.
2000 Since 2000 the EuroLeague has been run by the clubs themselves through Euroleague Basketball, not by FIBA.
1986 In 1986 Žalgiris, led by Arvydas Sabonis, reached the European Champions Cup final, where they lost to Cibona Zagreb.
1939 Lithuania won EuroBasket in Riga in 1937 and in Kaunas in 1939. The next gold took 64 years.
101:95 Greece beat a USA team with LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Carmelo Anthony 101-95 in the 2006 World Championship semi-final.
2004 At the Athens Olympics, Manu Ginóbili's Argentina beat the USA in the semi-final and went on to win gold.
2006 Spain became world champions in Japan, and Pau Gasol was named MVP even though a broken foot kept him out of the final.
2013 Tony Parker led France past Lithuania in the 2013 final for their first EuroBasket title.
2017 Slovenia, with Goran Dragić and an 18-year-old Luka Dončić, won EuroBasket 2017. Dragić was named MVP.
2019 Spain won their second World Cup in China, with point guard Ricky Rubio named MVP.
2002 Yugoslavia won the 2002 World Championship in Indianapolis, while the host USA finished only sixth.
1936 Basketball made its Olympic debut in Berlin in 1936. The final was played outdoors, on clay, in pouring rain.
1932 FIBA was founded in Geneva in 1932. Latvia was among the eight founding members, Lithuania was not.
2005 Dirk Nowitzki led Germany to the 2005 EuroBasket final and was named tournament MVP.
1992 Lithuania's 1992 bronze-winning team collected their medals in Barcelona wearing tie-dye T-shirts sponsored by the Grateful Dead.
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