Wilt vs. Duncan?

[Doctor MJ]

Re: Wilt vs these non-all-timers. My take:

1. It's really hard for me to spend much time on the "but how would we do if we transplanted him into today without any training" question. I mean, obviously all sorts of little things are better today. People aren't thinking about Wilt's shoe-disadvantage when they do this, and they should be if they really want to tackle this seriously. I'm not going to waste my time thinking about Wilt's shoe-disadvantage personally. When I compare Wilt to current players, I'm going to give him the benefit of the doubt on stuff like that...

2. And Wilt's peak impact is clearly well beyond the guys being mentioned in the last page here...

3. However, at the same time the really alarming thing about Wilt's career is that the evidence is indicating that there was a lot of time when he was REALLY spinning his wheels, which is not something I think is happening to guys like Howard or Hibbert. I don't think it's crazy to say that in Wilt's lower moments he was having less impact than Hibbert, as long as it's clear that Hibbert's peak is not in Wilt's league.

[CBB_Fan]

Fatal9 you are starting to sound like the guys who claim Bob Cousey would be unable to dribble with both hands in today's NBA. Like Warspite said if Wilt was transported to the league today, he would be able to pick up on the more modern styles of the NBA in probably a year or two.

First of all, almost all of my last post is critical of the way Wilt played and the impact he had in his OWN era.

Secondly, if Wilt fans really want to open the "transport him to this era" can of worms, then they better be prepared to answer a lot of questions.

Is he magically going to develop a better touch to shoot free throws and from everywhere else on the floor? Is he not going to be even more of a liability at the end of games as teams would use "hack-a-Wilt" even more? Would his FT shooting not even be MORE of a liability with no "three to make two" rule? He relied on what I believe was an inefficient go to shot, that would be even more inefficient by today's standards because offenses overall are more efficient (better skills, shooting, 3pters)? Is his defensive impact (questionable in lot of years already) not going to be reduced with better perimeter offense from 15+ feet? Will he be a liability in the pick and roll game on defense? How would his predictable offensive game work against better team defenses? How is he going to handle the more sophisticated defenses in the post? He would have to make his moves quicker and with less dribbles. In '62 the league was 70% white, had only a handful of guys weight/length wise to even consider dealing with him, clearly worse team defensive schemes, the lane was 12 feet, and you think his own era was holding down his impact? Growing up in this era is suddenly going to give him better footwork when big men growing up today aren't learning those skills? Is he going to overcome his mental flaws? Why should I give Wilt credit for "playing the right way" now, when he struggled with it for his almost entire career? For every advantage you can post of Wilt having if he was transported to this era, I can post two saying the exact opposite.

You can't shift the goal posts every time, by bringing up his stats in his own era and then not answering questions about his impact, and then bringing up certain things he would do better in this era and ignoring the many other things that he probably wouldn't. Whether it's what he did in his own era or what he would do now, Wilt doesn't measure highly for me (ie. top 10 player all-time good) in either situation.

My belief is that Wilt's statistical dominance, and the lack of corresponding impact, both come down to the era that he played. I tried to explain myself, but didn't do a very good job at it. Basically, his type of scoring and playing wouldn't translate very well to the modern game, but his physical abilities would.

In the modern era, I think Wilt would have the following differences:

1. A better, more refined post-game (different moves, greater arsenal, etc.)
2. Less of a reliance on statistical dominance
3. More use of physical traits, ie length, height, athleticism

My reasoning is that Wilt didn't need a super refined post game to excel in his era. His finger rolls and fade away shots went in often enough to put up big numbers, and no one told him it would be better to do it a different way. In the modern era, he'd be raised to a different standard.

Similarly, I don't think he would put up 35/20 in the modern era. I think his impact would be more in the 25/15/2 range with good FG%, though his TS% would still suffer from bad free throw percentages. I also think that his physical skills would be more exploited now because of the way the modern game works; his speed would allow him to quickly help on defense and guard smaller opponents, while his size and strength would make it very hard for defenders to deal with him.

Of course, this is all conjecture, but I think it is reasonable that Wilt the athlete would translate well to the modern NBA and have an impact similar to Dwight Howard's, though greater in magnitude. That would make him a top 3 or top 2 player right now, not even considering the lack of quality big players in the league.

[D.Brasco]

I would take period anti-wilt press articles with a grain of salt. The press hated wilt and he had a notoriously rough relationship with them "Nobody roots for goliath".

I can find a good number of similar anti-kareem articles in the 70's as well. Wilt in the early 60's was probably about as loved by the media as kobe was in the period where shaq had just left.

[Doctor MJ]

My reasoning is that Wilt didn't need a super refined post game to excel in his era. His finger rolls and fade away shots went in often enough to put up big numbers, and no one told him it would be better to do it a different way. In the modern era, he'd be raised to a different standard.

Okay, perhaps this makes sense based on the discussion you were having, but it has to be noted:

The one thing we absolutely DO know is that Wilt's DID NOT excel in his era as a scorer. That's the problem. His scoring was so problematic it wasn't having much of a net impact at all.

We truly don't know anything else. It's not impossible that in a later era he'd have been a super-Shaq level scorer, but in his own era, you can't say, "Hey, he did what worked" because it didn't.

And as we talk about "in this era he'd be taught better" there's some truth in this, but we still have volume scorers earning max salaries without contributing even Shane Battier-level impact in today's game. Not everything's fixed.

[Doctor MJ]

I would take period anti-wilt press articles with a grain of salt. The press hated wilt and he had a notoriously rough relationship with them "Nobody roots for goliath".

I can find a good number of similar anti-kareem articles in the 70's as well. Wilt in the early 60's was probably about as loved by the media as kobe was in the period where shaq had just left.

This is why you need to take everything into consideration.

People at the time saw these minority opinions and for the most part didn't dwell on them.

Then Hannum comes along and shows that really and truely, the reliance on Wilt's scoring was the reason why a team capable of being the best offense in history was mediocre. So, circa 1967, already it didn't make sense to adopt your faith here.

Now in addition to all of that we have all sorts of data, and all of it backs up the Wilt skeptics.

This is too much for any objective person to take simply dismiss.

[penbeast0]

Don't have any objective data to back this up, but since I believe from seeing them that one reason the Wilt/Warrior offenses were not great team offenses is that they would just stall away 10 seconds off every halfcourt opportunity waiting for Wilt to walk up.

Hannum didn't only put in a different offense, he was notoriously the biggest running/conditioning freak as a coach. He believed a preseason practice where no players were throwing up from all the running and suicides was wasted. It could be (again, without data) that Wilt was just in better running shape so there may have been a lot less of the wasted stalling time as well.

I say running shape because Wilt's weightlifting was already well ahead of his day (coaches used to discourage it for fear of players becoming "musclebound"). But in terms of running, Wilt was probably in better shape for it with Hannum despite his practice of regularly holding out to miss as much of the preseason mickey mouse as he could every year.

[MacGill]

Ok, so reviewing the video footage, thank you Dipper13, I have a couple of questions and I am hoping Fatal9 jumps back in here.

I am finding a theme and the theme is that teams wanted Wilt to score for the good of the game. On page 9, when Wilt joins Philly the person doing the documentary says that they wanted Wilt to score and score lots, to attract fans. Bill Russell also makes mention to this in the Wilt 100 documentary and says the 2 of them were trying to bring popularity to the sport.

