This is a full 18 inches above a 12 foot rim! He nearly died of pneumonia as a child and still came back as one of the strongest athletes the world has ever seen. Skiles, who averaged 8.4 assists per game that season and later had a 20-assist game, scored 22 points that night (and the Orlando Magic scored a team-record 155 points in a win over Denver). 2023 www.jsonline.com. Defense - Wilt Chamberlain Shaq was never much of a defender as he got older despite averaging 2.3 BPG and 0.6 SPG over his career. With Philadelphia being a hoops hotbed, Chamberlain came to terms with his height and decided to shift his sporting attention to basketball at Overbrook High School in West Philadelphia (side fact: Will Smith attended high school years later). You give whatever you have to give, and when it's appreciated, it's gratifying. What muscles do decline bench press work? Chamberlain also became (in)famous for some of his scandalous off-court activities. Wilt did a hell of a job, which points tothe fine job Lew did for us.". Charming Facts About Hollywood Leading Men, Lawyers Share Their Oh GOD Moments In Court, Catherine de Medici Was Utterly RuthlessAnd She Paid A Terrible Price, The Truth Always Comes Out: Dark Family Secrets Exposed, Stay Out Of The Woods: Campers And Hikers Share Their Creepiest Experiences. The evidence that Wilt Chamberlain could touch the top of the backboard gets even more solidified by an article found in the June 10, 1958 edition of Look Magazine. I saw him play extensively from 1965-68, age 29-32. In the Finals, Chamberlain and the Sixers won a hard-fought series, winning four games to two. . My sergeant [vertical leap] was higher than Michael Jordans. In most cases, jumping is ruled by the players who stand between 6'3 to 6'8 inches. Through that analysis I think it is safe to say that Wilt Chamberlain could not jump 48 inches off the ground. Chamberlain had 25 points and 14 rebounds. "I can't recall if this has ever happened to me before. 2 all time, Jason Kidd, and 5,000 ahead of No. I do feel confident that there is enough information out there to determine how high Wilt Chamberlain could really jump and have included the most compelling arguments below. Chamberlain sat out the 1973-74 season, hoping to serve as a player-coach with the San Diego Conquistadors of the ABA. Wilt Chamberlain (born August 21, 1936) is an American basketball player who plays as a Centre for Kansas Jayhawks men's basketball. Sports medicine also made huge strides in the last 40 years between their careers. In his scouting report, he describes Chamberlain as a seven-foot, lean 225-pound athlete with a 24-inch vertical jump, who scored with a mix of bankshots, jumpshots, drives and dunks, and possessed an unusual level of stamina, with the only drawback a lack of defensive timing. This was the most physical game I ever played. We'll try to answer them as best we can. Chamberlain never fouled out in his NBA career, but he incurred his fourth foul early in the second half. . It's also true that the highest-profile clashes between the two happened outside the 70-71 season. . Wilt Chamberlain could also run a 40 yard dash in 4.6 seconds and had a 45+ inch vertical. The testing protocols and training methods to increase performance were in their infancy and because of that we dont have anywhere near the data that we have now. Chamberlain almost gave up his NBA career after his rookie season. He made his announcement through an article in Look. Lets analyze that video since Dwight is somewhat comparable in size and jumping ability to Wilt. The Jazz had 68 in a December win over the Hornets (Rudy Gobert pulled down 21 of them), matching the season high the Grizzlies set in a November win over the Kings (no Memphis player had more than 12). That I dont know. He was 63. Wilt Chamberlain full body measurements are 40 Inch . However, the man is almost like an urban legend with numerous sources claiming he can do these incredible feats but there not actually being a lot of video footage to support it all. If you are having difficulty accessing any content on this website . But that snot all Wilt Chamberlain could do. Chamberlain was a well-rounded athlete in the discipline; his personal best in the high jump was six feet six inches, he threw 55 feet in shot put, he ran the 440 in 49 seconds, and he could do a 22-foot long jump. He also didnt get along with Kansass new coach Dick Harp, who replaced Phog Allen after he retired. The run lasted 16 consecutive seasons with four different teams from 1986 to 2001. He averaged 50.4 points per game, the highest ever -- and no one is close. For that time, it was great and unstoppable but non-comparable to the older eras. - Bel Air, Los Angeles, 1999. oktber 12.) Chamberlain renamed the club Big Wilts Smalls Paradise and reportedly spent 18 hours a day at the establishment. To go up under Wilt Chamberlain, to be down there and look up at him when he's towering up over you waiting to dunk, was a terrifying picture. 