Wilt vs Russell

[Outside]

This is a comparison of Wilt and Russell that I did a while back. My initial thought was to include it on the Player Comparison forum since it may be of interest to those participating in the top 100 project. I'm including it as a separate thread so it won't clutter up an individual voting thread, since it could apply to multiple voting threads (Wilt is unlikely to voted as no. 2, the current position being voting on), and since it may of interest to some outside of the top 100 project.

In originally did this in response to an ongoing perception that Wilt was merely a selfish stat padder who was ultimately a loser, especially compared to team player and ultimate winner Russell, and it's my contention that Wilt was much more than the caricature that time and repeated derision have made him to be in many people's minds, It is my hope that some reading this come away with an increased appreciation and respect for Wilt.

Rather than present one (ridiculously) long post, I'm dividing this into a series of posts.

1. By the numbers (http://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?p=56544458#p56544458)

2. How Russell and Wilt changed the NBA (http://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?p=56544749#p56544749)

3. The gentle giant (http://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?p=56544905#p56544905)

4. Did Red want Wilt?(http://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?p=56544944#p56544944)

5. Was Wilt coachable? (http://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?p=56545061#p56545061)

6. Wilt on the Celtics -- would it have worked? (http://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?p=56545331#p56545331)

7. Miscellaneous (http://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?p=56545715#p56545715)

I'll put each one in a separate post.

For this project, I relied repeatedly on these two books:

-- The Rivalry: Bill Russell, Wilt Chamberlain, and the Golden Age of Basketball, by John Taylor

-- Tall Tales: The Glory Years of the NBA, by Terry Pluto

There are a host of other books about Wilt and Russell, but I can heartily recommend these two for anyone who finds this topic of interest.

[Outside]

WILT, PART 1. BY THE NUMBERS

A common refrain about Wilt is that all he wanted to do was rack up stats and that his stats didn't mean anything when compared to Russell's championships. What's gotten lost along the way is how astounding his stats were.

Most people know about his 100-point game, but there's much more beyond that. Consider this:

-- In his first NBA game in 1959, Wilt had 43 points on 17-of-20 shooting, 28 rebounds, and an unofficial 17 blocks (which weren't kept as a stat until 1973-74).

-- As a rookie in 1959-60, Chamberlain averaged 37.6 points, 27.0 rebounds, 2.3 assists.

-- His averages for 1961-62: 50.4 points (NBA record), 25.7 rebounds, 2.4 assists.

-- During 1961-62, he set eight NBA season records. He had 50 or more points 45 times in 80 games. He averaged 48.5 minutes per game.

-- His averages for 1967-68: 24.3 points, 23.8 rebounds, 8.6 assists.

-- His averages for 1972-73, his final season at age 36: 13.2 points, 18.6 rebounds, 4.5 assists. He led the league in rebounds and was voted to the all-defensive team.

NBA.com's all-time stats are a hassle to navigate and incomplete in any event, but Wikipedia says that he is the holder of 72 official NBA records, 63 of which he holds by himself. That's a lot of records.

Most amazing to me, and probably the safest from being broken, are the rebounding records. Russell is right there with him on many of them; the two of them were a level above everyone else. Here are some of Wilt's rebounding records:

-- Most rebounds in a single game, regular season -- 55, against Boston and Russell. (Russell is next with 51.) Consider that the top rebounding game the Celtics had last season as a team was 54. That says a lot about how different the pace of the game is now, but also how dominant Wilt (and Russell) were as rebounders. The two of them were so dominant in rebounding that they have all 10 games of 43 rebounds or more, and 42 of the 46 games of 38 rebounds or more.

-- Most rebounds in a single game, playoffs -- 41, again versus Boston and Russell. (Russell is next with 40, which he did three times.) The two of them have all 11 playoff games of 38 rebounds or more.

-- Most rebounds per game, season -- 27.2. (Russell's best was 24.7.)

-- Most rebounds per game, career -- 22.9. (Russell is next with 22.5.)

-- Most times leading the league in rebounds -- 11, out of 14 total seasons. (Russell led the league five times -- all three years before Wilt joined the NBA and twice while Wilt was in the league.)

A few of Wilt's other notable career records:

-- Minutes per game - 45.8 (think about it -- that's over his entire career)

-- Consecutive field goals made - 35

-- Highest field goal percentage -- 72.7% in 1972-73 (426/586)


Head-to-head with Russell

EDIT: fixed errors in the stats in this section.

Wilt and Russell played against each other 143 times over 11 seasons. As these stats show, Russell, the best post defender in the game, did not stop Wilt; he only slowed him down as best he could.

-- In those games, Russell's Celtics were 57-37 in the regular season and 29-20 in the postseason versus Wilt's teams.

-- In those games, Wilt averaged 29.9 points and 28.2 rebounds. Russell averaged 14.2 points and 22.9 rebounds.

-- Wilt had a high of 62 points and four other 50+ point games against Russell.

-- Wilt set the regular-season record of 55 rebounds in a game and had six other 40+ rebound games versus Russell. Russell only had one 40+ rebound game against Wilt.

-- Wilt set the playoff record of 41 rebounds in a game against Russell.

-- In the 1967 Eastern Conference Finals against Russell, Wilt averaged 21.6 points, 32.0 rebounds, and 10.0 assists (a triple-double). In the clinching game 5, he had 29 points, 36 rebounds, and 13 assists.

-- In the playoffs, the two played against each other in a deciding game 7 four times, and Russell's Celtics won all four. The total margin of victory in those four games was nine points. Russell and the Celtics had what it took to win those games, but they were exceedingly close.


A stat of another kind -- the 20,000 women thing

Wilt explained why he claimed in his autobiography that he'd slept with 20,000 women. "We're all fascinated by the numbers, as we were about the 100 points," he said "So I thought of a number that was a round number that may be close and may be whatever, and I used that number. Now according to the average person, that number is so preposterous that I can understand them not believing it. But the point of using the number was to show that sex was a great part of my life as basketball was a great part of my life. That's the reason why I was single.

"It was a different sexual situation going on than it is in the '80s and '90s, and I did a very poor job of describing that," he continued. "With all of you men out there who think that having a thousand different ladies is pretty cool, I have learned in my life that having one woman a thousand different times is much more satisfying."

That may not change your point of view about "the 20,000 women thing," but I found it interesting nonetheless and thought I'd throw it in.

[Outside]

PART 2. HOW RUSSELL AND WILT CHANGED THE NBA

How Russell changed the game

Some people like to think of the players in today's game as being so much bigger, faster, and stronger than players used to be, but today's NBA is dominated by guards and forwards, and there are few quality centers. In the past 15 years, we've had Shaq, Tim Duncan, and Dwight Howard, and Duncan was considered a power forward for much of his career because he started out playing alongside David Robinson. Yao Ming had the potential to be an elite player but couldn't stay healthy. There have been defensive specialists like Ben Wallace and Dikembe Mutumbo. There are younger big men like Demarcus Cousins, Anthony Davis, and Karl-Anthony Towns, but as of this writing (June 2017), they have a combined four playoff games among them. In today's NBA, the list of top guards and forwards is long, and the list of top centers is barely a list.

Bill Russell played during a golden age of centers. Besides Wilt Chamberlain, there was Dolph Schayes, Nate Thurmond, Walt Bellamy, Jerry Lucas, Willis Reed, Clyde Lovelette, Neil Johnston, and Ed Macauley. Wes Unseld and Elvin Hayes were rookies in Russell's last season. All of them are in the Hall of Fame. Chamberlain, Hayes, Lucas, Russell, Schayes, Thurmond, and Unseld are among the 50 Greatest Players in NBA History chosen in 1996 to commemorate the NBA's 50th anniversary.

The center position evolved during the early years of the game. Basketball was originally a game for smaller, more agile players, and big men were considered "plodders" who lacked skill and couldn't keep up. George Mikan was the first great center, and he dominated the league with sweeping hook shots from either hand, and he was a solid rebounder. He used his size to great advantage and was a skilled player, but he wasn't the quickest guy around. When Russell joined the league, the best big men were forwards like Bob Pettit or hybrid center-forwards like Schayes, Lovelette, and Macauley, none of whom had Mikan's size.

That all changed with Russell. He was 6-10, which was tall for his day, but many teams had players of that height or even taller. But Russell had physical advantages no center could match -- a 7-4 wingspan, jumping ability that reportedly allowed him to kick the net and touch the top of the backboard, and the quickness, speed, and agility of an elite athlete.

Before Russell, big men rarely jumped to block shots but instead used their long arms to deflect the ball. As a result, shotblocking wasn't a significant aspect of defensive play. Russell's instincts were to use his quickness and leaping ability to swat away an opponent's shot, but many coaches had tried to break him of what they thought was a bad habit. "To play good defense," Russell said, "it was told back then that you had to stay flatfooted at all times to react quickly. When I started to jump to make defensive plays and to block shots, I was initially corrected, but I stuck with it, and it paid off."

He had a defensive-minded coach at the University of San Francisco, Phil Woolpert, who saw the advantages of Russell's style of play. Russell was rail-thin, but instead of getting into pushing contests with bulkier centers who usually weren't a significant offensive threat anyway, he came off his man to challenge shots by any player who drove into the lane. This type of defense hadn't been seen before, and opposing coaches had great difficulty adjusting. With Russell and future Celtic great K.C. Jones, Woolpert used aggressive defense and a deliberate offense to win two NCAA titles.

The NBA was obviously aware of this phenomenon at USF, but many people still had doubts. In The Rivalry: Bill Russell, Wilt Chamberlain, and the Golden Age of Basketball, John Taylor wrote:

A number of coaches and sportswriters believed Russell lacked pro potential. He had certain specific, if somewhat limited, skills, they believed, but he was too skinny and he was a poor shooter. He was certainly not the all-around phenomenon that Wilt Chamberlain, then still a high school student, was proving to be. But Auerbach's inquiries left him with the impression that, however limited Russell might be in general, in the areas of his strengths he was overwhelming. Russell was not the answer to every coach's prayers. But working with players whose skills complemented and extended his and whose talents covered for his weaknesses -- players, that is, like the Celtics--he could be the linchpin of an indomitable team.

But even Auerbach wasn't sure that it would work. In those days, NBA teams operated on a shoestring budget. Film and travel for scouting purposes was too expensive, as were scouts. Auerbach was aware of Russell but hadn't seen him play, and like most coaches, he relied on a network of fellow coaches to give him scouting reports. USF had played Red's alma mater, George Washington University, and although Russell had scored only a few points, Red's college coach, Bill Reinhart, raved about Russell's impact. Reinhart said that Russell was the fastest center in college, rebounded better than anyone, and used his defense to disrupt an opponent's game plan. "Try to get this guy," Reinhart said, "no matter what you have to pay or who you have to trade." After former Celtic and USF Don Fred Scolari saw Russell play, he told Auerbach, "Red, he can't shoot to save his life, but he's the greatest thing I've ever seen in my life on a basketball court."

Auerbach knew that Russell could be the key ingredient to make his fast-breaking team led by Bob Cousy and Bill Sharman into title contenders. So he traded Ed Macauley, a six-time all-star, and Cliff Hagan, a future star who'd been serving in the Air Force, to the St. Louis Hawks for the second pick in the draft and took Russell. He also acquired Tom Heinsohn with a territorial pick and Russell's USF teammate K.C. Jones (who didn't play until 1958 because of military service).

But at this point, Auerbach had seen Russell play only once, and he would have to wait a little longer for Russell's services until he had finished playing in the Olympics. The U.S. Olympic team was playing in Washington D.C., so Auerbach went to see them play. As related by Taylor:

Russell played one of the worst games of his life. Auerbach thought he was awful, horrible in fact. He thought, God, I've traded away Ed Macauley and Cliff Hagan for this guy. He felt like holding his head in his hands. Later, Russell came over and apologized, saying that he'd never played so poorly but that he was suffering from a hernia. Auerbach said that he hoped that was the case because if it was not, then he, Auerbach, was a dead pigeon. Russell sounded sincere, and anyone could have an off night, but Auerbach couldn't help wondering if the people who said Russell was not cut out for the NBA had been right.