ThaRegul8tr has posted an article in which the league thought it would be good for Wilt to average 50ppg for the season and his teammates championed this to turn into a reality by ensuring he had all the touches needed.

Ok now look, I am just going to throw out something which will appear pretty silly, but maybe this is why it is hard to see his impact given the ultra high raw stats. I mean, could the league have cared about Wilt stats first, for the expansion of the game, and Wilt team impoact 2nd because of this?

I mean, what team says 'hell yeah' I'll pass up my opportunity as a professional athlete' so you can become the highest paid player in the league and get the praise?

Now, I read articles from earlier in his career questioning his impact? I mean a journalist can figure this out but not a professional nba coach? And then the swing is so extreme but the sport has caught on and growing.

I guess what I am trying to say is that as more pieces come out? The more I also think his sole purpose was to put the nba on the map, which he did of course but too many things just aren't making sense from a competitive athlete pov.

Obsessed soley about individual stats and chose this over team success at times

Why would he care so much about what people thought unless the outcome of their thoughts was 'I won't come watch you'?

Never seemed truly in luv with the sport and teammates site he never hung out with the team

Suddenly he is changed in how he is utilized because his teams aren't winning??? Was it to showcase skill or to give the fans what they wanted to see or hadn't really been seeing. His teams winning.

I don't know....just typing out loud here.

[Shot Clock]

his 1963 team sucked, they were horrible, everyone knows this and saying otherwise is revisionist history.

Wow, okay. So your premise is the typical “his teammates sucked”, “Wilt was amazing, look at his numbers” and so on, and anything else is "revisionist history".

Here is an article from 1963 which states exactly what I and other posters have written about Wilt, with his OWN teammates saying exactly what we are.

http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=y8 ... 35,2744031

February, 23, 1963, titled: “Wilt hurts Warriors despite high average”

Some things the article points out:

“The basketball riddle for today: how can a man score 45 points a night and still be a liability to his team?...Wilt’s lassitude is in the sameness of his pattern. He stands close to the basket for dunks or leans back for a fadeaway jump shot. Nothing else.”

To the question of Wilt having poor support (he had two all-stars on his team by the way), an NBA veteran says “if Wilt played like he does with San Francisco, the Celtics would lose too”, he has “slovenly habits which have began to eat away at the Warriors as a team.”

This is what one of Wilt’s “horrible” teammates Tom Gola had to say about his role in the offense around Wilt after he got traded mid-season:

“Some games I was never in it offensively at all. I went one whole half without getting a shot. I was always fouling out of games, or on the verge, because I was the only one laying back to pick up on defense.”

"Willie Naulls, a 20-point scorer for six seasons with New York, is now a 14 point scorer with the Warriors. Willie doesn't drive, and Wilt doesn't pass out."

So one article. Lets look at his drastic impact on Willie Naulis. Willie was a low efficiency volume scorer for NY who was falling off when he was traded. He came and spent 1 year in GS where he averaged .420 FG% and 11 points. Then he left for the promised land in Boston where he'd get to play for a real team and a real player in Russell and get back to his old form (result .417 FG% and 9.8 ppg)

Gola? He has just bounced from Philly we ha was involved to the tune of just over 12 FGA/G and got totally cut out of SFW with only 11.6 FGA/g. In NY the next year he never saw that many shots or points again.

I can find articles blasting most of the GOAT list for one thing or another. It's a piece of the puzzle but it needs to be looked at.

This is a guy who put up 35/23 in the season on league leading 51% shooting that year, and was also a defensive force according to his fans. Why are his boxscore numbers not translating to impact? Why is his team the worst in the league when he is averaging an “amazing!!” 39/24?

Is he to blame that his team couldn't shoot? His team average FG% was .403. He had 1 other teammate with a positive PER. His next 3 highest scorers shot .419, .380, .394 respectively. While shooting a combined 43.2 FGA to score a combined 43.8 points. While Wilt shot 33.6 times to score 38.9 (rudimentary I know but it shows how inefficient these guys were)

Do you hold Kobe responsible for his team's poor showing in 2006? He had 3 teammates with a positive PER and his next 3 highest scorers shot a combined .474 FG% on 28.9 attempts while Kobe was at 27.2 FGA and a .450 FG%. I think Wilt might have faired better with a little more support like Kobe had.

Why is the team he got traded to not improve record wise when he is averaging an “amazing!!” 30/23? After all, for most, the case for Wilt’s greatness hinges on his boxscore numbers does it not. Why is it translating to such little impact?

Wel he got traded to Philly from GS and immediately took the Celts to a Game 7 the first half season he was there. Philly was 34 wins the season before he joined and 55 wins the first full season he played there. So I'm not sure where you are going with this.

Okay, so another season where there is an excuse for why Wilt should be immune to criticism and isn’t improving the team as much as expected. They really seem to be starting to add up. Like I said he gets traded to a roster that was starving for a center all decade (SRS goes down, lose to same team, actually have more trouble getting out of the first round than they did previously...how can he have such little impact?).

Are you twisting things intentionally? Lose to the same team? They took the freaking Celts to Game 7 he got injured in the 4th and his idiot coach went with reserves and ended up losing a close game, getting himself run out of town in the process.

And the first round? Seriously? It took them 6 games instead of 5.

and then an article about his salary? By someone sounding bitter and has no understanding that teams bring players in to sell tickets?

[Doctor MJ]

So one article. Lets look at his drastic impact on Willie Naulis. Willie was a low efficiency volume scorer for NY who was falling off when he was traded. He came and spent 1 year in GS where he averaged .420 FG% and 11 points. Then he left for the promised land in Boston where he'd get to play for a real team and a real player in Russell and get back to his old form (result .417 FG% and 9.8 ppg)

Gola? He has just bounced from Philly we ha was involved to the tune of just over 12 FGA/G and got totally cut out of SFW with only 11.6 FGA/g. In NY the next year he never saw that many shots or points again.

You need a better quick-scan approach to looking at historical stats my friend. Go look at the per minute numbers, you'll see that both players took clear steps forward when they left the Warriors...despite the fact that they went to the 2 worst offenses in the league, and hence what should have been the two least capable of making them productive.

The fact that they happened to play less minutes when they went to the new team is of course something to be mentioned as well. If you want to make an argument based on given playing time that's one thing, but when we're talking about what happened when the guys were actually playing on the court with Wilt, the answer is that they hit their low point with Wilt.

Is he to blame that his team couldn't shoot? His team average FG% was .403. He had 1 other teammate with a positive PER. His next 3 highest scorers shot .419, .380, .394 respectively. While shooting a combined 43.2 FGA to score a combined 43.8 points. While Wilt shot 33.6 times to score 38.9 (rudimentary I know but it shows how inefficient these guys were)

This was the reasonable point to make before 1967. After all, with all the pressure Wilt was theoretically taking off his teammates, he MUST be making them more efficient than they'd otherwise be, right? Turns out no. When Wilt stopped volume scoring, his teammates' efficiency skyrocketed in one of the great year over year improvements in all of history.

Attach the blame where you want, but the result of a Wilt-as-volume-scorer system was that other scoring talent just died on the vine.

[QuantMisleads]

his 1963 team sucked, they were horrible, everyone knows this and saying otherwise is revisionist history.

Wow, okay. So your premise is the typical “his teammates sucked”, “Wilt was amazing, look at his numbers” and so on, and anything else is "revisionist history".

