Wilt passed away on October 12, 1999, at the age of 63. The great Boston Red Sox hitter Ted Williams used to say: When I walk down the street, I want people to point at me and say, `There goes the greatest hitter that ever lived., Wilt did not embrace the 100-point game for decades because he thought it fostered the notion that he was an individualist only interested in his own statistics. Wilt also claimed to have been able to snatch change off of the top of the backboard. I remember watching this first clip somewhere (probably the same video). 5. How tall was Wilt Chamberlain? Wilt dominated basketball in his 40's and 50's against the NBA's best in famed UCLA open runs. 2023 The Arena Media Brands, LLC and respective content providers on this website. Scoring a hundred meant infinitely more than scoring, say, 97 or 103. Sure, the big man got most of his buckets a few feet away from the basket so the shots werent exactly the most difficult, but there have been countless dominant big men since Kareem, Hakeem, Shaq and none of them even came close to this level of efficiency in a single game. FILE - Wilt Chamberlain, of the Philadelphia Warriors, holds a sign reading "100" in the dressing room in Hershey, Pa., March 2, 1962, after he scored 100 points, as the Warriors defeated the New York Knicks. Wilt went out and put on an Olympic-worthy performance. Defenders used to hang all over Wilt and nothing was called. Now they will do battle in an unexpected series. And if I am not mistaken, I believe he finished his career with a 20 point/22 rebound game or something like that. The fans are rushing the floor.. Who are the 10 best basketball players of all time? But we dont have a complete audio or video record of this incredible game. He was reed-thin [and] no match for Chamberlain. Rulemakers also banned the practice of lobbing the ball in from the baseline directly over the backboard so a player like Chamberlain couldn't catch it near the basket in position for an easy score. And I think hes right. When was . Dave DeBusschere, Terry Dischinger, Joe Strawder all tried to stop Wilt that game and it was pointless. Financially, Chamberlain probably made out like a bandit by skipping the NBA to head to Harlem. He then wrote and sold a story titled "Why I'm forgoing my senior year of basketball" to Look magazine for 10,000 dollars (most NBA players made 9,000 at the time). Shannon Sharpe compares LeBron James-Steph Curry rivalry to Sign up for our weekly newsletter. Well, its possible when you literally never leave the floor and a few of the games go into overtime. While fans and media have made light of players sitting out for load management, players and teams know the importance of rest not just to be ready for the playoffs or for the next season, but to be able to walk comfortably in retirement. Wilt signed a contract to fight Ali at the Houston Astrodome on July 26, 1971, potentially for the heavyweight title if Ali could beat champion Joe Frazier that March. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and their up and down relationship and where it went sour. It's still the signature record in basketball history. When Wilt died, two numbers became the shorthand summary of Wilts life: 20,000 and 100. As a Kansas Track and Field athlete, Wilt won the Big 8 (which is now the Big XII) championships three years running by high jumping upwards of 50 inches on the high jump. The spot in Harlem was frequented by the elite during the 60s and 70s. Wilt must have been bored during the end of basketball, because the thought crossed his mind for him to think, Man, I should play pro volleyball but it happened. A closer like at the life and play of the most dominant player in NBA history, Wilt Chamberlain.Follow us on Instagram: https://instagram.com/nonstopFollow u. Hes inducted into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame, the Volleyball hall of Fame, and the Kansas Jayhawk Hall of Fame. Its a wonderful sports moment, and theres something about radio that TV cant touch. He had a Goliath syndrome. Phillies fans traveling to Clearwater, FL for Spring Training are frustrated by the MLBs lockout and cancellation of games. But there are only a few where people actually remember the number involved. To claim your offer, go to https://fanduel.com/Boston -~-~~-~~~-~~-~- Wilt came with a body and an ego perfectly sculpted for dominating this game. Stars like Bumpy Johnson, Sammy Davis Jr., Malcom X, Frank Lucas, Nicky Barnes, Willie Mays, Sonny Liston Langston Hughes, Muhammad Ali were all known to hang around Smalls Paradise. Chamberlains single-season scoring record is so out of reach that only one player Michael Jordan in 198687 has even come within 1,000 points of it. There are a lot of greats to choose from, all of whom are Hall of Famers. Wilt used to work at a hotel as a bellhop and sometimes people would pull up with flat tires but had no jack. Goliath Facts About Wilt Chamberlain, The Big Dipper - Factinate His dominance of his sport was overwhelming. According to Don Cherry's biography Wilt: Larger than Life, legendary boxing trainer and promoter Cus D'Amato approached Chamberlain in 1965 with a lucrative offer to box heavyweight champ Muhammad Ali. Most people would just resign themselves to driving some big boxy ride with plenty of legroom in this situation. 