Pro Basketball: Making the Giant Jolly

As the most commanding figure in all of pro sport, Wilton Norman Chamberlain, 29, just naturally has been discussed by physiologists, analyzed by psychologists, investigated by the Internal Revenue Service, and interviewed by newsmen, by his count, “more than 5,000” times. The body of literature devoted to his life and exploits runs to perhaps 2,000,000 words of prose and 200 of poetry, chock-full of such fascinating revelations as that he sleeps naked, trims his beard with fingernail scissors, has an IQ of 127 and hates the nickname “Wilt the Stilt.” No one has seemed able to agree on two fairly important and somewhat related points about Wilt Chamberlain: 1) how tall he is, and 2) how good he is.

The first, alas, remains up in the air. Wilt himself claims to be exactly 7 ft. 1/16 in. tall—but he throws out the figure defiantly, like a size 18 woman who insists on trying on a size ten dress. Back in 1955, when he was a freshman at the University of Kansas, he was reported to be 7 ft. 2 in. The National Basketball Association’s 1966 record book gives him an inch less than that. All of this amuses rival players, whose estimates of Chamberlain’s true altitude range all the way up to 7 ft. 6 in.

Never Stop There. Chamberlain is as defiant about his playing abilities as about his size. “I am,” he maintains, “the greatest basketball player in the world.” Everyone might have agreed with him long ago if only he had stopped right there. Who else, after all, has ever scored 100 points in a single night or averaged 39.5 points per game throughout a seven-year pro career? Wilt never stops there. “I am also the greatest boxer and the greatest miler and the greatest weight lifter and the greatest shotputter and the greatest bowler and the greatest cook and the greatest lover,” he says. It took his fellow pros a while to realize that they could vote for one item on Wilt’s list without buying all of them. Last week they elected him the N.B.A.’s most valuable player.

They really did not have much choice. Critics used to accuse Chamberlain of being strictly a goon and a “gunner”—a glory hound who was more interested in pouring in points and setting scoring records than in winning games. This season Chamberlain surprised them. As usual, he led the league in scoring (with 2,649 points, an average of 33.5 per game) and in rebounds (1,943). His proudest accomplishment, though, was ranking seventh in the league in assists; every other player among the top ten was a guard. “Everybody knows I can score 100 points a game if need be,” Wilt explained in Baltimore last week. “But the purpose of this game is to win, not set records.” So saying, he strode out onto the court, picked off 26 rebounds, scored 24 points and set up three other Philadelphia baskets with assists, as the 76ers beat the Baltimore Bullets 108-104 in their last game of the season. The victory was Philadelphia’s eleventh straight, and it earned the 76ers the N.B.A.’s Eastern Division championship—by the slim margin of one game over the perennial champion (nine straight years) Boston Celtics.

Chamberlain the new-found team player is really no different from Chamberlain the critics’ old target. He still drives a $24,000 Bentley. He is still a loner, distant with teammates, suspicious of strangers. “I have a split personality,” he says. “I carefully separate my public life from my private life. The only connection between the two is business: the money from the one permits the seclusion of the other.” Wilt turns down several $500 to $1,000 speaking engagements each week because, explains a friend, “his private time is much more valuable to him than money.”

Not that Chamberlain particularly needs money. His basketball salary is more than $100,000 a year. He gets pin money from endorsements, and he owns a swinging Harlem nightclub named Big Wilt’s Small’s Paradise, a 27-unit apartment building in Manhattan, a 42-unit affair in Los Angeles, a bulging portfolio of mutual funds, and shares in eight trotting horses—all of which nets him an additional $275,000 or so. He pays for practically everything in cash from a fat roll of high-denomination bills that he carries in his right trouser pocket. “Somebody’s going to hit you over the head and rob you,” a friend once warned Wilt. Replied Chamberlain: “If anybody is going to hit me over the head, he’ll have to get a ladder first. So when I see somebody coming after me with a ladder, I’ll know what’s on his mind.”

Trick or Treat. An insomniac, Chamberlain often sits up until 4 a.m., telephoning friends or watching television in the 41-room, $240-a-month Manhattan apartment that he shares with Thor and Odin, his pet Great Danes, and Crystal, his live-in Swedish maid. A hypochondriac, he complains frequently of stomach cramps, drinks huge quantities of milk to settle his stomach. His sense of humor tends toward the malevolent. A typical Chamberlain trick is to flip an average eater for the price of a meal; he eats so much at a sitting that his odds at coming out ahead are 3 to 1. His favorite amusement is walking the two Great Danes through Central Park about 3 a.m. Just recalling the terrified expressions on the faces of the people who have encountered this predawn vision makes Wilt Chamberlain a very jolly giant.