Fortunately for Auerbach and the Celtics, Russell was more than worth it, and the defensive revolution that Russell started in college continued in the NBA.

From Taylor:

[Russell's] size and athleticism had literally transformed professional basketball. Prior to Russell joining the National Basketball Association, the game had consisted of little more than men running up and down the court making layups. But because Russell blocked layups so effectively, players had been forced to create a wider range of offensive plays, passing back and forth and setting screens until one of them could make a mid-range jump shot. The game immediately became more complex, varied, and challenging for the players and more involving and fun to watch for the spectators, and the late fifties became known as the Russell Era.

With Russell, Boston was able to play what was called the "Hey Bill" defense -- whenever a teammate needed help on defense, he would shout "Hey Bill!" and Russell was so quick and agile that he could run over for a blocked shot or double-team and make it back to his man if the offense tried to swing the ball. "Russell would jump over you to block your man's shot," said former Russell teammate and Georgetown coach John Thompson. "The word with kids now is 'Switch!' But I tell them the word on the Celtics was 'Russ!' You could hear it all over the floor. If your man beat you, all you could hear was people yelling 'Russ!'" Sportswriters began calling his blocks "Wilsonburgers," because he made them eat Wilson basketballs if they dared to shoot.

But Russell's impact spread well beyond his individual ability to rebound and block shots. Teammates became more aggressive defensively, knowing that Russell would cover for them if their man got by. Russell became adept at not just rebounding, but quickly launching a precision pass to a fast-breaking teammate, leading to easy baskets. He even turned blocked shots into outlet passes, deftly tapping the ball to a teammate instead of knocking it out of bounds. His defensive prowess befuddled opponents whether he actually blocked their shot or not, and his mere presence on the court made players think twice about shooting. "The sound of his footsteps intimidated opposing players," said Auerbach.

His first game was against St. Louis. He came in off the bench, played only 21 minutes, and scored only six points, but his impact was immediate. His man was center Charlie Share, but Russell covered the entire area around the basket. Twice he blocked all-star forward Bob Pettit's layups, directing the ball to a teammate. When Ed Macauley, now on the Hawks, came off a screen to shoot an outside jumper, "there was no reason for Russell to be anywhere near me. He was someplace else guarding Share. So I went up for the shot and there was no problem. Except that Russell had come out of nowhere and slapped the ball directly over my head." Russell essentially knocked the blocked shot to himself so that he had an easy dunk. Celtic announcer Johnny Most was so excited about Russell's performance in that first game that he got hoarse from shouting. "You'll have to forgive me for losing my voice," he said, "but I think we've just witnessed the birth of a star."

The NBA hadn't seen anything like it. Here was a player with minimal offensive ability, such a poor shooter that he once missed 15 consecutive shots in a game against the Warriors, yet he was able to control and dominate the basketball court. The game would never be the same.


How Wilt changed the game

When Wilt Chamberlain entered the league three years after Russell, the league changed again. Like Russell, Wilt was also a tremendous athlete, a great rebounder who could block shots and intimidate opponents, but as great as he was defensively, his biggest impact was on the offensive end. There had never been someone so tall (7-2), so big (250 pounds when he joined the league, over 300 pounds later), so athletic, and so skilled.

Wilt initially didn't want to play basketball but was instead a track and field athlete. In high school, he competed in the high jump, long jump, 440, 880, and shot put, and he excelled at all of them. At the University of Kansas, he won the league high jump title three years in a row, ran the 100-yard dash in 10.9, and had a personal best in the shotput of 56 feet and the triple jump of 50 feet. He was a 7-2 track star.

When Wilt decided to play basketball in high school, he became an unstoppable force. His height, quickness, athletic grace, and skill allowed him to overpower opponents unlike any big man before him. In one game, he scored 60 points in 10 minutes. In the first 16 games of his senior season, he scored 800 points (a 50-point average). He led his team to Philadelphia city championships in 1954 and 1955.

At Kansas, NCAA rules at the time prohibited freshmen from playing on the varsity, but in a freshman-varsity game, Wilt scored 50 points and led the freshman to a win. As a sophomore, he scored 52 points in his first game on the varsity, but he would never match that total in college again. Opposing teams used zone defenses, stalled (there was no shot clock), and employed any tactic possible keep the ball out of his hands. He was still able to lead Kansas to the NCAA finals, where they lost to North Carolina in triple overtime.

Frustrated by zone defenses and stall tactics, Wilt left Kansas after his junior year. He wasn't eligible to join the NBA until after what would have been his senior year, so he joined the Harlem Globetrotters.

Once he finally joined the NBA, Wilt changed the game. Or, to be more precise, the league changed the game because of Wilt.

The league had changed rules during George Mikan's era to reduce the impact of the dominant big man, but they had to change the rules even more once Wilt arrived:

-- Offensive goaltending. Before Wilt, it was not a violation for an offensive player to touch a shot on its downward arc. Wilt, however, routinely used teammates' shots as passes that he would dunk or lay in the basket. So the league changed the goaltending rule to include offensive players.

-- Dunking free throws. Before Wilt, it was legal to jump from behind the line when attempting a free throw, but Wilt was able to start at the top of the key, leap from behind the line, and dunk his free throws. (This was decades before Dr. J caused a sensation by jumping from the free-throw line during a dunk contest with a running start from half court.) So the league implemented a rule that the free-throw shooter could not break the plane of the free-throw line until the shot hit the rim. Since free throws were one of Wilt's few weaknesses (and he was routinely fouled to prevent easy baskets), imagine how much more unstoppable Wilt would've been if this rule hadn't been changed.

-- Widening the lane. One of Wilt's most effective shots was the finger roll, which he used to score with impunity. The lane had previously been widened during Mikan's era from six to 12 feet, but the league widened the lane again to 16 feet to push Wilt and his finger roll farther from the basket.

-- Inbounding the ball over the backboard. Before Wilt, teams could inbound the ball over the backboard, but Wilt would use the backboard as a screen, and teammates would pass the ball over the backboard to Wilt for an easy layup or dunk. So the league outlawed that.

-- Off-the-ball fouls. If an opposing team was trailing late in the game, they would intentionally foul Wilt because of his poor free-throw shooting (51.1% for his career). This led a farcical sideshow as opponents chased Wilt to foul him and he ran away and tried to dodge them. So the league added a rule that committing an off-the-ball foul in the last two minutes would give the offensive team free throws and the ball. "The reason they have that rule is that fouling someone off-the-ball looks foolish," said Pat Riley. "Some of the funniest things I ever saw were players that used to chase him like it was hide-and-seek. Wilt would run away from people, and the league changed the rule based on how silly that looked."

Even with the rule changes, teams still had to change their defenses for Wilt. Zones were illegal in the NBA, so teams resorted to double- and triple-teams and then fouling whenever he got the ball in deep. Wilt adjusted and continued to dominate the game.

Darrall Imhoff, who was a rookie center the night Wilt had his 100-point game, played only 20 minutes in that game before fouling out. When Imhoff and the Knicks played Chamberlain and the Warriors two nights later, Imhoff played the entire game and held Wilt to 54 points, and he received a standing ovation. Only against Wilt could holding a player to 54 points be considered an outstanding achievement.

In his early years, referees didn't call many fouls against Wilt's opponents because he was so much bigger and better than his opponents, but in his later years, they didn't call fouls because they felt sorry for him because he shot free throws poorly. One referee told him, "Wilt, I know you get hacked every time, but the game would be pretty boring watching you go one for two from the line every time down the court."

Despite it all, Wilt continued to put up incredible numbers. Along the way, he forced teams to change the way they play defense, and he forever altered the perception of what a big man can do in the game of basketball. "This is a guy whose impact changed the rules of the game," Phil Jackson said about Wilt. "He changed the interior part of our basketball game."


Race

At the time that Russell and Chamberlain entered the league, the racial climate in the United States was much different than today. The civil rights movement was in its infancy, and racism toward blacks was pervasive in many parts of the country.

From John Taylor's book:

At the time, the greatest turbulence in the country centered around race relations. Black migration out of the rural South had continued strong since the end of World War II, and the 1960 census found that in Washington, D.C., blacks for the first time had become a majority in a large American city. But segregation remained the rule throughout the Deep South, and in April 1959... the most notorious lynching since the murder of Emmett Till took place when a group of hooded men kidnapped Mack Parker, the black suspect in the rape of a white woman, from a jail in Mississippi and left his mutilated body in the Pearl River.

Russell joined the league first, partway through the 1956-57 season. Russell had been exposed to racism throughout his life, feeling the sting of awards he deserved going to white players during his time at USF, and seeing racism in the extreme when the U.S. Olympic team toured the South in 1956. There had been star black athletes, most notably Joe Louis and Jackie Robinson, but not in basketball. Russell's spectacular play and two titles at USF had made him known nationally, and his transformative play with the Celtics made him the first black basketball star.

Red Auerbach was as racially progressive as any American sports figure, and Russell thrived in an environment where all that mattered was how he performed. But Boston was a difficult city for Russell. While the Celtics integrated early, the Red Sox would be the last major league team to sign a black player in 1959. Racial tension in the city was high, and Russell was subjected to abuse once he left the cocoon of his Celtic team. The racism intensified further when Russell became player-coach in 1967. People react to racism in different ways; Russell was a fiercely proud, intelligent, and private man, and he tended to withdraw and hold resentment inside.

Chamberlain, who entered the league three years after Russell, had an entirely different personality. While also intelligent and proud like Russell, he was outgoing, genial, and comfortable with all kinds of people. He was more flamboyant as a person, and his spectacular offensive ability was more flamboyant than the defensive-minded game that Russell played. Russell was already an MVP winner and two-time champion and had paved the way as a black star in the NBA, but Chamberlain's physical size, outsized personality to match, and incredible scoring ability made him a star of a different order. Wilt was a black star who was comfortable with being a celebrity.

Together, Russell and Chamberlain opened the doors for all the black NBA stars to come. There were outstanding black players in the league before Russell, such as Maurice Stokes, but it was primarily a white league followed by white audiences. With Russell and Wilt, fans came to accept that black players could be stars, which had not been the case before their arrival. They not only changed the racial climate of the NBA, they also contributed in their own way to changing the racial climate of the country as a whole. Russell showed that a black player could reach the pinnacle of team sports while maintaining grace and dignity in the face of hateful words and acts. Chamberlain broke barriers in a different way, showing that a black athlete could be a media star. Both showed the country that black athletes could be intelligent and well-spoken.


The impact of their rivalry

Individually, Russell and Chamberlain were so good that either could have dominated the league. Because they played the same position and battled against each other, their rivalry became legendary.

Chamberlain and Russell won nine of 11 MVP awards from 1958 to 1969. Between 1959 and 1969, their teams played each another six times in the eastern conference finals and twice in the NBA finals. They set records that haven't been surpassed, including some that may not ever be broken. Together, the two of them have the top 18 season averages for rebounds.

Each pushed the other to become better. In their own words:

-- Wilt: "Bill Russell helped make my dream a better dream because when you play with the best, you know you have to play your best."

-- Russell: "Wilt was the greatest offensive player I have ever seen. Because his talent and skills were so superhuman, his play forced me to play at my highest level. If I didn't, I'd risk embarrassment and our team would likely lose."

-- Russell: "Many have called our competition the greatest rivalry in the history of sports. We didn't have a rivalry; we had a genuinely fierce competition that was based on friendship and respect. We just loved playing against each other. The fierceness of the competition bonded us as friends for eternity. We loved competition. Wilt loved competition."

