- [Clara Morris] Wilt Chamberlain and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
are pillars of NBA history.
Two goats, no debate about it.
10 years between them, they started out as pals.
But when they became peers in the NBA,
there was no friendship to speak of.
Instead, there were constant comparisons, jealousies,
hatreds, and personal attacks
through autobiography after autobiography.
Before Twitter, you had to get a publisher
if you wanted to talk trash.
Wilt Chamberlain was a marvel of athleticism and strength,
setting millions of records with bone-shattering dunks
and smooth fadeaways.
In '62, he averaged 50 points a game
and scored 100 points in a single game.
And, folks, he did more than score.
His rookie year, he averaged 27 rebounds a game.
And in 1968, he led the league in assists, as a center.
The NBA changed some rules
because they decided Wilt was so good, it was unfair.
But he only won two titles in his 14-year career,
which when he was playing, defined him more than
the metric ton of accomplishments we've gone over.
He was labeled a loser, never given the recognition
you'd think would be heaped at his feet.
For example, the year he scored 100 points in a game
and averaged 50 points per game, he was not MVP.
Bill Russell was.
For the majority of his NBA career,
he was compared to the Celtic center,
who took the role of winner.
He had 11 titles to Wilt's 2.
And head to head, Russell usually came out on top.
In retirement, Wilt spoke to that loser label
during an interview with Bob Costas.
- It was Wilt the loser? And that haunt me.
- [Clara Morris] Never admit what bothers you.
It just gives your enemies an easy avenue of attack.
Speaking of enemies, let's get to know
the other half of this beef, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.
Kareem was more of a finesse player than a tough guy.
The sky hook was his weapon
as he took over the NBA in the '70s and '80s.
Like Wilt, his dominance caused rule changes.
The NCAA banned dunking 'cause Kareem was too good at it.
Also like Wilt, Kareem's resume does not fit on one page,
though there was a key difference between the two.
Their relationship began on good terms.
At age 15, Kareem, named Lew Alcindor at the time,
met Wilt, and Wilt took Lew under his wing.
He let the kid hang around with him and his friends
at jazz clubs, hearts games, and horse races.
Alcindor was completely in awe. Who wouldn't be?
A teenager hanging out with an NBA player?
When I was a teenager, I'd be in awe of hanging out
with a slightly older teenager.
Wilt gave Alcindor two suits, which Alcindor wanted to keep
even though they were sweat-stained and kind of gross.
His mom threw them out.
Alcindor's first crush was one of Wilt's girlfriends.
Oh, by the way, Wilt had a lot of girlfriends.
But as Alcindor grew up,
he sort of grew away from Chamberlain.
As a young man, he had a few formative experiences
that made him into an outspoken advocate
on social justice and Black issues.
At age 17, he witnessed police brutality
during the Harlem Race Riots of 1964.
Three years later, as a college student at UCLA,
he attended the Muhammad Ali Summit,
a meeting of vocal Black athletes and political figures
throwing support behind Ali
and his refusal to be drafted to the Vietnam war.
In 1968, Alcindor and other Black athletes
boycotted the Olympics in a protest of racism.
Wilt Chamberlain's politics were different.
He was a Republican who very publicly supported Nixon.
In '68, the same year Alcindor boycotted the Olympics,
Chamberlain attended Martin Luther King Jr's funeral
with Nixon.
So when Alcindor got to the NBA in '69,
he wasn't so interested in being friends with Wilt,
which irritated Wilt for a number of reasons.
Nobody likes to be rejected.
And also, he felt unfairly judged,
and put it kind of bluntly.
Safe to say, off the court,
they had a pretty icy relationship.
And then they had to face each other on the court.
The 1971 Western Conference Finals
was technically between the Bucks and Lakers,
but the real battle was Alcindor versus Chamberlain.
When the Lakers earned entry
to the Western conference Finals,
the press wasn't that interested
in Wilt's 25-point, 19-rebound, 9-assists performance.
