Note: Oct. 12, 2024 marked 25 years since Wilt Chamberlain passed away at age 63. In homage to Wilt, the following is a portion of a larger tribute piece put together so far over seven months in his memory where friends, opponents, teammates, and media members share their memories. Thank you to those so far that have generously lent their time over the past seven months to discuss Wilt. This is part of an ongoing project.
Wilt Chamberlain in 1968. Photo credit: The Desert Sun, p.13.
Written by Jake Carapella (Spring-Fall, 2024)
The Media
Jack McCallum (Sports Illustrated, Author of Golden Days)
“Speak. You might get lucky.”
Those were the few words that McCallum, working on a piece in the 1980s titled The Death of the Traditional Center, heard on Chamberlain’s voicemail when he dialed The Dipper’s number.
McCallum's message was never returned from Chamberlain. Too busy, perhaps.
As an adolescent, McCallum, who began at Sports Illustrated in 1981 and was awarded the Naismith Hall of Fame’s Curt Gowdy Award for print media in 2005, tagged alongside his father to Philadelphia Convention Hall to watch Chamberlain. The venue housed the Warriors until 1962 and the 76ers from 1963-1967.
“Wilt existed in this sort of subset of one,” offers McCallum in 2024. “His stats were just so almost mythical that people couldn’t even deal with it.” He uses Chamberlain’s ‘61-‘62 season as a reference.
“I mean, who’s going to come into the league and average 50 points a game for a season?,” he rhetorically states. “There was not even a threat that anybody was going to do that. It was never a threat that Jordan was going to do it. It was never a threat that Kobe was going to do it.”
McCallum has authored titles like Dream Team, Seven Seconds or Less, and Unfinished Business (the latter about the 1990-1991 Celtics). His 2024 latest - The Real Hoosiers: Crispus Attucks High School, Oscar Robertson, and the Hidden History of Hoops - is a detailed look at the back-to-back state championship-winning rosters led by a young Robertson.
Before his biographer days and while at SI, McCallum was seated in a fancy Los Angeles restaurant when an unmistakable figure walked in.
It was Chamberlain, who was picking up takeout. The retired superstar was sporting a t-shirt, sweatpants, and was bare-footed. The gazes from restaurant patrons were another display of Chamberlain’s everlasting fame.
“Well after his career was over,” continues McCallum. “The whole restaurant just stopped and watched Wilt take his takeout, and there was just silence in the restaurant. “(He) still had that kind of effect on people.”
Beyond stopping stunned onlookers between bites, a separator of Wilt from other famous athletes, McCallum says, was his accessibility.
“He wouldn’t hide, he was comfortable,” says McCalllum, contrasting him with the more private Jordan while observing similarities between Chamberlain and one of his favorite players, the also one-time 76er Barkley.
“The creativeness that comes from being Barkley, that was partly what made him great,” says McCallum. “And Wilt’s ability to think he could do anything - that nothing was implausible.”
In Golden Days, McCallum chronicles the champion Lakers of ‘71-’72 and the Stephen Curry-led Warriors of the 2010s. The late West, a superstar on the Lakers and a 2015 and 2017 champion executive with the Warriors, was a frequent source.
West identified to McCallum the prowess of Chamberlain on the defensive end, the difference of Laker Wilt to Philly and San Francisco Wilt being that in LA, Chamberlain's role became primarily defense and rebounding. With West and Goodrich in the back-court, buckets were plentiful.
14.8 points, 19.2 rebounds, and 4.0 assists were Chamberlain’s averages in the title-winning campaign of '72. All 82 games. 42.3 minutes out of 48 minutes. Five times in the regular season he grabbed 30 or more rebounds. One November night against the Celtics (a 14-point win), he shot the ball twice, rebounded 31 misses, dished out 10 assists and had 13 blocks. A dozen days later against the Pistons? 31 points and 31 rebounds.
“West was just in awe of Chamberlain,” says McCallum. “West just couldn’t say enough about how he (Wilt) powered them to a championship. He could be more aggressive on getting steals because Wilt was going to cover the basket.”
To McCallum, West said if not for Chamberlain’s defense, there is no way that they win. About the ‘72 team and Chamberlain’s 24-rebound performance in Game 6 of the Western Finals against Kareem and the Bucks, West says to McCallum in Golden Days, “Wilt had lost his agility a little bit, but he was never going to lose his ability to block shots and get rebounds.”
