lead and choked in Game 7 at home, but as Wilt pointed out in his book, “Hal hit only eight of 25
shots. Wali hit eight of 22. Matty hit two of ten, Chet hit eight of 22. Those four guys took most of our shots and hit less than a third of them. But I got the blame.”
So much for the lessons of Walton, Namath and Simpson. What did we learn about Russell, Chamberlain, and statistics? Well, Wilt’s teams revolved around his offense and Russell’s teams revolved around his defense. Wilt coexisted with his teammates; Russell made his teammates better. Wilt had to make a concerted effort to play unselfishly and act like a decent teammate; Russell’s very existence was predicated on unselfishness and team play. In the end, Russell’s teams won championships and Wilt’s teams lost them.
Russell 11, Chamberlain 2. Those are the only two numbers that matter.31
MYTH NO. 4:
WILT WAS A GREAT GUY
Was Wilt a great guy to approach in the airport? Absolutely. Was he great to interview for a magazine or a talk show? You betcha. Did the people who knew him have great stories about him?
No question. Was he generous with his money? Of course. If you were a stewardess, was this someone you would have wanted to blow under an airplane blanket? Apparently, yes. For such a good guy, it’s bizarre that Wilt sucked so much as a teammate. He just didn’t grasp the concept. For the first six years of his career, he hogged the ball, became infatuated with scoring records and demanded to be treated differently than his teammates. When things finally fell apart on the ’65
Warriors, legendary L.A. Times columnist Jim Murray wrote, “[Wilt] can do one thing well—score. He turns his own team into a congress of butlers whose principal function is to get him the ball under a basket. Their skills atrophy, their desires wane. Crack players like Willie Naulls get on the Warriors and they start dropping notes out of the window or in bottles which they cast adrift. They contain one word: ‘help.’” 32 Even when Wilt played more unselfishly and copied Russell’s game, he couldn’t maintain it for more than a year and became smitten with assists. He openly clashed with every coach except two—Frank McGuire (who let him shoot as much as he wanted, leading to the 100-point game) and Alex Hannum (and only because Hannum challenged him to a fight to get him to listen). 33 He blamed teammates and coaches after losses, feuded with teammates who could have helped him (most famously, Elgin during the ’69 season) and demeaned opposing players to the press to make himself look better. He had a nasty habit of distracting his own team at the worst possible times—like the ’66 Eastern Finals against Boston, when Sports Illustrated released a controversial Chamberlain feature before Game 5 in which he ripped coach Dolph Schayes and destroyed the morale of his team. 34
Some believe that Wilt achieved too much too soon, that he never understood the concept of teamwork because he’d been the center of attention (literally) since he was in high school. In his Chamberlain-Russell book The Rivalry, John Taylor writes that Auerbach believed Warriors owner Eddie Gottlieb “spoiled Wilt something fierce. A lot of times, Wilt didn’t even travel with his teammates. He was out of control. Auerbach doubted that he himself would have been able to coach Wilt…. Wilt spent that year with the Globetrotters, tasted the big money and stardom, and he began thinking that he was more important than his coach or teammates. Goty, afraid of losing the big draw, let him get away with it. Chamberlain had become convinced that people came to games in order to see him and that, therefore, the point of every game was to give him an opportunity to play the star. There was a certain box office logic to this thinking, but it made Chamberlain uncoachable, in Auerbach’s view, and as long as he was uncoachable, any team he played on would never become a real winner.” 35
If you’re wondering how Wilt was regarded around the league, here’s the ultimate story: When San Fran shopped him in ’65, the Lakers were intrigued enough that owner Bob Short asked his players to vote on whether or not he should purchase Chamberlain’s contract. The results of the vote? Nine to two … against.
Nine to two against!
How could anyone still think this was the greatest basketball player ever? In the absolute prime of his career, a playoff contender that had lost consecutive Finals and didn’t have an answer for Russell had the chance to acquire Wilt for nothing … and the players voted against it!36 Would they have voted against a Russell trade? Seriously, would they have voted against a Russell trade in a million years?
