Wilt Chamberlain's Extraordinary Game

In a historic basketball game in Hershey, Pennsylvania, Wilt Chamberlain scored an unprecedented 100 points. Chamberlain, a dominant player with exceptional physical abilities, changed his free-throw shooting technique that season and improved his accuracy. However, despite his success, Chamberlain stopped shooting underhanded and went back to being a terrible free throw shooter. This puzzling decision highlights the role of thresholds in behavior, where some individuals have a high threshold and require more support or social acceptance to try something new, while others have a low threshold and are willing to take risks and innovate. Rick Barry, a fellow basketball player and renowned foul shooter, was one of the few who shot underhanded like Chamberlain and emphasized the advantages of this technique. The story of Chamberlain's game and subsequent abandonment of the underhand shot raises questions about why good ideas struggle to spread and how thresholds influence behavior in various contexts.