RealGM

Wilt and I go way back. When I was in high school, there were only two men I could be like, Wilt or Bill Russell. I kept a scrapbook of photos of both of them in action. Wilt lived in New York then, and I sought out his company. I'd run down the block just to say hello. But as I grew older, I strongly disagreed with some of the positions he took, like supporting Richard Nixon for President and denigrating black women in his autobiography. But I've never really disliked Wilt, and I've always respected him professionally for what he achieved. He was one of the best centers to have ever played the game. I've decided to take this opportunity to respond to all the aspersions he's cast on me over the years:


An Open Letter to Wilt Chumperlame

It's been several years now, Wilt, that you have been criticizing my career with your friends in the press. Since this pattern does not seem to have any end in sight, I feel that I might as well have my say about the situation.

It would seem that someone who achieved as much as you did would be satisfied with his career. After all, some of the things you did in your time were quite admirable and have given us an enduring set of records for the books. So why all the jealousy and envy?

In trying to figure this out, I started to look for what you would be jealous of, and that's when the picture started to become clear. Many remember how frustrated you were when your team couldn't win the NCAA tournament. Your talent and abilities were so great that everyone assumed the NCAA was all yours. But after a terrific triple-overtime game, Kansas lost. You complained about the officiating, your teammates and other things, and then quit, leaving college early to tour with the Globetrotters. That seemed to set a pattern for you. After any tough test in which you didn't do well, you blamed those around you and quit.

In professional basketball, Bill Russell and the Boston Celtics gave you a yearly lesson in real competitive competence and teamwork. All you could say was that your teammates stunk and that you had done all you could, and besides, the refs never gave you a break. Poor Wilt.

In 1967, your team finally broke through. That 76er team established records that are still standing today. But the following year, the Sixers lost and, predictable as ever, you quit. You came out to L.A. and got with a dream team. The only lack that team had was leadership at the center position. Bill and the Celts took one from you in '69, and the Knicks followed suit in '70. People are still trying to figure out where you disappeared to in that series. True to form, after the Knicks beat the Lakers in the world championship in 1973, you quit and haven't been seen on the court since.

Of course, you came out every so often to take a cheap shot at me. During the sixth game of the world championship series in 1988, you stated, "Kareem should have retired five years ago." I can now see why you said that. If I had quit at the time you suggested, it would have been right after a disappointing loss to the 76ers. And it would have been typical of one of your retreats.

But after that loss, I decided that I had more to give. I believed in myself and in the Lakers and stuck with it. We went on to win three out of four world championships between '85 and '88. The two teams you played on that won world championships, in '67 and '72, never repeated. They never showed the consistency that the Lakers of the '80s have shown. And you didn't want me to be part of that.

Given your jealousy, I can understand that. So , now that I have left, one thing will be part of my legacy: People will remember that I worked with my teammates and helped us win. You will be remembered as a whining crybaby and a quitter, stats and all.

ardee wrote:Lol, I agree with Simmons. Kareem is a ninny.

The insecurity in this letter is absurd.

Sent from my GT-I9300 using RealGM Forums mobile app

ardee wrote:Lol, I agree with Simmons. Kareem is a ninny.

The insecurity in this letter is absurd.

Sent from my GT-I9300 using RealGM Forums mobile app

The insecurity in this letter is absurd.

Kareem salty that he was only the second best center of his time.

Spoiler:

Early in KAJ's junior season, Coach Wooden noted his rapid improvement as well as physical growth & maturity. But in his debut college season at age 20 (1967) there were still some doubters.


The Evening Independent - Feb 2, 1967





Lawrence Journal-World - Mar 27, 1967

ardee wrote:Lol, I agree with Simmons. Kareem is a ninny.

The insecurity in this letter is absurd.

Sent from my GT-I9300 using RealGM Forums mobile app

ardee wrote:Lol, I agree with Simmons. Kareem is a ninny.

The insecurity in this letter is absurd.

Sent from my GT-I9300 using RealGM Forums mobile app

colts18 wrote:

ardee wrote:Lol, I agree with Simmons. Kareem is a ninny.

The insecurity in this letter is absurd.

Sent from my GT-I9300 using RealGM Forums mobile app

Insecure. Whiny. Doesn't that also describe Wilt to a T? This is the same guy who always made disparaging remarks about MJ, Shaq, and 90's basketball. He couldn't let go of the fact that his era was worse than Shaq/MJ's era. He made all of those remarks because of his insecurity of how he is perceived which is why he did sub-optimal things during his career (intentionally play for stats rather than team accolades).

Dipper 13 wrote:

The insecurity in this letter is absurd.

Not to forget the way he whined about a statue. I am not a Muslim, but from what I understand Hakeem Olajuwon refused a statue using his likeness due to his religious beliefs.

Kareem salty that he was only the second best center of his time.

There are actually posters who think he had a college career on par with Bill Russell. Forget about the NBA. Even Phog Allen had question marks about him in college.

Spoiler:

Early in KAJ's junior season, Coach Wooden noted his rapid improvement as well as physical growth & maturity. But in his debut college season at age 20 (1967) there were still some doubters.


The Evening Independent - Feb 2, 1967



Kareem had without a doubt the greatest college career ever and has the greatest basketball career when cominbining the NBA/college/high school....



