TOTAL AVG WIN EXPECTANCY....67 win season with----49 win season without. EQUALS +18
HIS SECOND RETIREMENT & SECOND COMEBACK '97 with...=62 wins '98 w/out= 13 wins(lost Pippen too, so giving only Jordan half=37 wins)
'00 w/out= 19 wins '01 with..=37 wins
'02 with...=37 wins '03 w/out= 25 wins.
TOTAL AVG WIN EXPECTANCY...45 win season with------27 win season without. EQUALS +18
So in the three distinct before and after scenario's in Jordan's career, they come in amazingly all the same with an +18 win difference with JOrdan in the lineup, as opposed to out. This is projecting the shorter seasons to full season wins, and this is not taking into account any player personnel...except the year they lost Pippen too and dropped a whopping 49 games. I only gave Jordan half credit for that(which is saying he is equal to Pippen, which he isn't). Other than that, I did not touch or delve into any other player moves, as nobody EVER does that when they are using these before/after scenarios with other players like Bird, Russell, etc... EXcept I DID do it in the Pippen case, and Jordan's 'with' games would be much higher at face value without digging deeper like other folks do.
I admit I am surprised how even all three periods came out. It doesn't prove anything, and it shouldn't, but it should temper anybody who uses one year examples of a teams' wins as to how much this guy was worth, and it should CERTAINLY temper anybody from using solely the 1993 - 1994 Bulls example as their evidence of Jordan's value. Just in that span alone, when you dig deeper you see the following year how that changed already(until Jordan came back). When you expand his other clear cut before/after scenario's you get to see a more true picture.
Stevek, at the end of a game, there probably are a few women who would be better for the team. . Seriously though, that is a big crutch, and by the looks of it, it did hurt him in the playoffs a bit, and cost his team. Jordan's only 'weakness' was that he was only average at three point shooting. He could score just as good as Wilt, and he didn't need an 'era height advantage' advantage to do it in. Those are the two biggest things separating the two. If one were to look into intangibles, that would be the third biggest one.
The average NBA team in 1966 had 5,400 odd rebounds. The average NBA team in 1990 had 3,500 odd rebounds.
This is a result of various reasons, but regardless the reasons, this is why you see those outlandish total rebounds in Wilt's days. Coupled with his huge height advantage no other center has enjoyed in the past 30 years, then the picture starts to become more clear.
The average NBA team in 1966 averaged 8,300 field goal attempts. The average NBA team in 1990 averaged 7,100 field goal attempts.
This helps explain the rebound totals, and also explains the ease to score high point totals.
skinpinch - To clarify my post, I merely stated that the Bulls supporting cast without Jordan won 55 games in his prime. No matter how you look at it that is an incredible amount. His supporting cast was not weak. No way around that. I have done the numbers for all of the great players factoring in 3 years before and 3 years after. They are all remarkably similar.
dallasactuary - Russell is a better rebounder than Wilt (Wilt himself has said Russell is the greatest clutch rebounder in the history of the game and have you ever heard Wilt give anybody a compliment). He blocked more shots than Wilt. His blocked shots led to more fast breaks. He is a better free throw shooter than Wilt. He is FAR better at elevating his game at crunch time. The players who played in the same era felt Russell was better. Russell played 16 seasons of college, pro and olympic ball and won 14 titles. To simply dismiss this fact as being irrelevant and dependant on his teammates is like not taking into account the fact that Jim Rice played his entire career in Fenway Park. Please, name two of his college teammates. Please name two of his teammates that won more than 1 title without him. Basketball cannot be evaluated using the same statistical analysis as baseball.
Wilt was a great player. Agreed. He had more offensive skills than Russell. He has better career offensive statistics than Russell. Great. No way on earth he wins 11 titles in 13 seasons with the Celtics. No chance. Why? He would have had to sacrifice his game for the good of the team. As history has shown he seldom did that.
Hope this article puts an end to the nonsense here that Wilt Chamberlain wasn't the greatest basketball player of all time...but it probably won't.
He was basketball's unstoppable force, the most awesome offensive force the game has ever seen. Asked to name the greatest players ever to play basketball, most fans and aficionados would put Wilt Chamberlain at or near the top of the list.
Wilt Chamberlain as a Laker won 33 straight games and the NBA title in 1971-72.
Dominating the game as few players in any sport ever have, Chamberlain seemed capable of scoring and rebounding at will, despite the double- and triple-teams and constant fouling tactics that opposing teams used to try to shut him down.
As Oscar Robertson put it in the Philadelphia Daily News when asked whether Chamberlain was the best ever, "The books don't lie."
The record books are indeed heavy with Chamberlain's accomplishments. He was the only NBA player to score 4,000 points in a season. He set NBA single-game records for most points (100), most consecutive field goals (18) and most rebounds (55). Perhaps his most mind-boggling stat was the 50.4 points per game he averaged during the 1961-62 season--and if not that, then perhaps the 48.5 minutes per game he averaged that same year.
He retired as the all-time in career points with 31,419, which was later surpassed by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Karl Malone and Michael Jordan. He is tops in rebounds with 23,924. He led the NBA in scoring seven years in a row. He was the league's top rebounder in 11 of his 14 seasons. And as if to prove that he was not a selfish player, he had the NBA's highest assist total in 1967-68.
But the most outstanding figures are his scoring records; Most games with 50+ points, 118; Most consecutive games with 40+ points, 14; Most consecutive games with 30+ points: 65; Most consecutive games with 20+ points: 126; Highest rookie scoring average: 37.6 ppg; Highest field goal percentage in a season: .727. And with many of these, the player in second place is far behind. His name appears so often in the scoring record books that his name could be the default response any time a question arises concerning a scoring record in the NBA.
During his career, his dominance precipitated many rules changes. These rules changed included widening the lane, instituting offensive goaltending and revising rules governing inbounding the ball and shooting free throws (Chamberlain would leap with the ball from behind the foul line to deposit the ball in the basket).
No other player in NBA history has spawned so many myths nor created such an impact. It's difficult to imagine now, with the seemingly continuing surge of bigger skilled players, the effect of playing against Chamberlain, who was not only taller and stronger than almost anyone he matched up against but remarkably coordinated as well. A track and field star in high school and college, Chamberlain stood 7-1 and was listed at 275 pounds, though he filled out and added more muscle as his career progressed and eventually played at over 300 pounds.
An incident recounted in the Philadelphia Daily News involving Tom Meschery of the Seattle SuperSonics illustrated what it was like to play in the trenches against Chamberlain. Meschery had the ball in the line and put up four fakes before attempting his shot. Chamberlain slapped the ball down. Meschery got it again, faked again, and got it blocked again. Enraged and frustrated, the Seattle player ran up to Chamberlain swinging. As if in a scene from The Three Stooges, Chamberlain put his hand on the 6-6 Meschery's head and let him swing away harmlessly. After the third swing, Chamberlain said, "That's enough," and Meschery stopped.
Chamberlain's power was legendary. Rod Thorn, who has been a player, coach, GM and NBA executive, remembers a fight in which Chamberlain reached down and picked up a fellow player from a pile of bodies as if he were made of feathers. The man was 6-8 and weighed 220 pounds.
Chamberlain was one of the few players of his day who had the sheer strength to block a dunk. In a game against New York in 1968, Walt Bellamy, the Knicks' 6-11, 245-pound center, attempted to dunk on Chamberlain. "Bellamy reared back," one spectator who was there later recalled to the Philadelphia Daily News, "and was slamming the ball down when Wilt put his hand above the top of the rim and knocked the ball off the court. He almost knocked Bellamy off the court, too."
Strength was something Chamberlain developed as a college and professional player. Photographs of him in high school show a slender, agile boy who, at 6-11, towered above the other players. In three varsity seasons at Philadelphia's Overbrook High, starting in 1952-53, Chamberlain led the team to records of 19-2, 19-0, and 18-1. His coaches there took full advantage of his gifts. The team would practice missing free throws so that Chamberlain could grab them and score field goals. At a time when goaltending was legal, Chamberlain sometimes infuriated his teammates by tipping balls in on their way down, even if they were on target.
During his prep years, he scored 2,206 points and had individual games in which he scored 90, 74 and 71 points. In his senior year he averaged 44.5 points. In his 90-point game he scored 60 points in 12 minutes of the second half. "But it's nothing," Chamberlain said in the Philadelphia Inquirer in 1991, "when you consider that the team we were playing against was trying to freeze the ball."
It was also during this time that one of his nicknames, "the Stilt," was coined by a local newspaper writer. Chamberlain detested it, as he did other monikers that called attention to his height, such as "Goliath." The names he didn't mind were "Dippy" and "Dipper," along with the later variant, "Big Dipper." The story goes that Chamberlain's buddies seeing him dip his head as his walked through doorways tagged him with the nickname and it stuck.
In 1955, Chamberlain announced he would play college ball at the University of Kansas. Because NCAA rules at the time prohibited freshmen from playing at the varsity level, Chamberlain was placed on the freshman team upon his arrival at Kansas. His first contest with the freshmen was against the varsity, which was favored to win its conference that year. Chamberlain later reminisced about the game in the Philadelphia Daily News: "We whipped 'em, 81-71. I had 40 or 42 points, about 30 rebounds, about 15 blocks. I knew I had to show them either I could do it or I couldn't."
Chamberlain made his debut for the Jayhawks' varsity squad in a game against Northwestern on Dec. 3, 1956. He set a school record when he scored 52 points in an 87-69 victory. Chamberlain then guided Kansas to the 1957 NCAA title game against North Carolina. Although North Carolina beat Kansas by one point in triple overtime, Chamberlain was named the tournament's Most Outstanding Player.
