Chamberlain Still Believes He Was the Kareem of the Crop

The best center in basketball history? Wilt Chamberlain votes for Wilt Chamberlain. Then he picks Bill Russell or George Mikan, take your choice, with Kareem Abdul-Jabbar fourth.

“I think I was the best all-around center,” Chamberlain told the New York Post. “I scored, I rebounded, I blocked shots when they, unfortunately, never counted them. I even led the league in assists one year when I was asked to pass the ball to help the team.”

Of Abdul-Jabbar, he said: “He was an outstanding scorer, but did you ever watch him on defense? Russell would lay back on defense to get a rest, but Kareem wouldn’t get back on defense. He did that for his last 10 years. He’d get a lot of cherry-pickers that way.”

Add Mikan: After all these years, they finally retired his number at DePaul this year. He wore No. 99. Previously, only Mark Aguirre’s number had been retired.

Mikan led DePaul to the NIT championship in 1944-45. That’s when the NIT was big time. He averaged 40 points in three games and set a single-game record of 53 points that still stands.

More Mikan: He led the Minneapolis Lakers to five NBA championships, a number Magic Johnson has matched in Los Angeles.

In an Associated Press poll in 1950, Mikan was voted the top basketball player of the half-century, both college and pro.

Trivia time: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Bill Walton have retired, but there are still four former UCLA centers in the NBA. Name them.

Laugh-a-minute: From Jan Hubbard of Newsday: “Everybody has his favorite Donald Sterling story. There was the time he said it was his goal for the Clippers to lose as many games as possible so they could get the No. 1 pick in the draft (a statement that resulted in a $10,000 fine from the league). There was the time he ate a steak dinner at courtside. There was the time an Orange County group wanted to build an arena called the Westdome to entice the Clippers to move, but when asked about negotiations, Sterling said, ‘I don’t know this Wes Dome fellow.’ There was the time the Clippers fired Don Chaney, and when asked for reaction, Sterling said, ‘Oh, we did that? I didn’t know that was going to happen today.’

“But a personal favorite occurred in Sterling’s first full season as the Clippers’ owner. Sterling held what was called ‘the First Annual New Year’s Eve Luncheon.’ It was held Jan. 7.”

No relief: From former NHL star Mike Bossy, now a broadcaster for the woeful Quebec Nordiques: “You think it can’t get much worse, and it does. It gets much worse.”

Would-you-believe-it Dept.: USA Today noted that the guy throwing the javelin in a TV promotion for the Freedom Games is Tom Petranoff, two-time U.S. Olympian who has been barred from track and field for six years for competing in South Africa. He’s now living in South Africa.

Money talks: Said Manager Whitey Herzog of the St. Louis Cardinals, when asked what the players could do during the lockout: “If they can’t work out on the field, they might just buy the field.”

Trivia answer: Mark Eaton (Utah), Mike Sanders (Indiana), Stuart Gray (New York) and Jack Haley (New Jersey).

Quotebook: Oakland A’s General Manager Sandy Alderson, explaining the absence of Al Davis at a sports banquet in Oakland: “Al wanted to be here but only if the hotel were torn down and rebuilt.”