Philadelphia 76ers: The 10 craziest episodes in franchise history
Some have said that the retirement of Indianapolis Colts quarterback Andrew Luck was one of the most bizarre events in all of sports history. Obviously, these people have not followed the Philadelphia 76ers. True Sixers fans have had to suffer through a lot more then an oft-injured player deciding he had enough.
For better or worse, it is pretty easy to come up with 10 events that were either weird, bizarre, nonsensical or just plain crazy associated with the Philadelphia 76ers. Heck, go to the end of this story and you will even see a bunch of honorable mentions.
These are not the biggest moments in club history but events that occurred which made people just shake their head in wonder, plus the fact these things happen only to the Sixers.
Since they are all pretty whacked out, and most one-of-a-kind variety, they are being presented in chronological order, as it would be impossible to rank them (they all are No.1s!).
July 9, 1968: Sixers trade the greatest player of all time
The most improbable transaction in NBA history occurred on July 9, 1968. The Ringer in a 50th-anniversary story on the trade, called it “Unheard of is inadequate“.
Fans and the media debate nowadays who the greatest player of all time is: LeBron James or Michael Jordan.
However, there was no question before that who was thought of as the best (especially in Philadelphia): Wilt Chamberlain. Yeah, there were always those pesky Celtics fans who brought up Bill Russell and his nine NBA titles, but they were told to go eat their chowder and be quiet.
Statistically, James and Jordan pale in comparison to ‘The Big Dipper’ (he hated being called Wilt the Stilt).
The man averaged 30 points a game for his career, and when people criticized him for scoring so much, he then led the league in assists. The Jordan Rules? The NBA created rules for the sole purpose of stopping Chamberlain from being so dominant. The three-second lane violation, goal-tending and not being able to cross the line on foul shots (he used to take off and dunk free throws) were all invented to stop Wilt.
Oh, and there’s the game he scored 100 points.
No one could do what he could, before or since. The knock on Wilt was he only won two NBA championships (’67 Sixers, ’73 Lakers) but this was also the era of the Celtics Dynasty. Some years Boston had seven future Hall of Famers to roll out against Wilt and he had a much less talented surrounding cast. Most years, Chamberlain’s Warriors (and later on Sixers) teams were the only ones to really give the Celtics a battle in the playoffs.
If there had been analytics back then, they would have told any GM it would be impossible to get equal value in return for Wilt Chamberlain.
Long story short, according to Chamberlain, Sixers co-owner Ike Richman promised him part-ownership of the team when he retired, thus locking up The Dipper for the rest of his career. However, Richman died in 1966 and the other co-owner, Irv Kosloff, said he knew nothing about any such agreement.
Kosloff and Chamberlain butted heads about it the summer after the Sixers won the NBA title, and finally reached a deal: Chamberlain would play one more season for the 76ers (who would lose in the Eastern Conference Finals in seven games to the Celtics after Billy Cunningham got hurt) and then he was free to go wherever he wanted.
Considering this was years before there was free agency or a salary cap, this was a remarkable deal for a player at the time. But, well, Wilt pretty much wrote his own rules.
On July 9, 1968, the Los Angeles Lakers sent center Darrall Imhoff, guard Archie Clark and forward Jerry Chambers to the 76ers for Chamberlain.
How did the trade turn out? The Lakers went to the NBA Finals three of the next four years, winning it in 1972 as they broke the NBA record (which lasted until the Warriors three years ago) with 69 wins.
The Sixers? Five years later they had the worst record in NBA history, which led them to do another crazy thing.