The following year he was selected to all-conference and All-America teams. He showed his athletic versatility by winning the high jump competition in the Big Eight track and field championships, clearing the bar at 6-6. In May, 1958 Chamberlain decided to forego his senior season at Kansas, opting instead to turn pro. But because of an NBA rule that prevented college players from playing in the league until their class graduated, he was in limbo for one year. He passed the time by playing for the Harlem Globetrotters in 1958-59 for a salary reported to be around $50,000, an astronomical sum at the time.
In 1955, the NBA created a special "territorial" draft rule that allowed a team to claim a local college player in exchange for giving up its first-round pick. The idea was to cash in on college stars who had built strong local followings, but the Philadelphia Warriors, who were owned by the cagey Eddie Gottlieb, took it one step further. They claimed Chamberlain as a territorial pick even though he had played his college ball in Kansas. Gottlieb, one of the NBA's founding fathers, argued that Chamberlain had grown up in Philadelphia and had become popular there as a high school player, and since there were no NBA teams in Kansas, they held his territorial rights. The league agreed, marking the only time in NBA history that a player was made a territorial selection based on his pre-college roots.
When Chamberlain finally slipped on a Philadelphia uniform for the start of the 1959-60 season, the basketball world eagerly awaited the young giant's debut -- and he didn't disappoint. In his first game, against the Knicks in New York, he pumped in 43 points and grabbed 28 rebounds. In a sensational rookie year, Chamberlain averaged 37.6 points and 27.0 rebounds and was named NBA Rookie of the Year, All-Star Game Most Valuable Player and NBA Most Valuable Player as well as being selected to the All-NBA First Team. Only Wes Unseld would duplicate Chamberlain's feat of winning Rookie of the Year and MVP honors in the same season. (Unseld did it in 1968-69.)
With Chamberlain, the Warriors vaulted from last to second and faced the Boston Celtics in the 1960 NBA Playoffs. The series saw the first postseason confrontation between Chamberlain and defensive standout Bill Russell, a matchup that would grow into the greatest individual rivalry in the NBA and possibly any sport. During the next decade, the pair would square off in the playoffs eight times. Chamberlain came away the victor only once. In that initial confrontation, Chamberlain outscored Russell by 81 points, but the Celtics took the series, four games to two.
Chamberlain's inaugural season seemed to take a heavy toll on him. After the postseason loss to Boston, the rookie stunned his fans by announcing that he was thinking of retiring because of the excessively rough treatment he had endured from opponents. He feared that if he played another season, he would be forced to retaliate, and that wasn't something he wanted to do.
In Chamberlain's first year, and for several years afterward, opposing teams simply didn't know how to handle him. Tom Heinsohn, the great Celtics forward who later became a coach and broadcaster, said Boston was one of the first clubs to apply a team-defense concept to stop Chamberlain. "We went for his weakness," Heinsohn told the Philadelphia Daily News in 1991, "tried to send him to the foul line, and in doing that he took the most brutal pounding of any player ever.. I hear people today talk about hard fouls. Half the fouls against him were hard fouls."
Dominating the game as few players in any sport ever have, Chamberlain seemed capable of scoring and rebounding at will, despite the double- and triple-teams and constant fouling tactics that opposing teams used to try to shut him down.
Despite his size and strength, Chamberlain was not an enforcer or a revenge seeker. He knew how to control his body and his emotions and rarely got into altercations. One indication of this was the astonishing statistic that not once in his 14-year career, in more than 1,200 regular and postseason games, did he foul out. Some people claimed he simply wasn't aggressive enough. "My friends would say, 'Hey man, you should throw [Bill] Russell in the basket, too.' " said Chamberlain. "They said I was too nice, too often against certain of my adversaries."
Of course, Chamberlain didn't retire. He simply endured the punishment and learned to cope with it, bulking up his muscles to withstand the constant shoving, elbowing and body checks other teams used against him.
In a virtual repeat of his rookie year, he poured in 38.4 points and 27.2 rebounds per game in 1960-61. The next season he made a quantum leap in his performance. Posting a phenomenal average of 50.4 points per game, he became the only player in history to score 4,000 points in a season.
On March 2, 1962, Chamberlain set a record that may stand forever. In a game against the New York Knicks in Hershey, Pa., he scored 100 points in four quarters to help the Warriors win the game, 169-147. Despite the fact that Chamberlain had reportedly stayed out all night the previous evening, he obviously came ready to play against the Knicks. Chamberlain was so "on" that he even made 28 of 32 free throws, despite having, up to that point in the season, just a paltry .506 percentage from the stripe.
He hit 36-for-63 from the field, about which he commented to HOOP magazine, "My God, that's terrible. I never thought I'd take that many shots in a game." Toward the end of the game, the Warriors went out of their way to feed Chamberlain the ball, to the point of fouling the Knicks whenever they had possession.
In 1962, Chamberlain moved with the franchise to San Francisco, and he led the league in scoring in both 1962-63 and 1963-64. The Warriors lost to the Celtics in the 1964 Finals in five games. But midway through the following season, he was sent back home to Philadelphia. Two days after the 1965 All-Star Game (a game in which he scored 20 points and pulled down 16 rebounds), Chamberlain was swapped to the 76ers, formerly the Syracuse Nationals until the 1963-64 season, for Connie Dierking, Lee Shaffer, Paul Neumann and $150,000. In Philadelphia, he joined a promising 76ers team that included Hal Greer and Larry Costello in the backcourt and Chet Walker and Luke Jackson up front.
The Sixers were a .500 ballclub in Chamberlain's initial year on the team. The following season, 1965-66, Philadelphia posted the best record in the league, at 55-25, but for the second year in a row the 76ers fell to Boston in the Eastern Division Finals. Philadelphia, which had added talented forward Billy Cunningham, started the year by winning 45 of its first 49 games en route to an 68-13 record, at the time the best in league history.
In the division semifinals, the Sixers ousted Cincinnati. The division finals saw the 76ers matched up against the Celtics -- and Chamberlain matched up against Russell once again. After years of frustration, Chamberlain finally got by his arch rival as Philadelphia raced by Boston in five games, ending the Celtics' eight-year stranglehold on the NBA title. Playing the Warriors in the 1967 NBA Finals, the Sixers came away with the championship, winning the series in six games.
After his monstrous scoring year in 1961-62, Chamberlain's average dropped slowly each year until the 1967-68 season, when it rose slightly to 24.3 points per game from 24.1 the season before. During his first seven years Chamberlain scored an average of 39.4 points per game and led the league in scoring all seven seasons, a string matched only by Michael Jordan two decades later. In Chamberlain's second seven years, he averaged 20.7 points.
Was the waning production attributable to the effects of age and better defenses? Chamberlain didn't think so. "I look back and know that my last seven years in the league versus my first seven years were a joke in terms of scoring," he told the Philadelphia Daily News. "I stopped shooting -- coaches asked me to do that, and I did. I wonder sometimes if that was a mistake."
One of the main reasons coaches asked him to shoot less was to try to win more. Of the 14 years he played in the NBA, only twice did his teams emerge with the NBA title. In 1966-67, Sixers Coach Alex Hannum asked Chamberlain to pass the ball more often than shoot, and to play more aggressive defense. The strategy worked. Although he failed to win the NBA scoring title for the first time in his career, averaging 24.1 points, Chamberlain recorded the league's highest shooting percentage (.683), had the most rebounds (24.2 rpg), and was third in assists (7.8 apg).
Chamberlain took his new role so seriously that he led the league in assists the next season. In 1967-68, he was also chosen to the All-NBA First Team for the seventh and final time and selected league MVP for the fourth and final time. After taking the Eastern Division that season, the Sixers were eliminated in the Conference Finals for the third time in four seasons by the Celtics. Soon after, Chamberlain was traded to the Lakers for Jerry Chambers, Archie Clark and Darrall Imhoff.
He spent his final five campaigns in Los Angeles and helped the Lakers to the NBA Finals four times in those five seasons. The most notable season was 1971-72, in which he scored only 14.8 points per game. But his contributions came in other forms. At age 35, he managed to grab 19.2 rebounds per contest and was selected to the NBA All-Defensive First Team.
Chamberlain had become a great team player, complementing the styles of guards Jerry West and Gail Goodrich and forwards Happy Hairston and Jim McMillian. The 1971-72 Lakers set an NBA record by winning 33 games in a row en route to a then NBA-record 69-13 regular-season mark, one victory better than Chamberlain's 1966-67 Sixers team (the Chicago Bulls with Michael Jordan would post a 72-10 record in 1995-96 . The Lakers then stormed to the championship with a five-game triumph against New York in the 1972 NBA Finals.
Retiring from the NBA at the end of the 1972-73 season, Chamberlain went on to demonstrate the full range of his talents. Eclectic didn't begin to describe his activities. Like many pro players, he spent a year coaching at the pro level, for the San Diego Conquistadors of the American Basketball Association. San Diego had wanted him to be a player-coach, but legal entanglements prevented that, and Chamberlain soon because bored with a coach-only role. In 1984 he acted in the movie Conan the Barbarian. Big-league volleyball attracted his energies for a while, as did tennis, running marathons and even polo. At one point he hoped to challenge Muhammad Ali to a world heavyweight fight.
Even when he was in his 50s, a story would pop up every now and then about some NBA team talking to Chamberlain about making a comeback, figuring he could still give them 15 or 20 solid minutes as a backup center. Chamberlain, who loved the limelight, seemed to bask in those reports, but he never took up any team on its offer. Rather he continued to be a voracious reader who also published several books and involved himself with other pursuits including maintaining a lively bachelor's existence.
In 1978, his first year of eligibility, Chamberlain was elected to the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, and in 1996-97 he was selected to the NBA 50th Anniversary All-Time Team.
