Kobe or Wilt?

[ThaRegul8r]

http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=vv5XAAAAIBAJ&sjid=AvcDAAAAIBAJ&dq=fight%20wilt-chamberlain&pg=1702%2C2052933
http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=PU ... %2C8623906
http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=8f ... %2C2537356

None of this is new to me, but the thing about the first article is (copying and pasting from my notes), as far as the first point of difference—Chamberlain wanting to play a full 48 minutes a game while Van Breda Kolff wanted to rest him, Alex Hannum said about becoming coach of the Philadelphia 76ers in 1966-67:

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.’ […] [H]e didn’t necessarily agree with me, but he went along with the idea.

This is the exact same thing Hannum brought up, so why was he willing to go along with it when Hannum said it, but it became a problem two years later? As far as the second point of difference—Chamberlain not wanting to play high post, Hannum said:

In one of our conversations, Wilt said, “You know, I can pass the ball as well as anyone in basketball.”

I said, “Fine, let’s see it.”

This led to a decision made by both Wilt and myself to play him at the high post. Early in his career, Wilt was always near the basket so he could catch the ball in position to score. But he also clogged the middle so that it was hard for his teammates to drive. With all the talent we had, I wanted to give the other guys room to go to the basket. And Wilt wanted to get them the ball so they could score. That was our game plan, and we stuck to it.

Again, this is the exact same thing that Hannum brought up on the team he just left. If he had no problem playing high post with Hannum as coach, why did he suddenly have a problem after he left Philadelphia?

For years the Los Angeles Lakers have been going with make-do people at center, winning division titles, but fading ingloriously in pro basketball’s World Series.

Perhaps it isn’t entirely fair to single out their ex-pivotmen as the primary reason for this failure. Some had occasionally strong, if not unforgettable, moments with the Lakers. But none of them will ever get into basketball’s Hall of Fame without a ticket.

Last summer Jack Kent Cooke, who owns the Los Angeles franchise, went out and got someone who could. For money and three players, Cooke was able to pry Wilt Chamberlain from the Philadelphia 76ers.

All of a sudden people were saying this was the first time a National Basketball Association title had been won in July. Marrying Chamberlain’s talents to those of Elgin Baylor and Jerry West would make Coach Bill van Breda Kolff as fireproof as the boss’s son.

The Lakers are formidable all right. They will win in the West and they will win big. But the perfect pro basketball team they are not. Van Breda Kolff, whose emotional fires never go out, is not completely happy with his ball club.

“We are all creatures of habit and Chamberlain still plays in too close to the basket to suit me,” Bill said. “When Wilt stays inside too much he isn’t able to set picks, his teammates aren’t able to cut off him, and the whole club loses some of its movement.

“I don’t want him to stop scoring,” Van Breda Kolff continued. “I want Chamberlain to get the ball and to be able to do things with it. But mostly I want him to play a high post. This is what most of my other players [particularly Baylor and West] are used to and what I think is best for the team.”

Asked how Wilt felt about this, Bill suggested: “Why don’t you ask him? Chamberlain’s statement was not only frank, but explosive.

“Instead of playing the high post, I’d prefer to stay inside and try to score 50 points a game,” Wilt said. “It’s something Van Breda Kolff and I have talked about, but so far I haven’t been able to convince him that my way is the best way.

“If a man can score the way I can, I don’t see why anybody would want to change him,” Chamberlain continued. “Suppose somebody in Boston wanted Bill Russell to suddenly put all his concentration on offense. People would say Russell was crazy to change because defense in the thing that made him. Am I any different because offense is the thing that made me? I don’t think so.

“Just because it’s been a few years since I averaged 50 points a game for Philadelphia, don’t think I couldn’t do it again. If anything, with all the young and inexperienced centers in the league right now, it would be easier.

Hannum wanted to change him, and the result was arguably the greatest individual single-season in NBA history and the greatest single-season team in NBA history. Why revert back to pre-Hannum, when what Hannum wanted worked?

And it wasn't just van Breda Kolff, because he also had a problem when Joe Mullaney wanted him to play high post, so when he wanted him to do so for a few minutes he deliberately stayed there all game in Game 2 of the 1970 playoff series against the Suns, which prompted Mullaney to say, “I wanted him there to help run a few plays for West, but we certainly didn’t want him way out there all the time!”

