Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (born Ferdinand Lewis Alcindor, Jr. on April 16, 1947 in New York City, New York, United States; typically referred to as Lew Alcindor) is an African American former professional basketball player.

Considered one of the greatest players of all time, the 7ft-2in (2.18 m) Abdul-Jabbar played center for UCLA from 1965–69. Later, he played professionally for the Milwaukee Bucks (1969–75) and the Los Angeles Lakers (1975–89), accumulating 38,387 points, the NBA's highest career total. He was famous for his "Skyhook" shot which defenders found virtually impossible to block. His on-court success was superlative, as he won a record six NBA most-valuable-player awards, while playing on six NBA championship teams; at UCLA, he played on three NCAA championship teams. His high-school team won 71 consecutive games and his UCLA teams were an unmatched 88-2. After a then-record 20 professional seasons in the NBA, Abdul-Jabbar retired from the game in 1989, leaving a legacy of professionalism, class, and success. Following his success as a professional athlete, Abdul-Jabbar has become known as a successful basketball coach, author, and part-time actor.

Early years

He was born to Cora and Ferdinand Lewis "Al" Alcindor in Harlem, New York City, in 1947, and was 12 pounds, 11 ounces, and was twenty-two and a half inches. [1] He was raised as a Catholic. From an early age he began his record-breaking basketball accomplishments. In high school, he led Power Memorial Academy to three straight New York City Catholic championships, a 71-game winning streak, and a 96–6 overall record.

College

Heavily sought by collegiate basketball programs, he played for the UCLA Bruins from 1966 to 1969 under coach John Wooden, contributing to the team's three-year record of 88 wins and only two losses (it must be noted that in his day, freshmen were not eligible for varsity athletics). During his college career, he was twice named Player of the Year (1967, 1969), was a three-time First Team All-American (1967-69), played on three NCAA Basketball champion teams (1967, 1968, 1969), was honored as the Most Outstanding Player in the NCAA Tournament (1967, 1968, 1969), and became the first-ever Naismith College Player of the Year in 1969.

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar graduated with a B.A. in History from UCLA in 1969. While playing for UCLA, he suffered a scratched left cornea. This would occur again during his pro career and he would then wear goggles for protection.

Also during his studies at UCLA, Abdul-Jabbar, then still known as Lew Alcindor, converted to Islam. He was converted by a Khalifah Hamaas Abdul Khaalis, a former Nation of Islam leader and founder of a Washington, D.C.-based mosque of the Hanafi Madhhab. He details this conversion in his autobiography "Giant Steps".

Professional athletics

The Harlem Globetrotters offered him $1 million to play for them, but he declined, and he was picked first in the 1969 NBA Draft by the Milwaukee Bucks, only in their second season, who won the coin-toss for first pick over the Phoenix Suns.

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar's entry into the NBA was timely, as center Bill Russell had just left the Boston Celtics, and Wilt Chamberlain, though still effective, was aging, at almost 35 years. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar's presence enabled the 1969-70 Bucks to claim second place in the NBA's Eastern Division with a 56-26 record (up from 27-55 the previous year), and he was an instant star, ranking second in the league in scoring (28.8 ppg) and third in rebounding (14.5 rpg), for which he was awarded the title of NBA Rookie of the Year.

With the addition of Oscar Robertson, Milwaukee went on to record a league-best 66 victories in 1970-71, including a then-record of 20 straight wins. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar was awarded his first of six NBA Most Valuable Player Awards, along with his first scoring title (31.7 ppg). In the playoffs, the Bucks went 12-2 (including a four-game sweep of the Baltimore Bullets in the NBA Finals) and Alcindor was named Finals MVP. On May 1, 1971, the day after the Bucks won the NBA championship, he adopted the Arabic name Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, meaning "noble, servant of the powerful one [i.e. of Allah]."

Abdul-Jabbar remained a dominant force for Milwaukee, repeating as scoring champion (34.8 ppg) and NBA Most Valuable Player the following year, and helping the Bucks to repeat as division leaders for four straight years. In 1973, Abdul-Jabbar won his third MVP Award in five years and was among the top five NBA players in scoring (27.0 ppg, third), rebounding (14.5 rpg, fourth), blocked shots (283, second), and field goal percentage (.539, second).

While remaining relatively injury-free throughout his NBA career, Abdul-Jabbar twice broke his hand. The first time was during a pre-season game in 1974, when he was bumped hard and got his eye scratched, which angered him enough to punch the basket support stanchion. When he returned, after missing the first 16 games of the season, he started to wear protective goggles. The second time he broke his hand was in the opening game of the 1977-78 season. Two minutes into the game, Abdul-Jabbar punched Milwaukee's Kent Benson in retaliation for an overly aggressive elbow. He was out for two months.