On Oct. 12, 1999, Chamberlain passed away at the age of 63 due to heart failure at his home, which he named Ursa Major after the constellation containing the stars forming the Big Dipper, his trademark in the basketball world. He left the NBA as a legendary figure to talk about for years to come.
I would suspect that the three year totals of the mega elite are very similar.
Back to Wilt and Russell, and Aro as you and I both stated, basketball is not nearly as condusive to statistical analysis as baseball is. That was one of my first points...with how a team or philosphy can contrive statistics for a player.
I don't think that there is any doubt that if Bill Russell wanted to average 27 points a game, that he would have NO PROBLEM at all accomplishing that feat. But there would most likely be an expense to it! On the flip side, could Chamberlain allow his point totals to drop? Could he afford to? Good questions. There is that delicate balance!
SOme of the same stuff was said about Jordan and his early years. His early years he had some bad basketball players, but his critics said it was his unwillingness to share the ball. That wasn't true. He did pass, and passed well. He just didn't have the horses. His game didnt' change at all in his first title run. The only thing that did change were the ability of his teammates. He got a couple of really good ones. Again, a delicate balance!
The thing that still bothers me about Wilt is his obvious crutch...some people are down playing it, but there isn't a coach in the world that would down play it, or take advantage of it.
Aro, the only thing I believe you are not considering enough is the smallness of the NBA that allowed the pioneer athletic big men to dominate, a domination that simply isn't possible for the big men of the past 30 years. Part of that domination is because of the high point or rebound total. That is a combination of their height advantage AND the numbers I posted above about the rebounds available, and shots available. This aspect has nothing to do with Wilt vs. Russell, but comes into play with all time meaurements.
STEVEK, all those things are a result of him being a pioneer athletic big man in a 'small man's' league, AND from the numbers I posted above about the rebounds and shots available. The fact that they had to change rules for him makes my point! He enjoyed advantages that centers 20 years later did not. That is the reason for that 'dominance'. I could go and dominate an eight grade league right now, but that doesn't mean I am a better basketball player in the realm of history. David Robinson would have no problem scoring 100 points when his average opposition is four inches smaller, and he takes the requisite shots to do so.
Read that article carefully, and you can find instances and quotes that highlight exactly what Chamberlain's naysayers are pointing out.
Greatness is measured by championships, not be individual stats. If Jordan or Bird had never won a title, they would just be like Dan Marino. Superstars who could never get it done. FYI, I do consider Havlicek to be on the greatest forwards ever. Wilt beat the Celtics once in the playoffs. 1968-69 Celtics 4 Lakers 3 1967-68 Celtics 4 Sixers 3 1966-67 Celtics 1 Sixers 4 1965-66 Celtics 4 Sixers 1 1964-65 Celtics 4 Sixers 3 1963-64 Celtics 4 Warriors 1 1961-62 Celtics 4 Warriors 3 1959-60 Celtics 4 Warriors 2
Collecting 1970s Topps baseball wax, rack and cello packs, as well as PCGS graded Half Cents, Large Cents, Two Cent pieces and Three Cent Silver pieces.
<< <i>Greatness is measured by championships, not be individual stats. If Jordan or Bird had never won a title, they would just be like Dan Marino. Superstars who could never get it done. . >>
There have been a lot of good points in this thread, unfortunately, this isn't one of them. I think we beat the living bejeezers out of that whole QB Marino title notion in another thread, including the true formula of what got Bradshaw etc...rings, while a better QB didn't get any. That thread can be dug up by another person. I don't see how a sane person can rationalize otherwise. Yes, I said bskb titles matter a little more than baseball, but it is still a small portion in measuring an INDIVIDUAL. There are plenty other good points about why this, and why that, but this isn't one since it seems to be THE criteria.
Greatness is measured by how good you actually are...measurements that isolate the stuff that measures YOU and not the things that are out of your control(teammates, luck, chance, circumstance). A measurement that is relied heavily on championships won measures so many things that are out of the reign of an individual, it is simply ridiculous to use it as a main criteria. Simply measuring how many championships you have has ZERO relevance in measuring how good a baseball player is, has maybe 2% more for a QB, just a little bit more for a bskb player, and a whole lot more for a tennis player.
Unfortunately, this quote and type of thinking knocks us back to the caveman days. And like I pointed out earlier, Michael Jordan in 1991 wasn't any better than Michael Jordan in 1988. The ONLY difference was that he had a ring in 1991, and the ONLY reason why that occured is because he got good enough teammates to get it done...well good fortune helped a bit too. Probably a call here or there didn't hurt either. But it certainly wasn't because of an increase in ability, nor an increase in teamwork, and certainly not an increase in the ability to handle pressure...it was teammates pure and simple. Had those teammates never arrived, and Gene Banks remained a lifer, Michael Jordan would have no titles either.
P.S. If somebody were to stick ardhently to their titles won as their main premise, then by my count, Gene Tenace 4, Jim Rice 0. Trent Dilfer 1, Dan Marino 0.
<< <i>Greatness is measured by championships, not be individual stats. If Jordan or Bird had never won a title, they would just be like Dan Marino. Superstars who could never get it done. FYI, I do consider Havlicek to be on the greatest forwards ever. Wilt beat the Celtics once in the playoffs. 1968-69 Celtics 4 Lakers 3 1967-68 Celtics 4 Sixers 3 1966-67 Celtics 1 Sixers 4 1965-66 Celtics 4 Sixers 1 1964-65 Celtics 4 Sixers 3 1963-64 Celtics 4 Warriors 1 1961-62 Celtics 4 Warriors 3 1959-60 Celtics 4 Warriors 2
Looks like the best ever couldn't get it done. >>
This only proves that the Celtics were better than any team Wilt played on, not that any player on the better team was better than Wilt. And your Marino comment is invalid for your own incorrect point because Chamberlain did help his team win two NBA championships.
P.S. If somebody were to stick ardhently to their titles won as their main premise, then by my count, Gene Tenace 4, Jim Rice 0.
Even if one comes back and says, Yeah but you said yourself basketball means more. I say, but if you believe that it means basically everything, then surely baseball must mean something! And if Jim Rice was the main cog on his team, then he could not get it done, and if Gene Tenace was the soul of the A's, then surely he must be heads and shoulders above Rice...at least that is exactly what the pure title backers are saying.
Please see my Jordan point two posts above as well, that says it all.
By the way, people who discount Gene Tenace, probably don't know much about him(or what wins games). I find it funny that they laugh at the notion of even being compared to Rice.
Another P.S. Jim Rice wasn't really the main cog...he was actually their third best outfielder.
Aro, I have ALWAYS thought that Chamberlain was better than Russell, and I have to say you make as compelling a case for Russell as anybody...including Red Auerbach. You don't simply say he has X amount of titles, therefore he is x. You add valid points and ideas to that. In other words, you don't use the caveman logic. Others simply point to the titles as their only defense, despite the fact how fundamentally flawed that logic is. It is flawed enough that it always contradicts their views on other player vs. player situations.
Your points have caused me to step back and rethink the whole idea. I don't know exactly what I think on it, and I've made many anti-Chamberlain points in this thread.
I am convinced that Chamberlain's perceived dominance stems solely from his early day gaudy numbers, and I am equally convinced that many of those numbers are contrived, and a result of him being the first athletic really BIG man. They may well be numbers of WILL rather than SKILL.
Why do I say that? How could a guy that is so heads and shoulders dominant above EVERYBODY(according to his numbers), not be able to get past the first round of playoffs against so so teams? One season he averaged 44 points a GAME, and they only went 31-49! That right there tells me those numbers are contrived. It isn't as if he shot 80% from the field to achieve those points. No. He simply did something that Kareem could easily have done with the same amount of shots. In fact, given that time in the NBA, Kareem(who actually had offensive skills other than just being very tall), would put up equally or better numbers if it were contrived to be so, as it was for Wilt.
In 1961, Wilt took 1,200 more shots than the next closest guy in the league! His shooting % was .509. He averaged 50 points a game as a result...a full 19 points higher than the next leading scorer! He scored 1,500 more points than the next guy. He led in rebounds at 25 a game.
Two points on this...
1). a .509 FG% against guys who are much smaller than he tells me that any center among Ewing, Olajuwon, Jabbar, Daugherty, Robinson, Gilmore etc...could have also averaged 50 points a game that season if given the same amount of shot opportunties. They too would have out muscled/heighted the smaller opponents, but they actually had offensive skill as well. That 50 point per game season is what gives Chamberlain his legend, but it is partly contrived. Later centers had to endure mountain of men like Eaton and Smits, and you simply can't just outmuscle them and jump over them like Wilt did to his smaller opponents. Night in and night out, the opposing center(and forwards to boot), were just as big, and also skilled.
2) Back to the record. His teammates were not terrible by any means. If you look, almost all of them had 10+ years as starters in the NBA. This isn't Gene Banks territory. Was Wilt Chamberlain really 19 points per game better than the next guy? Boy, if he really was 19 pts per game better than the next guy, then that is the best advantage ANY team in the history of sport has ever had...better than any Babe Ruth season(compared to the next guy in the league). In basketball, that team should win it all if he truly was 19 points better than the next guy, being how much in control of the game a basketball player is. But was he really 19 points better, or was it a matter of the numbers simply being contrived? In his best years, with those outlandish numbers, his team's endured one terrible sub .500 season, a first round exit to a sub .500 team, and then some good runs, but not good enough to overcome the Celtics. That 19 point lead over the next best scorere represnets a contrived figure, more than it measures Chamberlains dominance and place in history. This is why you can't point to his early gaudy numbers, and say most dominant, hence best ever. Those numbers are contrived.
