The Impact of NBA Legends

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The National Basketball Association was created in 1949 and has since grown into one of the world’s highest grossing sports leagues. Like all sports, the NBA has many players who have cemented their place in history due to their performance both on and off the court. Over the last sixty years, as the league has grown from eleven franchises to thirty franchises, surging popularity across the country has propelled the NBA into the limelight. The players are the face of the league, and their abilities both on and off the court revolutionized the way in which an NBA game has been executed.

Wilt Chamberlain revolutionized the game of basketball through his abilities and attitude both on and off the court during the early stages of the NBA’s development. Wilt Chamberlain was born in Pennsylvania on August 21, 1936. An outstanding basketball player in high school, Chamberlain would go on to attend the University of Kansas. While at UK, Chamberlain led the Jayhawks to the finals of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) basketball tournament to loss in double overtime. After his college career, Chamberlain decided to apply for the NBA draft during the summer of 1959. “In 1959 Chamberlain joined the NBA's Philadelphia Warriors and made an immediate impact on the league… Opposing teams gave up trying to stop him and instead tried only to contain him. His scoring average during the 1959-60 season was 37.9 points per game—more than eight points per game higher than anyone else had ever scored in the history of the league.” (Encyclopedia World Biography) At the end of the 1959-1960 season, Chamberlain was awarded the Rookie of the Year and Most Valuable Player, the first person to receive both awards in the same season...

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...rent NBA players are looking back on these stars as both role models and visionaries as they paved the way displaying how to improve the league for the better benefiting not just themselves, but the fans who support them.

Works Cited

“Biography.” Larry Bird. N.p., n.d. Web. 11 Dec. 2011. .

“Michael Jordan.” bio. True story. N.p., n.d. Web. 11 Dec. 2011. .

“Michael Jordan.” Nba.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 11 Dec. 2011. .

“Wilt Chamberlain.” databasebasketball.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 11 Dec. 2011. .

“Wilt Chamberlain Biography.” Encyclopedia of World Biography. N.p., n.d. Web. 11 Dec. 2011. .

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