"My sergeant [vertical leap] was higher than Michael . In the Eastern Division Semifinals, they were pitted against the New York Knicks. (Wilt the Stilt, The Big Dipper, Dippy, Dip, The Load, Big Musty, The Record Book, Hook and Ladder, Wiltie, Whip, Whipper), Position: [111] Cherry comments that some journalists reported how Game 7 destroyed two careers: "Wilt's because he wouldn't take over and Van Breda Kolff because he wouldn't give in. During his first championship season, his assists also increased, recording two back-to-back seasons with eight assists per game, and winning one assist title. The two were fierce competitors on the court, but they developed a friendship away from the game. So Katz crafted the lofty proposal of luring 45-year-old Wilt Chamberlain out of retirement after being out of the league for nine seasons. He was basketball's first player to earn at least $100,000 a year and earned an unprecedented $1.5 million during his Lakers years. Wilt Chamberlain averaged 30.1 points, 22.9 rebounds, and 4.4 assists per game. Thursday, December 30. Chamberlain holds 72 NBA records, so many that it led former teammate Billy Cunningham to remark The NBA Guide reads like Wilt's personal diary." At the time of his retirement, Rick Barry held a godlike 90 percent free throw record . He was 50 years old at the time, and the New Jersey Nets were actually going to offer him a contract for the last few games of their season and postseason. [189], Although Chamberlain racked up some of the most impressive statistics in the history of Northern American professional sports, Chamberlain was often called selfish and a loser because he won only two NBA championships and lost seven out of eight playoff series against the Celtics teams of his rival Bill Russell. Chamberlain allegedly forced her to perform oral sex after offering to show her a closet containing his NBA jerseys. Wilt Chamberlain, the 7-foot-1-inch star of the . He wished people would understand that their roles were different. He hated being called "Wilt the Stilt," or "the Stilt," which came from a local reporter covering high school athletics. He was named one of the top all-time 50 NBA players in 1996. August 21, More than 7 feet (2.1 metres) tall, Chamberlain was an outstanding centre . [86], In the playoffs, the Sixers again met the Boston Celtics and had home-court advantage for the first time. Chamberlain played in college for the Kansas Jayhawks, and led Kansas to the national championship game, but lost to the North Carolina Tar Heels in triple overtime. [62] He later acknowledged that he was a "psycho case" in this matter. [62] Because Chamberlain played in overtime games, he averaged more minutes per game than the regulation 48 and would have reached the 3,890-minute mark if he had not been ejected in one game after picking up a second technical foul with eight minutes left to play.[66]. The man was 6-foot-8 and weighed 220 pounds. Van Breda Kolff benched him several times, which never happened in his career before; in mid-season, Chamberlain, a perennial scoring champion, had two games in which he scored only six and then only two points. Do you have a sports website? He happened to make a living playing basketball, but he was more than that. Chamberlain stayed with the Warriors as they moved out to San Francisco in 1962. [137] In his single season as a coach, the Conquistadors went a mediocre 3747 in the regular season and lost against the Utah Stars in the Division Semifinals. In the semi-finals, Chamberlain's Jayhawks handily defeated the two-time defending national champions San Francisco Dons 8056, with Chamberlain scoring 32 points, grabbing 11 rebounds, and having at least seven blocked shots, as the game film is unclear whether an 8th block occurred, or the ball just fell short due to Chamberlain's intimidation. Just Wilt Chamberlain and Pete Maravich share the honor to have their jersey retired by three different teams. Wilt Chamberlain " To Bill, every game-every championship game-was a challenge, a test to his manhood. Standing at 7 ft 1 in (2.16 m) tall, he played in the National Basketball Association (NBA) for 14 years and is widely regarded as one of the greatest . He ran the 100-yard dash in 10.9 seconds, shot-putted 56 feet, triple jumped more than 50 feet, and won the high jump in the Big Eight Conference track and field championships three straight years. [58] Chamberlain failed to convert his play into team success, this time bowing out against the Nationals in a three-game sweep. [45], On October 24, 1959, Chamberlain made his NBA debut, starting for the Philadelphia Warriors. In his last season, the Lakers lost substance, as Happy Hairston was injured, Robinson and LeRoy Ellis had left, and the veteran West struggled with injury. [199], Following his death in 1999, Chamberlain's estate was valued at $25 million. It was a small consolation that he was again named an All-American, along with future NBA Hall-of-Famers Elgin Baylor of