Sports Reference Blog
Full Points and Rebounds for Every Wilt vs Russell Matchup
Posted by Mike Lynch on December 19, 2017
Thanks to recent additions to our historical box scores, we now have full points and rebounds for every career meeting between Bill Russell and Wilt Chamberlain. See all of them here, via our Head2Head Finder.
Additionally, here are their averages when going against each other in the regular season and the postseason. We'll let you decide who was better:
REGULAR SEASON
POSTSEASON
With further research, we hope to eventually be able to flesh out their field goal attempts, minutes and assists, as well
Newspaper box scores obviously don't typically include anything other than field goals, free throws (often free throw attempts as well), and points. How did you get the other data? Did someone discover a motherload of box scores from that era with rebound totals?
Local newspapers often had fuller box scores for the team they covered. The Philadelphia newspapers, in particular, had very good Warriors/76ers box scores during Wilt's career. Many of these are now available via newspapers.com
The Boston coverage and coverage of many of the west coast teams seems to have been a little weaker, unfortunately, but we're making some great gains on older seasons