In 1989, in a column for Sports Illustrated, titled "The Heavenly Hundred," Rick Reilly made a list of the greatest athletes ever to wear each uniform number. For Number 33, he chose "Lew Alcindor, slightly ahead of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar."
It was funny to me at the time. But it messed with the man's identity, not just his religion. He wouldn't have said that Cassius Clay was ahead of Muhammad Ali on the list of greatest Heavyweight Champions, would he?
Kareem was one of the greatest athletes who ever lived -- and one of the most complicated. And he still is.
Ferdinand Lewis Alcindor Jr. was born on April 16, 1947 in Harlem, Upper Manhattan, New York City. Lew grew up in the Dyckman Street projects in Inwood. By age 9, he was already 5-foot-8. In the 8th grade, he was 6-foot-8 and could already dunk a basketball.
In 1961, he was enrolled at Power Memorial Academy, a Catholic high school at 161 West 61st Street in Manhattan. He led them to the City Championship in 1963 and 1964. They extended their winning streak to 71 games, 2nd-longest in the history of American high school basketball, behind New Jersey's "Passaic Wonder Five" winning 159 straight from 1919 to 1925. On January 30, 1965, they went to Cole Field House on the campus of the University of Maryland, and lost to DeMatha High School of nearby Hyattsville, 46-43.
Power Memorial went 96-6 in Lew's high school career. His 2,067 points were a City record. The school later produced basketball stars Len Elmore, Mario Elie and Chris Mullin, but closed in 1984, when they couldn't afford needed repairs to their building.
Now 7-foot-1, Lew was recruited to the University of California at Los Angeles by their head coach, John Wooden, who had been a great player himself at Purdue University in the early 1930s, and had already guided UCLA to what would now be called the NCAA Final Four in 1962, and won the National Championship in 1964 and 1965.
Until 1972, college freshmen weren't allowed to play varsity sports. So Lew played for UCLA's freshman team, and on November 27, 1965, in the 1st event ever held at UCLA's Pauley Pavilion, the UCLA freshmen beat the varsity, 75-60. Lew scored 31 points and had 21 rebounds. The freshmen went 21-0 that season.
In 1966-67, with Lew as a sophomore, UCLA went 30-0 and won the National Championship. To try to stop him, the NCAA banned the dunk shot, not restoring it until 1977. In response, he developed a new shot, a variation on the hook shot: The "skyhook." Between his height and the length of his right arm, the shot was undefendable, and he was deadly accurate with it.
In 1968, a "Game of the Century" was set up at the Astrodome, between UCLA, then undefeated and ranked Number 1, and the University of Houston, with All-American Elvin Hayes, then undefeated and ranked Number 2. Lew had an eye injury, and Houston won, 71-69. UCLA then beat Houston in the NCAA Tournament Semifinal, and won another National Championship, finishing 29-1. In 1969, they lost a meaningless regular-season finale to the University of Southern California, and went 29-1 to win another National Championship.
In 3 years, Lew Alcindor led UCLA to 3 National Championships, won the Tournament's Most Outstanding Player all 3 times, and went 88-2. Counting his freshman team performance, he was 109-2. That is insane. Throw in his high school play, and he was 195-8. Think about that: He had played over 200 competitive games, and lost fewer than 10 of them.
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In 1968, Lew converted from Catholicism to Sunni Islam, and adopted the name Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. It means "noble one, servant of the Almighty." However, he did not announce these changes until 1971. By that point, it was considerably less controversial than the conversion and name change made in 1964, when Cassius Clay became Muhammad Ali.
Kareem should have led the U.S. national team to the Gold Medal at the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City. But with everything that had gone on in race relations in the 1960, especially the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King 6 months earlier, he chose not to try out: "I was trying to point out to the world the futility of winning the Gold Medal for this country, and then coming back to live under oppression." Hayes also boycotted, so Spencer Haywood was the player who led the U.S. to the Gold.
Kareem got his Bachelor of Arts degree from UCLA in 1969, and began studying martial arts with Bruce Lee. In 1972, he appeared as an opponent for Lee, with an extraordinary height and reach advantage (both arms and legs), in the film Game of Death. (It was left unfinished when Lee died in 1973, and not released until 1978.)
The Harlem Globetrotters offered Kareem $1 million to play for them. He turned it down, and became the Number 1 pick in the 1969 NBA Draft, by the Milwaukee Bucks. He immediately turned them from an expansion team to a title contender, and was the 1970 NBA Rookie of the Year. In 1971, his 2nd season, he led them to the NBA Championship, winning the Finals' Most Valuable Player Award, alongside veteran guard Oscar Robertson, sweeping the Baltimore Bullets in 4 straight. It would be the Big O's only title.
In 1972, the Bucks broke the Los Angeles' Lakers' record 33-game winning streak, but lost to them in the Western Conference Finals. They won the West in 1974, but lost the NBA Finals to the Boston Celtics in 7 games. In both of those seasons, he was named the NBA's regular-season MVP.
Robertson retired right before the 1974-75 season, because he and the Bucks could not agree on a new contract. Right after that, Kareem requested a trade. His choices were, in order: The New York Knicks, the Washington Bullets, and the Los Angeles Lakers. He had never spoken negatively of the city of Milwaukee or its fans, but he said that being in the Midwest "did not fit his cultural needs."
