Kareem Abdul Jabbar Career Achievement: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar has had an amazingly colorful basketball life. From an early age, he was the best on the court, later becoming a college basketball star and an NBA legend. His longevity can be envied – Karim retired at 42 and since then has been confidently leading the list of the most productive NBA players in history.
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Kareem Abdul Jabbar Career Achievements
- Born 04/16/1947
Career:
- Milwaukee Bucks (1969-1975).
- Los Angeles Lakers (1975-1989)
Team Achievements :
- NBA champion 1971, 1980, 1982, 1985, 1987, 1988.
Personal Achievements:
- 1971, 1972, 1974, 1976, 1977, 1980 NBA Regular Season Most Valuable Player.
- 1971, 1985 NBA Finals Most Valuable Player.
- 10 NBA All-Star Team 1 (1971-1974, 1976, 1977, 1980, 1981, 1984, 1986)
- Participated in 19 NBA All-Star Games (1970-1977, 1979-1989).
- The most productive player of the NBA regular seasons in 1971, 1972.
- 1976 NBA regular season rebounding leader.
- NBA regular championship leader in blocks in 1975, 1976, 1979, 1980.
- Ranked No. 1 in NBA history with 38,387 points.
Kareem Abdul Jabbar Career
If a child is born large and tall, and the growth rate does not slow down during childhood, parents should not miss the opportunity to introduce their heir to sports. In the case of Karim, such an oversight did not happen, and the boy began to play basketball from school age.
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Ferdinand Lewis Alcindor, as Abdul-Jabbar was called before the adoption of Islam, was at least a head taller than all his peers, both in understanding the game and in height. Thanks to the boy who showed up early, his school team did not know defeat in the city championship for three years in a row.
Upon leaving school, Alcindor, by then of age, was due to serve in the US Army, but his height took him away from military adventures in Vietnam, and Lewis continued his education at the university.
NCAA
Interestingly, Karim had to wait a whole season for the opportunity to enter the parquet in student games – according to the rules, newcomers were not allowed to play for the national team of their educational institution in their first year of study. True, the long wait did not extinguish the young man’s love for basketball, and in the fall of 1966, all of America learned about who would set the tone in the NCAA for three years in a row.
By the time of his debut, Abdul-Jabbar was already under twenty years old – the age when you can play on a par with adult masters. Karim immediately became the best basketball player in the League, dominating under the shields and leading his team to triumph. His career in the NCAA was one hundred percent successful – in three seasons he was recognized as the best player three times and became a three-time champion.
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An amazing fact speaks to the dominance of the center: after the first season, Karim in the NCAA was forbidden to throw balls into the basket from above. The leaders thought at least in this way to help the poor fellow rivals, but this did not stop Jabbar, who found other ways to increase his personal account. In particular, he tirelessly begins to use a hook – a throw that is almost impossible to cover.
In his university years, Alcindor decides to convert to Islam, and a few years later, being an NBA player, he changes his name and surname to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.
“Milwaukee”
Karim graduated in 1969 and decided in which League to continue his career – in both the NBA and the ABA he was selected with the first number of the draft, and the young center was waiting for proposals from the clubs. As a result, more favorable contract terms were offered to him by the Milwaukee Bucks, and Abdul-Jabbar became an NBA representative.
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The transition to adult basketball did not affect Karim at all. At the end of his first season, he was recognized as the best rookie in the NBA and included in the second team of all-stars. Abdul-Jabbar’s game was appreciated – he was at the same time good both under someone else’s basket and under his own, steadily gaining 30 points and collecting about 15 rebounds per game.
The second season in the NBA brought Jabbar the championship ring and the title of the most valuable player of the regular season and playoffs. The League has a dominant center, who should take the baton for this nomination from an aging Wilt Chamberlain.
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And so it happened – Karim became the best “fifth number” in the NBA and a regular on the first team of stars. He continued to collect the MVP titles of the regular seasons, establishing himself in the status of the main star of the League. True, at some point, all personal achievements ceased to please Abdul-Jabbar – only in 1974, Milwaukee was able to reach the playoff finals. And when Oscar Robertson ended his career, Karim has actually left alone among mediocre players.
Lakers
To tell the truth, and in the Lakers, where Abdul-Jabbar moved, it was hard at first with assistants. The legendary club had fallen on hard times since the end of Chamberlain and West’s careers, and Kareem was the Californians’ only bright spot on the floor.
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Despite the fact that Jabbar’s first two seasons in Los Angeles were marked by his two personal victories in the fight for the title of the most valuable player in the NBA, he did not experience great happiness. The Lakers, with all the efforts of their leader, could not fight for the championship.
Everything changed with the arrival of Magic Johnson on the team. “Los Angeles” overnight became the leader of the West and, along with “Boston”, the main favorite of the NBA. Karim was also inspired, who, despite natural aging, managed to score more than 20 points per game on average until the age of forty.
Of course, over the years, he began to spend less time on the site, besides, he had problems with his eyes, but Karim continued to keep the level. At key moments, he practically did not make mistakes, and the hook throw could be safely called by his name.
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Thanks to the duo of Magic and Kareem, the Lakers celebrated success five times in the 80s, and Abdul-Jabbar himself became the most valuable player in the playoffs for the second time in his career, and this is fifteen years after the first similar recognition!
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Perhaps Karim should have left a couple of years earlier – for the last three years his performance has fallen sharply and in the final season, he barely exceeded 10 points. On the other hand, after a personal performance in the 1985 playoffs, he won the NBA twice more.
Heritage
Abdul-Jabbar managed to play with the stars of different eras: he came to the NBA when the heroes of the 60s were still good – Chamberlain, West, Robertson, and finished when Magic, Byrd, and a little later Jordan became the main persons of the League.
It says one thing – Kareem Abdul-Jabbar is the basketball era. No one else had such a long successful career, as evidenced by his first place in NBA regular season scoring of all time.