After a few seasons in Milwaukee under his new name, Kareem said that the city did not fit his cultural needs and requested a trade to either New York or Los Angeles. In 1975, the Bucks traded him and reserve center Walt Wesley to the Los Angeles Lakers for center Elmore Smith, guard Brian Winters, and rookie "blue chippers" Dave Myers and Junior Bridgeman. The trade paved the way for a second Abdul-Jabbar dynasty as the Lakers went on to become one of the most dominant teams of the 1980's, appearing in the finals eight times and winning five NBA championships.

While in LA, he started doing yoga in 1976 to improve his flexibility, and was notable for his physical fitness regimen. [2] He was also a pupil of the kung fu master Bruce Lee, and studied Lee's Jeet Kune Do style. [3]

Film career

Playing in Los Angeles facilitated Abdul-Jabbar's trying his hand at acting. Kareem made his movie debut in Bruce Lee's 1978 film Game of Death, in which his character Hakim fought Billy Lo (played by Lee). However, due to Lee's death during production, the film was never finished, and most of it has been lost to time. In 1980, he played co-pilot Roger Murdock in David Zucker's comedy, Airplane!. He had numerous other TV and film roles, often playing himself, such as in the hit Chevy Chase movie Fletch, the ABC sitcom Full House, and Fresh Prince Of Bel-Air, and Scrubs. He also had a notable role in the telemovie version of Stephen King's The Stand. He played himself in Slam Dunk Ernest starring Jim Varney and made a brief non-speaking cameo appearance in another David Zucker comedy, 1998's BASEketball. In addition, Abdul-Jabbar was co-executive producer of the 1994 TV movie, The Vernon Johns Story.

Retirement

On June 28, 1989, after a record-setting twenty professional seasons, Abdul-Jabbar announced his retirement.

On his "retirement tour" he received standing ovations at all the games, home and away.

Abdul-Jabbar had been interested in coaching since his retirement, and given the influence he has had on the league, he had presumed that opportunities in that realm would come easily. However, during his playing years, he had developed a reputation of being introverted and sullen, often refusing to speak to the press, leading to the impression that he had nothing to say. It is widely believed, including by Abdul-Jabbar himself, though he acknowledges his own culpability in creating that impression, that this reputation has contributed greatly to the lack of coaching opportunities that have thus far been presented to him. Since he began lobbying for a coaching position in 1995, he has managed to obtain only low-level assistant and scouting positions in the NBA, and a head coaching position only in a minor professional league.

He has worked as an assistant for the Los Angeles Clippers and the Seattle SuperSonics, helping mentor their young centers, Michael Olowokandi and Jerome James, respectively. Abdul-Jabbar was the head coach in 2002 of the Oklahoma Storm of the United States Basketball League (winning that league's championship that season), but he failed to land the head coaching position at Columbia University a year later. He then worked as a scout for the New York Knicks. Finally, on September 2, 2005, he returned to the Lakers as a special assistant to Phil Jackson to help develop the team's young center Andrew Bynum. Abdul-Jabbar has also served as a volunteer coach at Alchesay High School on the Fort Apache Indian Reservation in Whiteriver, Arizona since 1998.

Sky hook

Abdul-Jabbar was well-known for his trademark "sky hook", a hook shot in which he bent his body like a straw in one fluid motion to raise the ball (rather just than moving the arm) and let the ball go at the highest point of his arm's arcing motion. As he stood 7 feet 2 inches tall, the sky hook was nearly impossible for a defender to block without goaltending. It was a reliable and feared offensive weapon and contributed to his high lifetime field goal percentage of .559. As a twist, he was adept at shooting the skyhook with either hand, which made him even more difficult to defend. According to Abdul-Jabbar, he learned the move in fifth grade and soon learned to value it, as it was "the only shot I could use that didn't get smashed back in my face". [4].

