‘Conspiracy Theorist’ Lou Williams Refuses to Believe Wilt Chamberlain’s Unbelievable Stats

Every basketball enthusiast has come across a Wilt Chamberlain stat or story they refuse to believe. Most of the legendary center’s exploits from his career, which spanned from 1958 to 1973, weren’t televised and his colorful private life wasn’t plastered in tabloids or on social media and have thus been scrutinized heavily.

Even NBA players aren’t immune to questioning the trustworthiness of Chamberlain’s stories. Some, like former Los Angeles Lakers guard Lou Williams, straight up refuse to believe unverified claims about the late icon.

On the latest episode of the Run It Back podcast, Williams revealed that he doesn’t believe the center scored 100 points in a game and cited the lack of footage as the reason. The other claim about Chamberlain’s life that he doesn’t believe is a bit more controversial. The retired guard said,

“There’s two Wilt stats that I want to take to the Competition Committee… One’s basketball related (The 100-point game) and one’s not… Wilt didn’t get anywhere close to 25,000 outside of points and rebounds. I’ll leave it there.”

Williams was hinting at an infamous Chamberlain claim from his 1991 book ‘A View From Above.’ In it, the Hall of Famer wrote that he had slept with 20,000 women in his lifetime. Of all his jaw-dropping stats, this undoubtedly takes the cake as being the least believable. However, Chamberlain himself had clarified that his claim was an exaggeration.

Wilt Chamberlain told the truth about his wild claim

There was skepticism about Wilt Chamberlain’s claim from the day the book was released, but Chamberlain dismissed it, saying,

“I’m not boasting… I don’t see all this lovemaking as any kind of conquest. All I’m saying is that I like women, people are curious about my s*x life, and to most people, the number of women who have come and gone through my bedrooms, and various hotel rooms around the country–would boggle the mind.” 

However, the Hall of Famer clarified in an interview with then-ESPN host Chris Myers that he exaggerated the number as part of a larger message he wanted to send but readers remained fixated on the number. He said,

“I’m probably more famous, or infamous, for that [claim] the 100 points. What I’m trying to do in using a figure of speech to bring attention to sexual situations that I was involved with without being explicit, without calling names, and also leading to the latter part of that chapter… But no one ever really picked up on that, because once again, we’re all about numbers.”

The last line rings true to this day. Chamberlain’s career and life have been reduced to numbers as his ridiculous stats and one infamous exaggerated claim have become the primary talking points when discussing the late center. Generations of basketball fans have learned about him through the numbers he put up on the basketball court and that is unlikely to change.