Check out one of the weirdest stat lines in NBA history
In 1975, Atlanta Hawks forward John Brown registered one of the most amazing and perplexing stat lines in NBA history, fouling out in two minutes.
On Tuesday, Marcus Smart entered the NBA history books in all of the wrong ways by fouling out of a game in just 16 minutes.
Now, this isn’t unprecedented — far from it, in fact — as thousands of players have also achieved this unfortunate stat line. That Smart also achieved this without scoring a single field goal, again, isn’t without precedent: 13 players this season alone fouled out in under 16 minutes with no field goals made.
So, what’s the point of all this? Smart did something that a lot of other guys did. Cool, awesome. Well, the reason for this piece is in researching Smart’s peers in futility I came across what may be my favorite foul out stat line and game ever.
Believe it or not, this isn’t the famous Bubba Wells game. If you’re a fan of historical futility you probably have heard of Wells but if not, he was a member of the 1997 Dallas Mavericks. He played only one NBA season with the pathetic 20-win Mavericks, who took a long shot after firing head coach Jim Clemons and hired the always-controversial and inventive Don Nelson.
On one December night, against the historically-great Chicago Bulls, Nelson employed a rarely-used strategy. He was going to intentionally foul Dennis Rodman. Rodman wasn’t a particularly good free-throw shooter (he was shooting just over 55 percent on the season) and Nelson went for it. Now in the last three years, the “Hack-A-Insert Players Name” has been used routinely. Shaquille O’Neal, Andre Drummond, Andre Jordan and countless others have fallen victim to the strategy.
Nelson’s maiden voyage was different than most others though. A normal “Hack-A-Whoever” instructs members of the team to intentionally foul a player whenever they get a chance. The strategy is to slow the game down, put a bad free-throw shooter on the line and many times, try to come back from a large deficit. Nelson… not so much. His strategy was to take the seldom-used Wells and have him foul Rodman every time he was given a chance.
As mentioned, most times this is done to help your team claw back from a deficit.
Nelson did this in the first quarter.
After 1:40 minutes of play, Wells had three fouls (two points as well, get yours Bubba!) and Rodman shot six free-throws. Unfortunately for Nelson and the Mavericks, Rodman made four of his six attempts.
Come the third quarter, Nelson was back at it. Wells played another 1:03 minutes and had three more fouls. Rodman went to the line six times again. This time he made five of six.
The strategy backfired big time. Or, well, maybe it didn’t? The Mavericks lost. Their 24th loss of the season while the Bulls won their 20th game bringing them to 20-9 on the season. Still, though, the score was close. Closer than it had any right to be as the Mavericks only lost 111-105. It’s hard to say Nelson’s strategy allowing Rodman to score nine points on free-throw attempts alone helped the game stay close but, who knows, maybe it did?
But we’re not here for Bubba Wells.
The story goes that Wells fouled out the quickest anyone had ever fouled out, just three total minutes.
That’s not true though.
Thanks to Basketball-Reference’s amazing Stathead tool, we can see that, in fact, Wells fouled out in the second shortest amount of time ever.
No. 1 on the list is a man with a common name but someone I had never heard of before in my life:
John Brown.
How did John Brown make NBA history for the Hawks?
The date is March 4, 1975. The teams battling on this night are the hapless Atlanta Hawks vs. the once-great now middling Los Angeles Lakers.
It’s true, somehow there was a time where the Lakers weren’t good! 1975 was the first of back-to-back years the Lakers missed the playoffs in the mid-70s. This year broke a 16-year playoff streak that featured10 NBA Finals trips. After this two-year drought, Los Angeles would once again become a dominant force in the league but that’s a story for another day. Today, we’re talking about the boring 1975 Lakers.
John Brown had been a standout player at the University of Missouri. So much so they recently retired his number at the university. Atlanta, in need of another big man — you couldn’t have enough these days — took Brown with the No. 10 pick in the NBA Draft.
Brown’s NBA career was only a year old and this point and unlike Wells, Brown was a rotation player for the mediocre Atlanta Hawks. Brown averaged 9.3 points and 5.7 rebounds per game in his rookie season, playing 77 games. In 1975, Brown’s numbers improved across the board, his scoring jumped to 11.2 points per game, his minutes rose from 22.3 minutes-per-game as a rookie to 27.2.
This would end up being a career season for Brown who would stay in Atlanta for another four years before bouncing between Chicago, Utah, Atlanta again and finally ending his playing career in Italy. On this night though, Brown made history.
In just two minutes of play, Brown scored 7 points, dished 2 assists, grabbed 2 rebounds and even hit one of his two free-throw attempts. Brown put up 6 shots in just two minutes, converting on 50 percent of them.
Oh, yeah, and he also committed six personal fouls.
Brown fouled out. In just two minutes. In two minutes! A minute fewer than famous foul out artist Bubba Wells.
A minute in the grand scheme of things doesn’t really matter. Sure, he fouled out faster but does that really matter? While I agree, the bigger story to me isn’t that we’ve been told lies about who fouled out the fastest in NBA history. Rather, when Wells fouled out in 2:43 he did so contributing very little to the rest of the game. In those minutes, yes, he made a shot, scored two points but nothing else. No rebounds, no assists, no free throws, no blocks, nothing else. Zeros across the board.
Brown, on the other hand, was a maestro in two minutes, the Hawks won the game easily (109-97) but I can’t, for the life of me, figure out how Brown scored 7 points, shot 6 times and registered 2 assists and rebounds while also committing 6 fouls.
I contacted Pro Hoops Historian Curtis Harris — author of the must-read Pro Hoops History Newsletter — and asked him to clarify. How could this be real? This can’t be real? Right?
Harris checked Basketball-Reference’s Box Score against the historical box score from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. It was true: on March 4, 1975, in just two minutes, Atlanta Hawks forward John Brown fouled out of the game in just two minutes while scoring 7 points on 3-of-6 shooting while also collecting 2 assists and 2 rebounds.
Unbelievable.
It turns out Brown is one of only 28 players to ever score seven or fewer points in just two minutes of play. The most recent case of this happening occurred earlier this season as Justin James of the Sacramento Kings scored 7 points in just 2 minutes. Earl “The Pearl” Monroe put together a game for the ages in 1971 when he, somehow, someway, scored 11 points (!) in just ONE minute of play. Monroe got 7 shots up (making 4) while also shooting 3-of-4 from the free-throw line.
Most of the players on this list are unknown to the NBA world. Benchwarmers put into the closing minutes of a meaningless game. Their head coach more focused on what’s for dinner and who they are going to chew out during the next film sessions. Yeah, sure, whatever, let’s just get this game over with.
Of the 28 players to score seven or fewer points in just two minutes of play, nobody comes even remotely close to Brown’s six fouls. Phil Hubbard, Josh Grant, Flynn Robinson and Eric Piatkowski all were able to achieve two fouls during their short scoring outburst. Corie Blount, Foots Walker, Bob Portman, Claude English and Reggie Slater are the only others of the 28 to even register a single foul.
What John Brown did on this day in 1975 is nothing short of amazing. I’m still not sure I believe it. There has to be an error right? There has to be a misprint? There’s just no way.
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