Professional basketball career and statistics

Teams and years

*1969-75 Milwaukee Bucks
*1975-89 Los Angeles Lakers

Statistics

*Jersey number - 33
*Games played - 1560 (2nd most in NBA history)
*Field goal % - 55.9 (8th highest in NBA history)
*Free throw % - 72.1
*Three-point % - 5.6 (Note: he made just one three-point field goal in his career)
*Rebounds - 17,440 (3rd most in NBA history)
*Rebounds per game - 11.2 (tied for 24th highest in NBA history)
*Assists - 5660 (31st in NBA history)
*Assist per game - 3.6
*Steals - 1160
*Steals per game - 0.74
*Blocks - 3189 (2nd most in NBA history) (Note: blocks were not officially tabulated until the 1973-1974 season)
*Blocks per game - 2.57
*Points per game - 24.6 (12th highest)
*Holds NBA career record for:
**Most points in NBA history - 38,387
**Most minutes played (57,446)
**Most field goals made (15,837)
**Most field goals attempted (28,307)
**Most All-Star selections (19)
**Most All-Star games played (18)
**Most playoff games played (237)

Athletic honors

* Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame (May 15, 1995)
* College:
** Player of the Year (1967, 1969)
** Three-time First Team All-American (1967-69)
** Three-time NCAA champion (1967, 1968, 1969)
** Most Outstanding Player in NCAA Tournament (1967, 1968, 1969)
** Naismith College Player of the Year (1969)
* National Basketball Association:
**Rookie of the Year (1970)
**Six-time NBA champion (1971, 1980, 1982, 1985, 1987, 1988)
**Most Valuable Player (1971, 1972, 1974, 1976, 1977, 1980)
**Finals Most Valuable Player (1971, 1985)
*Sports Illustrated magazine's "Sportsman of the Year" (1985)
**One of the 50 Greatest Players in NBA History (1996)
**First player in NBA history to play 20 seasons
**#7 in SLAM Magazine's Top 75 NBA Players of all time in 2003.

Books authored

Abdul-Jabbar is also a bestselling author, the latest of his books being Brothers In Arms: The Epic Story of the 761st Tank Battalion, WWII's Forgotten Heroes (Publisher: Broadway 2004, ISBN 0385503385), co-written with Anthony Walton. It is the history of the 761^st Battalion, an all-black armored unit that served in Europe in World War Two.

Other books:
* Giant Steps with Peter Knobler (1987) ISBN 0553050443
* Kareem (1990) ISBN 0394559274
* Selected from Giant Steps (Writers' Voices) (1999) ISBN 0785799125
* Black Profiles in Courage: A Legacy of African-American Achievement with Alan Steinberg (1996) ISBN 0688130976
* A Season on the Reservation: My Soujourn with the White Mountain Apaches with Stephen Singular (2000) ISBN 0688170773

Trivia

Abdul-Jabbar has a prescription to smoke marijuana in the state of California, the result of nausea-inducing migraine headaches [5].

Abdul-Jabbar was successful in suing Miami Dolphins running back Karim Abdul-Jabbar because he felt Karim was sponging off of the name he made famous by having the Abdul-Jabbar moniker and number 33 on Dolphins jerseys. As a result the younger Abdul-Jabbar had to change his jersey nameplate to simply 'Abdul' while playing for the Dolphins[6]. The football player had also been an athlete at UCLA.

Abdul-Jabbar has twice appeared on Celebrity Jeopardy!, coasting to dominant victories each time. His first appearance was against Larry King and Alexandra Paul in 1994; his second was against Martina Navratilova and Reggie Jackson in a special "athletes" edition in 1998.

In the movie Little Nicky, the main character is referred to as "Satan Abdul-Jabbar" after a basketball scene.

The rock band the Red Hot Chili Peppers honour him in their instrumental song "Salute to Kareem" and is an "all time great super super star" in their song "Magic Johnson".

Burly noisy punk rock band "Cream Abdul Babar" reside in Tallahassee, Florida.

Jeff Ament of Pearl Jam wrote a song about Abdul-Jabbar based on the urban myth that he lost all of his money investing in hotels for tall people. The song, entitled "Sweet Lew", appears on the band's album of B-sides, Lost Dogs. The liner notes explain that Ament was inspired to write the song after being brushed off by his boyhood idol after meeting him at a celebrity basketball game.

Kareem also played Hakim in the film "The Game of Death". His character was a bodyguard and fighter for the gangsters who wanted Billy Lo's cooperation in them becoming his managers. In the extended footage of the final fight scenes of the film, which last about half an hour, Kareem and Bruce Lee fight on the highest level of a pagoda which Bruce's character had to fight his way up. From Bruce's viewpoint, the highest level on the pagoda is where Jeet Kune Do, represented by Kareem himself, is found. Through the entire fight, both men not only fight with an ease hard to obtain, but they both make it known neither of them fear death.

The character in Cowboy Bebop named "Abdul Hakim" is a tribute to Kareem's character, in build and ability.

Kareem Appeared in one of the Apple PowerBook commercials in the early 90`s.

External links

*
* Kareem's complete bio @ NBA.com
* Kareem's page @ the Basketball Hall of Fame