Wilt Chamberlain dominated the NBA individually in a way nobody has since. He led the league in scoring seven times, led the league in rebounding 11 times, and was even the assists leader for one season.
Chamberlain was named MVP four times, won a Finals MVP, and two championships. He was one of the first true superstars in the NBA. But as he once revealed years after he had retired, his happiest years came after he was done with basketball.
“Not long after [retiring], he published his autobiography, and in it, he unequivocally declared that his happiest year had been the one with the Harlem Globetrotters, the one when nobody asked him to break any records but just to go out there, put his rubber bands on his wrists like always, have fun and help other people enjoy themselves,” Frank Deford wrote for Sports Illustrated in 1986.
“Is that year with the Globies still your happiest?” Deford asked Chamberlain. “Wilt drew his bare feet across the tiles. Los Angeles stretched out below him, his great house soaring above. ‘Oh, no, my man,’ he said with a big smile. ‘There’s been 10 great years since then. There’s been 10 straight happier years.’”
Wilt Chamberlain dealt with a lot of pressure in his career. His direct rival, Bill Russell, never enjoyed the statistical dominance Wilt Chamberlain did, but he won 11 NBA championships. His whole career, Wilt faced criticism for not being a winning player like Russell, and it must have gotten tiring to hear about and deal with daily.
Wilt Chamberlain Did A Lot Of Things After Retiring From The NBA
Wilt Chamberlain may have been a basketball superstar, but he didn’t stop playing sports after his retirement. A fact several fans don’t know about the late legend is that he had a highly successful volleyball career after he called it quits in the NBA.
His personal life is the stuff of legends as well. Everyone knows about the claim Chamberlain made about having slept with 20,000 women and while that may not have been entirely accurate, he likely enjoyed dating around as well.
Basketball fans often get caught up in the NBA and expect players’ lives to be just about that, but that’s not how life works. Wilt’s example is a great one for many athletes in today’s generation that at times end up obsessing over their game and legacy above all else.
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