3. Wilt Chamberlain
Anyone who boasted that he slept with 20,000 women during his lifetime was probably better served without the tell-all-tell-everyone-as-quickly-as-possible technology of social media being available to spread the word in real time.
But before one gets to the prurient nature of what might have been had Wilt Chamberlain’s conquests posted their conquest on Snapchat, there is a great loss here that Chamberlain did not have means to socially and quickly spread word of his accomplishments.
In 1962, Chamberlain, one of the game’s most dominant offensive and defensive players ever, did something that no one in the NBA had done before or since – he scored 100 points in a game as his Philadelphia Warriors defeated the New York Knicks in Hershey, Pa.
Visual evidence of it is scarce. Certainly the Vine of Wilt putting up his 100th point would grab a few billion loops in its first few days on line.
Wilt led the good life away from basketball. And had there been an audience and the technology to “cover it,” his lavish lifestyle would create a social following that would rival that LeBron or Messi.
As Sports Illustrated noted detailing the life of Chamberlain’s likely son, “the 25-year-old Chamberlain moved in his own orbit.
He drove a white Cadillac convertible, lived in a chic apartment on Manhattan’s Central Park West and commuted to home games in Philadelphia. He co-owned a nightclub in Harlem, Big Wilt’s Smalls Paradise, where he socialized with entertainers such as Cannonball Adderley, James Brown, Redd Foxx and Etta James.
His was a lush life with a jazz sound track; he moved through his club as if he owned all of New York City. When a beautiful woman caught his eye he sent an emissary to quietly let her know of his interest.
During a game in Philadelphia that season he whispered to a Warriors official at the scorer’s table, “‘The blonde sitting underneath the basket. Get her number for me.’”
This legend and lifestyle only grew when he landed with the Lakers in Los Angeles. In 1991, Wilt wrote the 20,000 figure “equals out to having sex with 1.2 women a day, every day since I was 15 years old.”
He played 14 NBA seasons, won two titles and would have won more had it not been for Bill Russell, led the league in rebounding 11 times and was the top scorer seven times. He was enshrined into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame and died at the age of 66 in 1999.
Next: Legendary Trash Talker