@stevek …..how can you put anybody ahead of Jordan? Jordan leads everybody at 30+ PPG career. Wilt is close, but what % of his shots are high percentage dunks...….probably 99%. Jordan was a scoring machine. He has to be the GOAT with everybody else somewhere below him. It's just not me by the way......every list I have ever seen has MJ #1.
@stevek said:
Pasted quote from Celtics Hall of Famer Bill Russell, who certainly wasn't prone to exaggeration:
"I hear guys say that he (Chamberlain) couldn't have played in a different time, done the things that he did then today," Russell said. "That's bull(...). If Wilt were playing today, he would be even more dominant than he was then. I don't see a center out there now that could play against him.
"The reason people don't believe that is because Wilt's numbers were so big, they seemed so impossible that they almost don't seem real. So they try to diminish the era and those he played against. People can't comprehend numbers like that, things that he did every night in just about every game. So they try to find a way to dismiss them or devalue them and try to make them not real.
"You talk about a guy that averaged 50 points a game for the whole season. Now a guy averages 29 points or 30 points and he leads the league and everybody says he's the greatest scorer. Well, Wilt was 20 points a night better. How do you compare [with] that?
Russell is doing the exact same thing, only in the reverse direction. He can't fathom Wilt dominating to the same degree because, to admit that, he would be admitting that today's players are better and his pride won't let him do that.
Put another way: Wilt's top competition at center was Russell. Russell was 6'10" and 215 lbs. Of course, 7'1', 275lb Chamberlain dominated.
Or to put it yet another way - Bill, gimme a break.
It's a different game today. When I was young all really good teams had a dominant "Big Man." The idea was to get as good a shot as possible as close to the basket as possible. Today with the three point shot the floor is spread out a lot more and there is a premium on long range shooters. It is difficult to compare players from different eras but you can compare how certain players dominated their contemporaries.
It would have been a treat to see Wilt play hoops when he was 18-25 years of age.
Playing at that age is much different than playing when you are 30-40 years of age.
I remember going to a game in December, 1974 and seeing Moses Malone play half of a game in his first season as a pro (with the Utah Stars of the ABA). At age 19 he was young and thin (much lighter than his weight when he was playing in his 30's and was very bulky). He did not start the game and ended up playing a little over 1/2 of the game. He scored 35 points and had 23 rebounds. He was unbelievable, quick, fast, able to score from anywhere on the court, able to bring the ball up the floor after rebounding same and simply dominating the men he was playing against.
I think what happens as well with younger folks not properly evaluating players from the 60's and 70's, is that they see Youtube videos of games from back then, and the players didn't look very fast.
Back then, the TV camera angle was basically one camera going back and forth along the court with one wide angle view. Nowadays, there are multiple cameras showing all sorts of angles, close-ups, etc, which helps to illustrate the quickness of the players. If those same camera angles would have been used back then, i believe that younger folks would have a different opinion about the ability and quickness of players from the 60's and 70's.
I'm not saying today's basketball players aren't better because they definitely are better. But for anyone to imply that players from the 60's and 70's were somehow slow Neanderthals playing basketball is simply inaccurate.
Most people judge Jordan as better by virtue of having six rings compared to LeBron's three.> @stevek said:
I think what happens as well with younger folks not properly evaluating players from the 60's and 70's, is that they see Youtube videos of games from back then, and the players didn't look very fast.
Back then, the TV camera angle was basically one camera going back and forth along the court with one wide angle view. Nowadays, there are multiple cameras showing all sorts of angles, close-ups, etc, which helps to illustrate the quickness of the players. If those same camera angles would have been used back then, i believe that younger folks would have a different opinion about the ability and quickness of players from the 60's and 70's.
I'm not saying today's basketball players aren't better because they definitely are better. But for anyone to imply that players from the 60's and 70's were somehow slow Neanderthals playing basketball is simply inaccurate.
I was actually thinking of the same thing the other day. Very good point. Just the viewing experience as a whole now on TV is far more crisp.
This was Chamberlain's competition. These are the players in the league that were taller than six foot nine, and how many minutes they played per game:
Though, the mighty Bevo Nordmann joined the league this season. The six- ten stiff averaged 6 minutes per game
Thats it. Nobody else was taller than six foot nine. In Chamberlain's first three two years he had zero height to contend with. The few players who were taller than six nine were part time players. Most were not athletic....except Russell.
@Skin2 said:
Chamberlain was great....but I routinely hear you say that winning is what matters...but you change that tune when it comes to Chamberlain?
