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Muggsy Bogues: "I'm not the one from the old eras hating the game today. I embrace it. I just know that it was different for each era. And the media always wants to say who the GOAT is, who the this and that is. I'm like, man, you know how many guys played this game? It's disrespectful to talk about who the one guy is, the master of the game of basketball. Everybody had different skill sets. Everybody did this game their way, everybody was great. But you go back from Wilt Chamberlain, we ain't played against them, and those guys, Oscar Robertson, Jerry West. It ain't for any individual to call themselves the GOAT. I think it's, but if you do, I mean that's your right if you feel that way because we always want you to be confident in this era, the different eras that is."
Anthony Edwards' 2026-27 season debut with the Minnesota Timberwolves is now in the NBA's record books, as the superstar joins an elite group of company. By dropping 45 points, Edwards joins Michael Jordan and Wilt Chamberlain as the only players to score 40+ pts in a season opener.
There is Gasol (16), Mikan (99), Abdul-Jabbar (33), Chamberlain (13) and O’Neal (34). “You know, obviously, there’s a certain legacy that comes with being a Laker big,” said Kessler, who wears No. 14. “But honestly, it’s just what an opportunity this is to play for a franchise that has had just historic bigs. I think that Lakers fans, when their bigs are at that level, they fall in love with them. So, what an opportunity.”
Fat Joe: Who would be your favorite big man? Hakeem Olajuwon or Tim Duncan? Karl-Anthony Towns: "I think Hakeem. And I feel like in a way he kind of is like mythical like Wilt Chamberlain. Like, you know, but we have something to watch Hakeem games on, but like it's kind of like that same mythical creature like Wilt, but I've been able to talk and meet Hakeem and he's an amazing human. So I'm very honored to say that."
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The Nuggets star was asked to name the four greatest players in NBA history and explain why each deserved to make his list. He selected three legends from previous generations in Bill Russell, Michael Jordan and Wilt Chamberlain, before naming Golden State Warriors superstar Steph Curry as his fourth choice. Explaining his selections, Jokic told SPORTbible: "Probably Bill Russell because of the championship. "Michael Jordan because he changed the game. Probably Wilt Chamberlain because all the numbers and all the crazy stats. And I'm going to put Steph Curry because he changed the game and he's kind of my generation. "I played against the guy so he kind of changed the game. So those are the four."
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, 28, is used to being overlooked: he’s morphed from an underhyped draft pick, and the consolation prize in a blockbuster trade, to arguably the best basketball player on earth. Through spectacularly consistent work, he has mastered basketball physics, starting and stopping and slithering his way into the lane enough to, in March, break Wilt Chamberlain’s record for most consecutive games scoring at least 20 points (126). “One person saw this happening,” says Thunder coach Mark Daigneault, who was an assistant coach when SGA joined the team in 2019. “And it was him. That’s it. If anybody else says, ‘This is what I saw,’ then it’s revisionist history.” SGA wants to strike that dutiful descriptor—arguably—from the record. “I think I’m the best player in the NBA,” he says. “I think the production that I have night in and night out is best-player-in-the-NBA production. I think the efficiency that I do it at is best-player-in-the-NBA efficiency. I think everybody picks up a basketball or a soccer ball or a football or a tennis ball to win the game, the match, whatever it is. And I’ve done my fair share of winning in these past couple years.”
A Portland teenager found a random old Lakers jacket in a Goodwill bin in January. He paid $3.07 for it. Seven months later, the item sold at auction for $89,600. Turns out the old jacket wasn’t so random after all. Verified by Sotheby’s auction house, it was a warmup jacket worn by NBA legend Wilt Chamberlain at least three times. That includes during the 1972 NBA Finals in which the Lakers defeated the New York Knicks in five games and Chamberlain was named the series MVP. “This is Truly a once in a lifetime find,” Quinn Brown wrote on Instagram in January. “I am so grateful this jacket has landed in my hands.”
Brown, 19, has been reselling his thrift-store clothing finds online for the past three years. When he saw someone toss the short-sleeved Lakers jacket with “Chamberlain” on the back into a bin of clothes outside Goodwill, Brown grabbed it for his online shop. Then he did some research. Brown found an online photo of Chamberlain wearing a jacket that looked very similar. He also discovered that the four-time league MVP’s jersey measurements closely matched those of the jacket.
After he posted a photo of the jacket online, Brown was contacted by Sotheby’s about consigning it for auction. He took the auction house up on the offer, and the jacket was whisked away in an armored vehicle. Sotheby’s photomatched the jacket to three images: an undated photo from the 1972-73 season, a photo from a January 1973 game and a photo from a 1972 home game against the Knicks that was determined to be from either Game 1 or Game 2 of the NBA Finals. Chamberlain had 12 points and 19 rebounds in Game 1, a 114-92 Lakers loss, and 23 points and 24 rebounds in Game 2, a 106-92 Lakers victory. “I didn’t even think that finding something like this was possible,” Brown told the Associated Press. “I got very, very lucky.”
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A Wilt Chamberlain warmup jacket originally found in a Portland, Oregon, Goodwill sold for $89,600 (including buyer's premium) at Sotheby's on Monday. In January, Quinn Brown, 19, raided a bargain bin, looking for a jacket he'd seen someone toss in that seemed like it bore Los Angeles Lakers colors. Brown had been buying vintage clothes to resell online for three years; his priciest resell had netted him $250. The warmup jacket says "Chamberlain" on the back and cost Brown $3.07.
The jacket turned out to not only be legitimate but a significant piece of Chamberlain and Lakers memorabilia: The jacket was "likely" used throughout the 1971-72 NBA season but was definitively matched to the 1972 NBA Finals, Chamberlain's second title and the Lakers' first championship Los Angeles; Chamberlain also won Finals MVP, his first as the award wasn't introduced until 1969. The jacket was also matched to the 1972-73 NBA season, Chamberlain's last in which he set the single-season record for field goal percentage (72.7%) that wasn't broken until the 2019-20 season.
Daniel Donabedian: Celtics assistant coach Sam Cassell on the Jaylen Brown trade: “Jaylen has done everything possible for this city. He’ll be missed. But it’s the NBA. Wilt Chamberlain got traded after he averaged 50 points one year…I wish nothing but the best for Jaylen. He’s a hell of a basketball player.” He then spoke on Paul George: “He doesn’t have to try to be Jaylen Brown. He’s gotta be Paul George…We’ll be fine.”
A thrift store find could now sell for hundreds of thousands of dollars. A routine treasure hunt at a Hillsboro Goodwill store in January has turned into a find of a lifetime for 19-year-old Quinn Brown. The Portland resident said he discovered a Los Angeles Lakers warm-up jacket that has since been authenticated as one worn by NBA legend Wilt Chamberlain.