It's one of the things that's puzzling about him.

[tclg]

Im gonna pick wilt and tell him to focus on defense passing and rebounding scoring last

[Dipper 13]

Would anybody take DRob over Wilt? I doubt it - I think we'd all agree that's pretty clear.

So if we all agree DRob is comparable to Kobe, how can Kobe be considered better than Wilt?

Eventually they will find a way to rank the likes of Pat Ewing & Gilmore ahead of Chamberlain.

Wilt played badly in 1969, but he did so partly on purpose...he hated his coach with a passion and his coach hated him. They got into an early tussle earlier in the year and it was there that his coach told him to rebound and do nothing else. So that's exactly what he did. He tried to contribute as little as he could, and probably didn't care whether he won the championship or not. 1969 was bad for Wilt in a lot of ways, the first and biggest is that it makes everyone think that that is how he always played(first long video content of Wilt in game 7), when in fact he only played that badly due to the situation he was in.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rgU4nMeOQmA#t=19m31s

May 9, 1969

More than that, they wanted to know what he thought about Chamberlain being quoted as saving the Lakers lacked "direction" in the final moments of Monday's contest with the Celtics, and about ChamberIain's statement that the Lakers worked the ball to "one man" too much.





http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7zvIJGkjZc#t=1m20s



Besides G5 of the Finals when Butch inexplicably left West in at the end of a decided game to badly injure a hamstring (could not effectively guard Sam Jones anymore, who went wild), there was the infamous G7.





'After Van Breda Kolff was gone, Chamberlain criticized his heavy drinking, his penchant for conducting farting contests, and his failure to prepare for games.'

Earl Strom: In a sense, I respect Butch for making one of the dumbest moves any coach has ever made.

As soon as Russell picked up foul number 5 very early in the quarter, Chamberlain goes down low next possession attempting to take him out. Without Russell in there near the end do the Celtics end up winning? After Wilt went to the bench, the Celtics did force some bad outside shots after Russell initially got a bit excited with Mel Counts guarding him. They could have fed Chamberlain as Bill Russell was clearly sagging off him, in hopes of fouling him out, therefore giving the Lakers a more decisive advantage on the boards. But he was not given an opportunity to help his team win the championship at the end as noted by Sonny Hill below.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ESDFppbQ2zM#t=3m34s




Wilt: Just Like Any Other 7-Foot Black Millionaire who Lives Next Door - Wilt Chamberlain

His answer was something like, "I can handle him." Well, I've always thought you "handled" horses; you work with human beings. But "handle" is exactly the way van Breda Kolff looked at it. He was an ex-Marine, and he had this compulsion to prove he was the boss.

...

In the third quarter alone, the Lakers missed 15 straight shots, and the Celtics jumped into a 17-point lead. Then we started to rally. With five minutes left in the game, we cut their lead to nine points. I had 18 points and 27 rebounds, but when I came down with number 27, I banged my knee into something hard. It hurt bad, like when you bang your crazy-bone against a wall as hard as you can. I had to be helped from the floor. Frank O'Neill, the Laker trainer, sprayed some local anesthetic on it — we call the stuff "don't-hurt-no-more" — and after just about a minute, the pain went away. I signaled van Breda Kolff that I was okay and wanted to go back in. But the team had played well with Mel Counts filling in for me, and we'd cut Boston's lead to three points. Van Breda Kolff figured he could win without me — and win his petty personal battle with me in the process. Twice more, I signaled I was ready. Finally, he just said, "We don't need you." He was determined to prove he was the boss, even if it cost the Lakers the world championship. And that's exactly what it cost. When the final buzzer sounded, Boston had won again, 108-106 — the seventh time the Celtics had beaten me for a championship, and the sixth time they'd beaten Jerry, Elgin, and the Lakers for a championship.

I'm not sure I was ever as angry at one man as I was at Butch van Breda Kolff that night. By refusing to put me back in the game, he had not only humiliated me, he had deprived me and my teammates and the Laker fans of an NBA championship. With me in there for the last four minutes, I think we could have won. But van Breda Kolff wouldn't give me — and us — that chance. I have to admit that I got a vengeful, almost sadistic sort of pleasure this last season when van Breda Kolff did something very similar for Phoenix and got fired.

