11 NBA Records That Will Never Be Broken

The NBA has existed for close to 80 years while providing a stage for the most talented basketball players on the planet, and more than a few of them have managed to achieve some absolutely stunning feats during their time in the league.

Every professional sports league in existence has its fair share of records that are widely viewed as unbreakable, and the NBA is certainly no exception.

There’s always a chance a generational talent will emerge capable of setting a new mark to beat in categories where a former player seemingly has the G.O.A.T. status locked up, but it’s very hard to imagine any of these will end up being impacted.

Most Career Assists: 15,806

Karl Malone may have been nicknamed “The Mailman” because he always delivered, but I’d argue that there’s another man he played with on the Jazz who truly deserved that moniker: John Stockton.

Stockton was an assist machine who averaged 10.5 dimes per game in an NBA career that spanned 18 seasons, and the 15,806 he racked up puts him close to 3,500 more than Chris Paul, the man who’s currently in second place on the all-time list.

Paul will be able to close the gap a bit by the time he ends up retiring, but there aren’t any current players who will come close to sniffing Stockton’s total by the time they do the same.

Most Assists In A Game: 30

Scott Skiles never came close to becoming a household name during the 10 years he spent in the NBA, but he’ll almost certainly always have a place in the history books thanks to what transpired when his Magic played the Nuggets on December 30, 1990.

Skiles had averaged a respectable 6.6 assists per game up to that point in the season, but that number rose to 7.4 after he ended up with 30 to break the single-game record of 29 that Kevin Porter had set in 1972.

Stockton gave him a run for his money when he posted 28 just a couple of weeks later, but no NBA player has had more than 25 in a single game since then (a feat three men—Kevin Johnson, Jason Kidd, and Rajon Rondo managed—were responsible for).

Most Consecutive Games Played: 1.192

Pro basketball players subject their bodies to a ton of abuse, and it’s very hard to avoid falling victim to an injury that prevents you from missing at least one game at some point during your career.

However, A.C. Green was able to defy the odds when he kicked off the Iron Man streak that began when he suited up for the Lakers toward the start of his second season in the NBA for a game against the Kings on November 19, 1986.

Green didn’t miss another regular season game until he capped off his NBA career as a member of the Heat on April 18, 2001 (it’s worth noting he did miss five playoff games in 1986), and the streak of 1,192 is still untouched (Mikal Bridges is currently the active player with the longest one at a little more than 525).

Most Rebounds In A Season: 2,149

You probably won’t be shocked to learn Wilt Chamberlain makes multiple appearances on this list, and while the upcoming entry he’s best known for may also never be broken, I’d argue it’s not as out of reach as this one.

The man known as “The Stilt” also holds the career record for rebounds with 23,924 (Bill Russell is second with 21,620), and the evolution of the game means there’s no chance that’s going to be topped either.

However, nothing sums up his dominance on the boards like the 1960-61 campaign where he grabbed 2,149 of them (good for 27.2 per game)—the best single-season performance from a legend who holds the first seven spots on the Top 10 in that particular category.

Highest Minutes Averaged In A Single Season: 48.5

Chamberlain achieved one of my favorite NBA feats the year after he set that rebound record, as he averaged 48.5 minutes per game over the course of the season that kicked off in 1962.

In case you’re wondering, games did last for 48 minutes back then.

However, he didn’t sub out a single time while starting in all 80 games his  Philadelphia Warriors played—which included five contests that went into overtime, another that went into double OT, and one that needed three extra frames to be decided.

Most Points In A Game: 100

I could have probably done a list of unbreakable records entirely attributed to Chamberlain, but I’m going to end his contributions to this one with his most iconic.

On March 2, 1962, Chamberlain led Philadelphia to a 169-147 win over the Knicks while becoming the first (and last) player to score 100 points in an NBA game.

No one else has managed a triple-digit total, and Kobe Bryant remains in second place with the relatively paltry 81 he posted against the Raptors in 2006.

Most Career Playoff Points: 8,162*

This one gets an asterisk because there’s a good chance LeBron James is able to increase his already sizeable record by the time he ends up retiring.

Michael Jordan was somewhat unsurprisingly the all-time leader when it came to postseason scoring with 5,987 points when LeBron entered the league in 2003.

However, it’s since been shattered by the 40-year-old legend hoping to punch his ticket to the playoffs for the 18th time during a career where he’s only missed them four times while posting a grand total of 8,162 points in 287 postseason games (another record that may never be beaten; Derek Fisher is second with 259 and Kevin Durant is the active player with the second most at…170).

Most Career Three-Pointers: 3,948*

We’ve got another asterisk courtesy of Steph Curry, who has already firmly cemented himself as the most prolific long-range shooter in NBA history and will have a laughable buffer over the rest of the pack whenever he decides to hang up his sneakers.

Reggie Miller was the three-point king with 2,560 before Ray Allen unseated him en route to finishing with 2,973 , but Curry led the vanguard of a new generation of sharpshooters who (for better or for worse) ushered in a new offensive era.

It’s only a matter of time until the 36-year-old surpasses the 4,000 mark, and when you consider he currently leads runner-up James Harden by more than 850 treys, he won’t have to worry about anyone touching this record for a long, long time.

Most Technical Fouls In A Season: 41

Rasheed Wallace was an incredibly physical player who was not shy about running his mouth, and that one-two combination led to him setting an NBA record when he was hit with a whopping 41 technical fouls during the 2000-01 season as a member of the Trail Blazers.

Wallace was largely responsible for the NBA’s decision to institute a new rule in 2006 that mandates any player who receives 16 techs in a season is automatically hit with a one-game suspension (a punishment that kicks in again if that number rises by two more at any point).

It would be theoretically possible for someone to surpass that total if they set out to get two technicals in every game they were eligible to play, but you’d be hard-pressed to find any team that would be willing to keep them on the roster.

Most Championship Won As A Player: 11

Curry was a member of one of the many dynasties the NBA has boasted over the decades, but there isn’t a single one that can come close to matching the one the Celtics kicked off at the end of the 1950s.

In 1958, Red Auerbach coached a Boston team led by Bill Russell to its first title in franchise history. They lost in the NBA Finals the following year but bounced back by winning eight consecutive championships beginning with their win in 1959 and ultimately took home the crown 11 times in 13 years.

Russell was the only member of the Celtics on the roster for every single one of those victories (he won two more as their coach in 1968 and 1969), although Sam Jones earned 10 rings while four other players ended up with eight.

LeBron, Curry, Klay Thompson, and Draymond Green comprise the list of active players in search of their fifth, and it’s hard to imagine a scenario where anyone ends up coming close to unseating Russell.

Most Wins In A Season Single Season: 73

I’m putting this one last because there’s always a chance the planets could align to create what would be the most dominant team in NBA history, but they’d need plenty of things to go their way to top the season the Warriors kicked off in 2015.

Prior to that year, no team had ever managed to finish the 82-game regular season with a single digit in the loss column; the Bulls had come close during the 1995-96 campaign but ended up at 72-10 after starting at 41-3.

However, a Golden State team led by the aforementioned trio of Curry, Thompson, and Green literally one-upped them with a 73-9 record.

Chicago was able to cap its run off with a championship, but the Warriors came up painfully short after losing the NBA Finals to LeBron and the Cavaliers in seven games.