While in college, Chamberlain played for the Kansas Jayhawks, and lost the national championship game to the North Carolina Tar Heels in triple overtime his sophomore year.

Chamberlain had an on-court rivalry with Boston Celtics' center Bill Russell, suffering a long string of losses before breaking through and winning the 1967 NBA Finals as a member of the 76ers.

[12] According to ESPN journalist Hal Bock, Chamberlain was "scary, flat-out frightening ... before he came along, very few players at the center position possessed his level of athleticism, stature, and stamina.

In his first game, he scored 52 points and grabbed 31 rebounds, breaking both all-time Kansas records in an 87–69 win against the Northwestern Wildcats, a team with Chamberlain's future NBA teammate Joe Ruklick playing center.

[44] Chamberlain led a talented squad of starters, including Maurice King, Gene Elstun, John Parker, and Ron Lonesky; the Jayhawks went 13–1 until they lost a game 56–54 against the Oklahoma State Cowboys, who held the ball for the last three-and-a -half minutes with no intention of scoring a basket, which was still possible in the days before the shot clock, introduced by the NCAA in 1984.

[44] In the semifinals, the Jayhawks defeated the two-time defending national champion San Francisco Dons 80–56; Chamberlain scored 32 points, grabbed 11 rebounds, and had (at least[g]) seven blocked shots.

In the NCAA finals, the second-ranked Kansas Jayhawks played the top-ranked, undefeated North Carolina Tar Heels, led by All-American and National Player of the Year Lennie Rosenbluth.

For the tip-off, he sent his shortest player Tommy Kearns to upset Chamberlain; and the Tar Heels spent the rest of the night triple-teaming him, one defender in front, one behind, and a third arriving as soon as he got the ball.

[14][16][i] The team enjoyed a sold-out tour of the Soviet Union in 1959; they were greeted by General Secretary Nikita Khrushchev prior to the start of a game at Moscow's Lenin Central Stadium.

[53] In later years, Chamberlain frequently joined the Globetrotters in the off-season and fondly recalled his time there because he was no longer jeered at or asked to break records, but was one of several artists who loved to entertain audiences.

[88] In mid-1964, Chamberlain, a prominent participant at Rucker Park basketball court in New York City,[89] made the acquaintance of Lew Alcindor, a tall, talented, 17-year-old who played there.

[72][14] The formerly egotistical Chamberlain began to praise his teammates, lauding hardworking Lucious Jackson as the "ultimate power forward"; calling Greer a deadly jump-shooter; and Jones an excellent defender and outside scorer.

In the 1967 NBA Finals, the Sixers played against Chamberlain's old team the San Francisco Warriors, who were led by future Hall-of-Famers: star forward Rick Barry and center Nate Thurmond.

[49] Chamberlain likened his assist title to baseball home-run hitter Babe Ruth leading the league in sacrifice bunts, and felt he dispelled the myth he was incapable or unwilling to pass the ball.

In a physically tough matchup, the Sixers lost sixth man Cunningham with a broken hand, and Chamberlain, Greer, and Jackson were struggling with inflamed feet, sore knees, and pulled hamstrings, respectively.

After losing Clark and Hall-of-Fame guard Gail Goodrich, who joined the Phoenix Suns after the 1968 NBA expansion draft, he said: "Egan gets murdered on defense because of his [lack of] size ... but if I don't play him, we look like a bunch of trucks".

Pejoratively calling the new recruit "The Load", van Breda Kolff later said Chamberlain was egotistical, never respected him, too often slacked off in practice, and focused too much on his own statistics.

Cherry criticized his performance, saying if "Chamberlain had come up big and put up a normal 30 point scoring night", the Lakers would have probably won their first championship in Los Angeles.

With three minutes to go, the Lakers trailed 103–102 but they committed costly turnovers and lost the game 108–106; this came despite a triple-double from West, who had 42 points, 13 rebounds, and 12 assists, and became the only player in NBA history to be named Finals MVP despite being on the losing team.

The Lakers swept the Atlanta Hawks in the second round before ultimately reaching the NBA Finals, where they played against the New York Knicks, which included future Hall-of-Famers Willis Reed, Dave DeBusschere, Bill Bradley, and Walt Frazier.

Sharman introduced morning shoot-arounds, in which the perennial latecomer Chamberlain regularly participated, in contrast to earlier years with Schayes, and transformed him into a defensive-minded, low-scoring post defender in the style of Russell.

[143] In the playoffs, the Lakers defeated the Chicago Bulls then played against the Milwaukee Bucks, who were led by young center and regular-season MVP Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (formerly Lew Alcindor).

's western division title series with Milwaukee, [Chamberlain] decisively outplayed basketball's newest giant superstar, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, eleven years his junior".

After the Knicks finished the game with a late flourish led by Phil Jackson and Earl Monroe, Chamberlain made a dunk with one second left, which was the last play of his NBA career.

[150] After the season, Chamberlain retired from professional basketball; he was displeased by the meager attendance as crowds averaged 1,843, occupying just over half of the team's 3,200-seat Golden Hall sports arena.

After his stint with the Conquistadors, Chamberlain went into business and entertainment, made money in stocks and real estate, bought a popular Harlem nightclub which he renamed Big Wilt's Smalls Paradise, and invested in broodmares.

[163] In November 1998, he signed with Ian Ng Cheng Hin, CEO of Northern Cinema House Entertainment, to produce his own bio-pic, wanting to tell his life story his way.

[211] Although Chamberlain accumulated some of the most-impressive statistics in the history of professional sports, he was often called selfish and a loser because he won only two NBA championships and lost seven out of eight playoff series against Bill Russell's Celtics teams.

[218] Swedish Olympic high jumper Annette Tånnander, who met Chamberlain when he was 40 and she was 19, said he was a pick-up artist who was extremely confident yet respectful, saying: "I think Wilt hit on everything that moved ... he never was bad or rude".

[206] The two reconciled after two decades but Chamberlain maintained a level of bitterness, regretted he had not been "more physical" with Russell in their games, and privately continued accusing his rival of negatively intellectualizing basketball.