Seems as though you keep trying to talk yourself into believing this silly notion. Well this is typical of someone who years later is just analyzing numbers, and didn't actually see the player play. This is sometimes done also with baseball stats when analyzing players based on them building up decent looking lifetime numbers, when the players really weren't of Hall of Fame caliber. There is an old saying (which I just madeup) "He who has twenty mediocre to average MLB seasons, those combined stats do not a Hall of Famer make"
But if you would ever actually speak to players and fans of that NBA era, Chamberlain was actually better than his tremendous stats. Yes, that's right...BETTER! Munch on that one. LOL
SteveK, actually, the people in the know during that time had Russell as the best player. And what I am saying is that looking at his numbers is the wrong thing to do. Those are what make people believe he is more dominant than he was.
As for the 20 mediocore seasons making a Hall of Famer? For a novice analyst it may make a Hall of Famer. Compiling baseball numbers like total hits doesn't make somebody a Hall of Famer, and anybody who goes back and looks at faulty analysis will make all kinds of mistakes. A guy who compiles 20 .390 OB% years, well that is a different story
Back to Wilt. Again, contrived. I state this again...
1). a .509 FG% against guys who are much smaller than he tells me that any center among Ewing, Olajuwon, Jabbar, Daugherty, Robinson, Gilmore etc...could have also averaged 50 points a game that season if given the same amount of shot opportunties. They too would have out muscled/heighted the smaller opponents, but they actually had offensive skill as well. That 50 point per game season is what gives Chamberlain his legend, but it is partly contrived. Later centers had to endure mountain of men like Eaton and Smits, and you simply can't just outmuscle them and jump over them like Wilt did to his smaller opponents. Night in and night out, the opposing center(and forwards to boot), were just as big, and also skilled.
2) Back to the record. His teammates were not terrible by any means. If you look, almost all of them had 10+ years as starters in the NBA. This isn't Gene Banks territory. Was Wilt Chamberlain really 19 points per game better than the next guy? Boy, if he really was 19 pts per game better than the next guy, then that is the best advantage ANY team in the history of sport has ever had...better than any Babe Ruth season(compared to the next guy in the league). In basketball, that team should win it all if he truly was 19 points better than the next guy, being how much in control of the game a basketball player is. But was he really 19 points better, or was it a matter of the numbers simply being contrived? In his best years, with those outlandish numbers, his team's endured one terrible sub .500 season, a first round exit to a sub .500 team, and then some good runs, but not good enough to overcome the Celtics. That 19 point lead over the next best scorere represnets a contrived figure, more than it measures Chamberlains dominance and place in history. This is why you can't point to his early gaudy numbers, and say most dominant, hence best ever. Those numbers are contrived.
Tom Gola Hall of Famer Paul Azizin Hall of Famer Hal Greer Hall of Famer Chet Walker Should be Billy Cunningham Hall of Famer Elgin Baylor Hall of Famer Jerry West Hall of Famer
So Wilt did have a supporting cast. You make it look like he was the only good player on his teams.
<< <i>Tom Gola Hall of Famer Paul Azizin Hall of Famer Hal Greer Hall of Famer Chet Walker Should be Billy Cunningham Hall of Famer Elgin Baylor Hall of Famer Jerry West Hall of Famer
So Wilt did have a supporting cast. You make it look like he was the only good player on his teams. >>
No doubt Wilt helped lift a number of those guys into the Hall of Fame, not of course the last two. But the Celtics were clearly the better team of that era - better overall players and better coaching.
Wilt was double and triple teamed which is why the basketball - baseball comparisons aren't really valid. Last time I checked, baseball players usually don't get double and triple teamed. Only in rare instances, such as the "McCovey shift" does defense change perceptively that much in baseball except for moving the players around slightly in the field. Some players get walked more than others such as Bonds - a defensive strategy. But Wilt did all he did despite the defenses doing everything possible to stop him. Even Russell has stated that his strategy was not to stop Chamberlain because he couldn't do it, but just to limit Wilt's success during a game.
But this thread for sure is a stalemate at this point so I'm outahere. Enjoyed the discussion even though the views of the anti-Chamberlain crowd here are positively flawed.
So basically my kid won't be able to go to college, but at least I'll have a set where the three most expensive cards are of a player I despise ~ CDsNuts
The only ultimate goal in professional team sports is to win the championship. And in basketball, as others have said, statistics are going to happen no matter who is playing. If you are on the floor, stats happen. Compiling stats without winning is garbage in basketball. Anyone who has played the game on even the lowet level knows this. It is a team game and to compare basketball stats to batting statistics is worthless. I have been trying for years to devise an effective qualitative tool to show impact on basketball. I think something like hockey's plus/minus ought to be used more than the traditional stats. The team is all that matters, particularly in the NBA as EVERYONE in the league is fantastically good at basketball.
More later, gotta go get something to eat.
I am buying and trading for RC's of Wilt Chamberlain, George Mikan, Bill Russell, Oscar Robertson, Jerry West, and Bob Cousy! Don't waste your time and fees listing on ebay before getting in touch me by PM or at gregmo32@aol.com !
O.k, what does that mean? 1) It means that you have two or three smaller guys who still are going to have a hard time contesting his shot, let alone a threat to block one, nor does it mean that they are big strong guys who could muscle him. It isn't as if you have a tandem of Mark Eaton and Karl Malone double teaming him. The only flawed thinking in this thread is to think he would be able to do the same thing he did to the smaller men on a nightly basis, and then do it to men who are actually bigger, and many just as athletic.
2) The above is assuming he is being double teamed very near the basket. Not to hard to simply jump above those guys. If he is being double or triple teamed away from the basket, then it would show even more how faulty a basketball player he is. I don't think there is need to elaborate on why, as it should be painfully obvious. But I don't think it was even obvious to Wilt until later in his career.
The baseball comparison with McCovey is taking advantage of an obvious flaw that is coachable against, and is a viable strategy. In McCovey's case it would simply be bringing in a LH pitcher(especially in the first 1/3 of his career).
In Chamberlain's case, it would be his awful free throw shooting. In any game in which Chamberlain's team is down by two points, he is a huge liability, and his 'dominance' is eliminitaed. Aro pointed out some of the 4th quarter and playoff FT%, and fatigue and other strategy play a role in that. The so called 'best player' ever would be relegated to a Will Perdue figure in those closing moments, and in ELITE competition those moments come up.
FInally, DOMINANCE. It is not hard to walk away thinking a guy is DOMINANT when he is clearly bigger and more athletic than his pasty competition. Of course anybody seeing him will think that, and they would think the exact same thing with David Robsinon, Olajuwon, and Ewing, if their competition were a bunch of 6-8 white guys.
O.k, what does that mean? 1) It means that you have two or three smaller guys who still are going to have a hard time contesting his shot, let alone a threat to block one, nor does it mean that they are big strong guys who could muscle him. It isn't as if you have a tandem of Mark Eaton and Karl Malone double teaming him. The only flawed thinking in this thread is to think he would be able to do the same thing he did to the smaller men on a nightly basis, and then do it to men who are actually bigger, and many just as athletic.
2) The above is assuming he is being double teamed very near the basket. Not to hard to simply jump above those guys. If he is being double or triple teamed away from the basket, then it would show even more how faulty a basketball player he is. I don't think there is need to elaborate on why, as it should be painfully obvious. But I don't think it was even obvious to Wilt until later in his career.
The baseball comparison with McCovey is taking advantage of an obvious flaw that is coachable against, and is a viable strategy. In McCovey's case it would simply be bringing in a LH pitcher(especially in the first 1/3 of his career).
In Chamberlain's case, it would be his awful free throw shooting. In any game in which Chamberlain's team is down by two points, he is a huge liability, and his 'dominance' is eliminitaed. Aro pointed out some of the 4th quarter and playoff FT%, and fatigue and other strategy play a role in that. The so called 'best player' ever would be relegated to a Will Perdue figure in those closing moments, and in ELITE competition those moments come up.
FInally, DOMINANCE. It is not hard to walk away thinking a guy is DOMINANT when he is clearly bigger and more athletic than his pasty competition. Of course anybody seeing him will think that, and they would think the exact same thing with David Robsinon, Olajuwon, and Ewing, if their competition were a bunch of 6-8 white guys. >>
Points taken, but hey the guy wasn't some terminator robot - he of course has flaws just like any other human being. Yes, I remember those last minutes of games Chamberlain was in during that era, and the "foul strategy" that other teams employed which was many times successful. It was quite "painful" to watch Wilt shoot free throws.
But frankly, I think you underestimate those other players of the 60's and early 70's - they weren't chopped liver - it was still the NBA and they were all good basketball players, albeit yes smaller than Chamberlain.
Bottom line - one person has to be called the "greatest" player and I have read nothing in this thread to come even minutely close of convincing me otherwise that the greatest basketball player of all time is not Wilt Chamberlain.
<< <i>FInally, DOMINANCE. It is not hard to walk away thinking a guy is DOMINANT when he is clearly bigger and more athletic than his pasty competition. Of course anybody seeing him will think that, and they would think the exact same thing with David Robsinon, Olajuwon, and Ewing, if their competition were a bunch of 6-8 white guys. >>
I was at that game in SA and everyone knew who the real MVP was
Edited to add: PS - Hakeem was only 6'9 on a good day...
So basically my kid won't be able to go to college, but at least I'll have a set where the three most expensive cards are of a player I despise ~ CDsNuts
The NBA wasn't chopped liver, and Wilt is in the team photo for all time best...BUT you can't fall in love with his points and rebounds as evidence of greatness, as the reasons are laid out to why that occured.
He probably still would be the top center in any of the last 20 years, but the second best center would be right there with him, and the third too. That is the difference. He simply wouldn't have that perceived dominance.
