Athletes - Wilt Chamberlain

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	Athletes - Wilt Chamberlain

Wilton Norman Chamberlain, commonly known as Wilt Chamberlain (August 21, 1936 – October 12, 1999) was a National Basketball Association basketball player. Known as Wilt the Stilt (a nickname he hated) or The Big Dipper, he is regarded as one of the greatest and most dominant basketball players of all time for the incredible statistical achievements he attained throughout his playing career.

Early life

Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Chamberlain drew national attention playing at Overbrook High School in West Philadelphia. He played two years for the University of Kansas (freshmen were then ineligible to play NCAA varsity basketball), where he earned All-American honors twice and led the Jayhawks to the 1957 championship game (which they lost to North Carolina 54-53 in three overtimes).

After a frustrating junior year in which Kansas did not even reach the NCAA Tournament (at the time, teams that had lost their league championship were not invited), he decided to turn pro, citing that he wanted to be paid for being double and triple teamed every night. Chamberlain was contracted to the Philadelphia Warriors, who had picked him in 1955 as a territorial pick. However, he was ineligible to play in the NBA until his college class graduated in 1959. He played a season with the Harlem Globetrotters until finally becoming eligible to join the Warriors. He was listed as the third pick in the NBA Draft but was actually a territorial pick.

NBA career

Philadelphia Warriors / San Francisco Warriors

In his first year with the Warriors (1960), Chamberlain led the league in scoring, averaging 37.6 points per game, and rebounding, with 27 per game. He became the first of two players (with Wes Unseld, 1969) to be named MVP and Rookie of the Year in the same season. The Warriors lost to the Boston Celtics in the Conference Finals that year, which would be a repeated occurrence in Chamberlain's career.

Since the Celtics were in the same Eastern Division as the Warriors, Chamberlain and Co. could not even reach the NBA Finals without finding a way to beat them. The Boston Celtics were at the beginning of their legendary run of winning 11 NBA championships in 13 seasons.

In 1963 the Warriors relocated to San Francisco, and in 1964 Chamberlain and the San Francisco Warriors lost to the Celtics in the NBA Finals. After that season, Chamberlain was traded back to Philadelphia, whither the Syracuse Nationals had recently moved to become the 76ers.

Philadelphia 76ers

Back in the Eastern Division, Wilt's appearance in the finals was thwarted by the Celtics' on-going dynasty. The Eastern Conference Finals that year came down to the final seconds of Game 7, when the Celtics won by one point with a legendary play: when the 76ers' Hal Greer attempted to get the ball inbounds, John Havlicek stole it to preserve the Celtic lead.

Chamberlain was the centerpiece of the formidable 1967 Sixers team that set a then-record of 68 regular-season wins and went on to finally knock off the Celtics for the NBA title.

Los Angeles Lakers

Two years later, Chamberlain was traded to the Los Angeles Lakers, where was teamed with future Hall-of-Famers Elgin Baylor and Jerry West, creating one of the most prolific basketball scoring machines of all time.

However, Baylor and Chamberlain only played a handfull of games together as teammates due to career-ending and/or season-ending knee injuries. In Wilt's case, the surgeon needed to drill a hole through his kneecap and pass a tendon through it. The recovery from such extensive surgery was long and ardrorous, and the effects slowed Wilt down for the rest of his career, converting him from an offensive machine into a rebounding and defensive specialist. The knee injury also severely limited the number of games that Wilt played against young Milwaukee Bucks center Lew Alcindor. Wilt was the only basketball player to ever block one of Alcindor's "sky-hook" shots.

The Lakers were heavily favored to win the 1969 NBA Finals against the old, battered Celtics, but then Chamberlain became the victim of one of the most controversial coaching decisions in NBA history. In Game 7, Wilt hurt his leg with six minutes left to play, with the Lakers trailing by nine points. Lakers' coach Bill van Breda Kolff took him out, and when Chamberlain wanted to return with three minutes left, Van Breda Kolff decided to bench him until the end. The Celtics won 108-106.

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