Sports Reference Blog

Fix to Larry Hennessy’s Career Stats

Posted by Mike Lynch on March 19, 2020

One of the coolest things about working for Sports Reference is access to the vast library of historical almanacs, encyclopedias, media guides, record books, etc. And for 50+ years, NBA books of this type have been unified in how they present the 1956-57 statistics for shooting guard Larry Hennessy. They all say the Villanova product played all 21 of his games that season for the Syracuse Nationals. However, thanks to our ever-expanding box score coverage, we noticed that we had record of him playing 19 games for the Nationals, after playing in two earlier games for the Philadelphia Warriors. Hennessy played for the Warriors on November 3 and November 9, 1956 before being waived and then signed with the Nationals on November 15. Accordingly, we have adjusted his career statistics to reflect this.

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This entry was posted on Thursday, March 19th, 2020 at 1:20 pm and is filed under Announcement, Basketball-Reference.com, History, Statgeekery, Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

2 Responses to “Fix to Larry Hennessy’s Career Stats”

  1. Joe Says: May 14th, 2020 at 4:30 pm

    I think you also need to fix Ed Macauley's 18-12-11 stat line on 1/15/51. According to an old Elias note, before Pierce set the record in December 2010, Antoine Walker held the record for the longest gap (two years) between triple-doubles in Celtics history. Thus making it impossible for Macauley to have recorded his first triple-double in 1951 and his second and last career triple-double in 1955.

    " * PIERCE TURNS BACK THE CLOCK

    From Elias: With Rajon Rondo sidelined, Paul Pierce recorded
    his first triple double in five seasons to lead the Celtics
    to a 99-88 win over the Pacers (18 points, 10 rebounds, 12
    assists). It was the sixth triple-double of Pierce's NBA
    career, but his first since March 8, 2006. That was the
    longest gap between triple-doubles in Celtics history, more
    than twice as long as the previous record, held by Antoine
    Walker (1998-2000)."

  2. Mike Lynch Says: May 17th, 2020 at 2:38 pm

    Thanks, Joe. Phila Inquirer has a full box which credits him with 18-12-11. Globe and Heraldn don't have full boxes, but the Globe has 2 articles on the game. One credits Macauley with 11 assists and the other says 7. NBA dot com also shows 18-12-11 in their box. More evidence seems to point to 11 than 7. Hard to know for certain, though.