Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

Verified Timeline

Lore & Background

Abdul-Jabbar was known as Lew Alcindor when he played at Power Memorial, a private Catholic high school in New York City, where he led their team to 71 consecutive wins. He played college basketball for the UCLA Bruins, winning three consecutive national championships. Abdul-Jabbar was a record three-time most outstanding player of the NCAA tournament. Drafted with the first overall pick by the one-season-old Milwaukee Bucks franchise in the 1969 NBA draft, he spent six seasons with the team. After leading the Bucks to their first NBA championship at age 24 in 1971, he took the Muslim name Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Using his trademark skyhook shot, he established himself as one of the league's top scorers. In 1975, he was traded to the Lakers, with whom he played the final 14 seasons of his career, during which time the team won five NBA championships. Abdul-Jabbar's contributions were a key component in the Showtime era of Lakers basketball. Over his 20-year NBA career, his teams reached the playoffs 18 times and reached the NBA Finals ten times. At the time of his retirement at age 42 in 1989, Abdul-Jabbar was the NBA's regular season career leader in points (38,387), games played (1,560), minutes (57,446), field goals made (15,837), field goal attempts (28,307), blocked shots (3,189), defensive rebounds (9,394), and personal fouls (4,657). He ranks second in career points, minutes played and field goal attempts, and is third all-time in both total rebounds (17,440) and blocked shots. ESPN named him the greatest center of all time in 2007, the greatest player in college basketball history in 2008, and the second best player in NBA history (behind Michael Jordan) in 2016. Abdul-Jabbar has also been an actor, a basketball coach, a best-selling author, and a martial artist, having trained in Jeet Kune Do under Bruce Lee and appeared in his film Game of Death (1972). He also appeared in Airplane! as Roger Murdock, a pilot who is repeatedly mistaken for Abdul-Jabbar. In 2012, Abdul-Jabbar was selected by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to be a U.S. global cultural ambassador. In 2016, President Barack Obama awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

In Their Own Story

At birth, Abdul-Jabbar weighed 12 lb 11 oz (5.75 kg) and was 22+1⁄2 inches (57 cm) long. Always very tall for his age, he was already 5 ft 8 in (1.73 m) by the age of nine. By the eighth grade (age 13–14), he had grown to 6 ft 8 in (2.03 m) and could already dunk a basketball. He attended Power Memorial Academy, a private all-boys Catholic high school, where he wore jersey number 33 in tribute to his favorite player, New York Giants fullback Mel Triplett. He led coach Jack Donohue's teams to three straight New York City Catholic championships, a 71–game winning streak, and a 79–2 overall record. His 2,067 total points were a New York City high school record. The Harlem riot of 1964, prompted by the fatal shooting of 15-year-old black boy James Powell by a New York police officer, triggered Abdul-Jabbar's interest in racial politics. 'Right then and there, I knew who I was, who I had to be. I was going to be black rage personified, Black Power in the flesh,' he said.

Reader's Guide

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar was born Ferdinand Lewis Alcindor Jr. in Harlem, New York City, the only child of Cora Lillian and Ferdinand Lewis Alcindor Sr. He grew up in the Dyckman Street projects in the Inwood neighborhood of Upper Manhattan. He attended Power Memorial Academy, a private all-boys Catholic high school, where he wore jersey number 33. He led coach Jack Donohue's teams to three straight New York City Catholic championships, a 71-game winning streak, and a 79–2 overall record. He chose to attend UCLA after being recruited by assistant coach Jerry Norman. In his first varsity game as a sophomore in 1966, he scored 56 points, which is still an NCAA record for a player in their debut. He averaged 29 points and 15.5 rebounds per game, leading UCLA to an undefeated 30–0 record and a national championship. During his college career, he was a three-time national player of the year, a three-time unanimous first-team All-American, played on three NCAA champion teams, and was honored as the Most Outstanding Player in the NCAA Tournament three times.

Did You Know?

• Abdul-Jabbar scored 56 points in his first varsity game as a sophomore at UCLA, an NCAA record for a player in their debut.
• He appeared in Bruce Lee's film Game of Death, which was released in 1972.
• He was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama in 2016.