{"id":1577137,"date":"2023-09-16T15:56:58","date_gmt":"2023-09-16T19:56:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sports7.us\/?p=1577137"},"modified":"2023-09-16T15:56:59","modified_gmt":"2023-09-16T19:56:59","slug":"wilt-chamberlain-the-most-disrespected-player-the-nba-has-ever-seen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sports7.us\/news\/wilt-chamberlain-the-most-disrespected-player-the-nba-has-ever-seen\/","title":{"rendered":"Wilt Chamberlain: The Most Disrespected Player the NBA Has Ever Seen"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/sports7.us\/tag\/wilt-chamberlain\">Wilt Chamberlain<\/a> did it all on the court in his 14 seasons in the NBA. <a href=\"https:\/\/sports7.us\/of-wilt-chamberlains-numerous-nba-records-his-100-point-game-isnt-the-most-impressive\/\">He put up numbers<\/a> that superstars can only dream about. He won four MVPs and a pair of championships. Despite the big numbers, the 13-time NBA All-Star goes down as the most disrespected player in the NBA.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-wilt-chamberlain-was-unfairly-labeled-a-loser\">Wilt Chamberlain was unfairly labeled a loser<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"The ULTIMATE Wilt Chamberlain Video\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/2XnzPP2hR7U?start=191&#038;feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Wilt Chamberlain was often compared to Boston Celtics legendary center Bill Russell. The two centers engaged in epic battles on the court. While Chamberlain often won the statistical battle, <a href=\"https:\/\/sports7.us\/wilt-chamberlain-won-the-battle-but-bill-russell-won-the-war-the-last-time-the-celtics-and-warriors-met-in-the-nba-finals\/\">Russell usually was on the winning side.<\/a> Russell finished his career with 11 championships, while Chamberlain had two.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>While Russell was an outstanding center with a defense-first mindset, he had a much better supporting cast than Chamberlain. Russell didn't have to do nearly what Chamberlain had to do to keep his team competitive. Still, hehe <a href=\"https:\/\/sports7.us\/pete-maravich-and-wilt-chamberlain-are-often-unfairly-labeled-as-losers\/\">unfairly carried the &#8220;loser&#8221; label with him.<\/a> And it got to him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p id=\"par-9_52\">\u201cDefinitely,\u201d Chamberlain once said about the loser label affecting him, per Robert Cherry\u2019s biography\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Wilt:_Larger_than_Life\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><em>Wilt: Larger than Life<\/em><\/a>. \u201cThere have been several things. First, the business of being a selfish ballplayer. Second, \u2018He plays only one end of the court.\u2019 Third, \u2018He doesn\u2019t play with a winner.\u2019 All of them are ridiculous statements.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p id=\"par-10_56\">\u201cWhat\u2019s a winner? Because we lost by one point in three overtimes to North Carolina in the NCAA, does that mean we weren\u2019t winners? (In the pros) We won a division championship. Does that mean we weren\u2019t winners? They should look back in the book and see how we lost. Do they attribute that to me?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Chamberlain led the NBA in scoring in each of his first six seasons. He also led the league in rebounding in each of his first four years. Chamberlain never took time off. In fact, <a href=\"https:\/\/sports7.us\/how-did-wilt-chamberlain-average-48-5-minutes-per-game-for-the-warriors-the-same-year-he-set-the-nba-single-season-scoring-record\/\">he averaged 48.5 minutes<\/a> in a season, even though NBA games are 48 minutes long. During his 14-year career, he never fouled out of a game.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-chamberlain-was-highly-disrespected-in-the-1961-62-season\">Chamberlain was highly disrespected in the 1961-62 season<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"5 Stories that PROVE Wilt Chamberlain Was Not Human\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/qBiXYlv76u4?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>The ultimate sign of disrespect for Chamberlain came after the 1961-62 season. It was a year when Chamberlain scored 100 points in a game and averaged <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/c\/chambwi01.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">50.4 points and 25.7 rebounds<\/a> for the year. Yes, AVERAGED. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Chamberlain's Philadelphia Warriors finished with a 49-31 record, second to Russell's Celtics, who won 60 games. In the Eastern Division Finals, the Celtics outlasted the Warriors in seven games to make another trip to the championship round.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Russell was named MVP of the season \u2014 a blatant slap in the face to Chamberlain. Russell may not have even been the MVP of his team. Tommy Heinsohn led the team in scoring at 22.1 points per game. He also averaged 9.5 rebounds while averaging 15 fewer minutes than Russell. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Russell was one of five players on the Celtics who averaged 15 or more points that season. Sam Jones (18.4), Bob Cousy (15.7), and Frank Ramsay (15.3) could all score. After Chamberlain, the Warriors only had one player (Paul Arizin, 21.9) average more than 13.7 points. Without Chamberlain, the Warriors don't make the playoffs, never mind coming within a game of reaching the NBA Finals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>If you average 50 points, 25 rebounds, more minutes than are actually in a game, guide your team to 49 wins, and are not named MVP, you were disrespected.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>There is no NBA player, past or present, more disrespected than Wilt Chamberlain. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":145,"featured_media":1577139,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[402343],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v22.3 (Yoast SEO v22.9) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Wilt Chamberlain: The Most Disrespected Player the NBA Has Ever Seen - Sports7<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"No NBA player ever put up bigger numbers than Wilt Chamberlain, yet he is the most disrespected player in league history.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/sports7.us\/news\/wilt-chamberlain-the-most-disrespected-player-the-nba-has-ever-seen\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Wilt Chamberlain: The Most Disrespected Player the NBA Has Ever Seen\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"No NBA player ever put up bigger numbers than Wilt Chamberlain, yet he is the most disrespected player in league history.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/sports7.us\/news\/wilt-chamberlain-the-most-disrespected-player-the-nba-has-ever-seen\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Sports7\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2023-09-16T19:56:58+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2023-09-16T19:56:59+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/sports7.us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/Wilt-dunk.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"2982\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"1995\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Mike Thomas\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@NostraThomas123\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Mike Thomas\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/sports7.us\/news\/wilt-chamberlain-the-most-disrespected-player-the-nba-has-ever-seen\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/sports7.us\/news\/wilt-chamberlain-the-most-disrespected-player-the-nba-has-ever-seen\/\",\"name\":\"Wilt Chamberlain: The Most Disrespected Player the NBA Has Ever Seen - 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