he Lakers, always a team with a certain amount of star power, acquired one of the game's biggest stars in Wilt Chamberlain.
Chamberlain would join Jerry West and Elgin Baylor and the Lakers hoped he would be the difference in turning a good team into an NBA champion. The Lakers were a premier franchise, playing in their new home the Fabulous Forum in Inglewood, but had trouble getting past the Boston Celtics in the finals. Sound familiar?
The first story in The Times heavily credited an Associated Press report and even quoted AP writer Ralph Bernstein.
Chamberlain, reached in San Francisco, said: "There will be no announcement Monday or Tuesday concerning me unless it is the fact that I will be in New York on those days helping Mr. Nixon with his campaign." So the Lakers were getting not only a post player but a budding politician?
Chamberlain had long been one of the game's top personalities. No other NBA player had on their resume a 100-point game, let alone time spent with the Harlem Globetrotters.
The Times confirmed the trade in a July 9 story. One part of the story that really shows how long ago this was: Chamberlain's salary was estimated at $250,000, "but Wilt himself has claimed that even those estimates are low."
One of the players sent by the Lakers to the Philadelphia 76ers, center Darrall Imhoff, had some interesting comments about mixing Chamberlain in with the team's established stars.
"I don't know if you can have any happiness with three superstars on one team," Imhoff said. "One of the great things about our team is that we've had no dissension and have had great camaraderie on and off the court."
The Lakers continued to have disappointments in the finals but did win a title with Chamberlain, defeating the New York Knicks in 1972. By then, Baylor had retired. Chamberlain was the championship series' most valuable player.
Larry Harnisch. The leading Black Dahlia expert and a collaborator in the 1947project, Harnisch has been a copy editor at The Times since 1988. He has appeared on many TV shows discussing the Dahlia case, notably "James Ellroy's Feast of Death."
Join him for a spin through old Los Angeles in the Mirror's radio car. Keep your eyes open for Mickey Cohen and Tempest Storm. It's quite a ride.
The reporter's badge belonged to Sid Hughes (1908-1958), legendary reporter who worked at nearly every newspaper in Los Angeles.
Keith Thursby. Keith has been an editor at The Times in news, sports and design since 1986. The Rams moved to St. Louis on his first day as assistant sports editor of the paper's Orange County edition. He grew up in Norwalk and lives in Irvine.
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Good job. Well done, Neville Chamberlin. You've brought us peace in our time! ... Oh, Wilt? ... Never mind.
(stolen from Smash Flops -- Milt Larsen & gang)
Couldn't resist.
Posted by: Arye Michael Bender | July 06, 2008 at 04:07 PM