Historical black hole leaves league defensive records to speculation

Some recent news items around the NBA all pointed in one historically unfortunate direction:

ORLANDO -- Hornets point guard Chris Paul, frustrated Thursday by New Orleans' 88-68 loss to the Magic at Amway Arena on Christmas Day, also saw the end of his NBA-record streak of 108 consecutive games with at least one steal ...

Maybe, maybe not.

HOUSTON -- Veteran center Dikembe Mutombo signed a pro-rated $1.2 million veteran's exception contract to play the rest of the season with the Houston Rockets. A four-time Defensive Player of the year, Mutombo ranks second to former Rockets star Hakeem Olajuwon in career blocked shots ...

Oh yeah?

LOS ANGELES -- With 23 points, 22 rebounds and six blocked shots in the Magic's 95-88 victory over the Clippers, center Dwight Howard made NBA history Monday night. The performance -- along with his 21 points, 23 rebounds and six blocks against Oklahoma City Friday -- made him only the fourth player to reach 20, 20 and six in consecutive games. The others: Bob McAdoo (1974), Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (1975, twice) and Rich Kelley (1979) ...

Somehow, that list seems a little light.

Consider that Wilt Chamberlain scored 20 points or more in 126 consecutive games, stretching from 1961 into '63. averaged 25.7 rebounds in '61-62 and 24.3 in '62-63. So all you'd have to do is check Chamberlain's blocked shot totals for back-to-back games in which he swatted a measly six and -- uh-oh.

Uh-oh, as in there ain't no such thing. Uh-oh, as in blocked shots and steals weren't even kept as official statistical categories by the NBA until '73-74, the season after Chamberlain retired. Uh-oh, as in we've got a significant, maddening failure in the record books, as deserving of asterisks as anything Roger Maris or Barry Bonds ever did in a ballpark.

It would be one thing if all media outlets dutifully noted, when chronicling achievements such as Howard's, Paul's and even Mutombo's, that numerical line in the sand drawn 35 years ago by a more ambitious and complete NBA stats database. But that's like waiting for ESPN to trumpet some sports feat that occurred prior to its own inception in 1979. It's like getting the kids to watch a black-and-white movie or show on TV ("Yeah, well, that's all we had -- and we liked it!''). Too often, the little qualifier -- "... since the NBA began keeping the stat in 1973-74 ...'' -- invariably gets left on the cutting room floor somewhere ( Orlando's PR crew is the rare exception, mentioning it in all correspondence). Then you end up with silly history like this: