Wilt Chamberlain: The Lakers’ first offseason coup

Wilt Chamberlain was unhappy. His Philadelphia 76ers had failed to defend their 1967 NBA title, becoming the first team in league history to blow a 3-1 lead in the playoffs, allowing his rival Bill Russell to win his 10th championship in twelve seasons. The 76ers still had a solid core alongside him, but the Sixers were in disarray and Wilt wanted out. Their coach, Alex Hannum, had resigned ten days after their season ended, opting to coach the Oakland Oaks of the ABA instead. Chamberlain offered to take over as coach as Russell had done for the Celtics two years prior, but was turned down by Irving Kosloff, the team’s owner.

Chamberlain had other desires as well which were becoming harder and harder for the team to meet. His contract had expired and now he wanted a raise along with equity in the team itself. However, Jack Ramsay, the team’s new coach, along with Kosloff, believed that, despite being the league MVP three consecutive seasons, Chamberlain was still overpaid. Finally, Kosloff told Wilt that he was free to make a deal with any team he would like.

Instead of just waiting for Wilt to make his own decision, though, Kosloff took an active interest in finding Wilt a new team himself. The summer before, the owner of the Lakers, Jack Kent Cooke, a man eager to make a big splash in Hollywood, had asked Kosloff if Wilt was available before being turned down. Now, a year later, things were different. While on a business trip to New York, Cooke received a phone call from Kosloff who asked if he would be interested in making a deal for Chamberlain. For Cooke, who had wanted Chamberlain for years, it was a dream coming true.

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Across the country, the Los Angeles Lakers were in an odd spot. They were good enough to contend for the championship, appearing in the Finals six of the last ten seasons, but not good enough to actually win — they lost to the Celtics in all six of those series. It was getting harder and harder to find reasons to believe that next year would finally be the year. Yes, the Celtics were getting older, but so were the Lakers. And the Lakers were also much more top heavy, relying on Jerry West and Elgin Baylor far more than the Celtics relied on any two players. Something had to happen.

In the days before free agency, players had almost no power at all. They were unable to determine who they played for, stuck negotiating with one team, unable to demand better treatment or higher pay without fear of reprisals. Even on an issue as basic as the development of a pension plan, the participants in the 1964 All Star Game had to threaten a boycott of the game before the owners were willing to concede. Yet, throughout his career, Wilt Chamberlain found a way to get what he wanted more often than not. He was a man who made demands, demands that chafed at the will of owners and coaches, who would then trade him to a new team more willing to meet them figuring any price was worthwhile if it earned them the services of a player as uniquely dominant as Chamberlain.

Jack Kent Cooke was willing to meet Chamberlain’s demands. He traded Archie Clark, Darrall Imhoff, and Jerry Chambers to Philadelphia in early July, making Chamberlain a Laker. Chamberlain was given a five-year contract at $250,000 a year, making him the highest paid player in professional sports. There were concerns about how Chamberlain would coexist alongside West and Baylor, but Chamberlain wasn’t worried; “We’ll simply have the best team in basketball history,” he said.

Despite the addition of Chamberlain, the Lakers only won three more games than they did the previous season. West struggled with injuries, missing 21 games, while the Lakers’ lack of depth hurt them night after night — other than backup center Mel Counts, no other Laker apart from West, Baylor, and Chamberlain averaged more than 9 points per game. Also, Chamberlain’s perpetual presence in the post kept Baylor from driving to the hoop as easily as he had before, complicating the Lakers’ offensive schemes. Even more alarming was the conflict between Chamberlain and Lakers coach Butch van Breda Kolff, whose domineering attitude rubbed Wilt the wrong way time and time again, with the two even shouting at each other for twenty minutes following a February loss to Seattle. Jerry West would go on to call it “perhaps the worst and most bizarre relationship I’ve ever seen between a coach and a player.”

Nevertheless, they earned the No. 1 seed in the West and sailed to the Finals with relative ease. Yet the end result was the same as it had been many times before — the Lakers lost yet again to the Celtics as Boston won its 11th championship in 13 seasons. Before Game 7, Jack Kent Cooke had placed thousands of balloons in the rafters of the Great Western Forum in order to celebrate the Lakers victory. The Celtics won, and the balloons never fell, being sent to a children’s hospital instead.

Following that season, Bill Russell announced his retirement, making the path for the Lakers to win a championship potentially much easier than it had been in many years. The Lakers also fired van Breda Kolff, bringing in Joe Mullaney to lead the team. However, Chamberlain was only able to play a handful of games in the 1969-70 season due to a knee injury, returning just in time for the Playoffs. Yet again, the Lakers lost in the Finals, falling in seven games to the New York Knicks.

The Lakers were even more shorthanded the following season as Baylor was only able to play two games due to the rupture of his achilles tendon and West missed the Playoffs because of knee troubles. The addition of Gail Goodrich was not enough to offset these losses and the Lakers fell to the eventual champion Milwaukee Bucks in the Conference Finals.

After failing to win the championship in two seasons as head coach, the Lakers then fired Joe Mullaney and turned to former Celtics great Bill Sharman. Unfortunately, the 1971-72 season marked the end of the Big Three era for the Lakers as Elgin Baylor was forced to retire after just nine games due to recurring injury concerns that had been bothering him for years. In spite of Baylor’s retirement, the Lakers were able to run off 33 consecutive victories and win their first title since moving to Los Angeles, but there was a certain sense of loss about it considering his absence. The team that was supposed to be the greatest ever assembled could never get over the hump together. Was it bad luck or a cautionary tale?

Fifty years after the Chamberlain trade, the Lakers were in disarray. They had failed to transition gracefully out of the Kobe Bryant era, not making the playoffs for five consecutive years while posting their four worst records since moving to Los Angeles nearly 60 years ago. Along with the on-court losses was an abundance of off-court drama. Lakers owner Jerry Buss had died in 2013, and entrusted his majority ownership of the Lakers to his six children. However, they quickly began to vie for control of the team. In the aftermath, Jeanie became president of the Lakers while her brother, Jim, worked as executive VP of basketball operations. But in the spring of 2017, Jim and Johnny Buss attempted to take control of the Lakers from their sister, an attempt that quickly failed with Jim being fired alongside longtime Lakers GM Mitch Kupchak. They were quickly replaced by Magic Johnson and Rob Pelinka, and Jeanie had won the battle to run the Lakers.

Johnson and Pelinka was tasked with remedying the mistakes of the previous regime, who had signed middling players to massive deals, restricting the team’s flexibility. They were also tasked with finding the team a star who could follow in the footsteps of the Lakers legends who had come before. The Lakers failed to make a big splash in the summer of 2017, immediately setting their sights on 2018 when the biggest star in the league would presumably be available: LeBron James.

Upon opting out of his contract following the 2018 Finals, James ended up considering the Lakers not because they were ready made to contend for a championship, but in large part due to his respect for Magic Johnson. James not only patterned his game after Johnson to a certain extent, but also aspires to replicate Magic’s business savvy following his own retirement. Of all the executives in the NBA, perhaps none could understand LeBron the way Magic could. On July 1, following a late night meeting with Johnson the night before, James announced he would be joining the Lakers, who now had their star.

Unlike Chamberlain 50 years ago, LeBron is not joining two other stars, but a team of young players who have potential yet remain unproven at this stage in their careers. Yet LeBron does follow in Chamberlain’s footsteps as a fellow fourtime MVP who gained the power to determine their own career, and then used that power to move westward and join the Lakers. They are also both joining the Lakers at a time in league history where the power balance revolves around one team — the Celtics in the 60s and the Warriors now — in the hopes of shattering that entrenched hegemony.

Those Lakers teams were never able to fulfill their potential as Chamberlain and West won just a single title together in 1972, without the retired Baylor. While the Lakers of the past seemed like certain champions, it’s clear that in the NBA no such thing exists, and that offseason moves that look brilliant at the time guarantee nothing. So as this year’s team enters the upcoming season with a great degree of relative uncertainty, they at least have the certainty that comes with having the greatest player in the game on their roster. Whether it will lead to a championship or not, that we cannot yet say.