AND, he still would be an awful free throw shooter, and guys like Bird/Jordan/Magic who are every bit as good offensively(and probably better as they are capable of scoring inside/outside/and driving), would have to be a bit above him in winning more games overall.
Comments
HIS FIRST COMING AND HIS BIG INJURY
'83 w/out=27 wins
'84 with...=38 wins
'85 w/out = 18-46(23 win pace)
'85 with...=12-4 (55 win pace)
'86 with = 40 wins
TOTAL AVG WIN EXPECTANCY....44 win season with----25 win season without. EQUALS +19
HIS FIRST RETIREMENT & FIRST COMEBACK
'92 with = 57 wins
'93 w/out..=55 wins
'94 w/out = 34-31(a 43 win pace)
'94 with.....=14-3(a 72 win pace)
'95 with....= 72 wins
TOTAL AVG WIN EXPECTANCY....67 win season with----49 win season without. EQUALS +18
HIS SECOND RETIREMENT & SECOND COMEBACK
'97 with...=62 wins
'98 w/out= 13 wins(lost Pippen too, so giving only Jordan half=37 wins)
'00 w/out= 19 wins
'01 with..=37 wins
'02 with...=37 wins
'03 w/out= 25 wins.
TOTAL AVG WIN EXPECTANCY...45 win season with------27 win season without. EQUALS +18
So in the three distinct before and after scenario's in Jordan's career, they come in amazingly all the same with an +18 win difference with JOrdan in the lineup, as opposed to out. This is projecting the shorter seasons to full season wins, and this is not taking into account any player personnel...except the year they lost Pippen too and dropped a whopping 49 games. I only gave Jordan half credit for that(which is saying he is equal to Pippen, which he isn't). Other than that, I did not touch or delve into any other player moves, as nobody EVER does that when they are using these before/after scenarios with other players like Bird, Russell, etc... EXcept I DID do it in the Pippen case, and Jordan's 'with' games would be much higher at face value without digging deeper like other folks do.
I admit I am surprised how even all three periods came out. It doesn't prove anything, and it shouldn't, but it should temper anybody who uses one year examples of a teams' wins as to how much this guy was worth, and it should CERTAINLY temper anybody from using solely the 1993 - 1994 Bulls example as their evidence of Jordan's value. Just in that span alone, when you dig deeper you see the following year how that changed already(until Jordan came back). When you expand his other clear cut before/after scenario's you get to see a more true picture.
The average NBA team in 1966 had 5,400 odd rebounds.
The average NBA team in 1990 had 3,500 odd rebounds.
This is a result of various reasons, but regardless the reasons, this is why you see those outlandish total rebounds in Wilt's days. Coupled with his huge height advantage no other center has enjoyed in the past 30 years, then the picture starts to become more clear.
The average NBA team in 1966 averaged 8,300 field goal attempts.
The average NBA team in 1990 averaged 7,100 field goal attempts.
This helps explain the rebound totals, and also explains the ease to score high point totals.
dallasactuary - Russell is a better rebounder than Wilt (Wilt himself has said Russell is the greatest clutch rebounder in the history of the game and have you ever heard Wilt give anybody a compliment). He blocked more shots than Wilt. His blocked shots led to more fast breaks. He is a better free throw shooter than Wilt. He is FAR better at elevating his game at crunch time. The players who played in the same era felt Russell was better. Russell played 16 seasons of college, pro and olympic ball and won 14 titles. To simply dismiss this fact as being irrelevant and dependant on his teammates is like not taking into account the fact that Jim Rice played his entire career in Fenway Park. Please, name two of his college teammates. Please name two of his teammates that won more than 1 title without him. Basketball cannot be evaluated using the same statistical analysis as baseball.
Wilt was a great player. Agreed. He had more offensive skills than Russell. He has better career offensive statistics than Russell. Great. No way on earth he wins 11 titles in 13 seasons with the Celtics. No chance. Why? He would have had to sacrifice his game for the good of the team. As history has shown he seldom did that.
He was basketball's unstoppable force, the most awesome offensive force the game has ever seen. Asked to name the greatest players ever to play basketball, most fans and aficionados would put Wilt Chamberlain at or near the top of the list.
Wilt Chamberlain as a Laker won 33 straight games and the NBA title in 1971-72.
Dominating the game as few players in any sport ever have, Chamberlain seemed capable of scoring and rebounding at will, despite the double- and triple-teams and constant fouling tactics that opposing teams used to try to shut him down.
As Oscar Robertson put it in the Philadelphia Daily News when asked whether Chamberlain was the best ever, "The books don't lie."
The record books are indeed heavy with Chamberlain's accomplishments. He was the only NBA player to score 4,000 points in a season. He set NBA single-game records for most points (100), most consecutive field goals (18) and most rebounds (55). Perhaps his most mind-boggling stat was the 50.4 points per game he averaged during the 1961-62 season--and if not that, then perhaps the 48.5 minutes per game he averaged that same year.
He retired as the all-time in career points with 31,419, which was later surpassed by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Karl Malone and Michael Jordan. He is tops in rebounds with 23,924. He led the NBA in scoring seven years in a row. He was the league's top rebounder in 11 of his 14 seasons. And as if to prove that he was not a selfish player, he had the NBA's highest assist total in 1967-68.
But the most outstanding figures are his scoring records; Most games with 50+ points, 118; Most consecutive games with 40+ points, 14; Most consecutive games with 30+ points: 65; Most consecutive games with 20+ points: 126; Highest rookie scoring average: 37.6 ppg; Highest field goal percentage in a season: .727. And with many of these, the player in second place is far behind. His name appears so often in the scoring record books that his name could be the default response any time a question arises concerning a scoring record in the NBA.
During his career, his dominance precipitated many rules changes. These rules changed included widening the lane, instituting offensive goaltending and revising rules governing inbounding the ball and shooting free throws (Chamberlain would leap with the ball from behind the foul line to deposit the ball in the basket).
No other player in NBA history has spawned so many myths nor created such an impact. It's difficult to imagine now, with the seemingly continuing surge of bigger skilled players, the effect of playing against Chamberlain, who was not only taller and stronger than almost anyone he matched up against but remarkably coordinated as well. A track and field star in high school and college, Chamberlain stood 7-1 and was listed at 275 pounds, though he filled out and added more muscle as his career progressed and eventually played at over 300 pounds.
An incident recounted in the Philadelphia Daily News involving Tom Meschery of the Seattle SuperSonics illustrated what it was like to play in the trenches against Chamberlain. Meschery had the ball in the line and put up four fakes before attempting his shot. Chamberlain slapped the ball down. Meschery got it again, faked again, and got it blocked again. Enraged and frustrated, the Seattle player ran up to Chamberlain swinging. As if in a scene from The Three Stooges, Chamberlain put his hand on the 6-6 Meschery's head and let him swing away harmlessly. After the third swing, Chamberlain said, "That's enough," and Meschery stopped.
Chamberlain's power was legendary. Rod Thorn, who has been a player, coach, GM and NBA executive, remembers a fight in which Chamberlain reached down and picked up a fellow player from a pile of bodies as if he were made of feathers. The man was 6-8 and weighed 220 pounds.
Chamberlain was one of the few players of his day who had the sheer strength to block a dunk. In a game against New York in 1968, Walt Bellamy, the Knicks' 6-11, 245-pound center, attempted to dunk on Chamberlain. "Bellamy reared back," one spectator who was there later recalled to the Philadelphia Daily News, "and was slamming the ball down when Wilt put his hand above the top of the rim and knocked the ball off the court. He almost knocked Bellamy off the court, too."
Strength was something Chamberlain developed as a college and professional player. Photographs of him in high school show a slender, agile boy who, at 6-11, towered above the other players. In three varsity seasons at Philadelphia's Overbrook High, starting in 1952-53, Chamberlain led the team to records of 19-2, 19-0, and 18-1. His coaches there took full advantage of his gifts. The team would practice missing free throws so that Chamberlain could grab them and score field goals. At a time when goaltending was legal, Chamberlain sometimes infuriated his teammates by tipping balls in on their way down, even if they were on target.
During his prep years, he scored 2,206 points and had individual games in which he scored 90, 74 and 71 points. In his senior year he averaged 44.5 points. In his 90-point game he scored 60 points in 12 minutes of the second half. "But it's nothing," Chamberlain said in the Philadelphia Inquirer in 1991, "when you consider that the team we were playing against was trying to freeze the ball."
It was also during this time that one of his nicknames, "the Stilt," was coined by a local newspaper writer. Chamberlain detested it, as he did other monikers that called attention to his height, such as "Goliath." The names he didn't mind were "Dippy" and "Dipper," along with the later variant, "Big Dipper." The story goes that Chamberlain's buddies seeing him dip his head as his walked through doorways tagged him with the nickname and it stuck.
In 1955, Chamberlain announced he would play college ball at the University of Kansas. Because NCAA rules at the time prohibited freshmen from playing at the varsity level, Chamberlain was placed on the freshman team upon his arrival at Kansas. His first contest with the freshmen was against the varsity, which was favored to win its conference that year. Chamberlain later reminisced about the game in the Philadelphia Daily News: "We whipped 'em, 81-71. I had 40 or 42 points, about 30 rebounds, about 15 blocks. I knew I had to show them either I could do it or I couldn't."
Chamberlain made his debut for the Jayhawks' varsity squad in a game against Northwestern on Dec. 3, 1956. He set a school record when he scored 52 points in an 87-69 victory. Chamberlain then guided Kansas to the 1957 NCAA title game against North Carolina. Although North Carolina beat Kansas by one point in triple overtime, Chamberlain was named the tournament's Most Outstanding Player.
