Last night, ten months after a catastrophic Achilles injury, Jayson Tatum made his amazing return to the court. He put up 15 points, 12 boards, and 7 assists in only 27 minutes. While it is premature to say Tatum is totally back to pre-injury form, early returns are quite encouraging. In our current argumentative culture, the question came up whether this return is the most impressive return from major injury.
I’m agnostic on this question but it did inspire me to go back and revisit Wilt Chamberlain’s quick return from a patella tendon rupture early in the 1969-70 season. Let’s go back to 1969-70 and do a moderate dive as to what happened and see if we can get a better context for Wilt’s injury and return…
The State of the Lakers as of Early 1969-70
In 1968-69, the Lakers went 55-27, led by Jerry West (age-30, 25.9 ppg, 6.9 apg), Elgin Baylor (age-34, 24.8 ppg, 10.6 rpg), and Wilt (age-32, 20.5 ppg, 21.1 rpg). L.A. famously lost a painful home Game 7 in the 1968-69 NBA Finals to Boston, which featured some crazy shots made by Boston and Wilt getting benched by Butch van Breda Kolff late in the game for Mel Counts.
Van Breda Kolff resigned after the season (he took the Detroit job) but the Lakers were bringing the rest of the band back. They had every reason to believe they were favorites to win a title this time. Lakers nemesis Bill Russell retired after winning the 1968-69 title and the Western Division was not very deep. The only other western team with an above .500 record was the Hawks at 48-34 and the Lakers had beaten them relatively easily in the 1968-69 WCF. It seemed that the Lakers had a clear path to the NBA Finals.
The Wilt Injury
The Lakers started the season on a four-game East Coast trip, losing the first two close games in New York and Philly, before winning the next five games. The Lakers were 5-3 coming into a November 7, 1969 home game versus Phoenix. Wilt was having a dominant game (in 28 minutes, 33 points on 13-14 shooting and 15 boards), when, as Bob Cherry wrote in “Wilt, Larger than Life,” “Wilt took a pass from Jerry West and was dribbling toward the basket when, with nary a body or opponent’s hand touching him, he crumbled to the floor. He had ruptured the tendon behind his right kneecap and torn the ligament surrounding the knee.”
After a quick surgery, Wilt told reporters in the hospital that “I promise Lakers fans and my teammates that in 13 weeks I’ll be playing and helping the Lakers win the world championship.” His optimism was not shared by most. According to a March 13, 1970 Life Magazine story by Bill Bruns, “[f]ollowing surgery the doctors said he would be out for the year. His career might even be finished.”
Wilt began an intensive rehab on his knee for 10 hours per day. Cherry wrote that Wilt’s “routine was to drive to Dr. Kerlan’s office in midmorning for hydrotherapy and then return home for weight training—lifting 105 pounds with knee raises, 140 with hamstring curls—then walking seven or eight miles (later he would run) on the Santa Monica beach, followed at some point in the day with volleyball workouts, then more weight training at home, and a dip in his pool.” This routine worked and Wilt was cleared to play in mid-March 1970.
The Lakers without Wilt
The Lakers were 5-3 before Wilt’s injury and they would go on to lose a close game against Phoenix that they probably would’ve won that game had Chamberlain not been injured.
Rookie Rick Roberson, who had played only 7 minutes before Wilt’s injury, became the starter. The Lakers went 39-29 without Wilt and Roberson was adequate (9.0 ppg, .446 FG%, 9.5 rpg in 27 mpg). If we exclude the game where Wilt was injured, here’s how the Lakers did with Wilt and without him that season:
Pre-Wilt Injury: 5-3, +4.38 point differential, SRS 6.95
Without Wilt: 39-29, +1.89 point differential, SRS +1.82
Last 3 Games with Wilt: 2-1, -2.00 point differential, SRS -3.83
The non-Wilt squad was good but not great. Still, it seemed that this modest success was a source of tension. In the same Life article, Bruns wrote that “[s]ome people believe the Lakers are better off without Wilt, arguing that the team has come this far on quickness, hustle and defense, and that Wilt could throw the Lakers into low gear.” Bruns further quoted an anonymous player saying: “[s]ure we’d like win without Wilt. We’re proud of how far we’ve come on our own, but we probably wouldn’t win without him. We need him to neutralize guys like Reed and Alcindor.” In fact, the Lakers’ pace was much faster with Wilt. The Lakers pace for the first eight games with Wilt was 121.0 and 113.3 in the 68 Roberson games (117.1 was league average).
