Wilton Norman Chamberlain was an American professional basketball player who played as a center. Standing at 7 ft 1 in (2.16 m) tall, he played in the National Basketball Association (NBA) for 14 years and is widely regarded as one of the greatest players in the sport's history. Several publications have argued that Chamberlain is the greatest NBA player of all time. He holds numerous NBA regular season records in scoring, rebounding, and durability categories; most notably he is the only player to score 100 points in a single NBA game, and average more than 40 and 50 points in a season. Further records that Chamberlain achieved include being the only player in NBA history to average at least 30 points and 20 rebounds per game in a season, a feat he accomplished seven times, and the only player to average at least 30 points and 20 rebounds per game over the entire course of his NBA career.
Chamberlain played for the Kansas Jayhawks and the Harlem Globetrotters before joining the NBA, where he played for the Philadelphia / San Francisco Warriors, the Philadelphia 76ers, and the Los Angeles Lakers. During his time in the NBA, Chamberlain enjoyed an on-court rivalry with Boston Celtics' Bill Russell. Although Chamberlain suffered a long string of NBA Finals losses during his career, he had a successful career, winning two NBA championships, earning four regular-season NBA Most Valuable Player (MVP) awards, the NBA Rookie of the Year award, one NBA Finals MVP award, and one NBA All-Star Game MVP award, and he was selected to thirteen NBA All-Star Games and ten All-NBA Teams (seven First and three Second teams). He won seven scoring, eleven rebounding, nine durability, and nine field goal percentage titles, and he led the league in assists once. He was enshrined in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 1978, elected into the NBA 35th Anniversary Team in 1980, chosen as one of the 50 Greatest Players in NBA History in 1996, and in 2021 was named to the NBA 75th Anniversary Team.