(Note: if this were the O.J. trial, that last paragraph would be the equivalent of O.J. trying on the bloody glove.)
MYTH NO. 5:
A COUPLE PLAYS HERE AND THERE
AND WILT COULD HAVE WON JUST AS MANY
TITLES AS RUSSELL
Nearly every NBA champ had a pivotal playoff moment where they needed a big play and got it, but that doesn’t stop Wilt’s defenders from ignoring this reality and making excuses for every one of his near-misses: the ’60 Eastern Finals (Wilt injured his right hand throwing a punch in Game 4); Game 7 of the ’62 Eastern Finals (a controversial goaltending call proved the difference); Game 7 of the ’65 Eastern Finals (Russell nearly wore goat horns 37 before Havlicek saved him); Game 1 of the ’68 Eastern Finals (right after Martin Luther King Jr. was killed, when Sixers coach Alex Hannum never had his team vote on whether or not they should play, allegedly killing the morale of the team, even though they won Games 2, 3, and 4); Game 7 in ’68 (when Wilt’s supporting cast went cold); Game 7 of the ’69 Finals (when Wilt “injured” his knee in crunch time); and Game 7 of the ’70 Finals (when Willis Reed’s reappearance ignited the MSG crowd and Walt Frazier destroyed West). That’s all fine. Just know that Wilt’s teams sucked in the clutch because Wilt sucked in the clutch. The fear of losing overwhelmed him in big games. Terrified of getting fouled because of his dreadful free throw shooting, he played hot potato or settled for his patented fall-away (the one that landed him fifteen feet from the basket and away from rebounds), and he didn’t want to foul anyone if he had four or five fouls because, you know, it would have interfered with his laughable no-fouling-out streak. That made him nearly useless in close games, like a more tortured version of Shaq from 2002 to 2007, only if Shaq was afraid to foul anyone and had a persecution complex. 38
Here’s what NBA great Rick Barry wrote about Wilt in his autobiography, Confessions of a Basketball Gypsy, which has the worst cover in the history of sports books: 39
I’ll say what most players feel, which is that Wilt is a loser…. He is terrible in big games. He knows he is going to lose and be blamed for the loss, so he dreads it, and you can see it in his eyes; and anyone who has ever played with him will agree with me, regardless of whether they would admit it publicly. When it comes down to the closing minutes of a tough game, an important game, he doesn’t want the ball, he doesn’t want any part of the pressure. It is at these times that greatness is determined, and Wilt doesn’t have it. There is no way you can compare him to a pro like a Bill Russell or a Jerry West … these are clutch competitors.
Holy smokes! Some harsh words from a guy who wore a wig for an entire NBA season four years later. But let’s examine those Game 7’s in ’68, ’69, and ’70 again. In the first one, Wilt took two shots after halftime and steadfastly kept passing to his ice-cold teammates, then blamed them afterward because they couldn’t make a shot. In the second one, Wilt banged his knee and asked out of the game with five minutes to play, enraging coach Butch van Breda Kolff (who refused to put him back in, even if it meant costing the Lakers the title) and Russell (who uncharacteristically slammed Wilt that summer, launching a feud that lasted nearly twenty-five years). In the third one, Willis famously limped out and drained those first two jumpers, only it never occurred to Chamberlain, “Wait, I have a one-legged guy guarding me, maybe I should destroy him offensively!”40 He just didn’t get it. Wilt never understood how to win; if anything, losing fit his personality better. Here’s how Bill Bradley described Wilt in Life on the Run:
Wilt played the game as if he
had to prove his worth to someone who had never seen basketball. He pointed to his statistical achievements as specific measurements of his ability, and they were; but to someone who knows basketball they are, if not irrelevant, certainly nonessential. The point of the game is not how well the individual does but whether the team wins. That is the beautiful heart of the game, the blending of personalities, the mutual sacrifices for group success…. I have the impression that Wilt might have been more secure with losing. In defeat, after carefully covering himself with allusions to his accomplishments, he could be magnanimous…. Wilt’s emphasis on individual accomplishments failed to gain him public affection and made him the favorite to win the game. And, simultaneously, it assured him of losing. 41
