Wikipedia Deep Dive

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

14 min read

In 1984, a 37-year-old center with an unblockable hook shot became the highest-scoring player in NBA history. He would hold that record for nearly four decades, until LeBron James finally passed him in 2023. But here's what makes Kareem Abdul-Jabbar's story so remarkable: by the time he broke that record, he was already the most decorated player the league had ever seen. Six MVP awards. Six championships. Nineteen All-Star appearances. And he still had five more years left to play.

The debate over basketball's greatest player usually comes down to Michael Jordan, LeBron James, and the man born Ferdinand Lewis Alcindor Jr. in Harlem in 1947. While Jordan has the mystique and LeBron has the longevity argument, Kareem has something neither can claim: dominance at every level of the game, from high school through his final season at age 42.

The Tower from Power

At birth, Lewis Alcindor weighed nearly thirteen pounds and measured almost two feet long. By age nine, he stood five feet eight inches tall. By eighth grade, he had grown to six feet eight and could already dunk a basketball.

Imagine being thirteen years old and looking down at most adults.

Alcindor later described being "often depressed as a teenager because of the stares and comments about his height." He wasn't just tall—he was conspicuously, unavoidably tall in a way that made anonymity impossible. When he enrolled at Power Memorial Academy, a private Catholic high school in Manhattan, he became one of the few Black students in the building and easily the most visible person on campus.

He chose jersey number 33 as a tribute to his favorite athlete: not a basketball player, but Mel Triplett, a fullback for the New York Giants. This number would follow him through college and into the pros, becoming as iconic as the man who wore it.

What Alcindor did at Power Memorial borders on absurd. His teams won 71 consecutive games. Their overall record was 79 wins and just 2 losses. He scored 2,067 points, a New York City high school record. His team won the national championship his sophomore and junior years, finishing as runner-up only in his final season. Sportswriters called him "The Tower from Power."

But his relationship with coach Jack Donohue soured badly in his senior year, after Donohue called him a racial slur during practice. This experience would shape Alcindor's understanding of how America treated Black athletes—valued for their abilities, but not respected as people.

The Harlem Riot and Black Rage

In the summer of 1964, a New York City police officer fatally shot James Powell, a fifteen-year-old Black boy. The killing sparked the Harlem riot, six days of protests and violence that forced young Alcindor to confront the reality of race in America.

"Right then and there, I knew who I was, who I had to be," he later said. "I was going to be black rage personified, Black Power in the flesh."

This was not metaphor. Alcindor began writing for the Harlem Youth Action Project newspaper. His political awakening would eventually lead him to convert to Islam, boycott the Olympics, and change his name—decisions that cost him endorsement deals and public affection but that he never regretted.

The NBA didn't allow players to enter directly from high school in those days. A player had to wait until the year his college class would have graduated. Alcindor's options were limited: join the Harlem Globetrotters, play overseas, or go to college. He chose college, and hundreds of schools came calling.

He was the most recruited prospect since Wilt Chamberlain. Even segregated Southern schools were willing to break the color line for him. Jackie Robinson—the man who integrated Major League Baseball—personally wrote to encourage him to attend UCLA. Alcindor said yes.

The Freshman Who Beat the Champions

In 1965, NCAA rules prohibited freshmen from playing varsity basketball. This seems quaint now, but the reasoning was that first-year students needed time to adjust to college academics. So the seven-foot-one Alcindor had to spend his debut season playing against junior college teams and other freshmen.

UCLA's varsity squad was the two-time defending national champion and ranked first in preseason polls. On November 27, 1965, the freshman team played an exhibition against the varsity—a traditional showcase that usually ended with the older players demonstrating their superiority.

The freshmen won 75-60. Alcindor scored 31 points and grabbed 21 rebounds.

It was the first time a freshman team had ever beaten the UCLA varsity. The United Press International wire service sent out a story that read: "UCLA's Bruins open defense of their national basketball title this week, but right now they're only the second best team on campus."

The freshman team went 21-0 that year. Alcindor averaged 33 points and 21 rebounds per game—against clearly inferior competition, but with such overwhelming dominance that it became obvious the varsity years would be historic.

The Alcindor Rule

When Alcindor finally joined the varsity as a sophomore, Sports Illustrated put him on the cover and called him "The New Superstar." In his first game, he scored 56 points—still an NCAA record for a player's debut. Later that season, he scored 61.

UCLA went 30-0 and won the national championship.

Then the NCAA did something extraordinary: they banned the dunk.

The official reasoning was about player safety and the "integrity of the game." Everyone knew the real reason. The rule became known as the "Alcindor Rule," and it remained in effect until the 1976-77 season—conveniently, after Alcindor had graduated and spent several years in the NBA.

