1) Assists: 30 (Scott Skiles, 1990)

Over the course of 10 seasons, Skiles compiled 3,881 career assists, which places him 132nd in NBA history and falls about 12,000 shy of John Stockton’s record. But he made history one night in December of 1990 in what should been a completely forgettable contest between the 6-23 Magic and the 6-22 Nuggets. In a 155-112 Orlando win, Skiles finished the game with 22 points, six rebounds, and an NBA record 30 assists. Meanwhile, Denver’s entire team had just 14 assists in the game, less than half of what Skiles dished out himself. Those 155 points were also a still standing single game record for the Magic franchise. Skiles broke the record of 29 assists, which had been held by Kevin Porter for 11 years. Prior to that, Bob Cousy had the record for nearly two decades with 28 in a game in 1959. Stockton’s single game high was 28 and it actually happened just a couple weeks after Skiles dropped 30. While Skiles hardly parlayed this performance into overall stardom, he was also far from a one-game wonder, eventually earning Most Improved Player for the ’90-’91 season and finishing as high as third in the NBA in assists per game in ’92-’93. In the three-plus decades since Skiles set his mark, Rajon Rondo, Jason Kidd, and Kevin Johnson have come closest to matching it, all with 25 in a game.

2) Blocks: 17 (Elmore Smith, 1973)

On October 9, 1973, Smith played in the first NBA game in which blocks were officially tracked and set the single game record with six. That lasted for just three days until it was broken by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, the man whom Smith would eventually replace on the Bucks. But just a few weeks later, Smith took back the record with a mark that has now stood for half a century and counting. In a late October Lakers win over the Trail Blazers, Smith blocked an incredible 17 shots. For comparison’s sake, it took five years for a team to collectively block more than 17 shots in a single game, let alone one player. In the 50 years since Smith logged 17 blocks, only two other players have reached 15: Manute Bol (who did it twice), and Shaquille O’Neal. Smith also set the single season blocks record in ’73-’74 with 393 and held it for over a decade until Mark Eaton eclipsed it.

3) Turnovers: 14 (John Drew, 1978 and Jason Kidd, 2000)

Just as was the case with blocked shots, the single game record for turnovers dates all the way back to the first season the NBA started tracking them. It came courtesy of Drew, a play making forward and elite offensive talent on an otherwise anemic Hawks team. With Atlanta fighting for a playoff spot, Drew pressed the issue in a late season game against the Nets, finishing with 24 points (on 9-of-28 shooting), 15 rebounds, and 14 turnovers. It was all for naught anyway, as the Nets won the game 97-95, thanks in large part to Drew committing a technical foul in the waning moments by calling a timeout when Atlanta was out of them. With just three assists in the game, Drew also set the still standing record for worst assist-to-turnover +/- in a single game, at -11 (Jamaal Wilkes and Ralph Sampson would later equal that mark). When Kidd tied Drew’s record in 2000, he did so in logging a rare quadruple-double, with 18 points, 12 rebounds, 10 assists, and 14 turnovers in a Suns loss to the Knicks. Though he was a sure handed play maker, Kidd also had the rock in his hands a lot in his career, and finished with 4,003 turnovers, which is seventh all-time (his 12,091 assists are second all time).

4) Minutes played: 69 (Dale Ellis, 1989)

It was the longest game of the shot clock era, with the SuperSonics and Bucks facing off for 73 total minutes stretched over five overtimes, and Ellis was on the floor for 69 of them. He scored 53 points for the Sonics that night but it somehow wasn’t enough, with Milwaukee prevailing 155-154. Five other players logged 50+ minutes in this game: Seattle’s Xavier McDaniel with 68, Milwaukee’s Jay Humphries with 62 (during which he scored only 11 points), Milwaukee’s Alvin Robertson with 59 (before fouling out), Seattle’s Derrick McKey with 53, and Seattle’s Nate McMillan with 51. Prior to this game, 23 other players had logged 60+ minutes in a single game before but it’s happened only nine times in the 34 years since, most recently courtesy of Paul Millsap in 2017. Maybe the most impressive element of Ellis’ record is that he was back on the floor for Seattle just two nights later, scoring 30 points in 41 minutes in a loss to the Bulls.

5) Free throws: 28 (Wilt Chamberlain, 1962 and Adrian Dantley, 1984)

On the same night in Hershey, Pennsylvania that he notched the seemingly unbreakable record of 100 points in a single game, Chamberlain also set a more attainable mark with 28 free throws. Normally a subpar free throw shooter due largely to his size, Chamberlain shot just 50.6% from the charity stripe in the ’61-’62 season but in this one game nailed 28 of his 32 attempts (87.5%). No one truly came close to matching those 28 free throws until Dantley regularly made a habit of it. A play making forward with a herky-jerky style custom made to draw fouls while driving to the paint, Dantley led the NBA in free throws five times in his career and was efficient at the line, hitting 81.8% of his attempts. He tallied 26 free throws in a 1980 game and 27 during a 1983 tilt before tying Chamberlain’s record in January 1984 by connecting on 28-of-29 free throws in a Jazz win over the Rockets. It’s one of the most improbable box scores in NBA history, as Dantley finished the game with 46 points but just nine field goals (out of 15 attempts). Only three other players in NBA history have reached the plateau of 25 free throws in a game: Michael Jordan, Anthony Davis, and the man we’ll discuss next.

