One the games first true scoring stars. Joe Fulks lead the Philadelphia Warriors from their transition from the BAA to the NBA and in the process became the games first scoring machine. Fulks averaged more than 20 points in an age before the advent of the 24 second clock and where teams rarely got to 70 points.

Fulks was anything but a scoring machine at Murray State where he played for two seasons. He was an above average scorer averaging 13 points a game but shot a low percentage and the team rarely seen any success. Fulks played 47 games at Murray State averaging 13 points

Fulks was out of Basketball for four years before joining the Warriors in 1946. He set the league ablaze his rookie year averaging a than league record 23 points a game and helping the Warriors to the 1947 BAA title.

He continued to be a scoring machine and the best center in the game for most of his early career. Fulks was a center-forward combo player despite being only six foot five and 190 pounds. In 1949 Fulks set a than NBA record 63 points vs. the Jets, the record stood for 10 years until Elgin Baylor broke it in 1959. Wilt Chamberlain would shatter both 3 years later when he scored 100 points.

Fulks was a member of the first two all-star squads ever assembled for the NBA all-star game Fulks began to decline after just 8 years in the league, which for it’s time was a lot and he was approaching 33 years old. His last season he averaged only 2.5 points a game.

In total Joe Fulks appeared in 489 career games and averaged 16 points a game. Rebound where only official kept after 1950 so his rebounding numbers are incomplete but in his 4 seasons where rebounds where kept he averaged over 5 a game.

Fulks was one selected for the hall-of-fame in 1978, two years after his death. Fulks was murdered by the son of his than girl friend over a dispute about a handgun.

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