Kareem Abdul-Jabbar Hospitalized After Fall

by Daniel Johnson

December 17, 2023

The 76-year-old Abdul-Jabbar enjoyed arguably one of the most prolific basketball careers ever.

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, one of the NBA’s great elder statesmen, has been hospitalized following a fall on Dec. 15 that broke his hip. According to NPR, Abdul-Jabbar suffered the fall as he was leaving a concert. His long-time business partner, Deborah Morales, released a statement on Abdul-Jabbar’s Twitter/X profile explaining that the fall was accidental, and that he would be undergoing hip surgery on Dec 16.

“Kareem had an accidental fall and broke his hip,” Morales said. “He will have surgery today. We are all deeply appreciative of all the support for Kareem, especially from the Los Angeles Fire Department, who assisted Kareem on site and the amazing medical team and doctors at UCLA Hospital who are taking great care of Kareem now.”

Other than this message, no update has been provided as of yet.

The 76-year-old Abdul-Jabbar enjoyed arguably one of the most prolific basketball careers ever. Born Lew Alcindor, he guided UCLA to an undefeated season in 1967, one of only seven teams to go undefeated in the regular season. Also, he captured a National Championship in the same season during the NCAA tournament era. According to the NCAA’s website, over the course of his collegiate career, the 7’2″ center would win three national championships while only losing two games, a feat that will likely go unmatched. Along with Bill Russell and Wilt Chamberlain, he is widely considered one of the greatest college basketball players to ever play. Famously, the NCAA banned the ability of players to slam dunk in games in 1967, which many have attributed to the absolute dominance of Abdul-Jabbar’s game. In response to this ban, the center developed his signature move, the Skyhook, which he used to devastating effect. The slam dunk ban lasted ten years, but the timing of the move will forever be linked with Abdul-Jabbar. 

Once he entered the NBA in 1969, he led the Milwaukee Bucks to an NBA title in his second year, and they would not win another title until Giannis Antetokounmpo led them to an NBA finals victory in 2021. In 1971, in his championship season, Abdul-Jabbar informed the world that following his conversion to Islam, he would be known as Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and no longer wished to be called Lew Alcindor.

Muhammad Ali and Abdul-Jabbar enjoyed one of the great friendships in sports, and it was Abdul-Jabbar who would sit at the table flanking the champ alongside Jim Brown and Bill Russell in what would come to be called the Ali Summit. Though it was Brown who organized the meeting following his retirement from the Cleveland Browns, Abdul-Jabbar, and Russell’s involvement lent more weight to the summit. In 2016, Abdul-Jabbar wrote in Time Magazine that it was witnessing Ali take the principled stand against the United States government that truly inspired him.

Abdul-Jabbar wrote, “Most young people today know Muhammad Ali only as the hunched old man whose body shook ceaselessly from Parkinson’s. But I, and millions of other Americans, Black and white, remember him as the man whose mind and body once shook the world. We have been better off because of it.”

At the close of his illustrious playing career, Abdul-Jabbar retired in 1984 as the NBA’s all-time leading scorer. Many believed his record to be unbreakable, largely because no one other than Kareem Abdul-Jabbar had the kind of consistent, sustained production over a 20-year career that lent itself to compiling points–until LeBron James. James broke Abdul-Jabbar’s record earlier this year, and Abdul-Jabbar was in attendance to witness the historic achievement. Abdul-Jabbar would later write about his feelings about James surpassing his record via a letter posted to his Substack account.

“In the months leading up to LeBron breaking my record, so much was written about how I would feel on the day he sank that record-breaking shot that I had to laugh,” he wrote. “I’d already written several times stating exactly how I felt, so there really wasn’t much to speculate about. It’s as if I won a billion dollars in a lottery, and 39 years later, someone won two billion dollars. How would I feel? Grateful that I won and happy that the next person also won. His winning in no way affects my winning.”

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