Charlotte (Steve Goldberg's Wheel World) - Making the trendy internet rounds this week is a story about singer/Kim Kardashian accessory Kanye West scoring 106 points against a junior wheelchair basketball team. According to the report, West claimed that he wanted to break Wilt Chamberlain's record of 100 points in a game.

Though West has never let fact get in the way of a good story, that should have been a warning signal to anyone regarding the legitimacy of the article.

Anyone who actually follows the game would know that's an NBA record from 1962 and though very famous, it's not close to other single game records. More recently, Jack Taylor of Grinnell College scored 138 points in November 2012 to set an NCAA all-divisions record. A year later he scored 109 in a game.

Another player with two century mark games is Croatian teenager Marin Ferenčević who reportedly scored 101 and 178 points in April and May of 2006 during Under-14 Croatian League matches.

Not that impressive though when you consider that a 13-year old Swedish boy named Mats Wermelin dropped in 232 points… in just one game. According to a couple of sources, that would be the highest single game total anywhere in organized basketball history, regardless of gender, age or level. By the way, the game score was 232-0, so personally I still need verification that another team was actually on the court at the time.

In international play, the highest total in a game between national teams is reported to be the 116 points scored by the Philippines' Luis "Lou" Salvador against China during the 1923 Far Eastern Games.

But I digress. What was the deal with the hip hop provocateur playing in a wheelchair game against kids in the first place?

Supposedly, according to the DailyCurrent.com which ran the story, it was, "a PR move intended to smooth over the controversy that erupted this week between Kanye and the disabled community. At one of his concerts recently West repeatedly asked wheelchaired fans to stand, and refused to apologize for his mistake afterwards."

The concert part was true. While performing in Sydney, Australia, the week before, West insisted that the entire audience inside the arena stand up for one of his songs.
When he noticed that several concertgoers had remained seated, West said, "I can't do this song, I can't do the rest of the show until everybody stands up."

When informed that a couple of them were in wheelchairs, West's lack of diplomatic skills became evident.

"Is he in a wheel chair? OK, well, we gotta wait then."

After dragging it out a bit more as the miracle didn't happen and the audience began to boo, hopefully at West and not the fan, the singer relented. But with video of the incident soon to go viral, the damage was done.

However, the basketball part was not quite so accurate but not for the lack of detail, or drama.

The article stated:

"The Basketball Wheelchair Charity for Cancer event pitted disabled middle school children against Kanye and his entourage. Kanye's team seemed hesitant to play as hard since they were not also in wheelchairs as originally planned.

Organizers said "Both teams were supposed to be playing in wheelchairs but Kanye's camp said Mr. West would be playing the 'normal' way."

The kids were initially excited to play basketball with one of their favorite musicians but once the game started, they knew it wasn't going to be fun.

Eighth grader Tommy Smith told reporters, "We play with shorter basketball hoops and he was dunking all over us. The smack talk got out of hand and some of our players started crying."

There was a nice plug for wheelchair basketball even though it wasn't entirely checked for grammar.

"Disabled sports has seen a huge increase in athletes as technology and funding has improved. With international leagues and national leagues, wheelchair basketball has become the most popular Paralympic sport."

Then came the uniformed 100 point reference.

"After the game, West told the media, "I set out to break Wilt Chamberlain's record of points in one game and that's what I did. It was for a good cause and I couldn't be happier with my play."

As the story spread across social media like ants at a picnic, it was obvious that many, if not most readers were not familiar with the concept of satire.

A simple check of the site's "About" page would have told them, "The Daily Currant is an English language online satirical newspaper that covers global politics, business, technology, entertainment, science, health and media," adding, "Our stories are purely fictional. However they are meant to address real-world issues through satire and often refer and link to real events happening in the world."

Of course, given the supremely self-absorbed West's track record, it did seem plausible. Still, I long for a world where people check the veracity of a story before posting it or reacting to it as fact.

Back in the real world, there was another story worth mentioning.

As reported by the UK's Daily Mail, five-year-old Isabelle Nixon was upset when she couldn't see over the crowd while the bands played at the close of the Invictus Games at the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in London. Her father Adam had captained Team GB's wheelchair basketball team to victory over the USA in the Paralympic-style event created for wounded, injured and sick active service military and veterans. Nixon lost a leg to an IED explosion in Iraq in March 2004.

Young Isabelle's day got better when a stranger lifted her up onto his shoulders so she could see. She didn't know who he was but everybody else did. It was none other than Prince Harry, the patron of the games and evidently its spectators as well.

As for Kanye West, he's no Prince Harry. He's not even a Mats Wermelin.

Steve Golberg

FIBA

FIBA's columnists write on a wide range of topics relating to basketball that are of interest to them. The opinions they express are their own and in no way reflect those of FIBA.

FIBA takes no responsibility and gives no guarantees, warranties or representations, implied or otherwise, for the content or accuracy of the content and opinion expressed in the above article.

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