Basketball is a sport where a player can amass stats to the detriment of winning.
His awful ability in shooting free throws is something that just can't be ignored. That is a big flaw when it comes to winning games. A good coach takes advantage of that...and I'm sure that was in the minds of many of them.
The NBA was basically still in its infancy when Chamberlain started. By the 70's it indeed start to change to represent a game similar to the next generation.
However, it was the early 60's where Chamberlain put up his insane numbers...and him playing against smaller players and many stiffs in the league is a big part of those numbers.
From 1959-1963 he averaged 43 points a game and 26 rebounds a game. He didn't do that in the 70's, or even close to it.
He shot 46% from the free throw line for his playoff career. Abysmal.
One has to keep in mind that Wilt's numbers may have started to lag, possibly due in part, to those 20,000 women he claimed to have slept with. That's a lot of minutes used there.
Successful transactions:Tookybandit. "Everyone is equal, some are more equal than others".
@Skin2 said:
Chamberlain was great....but I routinely hear you say that winning is what matters...but you change that tune when it comes to Chamberlain?
Basketball is a sport where a player can amass stats to the detriment of winning.
His awful ability in shooting free throws is something that just can't be ignored. That is a big flaw when it comes to winning games. A good coach takes advantage of that...and I'm sure that was in the minds of many of them.
The NBA was basically still in its infancy when Chamberlain started. By the 70's it indeed start to change to represent a game similar to the next generation.
However, it was the early 60's where Chamberlain put up his insane numbers...and him playing against smaller players and many stiffs in the league is a big part of those numbers.
From 1959-1963 he averaged 43 points a game and 26 rebounds a game. He didn't do that in the 70's, or even close to it.
He shot 46% from the free throw line for his playoff career. Abysmal.
One has to keep in mind that Wilt's numbers may have started to lag, possibly due in part, to those 20,000 women he claimed to have slept with. That's a lot of minutes used there.
@Skin2 said:
Chamberlain was great....but I routinely hear you say that winning is what matters...but you change that tune when it comes to Chamberlain?
Basketball is a sport where a player can amass stats to the detriment of winning.
His awful ability in shooting free throws is something that just can't be ignored. That is a big flaw when it comes to winning games. A good coach takes advantage of that...and I'm sure that was in the minds of many of them.
The NBA was basically still in its infancy when Chamberlain started. By the 70's it indeed start to change to represent a game similar to the next generation.
However, it was the early 60's where Chamberlain put up his insane numbers...and him playing against smaller players and many stiffs in the league is a big part of those numbers.
From 1959-1963 he averaged 43 points a game and 26 rebounds a game. He didn't do that in the 70's, or even close to it.
He shot 46% from the free throw line for his playoff career. Abysmal.
One has to keep in mind that Wilt's numbers may have started to lag, possibly due in part, to those 20,000 women he claimed to have slept with. That's a lot of minutes used there.
With LeBron Cavaliers go to Finals four years in a row, winning in perhaps the greatest upset ever to win it all once. LeBron leaves the Cavs, they can't smell the playoffs, just enduring a twelve game losing streak. LeBron goes to L.A. who would not make the playoffs except LeBron is there to lead the way. Take LeBron out of the Lakers lineup and guess what? They can't even beat the Cavs. BTW the Lakers had home court.
Here are the best scoring seasons since the NBA/ABA merger, counting only the seasons of 30 points per season or more:
It has only happened 36 times.
Jordan 37
Kobe 35.4
Jordan 34.9
Jordan 33.5
Gervin 33.1
Iverson 33
King 32.8
Jordan 32.5
Jordan 32.5
Gervin 32.2
McGrady 32
Durant 32
Westbrook 31.5
Kobe 31.5
Jordan 31.4
Iverson 31.3
LeBron 31.3
Maravich 31.1
Moses 31.1
Iverson 31
Malone 30.9
Wilkins 30.7
Iverson 30.6
Dantley 30.6
Dantley 30.6
Harden 30.4
Jordan 30.3
Dantley 30.3
Wilkins 30.3
Free 30.2
Wade 30.2
Durant 30.1
Curry 30
Jordan 30
Kobe 30
Lebron 30.
Jordan has 8, Iverson 4, Kobe 3, Dantley 3.
Out of all those guys on that list above, I checked to see if any of them ranked in the top 36 of any other stat.
Jordan had 5 seasons for steals in top 36 best steal seasons.
Moses Malone had three rebounding seasons in top 36.
Curry had one season among top 36 in 3pt%.
