This Day In Basketball History
1968 - NBA welcomes Phoenix, Milwaukee
The NBA's Board of Governors grants new franchises to the cities of Phoenix and Milwaukee, expanding the league from 12 to 14 teams beginning in the 1968-69 season later that year.
The Suns (16-66) and Bucks (27-55), unsurprisingly, finish with the two worst records in the league in their debut seasons, and the Suns win a coin toss for the No. 1 overall pick. They use that pick to select Lew Alcindor (Kareem Abdul-Jabbar), altering the course of NBA history.
2006 - Kobe drops 81 on the Raptors
In the highest-scoring game for a player in 44 years - and the second-highest ever - Kobe Bryant explodes for 81 points to lead the Los Angeles Lakers to a 122-104 victory over the Toronto Raptors.
Bryant, who shot 28-of-46 (61 percent) from the field, single-handedly outscores the Raptors in the second half, 55-41.
"The easiest way to look at it is everybody remembers every 50-point game they ever saw. He had 55 in the second half," Lakers owner Jerry Buss says after the once-in-a-lifetime performance.
"You're sitting and watching, and it's like a miracle unfolding in front of your eyes and you can't accept it."
Even Bryant is left at a loss for what transpired: "To sit here and say I grasp what happened, that would be lying."
Birthdays
1988 - Greg Oden