To be clear, only for one year.

So he’s possibly having a negative impact on the team offensively and isn’t playing defense. Now it starts to make sense how a player putting up 45/24 can be leading one of the worst teams in the league. This is an example of his greatness? When he is volume scoring the offense is predictable and he is making everyone around him worse, yet his teammates are to blame? This is from the words of someone who who played with him night after night from the time period in question and it is EXACTLY what posters (see Doctor MJ’s “price of anarchy”) write on this board.

This is a guy who is having a negative impact on every single one of his teammates and you want me to place no blame on him for why his team sucks? What good is his volume scoring if he makes the team worse on offense (or at best, having a positive impact but giving the offense a very low ceiling) while doing it? Is the point of the game to put up numbers or win games? Do you consider Adrian Dantley to be a better scorer than Larry Bird? If this is the type of offense Wilt needs to put up his “amazing” averages which apparently a reason he is the “GOAT”, then sorry, his numbers are completely meaningless to me. It’s of no meaning to me when you say Wilt “averaged 44 ppg” to whatever Duncan or KG averaged, he is NOT a better offensive player to me just because of his averages. That’s not how I see the game.

I know all about his 1963 season. His coach also started benching him (Wilt) for not playing the way he wanted. But the fact of the matter is, if you want to talk about OUTLIERS, 1963 was an outlier, with so many moving variables. You had a franchise team move to a new city, with them losing 2 out of their top 3 players and their coach Frank McGuire. Their team was clearly dysfunctional that season. Plus, again people like yourself start with the ridiculous notion that a center is hogging the ball. Does a center hog the ball, or does the ball have to be passed to him? Think on that a little more instead of posting that drivel.

But explain to me how I’m in the wrong or “revising history” on that season for seeing past the numbers, looking into details and then questioning his impact. Is it a coincidence that when most posters on this board took a deeper look into his career that they came out thinking less of him?

Not unreasonable to question his impact, but to know the impact Wilt made you have to dig very deep and look at everything. You can't look at a few variables and say "ok, he sucked" or "ok, he rocked". And people know that I won't make excuses for his bad seasons like in 1969, where he WAS a cancer to the team, but that was mostly because of his coach. And this is the part that then infuriates me. People extrapolate from this bad season or 1963 or 1965(when he was having a bad season due to health issues) and say "oh, this must mean he wasn't very good in ANY season". Yes, this must mean that there was no difference from 1969, where he was nowhere near the MVP list or on the NBA all defensive team (1969 was the first season this existed), to 1972 where he was 2nd in MVP and on the all defensive team.

And BTW, Wilt became a poor offensive player in his later years, but he hid it well by not shooting much. This was probably a direct result of never practicing. I think he got worse every year from 1964 onwards. For example, if you look at some of the videos posted on these Wilt threads and look at the period where he was very young, he was simply a reign of terror on offense. Yet if you juxtapose this to the videos we have of the 1964 finals, you see a big difference. Even by then his offensive peak had fallen a lot. Again I attribute this to his never practicing. Now was this a detriment to his team? Well in the 65 playoffs he played very well vs. Boston, and in 1966 Dipper 13 has brought up newspaper articles of what happened in those playoffs. 1967 he changed his role, and I definitely think it was for the better, especially if he wasn't going to be practicing.

Now I know what you’re going to say..."but that was Wilt’s role, he would make more impact if used differently”. But he was used differently in many types of roles in his career and he still was prone to bad habits. Wilt had a bizarre obsession with stats that dictated how he plays no matter if he is volume scoring (where he plays in a way to score as much as possible while hurting the team), whether he is an offensive hub (where he began playing in a way to pad his assist totals which again lowered the ceiling of his teams offensively), whether he is just a finisher (where he reduces his aggressiveness and has clear instances of where he stops shooting to preserve FG% ). This is not someone I’m going to give credit for playing the “right way” when he was put in all sorts of situations and ALWAYS had some kind of issues. He is fundamentally flawed in the way he approaches the game. Duncan is everything Wilt isn’t, and that’s a good thing.

I won't argue with this latter point, but we're not debating who had the better career. We're arguing who had the better talent, and was the better player. Wilt having issues with having goals is actually VASTLY overstated, everyone has **** goals, just because Wilt's was magnified by analysts doesn't mean **** frankly. For one, it shows the talent he had. But you simply cannot connect that with their having failed as a team, it's dishonest and you're trying to make a direct causal connection where it's never sound to do so. Duncan and Russell didn't have these "flaws" because THEY WEREN'T GOOD ENOUGH. But even more importantly, what did these players have that Wilt never had? A consistent coach throughout his life. And that is something that is never, ever mentioned, as if it doesn't matter somehow.

In 1964-1965 Wilt had health issues (a heart attack), and even he knew he was playing badly and was in a funk.

Fair enough, but again, you’re missing the point. This is a guy who put up 35/23 in the season on league leading 51% shooting that year, and was also a defensive force according to his fans. Why are his boxscore numbers not translating to impact? Why is his team the worst in the league when he is averaging an “amazing!!” 39/24? Why is the team he got traded to not improve record wise when he is averaging an “amazing!!” 30/23? After all, for most, the case for Wilt’s greatness hinges on his boxscore numbers does it not. Why is it translating to such little impact?

Why did you accept my point and then go on to quote his stats from that season as if it means something? More importantly however, his team did take the Celtics to 7 games and they nearly won, with Wilt scoring the last 10 points of the game for the 76ers. Same thing with game 7 in 1962, having scored the last 6 points including 2 free throws. In fact, there were many scenarios where Wilt was clutch in the last game of a series. Some of those games he lost, like in both 1962-1965.

Okay, so another season where there is an excuse for why Wilt should be immune to criticism and isn’t improving the team as much as expected. They really seem to be starting to add up. Like I said he gets traded to a roster that was starving for a center all decade (SRS goes down, lose to same team, actually have more trouble getting out of the first round than they did previously...how can he have such little impact?). If a center who is the greatest at every facet of the game according to his fans isn’t having an impact in a season his coach asked him to stop shooting, then what is his value? And blaming everything on the coach (who actually improved the Laker offense when he came in the previous year) is exactly why I find it pointless to argue with Wilt fans. You don’t want to hold him accountable for anything. Did his coach make him drop his scoring from 21 ppg on 56 TS% to 13.7 ppg on 51.8 TS% in the playoffs (and even worse in the finals)? Did his coach make him go 2/11 from the line in a game his team lost by one point and he had only 8 points? Why is Wilt the one who is having all these issues? Does this not say bad things about his portability, especially offensively? And based on Wilt's history, isn't the coach RIGHT in asking him to score less?

I won't deny it, in 1969 Wilt purposely played as bad as he possibly could. It does say a lot about Van Breda Koff that he was still playing Wilt despite this, because the failure of that season goes straight to him not clearing up his relationship with Wilt.

More importantly, you're not trying to make the point that Wilt actually sucked when he was the clear and runaway MVP for the past 3 seasons prior to that? No, you couldn't be doing that, could you?

anyway one of the points in all this is that a lot of Wilt's failures can be explained by the fact that he did not have a consistent and good coach like other players did. And it was through no fault of his own, in fact I would say he was marred for life from the moment he entered KU, where they told him that Phog Allen could no longer coach due to his age.

Saying that Wilt was comparable to Shaq defensively is much worse than saying he was comparable to Russell.