Together, they changed the way the game was played, Russell at the defensive end and Chamberlain at the offensive end. Basketball was previously considered to be a game played below the rim, but with their incredible leaping and athletic ability, it became a game played in the air. "Those two players changed the whole game of basketball," said Darrall Imhoff, the opposing center the night Wilt scored 100. "The game just took an entire step up to the next level."

Their rivalry also improved the profile and fortunes of the NBA. Prior to Russell and Chamberlain, the league was struggling financially and was not considered on a par with baseball and football as a major pro sport (or hockey in some cities, like Boston).

From John Taylor's book:

While Boston was a storied sports town, the sports that had always provoked the most passion were baseball and hockey, the sports of the Red Sox and the Bruins. These were sports with rich local histories, sports that had been played for generations in Boston and had, over the years, woven themselves so deeply into the fabric of the city that residence there seemed virtually synonymous with a rabid devotion to its baseball and hockey teams. Professional basketball, in contrast, was only thirteen years old in 1959. Walter Brown, the owner of the Bruins and leaseholder on the Boston Garden, had started the Celtics to fill seats at the arena on nights when his beloved hockey team was not playing and the big, drafty building, located above the train station, would otherwise sit dark and empty. In other words, the team was a purely commercial afterthought in a sport without strong roots in the city's culture, and for much of the fifties, attendance at its games reflected this. Rarely was the Garden more than half filled on the nights it played. Members of the Celtics joked that while Ted Williams could not get out of a car on Charles Street without being mobbed, their entire team could walk the length of the Common and no one would give them a second glance...

Attendance at Celtics games was now so dismal that when the 1955 playoffs were over, Walter Brown had been unable to pay the players their playoff bonuses. He had promised to make good on the debts, together with interest, at the start of the following season, and he was true to his word. But Auerbach felt uncertain enough about his future that he had begun supplementing his income by working as a sales representative for CelluCraft, a plastics company that manufactured flexible packaging like Jell-O bags and Kool Pop wrappers.

The NBA is currently in a lockout as owners and players squabble over splitting a multi-billion dollar pie. When Bill Russell joined the league in 1956, the league was struggling for its survival. Russell's and Chamberlain's individual stardom and intense rivalry helped put the NBA on firmer financial ground and turn the league a major pro sport.

So in addition to changing how the game was played, Russell and Chamberlain helped a struggling league grow into a major pro sport, and for good measure, helped advance race relations in this country. Too bad ESPN wasn't around to immortalize it.

[Outside]

PART 3. THE GENTLE GIANT

Although Wilt looked almost painfully thin in high school and college, he was much stronger than he appeared. Once he joined the NBA and realized that rough play was the norm and that hard fouls and even rougher play were the norm against him, he bulked up and got even stronger. And like his scoring and rebounding, his strength was legendary.

Some examples:

-- While Wilt was with the Globetrotters, they had a skit where he would throw Meadowlark Lemon several feet up in the air and catch him like a doll. Lemon called Chamberlain "the strongest athlete who ever lived."

-- Dr. Stan Lorber, Globetrotters team doctor: "On the trip to Russia with the Harlem Globetrotters, we were in Lenin Stadium, and they assigned a dressing room to the team. The players were getting dressed for one of their games. They were in rather close quarters. Remember, these were young kids--Wilt was 23. The others were his age. They were like kittens. You bump me, I'll bump you back. And before you know it, two of the guys set on Wilt. They started playfully pushing and shoving him. And finally one of his teammates hit Wilt a little too hard. He took these two guys, twisted each of their shirts, and lifted both of them off the ground. Each of these guys weighed over 200 pounds. It looked like he had two little crackers in his hands. I thought he was going to hit their heads together. It was an amazing demonstration of strength."

-- Bill Russell, in Go Up For Glory: "I still remember the time when one of our strongest men, Gene Conley, decided to fight Chamberlain for the ball. He grabbed it and hung on and Chamberlain just lifted him and ball right up towards the rim."

-- Billy Cunningham, in Tall Tales: "The greatest play I've ever seen was one of the last games of the 1966-67 season and we were playing Baltimore... There was a play earlier in the game where Gus Johnson had dunked one over Wilt. Gus was a very strong player. I weighed 220 pounds, and with one hand Gus could push me out of the lane. The man was a physical specimen [6-6, 230 pounds], all muscle. He loved to dunk and was a very colorful player. When he slammed it on Wilt, he really threw it down, and you could tell that Wilt didn't like it one bit.

"Later in the game, Gus was out on the fast break, and the only man between him and the basket was Wilt. He was going to dunk on Wilt--again. Gus cupped the ball and took off--he had a perfect angle for a slam. Wilt went up and with one hand he grabbed the ball--cleanly! Then he took the ball and shoved it right back into Gus, drilling Gus into the floor with the basketball.

"Gus was flattened and they carried him out. It turned out that Gus Johnson was the only player in NBA history to suffer a dislocated shoulder from a blocked shot."

-- Johnny Kerr, in Tall Tales: "Once Wilt got upset with me and dunked the ball so hard it went through the rim with such force that it broke my toe as it hit the floor."

-- Spencer Haywood, in The NBA at 50: "I said, 'Wilt isn't such a tough guy. I can guard him.' He backed me down and dunked the ball. And I was so far under the basket, and he dunked it so hard, that the ball came through the net and hit me in the forehead twice! Bang! So I said, 'You know, I think he is that great.'"

-- Paul Silas, in Goliath's Wonderful Life, Hoop Magazine: "One time, when I was with Boston and he was with the Lakers, Happy Hairston and I were about to get in a scrape. All of a sudden, I felt an enormous vise around me. I was 6-7, 235, and Wilt had picked me up and turned me around. He said, 'We're not going to have that stuff.' I said, 'Yes sir.'"

-- K.C. Jones, in Goliath's Wonderful Life, Hoop Magazine: "He [Wilt] stopped me dead in my tracks with his arm, hugged me and lifted me off the floor with my feet dangling. It scared the hell out of me. When I went to the free-throw line, my legs were still shaking. Wilt was the strongest guy and best athlete ever to play the game."

-- From The Good Natured Giant Wasn't Belligerent by Dave Anderson, Sports of the Times; Several years after Wilt stopped playing, he toyed with the idea of a comeback. On the day he visited the Knicks' offices in Madison Square Garden, he talked to Red Holzman, then strode out to the elevator. When it opened, two deliverymen were struggling with a dolly piled high with boxes of office supplies, mostly letterheads and envelopes. The load was so heavy, the elevator had stopped maybe four inches below the floor level and now the deliverymen were huffing and puffing, but they couldn't raise the dolly high enough to get it on the floor level. After maybe two minutes of the deliverymen's huffing and puffing, Wilt, his biceps bulging in a tank top, peered down at them and intoned, "Gentlemen, maybe I can help." They stepped back, he stepped into the elevator, grabbed each end of the rope slung under the dolly and without much exertion, quickly lifted the dolly onto the floor level. Looking up in awe, the deliverymen said, "Thank you." Wilt said, "You're welcome." Wilt stepped into the elevator and rode down to the street level as another witness followed the two deliverymen toward the Knick offices and asked, "How much does all this weigh?" They quickly surveyed the stack of big boxes of office supplies. "Close to 600 pounds," one said.

Chamberlain's size and strength had some disadvantages, including that referees let opposing players get away with fouling him. He was constantly double- and triple-teamed, and opponents fouled him a lot, both because it was better than letting him get a layup or dunk and because he was a poor free-throw shooter. Since he was so strong, opponents had to foul him hard.

"We went for his weakness," Tom Heinsohn told the Philadelphia Daily News in 1991, "tried to send him to the foul line, and in doing that he took the most brutal pounding of any player ever. I hear people today talk about hard fouls. Half the fouls against him were hard fouls."

It's no surprise that he holds the NBA record for most free throws attempted in a game (34) and led the league in free-throw attempts nine of his first 10 seasons.

For many people, a natural reaction to being fouled so much would be to retaliate. But Wilt didn't, because he was too nice of a guy and because he knew that with his strength he could truly hurt someone. It is said that with great power comes great responsibility, and Wilt understood that he couldn't use his strength in anger.

Some quotes:

-- Alex Hannum, in Tall Tales: "When I coached against him, I'd put four guys on him at the end of the game. My guys would beat the hell out of him, and Wilt would get frustrated. While he was an aggressive player, he certainly took a lot more of a pounding than he gave out. Above all, Wilt was always a gentleman. Later, I coached him and I said, 'Wilt, these guys are bashing you, holding your arms and trying to hurt you, Just once, all you have to do is smash the ball down their throat and break their wrists. Just once, that's all it would take and they would back off.' But he wouldn't do it. He knew his own strength and he knew how dangerous he could be."

-- Earl Lloyd, in Tall Tales: "I think of Wilt's strength and I remember how guys would beat on him, pull his pants, and he just took it. The fact that Wilt was so even-tempered made you believe in the Lord. If he had been mean, the league would have had to take up a collection for protection money."

-- "I always said it was a damn good thing that God made Wilt such a nice guy," said Jack McMahon, who played and coached against Chamberlain for two decades, "because if he'd have been mean, he might have killed people."

-- Sid Borgia, in Tall Tales: "Wilt was never one to complain to officials. Only once did he get on me. It was during a time-out, and Wilt yelled, 'If I wasn't black already, I'd be nothing but black-and-blue.'"

-- Al Attles, in Tall Tales: "I would talk to Wilt about all the players pounding on him. Sometimes, he said he didn't notice it--he was so strong. But I also believe that there were two sets of rules. By that, I mean because Wilt was so strong, the officials let the man guarding him get away with more--almost trying to equalize the game. I also believe that Wilt just took it because he didn't want to get thrown out, and because it had always been like that with him. But I'd watch it and I'd get mad. It takes me a while to get my temper going, but when it does--look out. I'd see what the other players were doing to Wilt and what the officials were allowing, and I'd get more upset than if it were happening to me. So I jumped in there. It wasn't that Wilt couldn't defend himself. If he ever got really hot, he'd kill people, so he let things pass. But I didn't have to worry about that. I was strong for my size, but I was not about to do anything like the kind of damage Wilt would."

-- Johnny Kerr: "We never saw him upset or mean. His demeanor was such. Some of the guys who play today are nasty. Michael (Jordan) was nasty. He was the most vicious offensive player. Wilt did his stuff, but I never saw him play angry."

Wilt was a complex man, but I look at this aspect of him almost as a simple mathematical equation -- incredible strength + nice guy = Gentle Giant.

Wilt's teams and the Celtics had many classic battles. After the heat and bluster of competition faded over the years, a lasting respect remained. "He was a terrific guy," said Tom Heinsohn when Wilt died. "It is a great loss to the sports world. Wilt Chamberlain had a special place in basketball history and he will be missed. We had many battles with Wilt. He was a fun guy to be around; he was a 'Gentle Giant.'"

[Outside]

PART 4. DID RED WANT WILT?

This seems relatively objective since there's information about it, but there's subjectivity in interpreting the information. First, the information, which revolves around summer basketball in the Catskills and the territorial draft.

Milt Kutsher hired college basketball players to work during the summer at his resort where they would play against teams fielded by other Catskills resorts. Pro coaches and owners attended and watched the college players play with an eye toward who might be worth drafting someday. Wilt was a sensation in high school, so Kutsher hired him as a bellhop and put him up against the older, more experienced players. The coach for Kutsher's team was one Arnold "Red" Auerbach.

