Kareem Abdul-Jabbar biography, married, wife, habiba abdul-jabbar, stats, injury, salary, contract, fangraphs, age, net worth

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Kareem Abdul-Jabbar was born on April 16, 1947 in New York, which is in the United States of America. He changed his named to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar in 1971 from the name his parents gave him, <a href="/biography/kareem-abdul-jabbar">Lew Alcindor</a>. The name of his father is Ferdinand Lewis Alcindor Senior and the name of his mother is Cora Lillian. He was the only <a href="/biography/kareem-abdul-jabbar">child</a> his parents had. His father worked as a police officer and he also worked as a musician. His mother worked at a department store.

He completed his high school education from Power Memorial High School and that is where he  started playing basketball. He played on the varsity team for four years, rare feat for any high school basketball player. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar was so skilled at making baskets that they changed the rules so that dunking the basketball would no longer be allowed. In 1965 they made that new rule when he enrolled at University of California, Los Angeles. Even with the rule, he made 56 points during the first game that he played in. He lead the team to three National Collegiate Athletic Association championships, from 1967 to 1969. He only lost two games while on the team.

After he graduated, they removed the no-dunking rule. While Kareem did end up being enrolled in UCLA, he did consider transfer to the University of Michigan, but never went through with it. During one such game in college, he received an injury he eyes, specifically his cornea and because of this injury, Kareem had to wear goggles while playing. The goggles helped him in protecting his eyes during the game. He ended up changing his name to the Arabic name of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar from his birth name of <a href="/biography/kareem-abdul-jabbar">Lew Alcindor</a> after converting to Islam while at UCLA.

For his professional career, he signed his first contract with Milwaukee Bucks in the 1969 to 1970 season. While they didn’t get to the championship, they did place 2nd in the eastern division, ending with a record of 56 wins to 26 losses, a reversal from the year before where they has 55 losses to only 27 wins. The following year he led the Bucks to a championship and also the best record of the league. The Bucks swept the Baltimore Bullets in the NBA finals, where he was also named the finals MVP. Kareem also led the league in scoring with 2596 points overall for the season.

He led the leaderboard in average points per game also, at 31.7. He did it once again the following season, with 2822 in points, and 34.8 average points per game. He led his team to several victories and during his tenure with the team, he received another injury and this time he broke his hand. The amount of contract is known to be somewhere around 1 Million dollars and he played several seasons for the team.

He was associated with the team for almost 5 years, finally leaving for the Los Angeles Lakers in 1975. It was because of his leading stats and performance that he received an offer from Los Angeles Lakers. He readily signed the contract and he played for the team till 1989. His performance was getting even better with time and he performed extremely well throughout his career. Also, in 1979 the Lakers got the first overall draft pick, <a href="/biography/magic-johnson">Magic Johnson</a>. The two team members made a powerful team together, making the Los Angeles Lakers one of the greatest teams in NBA history. He made the finals his last three seasons of playing professional basketball, winning the first two.

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In 1989, he announced the news of his retirement and later he joined a coaching institute as a coach. It is known that Kareem was an introvert and he always tried to ignore media. The Lakers went on to win championships throughout the 1980’s, five in total. By 1984 he surpassed <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilt_Chamberlain">Wilt Chamberlain</a>’s career scoring total of 31,419. He had a trademark type of shot that was called the “skyhook”, which was hard to defend against, and a powerful offensive tactic.

He was injury free most of his career in the NBA, although he did break his hand a few times. The first time occurred after his got his eye scratched. He was mad enough to punch a piece of support equipment for the basket hoop, breaking his hand in 1974. The second time he broke his hand was in 1978, where he punched an opposing team member for using an overly aggressive elbow. He was out for two months for his hand to heal.

He left a legacy behind him, setting records in most points at 38,387, most blocked shots at 3189 and the most minutes played at 57,446. He was inducted to the Basketball Hall of Fame in 1995 and is considered one of the the top 50 basketball players ever. He was voted the Most Valuable Player six times and was a 19 time <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NBA_All-Star_Game">NBA All-Star</a>. He worked as an assistant for several teams within the league after retiring from play. He helped teams like the Los Angeles Clippers and the Seattle Supersonics.

Outside of basketball, Kareem was also known to be involved with many different interests, having roles in both movies and TV shows. In 2012 he was selected to be a U.S. global cultural ambassador by the Secretary of State. In 2016 U.S. <a href="/biography/barack-obama">President</a> <a href="/biography/barack-obama">Barack Obama</a> awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian award of the United States. He has also written several books, ones that help explain his personal life along with aspects of African culture that he was always interested in. He also wrote an autobiography, detailing his life and his unique struggles.

Kareem had been married to Habiba Abdul-Jabbar and he met his wife in his college. The couple gave birth to three children. After 7 years of marriage, the couple decided to separate from each other. Kareem later dated Cheryl Pistono and he had another son with her. Kareem’s total net worth is estimated to be 20 Million American dollars, a culmination of his basketball earnings, endorsement deals, film work, and book deals.

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