Great shot blocker and intimidating presence in the lane, bad screen and roll defender, mediocre defender outside of the paint, inconsistent effort throughout the years, outright bad defender in some years, great post defender in some years, leading average to mediocre defenses in a lot of years. Who does this sound like to you? Shaq might actually be more impressive here because his best defensive year came in a year where he was leading the league in scoring and carrying a big offensive load, not in a setting where the only thing he had to do on offense was finish and focus on rebounding and defense.

Again, don't even try comparing Shaq to Wilt defensively, the comparison isn't even close. Wilt had his seasons where he loafed on defense, but we can count those seasons: 1963, 1965 (bad health), 1969, and 1971 (not including playoffs). With Shaq you could bring up almost every season. If you want I can provide you with countless interviews done either then or sometime later of players describing Wilt as being a force on both sides of the court.

Whoever made this video was trying to show Wilt at his worst. FIrst of all, that game 4 1967 game was immediately after the game 3 where Wilt rebounded the ball 41 times and had an unbelievable statline. After the game and for the next few days his knees were badly aching, it was in the newspapers. So you're showing us a game where his knees were hurting him and wasn't necessarily what he could do on the offensive end. Anyway, this was not Wilt in his scoring prime, so it really doesn't prove anything. and in 1964, I'll admit, Wilt looked rusty offensively. if you look at some of the other videos that were posted, however, you'd see that Wilt at his offensive best was a powerhouse. It's not for nothing that he managed to get the scoring output that he did. Most of you seem to think this happened on accident or something, it's **** bizarre. I really don't know how you guys are making this sort of argument with a straight face and getting away with it, unbelievable. Same thing with that Shaq homie in this thread, you guys all make the case, implicitly, that everything Wilt did was an accident, or if it wasn't he wasn't really doing anything of value. Again, **** bizarre.

Including every post up, even makes that didn’t count (like fadeaway bank after the whistle) of him in his prime is trying to make him look bad? I prefaced the video by saying that things like whether he made or missed the shot should be irrelevant because they vary. But things like footwork, rhythm, type of shots he’s getting don’t mean anything? Why is a highlight video (half of them from college against horrible competition) more indicative of his skills than actual game footage? If I wanted to make Wilt look bad, I would go to his past prime years and show how bad he looked when posting up in those years. Also, again you seem to be saying Wilt at his "offensive best" (presumably in his volume scoring years) was a "powerhouse"...hardly when you look at the big picture.

Yes, let's look at every year and assume a man doesn't age. That provides us with our "big picture", right? We look at his younger years just to see the kinds of shots he took and how he took them, ie to gauge his skill, not to say he did fantastic things against good or bad competition. Again, this leads to issues of many of you pretending that he accidentally averaged all those points, this is exactly what you're implying.

The problem is that you can't talk about his failures in his later years (where he was expected to win) and then also talk about lack of impact from his scoring, which were in a different set of years and in which he came close to winning on various occasions.

Alright so I can’t criticize his later years either, because I'm critical of his earlier years? More seasons where Wilt should be immune to criticism. This makes no sense to me.

Well since you're not intelligent enough to interpret what I'm saying on your own, let me make it clear. The point is you can't point to his failure in later years and say that the same kind of criticism can apply to his younger years. It's simply dishonest and misleading.

You didn’t actually address what I wrote. This is probably going to be something where you’re going to have your opinion and I’m going to have mine, and people can believe whatever seems reasonable to them. To me Wilt has all the signs of a guy whose post scoring is not as good as his fans like to advertise. And using practice to say Wilt was actually a great FT shooter but had a mental block in games? Shaq used to say the same thing, that he was an 80% FT shooter in practice. It's easy to make these claims when no one is consistently recording anything and when you are shooting the same shot 100 consecutive times in a row and in rhythm (instead of 2 and then heading back on defense). Doesn't mean either guy was a good jumpshooter.

I never mentioned Wilt's free throw shooting at practice, you did. I was talking about how his coach wanted him to shoot that jump shot at the foul line because he shot it better than he did his foul shots. What is it about this you cannot understand? You can't just believe whatever you want if there are no statements to back it up. I will tell you what statements do exist. There are coaches and others who have said that Wilt should not have shot that shot because it took him away from the basket, where he was normally relied upon to be their rebounder. That and some people said he was off balance at times (Schayes said this in 1965).

Like I mentioned, his FG% isn't really that high when you take into account how physically dominant he was, how he was one of the GOAT finishers/offensive rebounders. And based on the fact he clearly wasn't a pure shooter, I see his fadeaway as an unreliable and erratic shot. He falls off scoring wise in the playoffs big time (would be even worse statistically in his prime if he didn't statpad in some of these series by playing 48 minutes in blowouts), which is another sign that his post game wasn't as reliable or unstoppable as his fans would like us to believe (like other guys known to underperform in playoffs because they have inefficient go to offense). On top of that he's one of the worst FT shooters in history, so I have major doubts on how nice his touch really is 10+ feet away from the basket. His own coach made him stop taking those shots in the offense and become mainly a finisher, why? why would you limit someone's post scoring if they are the greatest ever at it? would any coach ask Kareem to stop shooting his skyhook? stop Hakeem/Shaq from going to work in the post? If his post scoring is so great and dominant and Wilt can play a balanced games, why do teams play so much better when he is literally the last option on the floor for scoring (not just Philly from '66 to '67, but LA also began limiting Wilt more and more in the post in '72 when compared to '70 and '71)? Wilt just doesn't pass my BS test. Lot of things to be legitimately skeptical about.

To address the last thing you say here, I made the statement above that Wilt was actually incapable of being a high scorer after 1968 (where he did have some breakout games to prove he could still do it). I don't think he could do it after his knee surgery in particular.

Okay, this is one argument I absolutely can't stand. I’ll let the “superb playoff performer” comment go, if you really believe that then you have really low standards for what a great playoff player really is. I’ve done a year by year detailed look into his playoff years and it’s not impressive, it’s actually when I first began questioning how good Wilt really was. But to paint Wilt as "unlucky" for losing those series is to ignore his own failings and also his own "luck" which put him in those situations.

His scoring went down for reasons I have mentioned numerous times, for example that he always played 48 minutes in the regular season and that the main reason a person's scoring goes up in the playoffs is becuase they get more minutes. In addition, the pace slows down a lot and defenses get more stringent, which describes why Wilt did not score as much. But just becuase his scoring went down doesn't say anything about his rebounding/assists or his defense for that matter. For example in 1962 the Celtics were terrified by his defense, where people like Cousy and Russell were saying they had never seen Wilt play defense as hard as he did in that series. Are you taking that into account? Oh, of course you're not, because it's not a tangible #. You also don't take into account that they lost on a buzzer beater to a vastly superior team. Everyone says the only reason they made it as far as they did was because of Wilt.

In 1968, Wilt is “unlucky” for losing a series where his team blew a 3-1 lead with home court. Was he unlucky when his teammate Hal Greer poured in 40 points on 15/24 shooting in game 6 but Wilt shot 6/21 from the field in that game an 8/23 from the line (hard to imagine a worse scoring game than this) or how about his bizarre performance in game 7. is it bad luck or is it Wilt not showing up in the last two critical games of the series?