From The Rivalry: Bill Russell, Wilt Chamberlain, and the Golden Age of Basketball, by John Taylor:

In the summer of 1953, Auerbach had met a player he was convinced could be the solution to all his problems.... While Kutsher usually hired only college students, there was that summer a high school kid in Philadelphia named Wilt Chamberlain who was such a phenomenal player that after watching him, Haskell Cohen, the public relations man for the NBA, had persuaded Kutsher to make him a bellhop. The first time Auerbach saw Chamberlain, moving along briskly in his bellhop uniform... he just stood there and watched him walk... what Auerbach thought was incredible was how graceful he was for someone his size. A little while later, when he saw him on the basketball court, he realized that even though the kid was still in high school, he was comparable to the best college players Auerbach had ever seen.

Auerbach pushed Chamberlain hard during practices and tried to work with him on his moves, like guarding the pivot man, but Chamberlain, he found, was not a receptive student. Wilt was only sixteen, but because of his size and ability and all the press attention he'd already received, people even then had begun to treat him with awe, and it had gone to his head. Still, his talent was phenomenal, and so was his hustle. Even off the court he hustled, carrying guests' luggage in and out of the hotel, pocketing tips, bringing trays of drinks to the patio. The NBA at the time had a territorial draft, which allowed each team to exploit the draw of local talent by giving it the right, regardless of its position in the regular draft, to acquire a top player graduating from a college within its territory. Which meant if Chamberlain went to a college in New England, Auerbach could claim him for the Celtics. "Why don't you go to Harvard, kid?" Auerbach asked Chamberlain one day.

Auerbach was serious. He called Walter Brown, who was at his vacation house on Cape Cod, and urged him to come up and take a look at Chamberlain. "This is the most fantastic player I've ever seen," Auerbach said. He added that it would be worth almost any amount of money to acquire him, and even suggested that Brown consider giving Chamberlain's family $25,000--just out and out bribe the mother and father--if Wilt would attend a college within the Celtics' territory.... Eddie Gottlieb, owner of the Philadelphia Warriors, heard about Auerbach's scheme. He considered Chamberlain a Philadelphia talent and was determined to have him play for the Warriors.... "If that kid even thinks about blowing town for Boston," Gottlieb told Milt Kutsher, "I'll turn your joint into a bowling alley."

...[A]t a league meeting in early 1955, before Chamberlain had graduated from Overbrook High, Gottlieb proposed a rule extending the territorial draft to high school. To Gottlieb, it was entirely logical. The league was still struggling. Hometown boys, big at the box office, could make the difference between whether a team stayed afloat for another couple of years or sank... Gottlieb then selected Chamberlain in the 1955 draft even though he would not be eligible to play for four more years.

From I'm Punchy From Basketball, Baby, And Tired Of Being A Villain, by Wilt and Bob Ottum, Sports Illustrated:

That Red Auerbach. Now, isn't he too much? With that cigar and the look like he would snap you in half. I mean mean. But what a guy. I can remember the first time we met—and maybe you don't know this, but he was my coach at one time. It was back in 1953 and I was a high school freshman then. Maybe about...oh, 6 feet 10? or so...and a real smart aleck. You know. I had been playing a lot of basketball already against some pretty tough old boys, and I thought I was pretty hot stuff. And Haskell Cohen, the public relations guy for the NBA—man, he was really looking into the future—had spotted me down at Overbrook High in Philadelphia. And he got me a summer job bell-hopping at Kutsher's resort up in the Catskills. It was a sort of breeding ground for future professionals. Haskell was looking beyond high school and college, I guess. So I turned up on the borscht circuit carrying suitcases and waiting on tables and sort of standing around all bones and eyeballs and teeth. Every summer resort up there had its own basketball team made up of college kids who needed jobs for the summer. They worked a little and played a little. And who was the coach at Kutsher's? The man with the cigar.

Looking back on it, I think maybe it was my attitude that first touched off Auerbach. You know, I wasn't exactly the most modest kid in town, and I had a lot of moves for a high school freshie playing with the big boys. And when Red would call practice he would sort of talk to me in that voice that catches you right here, right between the ribs. He especially didn't like the way I played defense.

"Don't you think. Chamberlain," Red would growl, "that it might be sort of a good idea to defense your man from in front of him instead of behind him? What the hell are you doing back there?" But I went on defensing from behind the guys, reaching around with my arms to get the ball, waiting to fall on them when they wheeled around to shoot.

"We are going to play Shawanga Lodge next," said Red, looking through me. "And you are going to have to defense B. H. Born. I think it only fair to tell you. Chamberlain, that B. H. Born has just made All-America from the University of Kansas. And I think it only fair to tell you that B. H. Born is going to make chopped chicken liver out of you." So we played Shawanga.

At the half-time break I had scored 30-some points and Born had scored exactly two. And I came ambling back into the dressing room and flopped myself down on the training table and folded my arms behind my head. I was whistling, you know, doo de doo de doo, and sort of looking sidewise at old Red while he looked back at me with a steely stare. Finally he grinned a little trace of a grin at me. "Now about the second half," he said. Then, "Now, Mister Chamberlain, may I please have your attention for a moment?" Suddenly we understood each other. Red and I. And I learned to play defense on both sides; I play it a lot in front now. After that, Red would let me serve him drinks and cigars in his room when he was up all night playing poker, and he later got me aside to talk about future schooling.

"Why don't you go to Harvard, kid?" he said. "And then I'll be able to pick you off in the territorial draft for the Celtics." But other forces were already at work.

From Tall Tales: The Glory Years of the NBA, by Terry Pluto:

Wilt: It was a coup when Eddie Gottlieb drafted me while I was still in high school. He may have done it because he got word that I had played under Red Auerbach at Kutsher's Country Club in the summer. Red wanted me to attend Harvard so he could have my rights....

Alex Hannum: It was common knowledge that Eddie also encouraged Wilt to go to college at Kansas in order to keep him away from any of the NBA cities. He did this for two reasons: First, he didn't want Wilt at a Philly school such as La Salle, where he would be drawing fans away from Eddie's Warriors. Second, if Wilt went somewhere such as Kansas, no other NBA team could contest Eddie's territorial pick of Wilt while he was in high school.

I see several things here.

Red made a concerted effort to get Chamberlain through the territorial draft. Gottlieb was in a better position since Wilt was a Philly kid, and he outmaneuvered Red in this instance to get an early territorial claim to Wilt. But that doesn't change the fact that Red recognized Wilt's obvious talent, really wanted him, and tried to get him.

Red did this after having experience coaching Wilt that summer, so if he had any reservations about coaching Wilt, they weren't enough to scare him off. Wilt was a headstrong kid, too full of himself after getting a lot of attention, but as Wilt's story from the Sports Illustrated article shows, Red was more than up to the task of dealing with that, and Wilt gained a lot of respect for Red as a coach.

Red went after Wilt well before he was aware of Russell, so it's impossible to say if he would've pursued Wilt after knowing what Russell could do. Red didn't really find out about Russell until after he drafted him in 1956, and by that time, Gottlieb had locked up Chamberlain as a territorial pick. If Red had known at that point what kind of player Russell could be, it's possible that he wouldn't have pursued Wilt, at least to the extent that he did. We can chalk that up in the "we'll never know" column, and it's not all that important to our discussion anyway.

So it seems that we can say that Red wanted Wilt and tried to get him, but that was when Wilt was in high school, long before he was available for the draft. Assuming he was still available (and, according to our scenario, that Russell was not on the Celtics), would Red have still wanted Wilt in 1959? Since Wilt was the greatest prospect that anyone had ever seen, why wouldn't Red want him?

[Outside]

PART 5. WAS WILT COACHABLE?

In comparisons between Russell and Chamberlain, Wilt is often portrayed as concerned mainly with his own individual achievements and at odds with his coaches. In our scenario -- exchanging Russell for Wilt on the 60's Celtics -- the success of the Celtics with Wilt would depend largely on whether Wilt would be coachable. Would he respond to Auerbach's coaching and change his game to fit into Auerbach's vision? Or would he resist and become a cancer on the team?

In this post, I'll address the issue of Wilt's coachability by examining two areas:

-- His attitude. As a player, was he selfish, a ball hog? Was he an egotistical, selfish person?

-- His relationships with his coaches. Did he get along with them? If so, why? If not, why not?


Wilt's attitude

Many people thought Chamberlain was successful just because he was tall and athletically gifted. What those people don't realize is how hard he worked to become the player that he was.

Vince Miller, in Tall Tales, by Terry Pluto: I've known Wilt since the third grade and we've been close friends ever since. Wilt was a great athlete and would have been a star in track, football, about anything he wanted. But he loved basketball and the thing people don't understand is that he worked at the game. He wasn't just a big guy. He was lifting weights before anyone else did. In the summer, they would close several Philly recreation centers because it was so hot inside, but we'd get a key and Wilt and I would go in there and work on his outside shot. It would be 90-some degrees, he'd be drenched with sweat and he'd be jumping up and down, touching the rim a hundred times.

"I believe that good things come to those who work," said Wilt.

For most of his career, Wilt scored so much because he was capable of it and because everyone -- coaches, teammates, fans, and Wilt -- came to expect it. From Tall Tales:

Tom Gola: I first played with Wilt when I was in college and he was a 6-foot-8 junior high kid. He held his own with all these hotshot players from Philly, even at 13 years old. If Wilt had come into the NBA and not scored 50 a night, he would have been booed. Those were the kinds of expectations he faced -- not just from the fans, but the other players. No other player ever had to deal with the kind of pressures that Wilt did. He was expected to be perfect.

Earl Strom: There were games when Wilt would block a shot, Tommy Gola would pick up the loose ball and instead of taking down the court on the fast break, he'd hold it.

Wilt said, "Tommy, somebody has to help me score."

Tommy said, "Hey, big fella, you got the hot hand, we're working it to you."

Al Attles: I probably played 500 games with Wilt and never once did I hear him say, "Get me the ball."

Wilt Chamberlain was a unique player, a 7-2 track star who could run and jump and had athletic ability, so tall, strong, and skilled that he could score unlike anyone the game had ever seen, so it was natural that he would be asked to score, and score a lot. In those early days of the league, when teams were struggling to attract fans and stay financially solvent, Warriors owner Eddie Gottlieb saw Chamberlain as a gate attraction, and he intended to take advantage of him.

From Tall Tales:

Tom Gola: Gotty believed in the star system. It began with Joe Fulks, who was one of the first jump shooters and set an NBA scoring record [with 63 points in 1949], and it continued with Paul Arizin and then Wilt. He liked guys who scored big numbers because he thought that was how you attracted fans.

Wilt: Early in my career it was made very clear to me, "Wilt, you've got to score a lot of points." Eddie Gottlieb believed it was good for his franchise and for the league for me to set records.

Leonard Koppett [referenced in Spike's earlier post]: I call Wilt Chamberlain a very honest workman. By that, I mean he always did what his employer wanted. No star athlete has ever given his boss more for the money than Wilt did during his career. Eddie Gottlieb wanted Wilt to score like no man ever had, so Wilt did. Hannum and some of his other coaches wanted him to pass and play defense so he did that and he played 48 minutes a night. Those who criticized Wilt -- first for his scoring, then for not scoring more -- really should have criticized his employer.

Wilt: When you go out there and do the things you're supposed to do, people view you as selfish.

Wilt Chamberlain was indeed proud of his individual stats and accomplishments, but it's interesting that he was not proud of his most famous achievement -- the 100-point game.

From Tall Tales:

Al Attles: After the game, Wilt was in the dressing room and he wasn't celebrating like the rest of us.

I said, "Wilt, what's the matter."

He said, "I never thought I'd take 60 shots in a game."

I said, "But you made 36, that's better than 50 percent."

He said, "But Al--63 shots, Al." Then he just shook his head.

Frank McGuire: I do think we were more excited about the game than Wilt was.

