A title the Celtics did not win
For eight straight seasons, from 1958-59 to 1965-66, the Boston Celtics won the NBA championship. In 1966-67 the streak ended, and the team that ended it was the Philadelphia 76ers, with Wilt Chamberlain at centre. The 76ers finished the regular season 68-13, then eliminated Boston in the Eastern Division finals and beat the San Francisco Warriors in the championship series.
This is a season that straddles two calendar years, with the games played from autumn 1966 into the spring of 1967. The title was decided in April 1967, which is why it belongs in a survey of sporting moments from that year.
Chamberlain’s changing role
Chamberlain had been the league’s most prolific scorer, famous for scoring 100 points in a game in March 1962 while with the Warriors. He joined the 76ers by trade in January 1965. Before 1966-67 critics argued that his statistics were impressive but that his teams lost the big series, mostly to Boston and Bill Russell.
New coach Alex Hannum, who had won a title with St. Louis in 1958, asked him to approach the game differently. Hannum wanted him to pass more, rebound and defend and to shoot less often. Chamberlain agreed. His scoring dropped to about 24 points a game, but he averaged about 24 rebounds, led the league in field-goal percentage, and recorded a high number of assists for a centre. He was named the league’s Most Valuable Player for the third year in a row.
The change is widely read as the moment Chamberlain stopped being described as a statistical force and began to be described as a winner. How far that reputation was fair to begin with is debated, since Russell’s Celtics were also a very good team, but the shift in how he played is well documented.
The supporting cast
Chamberlain was not alone. The 76ers had an exceptional group of teammates:
- Hal Greer, a guard known for his jump shot
- Chet Walker, a forward and consistent scorer
- Billy Cunningham, the “sixth man,” who came off the bench and scored in volume
- Luke Jackson, a strong rebounding forward
- Wali Jones, a guard who ran the offence
The depth allowed Chamberlain to focus on playmaking and defence while the others scored. Sources describe the team as one of the best in history, a claim supported by the record and the margin of the playoff wins, though comparisons across eras are always uncertain.
The team reportedly began the season with a long winning streak, going 46-4 over its first 50 games. Their final record of 68-13 was then the best in league history, until later teams surpassed it.
Beating Boston
The Eastern Division finals against the Celtics, who were now coached by Russell himself, were the key series. Philadelphia won it four games to one. The scale of the result surprised many. Boston, so used to winning playoff series, was beaten decisively.
Russell had become the NBA’s first Black head coach when he took over as player-coach in 1966, a milestone in itself, which means the matchup was between two of the league’s most famous players at an unusual moment for both. It also came during the civil rights movement, when the athletic achievements of Black players were increasingly part of a wider national conversation. The sport was not a separate world from that debate.
The Finals
The championship series was against the San Francisco Warriors, whose stars were scoring leader Rick Barry and centre Nate Thurmond. Philadelphia won four games to two. The Warriors were a strong team, and Barry’s scoring made the series competitive, yet the 76ers had the greater depth. The title was the club’s first since moving from Syracuse, where it had been the Nationals, in 1963.
What came afterwards
The following year, 1967-68, the 76ers again finished first in the East. In the division finals they led the Celtics three games to one but lost the series in seven, and Boston went on to win the title. Chamberlain was traded to the Los Angeles Lakers in the summer of 1968. The 76ers won their next championship in 1983.
As for Chamberlain, the 1966-67 season sits alongside his scoring feats as an essential part of his record. He remained a figure of fascination, including for off-court interests, but this season is where basketball historians tend to say his team play finally matched his talent.
Placing it in the year
The NBA was a smaller league than it later became, with ten teams in 1966-67, and its playoffs received much less television coverage than they do today. Nonetheless, the 1967 result is regularly used as a marker of the end of the Celtics dynasty. Boston did return, winning titles in 1968 and 1969, which is a reminder that the ending of one era was brief.
A dynasty usually falls to a team that has learned from its previous defeats, and that pattern fits Philadelphia in 1967. The 76ers lost to Boston in the 1965 Eastern finals in a famous seventh game and, with Hannum, rebuilt their approach.