NBA Bits & Pieces Trivia Quiz

Answer: World B. Free

World B. Free was born as Lloyd Bernard Free and given the nickname of "World" while growing up in New York. It stuck so much that when he turned pro in 1975 that was the name everyone knew him by. Free was an offensive wizard, averaging more than 20 points a game over a career that lasted until 1991.

The other "World" started his career as Ron Artest, and some years after missing nearly an entire season for fighting with a fan during a game changed his name to Metta World Peace. His career started in 2000 with the Chicago Bulls and he changed his name in 2011 while a member of the Los Angeles Lakers. During his career World Peace was known as a defensive stalwart winning the league's defensive player of the year award in 2004.

Answer: Germany

Dirk Nowitzki, a German basketball player, won the award in 2011. The ESPY Awards started in 1993.

Other winners included: Michael Jordan (1993), Barry Bonds (1994), Steve Young (1995), Cal Ripken Jr. (1996), Michael Johnson (1997), Ken Griffey Jr. (1998 tied), Tiger Woods (1998 tied, 2000-02, 08), Mark McGwire (1999) Lance Armstrong (2003-06), LaDainian Tomlinson (2007), Michael Phelps (2009), Drew Brees (2010) and Lebron James (2012-13).

Answer: Hakeem Olajuwon

Thurmond was the first player to do so, in 1974. Robertson did so in 1986, Robinson in 1994. Not only did Olajuwon do it twice, he did in twice in a month during 1990. On March 3 he did it to the Golden State Warriors then on March 29 he did it to the Bucks.

A quadruple-double in a game = a player ends up with a double-digit total-number in four of these five statistical categories - points scored, rebounds, assists, steals, and blocked shots.

Answer: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

Kareem scored 38,387 points during a 20 season career. He averaged nearly 25 points per game during his career and won two scoring titles. He best scoring season was 1971-72 when he averaged 34.8 points a game. His worst scoring season was his final year in 1988-89 when he averaged just 10.1 points a contest.

At the time of Abdul-Jabbar's retirement the next highest scorer in NBA history was Elvin Hayes who has scored 27,313 points. More than 11,000 fewer than his record.

Answer: 88

Many players play in each of their team's games over the course of a season. Sometimes a player even snags an extra game if they are traded and one team has played less games to that point in the season. Exactly that happened to Walt Bellamy 1968, except the team he was traded to had played significantly fewer games than the one he was coming from. He played 35 games for the New York Knicks that season, and then added another 53 for the Detroit Pistons.

CHuck Williams played in 90 games in an ABA season, but that was prior to the two leagues merger.

Answer: Wilt Chamberlain

Over the course of his 15 season career Chamberlain averaged 45.8 minutes a game and 9 times led the league in both total minutes and minutes per game played. Iverson is the only other player on the list to average more than 40 minutes a game for a career.

Answer: Bill Russell

Among the options only Russell ever played for the Celtics. In a 13 year career (1956-1969) he won 11 championships. He also won two championships (1968 and 1969), as a coach near the end of his playing career when he pulled double duty.

Answer: Dave DeBusschere

Dave DeBusschere was a less than successful pitcher, posting only three wins in the majors to go with a 2.90 earned run average. In the NBA DeBusschere had a much more successful career. He was twice a league champion, eight times an all star and was elected to the Hall of Fame. DeBusschere also spent three seasons as a player-coach while with the Detroit Pistons.

At age 24, he was the youngest person ever named head coach of an NBA team when he took the reigns in 1964.

Answer: Cal Bowdler

Among the options only Bowlder played with the Hawks. He was able to notch 7 personal fouls due to a simple scoring error by the official scorekeeper. On Nov. 13 1999 the rookie played a total of 15 minutes in his team's 131-95 loss to the Trailblazers. During that time he committed 7 fouls, but one was erroneously marked down on a teammate's box score until after the game was over.

Because of the error he managed to secure the one extra foul and set the record. His NBA career was only 142 games over 3 seasons all in Atlanta. He averaged only 1 foul per game for his career though.

Answer: Manute Bol

At 7 feet 6 inches tall Bol was one of the tallest people to ever play in the NBA. The other three options were among the shortest to ever play. In Jan. 1986 and again in Feb. 1987 Bol recorded 15 block games. Bol played a total of 11 seasons in the league, and twice lead the league in blocks (1985-86 and 1988-89).