Wilt Chamberlain and Jerry West being on the Los Angeles Lakers together is considered by quite a few to be the first NBA superteam. The duo played 5 seasons together toward the end of their careers and in 1972, were able to help West win his first ring and Chamberlain his second.
Bill Russell‘s Boston Celtics kept them without too much hardware, and in 1969 after a Finals loss, West expressed the difference he felt existed between Russell and Chamberlain.
“I think Wilt Chamberlain is a better basketball player than Bill Russell, but for one game I think I’d rather have Bill Russell,” he said, per Robert Cherry’s book, Wilt: Larger Than Life. “It would be hard to explain without hurting somebody’s feelings. I think Chamberlain is a better rebounder, a better scorer, and a better shooter. I think Wilt blocks more shots than Russell.
“But if I had to pick one guy for one game, it’d be Russell. It’s incredible what he does for his team. It’s hard to imagine how one guy can do so much for his teammates. When they see him on the court, they’re different players.”
This is an intense thing to say about the biggest rival of your teammate, especially driving home the narrative that dogged Wilt his entire career. Chamberlain and West were a top-10 duo in NBA history, but they had their moments of not trusting each other too much.
Bill Russell And Wilt Chamberlain’s Rivalry Even Featured In Russell’s Contract Demands
Bill Russell and Wilt Chamberlain excelled in different things. While no player will likely enjoy as much team success as Russell, Chamberlain’s records seem equally untouchable. And while West was Chamberlain’s greatest teammate, Russell had quite a few on those legendary Celtics team. Their rivalry got fairly intense, too, with Russell once threatening to retire if he wasn’t paid more than Wilt.
“In 1965, after Chamberlain signed a $100,000-a-year contract for three seasons, Russell said he would consider retiring unless he got paid a dollar more. The Celtics finally raised their offer from $75,000 to $100,001, and Russell signed.”
Those comments Jerry West made are surely ones he regrets, especially seeing as Wilt was able to help him finally reach the promised land he had chased his entire career. All 3 remain some of the game’s biggest legends, and these stories go to show that the NBA has always been an extremely rivalry-oriented league.
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