My ROI Is So Compelling That No One Is Listening Anymore

Because Facts Alone Don’t Create Conviction—Emotion Does

“Show me a guy who’s afraid to look bad, and I’ll show you a guy you can beat every time.” - Lou Brock

The single most dominant performance in the history of professional basketball took place on March 2nd, 1962 in Hershey, Pennsylvania. That evening, as four thousand fans looked on, Wilt Chamberlain scored 100 points in one game. It had never been done before and probably never will be done again.

Chamberlain played for the Philadelphia Warriors. In the 1961-62 NBA season, he averaged more than 50 points per game - a record that will never be broken. He was a player ahead of his time, an unstoppable 7'1," 275-pound big man built like an oak tree who moved with the grace of an Olympic track star. Wilt Chamberlain was, both literally and figuratively, a larger-than-life character.

On the night he scored 100 points, Chamberlain shot 36 of 63 from the field, pulled down 25 rebounds, and most incredibly, made 28 of his 32 free throws.

This last stat is surprising because when Chamberlain entered the NBA, he was only making 40% of his foul shots—terrible by any standard. For comparison, Shaquille O'Neal, universally considered one of the worst free-throw shooters of the modern era, shot 52.7%.

But in his record-breaking 1961-62 season, he finally had enough. Chamberlain changed the way he shot free throws, shooting underhand. Instead of releasing the ball up by his forehead, he held it between his knees and flicked it toward the basket. Suddenly, he became an average free-throw shooter, hitting over 60% of his foul shots. On the historic night in Hershey, Pennsylvania, he was a great free-throw shooter, shooting 87%. But then something happened; he stopped. He went back to releasing the ball from his forehead and returned to being a terrible free-throw shooter.

Chamberlain would later comment on shooting underhand, saying, “I felt silly, like a sissy.”

He continued, “I know I was wrong. I know some of the best foul shooters in history shot that way. Even now, the best one in the NBA, Rick Barry, shoots underhand. I just couldn’t do it.”

In business and life, we like to think that the best ideas win the day because they are empirically superior.

Particularly in agriculture, there’s a common assumption that decisions are made logically. We like to believe that customers, when presented with the right data, will choose the best option. This is the rational view of human behavior—what behavioral economist Richard Thaler calls a “Spock-like” mentality, where people are seen as purely logical beings who weigh facts and make the best choice. But Wilt Chamberlain’s story shows us something different.