Wilt: The 100-point game will never be as important to me as it is to some other people. That's because I'm embarrassed by it. After I got into the 80s, I pushed for 100 and it destroyed the game because I took shots that I normally never would. I was not real fluid. I mean, 63 shots? You take that many shots on the playground and no one ever wants you on their team again. I never considered myself a gunner. I led leagues in scoring because I also led them in field goal percentage. I've had many better games than this one, games where I scored 50-60 and shot 75 percent.

Al Attles: Wilt gave me the ball that he scored the 100th point with, even though some kid claimed to have run off with it.

Wilt: I wanted Al to have that ball because he's a great friend and he spent his whole career sacrificing to make other guys better players.

Wilt was a complex man. Although there is no doubt that Wilt cared about his stats and had an ego to match his size, many people have told stories that show another side of him.

From Tall Tales:

Al Attles: When we played in New York, the kids would stand right near the court as we warmed up. The NBA rule is that you can't sign autographs during warmups. One young man politely asked Wilt if he would sign. Wilt explained that the league wouldn't let him. Then he said, "Stay around after the game, and I'll sign whatever you want." That's a line players give to fans just to get rid of them.

Well, the game was over, Wilt went into the dressing room, dried off, and then headed back into Madison Square Garden. He was still in his uniform. The boy was not outside our dressing room. Then Wilt started walking through the dark arena, calling the boy. He came from the other end of the arena. Wilt signed his stuff and talked to the young man.

How many guys would remember that they had made a promise like that to a kid? And with Wilt, this was far from an isolated incident.

Tom Meschery: One of Wilt's most notable traits is his generosity. One summer I worked for the Seattle department of recreation and we were putting together an inner-city basketball league. Since he lived in the area, I called Bill Russell to come out and help us kick off the program. Russ wanted to be paid. I didn't want to spend the city's money. I thought of Wilt and how he traveled a lot in the summer, I thought maybe he might be in the area, so I called him.

Wilt said that he was spending some time in L.A., but why not? He's come to Seattle to help an old teammate.

He got on his motorcycle and drove from L.A. to Seattle. He talked to the kids, officiated a game and spent the day. Then he refused to take a dime, even for expenses.

Frank McGuire: One night, we were on the road. We had lost, it was about two in the morning. I had gotten a terrible hotel room and I was standing in the hall. Wilt saw me and asked what was wrong.

I said, "Look at this room, it's like a shoebox."

Wilt grabbed my key, then gave me his key. "I got a room twice this size at the end of the hall, Coach. It's all yours." Then he shut the door to my old room in my face, the point being that he didn't want any argument, he wanted me to take his room.

Matt Goukas: In restaurants, Wilt would quietly pick up the tab because he knew that he was making 10 times what we were. But he was very discreet, most of us not realizing what had happened until later. Or else he'd invite us to his room and he'd have a huge spread of room service food for us.

Fred Schaus: I have great respect for Wilt. When I was with the Lakers, he never missed a practice or a game, or was late for a plane. If I asked him to make an appearance, he did it. This man has gone through life with a bad rap. We are talking about a very good person.

Note: I almost didn't include the story from Tom Meschery because it puts Russell in a bit of a bad light, but I really liked what it showed about Wilt, so I kept it in. Tom Meschery was never a teammate of Russell's but was a teammate of Wilt's, and that's a factor in this situation. But mostly, Bill Russell is a complex man, a very private man who reacts in his own way to public requests, and he has endured so much and sacrificed so much during his life and given back so much to his country that, on balance, this is no big deal.


Wilt's relationship with his coaches

Note: In this section, the text blocks in italics are from Tall Tales, by Terry Pluto.

There are still a few coaches around who act like dictators, but pro basketball today is often something of a collaborative environment where some players provide input and make suggestions. Back in the 1950's and 60's, however, the typical coach ran his team with an iron hand, and players did as they were told or found themselves on the bench or off the team.

Wilt arrived in the NBA during a time of change. Attitudes were changing about almost every aspect of society, including race, the role of young people, and the media, to name a few. Into this environment came Wilt, and no one had seen the likes of him before, as a player or as a personality. We now accept the notion of the superstar athlete as a media figure and as someone who commands respect from coaches, but Wilt was one of the first, and the idea that an athlete would view himself that way, especially a black athlete, was grating to many people, including some in the coaching ranks.

Wilt's coach the first two years with the Philadelphia Warriors was Neil Johnston. Johnston was the Warriors' center before Wilt, a fine scorer and rebounder who was part of the Warriors' championship team in 1956 and is in the Hall of Fame. Although the Warriors had won the title four years before, they were a team in decline and were 32-40 in 1958-59. When Wilt arrived in 1959-60, they improved to 49-26, and they took the champion Celtics to six games in the Eastern finals. But there was tension between Johnston and Wilt, and the team took a step back, going 46-33 in the regular season and getting swept by Syracuse in the first round of the playoffs. That was the end of Johnston's coaching tenure with the Warriors.

In his third season, Wilt was coached by Frank McGuire, the North Carolina coach whose team beat Chamberlain and Kansas in the 1957 NCAA championship, and that was one of the best relationships that Wilt had with a coach. Philadelphia was 49-31 in the regular season and lost to the Celtics in the Eastern finals, including a heartbreaking 109-107 loss in game 7. McGuire wanted to stay on, but the Warriors moved to San Francisco after that season, and he left the team because moving to the West Coast would take him away from his son, Frank Jr., who had cerebral palsy. (McGuire became the head coach at South Carolina, where he is the winningest basketball coach. He is also the third-winningest at North Carolina.)

Wilt: In my first two years, I was coached by Neil Johnston, who had been the Warriors center before me.... He had no sympathy for me because I used to kick his butt on the playgrounds in Philly and because I now was playing his old position....

That changed in my third year when Frank McGuire came in. He was a unique man, not just because he allowed me to score 50 points a game. Rather, he was very sensitive to this young black man and all things that surrounded me. He never told me to score points, he let it happen in the natural flow of the game. He did tell the team, "Gentlemen, if Wilt has to score 50 a game for us to win and if he can do it, then gentlemen, that is how it will be."

"[McGuire] and Wilt really hit it off," said Harvey Pollack, then public relations director for the Warriors. "Wilt was never too happy with Neil. But Frank knew what to say to Wilt, how to handle him. I don't think Wilt had that kind of camaraderie with any other coach."

In a 1987 interview with the New York Times, McGuire said Chamberlain was "the best problem I ever had."

Frank McGuire: I first coached against Wilt in the 1957 NCAA championship game when my North Carolina team beat Kansas. During my pregame talk, I never even mentioned the Kansas team, I just talked about how we'd defense Wilt.... We put five guys on him and he still scored 26 points, but we won. But that wasn't Wilt's fault.

From that day, I had been intrigued with Chamberlain. I had read that he was uncoachable and a bad guy, but I refused to believe that. He didn't strike me that way. I was at North Carolina for 10 years when Eddie Gottlieb talked to me about the Warriors job. I looked at film of Wilt, and the more I saw, the more I wanted to coach him. Even though I had been very comfortable at North Carolina, I couldn't resist the temptation of working with Wilt.

Wilt: The first thing Frank did after he got the job was sit down and talk to me, man-to-man. No coach had ever treated me that way before.

Tom Gola: Frank didn't try to control Wilt. Some of Wilt's early coaches, they kept telling him what to do. But Wilt thought he knew more about basketball than they did. By not telling Wilt things all the time, when Frank did talk to Wilt, Wilt listened.

McGuire: I had meetings with each of the players... I said that Wilt was the most dominant force in basketball history and I wanted him to get the ball two-thirds of the time. Guy Rodgers said to me, "Coach, whatever you say is fine, but will you sit in with us when we go to talk contract with Eddie Gottlieb?" One of the problems back then was that guys were paid according to their scoring averages. But that also is why I respected the players -- they ran the offense I wanted.

McGuire: In the playoffs, we took Boston to seven games and lost when Mendy Rudolph called a very questionable goaltending on Wilt. We got beat 109-107 and had a chance to win because we caught Boston on a bad day.

Wilt was so great. He shook my hand after that game and told me how much he appreciated my coaching.

I would have come back for a second season, but Eddie Gottlieb sold the Warriors to San Francisco and I was not about to move to the West Coast and be that far away from Frank Jr., so I quit and went back to coaching in college. But in that one year, I'm very proud to have been the coach when Wilt averaged 50 and scored 100 in a game. I wish I could have coached him for his whole career.

Wilt: I just wish that I could have played for more than one year for Frank McGuire. He and Alex Hannum were my favorite coaches.

After McGuire came the underwhelming Bob Feerick (31-49), but the Warriors then hired Alex Hannum and immediately improved to 48-32. Now in the Western division, the Warriors made it to the finals but lost again to the Celtics. During their time together in San Francisco, Chamberlain and Hannum developed a bond that would serve them well later.

In the middle of the next season, Wilt was traded from the Warriors back to Philadelphia to the 76ers, who were the relocated Syracuse Nationals. Wilt was traded for financial reasons; although the Warriors had a good team, attendance was poor in San Francisco, and the ownership felt they couldn't afford to carry Wilt's huge salary, so they traded him for three players (one of whom never played a game for the Warriors) and $150,000 (which was a lot of money in those days).

For one and half seasons, Dolph Schayes was Wilt's coach with the 76ers. Schayes was a Hall-of-Fame player who believed in a motion offense that had served him well in his playing days. Although Wilt was a different kind of player, Schayes stayed with his offense, which made Wilt something of a square peg in a round hole. They were successful during the regular season, improving from 34-46 the year before Chamberlain's arrival to 55-25 in Wilt's first full season, the best record in the league. In the playoffs, however, they lost 4-1 to the Celtics in the Eastern finals, which led to Schayes' dismissal.

Re-enter Alex Hannum, recently departed from San Francisco. The 76ers had a roster with a mix of emerging young talent and veteran leadership, including Hal Greer, Chet Walker, Billy Cunningham, Wali Jones, Luke Jackson, and Larry Costello. Now that Chamberlain was finally surrounded with scorers, Hannum told Wilt to concentrate on defense and rebounding.

Hannum and Chamberlain had a couple of long talks before the season. They both were big men, men of ego, yet men who lusted after the same thing -- beating Boston.

"I told Wilt that things had changed for him," said Hannum. "He had a great team around him. It was not necessary for him to lead the league -- or even his team -- in scoring for us to win."

Chamberlain was a bit leery. He was the greatest scorer in history. While he wouldn't admit it, much of his identity was tied up in the fact that he was unstoppable, unguardable, unlike any player the NBA had ever seen. Hannum was asking him to give up a lot. Chamberlain considered that, but he also told Hannum, "I want to win. I'll give it a try."

For the next two seasons, the 76ers had six players score in double figures, and although Wilt was the high scorer, it wasn't by much (two points one season, 0.2 points the other), and other players had more field goal attempts. In 1966-67, Philadelphia was a then-record 68-13, beat Boston 4-1 in the Eastern finals, and won the NBA championship. In 1967-68, they had the league's best record again at 62-20 but lost to Boston in seven games in the Eastern finals.

Wilt: Why did we finally beat Boston? Because we had Alex Hannum as our coach.

Billy Cunningham: Alex Hannum demanded and received immediate respect. He had coached St Louis to a title [in 1958] and had coached Syracuse and Golden State. He had coached Wilt with the Warriors and word was that Alex had challenged Wilt in the Warriors' dressing room.

Alex Hannum: I'll just say that Wilt and I always had an understanding and mutual respect. When I got the Sixers job, we had lost Guy Rodgers in the expansion draft to Chicago. Guy was Wilt's favorite point guard and he made getting the ball to Wilt an art form. Costello was not the fancy ballhandler and passer that Guy was, but I knew that Costello and Hal Greer could be one of the best backcourt combinations that ever lived. My idea was to talk Larry Costello out of retirement, but before I did that, I called Wilt. I could tell that Wilt wasn't that fired up about it, but he said, "Coach, if you think Costello will help us win, then it's your decision."