The ban was supposed to limit his dominance. Instead, it forced him to develop the shot that would become his signature: the skyhook.

The Skyhook

The skyhook is almost impossible to describe without seeing it. Imagine a player standing sideways to the basket, the ball held in one hand above his head, releasing it in a sweeping arc that begins behind his body and ends with a soft touch off the backboard or through the net. Now imagine that player is seven feet tall with arms that seem to reach the ceiling.

The shot was essentially unblockable. A defender would have to be taller than Alcindor, positioned perfectly, and able to time their jump to coincide with his release—which he could vary at will. In twenty years of professional basketball, Alcindor's skyhook was never successfully defended. Opponents knew it was coming. They practiced against it. They schemed to prevent it. Nothing worked.

The dunk ban, meant to handicap Alcindor, had instead given him a weapon no one could counter.

College Dominance

Over three varsity seasons, UCLA went 88-2. One loss came when Alcindor was playing with an eye injury. The other came against USC in a "stall game"—before the shot clock existed, a team could simply hold the ball indefinitely. USC held possession so long that Alcindor took only four shots the entire game.

He won national player of the year three times. He was named the Most Outstanding Player of the NCAA Tournament three times. He became the first-ever Naismith College Player of the Year. He won the Helms Foundation Player of the Year award three times—the only player ever to do so.

In 2008, ESPN named him the greatest player in college basketball history. This was not controversial.

The Game of the Century

On January 12, 1968, during Alcindor's junior year, a Cal defender scratched his left cornea during a rebound battle. The injury seemed minor, but it would affect him for weeks.

Eight days later, UCLA faced the Houston Cougars in what was billed as the "Game of the Century." It was the first nationally televised regular-season college basketball game, held in the Houston Astrodome before 52,693 fans—the largest crowd ever to watch a basketball game at that time.

Houston's star was Elvin Hayes, another future Hall of Famer who was averaging nearly 38 points per game. Alcindor, his eye still not fully healed, was held to just 15 points. Hayes scored 39. Houston won 71-69, ending UCLA's 47-game winning streak.

The rematch came in the NCAA Tournament semifinals.

With a healthy Alcindor, UCLA demolished Houston 101-69. Hayes, the player averaging almost 38 points per game, scored just ten. Sports Illustrated ran the headline: "Lew's Revenge: The Rout of Houston."

UCLA won its third consecutive national championship.

Conversion and Protest

During the summer of 1968, Alcindor took the shahada—the Islamic declaration of faith—and converted from Catholicism to Sunni Islam. He adopted the Arabic name Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, meaning "noble one, servant of the Almighty," though he wouldn't begin using it publicly until 1971.

That same summer, he refused to try out for the U.S. Olympic basketball team.

This was 1968, a year of assassinations, riots, and the Black Power salute at the Mexico City Olympics. Alcindor's boycott was a political statement. "I was trying to point out to the world the futility of winning the gold medal for this country," he explained, "and then coming back to live under oppression."

The decision cost him public goodwill. Many fans saw his refusal to represent America as unpatriotic. But Alcindor—soon to be Kareem—was uninterested in being a comfortable symbol. He wanted to be honest about what it meant to be Black in America.

Bruce Lee's Student

Between basketball seasons, Alcindor studied martial arts. He learned aikido in New York and then traveled to Los Angeles to study Jeet Kune Do under Bruce Lee.

This wasn't a publicity stunt. Lee was famously selective about his students, and the training was rigorous. The two men developed a genuine friendship, and Lee cast Alcindor in his 1972 film "Game of Death." The scene features a memorable fight between the 5'7" Lee and the 7'2" basketball player—a visual that captures both men's physical uniqueness.

Alcindor earned his black belt. The discipline and philosophy of martial arts would influence his approach to basketball for the rest of his career.

Drafted First, Twice

In 1969, two professional basketball leagues existed: the established NBA and the upstart American Basketball Association (ABA). Both drafted Alcindor first overall—the Milwaukee Bucks in the NBA, the New York Nets in the ABA.

The Nets assumed they had an advantage. Alcindor was from New York. He had family there. Surely he'd want to return home.

But Alcindor had a principle: he would accept only one offer from each team. No bidding war. No drawn-out negotiations. Make your best offer, and he would decide.

The Nets made what they thought was a competitive offer. Alcindor rejected it as too low. He accepted the Bucks' offer of $1.4 million.

Then the Nets panicked and offered $3.25 million—more than double.

Alcindor said no. "A bidding war degrades the people involved," he explained. "It would make me feel like a flesh peddler, and I don't want to think like that."

He was 22 years old and had just turned down what would be roughly $27 million in today's money because he found the negotiating process distasteful.