Here’s another way to look at it: nobody has any clutch stories about Wilt Chamberlain. If they existed, I’d pass some of them along. His three finest moments were probably Game 7 against the
’65 Celts, when Wilt was magnificent in defeat with 30 points and 32 rebounds; the clinching game of the ’67 Boston-Philly series, when he ripped Boston apart with a ridiculous triple double (29 points, 36 rebounds, 13 assists); and the clinching Game 5 of the ’72 Finals, when he destroyed an undersized Knicks team with a near-quadruple double (24–29–9 and 8 blocks). He’s the same man who once explained to Sport magazine, “In a way, I like it better when we lose. It’s over and I can look forward to the next game. If we win, it builds up the tension and I start worrying about the next game.” Would Russell have ever said something like that? What do you think? Here were some of the famous clutch Russell games: 42
Game 7, 1957 Finals. As a rookie, Russell notches a 19–32 and makes what everyone agrees was the most phenomenal play of his career—scoring a game-tying basket near the end of regulation that carried him into the stands, regrouping and somehow chasing down Jack Coleman from behind and blocking Coleman’s game-clinching layup. This whole sequence ranks incredibly high on the I Wish We Always Had TV Coverage for Sports scale.
Game 7, 1960 Finals. Russell scores 22 points and grabs 35 rebounds in a blowout of the Hawks. Ho-hum.
Game 7, 1962 Eastern Finals. In the year Wilt averaged 50 a game, Russell holds him to 22 in Game 7 (and scores 19 himself).
Game 7, 1962 Finals. Russell scores 30 points, makes 14 of 17 free throws and grabs an NBA Playoffs record 44 rebounds in an overtime win over the Lakers (the Frank Selvy game). Everyone agrees this was the definitive Russell game—near the end of regulation, every forward on Boston’s roster fouled out (Heinsohn, Sanders and Loscutoff), so Russell had to protect the basket and handle the boards by himself. Unbelievable: 30 points and 44 rebounds?
Game 7, 1965 Eastern Finals. Although Havlicek saved him from goat horns, Russell submitted a near triple double (15 points, 29 rebounds and 9 assists) that nearly would have been a quadruple double if they’d kept track of blocks back then. 43
Game 7, 1966 Finals. Celts beat L.A. by two, Russell notches 25 points, 32 rebounds and God knows how many blocks.
Game 7, 1968 Eastern Finals. Russell scores 12 but holds Wilt to 14 … and for good measure, he coached the winning team.
Looking back, Wilt had five chances to knock Russell out of the playoffs in ’68 and ’69 with a superior team—including two Game 7’s at home—and only needed to submit one monster performance to pull it off. Each time, he couldn’t do it. Each time, Russell’s inferior team prevailed. Each time, Wilt whined about it afterward. If Jerry West was Mr. Clutch, then Wilt was Mr. Crutch.
MYTH NO. 6:
PLAYERS AND COACHES FROM THE ERA ARE
SPLIT OVER WHO WAS A GREATER PLAYER
You have to believe me: I read every NBA book possible to prepare to write this one. No stone was left unturned—during the summers of ’07 and ’08 I spent more time on www.abebooks.com than Abe did. While poring over these books, I searched for insight on the Russell-Chamberlain debate and kept a tally of every player, coach and media member willing to go on the record. (You can see a complete list of those books at the end of this one.) And I’m not sure what was more amazing—how many of them praised Russell, or how many of them crushed Wilt (including people who played with him and coached him). Since we could fill this entire book with quotes from people praising Russell’s unselfishness, competitiveness and clutchness, let’s narrow it down to six Wilt-related quotes that explain everything:
Butch van Breda Kolff (in Tall Tales): “The difference between Russell and Wilt was this: Russell would ask, ‘What do I need to do to make my teammates better?’ Then he’d do it. Wilt honestly thought the best way for his team to win was for him to be in the best possible setting. He’d ask, ‘What’s the best situation for me?’” 44
Jerry West (in Goliath): “I don’t want to rap Wilt because I believe only Russell was better, and I really respect what Wilt did. But I have to say he wouldn’t adjust to you, you had to adjust to him.”
