Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
Wilt Chamberlain
Stat by stat
Bars are scaled to the leader in this list.
The verdict
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar leads 3 of 4 categories. Our all-time ranking places Kareem Abdul-Jabbar at #3 and Wilt Chamberlain at #6.
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The case for Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
The most decorated player ever by individual hardware, and the owner of the most unstoppable single weapon in basketball history. Abdul-Jabbar's six regular-season MVPs remain the record, his 38,387 points stood as the scoring record for 39 years, and his six championships span an almost implausible arc — Finals MVP as a second-year player in Milwaukee in 1971, Finals MVP again at age 38 in 1985. The skyhook gave him a shot that was never solved: he shot 55.9 percent for his career and remained an elite scorer past age 40, retiring with 19 All-Star selections and 17,440 rebounds. His dominance predates the NBA: three straight NCAA titles and three tournament Most Outstanding Player awards at UCLA, where the NCAA banned dunking in 1967 largely because of him — he answered by perfecting the skyhook. The knock is that he was the clear second star on several 1980s title teams, but a career that runs from beating Wilt Chamberlain to feeding off Magic Johnson, spanning 20 elite seasons, has no parallel for sustained excellence at the center position.
The case for Wilt Chamberlain
The most statistically dominant athlete any team sport has produced. Chamberlain's 1961–62 season — 50.4 points and 25.7 rebounds per game, including the 100-point game in Hershey on March 2, 1962 — will never be approached; he averaged 48.5 minutes that season by playing overtimes on top of full games. He led the NBA in scoring seven straight times, in rebounding 11 times, and, after being criticized as selfish, led the league in total assists in 1967–68 — the only center ever to do so. His career marks of 30.1 points and a record 22.9 rebounds per game came with four MVPs and, contrary to the empty-stats caricature, two of the most dominant championship teams ever: the 68–13 Philadelphia 76ers of 1967 and the 69–13 Lakers of 1972, both of which broke the Celtics' grip. The honest case against him is Russell — a 1–7 head-to-head playoff series record and repeated Game 7 defeats — plus chronic free-throw shooting near 51 percent. But as a force of nature, no one else comes close.