'Whatever seed we are, we're ready': Is there room for Cleveland among the East elite? The Lakers sued to prevent Chamberlain from playing because he hadn't fulfilled his Lakers contract, and he wound up merely coaching for the season, then retiring from basketball. In his off time, Chamberlain continued playing basketball at the resort, impressing guest Red Auerbach, who was the coach of the Boston Celtics that Chamberlain would have many run-ins with throughout his career. Grizzlies-Clippers, 10 p.m. A.C. Green's 1,192 consecutive games. Wilt was on his job. [6] I was skeptical when I first came across this one but I can assure you that this is in fact true. In his 1991 autobiography, A View From Above, Chamberlain made the startling claim that he had had sexual relations with 20,000 women. He even towered over his greatest competition, Bill Russell, when it came to physical stature. John Stockton's 15,806 career assists. To prepare you for just how athletic this man was, check out this clip of Wilt Chamberlain blocking the impossible to guard sky-hook by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Chamberlain then asked his coach, Butch van Breda Kolff, to get back in the game with only a few minutes left. Can you imagine modern day centers being the fastest on the court? Bouncing elsewhere. That one Bucks win was a big one, though. The rules at the time prevented Chamberlain from entering the NBA directly after leaving college early. He was miraculously almost never in foul trouble, averaging a career-low 1.5 a game. Before hitting the hardwood, Chamberlains sport of choice was actually track and field. Wilt Chamberlain appears to be the first and maybe only player to ever be able to consistently do so. Wilt Chamberlain has a personal record of a 22 foot long jump. Although Catherine's successor Queen Anne Boleyn suffered an infamously dark fate, Aragon's own life was somehow even more tragic. How much can Zion Williamson Bench Press? Both of these times exceed the average speed of NFL wide receivers. Here's a baller spread. James passed Jordan, who had the previous record of 866 consecutive games, in 2018. Chamberlain not only had to play all regular minutes, but also had to play deep into overtime many times to get that average. His claims were backed up by Sonny Hill, a former Philadelphia 76ers legend. This raised rim dunk has been replicated quite a few times now at this point, maybe most famously by Dwight Howard in the 2009 NBA Slam Dunk Contest. For the most part Wilts head appears to be right at the rim or slightly above it in all of the jumps that Ive looked at. Wilt Chamberlain's entire 1961-62 season is essentially written in statistical concrete, never to be duplicated. Throughout this process I have reviewed plenty of pictures and game footage of Wilt Chamberlain jumping through the air, and I can confidently say that I have yet to come across a single example of Wilt getting his head that high above the rim. I in no way have tried to take anything away from his game, but rather I sought out to analyze an athletic skill through the eyes of a sports performance coach. Our editors are instructed to fact check thoroughly, including finding at least three references for each fact. Wilt was 71 tall. As a 25-year-old physical phenomenon intent . Abdul-Jabbar, who finished with five NBA titles with the Lakers in addition to his Bucks crown, closed his career at 38,387 points, still No. Now lets get into the details and start to unpack the answer to whether or not Wilt Chamberlain had a 48 inch vertical jump. Sonny said this on Wilts jumping ability: The only man thats been to the top, thats Wilt. On one hand he is saying that his vertical was higher than Michael Jordans and was easily 46 to 48 inches, but on the other hand he is quoted as saying that dunking on the 12 foot rim was a challenge. His vertical jump based on the article would come out to 45 inches. He ran a "Sub-11" second time in the 100 yard dash, and ran the 400 metre in 49 seconds. Chamberlain went to the free-throw line a whopping 32 times in his 100-point game. An outspoken, tell-all memoir that stands way above any basketball bestseller around. 1 in 1969. On October 12, 1999, Chamberlain passed away from congestive heart failure. After two career matchups between the players in which Chamberlain matched or surpassed Alcindor, Alcindorwas the clear winner this time. "In the last game, Wilt would back away from me. His name was Wilt Chamberlain. Milwaukee won, 85-84, thanks to a late Abdul-Jabbar bucket. Sports performance training as we know it was non-existent, making it difficult to understand just how great of an athlete he was. But that plan was scrapped after the Lakers indeed beat the Warriors. It was in high school where Chamberlain was given the famous nicknames that would stick with him for the rest of his life. To put in perspective how unlikely this record is to be broken, there have been fewer than 50 instances of a team having at least 56 rebounds in a regulation game this season. The man would successfully jump from the free throw line to complete a foul shot. He was much more than just a big man with leaping ability, he was an all time great who was one of the most dominant athletes to ever play the game. At 71 that is amazing, but not quite the 48 inches that he has been claimed to reach. He would start from the top of the key, take a step, jump, and successfully dunk the basketball. 