However, it also became evident that he was an atrocious free-throw shooter, making hardly half of his foul shots. As time progressed, Chamberlain grew even worse, and acknowledged he was simply a "psycho case" on that matter.[41]
The Warriors entered the 1960 NBA Playoffs and beat the Syracuse Nationals, setting up a meeting versus the Eastern Division champions, the Boston Celtics. Cherry described how Celtics coach Red Auerbach ordered his forward Tom Heinsohn to commit personal fouls on Chamberlain: whenever the Warriors shot foul shots, Heinsohn grabbed and shoved Chamberlain to prevent him from running back quickly; his intention was that the Celtics would throw the ball in so fast that the prolific shotblocker Chamberlain was not yet back under his own basket, and Boston could score an easy fastbreak basket.[40]
The teams split the first two games, but in Game 3, Chamberlain got fed up with Heinsohn and punched him. In the scuffle, Wilt injured his hand, and Philadelphia lost the next two games.[40] In Game 5, with his hand back to normal, Chamberlain scored 50 points on Bill Russell. But in Game 6, Heinsohn got the last laugh, scoring the decisive basket with a last-second tip-in.[40] The Warriors lost the series 4–2.[2]
Chamberlain again failed to convert his play into team success, however, this time bowing out against the Syracuse Nationals in a three-game sweep.[44]
Cherry noted that Chamberlain was "difficult" and did not respect coach Neil Johnston, who was unable to handle the star center. In retrospect, Eddie Gottlieb remarked: "My mistake was not getting a stronghanded coach.... [Johnston] wasn't ready for big time."[45]
Chamberlain did not care for the Sixers' coach, Dolph Schayes, because Schayes, according to him, had made several disrespectful remarks when they were rival players in the NBA.[58]
Additionally,
in an April 1965 issue of Sports Illustrated Chamberlain conducted an interview entitled "My Life in a Bush League" where he criticized his fellow players, coaches, and NBA administrators.[61] Chamberlain later commented that he could see in hindsight how the interview was instrumental in damaging his public image.[61]
Off the court, however, Chamberlain's commitment to the cause was doubted, as Chamberlain was a late sleeper, lived in New York and preferred to commute to Philadelphia rather than live there, and he was only available during the afternoon for training. Because Schayes did not want to risk angering his best player, he scheduled the daily workout at 4 pm; this angered the team, who preferred an early schedule to have the afternoon off, but Schayes just said: "There is no other way."[63] Irv Kosloff, who now owned the Sixers alone after Richman's death, pleaded to him to move to Philadelphia during the season, but he was turned down.[64]
In Game 3, Chamberlain scored 31 points and 27 rebounds for an important road win, and
the next day, coach Schayes planned to hold a joint team practice. However, Chamberlain said he was "too tired" to attend, and even refused Schayes' plea to at least show up and shoot a few foul shots with the team. In Game 4, Boston won 114–108.[64] Prior to Game 5, Chamberlain was nowhere to be found, skipping practice and being non-accessible. Outwardly, Schayes defended his star center as "excused from practice", but his teammates knew the truth and were much less forgiving.[64] In Game 5 itself, Chamberlain was superb, scoring 46 points and 34 rebounds, but the Celtics won the game 120–112 and the series.[65]
Cherry is highly critical of Chamberlain: while conceding he was the only Sixers player who performed in the series, he pointed out his unprofessional, egotistical behavior as being a bad example for his teammates.[64]
Prior to the 1966–67 NBA season, the friendly but unassertive Schayes was replaced by a familiar face, the crafty but firm Alex Hannum. In what Cherry calls a tumultuous locker room meeting, Hannum addressed several key issues he observed during the last season, several of them putting Chamberlain in an unfavorable light.