Lebron....he ranked in 'top' 36 seasons in MOST turnovers. Westbrook three times in turnovers. Harden twice.
Jordan is the only player to ever average 3+ steals per game, and 1+ blocks per game. He did that while he averaged 35 points per game. That is truly the most impressive thing of all.
Jordan is the ONLY scorer out of that group to win a Defensive Player of the Year and was first team ALL NBA DEFENSIVE team nine out of his 11 full seasons with the Bulls....and that says it all....Jordan doesn't even need the championship aspect, or other intangibles, to cement him above the rest.
I remember in a prior thread on the Le Bron James someone posted a video clip of a compilation of the King flopping to the floor when he other players made contact with him (and sometimes when no contact was made with him). A very entertaining video compilation. Based upon this video compilation I would think that in addition to some of his fans making a claim to the King being the GOAT player, some others may make a claim that the King is the GOAT flopper.
King James is an amazing basketball player, but his tendency to flop (many times with dramatic flair, no less) is really, really entertaining.
Wilt Chamberlain is the real greatest of all time (he was the Gretzky of the sport especially at that time). I'm still not so sure about this new definition of "GOAT"...for several decades at least a goat in the sports world was a BAD thing (Fred Merkle, Bill Buckner, Scott Norwood, Mitch Williams, etc)!
Comments
@stevek …..how can you put anybody ahead of Jordan? Jordan leads everybody at 30+ PPG career. Wilt is close, but what % of his shots are high percentage dunks...….probably 99%. Jordan was a scoring machine. He has to be the GOAT with everybody else somewhere below him. It's just not me by the way......every list I have ever seen has MJ #1.
Carved in granite...….case closed!
A valid point but the seasons in question started when Wilt was 30, not even remotely old.
Russell is doing the exact same thing, only in the reverse direction. He can't fathom Wilt dominating to the same degree because, to admit that, he would be admitting that today's players are better and his pride won't let him do that.
Put another way: Wilt's top competition at center was Russell. Russell was 6'10" and 215 lbs. Of course, 7'1', 275lb Chamberlain dominated.
Or to put it yet another way - Bill, gimme a break.
It's a different game today. When I was young all really good teams had a dominant "Big Man." The idea was to get as good a shot as possible as close to the basket as possible. Today with the three point shot the floor is spread out a lot more and there is a premium on long range shooters. It is difficult to compare players from different eras but you can compare how certain players dominated their contemporaries.
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Ralph
It would have been a treat to see Wilt play hoops when he was 18-25 years of age.
Playing at that age is much different than playing when you are 30-40 years of age.
I remember going to a game in December, 1974 and seeing Moses Malone play half of a game in his first season as a pro (with the Utah Stars of the ABA). At age 19 he was young and thin (much lighter than his weight when he was playing in his 30's and was very bulky). He did not start the game and ended up playing a little over 1/2 of the game. He scored 35 points and had 23 rebounds. He was unbelievable, quick, fast, able to score from anywhere on the court, able to bring the ball up the floor after rebounding same and simply dominating the men he was playing against.
I envision Wilt doing the same thing.
I think what happens as well with younger folks not properly evaluating players from the 60's and 70's, is that they see Youtube videos of games from back then, and the players didn't look very fast.
Back then, the TV camera angle was basically one camera going back and forth along the court with one wide angle view. Nowadays, there are multiple cameras showing all sorts of angles, close-ups, etc, which helps to illustrate the quickness of the players. If those same camera angles would have been used back then, i believe that younger folks would have a different opinion about the ability and quickness of players from the 60's and 70's.
I'm not saying today's basketball players aren't better because they definitely are better. But for anyone to imply that players from the 60's and 70's were somehow slow Neanderthals playing basketball is simply inaccurate.
Would be interesting to see how Chamberlain would have dominated Shaq.
Most people judge Jordan as better by virtue of having six rings compared to LeBron's three.> @stevek said:
I was actually thinking of the same thing the other day. Very good point. Just the viewing experience as a whole now on TV is far more crisp.
Jordan, David Thompson, Darrell Griffith, and Chamberlain all had all-time elite vertical jumps....all higher than Lebron too.
If Chamberlain could shoot...he may very well would been best player ever.
This was Chamberlain's competition. These are the players in the league that were taller than six foot nine, and how many minutes they played per game:
1959/60
Russell 6 10
Felix 6 foot 11, 11 MPG
Shore 6 foot 11, 15 MPG
Dukes 7 foot, 32 MPG
Jordon 6 foot 10, 27 MPG
1960/61
Russell 6 10
Halbrok Seven foot 3, 14 MPG
Felix 6 foot 11, 26 MPG
Dukes 7 foot, 28 MPG
Jordon 6 foot 10. 27 MPG
1961/62
Same exact story as above.