On June 16, 1975, the Bucks traded Kareem and Walt Wesley to the Lakers for Dave Meyers (who had not yet played a pro game, but had just led UCLA to the last of their 10 National Championships under Wooden), Junior Bridgeman, Elmore Smith and Brian Winters. Wesley was essentially a throw-in, to make it look like it wasn't just 4-for-1. All 4 players the Bucks got helped them win some Division titles, so it wasn't a terrible trade for the Bucks. But they did not return to the NBA Finals until 2021.
It took the Lakers a while to get back, too, until 1980. That year, Kareem appeared as co-pilot Roger Murdock in the disaster-film spoof Airplane! It was a tribute to the film on which Airplane! was based on, Zero Hour! where the character was played by an earlier Los Angeles sports legend, Rams receiver Elroy "Crazy Legs" Hirsch. Kareem briefly breaks character, complaining about how hard it is to "drag (Bill) Walton and (Bob) Lanier up and down the court for 48 minutes!"
The Lakers got to Game 6 of the NBA Finals, needing 1 more win over the Philadelphia 76ers to win the title. But Kareem was injured, and rookie sensation Earvin "Magic" Johnson -- his 6-foot-9 height now being considered short for the position -- played center, and the Lakers won the title.
The Lakers won again in 1982, 1985, 1987 and 1988. In 1985, at age 38, Kareem was still 1 of the 3 best players in the NBA, alongside Johnson and Larry Bird of the team they beat in the Finals, the Boston Celtics. It was the 9th time the Lakers had played the Celtics in the Finals, but it was the 1st one they won. It was also the 1st time a team had clinched the NBA title against the Celtics on the parquet floor of the Boston Garden. Sports Illustrated named Kareem its Sportsman of the Year. The 1988 title was his 6th.
In 1984, Kareem surpassed Wilt Chamberlain to become the NBA's all-time leading scorer. They even did a TWA (Trans World Airlines) commercial together. However, they had a difficult relationship, to the point that, when Sports Illustrated celebrated the NBA's 50th Anniversary in 1996, they wanted to get the 4 great Laker centers together: George Mikan from the Minneapolis years, Wilt, Kareem, and Shaquille O'Neal, a superstar newly-acquired from the Orlando Magic. Shaq, Kareem, and Mikan, despite being 72 years old and a bit unsteady on his feet, were all willing to participate, and even wear their respective uniforms. Wilt refused.
The 1988-89 season was Kareem's 20th (at the time, an NBA record) and last, and it was a season-long celebration of his career. The Bucks and the Lakers both retired his Number 33, and his hometown Knicks gave him a huge plaque with all 4 of his 33 jerseys: Power Memorial, UCLA, the Bucks and the Lakers. The Celtics gave him a replica segment of the Boston Garden's parquet.
The Lakers were unable to make it 3 straight titles, as the Detroit Pistons, who nearly derailed the Lakers' back-to-back titles the year before, swept them in 4 straight. But although the Pistons led Game 4 at The Forum in Inglewood big in the final minute, the crowd just kept chanting, "Kareem! Kareem! Kareem!"
He won 6 regular-season and 2 Finals MVP awards. He was elected to the Basketball Hall of Fame in his 1st year of eligibility. He was named to the NBA's 35th, 50th and 75th Anniversary All-Time Teams. A statue of him stands outside the Lakers' home, now named the Crypto.com Arena.
In a 2017 post, I named him the greatest athlete ever to come from the City of New York, ahead of Yankees legend Lou Gehrig; and the 2nd-greatest to come from the State of New York, behind Cleveland Browns running back Jim Brown.
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Kareem is an introvert. He did not open up to the media for most of his playing career. After a game, instead of answering reporters' questions, he would rather have gone straight home, read, and listen to music. Many reporters considered him "difficult."
He thinks it got in the way of him receiving coaching opportunities: "I didn't understand that I also had affected people that way, and that's what it was all about. I always saw it like they were trying to pry. I was way too suspicious, and I paid a price for it." He served as an assistant coach with the Los Angeles Clippers and the Seattle SuperSonics, as the head coach of the minor-league Oklahoma Storm, a scout with the Knicks, and a "special assistant coach" to Phil Jackson on the Lakers.
In 2013, he gave up on an NBA head coaching job. He has spent a significant amount of his retirement writing. Some of it focuses on the history of African-Americans, including:
* Black Profiles in Courage: A Legacy of African-American Achievement.
* What Color Is My World? The Lost History of African American Inventors.
* On the Shoulders of Giants: My Journey Through the Harlem Renaissance.
* Brothers In Arms: The Epic Story of the 761st Tank Battalion, World War II's Forgotten Heroes.
During his senior year at UCLA, he met Janice Brown. When they married, she became Habiba Abdul-Jabbar. They had 3 children: Daughters Habiba and Sultana, and son Kareem Abdul-Jabbar Jr., who played basketball at Western Kentucky. Kareem Sr. and Habiba have since divorced. He later had sons Amir and Adam.
He has survived 2 eye injuries that led to his iconic on-court goggles, severe migraines, leukemia, and heart bypass surgery, to reach the age of 75.
Happy Birthday, Kareem. May you enjoy many more.
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