Wilt Chamberlain faced a lot of adversity during these days as an NBA superstar. As the league’s first dominant player, in the thick of racial segregation in America, he wasn’t very well-liked in his day, and lot of it had to do with the color of his skin.
But Wilt wasn’t always the nicest of dudes and that it often made things very uncomfortable. That point was made very clear in a story told by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar about the time he and Wilt encountered a stranger on the elevator.
“Some of the things Wilt did bothered me. I got on an elevator with Wilt, and as the elevator’s going down this guy gets on and says ‘Oh wow! How’s the weather up there?…’ “Wilt SPAT on the dude and said ‘It’s raining.'”
https://twitter.com/FadeawayWorld/status/1272610344196640768
Wilt didn’t take nonsense from anybody. If you went at him, he was willing and able to fight back.
While spitting on a dude may have been taking things too far, Wilt had to be tough back in those days. There were haters and critics all around and it was probably just second-nature to go toe-to-toe with people.
Nevertheless, there seems to be a lot of respect for Wilt about who he was as not only a basketball player but also as a man. He has been remembered greatly by the fans and his peers.
