Abdul-Jabbar, Kareem kərēm´ ăb´do͝ol jəbär´ [key], 1947–, American basketball player, b. New York City as Ferdinand Lewis (Lew) Alcindor. At 7 ft 2 in. (218 cm), he led the Univ. of California, Los Angeles, to three national titles (1967–69). He was the National Basketball Associations number one draft pick in 1969, joining the Milwaukee Bucks as center. In 1970 he was rookie of the year, and in the 1970–71 season he led the Bucks to the championship. In 1975 he left Milwaukee to join the Los Angeles Lakers, with whom he played until his retirement in 1989. Abdul-Jabbar won the NBAs most-valuable-player honor six times and set the NBA all-time records in games played (1,560 since broken), points made (38,387), and field goals made (15,837). He was an assistant coach with the Los Angeles Clippers in 2000 and head coach of a minor-league basketball team in 2002. He has written, with Stephen Singular, A Season on the Reservation (2000), about his experience coaching Apache high-school basketball players, and also coauthored Black Profiles in Courage (2000) and Brothers in Arms (2004).

See his coauthored autobiographies (1987, 1990).