Sports writers lauded the Lakers quite a bit for playing well without Wilt, which supremely annoyed Wilt. Bruns wrote that “[s]eeing the Lakers continue to win without him just made matters worse. When a Los Angeles newspaper ran a jocular headline ‘Wilt Who? Roberson’s Work Inspires Lakers,’ Chamberlain cornered the reporter and told him, ‘Mark my words, I’m coming back. And then everyone is going to know my last name again.”
Of course, the Lakers were much better with Wilt than without him. The sample size was small in 1969-70 but the SRS, win percentage, and point differentials with Wilt easily exceeded what the Lakers did with Roberson. Putting aside the small sample size in 1969-70, the Lakers’ numbers for Wilt’s other seasons with the Lakers were even better. The natural reflex of some writers to devalue Wilt was predictable. But the reflex was silly and unsupported by the facts.
Reintegrating Wilt to the Lakers
Wilt came back to play on March 18, 1970, exactly 131 days after the injury. This was about six weeks past Wilt’s stated target return date but impressive, nonetheless. He played the last three games of the regular season against non-playoff teams (the Lakers were almost certainly locked into the two seed at that time). Wilt slowly ramped up his playing time over the three games. By the playoffs, the kid gloves were off, and he averaged 47.3 mpg and generating pretty much the same stat footprint he had in his other Laker playoff runs.
In the first round of the playoffs, the Lakers beat a 39-43 Phoenix team 4-3 in a series where Phoenix blew a 3-1 lead. Wilt was dominant (23.7 ppg, 20.3 rpg) and played heavy minutes with no apparent problems, in terms of health or in blending in with the team. The Lakers then played the Hawks, who were the Western Division one seed with 48 wins. The Lakers beat them even more soundly than the prior year. L.A. swept Atlanta and Wilt was still doing fine (17.3 ppg, 22 rpg in 48.8 mpg(!) for the series). The Lakers were then matched up with the 60-22 Knicks in the Finals.
During the Finals, Arthur Daley of The New York Times asked the Knicks and Wilt whether he was still the same player as he was before the knee injury. Here’s a sampling of responses:
Red Holzman: “To me Wilt looked as rough as he has always been”
Dave DeBusschere: “Wilt reacted, to offensive rebounds, better than I’ve seen him in five years:”
Wilt: “Of course I’ve lost my jumping ability, but the rest of me worked pretty good”
Willis Reed: “I thought he showed the affects of the knee”
Wilt put up his usual stats but, as Reed observed, Wilt’s mobility was still limited. He was able to effectively bang inside with other playoff centers who stayed near the rim:
-Against Phoenix, Paul Silas shot .422% against Wilt (versus .464% for the season overall)
-Against Atlanta, Walt Bellamy shot .456% against Wilt )versus .491% for the season as a Hawk and excluding his time with Detroit)
Reed’s perimeter game, however, gave Wilt problems in the Finals. Daley wrote after Game 1 that “[j]ust as he had done against that other 7‐footer, Lew Alcindor of Milwaukee in the semifinal round, Willis kept to the outside and fired away from out there. For the most part Chamberlain did not come out to harry him, thereby giving Reed full freedom to draw a bead on the basket…. The effectiveness of Reed from outside presents intriguing speculation for the next game at the Garden tomorrow night and for the remaining games of the series. Suppose Wilt crowds the Knick marksmen to the outside. What then? Willis has so much more agility and mobility than Chamberlain that he may be able to drive past him underneath.”
Reed was able to continue to take advantage of this mismatch. Reed averaged 31.8 ppg on .491 FG% through the first four games of the Finals before a hamstring injury made him gimpier than Wilt. The Knicks ended up winning the series with the inspiration of Reed and the brilliance of Clyde Frazier. Wilt has been criticized for not guarding Reed closely on Reed’s two big jumpers to open Game 7. It’s clear that the criticism did not consider, as amazing as Wilt’s recovery was, he was still injured. He did not yet have the mobility to guard Reed on the perimeter (even after Reed was also hobbled).
Summing it up
The world was so different in 1970 that comparing Wilt to Tatum just doesn’t compute. Both are impressive. What I can conclude, upon reexamination, that Wilt’s comeback is as impressive in retrospect as it was at the time. He wasn’t 100% but he was close to it and brought the Lakers within one win of a title at a time when sports medicine was in its nascent stages. Either way, I’ll be rooting for Tatum too….