But then he becomes same old Wilt in the 68 playoffs, a team that was supposed to be just as good as the 67 team. But in the playoffs (and I'm just going by the numbers here), it looks like Wilt went back to being more of a volume scorer and less of a passer. Compared to the 67 playoffs, Wilt's 68 playoffs saw an increase in scoring, and a decrease in assists, rebounds, and efficiency.

'67 Sixers were the best team in league history until they were hit injuries and Jack Ramsay gutted the team. No doubt the '68 Sixers were the best single season team to not win. It was deemed remarkable that they even got to the Division Finals vs. Boston with all the injuries. There were times during the NY series when the hobbled Sixers were getting killed on the boards, as Bellamy & Reed were feasting on the offensive glass. They played Games 4, 5, and 6 consecutively. No days off in between.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3jIemiXiPs#t=16m15s



DELAWARE COUNTY - April 13, 1968

Club Rated 'Most Courageous' By Hannum as Injuries Mount

PHILADELPHIA (AP) - The Philadelphia 76ers could be billed as the best touring troupe In basketball. All they need is a doctor to complete the cast.

Going into the fourth game Sunday of their National Basketball Association playoff series with the Boston Celtics, the 76ers are hurting from head to toe.

So what's new? Injuries have plagued the defending NBA champions since the opening of the season.

"Alex Hannum says this is the most courageous team he's ever coached," says Harvey Pollack, the 76ers' statistician. "The locker room looks like a hospital ward every time I walk in."

Pollack ticked off some of the cases, which read like a medical diary:

-Wilt Chamberlain (partial tear of the calf muscle in his right leg, a strain in his right thigh and an injured right toe):

-Wally Jones (injured knee cartilage):

-Luke Jackson (pulled hamstring muscle):

-Hal Greer (bursitus in his right knee):

-And, Billy Cunningham (broken right wrist).

"That's not mentioning (rookie) Jim Reid who had a knee operation after injuring it the first game of the season," said Pollack, "and Larry Costello," the veteran guard who tore an ankle tendon after one-third of the season was gone.

The most recent injury was to Chamberlain in Friday night's Eastern Division playoff contest with the Celtics. The dipper was given whirlpool treatments for the calf muscle tear, but Pollack wasn't sure how he'd respond.

The 76ers have nine men in uniform for the best-of-seven playoffs, which they lead, two games to one. But whether they'll have anybody left for the finals against the Western Division winner is anybody's guess.

The team's troubles multiplied in the Eastern Division semifinals against the New York Knickerbockers. Cunningham broke his wrist, knocking him out for the season, Jones and Jackson suffered their injuries and Chamberlain aggravated his perennial toe injury.

And when Boston thumped the 76ers in the opening game of their playoffs here last Friday, some predicted a quick knockout of the injury-riddled champs.

But Philadelphia whacked Boston two straight, including Thursday where an injury actually helped the 76ers cause, points out Pollack.

How so?

"Well, Chamberlain was hurt and he couldn't turn around to score-so he kept feeding Greer, and he scored 31," explained the statistician.





DELAWARE COUNTY - April 4, 1968

There they are—the Philadelphia 76ers. See them gulp pills. Notice their bandages. Watch how they limp. Look at how they struggle.

They are sick and battered invalids. Pain and fatigue stagger hand in hand. They do not belong on a basketball court, they belong in wheelchairs.

There are only eight of them left now, and seven are ailing. They're wearing so much tape -they look like mummies in short pants. Do you wonder how they keep playing? Or why?

* * *

The 76ers will return to their rightful place at the Spectrum Friday night to meet the Boston Celtics in the Eastern Division finals.

From a New York viewpoint, the older 76ers should not have beaten the youthful, deep Knicks in the semifinals. After, the Knicks evened the series at 2-2, New York newspapers had buried the 76ers. The act seemed to be contagious.

Loyalists in Philadelphia started believing it, too. But it was mostly the New York press. And when the 76ers resisted the early burial last Sunday, the New York press became cranky.

The sour grapes began to spill. A sportswriter who is one of the very biggest in New York City characterized the mood when he spent a greater part of the afternoon last Sunday complaining loudly and bitterly about the location of the TV cameras during foul shots. As a result, several heated arguments between TV and NBA officials and the writer developed along the sidelines.

