The team won 45 of its first 49 games, flattening most of the opposition en route to a 68-13 regular-season record, and an Eastern Division Finals victory over the Bill Russell and the Celtics. The team was simply awesome Cunningham (18.5 ppg) was deadly from the corners, and Greer was a master playmaker, finishing with averages of 22.1 points and 3.8 assists per game. Chamberlain missed out on the scoring title for the first time in eight years, but ranked first in field goal percentage (.683) and rebounding (24.2 rpg), and third in assists (7.8 apg). ![]() With franchise legend Dolph Schayes ousted as head coach, Alex Hannum took control of what eventually became one of the finest teams of all time. It wasn’t until 1966-67, however, when the team would see glory. ![]() Prior to the 1965-66 campaign, with Chamberlain entering his first full season with the Sixers and getting on-court help from Hal Greer and exciting rookie Billy Cunningham, many fans felt it was finally time to dethrone the Boston Celtics, who had claimed seven straight division titles. The trade was the start of something special for the second iteration of Philadelphia's NBA team. Halfway through the 1964-65 season the Warriors traded Chamberlain for guard Paul Neumann, center Connie Dierking, forward Lee Shaffer (who never signed with the Warriors or played again in the NBA), and cash. the team wanted to unload "the Big Dipper" and his salary for new players. Chamberlain, despite his continued scoring bursts, wasn’t helping the Warriors win games or attract fans by 1965, and. With pro hoops in Philadelphia once again, it wasn't long before the game’s greatest individual talent returned. Professional teams have been in and around the city since before World War I, the Philadelphia SPHAs were one of the top barnstorming clubs between the wars, while the Philadelphia Warriors were an original BAA and NBA team, and several colleges in the city have traditionally fielded strong programs but in the 1962-63 season, there was no professional basketball in Philadelphia. In the spring of 1963, Irv Kosloff and Ike Richman teamed to buy the Syracuse Nationals and moved the team to Philadelphia and rebrand it as the 76ers. When Warriors owner Eddie Gottlieb had sold his club to a San Francisco group, team west, it wasn’t long before the void was to filled. Schayes, a fundamentally minded set-shooter held his own with 22.5 points per game, which ranked seventh in the league that year. After the Warriors moved west and the Nationals relocated and rebranded, bringing professional basketball back to Philadelphia, it was only a matter of time before Chamberlain came home.Īs a young player, Chamberlain brought a new surge of offense to a league suddenly overflowing with scorers, leading the league that season with 37.6 points per game led the NBA, followed by gunners Elgin Baylor (29.6) and Bob Pettit (26.1), among others. In the 1959-60 season, the city’s native son Wilt Chamberlain arrived in the NBA after time at the University of Kansas and a stint with the Harlem Globetrotters as the centerpiece of the Philadelphia Warriors. ![]() Philadelphia has long been a basketball town.
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