Philly Front Office

On this day in 1965, the prodigal son of Philadelphia returned after the evil Warriors scurried him out in the night a few years before. The 76ers brought Wilt Chamberlain back home from San Francisco in exchange for Connie Dierking, Paul Neumann, Lee Shaffer and $50,000 in cash. Let’s see how the deal turned out…

THE Calendar

Wilt was born in and grew up in Philadelphia and became the first true force in the NBA after going to Kansas and getting drafted by the Warriors back in 1959. He spent his first 3 years in Philadelphia including his ridiculous 50.4 PPG season in 1961-62. That didn’t stop the Warriors from heading west to San Francisco after the season though. They were sold by owner Eddie Gottlieb to a group headed by Franklin Mieuli and left town.

This was not a Phillies and A’s situation when the Warriors left, they were the only game in town, and they took the league’s biggest star with them when they went west. For the 1962-63 season, Philly did not have NBA basketball. That changed when Irv Kosloff and Ike Richman bought the Syracuse Nationals and brought them to Philadelphia. Out went the Nationals moniker and in came the 76ers.

In the 1964-65 season, despite e having Wilt, the Warriors were lousy. By the All-Star break, the team was 11-33 and had lost 11 in a row. This is when they made the trade with the Sixers who were 21-19 at the time. They would finish an even 40-40 on the year, but would take the future champion Celtics to 7 games, infamously losing when “Havlicek stole the ball.”

Wilt’s stats were predictably phenomenal, winning 3 consecutive MVPs in his 3 seasons with the Sixers. He would average 27 points and 24 rebounds per game while also leading the team to the glory the city had been missing since the championship run of the Boston Celtics began. In the 1966-67 season, the Sixers would finish a then league record 68-13 and defeat the Celtics in the Eastern Conference Finals 4-1, ending the Celtics streak of 8 consecutive titles and 10 consecutive Finals appearances.

Who would the Sixers be playing in the Finals that year? Coincidentally, the San Francisco Warriors. They had fallen flat after Chamberlain was traded, but rebounded to have the best record in the West that year behind stars Rick Barry and Nate Thurmond. Despite a historic scoring outburst from Rick Barry, the Sixers won the series. Wilt averaged 22 points, 29 rebounds, and 9 assists for the playoffs. There weren’t Finals MVPs yet, but you could imagine that the award would have been his for his first title.

Then after another MVP season and best record in the NBA finish, the Sixers lost to the Celtics and Wilt would be gone. The Sixers traded him to the Lakers for Darrall Imhoff, Archie Clark, and Jerry Chambers. He only spent 3.5 seasons in the red, white, and blue of the Sixers.

How did the other guys do for the Warriors? Connie Dierking would play 30 games with the Warriors that season before being traded again to the Royals for a guy named Bud Olson who never did much of anything. Lee Shaffer had been a solid forward for the Sixers, averaging 16-6 but refused to report to the Warriors over a contract dispute. He ended up retiring at 24. Paul Neumann would play 3 more years in the NBA averaging 13.5 ppg. He then left basketball and starred in Cool Hand Luke and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (just kidding).

Even the $50,000 had a bad career. While inflation makes that $50k worth about $500k today, had they invested that money in a savings account and locking in the max rate of the day of 4%, that would only come to $467k today. It couldn’t even outpace inflation. However, a Wilt Chamberlain rookie card recently sold for $1.7m. Trading Wilt for his own card would have been a better move.