Sports Reference Blog

Complete Box Scores Added for Chicago Packers/Zephyrs

Posted by Mike Lynch on October 21, 2024

There may not be too many Chicago Packers or Chicago Zephyrs fans around these days, but nonetheless we are incredibly excited to announce that we now have full, official box scores for every game in the history of these teams on Basketball Reference. Over a decade after the demise of the Chicago Stags, the Chicago Packers were an expansion team in 1961-62. The following season they changed their name to the Chicago Zephyrs. After two seasons in the Windy City, they blew all the way east to Baltimore, where they were known as the Bullets, eventually moving to the nation's capital where they are now known as the Washington Wizards. The Chicago Bulls became an expansion team in 1966-67 and were the first Chicago NBA franchise to truly stick.

The Packers/Zephyrs were not successful in their two seasons in Chicago, finishing in last in the Western Division both seasons. Furthermore, as a new, unestablished team they were not well-covered in the Chicago papers. Newspapers archives are often our best source for fleshing out box score statistics from old games, but they were of almost no use for the Packers/Zephyrs aside from the barebones of points, field goals made, free throws made and personal fouls. Several months ago, I would have considered the games for these teams as some of the most unlikely for us to ever find full information on.

However, we were recently able to acquire official scorer's reports for all of the 160 games these teams played before moving to Baltimore, allowing us to flesh out lots of missing details in our box scores. The most notable player on these teams was Walt Bellamy. Bellamy was the 1961-62 NBA Rookie of the Year, averaging 31.6 PPG and 19.0 RPG, while leading the league in FG% at 51.9% (a record at the time, if you can believe it). He followed that up with 27.9 PPG and 16.4 RPG on 52.7% shooting in 1962-63 (losing his FG% record to Wilt Chamberlain, however). In 1962-63 they once again had the NBA Rookie of the Year, this time Terry Dischinger, who averaged 25.5 PPG. We now have complete gamelogs for both of these ROY seasons. Here is Bellamy's 1961-62 gamelogs and here is Dischinger's 1962-63 gamelogs.

It's interesting to note that through nine career games Bellamy averaged 30.6 PPG and 16.3 RPG on 54.9% shooting. In his 10th game, he faced Bill Russell for the first time and shot 8-27 from the field. A few games later he played Wilt Chamberlain for the first time. Chamberlain famously blocked Bellamy's first nine FGA in that game (though blocked shots were not an officially tracked statistic at the time), but we've never known until now that Bellamy finished the game shooting 6-20 from the field.

Speaking of Bill Russell, another interesting discovery in these box scores is the play of Si Green, who was famously selected before Russell in the 1956 NBA Draft. Green averaged a career-high 5.8 APG in 1962-63 with the Zephyrs. But reviewing his gamelogs, you see some truly inspired stretches of playmaking, mostly in home games.

Full team and opponent gamelogs are available for these seasons as well: 1961-62 Packers gamelogs and 1962-63 Zephyrs gamelogs.

We hope you enjoy these additions.

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