The GOAT’s Life – October 28, 1961

Maurice Podoloff’s NBA launched its 16th season – with a doubleheader at Madison Square Garden, no less -- on Thursday, October 19, 1961 … before the stroke of midnight on Saturday the 21st, Wilt Chamberlain and the Philadelphia Warriors had played three of their 80 games. Ironically, the schedule had been devised by none other than Eddie “The Mogul” Gottlieb, the Warriors’ owner.

The schedule-maker for the league’s first 30-or-so years, Gotty somehow shoehorned 80 games per team into 147 calendar days, mid-October thru mid-March.

By contrast, the GOAT and his defending champs were playing only their second game on the season’s 10th day. (The scales would ultimately balance, as the C’s would…