steven randall's List: Philadelphia Sports

Wilton Norman Chamberlain was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, into a family of nine children. As his biographer Robert Cherry observed, he was a frail child, nearly dying of pneumonia in his early years and missing a whole year of school as a result.^[8] In his early years, Chamberlain was not interested in basketball, because he thought it was "a game for sissies".^[9] Instead, he was an avid track and field athlete: as a youth, he high jumped 6 feet, 6 inches, ran the 440 yards in 49.0 seconds and the 880 yards in 1:58.3, put the shot 53 feet, 4 inches, and broad jumped 22 feet.^[10] But according to Chamberlain, "basketball was king in Philadelphia", so he eventually turned to the sport.^[11] Because Chamberlain was a very tall child, already measuring 6 feet at age 10^[12] and 6 feet 11 inches when he entered Philadelphia's Overbrook High School,^[3] he had a natural advantage against his peers; he soon was renowned for his scoring talent, his physical strength and his shot blocking abilities.^[13] According to ESPN journalist Hal Bock, Chamberlain was "scary, flat-out frightening... before he came along, most basketball players were mortal-sized men. Chamberlain changed that."^[14] It was also in this period of his life when his three life-long nicknames "Wilt the Stilt", "Goliath"

Rasheed Abdul Wallace (born September 17, 1974) is an American professional basketball player who is currently a member of the Boston Celtics in the National Basketball Association (NBA). At 6 ft 11 in (212 cm) and 230 lb (104 kg), Wallace is a power forward/center. A native of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, he played college basketball at the University of North Carolina before joining the NBA.

 

Originally selected by the Washington Bullets (now the Washington Wizards) as the fourth pick in the 1995 NBA Draft, Wallace was named to the All-Rookie second team following his first season. He was then traded to the Portland Trail Blazers after the season. With Portland he was a key member of the Blazers team that made it to the Western Conference Finals in 1999 and 2000, and was an NBA All-Star in 2000 and 2001. Wallace had a career best 19.4 points per game in 2002 for the Blazers.

 

During the 2003–04 season Portland traded him to the Atlanta Hawks where he played one game before he was traded to the Detroit Pistons. With the Pistons he won the NBA Championship in 2004 and lost in the NBA Final the following season, and individually he was an All-Star in 2006 and 2008. After the 2008–09 season he left Detroit as a free agent and signed with Boston.