Statis-Pro Basketball
Retro Seasons
NBA "1966 - 67"
"Sixers Win NBA Title In The Sixties!"
The NBA of the 1960’s is hardly recognizable to the NBA of today. At the start of the 1966-67 season there were only 10 teams in the league. Yet, within the next 4 years the league would almost double in size to 17. Cities such as Baltimore, Cincinnati and St Louis were home to NBA teams. Places like Oklahoma City, Miami, Sacramento would still have to wait decades to welcome an NBA team.
No three point shooting in the 1960’s. The game was mostly dominated by big men and the league had plenty of them. Bill Russell, Wilt Chamberlain, Nate Thurmond, Jerry Lucas, Walt Bellamy to name a few. Get the ball into the pivot and let the big man go to work. That was a big part of most offensive game plans. But there were still plenty of star players on the perimeter. Starting with the NBA Logo, Jerry West. Other all-time greats such as Oscar Robertson, John Havlicek, Elgin Baylor, Billy Cunningham and the league’s leading scorer (35.6) Rick Barry would have dominated today’s game from the three-point line.
The Philadelphia 76ers topped the regular season with 68 wins against just 13 losses. That’s right, in 1966-67 it was only an 81 game schedule. Even with a 60 win season the Boston Celtics were a distant 8 games behind Philly in the Eastern Division. In spite of only winning 44 games the San Francisco (eventually to be Golden State) Warriors would win the Western Division. The Warriors would be the only team in the West to finish with a winning record.
The league welcomed one new expansion team in 1966. The Chicago Bulls, and they finished with a very respectful 33-48 record in their inaugural season. (Future Bull great Michael Jordan was only 3 years old when the Bulls tipped off in that first year.)
Eight of the ten teams qualified for the playoffs with Philadelphia beating San Francisco in the finals 4-2. The 76ers were loaded with NBA all-time greats including the aforementioned Chamberlain and Cunningham plus Hal Greer, Luke Jackson and Chet Walker. The 1966-67 Philadelphia 76ers were the only team to win an NBA title besides the Boston Celtics during the 1960’s decade.
The scoring title as mentioned previously went to Barry at 35.6 followed by the Big O and West with 30.5 and 28.7 respectively. Wilt “the Stilt” won the battle of the boards averaging 24.2 rebounds per game followed by Russell and Thurmond with 21.3 and 21.0 respectively.
I hope you have many hours of fun with my recreation of the 1966-67 NBA season. I’ve also included a link below to a very nice YouTube video featuring the 1960’s NBA. It’s titled “The Real Truth About 1960’s NBA Basketball”. Enjoy playing my games!