Jerry Lucas (in Tall Tales): “Wilt was too consumed with records: being the first to lead the league in assists, or to set a record for field goal percentage. He’d accomplish one goal, then go on to another. Russell only asked one question: ‘What can I do to make us win?’” 45
Jack Kiser (in Goliath): “Russell pulled the con job of the century on Chamberlain. He welcomed Wilt to the league. He played father-figure. He told him, man, you’re going to better all my records, but you have things to learn and I’m going to teach you because I admire you. 46
He made friends with him. He got Wilt to the point where Wilt worried about making him look bad…. Wilt hated to lose, but he liked Bill so much that he didn’t like losing to him. Wilt could destroy Russell when he was inspired. But he held back just enough to get beat. He tried to win over Russell, but he wasn’t driven like he was against guys he disliked. I might point out Russell never said a bad word about Wilt until the night he retired and he hasn’t stopped rapping him since.”
Bill Russell (in Second Wind): “It did seem to me that [Wilt] was often ambivalent about what he wanted to get out of basketball. Anyone who changes the character and style of his play several times over a career is bound to be uncertain about which of the many potential accomplishments he wants to pursue. It’s perfectly possible for a player not to make victory his first priority against all the others—money, records, personal fame, and an undivided claim to his achievements—and I often felt Wilt made some deliberate choices in his ambitions.”
Wilt Chamberlain (in Wilt): “To Bill [Russell], every game—every championship game—was a challenge, a test to his manhood. He took the game so seriously that he threw up in the locker room before almost every game. But I tend to look at basketball as a game, not a life or death struggle. I don’t need scoring titles or NBA championships to prove that I’m a man. There are too many other beautiful things in life—food, cars, girls, friends, the beach, freedom—to get that emotionally wrapped up in basketball. 47I think Bill knew I felt that way, and I think he both envied and resented my attitude. On the one hand, I think he wished he could learn to take things easier, too; on the other hand, I think he may have felt that with my natural ability and willingness to work hard, my teams could have won an NBA championship every year if I was as totally committed to victory as he was…. I wish I had won all those championships, but I really think I grew more as a man in defeat that Russell did in victory.”
That might be true. But I’d rather have the bathroom puker on my team, the most beloved teammate of his era, the guy who didn’t care about statistics, the guy who always seemed to end up on victorious teams in close games, the guy who finished his career as the greatest winner in sports, the guy who was singularly obsessed with making his teammates better and doing whatever it took to prevail. I’d rather have Bill Russell. And so would anyone else in their right mind.
The defense rests.
1. FYI, you can use this same set of factors to prove that nobody was more whipped than Lionel Richie on the day he wrote “Truly.”
2. O.J. intersected with NBA
lore in 1994, when we watched helicopter footage of his white Bronco driving through southern California (in a botched attempt to evade police) split-screened with a crucial Game 5 of the Rockets-Knicks Finals. Here’s how bad that Finals was: even Knicks and Rockets fans were more interested in the car chase.
3. Rule changes in place by 2005: no hand checking (making it easier for quick guards to penetrate); 8 seconds to advance the ball over midcourt (not 10); resetting the shot clock to 14
seconds instead of 24 in certain situations; whistles for offensive isolation plays (no overloading players on one side); a relaxing of illegal zones; and an implicit understanding that moving high screens were now okay (as long as you didn’t stick your knee or foot out on the pick). 4. Imagine if this happened now and we had to wait three months to see ballyhooed rookies like Blake Griffin or Derrick Rose because they were going through basic training in East Bumfart, Texas. I think Nike would raise a stink.
5. One of my favorite NBA names: Slater Martin. Just reeks of the ’50s, doesn’t it? He played with Whitey Skoog, Dick Schnittker, Dick Garmaker, Vern Mikkelsen, Lew Hitch, George Mikan and Ed Kalafat on the ’56 Lakers. Now those were some white guys! As far as I can tell, that’s the only two-Dick team in NBA history.