I talked to Wilt about everything, not just Costello. One of the big things was that Wilt wanted to play all 48 minutes. Yes, he could play every minute, but to do that he had to pace himself. I said, "This is a different team from the ones earlier in your career. We have more talent and I need to play more guys. I don't give a damn who you are, you can't go at full speed for 48 minutes. I also don't think it's a bad idea to rest you for a few minutes, put someone else in there and give our team a different look." As was the case with Costello, he didn't necessarily agree with me, but he went along with the idea.

Larry Costello: Many people didn't understand Wilt, but Alex Hannum knew that you didn't sweat the small stuff with Wilt, who was a man of great pride and intelligence.

Jack Ramsay was hired to replace Hannum as general manager after the 1967-68 season, and Hannum left for the new ABA because he wanted total control as both coach and GM. Chamberlain suggested that the 76ers hire Frank McGuire or Bill Sharman to coach, but they went with Ramsay instead. Ramsay, like Dolph Schayes, was an advocate of a motion offense, and rather than repeat that experience with Wilt, Philly traded him (and his expensive contract) to the Lakers. LA was of course a perennial power in the West but couldn't get past Boston in the finals. With Wilt joining Jerry West and Elgin Baylor, they seemed like a lock to take the next step. However, that didn't take into account what would be one of the most unsatisfying experiences of Wilt's career -- being coached by Butch Van Breda Kolff.

Fred Schaus: I'd always been a big Wilt fan and felt he had gotten a bad rap over the years. I wish I could have coached him.

Butch Van Breda Kolff: I was excited when Fred Schaus told me that we had a chance to get Wilt.... Then I met Wilt during the summer at Kutsher's Country Club for the Maurice Stokes Game. I asked him to put on the Lakers T-shirt I had for him so we could take a picture, but he didn't want to do it. We went around and around for a minute, and Wilt was just being contrary. He just wanted to see how far he could push me. It just pissed me off, but I let it go.

Wilt: After the trade, Butch was quoted as saying he "could handle Wilt." Well, you handle horses, not people. Then there was all this talk about there not being enough basketballs for West, Baylor and myself. That didn't bother me. I was willing to sacrifice my offense and to concentrate on defense and rebounding so West and Baylor could score and we could make a run for the title. But with Butch, he always wanted me to know he was the boss.

Van Breda Kolff: I tried to talk to Wilt, I really did. Once, I said that we'd be better if he didn't spike the ball out-of-bounds after he blocked a shot. Then I made the mistake of mentioning Russell's name, and how the Celtics would fast break off his blocked shots.

Wilt said, "Boston is coached to come up with Russell's blocks."

I said, "What do you want me to do, put guys halfway up the stands? Are the ushers supposed to get your blocks?

Earl Strom: During games, you'd see Butch yell at Wilt and then Wilt would yell right back at him. Or else they would get into it when Butch took Wilt out of the game. Wilt said that he got along with most of his coaches, which was true. But once I heard him say, "Yeah, I liked all my coaches but Jackass."

I thought, "Who's Jackass?"

Then Wilt said, "Good old Jackass Van Breda Kolff."

Fred Schaus: I had a couple of meetings with Butch and Wilt, just the three of us. Both guys wanted to win and I think they wanted to smooth things out, but they were such strong-willed people... one of them would say something, and they'd start to argue. They would get stuck on little things. They just were two people who could look at each other and that was enough to aggravate the hell out of both of them.

Despite it all, they finished first in the West and met the aging Celtics in the finals. It was an epic series that has a special place in Celtic lore, especially game 7 (the balloon game), which included one last monumental run-in between Chamberlain and Van Breda Kolff.

Wilt: We were down by 9 points [with five minutes left] when I came down with a rebound and banged my knee. It was really painful. They helped me off the court, and I just needed a breather for a second. Butch put Mel Counts in for me, but after a minute I said I was ready to come back in. Butch ignored me.

John Havlicek: We were aware that Wilt went out, but we didn't know what the story was until later. We all figured he'd come back into the game and we were surprised when he didn't.

Fred Schaus: [S]itting in the stands, we all were dying because Wilt was not on the floor. Of course you want the big guy in at the end of a game like that, but it was Butch's decision.

Van Breda Kolff: I put in Counts, he hit a couple of shots and we made a comeback, as we often did when Counts played for Wilt during the regular season. Wilt told me he was okay, but I said we'd keep things as they were. He told me a second time he wanted to go back in, but I told Wilt the truth. I said, "We're playing better without you." It was nothing personal against Wilt. I simply decided to go with the guys who got us back into the game, and if Nelson hadn't made that shot, who knows what would have happened?

Wilt: He was just trying to show he was the boss and that he could win a title without Wilt Chamberlain.

Earl Strom: In a sense, I respect Butch for making one of the dumbest moves any coach has ever made. You just don't try to win a title with Mel Counts when you have Wilt Chamberlain, but they hated each other so much. Butch was never one to compromise. He always was his own man and he would coach his own way.

Van Breda Kolff quit after that. The petty, personal feud between the two men may very well have kept them from winning the title, but it's now a footnote to one of the most memorable wins in Celtic history.

Who was at fault? Some people just don't get along, and that was the case with Wilt and Van Breda Kolff, but both men also need to shoulder the blame. Both seemed to make it a personal war over petty things, starting with that T-shirt at Kutsher's Country Club. However you look at it, it is a stain on both men's careers, and it's the most valid instance of Wilt being uncoachable.

What makes it so striking is that it came directly after the exceptional experience with Alex Hannum and the 76ers, and it would be followed by another exceptional experience with Bill Sharman as Lakers coach. Looked at in that light, Van Breda Kolff looks worse than Wilt, but Wilt still let his pride get in the way in 1968-69.

Joe Mullaney took over as Lakers coach the next two seasons. The 1969-70 season is remembered for LA losing to the Knicks in the finals with Willis Reed limping out to play in game 7, but the Lakers were not the powerhouse they appeared to be. Wilt injured his knee early in the season and didn't return until the playoffs, Elgin Baylor was near the end of his career and only played in 54 games, and neither was at full strength in the playoffs. In 1970-71, Wilt didn't miss a game, but Baylor hurt his knee again and only played two games, and West also hurt his knee late in the season. The Lakers lost in the West finals to the Milwaukee team with Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Oscar Robertson. I couldn't find any information to indicate whether Wilt had a good or bad relationship with Mullaney, and his tenure is mostly described as unlucky due to all the injuries to his stars. In any event, it was nothing like the animosity that characterized Wilt and Van Breda Kolff.

Wilt's last two seasons were with Bill Sharman. The Lakers had a great 1971-72 season, going 69-13, winning 33 in a row (still a major pro sports record), and beating the Bulls, Bucks, and Knicks on their way to the title. The 1972-73 team was 60-22 in the regular season, but with Baylor gone, Wilt in his last season, and West in his next-to-last season, LA lost to the Knicks in the finals.

Sharman was a stickler for detail and like to do thing his way, and that could've been a recipe for disaster with Chamberlain, but the two got along well. A story that was often told was that when Sharman instituted mandatory morning shootarounds, Wilt told Sharman that he would come to the arena once a day and that Sharman could decide whether it would be for the shootaround or the game. Another tale regarding Wilt and shootarounds is that Sharman used them specifically to curb Wilt's nightlife. Great stories, but according to Sharman, not true. "It never happened. I talked to Wilt right before camp, and he said, ‘You know, Bill, I usually don’t get out of bed until noon. But if you think it will help, I’ll go along if we win.’” Sharman has also said he was impressed by how much Chamberlain was willing to work with him. So I'd say that ends Wilt's experience with coaches on a positive note.


Summary

Many people have drawn a line from Wilt's huge scoring to ball hog to uncoachable, but Wilt's incredible accumulation of stats is not in itself evidence of being uncoachable. He scored a lot of points because he was uniquely capable of doing so and was asked by team owners and coaches to put up huge numbers. Most "ball hogs" get their scoring averages through volume shooting -- shooting a low percentage, but taking so many shots that their scoring average is high. Wilt, on the other hand, led the league in field goal percentage nine of his 14 seasons, shot 54.0% for his career, has the highest field goal percentage for a season (72.7% in 1972-73) and the second highest (68.3% in 1966-67). If you had a player who scored with that kind of efficiency, you'd get him the ball. That doesn't mean he was a ball hog or a selfish player.

The stories of Wilt's generosity (and there are many, many more like them) don't fit with the characterization of Wilt as a selfish player who didn't get along with his teammates and coaches. When I think of the personality traits of a player who is uncoachable, I think of an arrogant jerk who only cares about himself, feels entitled without having earned the deference he expects, and doesn't care about other people. That type of person doesn't respect what others have to say and isn't willing to accept criticism. Some of these players are talented (Allen Iverson), muddle along through a mediocre career (Stephen Jackson, Stephan Marbury), or never even make it in the league (Michael Olowokandi).

On the other hand, just being a jerk doesn't mean you're uncoachable, or else we'd have to include six-time champion Michael Jordan and five-time champion Kobe Bryant (and maybe Larry Bird) in that category, but Jordan and Kobe in particular are players who are supremely talented and have an element of uncoachability. They are prickly and hard to handle, and they require a particular type of coach to accommodate their quirks, deal with their egos, and coax them from the dark side to attain greatness. They're not uncoachable, but they're not particularly coachable either.

I'd say Wilt falls in that in-between category -- not the most coachable player, but coachable given the right situation. He clearly clashed with Neil Johnston and Butch Van Breda Kolff, but he also had very good relationships with Frank McGuire, Alex Hannum, and Bill Sharman. Wilt needed a capable, confident coach who was willing to communicate with him. Numerous times, people quote Wilt as saying, "Coach, if you want to do X, that's fine, because all I want to do is win." Wilt did require special handling from coaches. If you treated him like an ordinary player and expected him to follow instructions just because you're the coach, Wilt took exception and dug in his heels. But if you talked to him in advance about what you wanted to do and explained why you wanted to do it, he'd be on board.

In that situation, Wilt was willing to adapt his game to whatever was needed to help his team win, from his high-scoring season with McGuire to emphasizing defense, rebounding, and passing with Hannum and Sharman. Considering that Red Auerbach and Bill Russell developed a relationship based on mutual respect in each other's exceptional abilities, I'm inclined to think that Wilt would've responded well in that situation.

But more on that in the next post.

[Outside]

PART 6. WILT ON THE CELTICS -- WOULD IT HAVE WORKED?

First off -- what do I know?

I was born in 1956, the same year Russell entered the league. I was only four when Chamberlain was a rookie, and my first recollections of the NBA aren't until the late 60s. I was fortunate enough to have two older brothers who educated me about the game at a young age, I educated myself further about those earlier times as I got older, and I've been exposed to a wealth of knowledgeable people with direct experience of those times. I saw Russell and Chamberlain play later and learned a lot about them over the years, but I can't shake the feeling that my posts don't compare with what others know first-hand.

This is all supposition and opinion. I try to base my opinions on factual evidence, but someone else might choose different facts or might come to a different conclusion based on the same facts. To an extent, I cherry-picked quotes for my posts, looking for ones that characterized Wilt in a way that suited my purposes. Someone else could pick quotes that reflect negatively on Wilt. But I did all this because I feel that there's been too much Wilt-bashing over the years, and it was my intention to give him some of the respect I think he justly deserves. That's the approach I've taken.

For better or worse, here we go.


Would Wilt have fit into the Celtic style of play?

I see several key factors in whether Wilt would have fit on the Celtics:

-- Did he have the skills to fit what the Celtics needed?

-- Would he adapt from his individually dominating style of play to a more evenly spread, "team" style of play?