11. Here are 10 Wilt Chamberlain records that will probably never be broken all found via StatMuse. Wilt Chamberlain had held 72 NBA records, according to NBA.com. Go behind the headlines: From the economy and healthcare to politics and the environment - and so much more - On Point talks with newsmakers and real people about the issues that matter most. I grew up watching Wilt and I went to several games at the Spectrum. Stream WHYY-FM, read the top stories from WHYY News, and listen to the latest podcast from WHYY Digital Studios anytime, anywhere. The following year the IVA All-Star game was televised only because Chamberlain played in it. In the 1980 season Cleveland offered Chamberlain a contract and at age 50 New Jersey offered him a contract, but he again declined. Both also changed the game by their very presence. A basketball game, as you know, is 48 minutes. 1 | One of the fastest men on the planet. Bill Russell may be considered the NBAs most influential player and Michael Jordan perhaps the greatest but what is undisputable: No one rewrote the record books like Wilt Chamberlain. His high jump was 6'6" when the world record was 7'1". Six-Hundred Pounds. But based on the athletes I've seen play, it's Michael Jordan. Wilt Chamberlain in 1972 with the Los Angeles Lakers. 4. The biggest misconception on Wilt is that he dominated because the game had no competition, which is just wrong and. Wilt won again. Wilt Chamberlain - Age, Bio, Personal Life, Family and Stats - CelebsAges Half-filled in the famous chocolate town of Hershey. WHYY host Avi Wolfman-Arent revisited that historic night with sportswriter Gary Pomerantz, the author of Wilt, 1962: The Night of 100 Points and the Dawn of a New Era.. The 21 assists was a Sixers single-game assist mark for many years. What Wilt did was shatter that quota the whole notion that this league would be a white mans enclave. There was a quota in the NBA that owners in the league limited the number of opportunities for Black players to just one or two per team initially, and then three [or] four. Some of the prominent members were Florence Griffith, Greg Foster, Andrew Phillips, Alice Brown and Jeanette Bolden. On a cold night in Hershey, Wilt Chamberlain did the unthinkable. Wilt kept that promise and blocked all of Magics shots. In a 76ers game against the Warriors, he didn't shoot the ball the ENTIRE game. Note, all of the below times were taken when Wilt was between the ages of 16 and 18: 10.0 100 yard (note: shorter race than the 100 meter), 20.9 220 yard (note: slightly longer than 200 meter - all race lengths below are also longer than their meter counterparts so be careful with comparisons to modern meter races). Its the statistical Everest. He stopped me dead in my tracks with his arm, hugged me and lifted me off the floor with my feet dangling. Still Auerbach was a great mentor to Chamberlain at Kutshers during the summer. Chamberlain won 25-10; Born was so dejected that he gave up a promising NBA future and became a tractor engineer ("If there were high school kids that good, I figured I wasn't going to make it to the pros"). Chamberlain loved cars, and he was known for cruising around in his Cadillac convertible or a custom-made lavender Bentley he'd imported from England. I loved the way Chamberlain took charge of the game with one giant swat of the ball or one little fade away while balancing on one leg. He arrived several hours before the game and played an arcade shooting game in the area before tip off. So Chamberlain spent the season touring the world with the likes of Medowlark Lemon and other Globetrotters Legends. Top . In its heyday in the 1950s and 60s, you could go to Kutshers resort and see Muhammad Ali training for a fight, Mickey Mantle playing golf and a teenage Wilt Chamberlain playing basketball. He has almost four times as many 50-point games as the next-closest player (Michael Jordan), more than five times as many 60-point games as the next-closest (Kobe Bryant) and more 70-point games than every other player in NBA history combined. With no sleep and a hangover, he boarded the train to Philadelphia at 8 AM. Wilt didn't sleep the night before he scored 100. Incredible how fast he got down the court, takes like 12 steps to go the full length of the court.
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