Wilt Chamberlain
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50 free Wilt Chamberlain trivia questions with answers — sports quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Wilt Chamberlain holds 72 NBA records, and the NBA Guide, as Billy Cunningham put it, reads like his personal diary. He scored 100 points in a game, pulled down 55 rebounds in another, averaged 50 a night for a season, never fouled out, and still spent most of the 1960s losing to Bill Russell's Celtics before finally winning with the 1967 Sixers and the 1972 Lakers. These 50 questions go well beyond the 100-point night. The easy tier covers the nickname he actually liked, the teams, the rivalry and the famous numbers. The middle asks about Overbrook and Kansas, the triple-overtime loss to North Carolina, the Globetrotters' tour of the Soviet Union, the rule changes he forced, the 1967 Sixers, Jack Kent Cooke's contract and the 33-game winning streak. The hard end goes to George Marcus, Kutsher's Hotel, B. H. Born, the Look magazine story, Hershey's shooting line, the Ali fight that never happened, the San Diego Conquistadors, the International Volleyball Association, Ursa Major and Conan the Destroyer. Every answer is cited to a page we checked and comes with a short explanation. Play it solo or print it for a basketball night.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which team did Wilt Chamberlain score his record 100 points against?
New York Knicks
New York Knicks. Desperate not to be on the wrong end of history, they fouled every other opponent to keep the ball from him, and his teammates fouled back to get it.
Q 02In which Pennsylvania town did Wilt Chamberlain play his 100-point game in 1962?
Hershey
Hershey. Only 4,124 people were in the chocolate town's arena, and because the game was not televised, an audio recording of the fourth quarter is all that survives.
Q 03Which of his nicknames did Wilt Chamberlain like best?
The Big Dipper
The Big Dipper. Friends coined it after watching him dip his head to get through doorways, and he detested the names that drew attention to his height.
Q 04Wilt Chamberlain often summed up his public image with the line "Nobody roots for" whom?
Goliath
Goliath. He meant that a giant gets no sympathy: if he won, people said it was only his size, and if he lost, they asked how a man that big could fail.
Q 05Which Philadelphia high school did Wilt Chamberlain star for?
Overbrook
Overbrook. His teams lost only three games in three seasons, and by the time he left, more than a hundred colleges were trying to recruit him.
Q 06Which Kansas coach recruited Wilt Chamberlain, then had to retire before ever coaching him in a game?
Phog Allen
Phog Allen. He reached the mandatory retirement age of 70 before Chamberlain was eligible, and the player got on poorly with his successor, Dick Harp.
Q 07Which team beat Wilt Chamberlain's Kansas in triple overtime in the 1957 NCAA final?
North Carolina
North Carolina. The unbeaten winners had needed three overtimes to win their semi-final as well, so the title cost them six extra periods.
Q 08Despite losing the 1957 NCAA final, which honour did Wilt Chamberlain receive?
Most Outstanding Player
Most Outstanding Player. He was voted the tournament's best even though the winners packed a sagging zone around him and kept three defenders on him all night.
Q 09Which coach sent his shortest player to jump against Wilt Chamberlain at the tip-off of the 1957 NCAA final?
Frank McGuire
Frank McGuire. The ploy was meant to unsettle the 7-footer, and five years later McGuire was on his side, coaching him through the season of the 100-point game.
Q 10Wilt Chamberlain's 1973 autobiography called him "just like any other 7-foot black millionaire who lives" where?
Next door
Next door. The book came out during his single season as a coach, a job that bored him so much he once skipped a game to sign copies.
Q 11Which team did Wilt Chamberlain play for in 1958-59, while he was still barred from the NBA?
Harlem Globetrotters
Harlem Globetrotters. An NBA rule kept him out until his college class had graduated, so he spent the year touring for a reported $50,000, an astronomical sum at the time.
Q 12Wilt Chamberlain's record average of 48.5 a game in 1961-62 came in which statistic?
Minutes played
Minutes played. A regulation game lasts only 48 minutes, but he sat out just eight all season and played every overtime, which pushed his average past the length of a game.
Q 13Wilt Chamberlain led the NBA in scoring in each of his first seven seasons, a streak matched only by which later star?
