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Wilt Chamberlain's Colossal Season |
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Written by Joe Cronin
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Thursday, 18 December 2008 14:22 |
WILT CHAMBERLAIN'S COLOSSAL 1961-62 SEASON
Whenever anyone discusses the greatest player in basketball history, the first name that usually pops up, and with good reason, is Michael Jordan. Now, there's no question that MJ was a transcendent talent, and his feats are legendary. You'll get some mentions of Magic Johnson, Larry Bird, maybe even a Kareem Abdul-Jabbar or Julius Erving. Among the slightly more "seasoned" set however, you'll probably find a champion or two for Wilt Chamberlain, who wore number 13, which proved a very unlucky number for his opponents. Chamberlain's career ended when he retired from the Los Angeles Lakers in 1973 at the age of 36. He made a brief attempt - blocked by legal action - to jump to the ABA as a player-coach and ended up just being a coach (and a somewhat disinterested one at that) for the 1973-74 San Diego Conquistadors. If you've never heard of the Conquistadors, you're probably not alone. And the Chamberlain of the 1970s was not the dominant force he had been in his youth. To be sure, he could still score seemingly whenever he pleased, and his .727 field goal percentage in his final season is still a record. And he was always a tenacious and fearsome rebounder, right to the end. But he'll be best remembered for the astonishing amount of scoring he did in the early days of the 1960s (and we're not talking about "scoring" with women - which is something he boasted of frequently - we mean the regular, old, basketball kind of scoring). |
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