The following year he was selected to all-conference and All-America teams. He showed his athletic versatility by winning the high jump competition in the Big Eight track and field championships, clearing the bar at 6-6. In May, 1958 Chamberlain decided to forego his senior season at Kansas, opting instead to turn pro. But because of an NBA rule that prevented college players from playing in the league until their class graduated, he was in limbo for one year. He passed the time by playing for the Harlem Globetrotters in 1958-59 for a salary reported to be around $50,000, an astronomical sum at the time.
In 1955, the NBA created a special "territorial" draft rule that allowed a team to claim a local college player in exchange for giving up its first-round pick. The idea was to cash in on college stars who had built strong local followings, but the Philadelphia Warriors, who were owned by the cagey Eddie Gottlieb, took it one step further. They claimed Chamberlain as a territorial pick even though he had played his college ball in Kansas. Gottlieb, one of the NBA's founding fathers, argued that Chamberlain had grown up in Philadelphia and had become popular there as a high school player, and since there were no NBA teams in Kansas, they held his territorial rights. The league agreed, marking the only time in NBA history that a player was made a territorial selection based on his pre-college roots.
When Chamberlain finally slipped on a Philadelphia uniform for the start of the 1959-60 season, the basketball world eagerly awaited the young giant's debut -- and he didn't disappoint. In his first game, against the Knicks in New York, he pumped in 43 points and grabbed 28 rebounds. In a sensational rookie year, Chamberlain averaged 37.6 points and 27.0 rebounds and was named NBA Rookie of the Year, All-Star Game Most Valuable Player and NBA Most Valuable Player as well as being selected to the All-NBA First Team. Only Wes Unseld would duplicate Chamberlain's feat of winning Rookie of the Year and MVP honors in the same season. (Unseld did it in 1968-69.)
With Chamberlain, the Warriors vaulted from last to second and faced the Boston Celtics in the 1960 NBA Playoffs. The series saw the first postseason confrontation between Chamberlain and defensive standout Bill Russell, a matchup that would grow into the greatest individual rivalry in the NBA and possibly any sport. During the next decade, the pair would square off in the playoffs eight times. Chamberlain came away the victor only once. In that initial confrontation, Chamberlain outscored Russell by 81 points, but the Celtics took the series, four games to two.
Chamberlain's inaugural season seemed to take a heavy toll on him. After the postseason loss to Boston, the rookie stunned his fans by announcing that he was thinking of retiring because of the excessively rough treatment he had endured from opponents. He feared that if he played another season, he would be forced to retaliate, and that wasn't something he wanted to do.
In Chamberlain's first year, and for several years afterward, opposing teams simply didn't know how to handle him. Tom Heinsohn, the great Celtics forward who later became a coach and broadcaster, said Boston was one of the first clubs to apply a team-defense concept to stop Chamberlain. "We went for his weakness," Heinsohn told the Philadelphia Daily News in 1991, "tried to send him to the foul line, and in doing that he took the most brutal pounding of any player ever.. I hear people today talk about hard fouls. Half the fouls against him were hard fouls."
Dominating the game as few players in any sport ever have, Chamberlain seemed capable of scoring and rebounding at will, despite the double- and triple-teams and constant fouling tactics that opposing teams used to try to shut him down.
Despite his size and strength, Chamberlain was not an enforcer or a revenge seeker. He knew how to control his body and his emotions and rarely got into altercations. One indication of this was the astonishing statistic that not once in his 14-year career, in more than 1,200 regular and postseason games, did he foul out. Some people claimed he simply wasn't aggressive enough. "My friends would say, 'Hey man, you should throw [Bill] Russell in the basket, too.' " said Chamberlain. "They said I was too nice, too often against certain of my adversaries."
Of course, Chamberlain didn't retire. He simply endured the punishment and learned to cope with it, bulking up his muscles to withstand the constant shoving, elbowing and body checks other teams used against him.
In a virtual repeat of his rookie year, he poured in 38.4 points and 27.2 rebounds per game in 1960-61. The next season he made a quantum leap in his performance. Posting a phenomenal average of 50.4 points per game, he became the only player in history to score 4,000 points in a season.
On March 2, 1962, Chamberlain set a record that may stand forever. In a game against the New York Knicks in Hershey, Pa., he scored 100 points in four quarters to help the Warriors win the game, 169-147. Despite the fact that Chamberlain had reportedly stayed out all night the previous evening, he obviously came ready to play against the Knicks. Chamberlain was so "on" that he even made 28 of 32 free throws, despite having, up to that point in the season, just a paltry .506 percentage from the stripe.
He hit 36-for-63 from the field, about which he commented to HOOP magazine, "My God, that's terrible. I never thought I'd take that many shots in a game." Toward the end of the game, the Warriors went out of their way to feed Chamberlain the ball, to the point of fouling the Knicks whenever they had possession.
In 1962, Chamberlain moved with the franchise to San Francisco, and he led the league in scoring in both 1962-63 and 1963-64. The Warriors lost to the Celtics in the 1964 Finals in five games. But midway through the following season, he was sent back home to Philadelphia. Two days after the 1965 All-Star Game (a game in which he scored 20 points and pulled down 16 rebounds), Chamberlain was swapped to the 76ers, formerly the Syracuse Nationals until the 1963-64 season, for Connie Dierking, Lee Shaffer, Paul Neumann and $150,000. In Philadelphia, he joined a promising 76ers team that included Hal Greer and Larry Costello in the backcourt and Chet Walker and Luke Jackson up front.
The Sixers were a .500 ballclub in Chamberlain's initial year on the team. The following season, 1965-66, Philadelphia posted the best record in the league, at 55-25, but for the second year in a row the 76ers fell to Boston in the Eastern Division Finals. Philadelphia, which had added talented forward Billy Cunningham, started the year by winning 45 of its first 49 games en route to an 68-13 record, at the time the best in league history.
In the division semifinals, the Sixers ousted Cincinnati. The division finals saw the 76ers matched up against the Celtics -- and Chamberlain matched up against Russell once again. After years of frustration, Chamberlain finally got by his arch rival as Philadelphia raced by Boston in five games, ending the Celtics' eight-year stranglehold on the NBA title. Playing the Warriors in the 1967 NBA Finals, the Sixers came away with the championship, winning the series in six games.
After his monstrous scoring year in 1961-62, Chamberlain's average dropped slowly each year until the 1967-68 season, when it rose slightly to 24.3 points per game from 24.1 the season before. During his first seven years Chamberlain scored an average of 39.4 points per game and led the league in scoring all seven seasons, a string matched only by Michael Jordan two decades later. In Chamberlain's second seven years, he averaged 20.7 points.
Was the waning production attributable to the effects of age and better defenses? Chamberlain didn't think so. "I look back and know that my last seven years in the league versus my first seven years were a joke in terms of scoring," he told the Philadelphia Daily News. "I stopped shooting -- coaches asked me to do that, and I did. I wonder sometimes if that was a mistake."
One of the main reasons coaches asked him to shoot less was to try to win more. Of the 14 years he played in the NBA, only twice did his teams emerge with the NBA title. In 1966-67, Sixers Coach Alex Hannum asked Chamberlain to pass the ball more often than shoot, and to play more aggressive defense. The strategy worked. Although he failed to win the NBA scoring title for the first time in his career, averaging 24.1 points, Chamberlain recorded the league's highest shooting percentage (.683), had the most rebounds (24.2 rpg), and was third in assists (7.8 apg).
Chamberlain took his new role so seriously that he led the league in assists the next season. In 1967-68, he was also chosen to the All-NBA First Team for the seventh and final time and selected league MVP for the fourth and final time. After taking the Eastern Division that season, the Sixers were eliminated in the Conference Finals for the third time in four seasons by the Celtics. Soon after, Chamberlain was traded to the Lakers for Jerry Chambers, Archie Clark and Darrall Imhoff.
He spent his final five campaigns in Los Angeles and helped the Lakers to the NBA Finals four times in those five seasons. The most notable season was 1971-72, in which he scored only 14.8 points per game. But his contributions came in other forms. At age 35, he managed to grab 19.2 rebounds per contest and was selected to the NBA All-Defensive First Team.
Chamberlain had become a great team player, complementing the styles of guards Jerry West and Gail Goodrich and forwards Happy Hairston and Jim McMillian. The 1971-72 Lakers set an NBA record by winning 33 games in a row en route to a then NBA-record 69-13 regular-season mark, one victory better than Chamberlain's 1966-67 Sixers team (the Chicago Bulls with Michael Jordan would post a 72-10 record in 1995-96 . The Lakers then stormed to the championship with a five-game triumph against New York in the 1972 NBA Finals.
Retiring from the NBA at the end of the 1972-73 season, Chamberlain went on to demonstrate the full range of his talents. Eclectic didn't begin to describe his activities. Like many pro players, he spent a year coaching at the pro level, for the San Diego Conquistadors of the American Basketball Association. San Diego had wanted him to be a player-coach, but legal entanglements prevented that, and Chamberlain soon because bored with a coach-only role. In 1984 he acted in the movie Conan the Barbarian. Big-league volleyball attracted his energies for a while, as did tennis, running marathons and even polo. At one point he hoped to challenge Muhammad Ali to a world heavyweight fight.
Even when he was in his 50s, a story would pop up every now and then about some NBA team talking to Chamberlain about making a comeback, figuring he could still give them 15 or 20 solid minutes as a backup center. Chamberlain, who loved the limelight, seemed to bask in those reports, but he never took up any team on its offer. Rather he continued to be a voracious reader who also published several books and involved himself with other pursuits including maintaining a lively bachelor's existence.
In 1978, his first year of eligibility, Chamberlain was elected to the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, and in 1996-97 he was selected to the NBA 50th Anniversary All-Time Team.