Why don't you mention game 5, Wilt's stats in game 5? Oh because it wouldn't fit your storyline. Yet the fact is that in games 5-7 his teammates averaged 30% from the field. Wilt WAS injured in this series, Russell said as much. Anyway, this season was probably Wilt's most unfortunate one of all of his years, because they should have clearly won but for whatever reason he and his team both failed.

In 1970, he fails to take advantage of an injured Willis Reed and the team plays terribly in the first half when they decide to run the offense through Wilt.

Won't deny that in Game 7 he didn't show up. But neither did West or Baylor. However, let's not forget that they did win game 6 on the back of Wilt's 45 points.

And on and on. Wilt was often "unlucky" because he himself put himself in those situations. This isn't an argument for Wilt, but one against him.

It's neither an argument for or against, it depends on the circumstances. So you've shown yourself to be an intellectual lightweight, because you said you took things season by season but in fact you're trying to find a common theme, as does everyone else. You can't take a theme and apply it to anyone's career, even Russell's.

[CBB_Fan]

My reasoning is that Wilt didn't need a super refined post game to excel in his era. His finger rolls and fade away shots went in often enough to put up big numbers, and no one told him it would be better to do it a different way. In the modern era, he'd be raised to a different standard.

Okay, perhaps this makes sense based on the discussion you were having, but it has to be noted:

The one thing we absolutely DO know is that Wilt's DID NOT excel in his era as a scorer. That's the problem. His scoring was so problematic it wasn't having much of a net impact at all.

We truly don't know anything else. It's not impossible that in a later era he'd have been a super-Shaq level scorer, but in his own era, you can't say, "Hey, he did what worked" because it didn't.

And as we talk about "in this era he'd be taught better" there's some truth in this, but we still have volume scorers earning max salaries without contributing even Shane Battier-level impact in today's game. Not everything's fixed.

I probably should restate that:

"What Wilt did in his own era put numbers up"

That was what I meant by "worked." I didn't mean that he had a huge net positive impact, because I tried to state that his statistical dominance was not reflected in his teams win/loss column, or else he'd be the unanimous GOAT.

In this era, I think the Dwight Howard comparison is a fair one. Dwight Howard does not have an amazing offensive game; he started with little more than a jump hook and even now is methodical, even boring on offense. However, no one doubts that Dwight Howard is a top 5 player in the league and the hands down best center.

I think Wilt's game would be similar, but better. Obviously, shoe technology would make a big difference, but I can only speculate that his game would be similar to a larger, more athletic Howard's, or at least more similar to Howard than centers with more defined post games.

He'd have a couple fairly predictable post moves, though not necessarily the ones that worked in his time. He would be able to exploit either his strength or his athleticism over any center in the league right now, same as in his own era, which would help him maintain decent numbers.

One of the differences in today's league is the usage rate on top player's has gone down, and efficiency has gone up. These are heavily related. I think it is fair to say that Chamberlain's usage rating would be off the charts compared to players in later eras, and this heavily affected his offensive impact. With a usage rating of 40% or greater, it would be hard for him to have a very positive impact even if he was statistically dominant, because he would start eating into his teammates production.

I think a more reasonable number would come from the league's top centers in recent years, which would be around 28-30% (only three center player-seasons from 2007-2012 topped 28%, so this is still assuming a very high usage rate for Wilt). I think that is achievable, and I think it would improve his efficiency and his impact.

The three players that achieved this were Amare Stoudemire in 10-11, Chris Bosh in 09-10, and Tim Duncan in 08-09. They had true shooting percentages that ranged from 55% (Duncan) to Amare's 66%. These are all numbers within Chamberlain's range, and I'd expect him to maintain a middle ground of roughly 60-65% in the modern era (in other words, similar to his best years of efficiency.

Going by my hypothetical conjectures, I'd expect him to average significantly less than he did in his era, and have more impact. Part of the reason is that centers and guards score in different ways. While we have a ton of volume scoring guards and wings in the league with minimal impact, we have very few corresponding bigs and most of those are power forwards. Part of the reason is that centers tend to make the biggest difference on defense of any position, while guards are defined more by offensive output.

Therefore, it is much harder for a center or power forward to score a lot of points yet have minimal impact, and Wilt was the rare exception in his day. I don't think he'd be an exception in the modern game with a lower usage rate. I definitely think his raw numbers would be down, but still significantly better than any other center's, and I think his impact would be greater than Duncan's (aside from the argument that Duncan's leadership is great enough to overcome the difference in play).

[MisterWestside]

I probably should restate that:

"What Wilt did in his own era put numbers up"

That was what I meant by "worked." I didn't mean that he had a huge net positive impact, because I tried to state that his statistical dominance was not reflected in his teams win/loss column, or else he'd be the unanimous GOAT.

In this era, I think the Dwight Howard comparison is a fair one. Dwight Howard does not have an amazing offensive game; he started with little more than a jump hook and even now is methodical, even boring on offense. However, no one doubts that Dwight Howard is a top 5 player in the league and the hands down best center.

I think Wilt's game would be similar, but better. Obviously, shoe technology would make a big difference, but I can only speculate that his game would be similar to a larger, more athletic Howard's, or at least more similar to Howard than centers with more defined post games.

He'd have a couple fairly predictable post moves, though not necessarily the ones that worked in his time. He would be able to exploit either his strength or his athleticism over any center in the league right now, same as in his own era, which would help him maintain decent numbers.

One of the differences in today's league is the usage rate on top player's has gone down, and efficiency has gone up. These are heavily related. I think it is fair to say that Chamberlain's usage rating would be off the charts compared to players in later eras, and this heavily affected his offensive impact. With a usage rating of 40% or greater, it would be hard for him to have a very positive impact even if he was statistically dominant, because he would start eating into his teammates production.

I think a more reasonable number would come from the league's top centers in recent years, which would be around 28-30% (only three center player-seasons from 2007-2012 topped 28%, so this is still assuming a very high usage rate for Wilt). I think that is achievable, and I think it would improve his efficiency and his impact.

The three players that achieved this were Amare Stoudemire in 10-11, Chris Bosh in 09-10, and Tim Duncan in 08-09. They had true shooting percentages that ranged from 55% (Duncan) to Amare's 66%. These are all numbers within Chamberlain's range, and I'd expect him to maintain a middle ground of roughly 60-65% in the modern era (in other words, similar to his best years of efficiency.

Going by my hypothetical conjectures, I'd expect him to average significantly less than he did in his era, and have more impact. Part of the reason is that centers and guards score in different ways. While we have a ton of volume scoring guards and wings in the league with minimal impact, we have very few corresponding bigs and most of those are power forwards. Part of the reason is that centers tend to make the biggest difference on defense of any position, while guards are defined more by offensive output.

Therefore, it is much harder for a center or power forward to score a lot of points yet have minimal impact, and Wilt was the rare exception in his day. I don't think he'd be an exception in the modern game with a lower usage rate. I definitely think his raw numbers would be down, but still significantly better than any other center's, and I think his impact would be greater than Duncan's (aside from the argument that Duncan's leadership is great enough to overcome the difference in play).

I don't agree with every point you made here, but this is the first intelligent and objective post I've read in this whole thread. Well done.

Re: Wilt in today's game, you need to remember that you cannot transplant 60s Wilt to today's game and directly compare him to today's bigs. Today's bigs have the advantage of studying the game from previous eras and expanding on that knowledge (including skillset and repertoire). 60s Wilt might not look as graceful next to modern Cs, but he was well ahead of his contemporaries when it came to low-post scoring. When you keep in mind all the physical tools that he brings to the table, I think he'd adapt well with his moves on the block.

