A Look into the Life of Wilt the Stilt (part 4)
Chamberlain’s addition to the 76er’s caused an uncomfortable stir in the team’s hierarchy. Hal Greer was the leader of the team and was not willing to give up his power. Lucious Jackson had to change position from center to power forward due to Wilt taking
that spot. Even though there were these problems in the team, as they started to play together, they began to get accustomed to their new roles. Chamberlain maintained his excellent statistics and the 76er’s defeated the Cincinnati Royals in the 1965 playoffs
and went into the finals to face the Boston Celtics.
The game was going well, until the last few seconds where Coach Dolph Schayes decided to play Hal Greer because he was afraid that the Celtics would foul Wilt on purpose. This turned out to be a bad move, since the ball was stolen from Greer by John Havlicek,
who managed to keep the Celtics from losing their lead, denying Chamberlain yet another title. This lost what little respect the crowd had in Chamberlain, especially after giving an article in 1956 in Sports Illustrated, where he criticized some fellow players,
coaches and even some NBA administrators.
The 1965 to 1966 season was tragic for the 76er’s due to the death of co-owner Ike Richman (he was Chamberlain’s confidant and lawyer). Despite the shock of the tragedy, the 76er’s managed to wrangle up a win/loss record of 55-25. This earned Chamberlain
his second MVP of his career. Chamberlain was a very hard player to handle. Even though on the court he was an excellent player, off the court he was egotistical and unprofessional.
He would refuse to move to Philadelphia and commuted from New York, thus being available only in the afternoons. Schayes was afraid of the basketball star and wanted to keep him happy as to not lose him by scheduling a daily workout session at 4pm. Chamberlain
was often late to practice, and sometimes did not even show up, claiming that he was “too tired”. This changed when Dolph Schayes was replaced by Alex Hannum, who showed Chamberlain who was boss and did not fold to Chamberlain’s ego.
Chamberlain responded by becoming less “dominant” yet remained very efficient. The 76er’s achieved a record of 68-13 win loss record. Chamberlain basically did a u-turn in his personality. He began to praise his team mates and other officials. In 1967, during
the playoffs, the 76er’s finally defeated the Boston Celtics.
In the NBA Finals during 1967, the 76er’s faced Chamberlain’s previous team, the San Francisco Warriors. They defeated the Warriors and won the championship when Barry screwed up his attempt at the shot. Chamberlain had contributed to the win by scoring
a 17.7 points per game average and a 28.7 rebounds per game against Nate Thurmond. Chamberlain described the team as the best team in the history of the National Basketball Association.
In his third season playing for the 76er’s, Chamberlain made basketball history once again by becoming the leader in assists. For his excellent playing during the season, Chamberlain was awarded his fourth MVP title; this would also be his last title. Another
landmark that Chamberlain accomplished was his 25’000th point, thus becoming the first person to score that many points. The 1968 playoffs were especially tough for the 76er’s. Playing against the New York Knicks, the players kept injuring themselves.
Chamberlain was having trouble with inflamed feet, and Hal Greer had bad knees.
Despite their troubles, the 76er’s beat the Knicks and went onto the finals, where they were awaited by the Boston Celtics. This game was cut short due to the assassination of Martin Luther King. The game was still played and lost by the 76er’s. Philadelphia
evened out the series by winning by winning games 3 and 4. The Celtics fought back and won game 5 and 6. Game 7 was the most painful game in the history of the 76er’s. The team was not playing together properly and lost to the Celtics 96 to 100 making this
the first time in NBA history that a team lost the season after having a 3-1 lead.
After this season, Coach Hannum left the 76er’s to be with his family. As Hannum departed from the team, Chamberlain felt that he too should leave the team. General Manager Jack Ramsey traded Chamberlain to the Los Angeles Lakers and received Darral Imhoff,
Archie Clark, and Jerry Chambers in his place.
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