Seattle University and Oscar Robertson of Cincinnati, plus Chamberlain's old rival Guy Rodgers, now playing for Temple University. John Wayne Bobbitt and Lorena Bobbitt made Mr. Bobbit's male member the most famous one on the planet in 1993 during an incident in which Lorena severed John's member with a kitchen knife. Who is better Kobe or Wilt Chamberlain? [3] However, according to Chamberlain, "basketball was king in Philadelphia", so he eventually turned to the sport in 7th grade. [90][91] For these feats, Chamberlain earned his third MVP award. Pejoratively calling the new recruit "The Load", he later complained that Chamberlain was egotistical, never respected him, too often slacked off in practice, and focused too much on his own statistics. At the top of his game, Chamberlain was selected for the All-NBA first team for three consecutive years: 1960, 1961 and 1962. On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. Stats: 50.4 PPG, 25.7 RPG, 2.4 APG. [8] According to ESPN journalist Hal Bock, Chamberlain was "scary, flat-out frightening before he came along, very few players at the center position possessed his level of athleticism, stature, and stamina. Go back in time and learn about Wilt Chamberlain's early years growing up, and early years in the NBA. Along the way to the championship, he also assisted the Sixers in defeating the Boston Celtics in the Eastern Division Finals. After the Knicks finished off the game with a late flourish led by Phil Jackson and Earl Monroe, Chamberlain made a dunk with one second left, which turned out to be the last play of his NBA career. [109] Lakers owner Jack Kent Cooke gave Chamberlain an unprecedented contract, paying him $250,000 after taxes, or about $1.9 million in real value; in comparison, previous Lakers top earner Jerry West was paid $100,000 before taxes (about $780,000 in real value). [38], Twenty-three teams were selected to play in the 1957 NCAA basketball tournament. This caused sports journalist Joe McGinnis to comment: "The Celtics played like champions and the Sixers just played. . The ultimate legendary story that really stood out in Wilt's post-career was in 1986. For good reason. He is the only player to score 100 points in a single NBA game as well. '"[42] Quoting coach Alex Hannum's explanation of his situation, Chamberlain often said: "Nobody roots for Goliath. In Game 2, Chamberlain scored 19 points, grabbed 24 rebounds, and blocked Reed's shot in the final seconds, leading the Lakers to a 105103 win. . Would you believe Wilt Chamberlain, 53 at the time? For Abdul-Jabbar, 75, the hubbub over his pursuit of Wilt Chamberlain's scoring record nearly 39 years ago was little more than a distraction in the final weeks of the 1983-84 regular season . [106] On April 4, national tragedy struck with the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. With eight of the ten starting players on the Sixers and Celtics being African-American, both teams were in deep shock, and there were calls to cancel the series. He tried coaching for a time, and was a popular pitchman for commercials. Wilt Chamberlain's Life After Retirement. He spent his last year in basketball in a coaching position, due to a contractual issue. [69] Each team won their home games, so the series was split at three after six games. Cherry says that Reed, a prolific mid-range shooter, was a bad matchup for Chamberlain. He also was one of the most versatile big men ever, leading the league in . He eventually reached his full height of a staggering 7'1" tall. Wilt was such a basketball force that many believed that he could play at the highest level, even years after his retirement. [23], At the ages of 16 and 17, Chamberlain played several games for the semi-professional Quakertown Fays under the pseudonym George Marcus. Crowds gathered to watch the latest match between two top center players: Chamberlain and Bill Russell. Center There's a reason why one of Wilt Chamberlain's many nicknames was "The Record Book". [130] West called it "the greatest ball-busting performance I have ever seen". In my onion, Wilt was robbed of MVP when he averaged an NBA . Levi may be living proof", "Elvira's Cassandra Peterson Accuses NBA Pro Wilt Chamberlain of Sexual Assault: 'I Kept That a Secret', "Elvira accuses basketball legend Wilt Chamberlain of sexual abuse", 4th-quarter radio broadcast of Chamberlain's 100-point game, How Chamberlain's 100-point game almost went unrecorded, Image of Chamberlain making a dunk during a Los Angeles Lakers vs. Milwaukee Bucks game in 1971, 1957 NCAA Men's Basketball Consensus All-Americans, 1958 NCAA Men's Basketball Consensus All-Americans, NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament Most Outstanding Player, NBA All-Star Game Kobe Bryant Most Valuable Player Award, Lakers versus Celtics and the NBA Playoffs, The Last Season: A Team in Search of Its Soul, Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty, Wayland Baptist Women's Teams (19481982), https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wilt_Chamberlain&oldid=1142545797, All-American college men's basketball players, American Basketball Association announcers, Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame inductees, National Basketball Association All-Stars, National Basketball Association broadcasters, National Basketball Association players with retired numbers, Track and field athletes from Pennsylvania, Wikipedia pages semi-protected against vandalism, All Wikipedia articles written in American English, Pages using Sister project links with hidden wikidata, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, Career statistics and player information from, Career statistics and coach information from, This page was last edited on 3 March 2023, at 01:04. The Sixers would post a 5525 regular-season record, as Chamberlain won his second MVP award. [114], In Game 6, Chamberlain scored 45 points, grabbed 27 rebounds, and almost single-handedly equalized the series in a 135113 Lakers win, and with Reed out, the Knicks seemed doomed prior to Game 7 in New York City;[114] however, the hero of that Game 7 was Reed, who famously hobbled up court, scored the first four points, and inspired his team to one of the most famous playoff upsets of all time. [27] As he did at Overbrook, Chamberlain again showcased his diverse athletic talent at KU. Neville Chamberlain was a signatory of the Munich Agreement. . In what Cherry calls a tumultuous locker room meeting, Hannum addressed several key issues he observed during the last season, several of them putting Chamberlain in an unfavorable light. The Lakers won 60 games in the regular season and reached the NBA Finals against the New York Knicks, a franchise that featured a healthy team with a rejuvenated Reed, while the Lakers were now handicapped by several injuries. [14], During summer vacations, Chamberlain worked as a bellhop at Kutsher's Hotel. As a result of his style of play change, Chamberlain averaged a career-low 24.1 points and took only 14% of the team's shots,[r] but was extremely efficient with a record-breaking .683 field goal accuracy. Julius Erving had his no. Heat 111-107 Hornets Heat tied Bulls atop East at All-Star break with 2 OT win over . [192] Chamberlain even once stated that he intentionally missed free throws so a teammate could get the rebound and score two points instead of one. The 1961-62 season is the greatest single season that didn't result in an NBA championship ever. [71] Much like later center Shaquille O'Neal, Chamberlain would be fouled intentionally, and was a target of criticism because of it. [106] In the second half of Game 7, Chamberlain did not attempt a single shot from the field. While blocked shots were not an official NBA statistic at that time and would not be officially counted until the season after Chamblerlain's retirement in 1973, reported data for blocked shots in 112 games played by Chamberlain in the 1970s shows he averaged 8.8 blocks per game. [197] Chamberlain lived alone,[198] relying on a great deal of automated gadgets, with two cats named Zip and Zap and several Great Dane dogs as company. A feat matched only by fellow Hall-of-Famer. Our reasoning for presenting offensive logos. [103], For these feats, Chamberlain won his fourth and final MVP title. [20], In 1953, while still a sophomore in high school, Chamberlain won his first championship. [c] Red Auerbach, the coach of the Boston Celtics, was also athletic director of the summer basketball league at Kutscher's. Chamberlain averaged 30.1 points a game in his career, including a record 50.4 in the 1961-62 season with Philadelphia. [n] In the playoffs, the Warriors again met the Boston Celtics in the Eastern Division Finals, and this season was called by both Cousy and Russell the greatest Celtics team of all time. He once skipped a game to sign autographs for the book. [48][h] Chamberlain became the NBA's highest paid player when he signed for $30,000, in his rookie contract. [10][m] Chamberlain once again broke the 2,000-rebound barrier with 2,052. Bill Russell, byname of William Felton Russell, (born February 12, 1934, Monroe, Louisiana, U.S.died July 31, 2022), American basketball player who was the first outstanding defensive centre in the history of the National Basketball Association (NBA) and one of the sport's greatest icons. Wilt did engage in non-sports activities after retiring, like filming the movie Conan the Destroyer with . He was also one of the first players to make prominent use of shots like the fade away jump shot and the finger roll. Chamberlain entered the league in 1959 at the age of 21 years old. He played on the school's varsity team for three years, scoring more than 2,200 points in total. "[173], For his feats, Chamberlain was enshrined in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 1978, named part of the NBA 35th Anniversary Team in 1980, one of the 50 Greatest Players in NBA History in 1996, and was ranked No.