Though, the mighty Bevo Nordmann joined the league this season. The six- ten stiff averaged 6 minutes per game
Thats it. Nobody else was taller than six foot nine. In Chamberlain's first three two years he had zero height to contend with. The few players who were taller than six nine were part time players. Most were not athletic....except Russell.
It gets slowly better as years went on.
One has to keep in mind that Wilt's numbers may have started to lag, possibly due in part, to those 20,000 women he claimed to have slept with. That's a lot of minutes used there.
how many games did he miss for std's ?
And seconds. LOL
I Agree with Labron. He is the goat. When we were kids the goat was someone that causes your team to lose
Lafayette Grading Set
With LeBron Cavaliers go to Finals four years in a row, winning in perhaps the greatest upset ever to win it all once. LeBron leaves the Cavs, they can't smell the playoffs, just enduring a twelve game losing streak. LeBron goes to L.A. who would not make the playoffs except LeBron is there to lead the way. Take LeBron out of the Lakers lineup and guess what? They can't even beat the Cavs. BTW the Lakers had home court.
http://www.unisquare.com/store/brick/
Ralph
Here are the best scoring seasons since the NBA/ABA merger, counting only the seasons of 30 points per season or more:
It has only happened 36 times.
Jordan 37
Kobe 35.4
Jordan 34.9
Jordan 33.5
Gervin 33.1
Iverson 33
King 32.8
Jordan 32.5
Jordan 32.5
Gervin 32.2
McGrady 32
Durant 32
Westbrook 31.5
Kobe 31.5
Jordan 31.4
Iverson 31.3
LeBron 31.3
Maravich 31.1
Moses 31.1
Iverson 31
Malone 30.9
Wilkins 30.7
Iverson 30.6
Dantley 30.6
Dantley 30.6
Harden 30.4
Jordan 30.3
Dantley 30.3
Wilkins 30.3
Free 30.2
Wade 30.2
Durant 30.1
Curry 30
Jordan 30
Kobe 30
Lebron 30.
Jordan has 8, Iverson 4, Kobe 3, Dantley 3.
Out of all those guys on that list above, I checked to see if any of them ranked in the top 36 of any other stat.
Jordan had 5 seasons for steals in top 36 best steal seasons.
Moses Malone had three rebounding seasons in top 36.
Curry had one season among top 36 in 3pt%.
Lebron....he ranked in 'top' 36 seasons in MOST turnovers. Westbrook three times in turnovers. Harden twice.
Jordan is the only player to ever average 3+ steals per game, and 1+ blocks per game. He did that while he averaged 35 points per game. That is truly the most impressive thing of all.
Jordan is the ONLY scorer out of that group to win a Defensive Player of the Year and was first team ALL NBA DEFENSIVE team nine out of his 11 full seasons with the Bulls....and that says it all....Jordan doesn't even need the championship aspect, or other intangibles, to cement him above the rest.
I remember in a prior thread on the Le Bron James someone posted a video clip of a compilation of the King flopping to the floor when he other players made contact with him (and sometimes when no contact was made with him). A very entertaining video compilation. Based upon this video compilation I would think that in addition to some of his fans making a claim to the King being the GOAT player, some others may make a claim that the King is the GOAT flopper.
King James is an amazing basketball player, but his tendency to flop (many times with dramatic flair, no less) is really, really entertaining.
Wilt Chamberlain is the real greatest of all time (he was the Gretzky of the sport especially at that time). I'm still not so sure about this new definition of "GOAT"...for several decades at least a goat in the sports world was a BAD thing (Fred Merkle, Bill Buckner, Scott Norwood, Mitch Williams, etc)!
Dimes: 54S, 53P, 50P, 49S, 45D+S, 44S, 43D, 41S, 40D+S, 39D+S, 38D+S, 37D+S, 36S, 35D+S, all 16-34's
Quarters: 52S, 47S, 46S, 40S, 39S, 38S, 37D+S, 36D+S, 35D, 34D, 32D+S
74 Topps: 37,38,46,47,48,138,151,193,210,214,223,241,256,264,268,277,289,316,435,552,570,577,592,602,610,654,655
1997 Finest silver: 115, 135, 139, 145, 310
1995 Ultra Gold Medallion Sets: Golden Prospects, HR Kings, On-Base Leaders, Power Plus, RBI Kings, Rising Stars