Was there simply any doubt about the top pick in this series? Of course not. Wilt Chamberlain was not only the top former Jayhawk to have the best NBA career, he’s possibly the No. 1 player of all time. He was a larger than life figure who had a legendary impact on the game, even if he felt he never got the true respect he deserved.
“No one cheers for Goliath,” Chamberlain once said.
No. 1 WILT CHAMBERLAIN
The “Big Dipper” was a truly dominant player that basketball had never seen before or since. He holds an astonishing 72 NBA records, including 68 alone, while claiming four of the top five total points seasons in history.
He wasted no time making an impact once he entered the NBA in 1959-60, becoming the first player to win the Rookie of the Year and Most Valuable Player Awards in the same season. In his pro debut during his Philadelphia Warriors’ 118-109 victory over the New York Knicks in Madison Square Garden, Chamberlain exploded for 43 points and 28 rebounds.
After playing Boston and Bill Russell for the first time that season, the Celtics star center gushed over Chamberlain’s play.
“I’ve played against men as big, but never against anyone that good and big,” Ken Rappoport reported Russell saying in The Associated Press 1972 book, “The Sports Immortals.”
“You can’t relax for a second against him. He’s the best rookie I’ve ever seen. I wish I had been that good when I started.”
The 7-1 Chamberlain, who remarkably never fouled out of a game, was just getting started during his magical 14-year pro career. On March 2, 1962, Chamberlain set a record which will likely never be broken when he scored 100 points against the Knicks. He was a four-time MVP and 10-time All-NBA performer, won two NBA championships in 1967 with Philadelphia and 1972 with the Los Angeles Lakers (Finals MVP), seven scoring, nine field goal percentage and 11 rebounding titles.
Chamberlain, who was named to the All-Defensive First Team in 1972 and ‘73, was selected to 13 All-Star games (MVP in 1960) and enshrined in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 1979.
Incredibly, he scored 50 or more points 118 times and 60 or more points 32 times. Chamberlain, who averaged a whopping 50.4 points and had seven-consecutive 50-point games during the 1961-62 season while once grabbing 55 rebounds in a contest, showed his versatility by leading the league in total assists in 1967-68 with 702 dimes. He also posted 22 points, 25 rebounds and 21 assists in a game in 1968. Moreover, Chamberlain is the only player to average at least 30 points and 20 rebounds per game in a season, which he accomplished nine times. Chamberlain is also the only player to average at least 30 points and 20 rebounds per game for his career.
An extremely conditioned and durable player, Chamberlain played every game in nine seasons and led the NBA in minutes per game nine times, while averaging at least 44.5 minutes per contest in each of his first 12 seasons. He’s the lone player to play more than 3,700 minutes in a season, which he did five times with his most PT coming in the 1961-62 season with 3,882 minutes (48.5 minutes per game). Remarkably, he played all but two minutes that season with seven games going into overtime, including one triple OT contest.
Overall, Chamberlain played in 1,045 games while posting the fifth-most points in history with 31,419 (30.1 ppg) and boasting the all-time mark in rebounds with 23,924 (21.9 rpg) and minutes per game (45.8). He also dished out 4,643 assists (4.4 apg) and shot 54.0 percent from the field and 51.1 percent at the free throw line.
Amazing numbers from a legendary force.
Rappoport wrote of Chamberlain: “At 7 feet 1 inch, Wilt Chamberlain did not tower over all his contemporaries in the National Basketball Association. With his mountainous height, however, he blended an almost supernatural strength. He was, in fact, a monster of a man who handled opponents on the basketball court as if they were pawns on a chessboard.”
Hall of Famer Dolph Schayes, one of the top 50 pro basketball players of all time who died Dec. 10, 2015, spoke to me in November 2007 about his memories of coaching Chamberlain in Philadelphia. Schayes coached him part of the 1964-65 season and the entire 1965-66 campaign. Alex Hannum replaced Schayes the following season, when Philadelphia went 68-13 and won the NBA title.
“He was a great player, a superstar,” Schayes said. “We’re talking about one of the top five (players) in the world. When he came to Philadelphia, he felt I could help him a lot with his free throws. He was a very poor free-throw shooter. As it turned out, we practiced a great deal and he did well in the practices. He’d shoot over 80 percent. When it came to the games, being out there with everybody looking, he kind of tightened up. I think one of his great problems is he didn’t have a touch, he wasn’t a fingertip shooter.”
Schayes said Chamberlain became a more versatile player when Philly won the championship in 1967.
