This Day In NBA History| May 3

This day in sports history article you will find a quick look at what happened in the NBA on a day like today.

For those of us who love the sport and have watched it for years, I hope you still remember those moments, the games, and the players we saw when we were young. Join me as I take a quick look at the recent history of 20 years.

This Day In the Past

For this article, I choose 20 years. That is a solid reference point against which to compare the current generation of players with entire generations of players who have already retired or are about to retire.

As always in history, there are positive and negative aspects, but we’ll focus on the positive things that happened on May 3 in the past.

May 3, 2021

Carmelo Anthony, then playing for the Portland Trail Blazers, cemented his place at No. 10 on the NBA’s all-time scoring list with a basket against the Atlanta Hawks that gave him 27, 314  points for his career. That day, Anthony surpassed Hall of Famer Elvin Hayes, who previously held the record with 27, 313 points.

May 3, 2021

Russell Westbrook, who recorded triple-doubles left and right across the league, had 21 rebounds and 24 assists in the Washington Wizards‘ 154-141 victory over the Indiana Pacers. That day, his name was added one more time to the list of players in NBA history to have more than 20 rebounds and 20 assists in the same game. Only Wilt Chamberlain and Westbrook, who did it twice (in 2019 playing for the Oklahoma City Thunder), are the players on the list.

May 3, 2011

In my opinion, only one player in Chicago Bulls history has made the franchise and fans forget about the great MJ. In 2011, Chicago Bulls superstar Derrick Rose won the regular season 2010-11 MVP trophy at the age of 22 and became the youngest MVP in history to receive the award. He received 113 of 120 possible first-place votes.

May 3, 2007

The Golden State Warriors became the first No. 8 seed to defeat a No. 1 seed in the best-of-seven playoff format. They won the series 4-2. With Baron Davis and others, the Golden State Warriors made history by winning 111-86 in Game 6 of their first-round series against the Dirk Nowitzki-led Dallas Mavericks. They lost 4-1 to the Utah Jazz in the next round.

Final Thoughts

I hope you enjoyed this brief review. Much has changed, and much more has happened in the last 20 years. We sometimes forget that the NBA has modified its rules in various ways to make the league more competitive and basketball more exciting.