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 Lew Alcindor 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, Magic Johnson. 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.