It was exemplary of the New York mood, which was soon compounded by the 76ers' demoralizing 123-105 victory.

* * *

The turning point of the series was Sunday. The Knicks, feeling they could take advantage of the 76ers' badly battered and undermanned squad, suffered a psychological breakdown after the battered and undermanned 76ers destroyed them in the fifth game.

Then in the third game in three days Monday — an incredible piece of scheduling by the NBA—the 76ers administered the coupe de grace as the Knicks fell apart after blowing a big early lead.

Winning the rough, bruising series with a team riddled by injuries and its bench practically stripped may — under the circumstances — be one of the most remarkable feats in NBA history.

* * *

A TEAM playing under these conditions should not be expected to survive such a series. Have you ever tried driving a car on three wheels?"

But the fact that the 76ers did win was a glowing tribute to the sheer determination and dedication of a proud team; one whose supreme pride shunned defeat in the face of most dire circumstances.

You had to be there to appreciate it . . . the way Hal Greer and Wally Jones ran and shot on battered knees; the way Wilt Chamberlain played the middle with a volcano in his stomach and an injured toe shot full of needles; the way Johnny Green kept hustling although long past the point of exhaustion; the way Luke Jackson, Chet Walker and Matt Goukas played their guts out despite assorted injuries.

It was an effort propelled by a strong motivation; dedication to a mission known as winning. These were driven men. Old pros who refused to buckle.

The Knick series can be forgotten now. The 76ers face a new challenge; one that is much bigger. Can they produce another maximum effort against Boston?

* * *

THERE THEY are — the Philadelphia 76ers. See how they scrap. Watch how they claw.

Notice their contempt for adversity.





Fond Du Lac Commonwealth Reporter - March 30, 1968

Injuries Plague 76ers

The Philadelphia 76ers, a team some rank as the physically strongest in professional basketball history, are in trouble. The trouble is injuries—to handyman Bill Cunningham and starting forward Luke Jackson, and to a lesser degree the two standouts of the defending world champions, Wilt Chamberlain and Hal Greer.

Cunningham broke his right wrist in the double overtime, 138-132 victory over New York which gave the 76ers a 2-1 lead in the best-of-seven series Wednesday night at Philadelphia. Cunningham shoots southpaw, but the injury has kayoed him for the year.

Jackson, the brutish, 6-foot-9 forward who supplies Wilt with rebounding assistance, has a hamstring pull, and was a doubtful performer when the series resumed at Madison Square Garden today.

Chamberlain has been taking cortisone shots in his right toe, and Greer, the middle-distance shooting star, has a knee which troubles him and on which he wears a brace.

Wally Wonder

It appears that Wally Jones, Greer's partner at guard who unblushingly dubbed himself "Wally Wonder," and Chet Walker, the smooth cornerman, are the only healthy 76er starters now.

The team, which ended Boston's domination last winter and then went on to stop San Francisco in the final playoff, was conceded as good a chance this season before the injuries set in. To make matters worse, the current opponent— the Knicks—is a young team which is just starting to feel its oats. The Knicks would enjoy nothing more than knocking off the world champions, and you can bet that Boston will be cheering for them.

Those who watch the pros over ABC each Sunday afternoon will have a chance to watch two games tomorrow. ABC announced Thursday that it will "split" its telecasting time, switching from the 76ers-Knicks' game to the Pistons-Celtics' match and back as the occasion arises.

This will give fans a chance to watch pivotal games in the Eastern Division playoffs, from which will probably spring the eventual champion.

The Pistons and Celtics are tied at 2-2 after Boston's 135- 110 win Thursday. Detroit, which won 10 of its last 13 games to beat out Cincinnati for the fourth playoff spot in the East, has given Boston a stronger run than the aging Celtics expected.

The two playoff series will probably be decided by the play of the two men who have dominated the game in recent years, Chamberlain and Bill Russell.

Counting On Wilt

With his team crippled by injuries, 76ers coach Alex Hannum said Friday that he is counting on Chamberlain to carry his club through against the Knicks. For Boston, player-coach Russell must play well for the Celtics to win.