-- Would he be coachable by Red Auerbach?

-- Would his personality fit on the Celtics?


Did Wilt have the skills the Celtics needed?

Before Russell's arrival, Red had already made a commitment to up-tempo, fast-breaking basketball. The Celtics had a fine center in Ed Macauley, but he wasn't the dominant defender and rebounder that Red knew he needed for the Celtics to become a championship team.

From Tall Tales:

Red Auerbach: I wanted a team that would run and would play an exciting brand of ball. Cousy, Sharman, Macauley and those guys gave me that, but you could tell we still had something missing.

Ed Macauley: I was a 180-pound center. I had some of my greatest scoring games against George Mikan, but George used his size and strength to have some of his best games against me. Cousy and I were usually in the top 5 in scoring. We were a smart team, but not very physical.

Bob Cousy: Macauley, Bill Sharman and myself were the so-called catalysts of the team and we won as many games as we should have, but we were never a threat in the playoffs. We couldn't control the backboards and Auerbach knew that until he found someone who could do that, we were never going to be a legitimate championship contender...

Arnold came to me and said, "Don't worry, everything is going to change next season. I've got a guy I'm going after who is exactly what we need." At the time I didn't know who he meant, but Arnold was talking about Bill Russell.

Adding that missing piece made a huge difference for the Celtics. It not only improved the Celtics defensively in the middle, it also made the rest of the team better on defense because they could take risks knowing that Russell had their man covered if he got by. And with Russell blocking shots and controlling the boards, Cousy, Sharman, and the other Celtics were free to release and get the fast break going even more quickly.

Red knew that a center who could dominate as a defender and rebounder was what the Celtics were missing. Wilt may not have been quite as good a defender and rebounder as Russell, but the margin between the two was razor thin. People tend to forget how good Wilt was as a rebounder and defender because he was such a dominant offensive player, but the fact remains that Chamberlain indeed had the skills Red needed to transform his running Celtics into championship Celtics.


Would Wilt adapt to the Celtics team style of play?

This is closely related to the next sub-topic (whether Wilt would've been coachable by Red), but additional factors play into it.

To start with, let's analyze the problem. Wilt was such a prodigious talent that he dominated his teams. From Tall Tales:

Hot Rod Hundley: When Wilt was a kid, he shot the ball every time he got it. The Philly offense was throw the ball to Wilt and watch him. Once, I stopped in the Warriors' dressing room before the game and I saw Tom Gola throwing the ball against the wall. I asked, "What are you doing?"

Gola said, "Practicing our offense -- throw the ball to Wilt and then stand there."

Actually, Tom Gola and Wilt have always been great friends and Tommy was just messing around when he told me that. Back then, Wilt was almost too good. He scored about every time he shot it. He really pounded the boards and when he got an offensive rebound, people just cleared out and gave him the dunk. Why try to block it and have him break your arm?

Wilt routinely led the league in field goal percentage despite constant double- and triple-teams, so his teams naturally fell into an offense of passing the ball to Wilt and letting him take it from there. Why wouldn't you, if you had someone who can score so efficiently?

Here's why:

-- Although Wilt was efficient, the offense was stagnant. Without player and ball movement, the other players were less efficient.

-- Wilt's free-throw shooting was atrocious. You had a better chance putting him at the line than you did letting him shoot from the field. Even worse, his poor free-throw shooting messed with his head. In clutch situations, like the closing seconds of the Eastern division finals against the Celtics (the "Havlicek stole the ball" game), Wilt didn't want the ball because he dreaded being fouled and shooting free throws. So now, when you really need a basket, you can't go to the guy who is your number one option 99% of the time, and you need someone else who isn't used to being "the guy."

-- If a team had the personnel and strategy to make Wilt less effective, like the Celtics did, it would be difficult for Wilt's team to adapt from the "dump it into Wilt and watch" offense that they ran most of the time.

With Wilt dominating the ball offensively, his team's greatest strength was also its greatest weakness.

Red would have recognized that and asked Wilt to fill a role within the offense, not be the offense. But would Wilt accept that role?

In my view, the biggest challenge would be dealing with the massive expectations of Wilt's offensive game, especially in his early years. Wilt showed later in his career that he was quite willing to de-emphasize offense and concentrate on defense and rebounding, but that may have been a tougher sell early in Wilt's career. How could you let such a prodigious offensive talent go untapped? The pressure from sportswriters and fans (and possibly even ownership) to let Wilt dominate offensively would be tremendous. In his early years, that was also how Wilt was used to playing, and he may have been stubborn about giving up that role.

It could be that Wilt didn't play "team" ball until later because he had to learn hard lessons earlier in his career. If that's true, then that alone would answer the question in our scenario -- would the Celtics have won as many titles with Wilt instead of Russell -- because several years of Wilt receiving those lessons would be several years of the Celtics not winning titles that they won with Russell.

However, I can think of several reasons why that wouldn't be the case.

1. With the Celtics, spreading the offensive load would, to an extent, come naturally as scoring relied more on the fast break than a set offense.

2. A big reason why Wilt reduced his offensive load later in his career is that he was surrounded with better talent. During his last two seasons in Philly and most of his time in L.A., he was on teams with other great players, and his shot attempts went way down. The quality of Wilt's teammates has been a contentious point around Wilt's lack of success versus the Celtics, with many people saying that it was an excuse on Wilt's part, but I do believe it was a factor prior to the 1966-67 season. As Nate Thurmond said in Tall Tales, "Teams that had Wilt always viewed him as the savior. The whole thing was on his shoulders. Often, ownership would pay Wilt big money, but skimp on everyone else and he'd be surrounded by inferior talent. He was supposed to win games by himself, draw fans and do things no man had ever done before -- he did that, but it still wasn't enough for some people."

3. Red would make a huge difference. He was a master at getting players to perform the role he needed, and he could do the same with Chamberlain. Even early in his career with Frank McGuire, Wilt showed that he was a willing disciple for a good coach, and that would be the case with Red.

4. The other Celtics, as an extension of Red, would enforce Red's will. As Cousy said, "If Wilt thinks that with all the Hall of Famers on our team we'd have waited for him to get his ass down on offense the way Philadelphia did, forget it. We wouldn't watch anyone shoot it every time he got it." Those other players (especially Cousy, an all-NBA player and MVP) were well-versed in the Celtic brand of team ball and vocal advocates for it. They would expect and demand it, plain and simple, and between Red and the other Celtics, Wilt would soon adapt his game.

(One other thing -- if Wilt wasn't required to play 47 or more minutes and take 30-40 shots a game like he was in the first half of his career, he would have more energy to run on the break.)

5. Success breeds success -- once Wilt saw wins and a title come playing Red's way, Wilt would be happy to continue trading points for championships. Dissent and petty differences tend to melt away when you win a title. Plus, Wilt still would get 15-20 shots a game, which means he'd score 25-30 points a game, so it's not like he'd be marginalized offensively.

Wilt was a versatile player, skilled at both ends of the court and an excellent athlete who could run. If you let him focus on defense and rebounding (and not carry an enormous load on offense, as he did throughout much of his career), then he could fill that role -- defense, rebounding, and filling the lane on fast breaks -- exceptionally well.

In the end, it would be difficult to resist focusing the lion's share of the offense around Chamberlain, but with the indomitable Auerbach and strong leaders like Cousy, the Celtics would be a good situation for Wilt to become the defending, rebounding, and complementary offensive player that Red needed to win championships.


Would Wilt be coachable by Red?

As I discussed in my Part 4. Did Red Want Wilt? post, Red coached Wilt at Kutsher's resort in 1953 when Wilt was a brash, cocky high school phenom. That experience did not turn Red against Wilt; on the contrary, Red tried to pull strings to get Wilt on the Celtics. This all occurred before Russell joined the Celtics, and we don't know how Red would feel about the opportunity to get Wilt once he already had Russell, but that's irrelevant given that our scenario is that the Celtics wouldn't have Russell.

Red was the consummate coach on several levels, and one aspect he excelled at was the psychology involved when managing his players. What Wilt seemed to crave was respect from his coach, respect for his coach, and communication with his coach, and I think it's reasonable to assume that Wilt would have that with Red. Red could be difficult, but he usually found a way to get the most out of a player, and given Wilt's obvious ability to contribute to the team's success, I have to believe Red would make the situation with Wilt work. After all, that's what Red did better than anyone. As Terry Pluto writes in Tall Tales, "[Warriors owner Eddie Gottlieb] often said, 'If Red had coached my Warriors with Wilt and someone else had the Celtics and Bill Russell, we would have won all those titles. Red would have gotten more out of Wilt than any other coach.'"

Another aspect of Red's coaching style that Wilt would respond to was Red's approach to race. From Tall Tales:

Bob Cousy: If I had been born black, I probably would have been a bomb-thrower. I have a hunch I'd have been tougher on the world than Russ. He is a proud man who has been offended by a racist society and he won't give an inch to it... But the Russell we knew within the team, he was tremendous.

Part of it is due to Auerbach... Auerbach treated a minority like anyone else, thereby telling the person that he isn't a minority. Race was a very open subject on the Celtics. We could say things to each other that the outside world probably would find offensive, because we knew and trusted each other.

John Havlicek: Bill was comfortable on the Celtics because he knew that Red was the first coach to draft a black player and that the Celtics were the first team to consistently start five black players. Our roommates were integrated.

Jim Loscutoff: On a lot of teams, the black players went one way, the whites another. On our team, we made a point of everyone hanging around together.

At such a racially divisive time and in such a racially charged city, this environment created by Red Auerbach was crucial to Russell's success as a player and his ability to withstand the abuses he faced outside the Celtic circle. Chamberlain would respond positively to this environment as well, and it would be yet another factor to make Wilt respect Red and loyal to Red's vision of the team.


Would Wilt's personality fit on the Celtics?

This is another crucial question. Wilt was a dominating player with a personality to match, and my guess is that he'd need to adapt his personality like he would his game. Wilt at times was a brash, sometimes overpowering personality, but submersing himself within the team as a player would also lead to becoming part of the team in personality rather than standing apart or above it.

Chemistry is a difficult thing to gauge, and there's no way to know for sure if the Celtics' chemistry would worked with Wilt. I'm inclined to think that the force of will exerted by Red, Cousy, and the other players to make Wilt adapt to the team concept as a player also moderate Wilt's personality excesses. It's not like he needed to be the NBA version of the Stepford Wives to be successful. I believe that many of the engaging aspects of Wilt's personality would win over the rest of the team, and any lingering immaturity and desire to be the center of attention on Wilt's part would be moderated by the older players. Our fellow board members who knew Cousy can help me out here, but it seems like Cousy also was a strong personality who would provided the veteran leadership needed to integrate Wilt into the team as a player and a person.

But the biggest reason I don't think chemistry would be an issue is that Wilt was a truly likable guy who wanted people to like him, and I came across tons of quotes from teammates who genuinely liked and respected him, and they went out of their way to defend him. That sounds like someone who earned the loyalty of his teammates and would fit well on the tight-knit Celtics.


The big question -- would the Celtics win as many titles with Chamberlain as with Russell?

They certainly wouldn't win more -- how on earth could anyone win more than 11 titles in 13 years? My gut tells me they would win one or two less, but nine out of 13 would still be more than any other team in major sports history.

I've spent a lot of time arguing that Wilt was a fantastic player unlike any the league had seen before or has seen since. So why am I now saying that the Celtics would win more titles with Russell than with Chamberlain?

As simple as I can put it, Russell was the perfect fit for those Celtics, and the Celtics were the perfect fit for him.

