Word: chamberlaine
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...there, just to the right of the basket, a placid. 7-ft. 1 1/16-in, giant watching impassively as his teammates maneuvered the ball in backcourt. The New York Knickerbockers tried to box him in; they clutched at his jersey, leaned against his chest, stepped on his toes. Then Wilt Chamberlain came alive. With the aplomb of a cop palming an apple, he reached out one massive hand and plucked the basketball out of the air. Spinning violently, he ripped clear of the elbowing surge, took a step toward the basket and jumped. For an instant, he seemed suspended in midair...
...Sort of Anticipation." Nobody does. At 26, Chamberlain is the best basketball player who ever lived. Alone, Chamberlain cannot make his team a consistent winner-last week the Warriors trailed the firstplace Los Angeles Lakers by 17 games-but he gives San Francisco fans plenty to crow about. In 1960, his first season as a pro, he was named the National Basketball Association's Rookie of the Year and its Most Valuable Player as well. Nobody ever did that before. Nobody ever averaged 42 points a game throughout a pro career either, or scored 100 in a single night...
Most basketball stars have one great talent: Russell's is defense, Elgin Baylor's is shooting, Bob Cousy's is setting up plays and passing. Chamberlain does almost everything, better than anyone else. He is the pros' fiercest rebounder, and his shooting repertory includes such inimitable specialties as the "Dipper Dunk" (in which he simply stretches up and lays the ball in the basket), the "Stuff Shot" (in which he jumps up and rams the ball through the net from above), and the "Fadeaway Jump"-a delicate, marvelously coordinated push shot from 15 ft. away that...
There are times, though, when Chamberlain wishes he were a little less successful-and a lot less tall. A 7-ft. man walking down the street is the kind of oddity that children point at and drunks snarl at; he has been asked "How's the weather up there?" in a dozen languages, and people have been calling him "freak" to his face all his life. He even sticks out, drawing all eyes, on a court full of huge men. Says his friend Bill Russell: "Wilt is not only very famous; he's very obvious...
...first Chamberlain would not admit that he really was 7 ft. tall (he used to claim that he was 6 ft. 11¾ in.), and even today he is wary and withdrawn with all but his closest friends. "It's not that I don't trust people," he says. "I do trust people-but it's impossible for me to hide. I can't just put on dark glasses. The only way I could get any privacy would be to cut off my legs...