McCallum says of Wilt, “His game had just become so disciplined and so dominant,” adding that the “superhumanness” of Chamberlain was on display that year.
“The legend of Wilt grew that season,” says the veteran sportswriter. “He was sort of on one hand at the height of his Hollywood celebrity.”
The same season that Chamberlain won his second title, he was in the process of having Ursa Major built. He was entertaining people late at night. His housewarming party was attended by 350 guests. That night (or morning, in Wilt’s case) he did not get to bed until 7 a.m.
McCallum says that Chamberlain's genuine nature, like a housewarming party with hundreds, for instance, is what made him different from some others in the athletic pantheon.
“He seemed to not hide himself from the world,” says McCallum. “He would go out there and make proclamations. He always seemed at home with it.”
Peter Vecsey (NY Daily News, New York Post)
Vecsey, 81, was the first journalist to have an exclusive NBA column after he was hired by Rupert Murdoch’s New York Post in the late 1970s. His Hoop Du Jour column provided one avenue for his eventual Hall of Fame career - in 2009, he was inducted as part of that year's Naismith Hall of Fame Class as the recipient of the Curt Gowdy Award for print media. During his run, he had a fan in Chamberlain.
“I was told early on when covering the NBA that he liked my stuff,” says Vecsey, who early in his journalism career was a beat writer covering the NBA and ABA for the New York Daily News. Vecsey recalls Charlie Polk (a Wilt friend who was a fixture at NBA events) showing up uninvited to gatherings like the Kutsher’s Maurice Stokes games, and postgame dinners hosted by the likes of Julius Erving. He was also a frequent visitor to Chamberlain's Harlem jazz club Big Wilt's Smalls Paradise. Polk told Vecsey one time, “You know, Wilt really likes your stuff.” Chamberlain was always polite with the columnist - "Whenever I would run into him, he would be so respectful," says Vecsey.
For the 1973-1974 ABA season, Chamberlain was given a one-year, $600,000 deal to coach the San Diego Conquistadors, a team initially that Chamberlain was to play on (he did play in four exhibition games and averaged 18 points, as veteran sportswriter Terry Pluto discusses in his 1990 chronicle of the ABA, Loose Balls) with Stan Albeck serving as head coach.
Instead, Chamberlain was head man, and Albeck the assistant. As Pluto says, Chamberlain flew to San Diego for the games. Vecsey recalls one particular contest, an extended affair between the Conquistadors and the New York Nets.
“It was a quadruple-overtime game. It went on so long that I blew my east coast Daily News deadline,” remembers Vecsey. “We went out after the game and I wound up going to this club and there’s Wilt sitting by the front door surrounded by women. I got a kick out of that.”
On March 15, 1958, three days after being knocked unconscious during a game, the Cincinnati Royal forward Stokes had a seizure following a Royals’ playoff game against the Pistons, resulting in paralysis. In a story that has been told numerous times, Stokes’ teammate Jack Twyman became his legal guardian. Milt and Helen Kutsher, who owned Kutsher’s Country Club in Monticello, N.Y. (where Chamberlain worked as a teenager) hosted a Stokes benefit game every August.
The Kutshers gave free rooms to the players who played in it, and fans bought tickets to the event. Vecsey attended the games, and campaigned in his 2009 Hall of Fame speech to get the Kutshers into Springfield as contributors.
“As long as Stokes was alive, Wilt was there," recalls Vecsey.
For as remarkable as Chamberlain was individually early in his career, team success was not immediate. It is why Chamberlain’s first championship, in 1967, was such a major accomplishment for him. He had been criticized by observers as a guy who could not win, especially when being compared with Russell, who had won nine championships before Chamberlain got his first. As the late Bill Walton remarked in Chamberlain’s ESPN Sportscentury documentary: “He was so great that no matter what he did, people never accepted it for being enough.”
Such a quote encapsulates a difference between Wilt and Russell’s perception in the media. Winning was, and still today is thought to take precedence over individual numbers. You can be great individually, but criticism will come if you do not win. As Chamberlain always said, “Nobody roots for Goliath." Vecsey remarks that talent plays a big part.
“The times Wilt was with really good players, ‘67 and then with the Lakers in ‘72, they won championships,” he says.