On Oct. 12, 1999, Chamberlain passed away at the age of 63 due to heart failure at his home, which he named Ursa Major after the constellation containing the stars forming the Big Dipper, his trademark in the basketball world. He left the NBA as a legendary figure to talk about for years to come.
I would suspect that the three year totals of the mega elite are very similar.
Back to Wilt and Russell, and Aro as you and I both stated, basketball is not nearly as condusive to statistical analysis as baseball is. That was one of my first points...with how a team or philosphy can contrive statistics for a player.
I don't think that there is any doubt that if Bill Russell wanted to average 27 points a game, that he would have NO PROBLEM at all accomplishing that feat. But there would most likely be an expense to it! On the flip side, could Chamberlain allow his point totals to drop? Could he afford to? Good questions. There is that delicate balance!
SOme of the same stuff was said about Jordan and his early years. His early years he had some bad basketball players, but his critics said it was his unwillingness to share the ball. That wasn't true. He did pass, and passed well. He just didn't have the horses. His game didnt' change at all in his first title run. The only thing that did change were the ability of his teammates. He got a couple of really good ones. Again, a delicate balance!
The thing that still bothers me about Wilt is his obvious crutch...some people are down playing it, but there isn't a coach in the world that would down play it, or take advantage of it.
Aro, the only thing I believe you are not considering enough is the smallness of the NBA that allowed the pioneer athletic big men to dominate, a domination that simply isn't possible for the big men of the past 30 years. Part of that domination is because of the high point or rebound total. That is a combination of their height advantage AND the numbers I posted above about the rebounds available, and shots available. This aspect has nothing to do with Wilt vs. Russell, but comes into play with all time meaurements.
STEVEK, all those things are a result of him being a pioneer athletic big man in a 'small man's' league, AND from the numbers I posted above about the rebounds and shots available. The fact that they had to change rules for him makes my point! He enjoyed advantages that centers 20 years later did not. That is the reason for that 'dominance'. I could go and dominate an eight grade league right now, but that doesn't mean I am a better basketball player in the realm of history. David Robinson would have no problem scoring 100 points when his average opposition is four inches smaller, and he takes the requisite shots to do so.
Read that article carefully, and you can find instances and quotes that highlight exactly what Chamberlain's naysayers are pointing out.
FYI, I do consider Havlicek to be on the greatest forwards ever. Wilt beat the Celtics once in the playoffs.
1968-69 Celtics 4 Lakers 3
1967-68 Celtics 4 Sixers 3
1966-67 Celtics 1 Sixers 4
1965-66 Celtics 4 Sixers 1
1964-65 Celtics 4 Sixers 3
1963-64 Celtics 4 Warriors 1
1961-62 Celtics 4 Warriors 3
1959-60 Celtics 4 Warriors 2
Looks like the best ever couldn't get it done.
<< <i>Gene Tenace better than Jim Rice? You must be joking or you are out of your mind. >>
Neither.
<< <i> Wilt beat the Celtics once in the playoffs. >>
ONE MAN beat an entire team of Hall of Famers?!?!?!?! My God, Wilt was even better than I thought!
Man, you must be smoking some wacky weed, bro!
Collecting 1970s Topps baseball wax, rack and cello packs, as well as PCGS graded Half Cents, Large Cents, Two Cent pieces and Three Cent Silver pieces.
<< <i>Greatness is measured by championships, not be individual stats. If Jordan or Bird had never won a title, they would just be like Dan Marino. Superstars who could never get it done.
. >>
There have been a lot of good points in this thread, unfortunately, this isn't one of them. I think we beat the living bejeezers out of that whole QB Marino title notion in another thread, including the true formula of what got Bradshaw etc...rings, while a better QB didn't get any. That thread can be dug up by another person. I don't see how a sane person can rationalize otherwise. Yes, I said bskb titles matter a little more than baseball, but it is still a small portion in measuring an INDIVIDUAL. There are plenty other good points about why this, and why that, but this isn't one since it seems to be THE criteria.
Greatness is measured by how good you actually are...measurements that isolate the stuff that measures YOU and not the things that are out of your control(teammates, luck, chance, circumstance). A measurement that is relied heavily on championships won measures so many things that are out of the reign of an individual, it is simply ridiculous to use it as a main criteria. Simply measuring how many championships you have has ZERO relevance in measuring how good a baseball player is, has maybe 2% more for a QB, just a little bit more for a bskb player, and a whole lot more for a tennis player.
Unfortunately, this quote and type of thinking knocks us back to the caveman days. And like I pointed out earlier, Michael Jordan in 1991 wasn't any better than Michael Jordan in 1988. The ONLY difference was that he had a ring in 1991, and the ONLY reason why that occured is because he got good enough teammates to get it done...well good fortune helped a bit too. Probably a call here or there didn't hurt either. But it certainly wasn't because of an increase in ability, nor an increase in teamwork, and certainly not an increase in the ability to handle pressure...it was teammates pure and simple. Had those teammates never arrived, and Gene Banks remained a lifer, Michael Jordan would have no titles either.
P.S. If somebody were to stick ardhently to their titles won as their main premise, then by my count, Gene Tenace 4, Jim Rice 0. Trent Dilfer 1, Dan Marino 0.
<< <i>Greatness is measured by championships, not be individual stats. If Jordan or Bird had never won a title, they would just be like Dan Marino. Superstars who could never get it done.
FYI, I do consider Havlicek to be on the greatest forwards ever. Wilt beat the Celtics once in the playoffs.
1968-69 Celtics 4 Lakers 3
1967-68 Celtics 4 Sixers 3
1966-67 Celtics 1 Sixers 4
1965-66 Celtics 4 Sixers 1
1964-65 Celtics 4 Sixers 3
1963-64 Celtics 4 Warriors 1
1961-62 Celtics 4 Warriors 3
1959-60 Celtics 4 Warriors 2
Looks like the best ever couldn't get it done. >>
This only proves that the Celtics were better than any team Wilt played on, not that any player on the better team was better than Wilt. And your Marino comment is invalid for your own incorrect point because Chamberlain did help his team win two NBA championships.
Even if one comes back and says, Yeah but you said yourself basketball means more. I say, but if you believe that it means basically everything, then surely baseball must mean something! And if Jim Rice was the main cog on his team, then he could not get it done, and if Gene Tenace was the soul of the A's, then surely he must be heads and shoulders above Rice...at least that is exactly what the pure title backers are saying.
Please see my Jordan point two posts above as well, that says it all.
By the way, people who discount Gene Tenace, probably don't know much about him(or what wins games). I find it funny that they laugh at the notion of even being compared to Rice.
Another P.S. Jim Rice wasn't really the main cog...he was actually their third best outfielder.
Aro, I have ALWAYS thought that Chamberlain was better than Russell, and I have to say you make as compelling a case for Russell as anybody...including Red Auerbach. You don't simply say he has X amount of titles, therefore he is x. You add valid points and ideas to that. In other words, you don't use the caveman logic. Others simply point to the titles as their only defense, despite the fact how fundamentally flawed that logic is. It is flawed enough that it always contradicts their views on other player vs. player situations.
Your points have caused me to step back and rethink the whole idea. I don't know exactly what I think on it, and I've made many anti-Chamberlain points in this thread.
I am convinced that Chamberlain's perceived dominance stems solely from his early day gaudy numbers, and I am equally convinced that many of those numbers are contrived, and a result of him being the first athletic really BIG man. They may well be numbers of WILL rather than SKILL.
Why do I say that? How could a guy that is so heads and shoulders dominant above EVERYBODY(according to his numbers), not be able to get past the first round of playoffs against so so teams? One season he averaged 44 points a GAME, and they only went 31-49!
That right there tells me those numbers are contrived. It isn't as if he shot 80% from the field to achieve those points. No. He simply did something that Kareem could easily have done with the same amount of shots. In fact, given that time in the NBA, Kareem(who actually had offensive skills other than just being very tall), would put up equally or better numbers if it were contrived to be so, as it was for Wilt.
In 1961, Wilt took 1,200 more shots than the next closest guy in the league! His shooting % was .509. He averaged 50 points a game as a result...a full 19 points higher than the next leading scorer! He scored 1,500 more points than the next guy. He led in rebounds at 25 a game.
Two points on this...
1). a .509 FG% against guys who are much smaller than he tells me that any center among Ewing, Olajuwon, Jabbar, Daugherty, Robinson, Gilmore etc...could have also averaged 50 points a game that season if given the same amount of shot opportunties. They too would have out muscled/heighted the smaller opponents, but they actually had offensive skill as well. That 50 point per game season is what gives Chamberlain his legend, but it is partly contrived. Later centers had to endure mountain of men like Eaton and Smits, and you simply can't just outmuscle them and jump over them like Wilt did to his smaller opponents. Night in and night out, the opposing center(and forwards to boot), were just as big, and also skilled.
2) Back to the record. His teammates were not terrible by any means. If you look, almost all of them had 10+ years as starters in the NBA. This isn't Gene Banks territory. Was Wilt Chamberlain really 19 points per game better than the next guy? Boy, if he really was 19 pts per game better than the next guy, then that is the best advantage ANY team in the history of sport has ever had...better than any Babe Ruth season(compared to the next guy in the league). In basketball, that team should win it all if he truly was 19 points better than the next guy, being how much in control of the game a basketball player is. But was he really 19 points better, or was it a matter of the numbers simply being contrived? In his best years, with those outlandish numbers, his team's endured one terrible sub .500 season, a first round exit to a sub .500 team, and then some good runs, but not good enough to overcome the Celtics. That 19 point lead over the next best scorere represnets a contrived figure, more than it measures Chamberlains dominance and place in history. This is why you can't point to his early gaudy numbers, and say most dominant, hence best ever. Those numbers are contrived.