Instant Impact

The Milwaukee Bucks were a one-year-old franchise that had won 27 games and lost 55 in their inaugural season. Alcindor's arrival transformed them immediately. In his rookie year, they went 56-26—a 29-game improvement that remains one of the greatest turnarounds in NBA history.

He finished second in the league in scoring at 28.8 points per game and third in rebounding at 14.5 per game. He won Rookie of the Year unanimously. In the playoffs, he became only the second rookie ever to record 40 points and 25 rebounds in a playoff game—the first had been Wilt Chamberlain.

The next season, Milwaukee acquired Oscar Robertson, one of the greatest guards in basketball history. Together, they formed perhaps the most dominant duo the league had ever seen. The Bucks went 66-16, including a then-record 20 consecutive wins.

Alcindor won his first MVP award and his first scoring title at 31.7 points per game. In the NBA Finals, Milwaukee swept the Baltimore Bullets in four games. Alcindor was named Finals MVP.

He was 24 years old and already had a championship, an MVP, and a scoring title.

Kareem

After winning the championship, Alcindor publicly announced what his Muslim community had known for three years: his name was now Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.

The reaction was mixed. Some fans accepted the change. Many refused to use his new name, viewing it as a rejection of American identity. Sportswriters continued calling him "Alcindor" or "Lew" for years. The pushback was often explicitly racist.

Abdul-Jabbar didn't waver. The name was fundamental to his identity, a reflection of his spiritual journey and his connection to African heritage. He would spend the rest of his career and his life as Kareem, regardless of how others felt about it.

The Trade to Los Angeles

After six seasons in Milwaukee—including one championship and three MVP awards—Abdul-Jabbar requested a trade. He wanted to live in a city with a larger Black community and better cultural opportunities. In 1975, the Bucks sent him to the Los Angeles Lakers.

He would spend the final 14 seasons of his career in Los Angeles, winning five more championships and three more MVP awards. His presence anchored what became known as the "Showtime" Lakers—the flashy, fast-breaking teams of the 1980s that featured Magic Johnson, James Worthy, and some of the most entertaining basketball ever played.

Even in his late thirties and early forties, Abdul-Jabbar remained effective. His skyhook didn't require the athleticism of youth; it required touch, timing, and the accumulated wisdom of thousands of repetitions. He played until he was 42, retiring in 1989 with virtually every career record in the book.

The Records

When Abdul-Jabbar retired, he held the all-time records for points (38,387), games played (1,560), minutes (57,446), field goals made (15,837), field goal attempts (28,307), blocked shots (3,189), defensive rebounds (9,394), and personal fouls (4,657).

He still holds the record for field goals made. He ranks second all-time in points (behind only LeBron James, who passed him in 2023), second in minutes played, second in field goal attempts, and third in rebounds and blocked shots.

In 2007, ESPN named him the greatest center in NBA history. In 2016, they ranked him the second-greatest player overall, behind only Michael Jordan.

The Whole Person

Abdul-Jabbar's post-basketball life has been as substantive as his playing career. He became a bestselling author, writing books on history, race, and culture. He worked as an assistant coach for several NBA teams. He became a global cultural ambassador, appointed by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in 2012.

In 2016, President Barack Obama awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor.

The shy, depressed teenager who hated the stares had become one of the most respected public intellectuals in American sports. The man who boycotted the Olympics and changed his name—decisions that alienated many fans—lived long enough to be celebrated as a hero for his principles.

The GOAT Debate

When people argue about basketball's greatest player, they usually focus on Jordan's perfection, LeBron's versatility, or Bill Russell's championships. Abdul-Jabbar rarely gets his due in these conversations, perhaps because his dominance was so quiet, so methodical, so dependent on a single unstoppable shot rather than explosive athleticism.

But consider: six MVP awards (more than anyone in history), six championships, 19 All-Star selections, 15 All-NBA selections, 11 All-Defensive Team selections. He dominated high school, dominated college, dominated the NBA for two decades, and retired at 42 still contributing to championship teams.

The skyhook was the most unstoppable offensive weapon in basketball history. No one has successfully replicated it since. No one has matched his combination of individual awards and team success. No one has sustained excellence across so many levels for so many years.

When LeBron passed Abdul-Jabbar's scoring record in 2023, he needed roughly 400 more games to do it. James played more minutes, took more shots, and had the benefit of modern sports science extending his career. Abdul-Jabbar retired a quarter-century earlier, from an era of shorter seasons and more physical play.

The argument for Abdul-Jabbar as the greatest of all time is simple: no one else has been the best player at every level of the game, for as long, with as much success. The argument against him usually comes down to style—he wasn't flashy, wasn't a trash-talker, wasn't built for the highlight reel.

He was just, year after year, the most effective player on the court.

Sometimes greatness doesn't announce itself. Sometimes it just shows up, does its work, and waits for history to render its verdict.