Sixers forward Chet Walker testified that on several occasions, players had to pull Chamberlain and Hannum apart to prevent a fistfight.[66] Fellow forward Billy Cunningham observed that Hannum "never backed down" and "showed who was the boss". By doing this, he won Chamberlain's respect.[66] When emotions cooled off, Hannum pointed out to Chamberlain that he was on the same page in trying to win a title; but to pull this off, he – like his teammates – had to "act like a man" both on and off the court.[66] Concerning basketball, he persuaded him to change his style of play. Loaded with several other players who could score, such as future Hall-of-Famers Hal Greer and newcomer Billy Cunningham, Hannum wanted Chamberlain to concentrate more on defense.[4][67]
After that season, coach Alex Hannum wanted to be closer to his family on the West Coast; he left the Sixers to coach the Oakland Oaks in the newly founded American Basketball Association.[75]
Chamberlain then asked for a trade, and Sixers general manager Jack Ramsay traded him to the Los Angeles Lakers for Darrall Imhoff, Archie Clark and Jerry Chambers.[67] The motivation for this move remains in dispute. According to sportswriter Roland Lazenby, a journalist close to the Lakers, Chamberlain was angry at Kosloff for breaking the alleged Richman-Chamberlain deal,[33] but according to Dr. Jack Ramsay, who was the Sixers general manager then, Chamberlain also threatened to jump to the ABA after Hannum left, and forced the trade himself.[67] Cherry finally adds several personal reasons: the center felt he had grown too big for Philadelphia, sought the presence of fellow celebrities (which were plenty in L.A.) and finally also desired the opportunity to date white women, which was possible for a black man in L.A. but hard to imagine elsewhere back then.[76]
The greatest problem was his tense relationship with
Lakers coach Butch Van Breda Kolff: pejoratively calling the new recruit "The Load", he later complained that Chamberlain was egotistical, never respected him, too often slacked off in practice and focused too much on his own statistics.[78] In return, the center blasted Van Breda Kolff as "the dumbest and worst coach ever".[33][78] Laker Keith Erickson observed that "Butch catered to Elgin and Jerry...and that is not a good way to get on Wilt's side...that relationship was doomed from the start."[78]
Going into the series as 3-to-1 favorites, the Lakers won the first two games, but dropped the next two. Chamberlain was criticized as a non-factor in the series, getting neutralized by Bill Russell with little effort.[79] But in Game 5, the Lakers center started to come to life, scoring 13 points and grabbing 31 rebounds, leading Los Angeles to a 117–104 win. In Game 6, the Celtics won 99–90, and Chamberlain only scored 8 points; Cherry accuses him of choking, because if "Chamberlain had come up big and put up a normal 30 point scoring night", L.A. would have probably won its first championship.[79]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilt_Chamb ... 105_106-42Love life and “20,000 women” claim
Although shy and insecure as a teenager, adult Chamberlain became well-known for his womanizing. As his lawyer Seymour "Sy" Goldberg put it: "Some people collect stamps, Wilt collected women."[5] Swedish Olympic high jumper Annette Tånnander, who met him when he was 40 and she 19, remembers him as a pick-up artist who was extremely confident yet respectful: "I think Wilt hit on everything that moved...[but] he never was bad or rude."[5] Many of Chamberlain's personal friends testified[citation needed] that he once had 23 women in 10 days, had no problems organizing a threesome (or more), and particularly enjoyed a TV skit on the show In Living Color in which a mother and her daughter approach a Vietnam Wall-like list of women who slept with him, both of them pointing out that their names are on it, as well as a 1991 Saturday Night Live sketch where MC Hammer played Chamberlain in "Remembrances of Love", where Chamberlain spoofs a soap opera with romances with women that are usually over in five minutes.[5] However, Los Angeles Times columnist David Shaw claimed that during a dinner with Shaw and his wife, Chamberlain was “rude and sexist toward his own date, as he usually was,” adding that at one point Chamberlain left the table to get the phone number of an attractive woman at a nearby table.[18]
According to Rod Roddewig, a contemporary of Wilt's, the 20,000 number was created when he and Chamberlain were staying in Chamberlain's penthouse in Honolulu during the mid-1980s. He and Chamberlain stayed at the penthouse for 10 days, over the course of which he recorded everything on his Daytimer.[clarification needed] For every time Chamberlain went to bed with a different girl he put a check in his daytimer. After those 10 days there were 23 checks in the book, which would be rate of 2.3 women per day. He divided that number in half, to be conservative and to correct for degrees of variation. He then multiplied that number by the number of days he had been alive at the time minus 15 years. That was how the 20,000 number came into existence.[19]
In a 1999 interview shortly before his death, Chamberlain regretted not having explained the sexual climate at the time of his escapades, and warned other men who admired him for it, closing with the words: "With all of you men out there who think that having a thousand different ladies is pretty cool, I have learned in my life I've found out that having one woman a thousand different times is much more satisfying."[20] Chamberlain also acknowledged that he never came close to marrying and had no intention of raising any children.[21]
Cherry believes that Chamberlain's extreme sex drive was fueled by the female rejection he had experienced as a teenager, causing him to overcompensate.[5] His lifelong friend and on-and-off girlfriend, Lynda Huey, eleven years his junior, said: "He had an inability of combining friendship and sexuality."[22] Shaw added: "Wilt never liked to admit a weakness ... [but] you cannot be married and be Superman ... you cannot appear invulnerable to your mate."[23]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_l ... hamberlain