I also disagree with Wilt's usage. You have to keep the higher pace of the 50s/60s NBA in mind -- his prime usg is estimated to be more in the low 30s, and usage rates for top players have gone up over history (especially Cs in the 80s/90s as they take their games to the low block). It's not different from the stars in today's game.

[Warspite]

Ok, so reviewing the video footage, thank you Dipper13, I have a couple of questions and I am hoping Fatal9 jumps back in here.

I am finding a theme and the theme is that teams wanted Wilt to score for the good of the game. On page 9, when Wilt joins Philly the person doing the documentary says that they wanted Wilt to score and score lots, to attract fans. Bill Russell also makes mention to this in the Wilt 100 documentary and says the 2 of them were trying to bring popularity to the sport.

ThaRegul8tr has posted an article in which the league thought it would be good for Wilt to average 50ppg for the season and his teammates championed this to turn into a reality by ensuring he had all the touches needed.

Ok now look, I am just going to throw out something which will appear pretty silly, but maybe this is why it is hard to see his impact given the ultra high raw stats. I mean, could the league have cared about Wilt stats first, for the expansion of the game, and Wilt team impoact 2nd because of this?

I mean, what team says 'hell yeah' I'll pass up my opportunity as a professional athlete' so you can become the highest paid player in the league and get the praise?

Now, I read articles from earlier in his career questioning his impact? I mean a journalist can figure this out but not a professional nba coach? And then the swing is so extreme but the sport has caught on and growing.

I guess what I am trying to say is that as more pieces come out? The more I also think his sole purpose was to put the nba on the map, which he did of course but too many things just aren't making sense from a competitive athlete pov.

Obsessed soley about individual stats and chose this over team success at times

Why would he care so much about what people thought unless the outcome of their thoughts was 'I won't come watch you'?

Never seemed truly in luv with the sport and teammates site he never hung out with the team

Suddenly he is changed in how he is utilized because his teams aren't winning??? Was it to showcase skill or to give the fans what they wanted to see or hadn't really been seeing. His teams winning.

I don't know....just typing out loud here.

Your starting to understand historical context.....

I dont care about Wilts impact on the Warriors simply because
THE WARRRIORS NEVER CARED ABOUT WINNING.
THE WARRIORS NEVER CARED AROUT PLAYING GOOD BASKETBALL

WIlt never wanted to score 50ppg. He never believed his team was better or that its best chance at winning was from his huge scoring. Wilt put up those stats because thats what he was told to do. He was a sideshow and his job was to put people in the arenas and to get ink in the newspaper. Despite that he tried to win games and championships when his League, owner, coach, teammates and fans were much more interested in how many pts Wilt had and not how many Ws.

If you dont understand 1960s history (social, economic, political) and you try to believe that 1963 and 2012 are pretty much the same then you will always draw the wrong conclusions. In the early 60s the NBA was much more like the X games is today. It wasnt a mainstream sport. In fact the 3 biggest sports in the 60s were.
1. MLB 2. boxing 3. horse racing.

We all have wondered why WIlt was so obsessed with his stats. Maybe he was normal and that everyone was obsessed with Wilts stats.

I have always said that NBA owners realy dont care about winning. Theres not 10 owners that care about winning. Theres at least 20 owners that just want to stay in business and be competetitve. Making the playoffs is the long term goal of 20 owners. The Lakers, Celtics, Pistons, Heat, Mavs play to win championships. The Bulls and Spurs want to win as long as they are in the black. Everyone else is just trying to keep the lights on by winning a playoff series.

Thats the way it is today and it was much worse in the 60s. The Celtics owner was deep in debt and was only able to pay his bills if the Celtics reached the 2nd rd. The Celtics players were told that they had to reach the Finals if they wanted a pay raise. Oscar Robertson has always decried the Royals policy of only drafting and trading for players from Ohio,Indiana and Kentucky. His owner simply wasnt interested in winning.

[CBB_Fan]

I also disagree with Wilt's usage. You have to keep the higher pace of the 50s/60s NBA in mind -- his prime usg is estimated to be more in the low 30s, and usage rates for top players have gone up over history (especially Cs in the 80s/90s as they take their games to the low block). It's not different from the stars in today's game.

We don't have really good usage ratings for back in the day, so my 40% number was an estimation. However, usage rating is supposed to be an estimate of the percentage of team plays used by a player while he was on the floor. Wilt had games with ridiculous usage ratings, where he was literally the absolute focus point of the team, and that is not an intelligent way to play.

Of course, Wilt's usage rating is actually hurt by his minutes per game, because he averaged 45 minutes a game for a career, including a season where he average 48.5 (basic playing every minute). Because of the way usage rating is calculated a player playing a larger amount of minutes will need to make a larger amount of plays to have the same usage rating. So Wilt's usage rating could by 30%, but his total plays per game would be much larger than Amare Stoudemire's plays per game in 2010-2011 because he averaged 9 more minutes a game.

This is another one of those era quirks that you'd have to adjust for. There is no way Wilt would play 45 minutes a game in the modern game. No player played 40 minutes per game in 2011-2012, and even the best pure centers only averaged about 35-36. To put that in perspective, Wilt never had a season where he played less than 42 minutes a game, because no one went to those games to watch him on the bench.

Anyway, I think it is reasonable to say Wilt would be a top 3 player in virtually any era (maybe not over MJ, Magic, and Bird), but his statistical dominance comes from a variety of factors that he really wouldn't get in the modern game. He got a great combination of high usage rating and high minutes per game, resulting in a ton of field goal attempts and points. He would still be a terrific rebounder today because of his height and athleticism, but that would be tempered by playing significantly less minutes (and playing against slightly better competition). I think his defensive impact would be greater with less minutes, because it is hard to imagine any 270 lb center being at peak form playing 45 minutes a game, 80 games a year.

Just some more thoughts on the quirks of the era.

[ElGee]

This has been a good threaD -- I see so much backlash to the Wilt information that I wanted to put something into perspective as someone labeled by so many Wilt fans as anti-Wilt (and if they're paying attention they know I'm anti-box score without context).

I probably have WIlt Chamberlain 11th on my GOAT list. I can't say he's dropped on the list, because I never made one until last year. I can say he's dropped in my eyes over the years, simply because I was IGNORANT. I was fed a line that Wilt had weak teams and Russell and good teams and, even from Boston, assumed that Russell was unfairly revered for his team strength and Wilt cast aside for his...Winning Bias. Plus Wilt averaged 50 ppg in a year (!) and set every record and could dunk from the free throw line and once tried to kill Jungle Jim Luscotoff.

But not only is that oversimplification wrong, I simply didn't have the data I have now. When I had these opinions, I didn't know what SRS was, O or DRtg. Heck, we didn't even know PS stats before the Internet because we were acclimated to RS data in the Sunday paper, season preview mags and the back of basketball cards. When I (a) learned more about the game and (b) learned more about the 60's and Wilt, I formed a new opinion.

But every opinion I have, especially of older players where we need to infer stuff, read other's opinions, and rely on 10 games over a career, must be given a reality check against the contemporary opinion. If it deviates from the norm, there better be a CLEAR reason why. Does my take (and many other posters here) deviate?

No. It really doesn't.