They just wanted to know how Wilt felt
about facing Alcindor next, which Chamberlain didn't love.
This brief interaction
actually speaks to a second reason for early beef.
So remember how Wilt spent the majority of his career
being compared to Bill Russell?
Well, now Russell had retired,
and Wilt was being measured against the new guy.
Wilt was denied his chance to just be king,
to have people say, "Wow, look how good he is.
No need to compare him to anyone at all.
Let's just enjoy him."
Press during the series
focused on which center outplayed the other.
The big men split games one and two,
even though the Bucks won both.
Game three was Chamberlain's.
And afterwards, he talked a little trash against Alcindor.
He implied he always outplayed Alcindor.
Look at the kid's shooting percentage.
In game four, Alcindor played
like he cut Wilt's comments out of the newspaper,
taped them up in his locker, and stared at them
for the entire 48 hours between games.
He shot 70% from the field
shutting down Wilt's shooting percentage argument.
Game five saw Wilt get the better of Alcindor,
but his team lost the series.
Once again, he played well but ended up the loser.
Lew and the Bucks, on the other hand,
went on to be the big winners.
I should mention that like, okay, Lew beat Wilt,
but Lew's in his prime and Wilt is 34.
That has to be taken into account.
Oh, no? It doesn't?
At least not for some people at the time,
including venerable Bill Russell.
But the battle would rage again
in the following year's Western Conference Finals.
Alcindor had announced he converted to Islam
and changed his name to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar,
which turned some fans off him and onto Wilt.
The Wilt-Kareem matchup was the draw of the playoffs,
expected to be more exciting than the finals.
The Lakers and Bucks split games one through four,
but the center duel was one-sided.
After game four, Kareem implied Wilt was washed up.
I don't know why players trash each other
before the end of the series.
Game five and six, Wilt played to make Kareem eat his words.
The Lakers GM called game six Chamberlain's greatest game
as a Laker from start to finish.
He blocked 10 shots, three of which were Kareem's.
Oh, yeah, and he clenched a trip to the finals,
which the Lakers won.
In the locker room, he received a congratulatory phone call
from Kareem, like a politician
receiving a concession call on election night.
Wilt was a winner for that one moment in time.
Winning in '72 wasn't the final verdict
in the big man to beat.
Comparisons continued even after Wilt retired.
And Kareem usually came out on top.
Even the hard numbers didn't sway the argument Wilt's way.
And it's not like retired Wilt
could defend himself on the court
so he had to find other ways
to defend himself slash attack Kareem.
In his 1973 autobiography,
Chamberlain said Kareem's rebounding was lacking
and put him in a class below Nate Thurmond, Bill Russell,
and just like some other guys,
I don't know, whoever else is around.
But the personal slights
weren't what bothered Kareem about Wilt's book.
In a totally different chapter, Wilt said
he found Black women to be less sophisticated
socially and sexually than White women.
Kareem absolutely hated that and said so publicly,
which did nothing to slow Wilt's criticism of him,
which he kept up throughout Kareem's entire career.
Kareem didn't respond for a while.
Maybe because he felt his play was enough of a rebuttal,
Wilt's opinions on Kareem were not widely held.
Abdul-Jabbar did finally fight back in 1983
with his autobiography.
He took plenty of swipes at Chamberlain's play
and reinforced the narrative that Wilt was a loser.
He also provided further insight into their falling out.
For Kareem, it all went back to comments
in Wilt's autobiography.
Not the comments about him,
but the one saying Black women were inferior to White women.
It offended everything Kareem stood for and believed in.
To Kareem, Wilt was a traitor.
And this beef was about more than basketball.
But you know, basketball was still a part of it.
A year later, Kareem broke
Chamberlain's career scoring record amid celebrations,
praise, love, and affection from everybody, except Wilt.
I mean, Chamberlain went to Kareem's ceremony
and tried to play the part of gracious torch passer,
but instead came off kind of jealous and petty.
