Golden State Warriors History: Dramatic Break-Ups — Wilt Chamberlain

[EDITOR’S NOTE: This is the first in a multi-part series: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3]

Breaking-up is hard to do. In sports and in the NBA, it can send ripples into an organization’s success path that lasts years or decades. Just ask the Cleveland Cavaliers and now with the return of LeBron James, the Miami Heat.

As the Warriors recover from their most recent split with former head coach Mark Jackson and ponder whether to break-up the #SplashBrothers, it’s a good time to look at the most dramatic splits in Warrior history…

WILT CHAMBERLAIN

Wilt Chamberlain was really the first star player the Warriors let walk-away. After six successufl seasons in Philadelphia and San Francisco as a Warrior, the team shipped Chamberlain to the Philadelphia 76ers in 1965 for three less-than-stellar players.

Even with a famed 100-point game under his belt, Chamberlain never had established the fan following that he would receive later as a Sixer or when he landed with the Los Angeles Lakers.

The split seems now like it should have been heart-breaking for the Warriors fan base, but in reality it really wasn’t. Of the trade at the time, then-owner Franklin Mieuli had this to say:

“Chamberlain is not an easy man to love [and] the fans in San Francisco never learned to love him. Wilt is easy to hate […] people came to see him lose.”