Michael Jordan
Q 21In the season of his 100-point game, how was Wilt Chamberlain shooting his free throws?
Underhanded
Underhanded. The method brought him 28 of 32 on the night he scored 100, yet he later gave it up, saying he felt too embarrassed to keep shooting that way.
Q 22Which Celtics center was Wilt Chamberlain's great rival?
Bill Russell
Bill Russell. They met in eight playoff series in a decade and Chamberlain's team won only one, even though he outscored Russell by 81 points in the first of them.
Q 23With which team did Wilt Chamberlain win his first NBA title, in 1967?
Philadelphia 76ers
Michael Jordan. His seven straight titles came two decades later, and Chamberlain said his own run ended only because coaches asked him to shoot less.
Q 14Wilt Chamberlain's Warriors left Philadelphia in 1962 for which city?
San Francisco
San Francisco. Owner Eddie Gottlieb sold the franchise to a group of Bay Area businessmen, and the team moved to California with its record-breaking center.
Q 15Wilt Chamberlain was named NBA Most Valuable Player in 1960 while also winning which award?
Rookie of the Year
Rookie of the Year. His arrival lifted the Warriors from last place in their division to second, and by 2025 only Wes Unseld, in 1969, had matched the double.
Q 16What is Wilt Chamberlain holding up in the famous photograph from his record game in 1962?
A paper sign
A paper sign. In the locker room afterwards the Warriors' publicist scrawled "100" on a sheet of paper and had him hold it up for a photograph.
Q 17Which Celtics forward did Chamberlain punch, injuring his own hand, in the 1960 playoffs?
Tom Heinsohn
Red Auerbach had ordered Heinsohn to foul and shove Chamberlain to slow him getting back on defence.
Q 18After one NBA season, Wilt Chamberlain considered doing what?
Retire
Retire. He was sick of the hard fouls that teams used to stop him, and feared that one day he would lose his temper and hit back.
Q 19In 1,045 NBA games, Wilt Chamberlain never once did what?
Foul out
Foul out. It was his proudest feat: a center who battled under the basket all night, he averaged only two fouls a game across his whole career.
Q 20Wilt Chamberlain set an NBA single-game record of 55 in which statistic?
Rebounds
Rebounds. He set the mark at home against the defending champions and their own great defensive center, and still finished on the losing side, 132-129.
Philadelphia 76ers. They went 68-13, at the time the best record in league history, and ended the Boston Celtics' run of eight straight championships.
Q 24Wilt Chamberlain was traded days after which event?
All-Star Game
All-Star Game. He scored 20 points in it in January 1965, and within 48 hours the struggling Warriors had swapped the league's biggest star for three players and $150,000.
Q 25In 1967-68 Wilt Chamberlain led the NBA in which category, unusual for a center?
Assists
Assists. Stung by talk that he was a selfish scorer, he set out to prove a point and finished the season with the highest total in the league.
Q 26Which coach had Wilt Chamberlain on two different teams and persuaded him to shoot less and pass more?
Alex Hannum
Alex Hannum. He was not afraid to stand up to his star, and once Chamberlain agreed to pass first, a team that had always fallen short finally won the championship.
Q 27Wilt Chamberlain's 1968 move to the Lakers was the first time what had happened in the NBA?
A reigning MVP was traded
A reigning MVP was traded. He had just been voted the league's best player for the fourth time, yet his old team accepted three far lesser players in return.
Q 28Which Lakers owner brought Wilt Chamberlain to Los Angeles in 1968?
Jack Kent Cooke
Jack Kent Cooke. The Canadian-born tycoon had bought the Lakers three years earlier and built them the Forum, and under him they won the 1972 championship.
Q 29Which boxer did Wilt Chamberlain challenge to a fight after the 1971 NBA playoffs?
Muhammad Ali
Muhammad Ali. A bout was set for the Houston Astrodome and Ali taunted him with cries of "Timber!", but Chamberlain withdrew and the fight never happened.
Q 30Which famed boxing trainer was lined up to prepare Wilt Chamberlain for a heavyweight bout that never happened?
Cus D'Amato
Cus D'Amato. He had guided Floyd Patterson to the heavyweight title, and he had been pushing the idea of turning the 7-footer into a fighter since the mid-1960s.