What the Celtics needed was a center who could dominate on defense, dominate on the boards, and run the break. That is a tailor-made description of Bill Russell. As John Taylor related in his book, The Rivalry, some coaches weren't sold on Russell's pro potential coming out of college because of his almost nonexistent offensive skills, but Red believed that Russell's strengths in defense, rebounding, and athleticism were overwhelming and that the Celtics' skills complemented and extended his and their talents compensated for his weaknesses -- in essence, a perfect match. And it turned out that Russell's strengths in defense, rebounding, and athleticism were not just overwhelming; they were revolutionary.

Russell found an ideal home on the Celtics. They were an up-tempo team with shooters and scorers, so he wasn't needed to carry any significant offensive load, but he could still contribute by scoring on offensive rebounds and running the break, which played to his strengths in rebounding and athleticism. Defensively, they had been aching for someone who could block shots, control the paint, rebound, and start the fast break, and that again was exactly what he was best at. Within the team, Russell found a sanctuary where he could let down the walls he built to protect himself from the outside world, and he became part of a close-knit family that allowed him to express himself to his fullest potential on the court. Auerbach appreciated his talents, needed exactly what he offered, and provided an ideal environment for him to succeed. On top of all that, he had a personality that lent itself to being obsessed with team goals at the expense of individual achievement. A perfect fit for Russell, a perfect fit for the Celtics.

To be considered a better defender and rebounder than Chamberlain is quite a feat considering that Chamberlain holds almost every rebounding record and was an excellent defender, but the difference between Wilt and Russell in rebounding stats is very small, and as I described before, Russell was the king of intangibles. He instinctively recognized the geometry of shots and rebounds to put himself in the best possible position. He knew his teammates' and opponents' tendencies and used them to his advantage. He blocked shots to keep them inbounds and serve as an outlet pass to teammates. Chamberlain's will to win was strong, but no one had a stronger will to win than Russell. Russell was able to achieve such rarefied heights of individual and team achievement because he was such a perfect fit for the Celtics.

If Russell had played somewhere else, we might still recognize him as one of the best to ever play the game, but I doubt we would to the extent that we do now. How many other teams would be satisfied to let him contribute so little in a set offense? How many coaches would recognize and encourage his revolutionary approach to defense? Maybe he would've done just as well if he'd joined the Hawks and been coached by Alex Hannum, but there's no possible way that he would have found a situation better than Auerbach's Celtics.

As for Wilt, he was a great, great player -- as Hot Rod Hundley said, maybe even too great. Considered as individual players, it would be hard to justify putting Russell over Chamberlain considering how close they were as defenders, rebounders, and athletes and how much better Chamberlain was offensively. The reason I personally give Russell the edge is intangibles, vague concepts like "basketball intelligence" and "will to win." Even if you consider Russell better, it can't be by much. And there is a reasonable argument to be made that Chamberlain was better than Russell.

But regarding the question of how many championships the Celtics would win if you replaced Russell with Chamberlain on those Celtic teams. To that question, I say the Celtics would win more titles with Russell, not because Russell was a superior player, but because Russell was the perfect fit for the Celtics. As Nate Thurmond, another great center of that era said, "You just can't say that because Bill won 11 championships, he was far superior to the rest of us centers in that era. He was great player, but also in a [i]great situation]/i]."

[Outside]

PART 7. MISCELLANEOUS


Here's some good stuff that didn't fit in my other posts. Enjoy.

Quotes by Wilt

"Everybody pulls for David, nobody roots for Goliath."

When asked who was the best player he ever saw: "I'm fortunate, because I played with Jerry West and Elgin Baylor and they'd be in the list with Oscar Robertson. The one who was most dominant and helpful for his team would be Bill Russell, who I played against far too many times."

From I'm Punchy From Basketball, Baby, And Tired Of Being A Villain, by Wilt and Bob Ottum, Sports Illustrated: "I mean, look at the Boston Celtics and Auerbach. You know the real key reason why they are so good as a team? Man, those guys have been together for an average of nine years now. They're so close they're like Siamese sextuplets."


Quotes by Bill Russell

At 1997 All-Star Game when the league named its 50 greatest players: "Nobody seems to appreciate what an incredible player Wilt was. He was the best player of all time because he dominated both ends of the floor like nobody else ever could. To be that big and that athletic was special."

In Great Moments in Pro Basketball, about Chamberlain's play during 1966-68: "Wilt is playing better than I used to -- passing off, coming out to set up screens, picking up guys outside, and sacrificing himself for team play."

In Go up For Glory: "If [the referee] is calling [the game] loose then everyone gets away with more. So, you have to handle your own man accordingly, unless it's Wilt Chamberlain. Him, you just don't handle. He's too strong. The best you can do is make him work hard."


Quotes from other people

Larry Brown: "I don't think it's fair to compare players in different eras, but he was about as dominant as any one player could be in any sport. I looked at him like he was invincible."

Jerry West: "When I started to play with him, he helped make me a better player."

Alex Hannum, in Tall Tales: "When I coached the San Francisco Warriors, I thought Al Attles was the fastest guy on our team -- by far. We used to gamble a lot -- which player could jump the highest and run the fastest. So I set up a series of races, baseline to baseline. In the finals, it was Wilt and Al Attles and Wilt just blew past him. I'm convinced that Wilt Chamberlain is one of the greatest all-around athletes the world has ever seen."

Larry Bird, discussing the topic of the all-time greatest player: "Let me tell you something. For a while, they were saying that I was the greatest. And before me, it was Magic who was the greatest. And then it's Michael's turn. But open up the record book and it will be obvious who the greatest is."

Oscar Robertson, when asked whether Chamberlain was the best ever: "The books don't lie."

Red Auerbach, when Wilt died: "Wilt Chamberlain had a great deal to do with the success of the NBA. His dominance, power, demeanor and the rivalry with Bill Russell says it all. He will be sorely missed by myself and everyone in the basketball community. Wilt was a great performer and a great athlete."

Red Holzman, in A View from the Bench: "One-on-one he [Wilt] would've murdered Russell and everyone. But playing five-on-five, Wilt was consigned to a specific role because of his ability to score so easily, whereas the Celtics fit Russell into their team concept better."

Darrall Imhoff, the opposing center the night Wilt scored 100: "[Wilt] was an amazing, strong man. I always said the greatest record he ever held wasn't 100 points, but his 55 rebounds against Bill Russell. Those two players changed the whole game of basketball. The game just took an entire step up to the next level."

Jerry West: "He was a smart guy, he was well-read. He was an authority on everything. He had this bluster about him. And on the inside, he was a soft guy."

Jack McMahon, who played and coached against Chamberlain for two decades: "You name it and there's not a single thing that Wilt couldn't do on the basketball court if he wanted. He was that much the superior athlete."



Wilt versus Magic

From Until his dying day, Wilt was invincible, by Chris Sheridan, Associated Press.

Of all his memories of Wilt Chamberlain, the one that stood out for Larry Brown happened long after Chamberlain's professional career was over.

On a summer day in the early 1980s at the Men's Gym on the UCLA campus, Chamberlain showed up to take part in one of the high-octane pickup games that the arena constantly attracted. Brown was the coach of the Bruins back then, and Chamberlain often drove to UCLA from his home in Bel Air, Calif.

"Magic Johnson used to run the games," Brown recalled Tuesday after hearing that Chamberlain, his friend, had died at the age of 63, "and he called a couple of chintzy fouls and a goaltending on Wilt.

"So Wilt said: 'There will be no more layups in this gym,' and he blocked every shot after that. That's the truth, I saw it. He didn't let one (of Johnson's) shots get to the rim."

Chamberlain would have been in his mid-40s at the time, a decade removed from one of the greatest careers any basketball player ever produced.


Miscellaneous fun facts

The year before Wilt arrived, the Warriors were 32-40. In Wilt's first season, they improved to 49-26.

Wilt had the only double triple-double in NBA history: 22 points, 25 rebounds, and 21 assists on February 2, 1968.

Gene Conley was the first man to play pro baseball (11 seasons as a pitcher) and basketball (six seasons, including four with the Celtics). In 1961, he pitched to Roger Maris the year he hit 61 homers and guarded Wilt Chamberlain the year he averaged 50 points.

[Goudelock]

This will take a while to read, but I'm definitely going to go through all of this. This is some excellent stuff.

[feyki]

I have read almost half of it, specially second half. I also think Wilt is the best ever at being so much dominant in both ends. Maybe, Kareem was close to him, in that regard. But He was not as dominant as Chamberlain was on the defensive end. But Russell's game was very different. His playmaking, defence is still unmatched by any other center in history. Wilt in his aging prime years, tried to be like him, with also being a dominant scorer next to it. But he couldn't been successful without sacrificing his focus as a scorer. And for me, he peaked when he got it, in the 67 And 68. That gave him a game like mix of Post-Prime Shaq, which was still the arguably best in 2004 and 2005, and Peak Russell. Then you have a player with Shaq's effiency and offensive rebounding with Russell's game minus versatility on the defence.

[Pablo Novi]

Terrific series; long overdue - a huge effort to do this ... kudos.

One thing you didn't mention: Wilt Repeatedly Risked His Life For Others
I suppose it's not impossible; but I DO think it's highly unlikely that Wilt was the "ego-maniac" so often claimed about him. And here's why.

Why he was in college at Kansas, sometimes with teammates sometimes not, Wilt would sit-in in segregated restaurants. In every instance implied him risking his life. Sure he was bigger than everybody else; but what would that matter if the other guy's toting a gun? During those days, he integrated an entire city, then an entire region.

Why he would take such risks, and repeatedly so; and then turn into a "selfish" basketball player makes no sense to me.

It didn't happen.

[Winsome Gerbil]

Goodness. Now that's some dedication.

And BTW in rather more abbreviated format I have always believed that Wilt > Russel, and that the only 2, and maybe 3 now with LeBron, guys at his level of greatness were Kareem and MJ.

[SkyHookFTW]

In his early years, referees didn't call many fouls against Wilt's opponents because he was so much bigger and better than his opponents, but in his later years, they didn't call fouls because they felt sorry for him because he shot free throws poorly. One referee told him, "Wilt, I know you get hacked every time, but the game would be pretty boring watching you go one for two from the line every time down the court."

-- Sid Borgia, in Tall Tales: "Wilt was never one to complain to officials. Only once did he get on me. It was during a time-out, and Wilt yelled, 'If I wasn't black already, I'd be nothing but black-and-blue.'"



But there are posters on RGM who say the 60's was a soft era.

Great reads. I know how strong Wilt is from working along side him in the Conan movie (no, I'm not in the movie, lol).

[mrsocko]

Russell won 86 games and lost 57. Don’t know here your getting your stats. Try basketball reference head to head.

[Outside]

Russell won 86 games and lost 57. Don’t know here your getting your stats. Try basketball reference head to head.

Here is the portion from post no. 2 that I believe you're referring to:

Wilt and Russell played against each other 142 times in 10 years. As these stats show, Russell, the best post defender in the game, did not stop Wilt; he only slowed him down as best he could.

-- In those games, the Celtics won 88 and Wilt's teams won 74.

As I said in post no. 1:

I relied repeatedly on these two books:

-- The Rivalry: Bill Russell, Wilt Chamberlain, and the Golden Age of Basketball, by John Taylor

-- Tall Tales: The Glory Years of the NBA, by Terry Pluto

I'd have to look into it, but I assume I used one of those books as a reference for that. However, quick look shows that those numbers don't add up -- 88 + 74 = 162, not 142, so somebody screwed up the basic numbers (probably me).

The larger sports reference site for BBRef does have a handy Wilt vs. Russell page:

https://www.sports-reference.com/blog/2017/12/full-points-and-rebounds-for-every-wilt-vs-russell-matchup/

The 86-57 record in favor of Russell you mentioned applies to regular season games. The tally is 29-20 for Russell in postseason games, making the overall record 115-77 in Russell's favor in 192 total games.

Thanks for pointing this out. I'll look further into that section and make corrections.