Lawrence Journal-World - Mar 27, 1967

Coach Wooden has also admitted the dunk being outlawed was not due to KAJ's presence.

Spoiler:

Philadelphia Inquirer - March 24, 2014

A few seconds into Texas Western's socially significant victory over Kentucky in 1966's NCAA championship game, David "Big Daddy" Lattin slammed home a dunk over Wildcats star Pat Riley.

Adolph Rupp, the coach of all-white Kentucky, grimaced. He hated the dunk, thought it was an affront to fundamental basketball.

On the other bench, coach Don Haskins, no less a stickler for X's and O's, relished the psychological message Lattin's emphatic basket had delivered.

"[Haskins] was very strict about some things," said Orsten Artis, one of Texas Western's groundbreaking five black starters that day. "You couldn't go behind your back or between your legs. But he loved the dunk."

Unfortunately, not many coaches or administrators shared Haskins' delight. And within a year the NCAA rules committee, many of its members contemporaries and friends of Rupp's, outlawed the dunk.

Now, 48 years later, in the midst of another NCAA tournament and all the madness and interest that event evokes, college basketball's dunkless era is almost impossible to recall, harder still to fathom.

While the NCAA's 108-year history as college sport's regulator has been filled with controversy, few of its actions have been as profoundly puzzling.

In 2014, after all, the dunk may be basketball's single most recognizable element, and certainly its most popular. For the tens of millions who follow March Madness obsessively, college basketball without the dunk would be like baseball without the home run.

Yet for nine seasons, from 1967-68 through 1975-76, the shot was illegal.

Among other things, the rules committee had established a lane and a three-second rule, and eliminated the one-dribble limit and the center jump after each basket.

The dunk, still practiced sparingly in 1967, had not provoked any great outcry. While some saw it as an unfair advantage for big men, height had always provided an inherent edge in the vertically oriented game.

It's in the context of the 1960s where the most logical explanation can be found.

Following a burst of civil-rights progress, urban riots had created a racial backlash in America. That was manifested in basketball among those made uncomfortable by the growing presence and influence of African American players.

On announcing the dunking prohibition in late March 1967, following its annual Final Four meeting, the rules committee tried to couch the decision in concerns about injuries and damaged equipment.

It claimed that more than 1,500 players had been injured attempting the shot the previous season and that countless rims and backboards had been rendered useless. And aesthetically, members said, the dunk was an abomination.

"The feeling was that this was a game of skill and the dunk was not a skillful maneuver," Ed Bilik, a longtime committee member, explained in 1998.

In retrospect, though, it's hard to imagine that race did not play a major role.

Immediately after the ban, though the committee never publicly acknowledged such a link, many suggested its motivation was the dominance 7-foot-2 sophomore Lew Alcindor had displayed in leading UCLA to 1967's national title. In fact, many would refer to it as the Alcindor Rule.

But in 2004, Alcindor's legendary coach, John Wooden, no fan of the dunk, denied that was the case.

"Lewis felt that way, but I didn't," said Wooden, who died in 2010. "Some on the committee told me that Lewis' name did come up in the discussion, but that he wasn't the reason."

Others believe the move was a response to a number of developments the panel found unsettling - Lattin's in-your-face dunk; Texas Western's title with its unprecedented five black starters; and Houston's pregame dunking display at the 1967 Final Four, a day before the controversial vote was taken.

"Dunking, in a way, typified what a lot of people felt about blacks in basketball," said Perry Wallace, who a month after Texas Western's win became the first black to sign with a Southeastern Conference school, Vanderbilt. "It was threatening."

Wallace recalled that he once dunked against Kentucky's freshman team while Rupp watched from the stands.

"He just threw a fit," said Wallace, now a law professor in Washington.

For those convinced the rules committee had acted with racial motives, there was precedent for such thinking. It seemed that whenever a large black man became too dominant, the NCAA reacted.

When Wilt Chamberlain was at Kansas, for example, the committee redid the rule book, banning offensive goaltending and inbounds passes over the backboards and widening the lane to make sure the 7-foot Philadelphian couldn't camp out there.

"I don't think there's any question that some of those rules were racially motivated," said Randy Roberts, a Purdue professor who has studied the history of American sports. "They were like the anti-celebration rules in football. I think in part they were attempts to get back to the world in which these coaches grew up in, a white-bread world."

Willie Worsley, another Texas Western starter that day in 1966, agreed.

"I think about the time we won, they were seeing that people of color were dunking, jumping higher, and running faster," he said. "They were thinking, 'That's not how the game's played. Let's see if these athletes can shoot.' "

Like an equally inane social experiment, prohibition, the dunking ban died because of a widespread lack of public support. The dunk, as Julius Erving was then making so evident here in Philadelphia, could be intoxicating.

So for the next two weeks, we will watch with fascination as the rest of this NCAA tournament plays out. The dunk is now so much a part of the game that most will go unnoticed or unremarked upon, though the entertaining ones will find their way into ESPN highlights.

Perhaps those of us who recall their ban should make a silent, symbolic gesture each time a tournament player dunks spectacularly.

We could toast those occasions with a cold beer and ask ourselves how there ever could have been times when each was illegal.