What year did the NBA ban slam dunking free throws?

[RedSwinglineOne]

Here is an article on Wilt’s 100 point game. Remembering Chamberlain’s 100-point game

"Sure, we fouled Wilt a lot, but that was the weakest part of his game.

New York’s strategy of fouling Chamberlain backfired; he made 28 of 32 free-throw attempts. He was a 51 percent free-throw shooter for his career.
“Fouls are what really did it for him,” Attles said. “He usually couldn’t make anywhere near that many.”
Randy Vathis was 10 years old and a Warriors fan, intent on seeing Chamberlain at the foul line.
“It was the first pro game I ever went to,” he said. “I went to the game because I had heard Wilt shot his free throws underhanded and was terrible at it. Then he went out and made all those free throws.”

He clearly wasn’t dunking them that day.

[hajario]

@obfusciatrist

No, there’s no video recording of the 100-point game (and there were only 4000-ish people actually at the game) and it was not televised.

Wilt claimed that over 10,000 people that he met claimed to have been at the game. In fact my uncle, who is a huge Knicks fan and attended tons of games, told me that he was there. I wonder if he realized that that game was played in Hershey, PA.

[Wee_Bairn]

The audio clip of 4th quarter of the 100 point is available for purchase online- surely if he were dunking free throws, the commentator would mention it.

[Darryl_Lict]

@hajario

Wilt claimed that over 10,000 people that he met claimed to have been at the game. In fact my uncle, who is a huge Knicks fan and attended tons of games, told me that he was there. I wonder if he realized that that game was played in Hershey, PA.

I sometimes wonder how well Wilt could count, or maybe that he was prone to exaggeration. In 1991, he claimed that he had screwed 20,000 different women. That would be 1 a day since the day he was born. Me personally, I’d probably get some of them confused and maybe have done a couple of them more than once.

Maybe you could ask your uncle how Wilt was shooting free throws in 1962.

[misterW]

[QUOTE=Darryl Lict]
Man, did part of this thread get lost? I have found this

(http://www.armchairgm.com/Slam_Dunk_Contest):

I may actually have read this article since I am a huge fan of Scott Ostler and have subscribed to the L.A. Times since 1981 or so. Perhaps that is why I was so convinced about myself being right about this bet.

But did he ever do that in a game? Seems like they would have mentioned the game if he had.

[Darryl_Lict]

I emailed Scott Ostler, who wrote “The Leaping Legends of Basketball”. Here is his response:

No, wilt never dunked a freebie in a game, college or pro.
His claim (I never heard it disputed) was that he would do that trick
in practice in college, and word got around, and a college rule was quickly
passed prohibiting the shooter from stepping over (even in the air) the
free throw line until the ball hit rim or backboard. The nba either
passed a similar rule, or used the college rule book.
Either way, wilt’s freebie dunk was outlawed before he had a chance to
use it for real. Too bad.