Earlier this year, Jerry West called out Wilt Chamberlain for an outrageous claim he made. During his appearance on JAXXON, West admitted never buying into the 2x champion’s story of driving from San Francisco to New York in just 24 hours.
Advertisement
The duo have known each other from their time spent together at the Lakers from 1968 to 1973. Their friendship grew off the court, particularly during their later years. Soon Chamberlain started sharing a few of his larger-than-life tales with West.
However, one such story didn’t sit well with ‘The Logo’. He reflected on this during the show.
“He had a tendency to elaborate on things and make them bigger than life and he told me that he drove from New York City to San Francisco in 24 hours. No chance. He said he had a Ferrari. I said, ‘I don’t care. You can’t do it.'”
West‘s comments turned heads in the NBA community. They made the listeners second guess the mythical stories surrounding Chamberlain.
Amidst the growing skepticism, a fan on Reddit stepped in to defend the maestro’s pride. He set the record straight by posting an excerpt from Chamberlain’s 1991 autobiography, A View from Above.
“I once drove the 1,620 miles from the Muehlebach Hotel in Kansas City to the freeway interchange in downtown Los Angeles in 18 hours and 12 minutes — an average of 90 mph. I’ve also driven from Harlem to Nob Hill in San Francisco (3,041 miles) in 42 hours flat, and from New York to Los Angeles (2,964 miles) in 36 hours and 10 minutes.”
Comment
byu/Vegetable-Tooth8463 from discussion
innba
This revealed how West might have misinterpreted his former teammate’s past comments. It simultaneously pointed to the extraordinary lifestyle of Chamberlain. For instance, he opened up in his memoir about going on long drives alone for hours. He also made the astonishing claim of sleeping with twenty thousand different women.
These stories set Chamberlain apart from the biggest stars of his era; as if his physical attributes weren’t already enough to do so. At 7ft 1, the Philadelphia-born had a remarkable vertical leap of 48 inches. This was about six inches more than the NBA average. His wingspan of 92 inches was also about a foot longer than the norm.