5 out of 5 stars (232) $ FREE shipping Add to Favorites 1972 Topps Basketball Wilt Chamberlain #1 Reprint novelty basketball card.Lakers.Free shipping . But while 1970-71 was Milwaukee's season to shine, it didn't always have bragging rights over the Lakers and Chamberlain. He'd have to keep that up until he was 42 years old to pass Stockton. His stellar play and fierce battles with Bill Russell of the Boston Celtics helped establish a national following for a relatively new-on-the-scene NBA. Chamberlain still led the NBA in rebounding and shooting percentage in the final two seasons of his career and made the all-star team in the final three, never missing a game in those three seasons. On March 2, 1962, Wilt Chamberlain scored 100 points for the Philadelphia Warriors in a game against the New York Knicks, an NBA record that still stands. It wasn't even supposed to be the final matchup with the Lakers that week, let alone the last Wilt-Kareem battle ever. Warriors starNate Thurmond, another elite center in the league, was in attendance to watch the matchup. That means he was nearly able to touch the rim from a flat footed position off of the ground. With his basketball career behind him, Chamberlain turned his attention to another sportvolleyball. Chamberlain was part of the Harlem Globetrotters team that went to the Soviet Union for a series of historic exhibition games in 1959. Rumors claim that Wilt Chamberlain could bench press up to 600 pounds (and has bedded 20,000 women), however given his height, weight and reach this seems highly unlikely. He was stuck on 29 assists, the record held by Kevin Porter from 1978, for six minutes in the fourth quarter before getting the record dime with a minute to play. But that was the Lakers' last stand. Known as "Wilt the Stilt" and "The Big Dipper," basketball great Wilton Norman Chamberlain was opinionated and iconoclastic, a seeker of good times and intellectual stimulation whose outsized personality matched his towering 7-foot stature and legendary athletic accomplishments. We want our readers to trust us. That goes far beyond simply touching the top. Wilton Norman Chamberlain was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to Olivia Ruth (Johnson), a domestic worker, and William Chamberlain, a welder, custodian, and handyman. Growing increasingly frustrated and wanting to make money, Chamberlain decided to forego his senior year at Kansas. Wilt Chamberlain is a legend of the NBA. I have enjoyed analyzing this mans athleticism and found myself in awe of his speed and explosiveness. Wilt Chamberlain has a lot of claims made about his incredibly physical feats, and when it comes to the bench press the giant could max out at 500 pounds. Initially, the honor of top seed was expected to be settled with a one-game playoff at the Milwaukee Arena on Friday night. These included widening the painted area on the court, implementing offensive interference rules, and changes to free throw shooting and inbounding procedures. Sure the camera angles were terrible, mostly shot from the ground angled up at the players, but one would think that you could at least clearly tell if a guys neck was above the rim. 872,195 11. LeBron James' 1,067 consecutive regular-season games (and counting) of double-digit scoring. This occurred in a game in 1968 when he recorded 22 points, 25 rebounds, and 21 assists. Michael Jordan is the only player besides Chamberlain to average more than 37. Not to be outdone, he also averaged 25.7 rebounds per game and, perhaps most amazingly, he averaged 48.5 minutes per game. ET on ESPN and the ESPN App), the team and the NBA will celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Lakers' 33-game winning streak in the 1971-72 season, regarded as one of the most unbreakable records in NBA history. All Rights Reserved. "I didn't, consciously at least. 1936. augusztus 21. that must be the most frightening sight in sports. Chamberlain's physical prowess and soft-touch meant he was an automatic machine around the rim, and he often made it look like he was playing against children. FactSnippet No. JR Radcliffe can be reached at (262) 361-9141 or jradcliffe@gannett.com. This move was legal because he never stepped foot inside the paint area until after the ball went through the rim. He even appeared in a few games for the Seattle Smashers and was the MVP of one of the leagues All-Star games. Wilt claimed that he could take change off the backboard. In 2006, the NBA put in new rules that called for suspensions once a player reaches 16 for a season, and it has probably iced Wallace's record for good. Catherine of Aragon is now infamous as King Henry VIIIs rejected queenbut few people know her even darker history.