DR / JoeJohnson2 (Creative Commons)
Anyone who has ever practiced sport knows it: after exercise, comfort begins with a good hot or cold shower, depending on the season. But for one of the biggest names in NBA history, that underwater passage was oddly pushed back, resulting in an unsympathetic nickname…
First, let’s give back to Caesar what is Caesar’s. To this day and for eternity, the title of dirtiest player in NBA history belongs to Adam Morrison, former number 3 in the Draft who became a huge bust. And if you doubt its ability to push the boundaries of hygiene, all we have to do is offer you this reading by clicking here.
However, Morrison has had competition over the years in the NBA, and in particular from a certain… Wilt Chamberlain. Best known for his mind-blowing dominance in the league’s rackets, his flamboyant personality and his female conquests numbering in the thousands, “The Stilt” also drew jokes from his teammates because of his shower problems.
The humiliating nickname of Wilt Chamberlain
In an article dated 1999, shortly after the death of the man who was in many respects the first superstar in the history of the NBA, the Los Angeles Times told these few confusing lines:
Chamberlain had a nickname of his own, which he probably never knew about. His Lakers teammate Elgin Baylor called him “The Big Musty” (“The Big Musty”, editor’s note).
Why ? Because Wilt Chamberlain did not often shower in the locker room after the meetings, preferring to wait for his return home or in his hotel room. It’s amazing that a man who bragged about having slept with 20,000 women could be so shy, but this is just one example of his complexity…
It is therefore dressed in his clothes of the day, mixed with his perspiration after 48 minutes of battling on the floor, that Chamberlain used to leave the room. A funny ritual, not really in phase with the character, and which therefore earned him this dubious nickname, far from the flashy “The Big Dipper”, “Goliath”, “The Stilt” and others!
Wilt Chamberlain would probably not have liked this nickname, and it is easy to understand why! But by refusing showers in this way, it’s no wonder that some teammates wanted to immortalize this strange habit…
