Padres Legend Dave Winfield's Place in San Diego Basketball Lore

One of San Diego's baseball greats could have been the face of professional basketball in America's Finest City; for as long as it lasted, anyway.

Beyond both being Hall of Famers in their respective professional sports, any ties between NBA legend Wilt Chamberlain and MLB superstar Dave Winfield could be deemed tenuous, at best.

However, both could be fairly described as the greatest athletes in their respective sports; if not ever, certainly in their era.

Chamberlain’s exploits read like the script for a Bill Brasky sketch from '90s SNL — and I’m referring only to The Stilt’s feats of athletic prowess. He’s reported to have bench pressed 500 pounds, and he had Olympic potential in track and field as both a high jumper and long jumper — and at one time, had aspirations of becoming an Olympic decathlete.

NBA commentators love few things more than denigrating the league’s past. However, that level of athletic ability in a 7-foot-1 frame translates to any era. I don’t doubt Wilt would be a monster in today’s NBA.

Likewise, Winfield possessed unique talents that would have made him every bit the Hall of Famer playing today as he was from the ‘70s into the ‘90s.

A testament to Winfield’s generational athleticism is that he was drafted by four separate top-tier sports leagues in the same year:

• San Diego Padres (1st round, 4th overall)

• Atlanta Hawks (5th round, 79th overall)

• Minnesota Vikings (17th round, 429th overall)

• Utah Stars (6th round, 51st overall)

Now, one might quibble with the inclusion of the American Basketball Association’s Stars. And while it’s true that the NBA was collectively the much better league, featuring considerably stronger top-to-bottom rosters almost across the board, the ABA’s upper echelon of talent was every bit as good as the best of the NBA.

Rick Barry was an established NBA star before he led the Oakland Oaks to an ABA title, while Connie Hawkins, Artis Gilmore, and Dan Issel represent a few of the names that successfully transitioned from the ABA to NBA All-Stars. Julius Erving, George Gervin, and Moses Malone were transcendent talents who debuted professionally with the ABA.

What’s more, if the ABA wasn’t truly a top-tier league legitimately competing with the NBA, the Los Angeles Lakers may not have bothered with the legal wrangling required to prevent Wilt Chamberlain from ever suiting up with the ABA’s San Diego Conquistadors when the organization hired Wilt as player-coach in 1973.

Efforts to bring Wilt into the fold were one major wish-list addition San Diego’s ABA franchise couldn’t complete in its brief existence. Another was bringing the budding MLB star Dave Winfield into the fold.