Without Wilt Chamberlain, the NBA record book would be a lot thinner. And a whole lot less interesting.
At the time of his retirement, Wilt "The Stilt" owned dozens of all-time career, single-season and single-game. To this day, he owns three of the top five highest scoring averages in NBA history and is tied (with Michael Jordan) for the top scoring average (30.1 ppg), and his single-game record of 100 points will probably stand forever.
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Karl Malone and Michael Jordan all passed Chamberlain on the career scoring list, but no modern player has come close to his record of 23,924 rebounds. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar is in third place with 17,440 -- and played six more NBA seasons than Chamberlain. One has to wonder what the record book would look like if Chamberlain ever learned to hit free throws. Chamberlain was legendarily bad from the free-throw line, hitting just .511 for his career.
Chamberlain set other untouchable records in his personal life.
At the time of his retirement, Wilt "The Stilt" owned dozens of all-time career, single-season and single-game. To this day, he owns three of the top five highest scoring averages in NBA history and is tied (with Michael Jordan) for the top scoring average (30.1 ppg), and his single-game record of 100 points will probably stand forever.
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Karl Malone and Michael Jordan all passed Chamberlain on the career scoring list, but no modern player has come close to his record of 23,924 rebounds. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar is in third place with 17,440 -- and played six more NBA seasons than Chamberlain. One has to wonder what the record book would look like if Chamberlain ever learned to hit free throws. Chamberlain was legendarily bad from the free-throw line, hitting just .511 for his career.
Chamberlain set other untouchable records in his personal life.