In case you missed it, Klay Thompson set the NBA record for most points scored in a single quarter after putting up 37 points in the third quarter of Friday night’s game against the Sacramento Kings. Thompson broke the previous record of 33 points, accomplished by George Gervin and Carmelo Anthony in 1978 and 2008, respectively. Considering the three-point line wasn’t introduced to the NBA until the 1979-80 season, there’s a reasonable argument to be made that Gervin’s 33 points carried a higher degree of difficulty than Melo or Thompson (Thompson was a perfect 9-9 from deep on Friday).
This fact isn’t lost on The Iceman, who shared his thoughts on Thompson’s historic night with Bleacher Report‘s Howard Beck:
“I don’t feel—and it’s funny, everybody laughs—I don’t feel he broke my record,” Gervin told Bleacher Report’s Beck over the phone. “I feel he set a new record. He set a new record for the new NBA.”
In fact, Gervin wants a Roger Maris-like designation on Thompson’s mark:
“If you give a guy an advantage to break my record, it ain’t on the same playing level,” Gervin said. “So I’m saying, I ain’t going away that easy, by saying ‘Hey, he broke my record.’ Now, I don’t care what nobody say. I’m standing up for something that I’m real proud of, man…In the system that I played, my record will never be broken.
“I’m the one in the Guinness book,” Gervin said. “So if they put somebody else in the Guinness book for most points in a quarter, I’d like to see an asterisk by it.”
Gervin does raises a good point about the “new” NBA — one that has fully embraced the three-point shot. It took about a decade for the three-point shot to truly catch on, but 35 years later, it’s a major component of every team’s arsenal (well, unless you’re the Lakers). Hell, the notion of a 3-and-D player didn’t even exist even ten years ago, let alone three decades. So, in that sense, it is a “new” NBA, and it will affect some scoring records to a certain degree. But the fact remains it still took 30 years for a player to match Gervin’s original mark, 28 of which provided a three-point line for any potential challenger. And, it still took another seven years to break it, meaning, regardless of what modern advantages are at your disposal, scoring 33 points in a quarter is really, really hard to do.
[BR]
