Wilt Chamberlain
Awards and honors

Chamberlain is regarded as one of the most extraordinary and dominant basketball players in NBA history, and is often suggested as the greatest NBA player of all time, ahead of Michael Jordan. Contemporaneous colleagues were often terrified of playing against Chamberlain. Russell regularly feared being embarrassed by Chamberlain, and Walt Frazier called his dominance on the court "comical".

Chamberlain holds numerous official NBA all-time records. Former teammate Billy Cunningham said, "The NBA Guide reads like Wilt's personal diary." He was a scoring champion, all-time top rebounder, and accurate field-goal shooter. He led the NBA in scoring seven times, field-goal percentage nine times, minutes played eight times, rebounding eleven times, and assists once. Chamberlain is most remembered for his 100-point game, which is widely considered one of basketball's greatest records. Decades after his record, many NBA teams did not average 100 points.

In high school and college, Chamberlain was Mr. Basketball USA, NCAA Tournament Most Outstanding Player in 1957, and twice consensus first-team All-American in 1957 and 1958. His number 13 jersey was retired by the Kansas Jayhawks, Harlem Globetrotters, Golden State Warriors, Philadelphia 76ers, and Los Angeles Lakers. Chamberlain won two NBA championships, four regular-season Most Valuable Player (MVP) awards, the Rookie of the Year award, one Finals MVP award, and one All-Star Game MVP award, and was selected to 13 All-Star Games and 10 All-NBA Teams—seven First and three Second teams. He also twice made All-Defensive First Team.

During his NBA career, Chamberlain committed few fouls despite his rugged play in the post, and he never fouled out of a regular-season or playoff game in his 14-year NBA career. His career average was two fouls per game despite having averaged 45.8 minutes per game over his career. He had five seasons in which he committed fewer than two fouls per game, and a career-low of 1.5 fouls during the 1962 season, in which he also averaged 50.4 points per game. His fouls per 36 minutes—a statistic that is used to compare players who average vastly different minutes—was 1.6 per game.

Chamberlain's game evolved during his playing career. Chamberlain's Lakers coach Bill Sharman said, "First he was a scorer. Then he was a rebounder and assist man. Then with our great Laker team in 1972, he concentrated on the defensive end." During his two-championship seasons, Chamberlain led the league in rebounding while his scoring decreased. During his first championship season, his assists also increased, recording two consecutive seasons with eight assists per game, and winning one assist title. By 1971–72, at age 35 and running less, his game was averaging only nine shots per game compared to the 40 in his record-setting 1961–62 season. During Chamberlain's time, defensive statistics like blocks and steals had not yet been recorded. According to 1960s Sixers general manager Jack Ramsay, " Harvey said he used to tell one of his statisticians to keep track of Wilt's blocks in big games... One night, they got up to 25". Reported data for 112 games played by Chamberlain for the Lakers in the 1970s shows he averaged 8.8 blocks per game.

For his feats, Chamberlain was enshrined in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 1978, named part of the NBA 35th Anniversary Team in 1980, one of the 50 Greatest Players in NBA History in 1996, and was ranked 13th in ESPN's list "Top North American Athletes of the Century" in 1999. In 2007, ESPN rather Chamberlain the second-best center of all time by behind Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and was ranked second in Slam ' s "Top 50 NBA Players of All-Time in NBA History" in 2009, and sixth in ESPN's list of the top 74 NBA players of all time in 2020, and the third-best center of all-time behind Abdul-Jabbar and Bill Russell. In 2022, Chamberlain was ranked fifth in ESPN's list of the NBA 75th Anniversary Team, and sixth in a similar list by The Athletic.
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