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Wilt Chamberlain seems like a dream from another world, another era. He was at least 7-1, played as heavy as 325, and as Russell says here, was always one of the five fastest players in the league.
He was an astounding talent.
In this clip, you’ll see him rip the ball away from Russell and lead the break. Keep in mind that Russell was a tremendous athlete himself and no weakling. Yet he just let it go. What could you do?
Russell is interviewed here and talks about the challenges of playing Chamberlain, how fas and powerful he was.
But, he says, he had to show up because the game was on the schedule.
Obviously it was a very different time, but as we’ve said before, if you put Chamberlain into today’s game, he would be just as dominant. If you take the Greek Freak, LeBron James and Zion Williamson and mold them into one player, you’d get close to the level of dominance Chamberlain had. Baseball had Babe Ruth, horse racing had Secretariat. Basketball had Wilt Chamberlain. The chances of another coming along is pretty slim.