(Los Angeles) Kareem Abdul-Jabbar is recovering from surgery for a broken hip following a fall during a concert in Los Angeles.
The Basketball Hall of Famer underwent surgery Sunday “without complications,” his business partner and spokeswoman, Deborah Morales, told The Associated Press on Monday.
“He will be recovering for the next three months,” she mentioned.
Abdul-Jabbar fell Friday night at Disney Concert Hall in downtown Los Angeles, during a performance by vocal group The Manhattan Transfer.
Paramedics responded and the 76-year-old man was taken to UCLA-affiliated Ronald Reagan Medical Center.
“I would like to say that I fell trying to stop a child from falling off the balcony, but I only lost my footing,” Abdul-Jabbar wrote on Substack on Monday. It’s hard for me to accept that a former world-class athlete just stumbled. Age has a way of leveling the playing field for all of us. It brings a good dose of humility. »
Abdul-Jabbar was a star of the Los Angeles Lakers’ “Showtime” era in the 1980s, helping the club to five NBA championships.
“I wish my “Showtime” costar Kareem Abdul-Jabbar a speedy recovery […]! Praying for the captain! », Wrote Magic Johnson on social networks during the weekend.
A 7-foot-2 center, Abdul-Jabbar was the leading scorer in NBA history before ceding the honor to LeBron James of the Lakers in February. Abdul-Jabbar had the record for 39 years.
Abdul-Jabbar won the first of his six NBA MVP awards with the Milwaukee Bucks, before being traded to the Lakers in 1975.
He played at UCLA, where he was known as Lew Alcindor. He was a three-time NCAA Player of the Year under coach John Wooden.
Abdul-Jabbar revealed in 2020 that he was suffering from prostate cancer.
In 2009, he said he had been diagnosed the previous year with chronic myelogenous leukemia, a blood cancer.