Understand that the opinion of every player has a distribution -- it falls within a range. Some people thought Reggie Miller was a fringe all-star, and others a fringe-all-NBAer. That was the majority of the bell curve during the 90's...and thus the opinions of his "range" . In 2009 most people thought Kobe fell between a top-3 player and the best player in the game. Polarizing guys had a wider "range' of opinion (Dantley) and others have a very small range (Jordan). What was the range of viewpoints on Wilt?

When he played, his range -- based on not just accolades and voting, but newspaper articles, contemporary opinions of guys in the league and everyone I've talked to involved in or obsessed with the game at that time -- was somewhere between a slightly overrated, overstated stat-guy (like, literally would argue with scorekeepers about his stats) who couldn't win due to pseudo-cancerousness...and others thought he was the best player in the league (and such people believed this because of his box score numbers, primarily). Bill Simmons very much tackled this in his book when he went as far to claim that, by 1969, there was NO Russell-Wilt debate...and goes on to cite Russell's election to the 35th team in 1979 as the center.

I don't feel the opinions here fall outside the band of Wilt opinions at the time, with the one caveat being today people can clearly back up with they are saying with numerical evidence. (You don't have to buy it, but it matches what the naysayers of the time said, which is clearly reinforcing evidence). Still, I think Wilt has a top-5 peak of all-time and consider many of his seasons excellent (I'm actually wondering if Quants now thinks his 1964 season was his peak). I think he was the 2nd-best player of his era behind Russell. This is well within the "range" of contemporary opinions. Going further, my placing of Wilt on the GOAT-list by decade would be:

1972 - 2nd
1982 - 3rd (probably)
1992 - 6th
2002 - 8th
2012 - 11th

This is not really out of line with a "lower-end range" of thinking regarding Wilt in the 60's or even 70's, perhaps coupled with some "higher-end" thinking about one or two modern guys. Julius Erving has faced a similar usurping over the years (no worse than 4th or 5th on my list when he retired...now 12th). The simple difference is, if you view Wilt on the "high-end range," you'd hold him closer to (or above Russell) and fewer people (MJ? Kareem?) would pass him over the years. But to frame these stances as "revisionist history" is simply not accurate.

And let's note that some of the people making such allegations are also admitting that Chamberlain:

-was inconsistent
-"didn't practice"
-was misused
-unhealthy at times
-stat-obsessed in his later years (namely 68 and 73)

and those things matter a lot to people in a 14-year career. Just like the Warrior-context Warspite just provided matters a lot to others.

[thizznation]

Fatal9, what I was referring to is how you keep on nit picking on the nuances of Wilt's post game with a modern perspective. You are being so strict with your critiques here. I'm not saying they are off base, your analysis has a penchant for attention to detail, and I've agreed with a lot of the things you have said about many players. I think your critiques are correct but you need to take in account the level of play wasn't as advanced! Are there any big men from 60's era that will be able to hold water under that level of scrutiny?

Here is my take. Wilt was talented. The level of talent that if he played in this era with more advanced peers he would not sink, but swim. I'm not saying he would become Kevin McHale in the post but there would certainly be a massive improvement in his overall game.

[Dipper 13]

Is he magically going to develop a better touch to shoot free throws and from everywhere else on the floor?

Sure, with a proper foul shooting coach. He used to practice for hours every day with little results. But today, instead of sending him to a psychiatrist, the team would hire a special foul shooting coach to fix his mechanics, ensuring that he would be practicing them the right way. Considering how good of a foul shooter he was at Overbrook, I believe he could shoot roughly 70% from the line.



3/24/1991

On his free throw shooting, which was 51-percent for his career: "I even went to see a psychiatrist about it. After six months, the psychiatrist could make 10 out of 10 and I was still screwed up."




Tall Tales: The Glory Years of the NBA - Terry Pluto

Rick Barry: Wilt would have shot 75% from the line if he had stuck with shooting underhanded and learned the proper technique. But he experimented so much that he never had a feel for how he wanted to shoot free throws.


Wilt Chamberlain: But let's talk about one thing that no one ever remembers. I may have missed a lot of foul shots, but by me going to the line so much, that meant my team got into the penalty situation faster and my teammates got to shoot more free throws. Besides, if I did make 75 percent, then what would people have to talk about?



With all these advantages today, plus the $100 million contract incentive, there is no way he would be shooting those flat shots from the line.

Is he not going to be even more of a liability at the end of games as teams would use "hack-a-Wilt" even more?

No, teams were already doing that to him a great deal for his first 7 seasons, before the rules were changed to what they are today.

Would his FT shooting not even be MORE of a liability with no "three to make two" rule?

Based on my viewing of Game 6 of the '63 Finals, I can see how FT's were recorded in the boxscore back then. The boxscore had Heinsohn making 6/9 free throws. But in watching the game, he actually made 4/6. This not including the missed shot before the penalty, since it would have given him no potential extra points had he made it to begin with. According to the boxscore Heinsohn missed 3 FT's, when in reality he only missed 2 FT's that had any kind of value to the team. With his three shots occuring at the very end of the game, we have to wonder how often this happened to Wilt's teams, and how it allowed their opponents to close the gap, preventing them from padding their margin of victory (and thus SRS) for future internet observers to gush over.



Tall Tales: The Glory Years of the NBA - Terry Pluto

Rod Thorn: Wilt was the reason they put in a rule to stop players from intentionally fouling away from the ball. Everyone was just grabbing Wilt and making the game last forever.



I won't even dwell on the blatant inaccuracies below:

Wiley: 0/4 FT in boscore, 0/1 in game footage
Havlicek: 2/5 FT in boxscore, 2/3 in game footage
Russell: 2/5 FT in boxscore, 3/5 in game footage
K.C. Jones: 3/5 FT in boxscore, 3/4 in game footage
Selvy: 1/5 in boxscore, 1/1 in game footage


Of the players who missed FT's, only Sam Jones (1/3) & Jerry West (6/10) were properly recorded in the boxscore.


In those days, every single missed FT was recorded, so if a player was to hit the first one and miss the last two (one of which was a penalty) shot, boxscore would have him at a 33% accuracy during this sequence, instead of 50% as it would be in this era. You have to realize the highest number of possible points a player could score on any given trip to the line was 2, despite potentially receiving 3 attempts in the penalty. What you need to understand is that missing one FT in the penalty does not penalize the team at all, but rather the individual. And since all the possession estimates used for ORtg & DRtg here are 100% dependent on statistics that are already recorded in the box score, this heavily distorts not only the individual's FT% but also the team possession efficiency estimates.

How can something so obvious be so neglected?

because offenses overall are more efficient

In the '67 Celtics Sixers Gm. 4 footage, I have noticed the Celtics late in the 3rd quarter fouling Greer just as soon as he crossed midcourt, this way the most points they can score on that possession is 1 (barring a missed FT, offensive board, and field goal sequence). The commentators even referred to them as "strategy fouls". Restore these rules in the modern NBA as well as remove the 3 pt line and you would see team's offensive efficiency plummet.

Only a couple teams today have the proper level of stamina to keep up with the '67 Sixers for 48 minutes and none of them have the frontline size to match up. Based on an ORtg "estimate" for the 76ers one year under Coach Schayes, they were merely average. But as noted in article below, most of their FG's came in the paint at a high efficiency. This in contrast to Boston who relied much more on the outside shot. With no 3 point shot back then, this leaves the foul line accuracy as the other factor.