“Later in his career, rather than becoming a scorer, he became a passer and a rebounder,” Schayes said. “Of course, he was always a great rebounder. When they won the championship in Philadelphia, he (was third in the league) in assists (7.8 apg). He was a wonderful passer for the team. Alex Hannum called him and said the 76ers didn’t need his scoring because they had Hal Greer, Billy Cunningham and Chet Walker. (Hannum said), ‘For us to win the championship, you have to (concentrate less on scoring and more on) passing. ...They’re considered probably one of the top five teams (of all time) in the NBA.”
Chamberlain’s scoring dipped from 33.5 points per game in 1965-66 to 24.1 ppg during Philly’s championship season. And the next year in 1967-68, Chamberlain averaged 8.6 assists per game (No. 1 in total assists) as the 76ers lost to Boston in the Eastern Conference finals.
Schayes stated that although “everybody recognized him as a fantastic player, I think he always wanted to be more of an all-round (player).”
“When he left Kansas, he played with the Harlem Globetrotter one season,” Schayes said. “He didn’t play around the basket. He played outside and worked on that part of his game. What idiot coach would say, ‘Wilt, play guard.’ You stay around the basket. People would say all he could do is dunk. He (also) had a hook shot, a jump shot.
“Wilt wanted to be the best at everything,” Schayes added. “If you talked bowling with Wilt, he’d say, ‘I’m the best bowler you’ve ever seen. If I was to box (Muhammad) Ali, I’d beat the hell out of him. If I was in track, I’d be the fastest guy.’ He was a wonderful human being. It was a shame that he died."
Chamberlain passed on Oct. 12, 1999 at age 63.
At KU, Chamberlain was a two-time consensus first-team All-American and All-Big Seven member. He won the NCAA tournament’s Most Outstanding Player Award in 1957 as KU marched to the national final before losing to North Carolina in triple overtime. Chamberlain’s career averages of 29.9 points and 18.9 rebounds per game are easily tops in KU history, while his career-high 52 points in his varsity debut is also a school single-game record.
Chamberlain was back in the Phog on Jan. 17, 1998 when his No. 13 jersey was retired at halftime of the KU-K-State game. He gave a speech that afternoon that everyone in the fieldhouse will always remember while proudly wearing his Jayhawk lettermen’s jacket.
“A little over 40 years ago, I lost the toughest battle in sports in losing to the North Carolina Tar Heels by one point in triple overtime,” Chamberlain said. “It was a devastating thing to me because I let the University of Kansas down and my teammates down. But when I come back here today and realize not a simple loss of a game, but how many people have shown such appreciation and warmth, I’m humbled and deeply honored.
“I’ve learned in life that you have to take the bitter with the sweet and how sweet this is, right here. I’m a Jayhawk and I know now why there is so much tradition here and why so many wonderful things have come from here, and I am now very much a part of it by being there (with his jersey in the rafters) and very proud of it.
“Rock Chalk, Jayhawk.”
The crowd roared as loud as the Phog may have ever gotten. Chamberlain was extremely humbled by the ovation and said that was the greatest moment of his life. He spent the next few hours in Allen Fieldhouse signing autographs for a drove of fans, who showered their love for the “Big Dipper.”
Fellow Philadelphia native, longtime friend, and the late former KU player Al Correll told Robert Cherry in his 2004 book, “Wilt: Larger than Life,” how much Chamberlain felt about Kansas.
“He loved Kansas University,” Correll said. “The man kept his KU letter jacket in perfect condition for 40 years. That should tell you something right there.”
The late and former KU teammate Al Donaghue talked to me once during a Where are they Now? interview about the great respect he had for Chamberlain.
“He was a unique player, and probably the greatest basketball player in college that ever lived,” Donaghue said. “The rules of the game were changed to accommodate him, the dunking rules, things like that. He was an awesome athlete, the strongest man I ever met. He could do so much on the athletic field. Not only was he tremendously talented on the basketball court, he ran track at KU, he threw the shot, he high jumped. He was a very good athlete, a very strong man. (I) maintained a good friendship with him over the years. It was nice to see him come back finally several years ago just before he passed away. He made a nice statement toward KU.”
He truly left a legacy that will never be forgotten. His combination of size, speed, strength and agility was simply remarkable.
“Wilt is the most dominant force this game has ever known. I'm convinced that Wilt Chamberlain is one of the greatest all-around athletes the world has ever seen,” Hannum told Terry Pluto in his 1992 book, “Tall Tales.”
"I don't think it's fair to compare players in different eras, but he was about as dominant as any one player could be in any sport. I looked at him like he was invincible,” Hall of Fame coach Larry Brown once said.
“We will never see another one like him,” Hall of Famer Kareem Abdul-Jabbar added.
When asked if Chamberlain was the best ever, Oscar Robertson simply told the Philadelphia Daily News:
“The books don’t lie.”
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