Both teams depend on their big men to lead them to success. In both cases, the chores have been handed to capable men. So it will come as no surprise if the Celtics and 76ers end up in the Eastern Division's final round.

But the Knickerbockers will have something to say before it's over, and the Pistons likewise. The more experienced 76ers and Celtics are hoping the youngsters remember an old saying which goes, "Children should be seen and not heard."





Lawrence Daily Journal World - April 29, 1968

There never has been a keener rivalry in athletics than the one between basketball's Wilt Chamberlain and Bill Russell.

But while they go at it tooth and nail on the court, Wilt of Philly and Bill of Boston have great respect for each other.

After the Celtics edged the 76ers in the Eastern playoffs — mainly because the 76ers turned stone cold from the floor m the second half — Chamberlain led his mates to the Boston dressing room to congratulate the Celts.

But Russell, sportsman that he is, was quick to turn it around and laud Wilt, who played the final game with a bad leg injury. "Any lesser man wouldn't even be on the court, yet here was Wilt out there giving it all be had," Bill said.

At one point, Celt guard Larry Siegfried tried to stop Wilt from making a dunk by wrapping both arms around him The fabulous 7-1 strongman merely unleashed his fantastic power and flipped the 6-4, 215 pound Siegfried clear off the end of the court. Russell ha often said he never hangs or to a jump ball too long with Chamberlain: "I'm always afraid he'll pick both of us up and stuff us through the hoop, Russell chortles. Everyone in the NBA contends Chamberlain is the strongest man they've ever encountered.

[Doctor MJ]

Dipper, that's some great stuff as per usual, but it's hard to imagine quotes rebutting ThaReg's quotes which were quite damning. What's your take on what ThaReg said?

[Doctor MJ]

Im gonna pick wilt and tell him to focus on defense passing and rebounding scoring last

I hope you're reading what others are saying. The frustrating thing about Wilt is that it appears to be that telling him the right way to play is as likely to result in him having a tantrum and performing a parody of what was asked for (which wouldn't get the job done) as he was to actually embrace it.

[Dipper 13]

Dipper, that's some great stuff as per usual, but it's hard to imagine quotes rebutting ThaReg's quotes which were quite damning. What's your take on what ThaReg said?

Perhaps he held grudges against certain coaches, before they ever coached him. I don't believe he had major problems with any of his coaches besides two, Schayes & Van Breda Kolff. Even then, I don't think the tensions were nearly as heated between him and Dolph as they were with Butch. But clearly he lacked the proper respect for Schayes as a coach, from his Sports Illustrated "Bush League" article to his inexplicable absence from a couple playoff practices. The home crowd even booed him a bit during the pre-game intro of Gm. 5 (he had 46 points & 34 rebounds), after the papers reported he missed foul shooting practice.



Wilt: Just Like Any Other 7-Foot Black Millionaire who Lives Next Door - Wilt Chamberlain (1973)

Alex's decision to come to Philadelphia was gratifying to me on several counts. The most obvious, of course, was that I liked him as a man and respected him as a coach, and knew he'd take us to the championship. But the press was saying I'd been responsible for the 76ers' firing Dolph. They forgot that Dolph had been fighting with the other players on the 76ers before I even joined the team. They also forgot what we all knew — that Dolph Schayes was a piss-poor coach. On his next coaching job, in Buffalo, he had a 22 and 60 record his first year, and set a world record his second year — he was fired after one game! But it made better copy to say "Chamberlain Fires Schayes" than "Schayes Stinks," so that's what the papers said; they said I'd had five coaches in seven years and was "devouring them like aspirin tablets." So why did Alex come to Philadelphia if I was so tough on coaches? He'd coached me for two years in San Francisco; he knew what to expect. Surely, he wouldn't step into an impossible situation, just looking for trouble. It was a ridiculous charge against me, and Alex — as he had in San Francisco — told me so.



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




Jet Magazine - Apr 7, 1966

[Dipper 13]

A View from Above - Wilt Chamberlain

In my pro career I was labeled as someone who had problems with coaches. This was an unfair rap. Other than Dolph Schayes and my very first pro coach, the only other coach I didn't get along with was Butch van Breda Kolff.