Seems as though you keep trying to talk yourself into believing this silly notion. Well this is typical of someone who years later is just analyzing numbers, and didn't actually see the player play. This is sometimes done also with baseball stats when analyzing players based on them building up decent looking lifetime numbers, when the players really weren't of Hall of Fame caliber. There is an old saying (which I just madeup) "He who has twenty mediocre to average MLB seasons, those combined stats do not a Hall of Famer make"
But if you would ever actually speak to players and fans of that NBA era, Chamberlain was actually better than his tremendous stats. Yes, that's right...BETTER! Munch on that one. LOL
Signed
Stevek
caveman
As for the 20 mediocore seasons making a Hall of Famer? For a novice analyst it may make a Hall of Famer. Compiling baseball numbers like total hits doesn't make somebody a Hall of Famer, and anybody who goes back and looks at faulty analysis will make all kinds of mistakes. A guy who compiles 20 .390 OB% years, well that is a different story
Back to Wilt. Again, contrived. I state this again...
1). a .509 FG% against guys who are much smaller than he tells me that any center among Ewing, Olajuwon, Jabbar, Daugherty, Robinson, Gilmore etc...could have also averaged 50 points a game that season if given the same amount of shot opportunties. They too would have out muscled/heighted the smaller opponents, but they actually had offensive skill as well. That 50 point per game season is what gives Chamberlain his legend, but it is partly contrived. Later centers had to endure mountain of men like Eaton and Smits, and you simply can't just outmuscle them and jump over them like Wilt did to his smaller opponents. Night in and night out, the opposing center(and forwards to boot), were just as big, and also skilled.
2) Back to the record. His teammates were not terrible by any means. If you look, almost all of them had 10+ years as starters in the NBA. This isn't Gene Banks territory. Was Wilt Chamberlain really 19 points per game better than the next guy? Boy, if he really was 19 pts per game better than the next guy, then that is the best advantage ANY team in the history of sport has ever had...better than any Babe Ruth season(compared to the next guy in the league). In basketball, that team should win it all if he truly was 19 points better than the next guy, being how much in control of the game a basketball player is. But was he really 19 points better, or was it a matter of the numbers simply being contrived? In his best years, with those outlandish numbers, his team's endured one terrible sub .500 season, a first round exit to a sub .500 team, and then some good runs, but not good enough to overcome the Celtics. That 19 point lead over the next best scorere represnets a contrived figure, more than it measures Chamberlains dominance and place in history. This is why you can't point to his early gaudy numbers, and say most dominant, hence best ever. Those numbers are contrived.
Have you read 'Wages of Wins'? I keep meaning to pick it up, but I always forget every time I'm on Amazon.
Paul Azizin Hall of Famer
Hal Greer Hall of Famer
Chet Walker Should be
Billy Cunningham Hall of Famer
Elgin Baylor Hall of Famer
Jerry West Hall of Famer
So Wilt did have a supporting cast. You make it look like he was the only good player on his teams.
<< <i>Tom Gola Hall of Famer
Paul Azizin Hall of Famer
Hal Greer Hall of Famer
Chet Walker Should be
Billy Cunningham Hall of Famer
Elgin Baylor Hall of Famer
Jerry West Hall of Famer
So Wilt did have a supporting cast. You make it look like he was the only good player on his teams. >>
No doubt Wilt helped lift a number of those guys into the Hall of Fame, not of course the last two. But the Celtics were clearly the better team of that era - better overall players and better coaching.
Wilt was double and triple teamed which is why the basketball - baseball comparisons aren't really valid. Last time I checked, baseball players usually don't get double and triple teamed. Only in rare instances, such as the "McCovey shift" does defense change perceptively that much in baseball except for moving the players around slightly in the field. Some players get walked more than others such as Bonds - a defensive strategy. But Wilt did all he did despite the defenses doing everything possible to stop him. Even Russell has stated that his strategy was not to stop Chamberlain because he couldn't do it, but just to limit Wilt's success during a game.
But this thread for sure is a stalemate at this point so I'm outahere. Enjoyed the discussion even though the views of the anti-Chamberlain crowd here are positively flawed.
Dream was the greatest center ever.
Period.
Stevek that is one thing we should all agree on.
1957 Topps PSA
1961 Fleer SGC
The only ultimate goal in professional team sports is to win the championship. And in basketball, as others have said, statistics are going to happen no matter who is playing. If you are on the floor, stats happen. Compiling stats without winning is garbage in basketball. Anyone who has played the game on even the lowet level knows this. It is a team game and to compare basketball stats to batting statistics is worthless. I have been trying for years to devise an effective qualitative tool to show impact on basketball. I think something like hockey's plus/minus ought to be used more than the traditional stats. The team is all that matters, particularly in the NBA as EVERYONE in the league is fantastically good at basketball.
More later, gotta go get something to eat.
Don't waste your time and fees listing on ebay before getting in touch me by PM or at gregmo32@aol.com !
O.k, what does that mean? 1) It means that you have two or three smaller guys who still are going to have a hard time contesting his shot, let alone a threat to block one, nor does it mean that they are big strong guys who could muscle him. It isn't as if you have a tandem of Mark Eaton and Karl Malone double teaming him. The only flawed thinking in this thread is to think he would be able to do the same thing he did to the smaller men on a nightly basis, and then do it to men who are actually bigger, and many just as athletic.
2) The above is assuming he is being double teamed very near the basket. Not to hard to simply jump above those guys. If he is being double or triple teamed away from the basket, then it would show even more how faulty a basketball player he is. I don't think there is need to elaborate on why, as it should be painfully obvious. But I don't think it was even obvious to Wilt until later in his career.
The baseball comparison with McCovey is taking advantage of an obvious flaw that is coachable against, and is a viable strategy. In McCovey's case it would simply be bringing in a LH pitcher(especially in the first 1/3 of his career).
In Chamberlain's case, it would be his awful free throw shooting. In any game in which Chamberlain's team is down by two points, he is a huge liability, and his 'dominance' is eliminitaed. Aro pointed out some of the 4th quarter and playoff FT%, and fatigue and other strategy play a role in that. The so called 'best player' ever would be relegated to a Will Perdue figure in those closing moments, and in ELITE competition those moments come up.
FInally, DOMINANCE. It is not hard to walk away thinking a guy is DOMINANT when he is clearly bigger and more athletic than his pasty competition. Of course anybody seeing him will think that, and they would think the exact same thing with David Robsinon, Olajuwon, and Ewing, if their competition were a bunch of 6-8 white guys.
<< <i>Doube, triple teamed?
O.k, what does that mean? 1) It means that you have two or three smaller guys who still are going to have a hard time contesting his shot, let alone a threat to block one, nor does it mean that they are big strong guys who could muscle him. It isn't as if you have a tandem of Mark Eaton and Karl Malone double teaming him. The only flawed thinking in this thread is to think he would be able to do the same thing he did to the smaller men on a nightly basis, and then do it to men who are actually bigger, and many just as athletic.
2) The above is assuming he is being double teamed very near the basket. Not to hard to simply jump above those guys. If he is being double or triple teamed away from the basket, then it would show even more how faulty a basketball player he is. I don't think there is need to elaborate on why, as it should be painfully obvious. But I don't think it was even obvious to Wilt until later in his career.
The baseball comparison with McCovey is taking advantage of an obvious flaw that is coachable against, and is a viable strategy. In McCovey's case it would simply be bringing in a LH pitcher(especially in the first 1/3 of his career).
In Chamberlain's case, it would be his awful free throw shooting. In any game in which Chamberlain's team is down by two points, he is a huge liability, and his 'dominance' is eliminitaed. Aro pointed out some of the 4th quarter and playoff FT%, and fatigue and other strategy play a role in that. The so called 'best player' ever would be relegated to a Will Perdue figure in those closing moments, and in ELITE competition those moments come up.
FInally, DOMINANCE. It is not hard to walk away thinking a guy is DOMINANT when he is clearly bigger and more athletic than his pasty competition. Of course anybody seeing him will think that, and they would think the exact same thing with David Robsinon, Olajuwon, and Ewing, if their competition were a bunch of 6-8 white guys. >>
Points taken, but hey the guy wasn't some terminator robot - he of course has flaws just like any other human being. Yes, I remember those last minutes of games Chamberlain was in during that era, and the "foul strategy" that other teams employed which was many times successful. It was quite "painful" to watch Wilt shoot free throws.
But frankly, I think you underestimate those other players of the 60's and early 70's - they weren't chopped liver - it was still the NBA and they were all good basketball players, albeit yes smaller than Chamberlain.
Bottom line - one person has to be called the "greatest" player and I have read nothing in this thread to come even minutely close of convincing me otherwise that the greatest basketball player of all time is not Wilt Chamberlain.
<< <i>FInally, DOMINANCE. It is not hard to walk away thinking a guy is DOMINANT when he is clearly bigger and more athletic than his pasty competition. Of course anybody seeing him will think that, and they would think the exact same thing with David Robsinon, Olajuwon, and Ewing, if their competition were a bunch of 6-8 white guys. >>
Uh, Hakeem dominated Robinson, Ewing, and Shaq.
Youtube Video
I was at that game in SA and everyone knew who the real MVP was
Edited to add: PS - Hakeem was only 6'9 on a good day...
The NBA wasn't chopped liver, and Wilt is in the team photo for all time best...BUT you can't fall in love with his points and rebounds as evidence of greatness, as the reasons are laid out to why that occured.
He probably still would be the top center in any of the last 20 years, but the second best center would be right there with him, and the third too. That is the difference. He simply wouldn't have that perceived dominance.
AND, he still would be an awful free throw shooter, and guys like Bird/Jordan/Magic who are every bit as good offensively(and probably better as they are capable of scoring inside/outside/and driving), would have to be a bit above him in winning more games overall.