Probably known as the most dominant basketball player in history is National Basketball Association Hall of Famer Wilt “The Stilt” Chamberlain. Throughout his career, Wilt captured multiple scoring titles and scored more points in a game than anyone else in professional-level play. In addition to a game scoring record, Wilt also scored the most points in a single season. These two individual scoring records are more than enough to be inducted into the National Basketball Association Hall of Fame.
Early in Chamberlain’s high school career, he garnered much attention after scoring 90 points in a single game and then leading his Overbrook High School team to city championships in 1954 and 1955. After being named to the high school All-American team, Wilt attended the University of Kansas, where he twice earned All-American honors. He led his Kansas team to the championship game in 1957, but fell short in a loss to North Carolina in triple overtime. Chamberlain was frustrated with his varsity team and decided to turn pro, but he was ineligible until his college class graduated in 1959. Rather than wait for 1959, Wilt played a year with the Harlem Globetrotters and then began his first season in the National Basketball Association in 1960 with the Philadelphia Warriors.
Wilt Chamberlain’s first season in the NBA was very successful, averaging 37 points per game and 27 rebounds per game, which allowed him to lead the league in both categories. Achieving these stats in his rookie season earned him Rookie of the Year and Most Valuable Player honors. The team as a whole for the next few years failed to win a championship despite Wilt Chamberlain’s dominance. During the 1961-1962 season in a game against the New York Knicks, Wilt Chamberlain scored 100 points and it is the highest number scored in a game to this day. In 1963 the Warriors moved to San Francisco and a year later Wilt was traded to Philadelphia, a team now known as the 76ers. When 1967 rolled around, Wilt and the 76ers captured the NBA championship title by defeating his old team, the San Francisco Warriors, in six games. That same year, Wilt Chamberlain received his fourth and final Most Valuable Player award.
Traded to the Los Angeles Lakers the following year, Wilt was with a team full of great players and had high hopes of capturing an NBA championship there. However, it wasn’t until 1972 that the Lakers won the championship, but when it happened, Wilt was named Finals MVP. The next season would be the last Chamberlains in the NBA at the age of 37. Wilt still managed to lead the league in rebounding as a senior and also set a record for field goal percentage, shooting 72.7%.
Wilt Chamberlain accomplished many feats that very few players in NBA history have. Some may argue that there simply weren’t any men big enough at the time to compete with Wilt and that if he had played the players of today, it would be a different story. On the other hand, many more sports writers would agree that he would still dominate today’s game, but not by as much. Sadly, Wilt Norman Chamberlain passed away on October 12, 1999 at the hands of a heart attack in Los Angeles, California at his home.