He said Kareem deserved the honor,
which like is just a statement of fact based on numbers,
not really a compliment.
And I get being like,
"Hey, where was the fanfare when I set records?"
'Cause remember Wilt got minimal recognition
when he did cool stuff,
and even got called selfish when he scored a lot.
But he went further than just pointing out the disparity.
He denigrated Kareem's accomplishment saying,
"Well, it's not Bill Russell's rebounding record,"
which Wilt broke.
And also, he casually dropped the opinion
that he was still way better than Kareem.
His position did not soften six years later.
In fact, it took on a life of its own
with Wilt insisting his record would stand
if he'd been concentrating on scoring later in his career.
So sure, he comes off a little petty, a little jealous,
but that probably makes breaking the record
all the sweeter for Kareem.
Tired of years of undermining comments,
Kareem went after Wilt in his next autobiography
published in 1990.
He wrote "An Open Letter to Wilt Chumperlame."
Wordplay.
The letter spanned many topics, all of them mean.
But the thesis of the three-page letter was: Wilt's jealous.
Not because Kareem earned more respect and adoration,
but because Kareem was a winner and Wilt was a loser.
Kareem closed by saying,
"People will remember that I worked with my teammates
and helped us win.
You'll be remembered as a whining crybaby and a quitter,
stats and all."
Stats and all.
Kareem was attempting to pull the rug out
from under Wilt's legacy with the stats don't matter
if you don't have titles argument.
It wasn't a new argument, which made it worse.
Kareem was lending expertise and credence
to an opinion that haunted Chamberlain, being a loser.
A year later, Wilt published his second autobiography
and pretended the letter didn't bother him.
Why do I say pretended?
Because in his book over and over again,
Chamberlain argues he was better than Kareem
even though Kareem got more recognition.
He also kind of went off on Kareem's farewell tour.
In Kareem's last year, at each final away game,
opposing teams held a pre-game ceremony
and gave him some pretty sweet gifts
while the rival crowd stood to applaud him.
Chamberlain called the tour a contrived fiasco
full of material bullshit.
He said Kareem should have made charitable donations
instead of accepting luxury goods.
The extent to which he criticized the tour
sounds a bit like sour grapes.
But hey, Wilt didn't get a Rolls Royce when he retired,
so why can't he at least have some sour grapes?
As time wore on, this beef cooled down.
With both guys retired,
they had less opportunity to talk about each other.
And most famous people
only get to write one autobiography
so they were already kind of pushing it.
In the late '90s, they did a commercial together,
and according to Kareem, put their feud behind them on set.
He claimed he never hated Wilt, just his politics,
which I don't know if I totally believe.
But if he believes it, I'll drop the issue.
When Wilt passed away in 1999,
Kareem had nothing but praise for The Dipper.
This beef is unique because external factors created it.
If we think of this beef as a full cow, stick with me here,
the cow had two hearts.
For Kareem, the heart was a difference in politics
and an offensive, generalized racial statement
from his one-time mentor.
For Wilt, the heart was the imbalance of respect
from fans, press and the league.
The rest of the cow, the muscles and ligaments
and spots and hooves were generated
by how each guy responded to their heart,
the post-game trash talk,
the decades of undermining comments,
the dueling autobiographies, et cetera.
And while there was an entire cow of beef
between these two phenomenal athletes,
it did not hurt their legacies.
Wilt's loser stigma was lost to the hard numbers
and his tome of accomplishments.
The guy's a legend.
And Kareem's legacy stands pat as one of the greatest ever.
Wilt's digs were minority opinion at the time,
and are non-existent opinion now.
Their legacies survived the beef because goats
can't be taken down by a cow.
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Thanks for watching, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls,
cats and dogs who happened to be in the room
while you watched.
For more basketball beef, check out these videos,
and don't forget to subscribe.
For Secret Base, I'm Clara Morris.
Good night and good game.
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