The 1967 team featured Hall of Famers Greer, Chet Walker, and Billy Cunningham, along with Wali Jones and Luke Jackson. Led by Hall of Fame coach Alex Hannum, the team won 68 games, a then-record. Chamberlain finished third in the league in assists per game at 7.8, behind Chicago’s Guy Rodgers and Cincinnati’s Robertson. He led the league in field-goal percentage (68 percent) and rebounds (24.2). Walker, in his second consecutive All-Star campaign while averaging 19.3 points and 8.1 rebounds, was the team’s go-to guy down the stretch, Vecsey remembers Cunningham telling him.
Walker eclipsed 30 points six times that regular season.
Chamberlain’s free-throw shooting fluctuated throughout his career, as low as 38 percent in ‘67-‘68 and as high as 61 percent in ‘61-‘62, so it made sense that late in games Walker would get the nod.
“It’s not a knock on Wilt,” says Vecsey about Walker being depended on late in games for scoring rather than Chamberlain. “It was great coaching by Hannum.”
The 76ers capped their 68-13 season by winning the NBA Finals 4-2 over the San Francisco Warriors, overcoming Rick Barry’s 40.8 point-per-game series average. Chamberlain was named series MVP. He also led all playoff players in rebounds (437) and assists (135).
Prior to the 1967-1968 season, Chamberlain signed a new contract with the team, a one-year, $250,000 deal. The season, which would be his last in Philadelphia, turned out to be another historic one - the first and only instance of a center leading the league in assists (702 total, 8.6 per game).
“Wilt being Wilt, he took it to the extremes,” says Vecsey. “
Al Bianchi (Chamberlain’s teammate for 114 games from 1964-1966) once told Vecsey that teammates would give the big man the ball in the post and cut off of him. Chamberlain would bellow Larry Costello’s (a six-time All-Star who, at age 36, was playing in his final season in ‘67-‘68) shooting percentage as he went by him. If you were a poor percentage shooter, Chamberlain would hold the ball back.
"He wanted the assist title. He wasn’t going to give the ball to you if you couldn’t shoot,” says Vecsey with a laugh.
In the 1968 playoffs, the 76ers met the Celtics in the Eastern Division Final. The day prior to Game 1, Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated. As Cherry detailed in Wilt, Chamberlain, teammate Jones, and opposing center Russell voted to postpone the game. However, the majority of 76ers voted yes, and so Game 1 was on, which the Celtics took by nine 127-118. The 76ers then took games two, three, and four before the Celtics ran off three-straight wins to advance. Despite Chamberlain playing through a partially torn right calf and strained hamstring in the series, he averaged 22.1 points, 25.1 rebounds, and 6.7 assists.
In the Finals, Russell, Sam Jones, John Havlicek and company defeated West, Elgin Baylor and the Lakers in six games.
There were talks that off-season of Chamberlain becoming the 76ers’ player-coach in the wake of Hannum’s resignation as the coach took a job with the ABA’s Oakland Oaks. Chamberlain, as Wayne Lynch discusses in his 2002 book Season of the 76ers that chronicles the ‘67 team, wanted a new three-year contract as well as ownership stake. It did not come to fruition, however, as he and team president Irv Kosloff could not come to an agreement. Subsequently, there was some conversion that Chamberlain would flee to the ABA to join Hannum. As Cherry says in his bio, Chamberlain decided that he wanted to be traded to somewhere on the west coast. Chamberlain’s parents, William and Olivia, lived in a Wilt-owned apartment complex in Los Angeles. William was in poor health at the time.
The Lakers obtained Chamberlain on July 9 of ‘68, sending Archie Clark, Darrall Imhoff, Jack Chambers, and cash to the 76ers. It was the second time in Chamberlain’s career that he had been dealt, the first coming at All-Star Weekend in 1965 when he was traded from the San Francisco Warriors (who had relocated from Philadelphia) to the 76ers for Paul Neumann, Connie Dierking, and Lee Shaffer.
And so, the 31-year-old joined a 30-year-old West and 33-year-old Baylor to form a formidable trio. All had coincidentally enjoyed big outputs against the Knicks in prior years - Baylor poured in 71 in 1960, and West scored 63 nearly six weeks prior to Chamberlain’s 100.
The 1968-1969 iteration of the Lakers won 55 games, and made the Finals where Wilt and Russell met again, five years after their first championship encounter. ‘64’s series was a 4-1 Celtic win, Russell 11.2 points, 25.2 rebounds, 5.0 assists. Chamberlain 29.2 points, 27.6 rebounds, 2.4 assists. In ‘69 with their star-studded and sun-kissed Big 3, the Lakers were favorites.