6) Free throw attempts: 39 (Dwight Howard, 2012 and 2013)

The NBA strategy of repeatedly, intentionally fouling a poor free throw shooter dates back to Wilt Chamberlain, who shot just 51.1% from the foul line in his career and set a league record with 34 attempts in a 1962 game against the Hawks (he made just 19 of them). The practice was revived in the ’90s by legendary coach Don Nelson and was eventually dubbed “Hack-a-Shaq” in (dis-)honor of its most common victim, Shaquille O’Neal. But while O’Neal never quite matched Chamberlain’s mark (his career high was 31 attempts in a 1999 game), Howard eventually blew it out of the water, shooting 39 free throws in 2012 Magic win over the Warriors. The Magic center hit just 21 of his attempts but finished the game with 45 points and 23 rebounds. A year later, Howard matched the mark again, this time as a member of the Lakers, making 25-of-39 free throws in a 2013 win over his former Orlando teammates. Two interesting post-scripts: 1) O’Neal also logged 39 free throw attempts in one game, setting the postseason record in game two of the 2000 NBA Finals; 2) in the 16 games (regular season or playoffs) in which a player has attempted 30 or more free throws, their teams have a 13-3 record (“Hack-a-Shaq” denizens beware).

7) Steals: 11 (Larry Kenon, 1976 and Kendall Gill, 1999)

20 different players have logged 10 steals in an NBA game, starting with Jerry West in ’73-’74, the first year the NBA started tracking the statistic. But that elusive 11th steal has only been attained by Kenon and Gill. The first instance was right after the ABA merger which brought Kenon into the NBA with the Spurs. One of the premier two-way forwards of his era, Kenon had a triple-double on the night he set the record, finishing with 29 points, 15 rebounds, and 11 steals in a win over the Kings. Only five other players have logged a triple-double with 10+ steals and 10+ rebounds: Larry Steele, Draymond Green, Alvin Robertson, Clyde Drexler, and Gill, who finished with 15 points, 11 steals, and 10 rebounds in a 1999 Nets win over the Heat. It happened late in the ’98-’99 lockout season and was quite indicative of the playing style of the time, with a final score of 88-77, both teams shooting under 40% from the field, and two players fouling out. Later on in that season, Allen Iverson became the first and only player to come up with 10 steals in a playoff game, doing so in a first round 76ers win over the Magic.

8) Personal fouls: 8 (Don Otten, 1949; Lew Hitch, 1952)

Ejection from the game after six personal fouls has been the NBA regulation since its 1946 inception. So why has there been 22 instances in league history where a player was whistled for seven or more fouls? In most cases, it’s due to Rule 3, Section I of the NBA rulebook, which states that teams must always field five players on the court at all times, i.e., if only five players are left available and one of them fouls out, they’re allowed to stay in the game. Any further fouls committed by that player become not just personal fouls but also technical fouls. This happened a lot more often in the chaotic early days of the NBA. In fact, there are three cases where a player reached eight personal fouls. The first instance was in a 1949 playoff game, where the Baltimore Bullets had six of their 10 players foul out and the last one to do so, Jack Toomay, was allowed to stay in and commit two more fouls (despite all that, the Bullets forced overtime against the Knicks but ultimately did lose the game and series). Otten was the first to compile eight fouls in a regulation game, doing so early in the ’49-’50 season. A former NBL MVP and renowned as one of the first players to dunk in a game, Otten joined the NBA at age 28 via merger with the Tri-Cities Blackhawks (who are now the Atlanta Hawks) in 1949. In an early season game against the Sheboygan Red Skins, Otten was the sixth Blackhawks player to foul out and thus remained in the game with the four active players left, as the Blackhawks ended up losing 120-113. Three years later, Hitch became the second NBA player with eight fouls in one game under similar circumstances. This was in a marquee match-up late in the ’51-’52 season, where the Lakers had just eight active players at tip-off and lost six of them to fouling, meaning that not only did Hitch reach eight fouls, his teammate George Mikan also had seven. While a team hasn’t been reduced to less than five players due to foul outs in a game since 1953, there have been several more instances of players being allotted more than six fouls, usually due to negligence of the officials. The most recent example happened in 1999, when backup Hawks forward Cal Bowdler did not leave the game after committing his sixth foul and was allowed to continue to play. Perhaps the scorekeeper had fallen asleep as the game was a snoozer, a total blowout of Atlanta by the Trail Blazers, with a final score of 131-95. Bowdler committed a seventh foul before the night was over and the discrepancy wasn’t noticed until a review the next day.