This Date in NBA History: Wilt Chamberlain Traded from Philadelphia 76ers to Los Angeles Lakers

Cover photo: Wilt Chamberlain shoots his patented finger roll against the New York Knicks during action in the 1972 NBA Finals. Photo credit: Sotheby’s Collectibles.

On this date in 1968, the Philadelphia 76ers and Los Angeles Lakers agreed to a trade that sent the NBA’s megastar out west. 

In 1967, a 30-year-old Wilt Chamberlain won his first NBA title. The 1966-67 Sixers went 68-13. On their way to a championship, the squad of Wilt, Hal Greer, and Chet Walker defeated Oscar Robertson, Jerry Lucas, Happy Hairston and the Cincinnati Royals in the first round (3-1). In the second round, the 76ers defeated Bill Russell and the Boston Celtics four games to one, and in the NBA Finals defeated a 22-year-old Rick Barry and the San Francisco Warriors four games to two. There was no NBA Finals Most Valuable Player award back then - it would become an award two years later - but if there was, Chamberlain (17.7 points, 28.5 rebounds, 6.8 assists) had a strong argument for the honor. 

In the 1967-68 season, the Sixers went 62-20, and Chamberlain (24.3 points, 23.8 rebounds, 8.6 assists) became the first and still the only center to lead the NBA in assists for a season. The Sixers lost in the Eastern Division Finals in seven games to the Celtics. 

For the 1966-67 season, Chamberlain made $200,000, and in October of 1967 he signed a one-year deal worth $250,000. Big money for that time for a big star.

At the conclusion of the 1967-68 season, new 76er general manager Jack Ramsay, according to Chamberlain’s words in his autobiography Wilt: Just Like Any Other 7-Foot Black Millionaire Who Lives Next Door, wanted to trade Chamberlain because he wanted to implement a particular style of play with a smaller, fast-breaking team. If he were to be dealt, Chamberlain’s preference was Los Angeles, so that he could be near his ailing father who lived in an apartment complex that Chamberlain owned.

And so on July 9 of 1968, fifty-seven years ago today, the 76ers dealt Chamberlain to the Lakers. Archie Clark, Jerry Chambers, Darrall Imhoff and cash headed to Los Angeles. 

The Lakers had just lost the Finals in ‘68 in six games to the Celtics. In ‘62, ‘63, ‘65, and ‘66, they had also lost in the championship round to the Celtics. Perennial pain for Jerry West and Elgin Baylor. 

It would make sense that the Lakers would deal for Chamberlain, the game’s most seismic force who would give the Lakers an inside presence and give West and Baylor someone to take the pressure off of them.

The deal immediately paid off as the Lakers went 55-27 in ‘68-’69 and met the Celtics in the Finals. The seven-game defeat to the Celtics marked by Butch van Breda Kolff snubbing Chamberlain late in the deciding game for Mel Counts is one of the most talked about endings in NBA history. 

Chamberlain’s shot attempts immediately decreased in Los Angeles, from 16.8 in his final Sixer season to 13.6 in ‘68-’69. In the twelve games that he played in ‘69-’70 - a season in which he tore his patellar tendon - he averaged 18.9 shot attempts and 27.3 points. Then fifteen shots per game in ‘70-’71, then 9.3, and finally 7.1 in his last NBA campaign.  

The Lakers went 46-36 in ‘69-’70 under new head coach Joe Mulaney, who took over for the unpopular van Breda Kolff. The team made the Finals again in ‘70, losing to the New York Knicks in seven games. In game six, Wilt went for 45 points and 27 rebounds. Walt Frazier’s 36 points, 19 rebounds, and 7 assists prevented a Laker win in Game 7. The ‘70-‘71 Lakers won 48 games but lost in five games in the Western Conference Finals to a Milwaukee Bucks team that was led by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Robertson, and Bob Dandridge.  

The ‘71-‘72 version of the Lakers under new head coach Bill Sharman won a record 69 games, went on a record 33-game winning streak, and defeated the Knicks in five games in the Finals. Baylor, 37 years old and hampered by  knee injuries, retired nine games into the season, and it was 28-year-old Gail Goodrich, acquired prior to the ‘70-’71 season, who led the team in scoring with 25.9 points per game. West, who finished second in MVP voting, was right behind the lefty guard at 25.8 points per game. Chamberlain, 14.8 points and 19.2 rebounds per game, finished third in MVP voting. Jim McMillian was a solid forward who could shoot, and Hairston, acquired during the ‘69-’70 season, had become an important and productive role player for the Lakers with his rebounding. 

The 1972-73 Lakers, the squad that would see the last year of Wilt-West-Goodrich together, went 60-22 and lost in five games in the Finals to the Knicks. Chamberlain, 36 years of age and continuously slowed by the leg injury from a few years earlier and a recently broken hand that he played through, still managed 18.6 rebounds per game and finished fourth in MVP voting. 

In the five years with Chamberlain, the Lakers made four Finals’ appearances. The team had a combined record in those seasons of 278-132, and back-to-back 60-win seasons including the record 69 that stood for twenty-four years before it was broken by the 1995-96 Chicago Bulls’ 72-10 season. In Los Angeles, Wilt, West, and Baylor formed the league’s first superstar trio, or what would perpetually be referred to in the years thereafter as a “Big 3”. 

The trade of Chamberlain to Los Angeles was the second time that he had been traded in his career, the first being in January of 1965 when the Warriors traded him to the 76ers for Paul Neumann, Connie Dierking, and Lee Shaffer. 

When a superstar of Chamberlain’s magnitude gets dealt, you know that it sets off alarms around the league that if the NBA’s most dominant player can be traded, anyone is fair game.

In the wake of February’s Luka Doncic trade to the Lakers, the former Knick Frazier was a guest on Sirius XM’s NBA Today show. During the interview, he when discussing the shocking trade of the superstar Doncic told hosts Justin Termine and Eddie Johnson, “I saw Wilt get traded. I said ‘man if Wilt can get traded anybody can get traded’.”

Chamberlain’s movement to the 76ers and the Lakers set the precedent for future superstar deals. 

Among such deals were a pair of trades that involved Hall of Fame power forwards. In the summer of 1992, six-time all-star Charles Barkley was traded to the Phoenix Suns from the 76ers. In the summer of 2007, Kevin Garnett, a 10-time all-star and the 2004 NBA Most Valuable Player, was traded from the Minnesota Timberwolves to the Celtics, a deal that similarly like the Wilt-to-LA trade brought a championship and a time period of serious contention. More recently, look at Kevin Durant, who has been dealt twice in the last two and a half years. 

The acquisition of Chamberlain also set the stage for the Lakers of looking around the league for superstar centers to build around. In 1975, the franchise traded for Abdul-Jabbar and in the summer of 1996 it was West who inked Shaquille O’Neal to a free agent contract, prying him away from the Orlando Magic. Mikan-Chamberlain-Kareem-Shaq. Across the league, you won’t find a franchise with such a run of Hall-of-Fame centers.

Fifty-seven years ago today, a trade took place that shifted the balance of power in the NBA and provided the prelude to future trades like it.