The series is as much known for its upset than it is for the star power that emanated from it. Chamberlain, West, Baylor on one side. Russell, Havlicek, Sam Jones on the other. Game 7.
With under six minutes to go, the Celtics held a 103-94 lead. Chamberlain leapt to grab a Havlicek miss with 5:55 on the clock and came down gingerly on his left knee. Not moving well, he stayed in the back court and rebounded a Havlicek miss on the next possession. He called for time, taking one step before bending over and reaching for the knee. A tough Chamberlain returned following the timeout.
On the Lakers’ next trip down the floor, West backed down Larry Siegfried near the left elbow, turned toward the baseline and pump-faked twice before releasing the ball. A foul was called. Chamberlain could not elevate for the rebound, and limped to the bench with 5:20 on the clock, clapping his hands and grabbing at his towel in frustration. As the slender Counts took his place, Chamberlain is seen in agony, a trainer inspecting the knee. It is obvious to the eye that he is legitimately hurt. Counts moments later connected on a jump shot just inside the free-throw line to get the deficit to one, 103-102, as the Lakers had made a comeback. Chamberlain’s plea to Van Breda Kolff to return after a brief respite was dismissed.
After Don Nelson's miraculous 15-footer (105-102 Celtics), it was Counts who missed with the game on the line - he drove baseline and missed a layup attempt with under 40 seconds on the clock. Who else would retrieve the error but Russell (he also contested the shot, to which no one should be surprised). The soon to be 11-time champion released the ball to Siegfried, who brought it over half court before getting fouled. Siegfried made one-out-of-two freebies and Havlicek added two more free-throws to ice the game. West’s exquisite 40-point triple-double, Chamberlain’s 18 points and 27 rebounds and Baylor’s 20 points, 15 boards and 7 assists did not matter in the end.
“That school of thought was that this is Game 7, who cares if you get hurt, you play,” says Vecsey. “Wilt, of course, played more minutes than anybody (the last five minutes of the contest were in fact the only minutes he missed all series), but he went to the bench.”
The 108-106 Celtic victory was one last Russell triumph, and another disappointment for Chamberlain. Laker owner Jack Kent Cooke - whom West did not like, telling Vecsey once that Cooke was the primary reason that the guard retired at 36 - blamed Van Breda Kolff for the loss, saying that Chamberlain should not have been taken out. The owner was planning to fire his coach, but "VBK" resigned 15 days after Game 7, saving himself the embarrassment of being jettisoned by Cooke.
The next season, Chamberlain played 28 minutes (33 points, 15 rebounds) in a November meeting against the Phoenix Suns before tearing his right patellar tendon. He was shelved until March 18, using volleyball to help him recuperate, and only played 12 games the entire regular season. Joe Mullaney’s crew managed 46 wins, and West led them with a 31.2 point per game average.
After defeating the Suns in seven games in Round 1 and sweeping the Hawks in the second round, the Lakers returned to the Finals where they met the Knicks.
“I’ve been hearing about the center match-ups since I entered this league, back with Bill Russell and Wilt Chamberlain and so on and so forth,” Chamberlain told reporters prior to the 1970 Finals. “I feel as though it’s only a team that can beat you. Willis Reed is a great competitor, a very great basketball player whether he’s playing center or forward. I’m not sure how they will employ him, I'm just hoping that we can beat the Knicks.”
Reed, who suffered a muscle tear in his right thigh just eight minutes into Game 5, missed Game 6 and played 27 courageous minutes in Game 7. With Reed out in Game 6, Chamberlain went for 45 points and 27 rebounds as the Lakers won 135-114 and forced a seventh game. In the decider, Chamberlain made 10-of-16 shots. 21 points and 24 rebounds. He did however miss 10 shots out of 11 free-throw attempts. Would the makes have mattered in the 113-99 loss? Sure. But he was never that adept from the line anyway. 21 and 24 is a great stat line for mere mortals, but when your name is Wilt Chamberlain, the expectations were higher.
“People look at Wilt, you know, and say how come when Willis was out he didn't dominate? I don’t have an answer for that,” says Vecsey. Chamberlain was guarded by DeBusschere (6 foot, 6 inches tall), Dave Stallworth (6 foot, 7 inches) and the 6 foot, 10 inch Nate Bowman.