[ThaRegul8r]

Wilt played badly in 1969, but he did so partly on purpose...he hated his coach with a passion and his coach hated him. They got into an early tussle earlier in the year and it was there that his coach told him to rebound and do nothing else. So that's exactly what he did. He tried to contribute as little as he could, and probably didn't care whether he won the championship or not. 1969 was bad for Wilt in a lot of ways, the first and biggest is that it makes everyone think that that is how he always played(first long video content of Wilt in game 7), when in fact he only played that badly due to the situation he was in.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rgU4nMeOQmA#t=19m31s

May 9, 1969

More than that, they wanted to know what he thought about Chamberlain being quoted as saving the Lakers lacked "direction" in the final moments of Monday's contest with the Celtics, and about ChamberIain's statement that the Lakers worked the ball to "one man" too much.





http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7zvIJGkjZc#t=1m20s



Besides G5 of the Finals when Butch inexplicably left West in at the end of a decided game to badly injure a hamstring (could not effectively guard Sam Jones anymore, who went wild), there was the infamous G7.





'After Van Breda Kolff was gone, Chamberlain criticized his heavy drinking, his penchant for conducting farting contests, and his failure to prepare for games.'

Earl Strom: In a sense, I respect Butch for making one of the dumbest moves any coach has ever made.

As soon as Russell picked up foul number 5 very early in the quarter, Chamberlain goes down low next possession attempting to take him out. Without Russell in there near the end do the Celtics end up winning? After Wilt went to the bench, the Celtics did force some bad outside shots after Russell initially got a bit excited with Mel Counts guarding him. They could have fed Chamberlain as Bill Russell was clearly sagging off him, in hopes of fouling him out, therefore giving the Lakers a more decisive advantage on the boards. But he was not given an opportunity to help his team win the championship at the end as noted by Sonny Hill below.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ESDFppbQ2zM#t=3m34s




Wilt: Just Like Any Other 7-Foot Black Millionaire who Lives Next Door - Wilt Chamberlain

His answer was something like, "I can handle him." Well, I've always thought you "handled" horses; you work with human beings. But "handle" is exactly the way van Breda Kolff looked at it. He was an ex-Marine, and he had this compulsion to prove he was the boss.

...

In the third quarter alone, the Lakers missed 15 straight shots, and the Celtics jumped into a 17-point lead. Then we started to rally. With five minutes left in the game, we cut their lead to nine points. I had 18 points and 27 rebounds, but when I came down with number 27, I banged my knee into something hard. It hurt bad, like when you bang your crazy-bone against a wall as hard as you can. I had to be helped from the floor. Frank O'Neill, the Laker trainer, sprayed some local anesthetic on it — we call the stuff "don't-hurt-no-more" — and after just about a minute, the pain went away. I signaled van Breda Kolff that I was okay and wanted to go back in. But the team had played well with Mel Counts filling in for me, and we'd cut Boston's lead to three points. Van Breda Kolff figured he could win without me — and win his petty personal battle with me in the process. Twice more, I signaled I was ready. Finally, he just said, "We don't need you." He was determined to prove he was the boss, even if it cost the Lakers the world championship. And that's exactly what it cost. When the final buzzer sounded, Boston had won again, 108-106 — the seventh time the Celtics had beaten me for a championship, and the sixth time they'd beaten Jerry, Elgin, and the Lakers for a championship.

I'm not sure I was ever as angry at one man as I was at Butch van Breda Kolff that night. By refusing to put me back in the game, he had not only humiliated me, he had deprived me and my teammates and the Laker fans of an NBA championship. With me in there for the last four minutes, I think we could have won. But van Breda Kolff wouldn't give me — and us — that chance. I have to admit that I got a vengeful, almost sadistic sort of pleasure this last season when van Breda Kolff did something very similar for Phoenix and got fired.

I was curious as to your response to those allegations, since evidently I'm not intelligent enough to realize what "should have always been obvious to everyone," despite never once seeing or hearing any claims remotely like this from anyone when this has been discussed. While Wilt definitely had his faults and his flaws, allegations that he purposely played badly for an entire season and made a deliberate effort to contribute as little as he could while not caring whether he won a championship or not—despite bristling his whole career at the "loser" tag and always being compared to Russell, the ultimate winner—when he was expressly acquired in order to bring the Lakers a championship are outright slanderous, yet coming from a purported fan.