Don't Mess With Wilt
Wilt Chamberlain had a monster of an NBA career.
In his fourteen professional seasons, he shattered the record books in scoring and rebounding, and even one season (as a 7’ 1” center) lead the league in assists. So prodigious were Chamberlain’s feats that Bill Russell, his great on-court rival, was moved to say, " [Wilt] . . .set the standards so high, his point totals are so enormous, that they've lost their impact."
So what was Wilt’s greatest game of all time?
Most people would readily say that Chamberlain’s 100-point assault on the New York Knickerbockers during a cold 1962 March night in Hershey, Pennsylvania, was his best ever. In this contest, Wilt not only cemented the NBA single game all-time scoring record, but he also set the NBA single-game record of most free throws made (28 out of 32).
Others might point to the 11/24/60 game when Wilt ferociously yanked down 55 rebounds (31 in the first half) against Bill Russell and the Boston Celtics.
Your typical basketball know-it-all could even argue that Wilt’s perfect field goal night (18 for 18, another NBA record) against the Baltimore Bullets in 1967 is his #1.
But for my money, I’ll take Game 5 of the 1972 NBA Finals. Wilt had 24 points and 29 rebounds in 47 minutes of play while holding his man Jerry Lucas, a future NBA Top-50 player, to 14 points and 9 rebounds. With the win, the Lakers crushed the Knicks 4-1 and celebrated their first NBA championship in Los Angeles.
This is Wilt’s best game--the event that most fully speaks not only to his soaring athleticism, but his great heart.
I’ll tell you why at the end.
The reason I’m writing about Wilt today is because of Charlie Rosen’s recent “best lists” of all time NBA players (ranked according to position or role). Rosen, who writes for Fox Sports and has helped Phil Jackson pen many of the latter's books, is a true aficionado of the game. Typically, his meticulous assessments of NBA players and coaches are dead-on, though his curmudgeon schtick lards his prose, at times. He’s the type of journalist who inspires the love and hatred of many, and this suits him fine, I’m sure.
Well Charlie dashed off his best list of NBA centers, and guess where he ranked the one Wilton Norman Chamberlain? Um…#4.
No need to scurry over to the optometrist, your glasses are fine. That’s right: #4.
Rosen ranked Bill Russell, Kareem Abdul Jabbar, and Shaquille O’Neal ahead of Wilt.
Yes, that Shaquille O’Neal.
(No doubt Pat Riley’s been ducking Shaq all week, knowing that O’Neal will want to brag Rosen’s list, and Riles, who played with Wilt, will have to bite his tongue something fierce when he does.)
Ranking Shaq as #3, Rosen writes, “…although Shaq has spent many seasons out of shape, struggling with injuries, and/or giving in to his own ennui, he's still more consistently competitive than was Chamberlain.”
Interesting. Call me nuts, but, to me, a professional athlete who is usually out of shape, often injured as a result, and bored despite being paid over a hundred million bucks to play basketball is not my standard image of a competitive person. And until Shaq, the self-titled “Most Dominant Ever” can manage to finish a regular season as the leading rebounder or a first team member of the NBA all defense squad, he has no business being referred to as a better center than Wilt Chamberlain.
So Rosen’s position is absurd. As Oscar Robertson, the great point guard, once said, “the book don’t lie” about Wilt being the best ever.
According to NBA records, Wilt Chamberlain’s career average was 30.1 points and 22.9 rebounds a game. One season, after his coach Frank McGuire, urged him to “try to go for 50 a night,” he, indeed, averaged 50 points and 25 rebounds for the year. Wilt scored 50-plus points 118 times and lead the league in rebounding 11/14 seasons. (Wilt’s worst rebounding year was an average of 18 boards/game.)
In addition to these individual accomplishments, Wilt won two championships with the Philadelphia 76ers in 1967 and the LA Lakers in 1972.
Oh, and he played a whole year with the Harlem Globetrotters right out of college. You gotta love that.
On the subject of championships, however, Wilt takes endless pot shots from the Charlie Rosens of the sporting world. Essentially, two rings were never deemed enough by the critics. “Why, Russell had 11!” they intone. Ergot, since Russell had so many, and Wilt had so few, comparatively, that Wilt is a “loser.” (Charlie Rosen has actually explicitly referred to Wilt as "a loser" in previous articles.)
News flash to Charlie: Wilt almost never had the coaches or the teammates that Bill Russell enjoyed. Russell played his entire career for one coach: the legendary Red Auerbach (except for Russell’s last season where Bill coached himself). Chamberlain played for 8 different coaches, including second-tier folks like Bob Feerick, Dolph Schayes, Butch Van Breda Kolff and Neil Johnston.
Russell’s teammates included Bob Cousy (one of the best ball handlers of all time), K.C. Jones (one of the best defensive guards of all time), Bill Sharman (one of the best shooters of all time), Sam Jones (an NBA Top 50 player), Tom Heinsohn (an All-Star), Frank Ramsey (an all-time great “6-Man”), John Havlicek (NBA Top 50 player), and Tim Loscutoff (as Wilt wrote, “the best hatchet man of all time”). At one point the Boston Celtic starting lineup included 4 NBA Top 50 players: Russell, Cousy, Jones and Sharman.
For a decade, nobody beat these Celtics. Only Wilt and his 1966-67 76er teammates did (once).
When Wilt had the benefit of a great coach and teammates, he won it all. In the 1966-67 season, the celebrated Alex Hannum manned the ship and teammates included Hal Greer (NBA Top 50 player), Chet Walker, and Billy Cunningham (NBA Top 50 player). With the 1971-72 Lakers, coaching Hall of Famer Bill Sharman ran the show, and teammates included Jerry West (NBA Top 50 player) and Gail Goodrich (#25 jersey retired by Lakers).
Wilt is not only the best center to play the game; he is the best player to play the game. There is no body of evidence to prove otherwise. Not only that, Wilt might very well be the most gifted athlete to ever grace the sport. When Chamberlain was invited to attend the University of Kansas, he received a dual scholarship for basketball and track. In his collegiate career, Wilt set state records for the high jump that remained unbroken for decades and he ran the 100 yard dash in 10.9 seconds.
So why do writers such as Charlie Rosen, who wrote 206 words about Chamberlain in his “Best Centers” piece without saying anything positive, disrespect Wilt? Perhaps Chamberlain’s bragging, outspoken nature rubbed people the wrong way. “I’m a loud extrovert,” Wilt wrote,” [I’m] not afraid to say something good about myself, or something bad about someone else—when the occasion warrants it.” Conceivably, to Wilt's detractors the insufferable problem with Wilt’s braggadocio was that he was rarely wrong about his limitations. Arguably, the world prefers more modest types like Linus, from the Peanuts comic strip, who quietly builds sandcastles to rival the Taj Mahal and pitches no-hitters when Charlie Brown is injured.
But facts are facts, and Wilt was the best ever. And that's all I have to say about that.
Oh…and to get back to why game 5 of the 1972 NBA Finals was Wilt’s best game—you know the one where he scored 24 points and grabbed 29 rebounds in 47 minutes of play? Well, Wilt did that with a broken right hand (badly injured in game 4).
Actually, his left hand was fractured too…
(The photo of Wilt at the top of this article is him a day after game five, proudly showing off the new car presented to him for being named Most Valuable Player of the 1972 NBA Finals).
Photo courtesy of Wilt: Just like any other 7-foot black millionaire who lives next door by Wilt Chamberlain and David Shaw. (Published 1973, Macmillan).
cheers,
©2005 zombieH
posted by zombieH @ 7:14 PM
0 comments