“Do you blame Wilt for not demanding the ball?,” he continues. “I wish Wilt was around, I’d ask him ‘what happened?’. Game 6 he dominated. You expect that in Game 7, but you’re still asking ‘what happened?’”
West led the Lakers in the game with 28 points, 6 assists, and 5 rebounds, but the Knicks took Game 7 by a the 14-point margin on the shoulders of Walt Frazier’s spectacular 36 points, 19 assists, and 7 rebounds.
Two seasons later, the Lakers embarked on a record-setting season of 69 wins. Vecsey worked with West’s back-court mate Goodrich at NBA TV in the 2000s.
As Cherry said in Wilt, when Chamberlain was still a 76er the team held 4 p.m. practices giving Chamberlain, not a typical morning person, time to make his commute from NYC to Philly. Of course, as Goodrich said, Chamberlain’s attitude toward practices and shootarounds shifted.
Wilt Chamberlain extends the ball out from his body to keep it from Chicago Bulls forward Matt Guokas (#24) as Tom Boerwinkle (#18) provides help to Guokas on March 7, 1971. Chamberlain scored 20 points and had 32 rebounds and 5 assists in the 117-108 Laker victory. Photo credit: Bill Verie, Los Angeles Times.
The Lakers’ 33-game streak is a record that still stands today, most seriously challenged by the 2012-2013 Miami Heat’s 27 consecutive (the Warriors reeled off 27 straight from the final three games of the 2015 Finals through the first 24 games of 2015-2016, as McCallum points out in Golden Days, though that was over two seasons). Coincidentally, the date that the Lakers began their historic streak - Nov. 5, 1971 - was the same day that Baylor retired.
Practices were intense, with McMillian and Pat Riley playing a physical style against one another. McMillian played 35 minutes a game and was still going at it with Riley in practice. The starting five of West, Goodrich, McMillian, Happy Hairston, and Chamberlain often, as expected, got the better of the bench.
“It was so unfair, the starting five, that Sharman would switch it up,” says Vecsey. “Many times, he would put Wilt on the second team, just to inspire him.”
Vecsey fondly remembers and holds dear time that he spent with Chamberlain in August of 1997, 26 months prior to Chamberlain’s passing. Both having been important to the history of NYC’s famed Rucker Park - Chamberlain played there in the summers decades earlier and Vecsey coached a varying collection of NBAers (including Erving) to four Rucker titles - they were being presented awards for their contributions at Riverside Park. It was the type of impromptu meeting that Vecsey loved.
“I never thought he’d show up" recalls Vecsey. "He showed up in his muscle shirt. We sat next to each other and watched an old timer’s game.”
The game at the indoor gym in upper Harlem featured the likes of Tiny Archibald, Dean Meminger, and streetball legend Earl Manigault. Manigault at the time had a heart problem and needed a transplant. Sadly, he never received one, and passed away in May of 1998 at age 53.
As the two watched the contest, a duo held in high regard on the city’s blacktop courts approached Vecsey.
“You ok? You alright with those guys?” Chamberlain asked Vecsey in a moment of humor as NYC legends Pee Wee Kirkland and Joe Hammond tapped Vecsey on the shoulder and asked to see him in the back of the gym. Chamberlain, in his 60s with muscles on display, was ready to play the role of bodyguard.
“They thanked me for all I did for the Rucker and for Harlem,” recalls Vecsey. “I came back and told Wilt and he was really happy about that.”
It was on that day watching that game that Chamberlain delivered a sincere message to Vecsey. Knowing that his acquaintance was one of few who had seen the league since its early days, Chamberlain told the columnist, "Don't let them forget about us." Whether he knew it or not, Chamberlain was hinting at a future generation that for some reason often disparages older era players and gets off on such disrespect.
The two hours spent on that summer day are both memorable and bittersweet for Vecsey.
“Here I am with Wilt in Harlem, and a couple years later, he’s dead,” he says. “I was really upset. I thought after that time that I spent with Wilt that he and I could spend some quality time together,” he says with a tinge of sadness and reflection.
Vecsey, who saw Wilt once more (in Los Angeles), wrote a piece in the New York Post three days after Chamberlain's passing: Wilt's Greatness Was a Cut Above. Aptly named, no doubt.
“Everything about him, being around him and talking to him, I liked him immensely," concludes Vecsey. "There was a lot of substance there. I guess I’ll see him in overtime.”
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