“Had 9 assists at the half”: Wilt Chamberlain, who claimed to have slept with 20,000 women, was a stat-chaser unlike any NBA legend we’ve seen

Amulya Shekhar | 03/01/2023
"Had 9 assists at the half": Wilt Chamberlain, who claimed to have slept with 20,000 women, was a stat-chaser unlike any NBA legend we've seen

4-time NBA MVP and 7-time scoring champion Wilt Chamberlain was infatuated with his own personal milestones, as this anecdote bears out.

Any talk of Wilt Chamberlain is incomplete without a reference to his exploits as a scorer and as a rebounder. This man had a 3-year spell from 1961 to 1964 in which he set records that will never again be touched by anyone.

In those 3 seasons, Wilt set scoring averages of 50.4, 44.8, and 36.9 points per game. He played an average of over 47 minutes per game in those seasons. And while doing all this, he also complemented his scoring with rebounding averages of 25.7, 24.3 and 22.3 per game.

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Chamberlain was the first NBA superstar of sorts. He came into the league having already played for the Harlem Globetrotters under a different pseudonym, wowing thousands during his spell with his superhuman athleticism and refined skills with the ball.

Wilt Chamberlain would obsessively track his stats

The level of statistical excellence achieved by Wilt Chamberlain would’ve been impossible to do if he wasn’t so particular. The greatness he displayed on a nightly basis was a result of his steadfast approach to try and maintain gawdy stats.

Jack Ramsay, who’d, later on, lead Bill Walton and the Portland Trail Blazers to the 1977 NBA title, had this to say about Wilt’s obsession with stats while talking to Jackie Macmullan in an interview for Basketball: A Love Story:

“Wilt’s focus was more on his personal accomplishments. I remember sitting at the scorer’s table [during one] game. I was the GM in Philadelphia, and Wilt came out to start the second half. In those days, the stats were kept by an individual.”

“As Wilt came out to warm up, he stopped at the table, picked up the stat sheet, and said, ‘You have me down for 6 assists. I had 9 assists at the half.’ The statistician just shrugged. Wilt said, ‘Nine. Write it down.'”

Also Read – “I’m teaching them mathematics”: When Wilt Chamberlain hilariously explained how he’d slept with 20000 women on Conan O’Brien’s show

Wilt claimed he slept with 20,000 women

Given that he was a 7’2″, 300-pound behemoth, the likes of whom we’ve not seen since, it was but natural that as the most famous basketball player in the world, Chamberlain was a big draw with the fairer sex.

Rod Roddewing, who was a contemporary of his, once spent 10 days with Wilt at his Honolulu penthouse. During that timeframe, he saw Wilt go to his room with 23 different women.

Wilt used this 2.3 per day figure to extrapolate his number of sexual partners over the years and arrive at the humongous, barely believable figure of 20,000 women who he’d shared a bed with.

Post Edited By: Amulya Shekhar
Wilt Chamberlain

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Amulya Shekhar

Amulya Shekhar is a sports junkie who thrives on the thrills and frills of live sports action across basketball, football (the American variant works too), parkour, adventure sports. He believes sports connect us to our best selves, and he hopes to help people experience sports more holistically.

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