Christian Science Monitor - Apr 8, 1966

Philadelphia replaced its old basket and backboard setup before the season with a single post model. This post has a steel finger coming off the top which holds both backboard and basket in a very rigid position. And this is perfect for a physically powerful team like the 76ers, who score so many of their baskets in close, and who depend so heavily on Chamberlain for the turnaround dunk. But a tight hoop should work against the Celtics' outside shooters. The ball also rebounds differently on this type of backboard. It is usually a very active rebound, generally high and often deep.


Can you imagine if the '67 Sixers played under modern rules with a penalty foul limit per quarter? After the first foul (shooting or non shooting), instead of automatically going to the line for 1 shot, they would actually have a chance to score 2 points during that possession with a FG. Up to five more chances actually, barring a shooting foul, where the FGA will never count as a miss unless it goes in for a possible 3 pt. play. Surely these factors would result in the Sixers offensive efficiency skyrocketing, as would the removal of traveling from the NBA's violation book.

How would his predictable offensive game work against better team defenses?

Take what they give him. He had more than enough moves to keep them honest.

He relied on what I believe was an inefficient go to shot

How is a drop step & dunk (or point blank finger roll) inefficient?

clear that Hibbert's peak is not in Wilt's league.

The fact that this needs to be said at all is dumbfounding. Hibbert doesn't compare to any version of Wilt.

I would take period anti-wilt press articles with a grain of salt.

I have posted countless articles regarding his play that dispute the 2 or 3 they have posted, mainly from '63 or '69. I wonder why I continue posting them if they don't bother to read.

[fatal9]

^^ Okay...you can believe all of that.

Okay, so another season where there is an excuse for why Wilt should be immune to criticism and isn’t improving the team as much as expected. They really seem to be starting to add up. Like I said he gets traded to a roster that was starving for a center all decade (SRS goes down, lose to same team, actually have more trouble getting out of the first round than they did previously...how can he have such little impact?).

Are you twisting things intentionally? Lose to the same team? They took the freaking Celts to Game 7 he got injured in the 4th and his idiot coach went with reserves and ended up losing a close game, getting himself run out of town in the process.

And the first round? Seriously? It took them 6 games instead of 5.

and then an article about his salary? By someone sounding bitter and has no understanding that teams bring players in to sell tickets?

Well someone just accused me of revising history. I showed him a contemporary opinion of not only the journalist but also players around the league stating otherwise. I agree that it's a piece of the puzzle, problem is Wilt fans aren't treating it as such.

Are you twisting things intentionally? Lose to the same team? They took the freaking Celts to Game 7 he got injured in the 4th and his idiot coach went with reserves and ended up losing a close game, getting himself run out of town in the process.

And the first round? Seriously? It took them 6 games instead of 5.

Yes, the first round. LA lost the first two games at home, was going on the road down 0-2 and then the Warriors leading scorer (Mullins) got injured.

So one article. Lets look at his drastic impact on Willie Naulis. Willie was a low efficiency volume scorer for NY who was falling off when he was traded. He came and spent 1 year in GS where he averaged .420 FG% and 11 points. Then he left for the promised land in Boston where he'd get to play for a real team and a real player in Russell and get back to his old form (result .417 FG% and 9.8 ppg)

Gola? He has just bounced from Philly we ha was involved to the tune of just over 12 FGA/G and got totally cut out of SFW with only 11.6 FGA/g. In NY the next year he never saw that many shots or points again.

You need a better quick-scan approach to looking at historical stats my friend. Go look at the per minute numbers, you'll see that both players took clear steps forward when they left the Warriors...despite the fact that they went to the 2 worst offenses in the league, and hence what should have been the two least capable of making them productive.

The fact that they happened to play less minutes when they went to the new team is of course something to be mentioned as well. If you want to make an argument based on given playing time that's one thing, but when we're talking about what happened when the guys were actually playing on the court with Wilt, the answer is that they hit their low point with Wilt.

Is he to blame that his team couldn't shoot? His team average FG% was .403. He had 1 other teammate with a positive PER. His next 3 highest scorers shot .419, .380, .394 respectively. While shooting a combined 43.2 FGA to score a combined 43.8 points. While Wilt shot 33.6 times to score 38.9 (rudimentary I know but it shows how inefficient these guys were)

This was the reasonable point to make before 1967. After all, with all the pressure Wilt was theoretically taking off his teammates, he MUST be making them more efficient than they'd otherwise be, right? Turns out no. When Wilt stopped volume scoring, his teammates' efficiency skyrocketed in one of the great year over year improvements in all of history.

Attach the blame where you want, but the result of a Wilt-as-volume-scorer system was that other scoring talent just died on the vine.

Summed up well here.

Fatal9, what I was referring to is how you keep on nit picking on the nuances of Wilt's post game with a modern perspective. You are being so strict with your critiques here. I'm not saying they are off base, your analysis has a penchant for attention to detail, and I've agreed with a lot of the things you have said about many players. I think your critiques are correct but you need to take in account the level of play wasn't as advanced! Are there any big men from 60's era that will be able to hold water under that level of scrutiny?

Here is my take. Wilt was talented. The level of talent that if he played in this era with more advanced peers he would not sink, but swim. I'm not saying he would become Kevin McHale in the post but there would certainly be a massive improvement in his overall game.

This is fine but I hope you realize "how he would play in other eras" is not something that weighs much on my overall opinion of Wilt. More so how he played in his own era. It's just a passing note for me to make against people who themselves open up the era can of worms. It's not even something I want to particularly discuss that much because it's a totally subjective opinion.

Not unreasonable to question his impact, but to know the impact Wilt made you have to dig very deep and look at everything. You can't look at a few variables and say "ok, he sucked" or "ok, he rocked".

So me thinking he was say the 12th best player of all-time means I think he "sucked"? Take your own advice, Wilt didn't always "rock".

Why don't you mention game 5, Wilt's stats in game 5? Oh because it wouldn't fit your storyline. Yet the fact is that in games 5-7 his teammates averaged 30% from the field. Wilt WAS injured in this series, Russell said as much. Anyway, this season was probably Wilt's most unfortunate one of all of his years, because they should have clearly won but for whatever reason he and his team both failed.

I'm not the one creating a storyline here. I responded to a common storyline of Wilt's career of being an unlucky player when he clearly didn't help himself with his play.



I'll leave everyone to read what's been posted on both sides and they can decide for themselves what sounds more reasonable. There's no point in wasting time on pages of debates with the same information that I, and others, already know getting recycled over and over again. I don't think some people realize there's a difference between thinking Wilt isn't as great of a player as KAJ/Shaq/Hakeem/Duncan/KG and thinking Wilt should be compared to Roy Hibbert. I'm making arguments for reasons I think Wilt isn't one of the ten greatest players ever to me, based on what's been written, is there not evidence to raise that question? I still see him around 12th, I'm aware of the positive things he brings to the table. I myself had Wilt really high a few years ago, but like ElGee mentioned, I was much ignorant to the overall picture than I am now.

[Dipper 13]

^^ Okay...you can believe all of that.

I admit 70% FT may be a stretch. In 1966 he was quoted as saying the following:

"I'll just never be a good foul shooter because I exercise different muscles and my game is so varied that I'm not physically relaxed at the line."


But I have also posted indisputable evidence that the estimated offensive ratings of Wilt's teams are possibly inaccurate by great margins. Though I wonder if Dean Oliver has some kind of adjustment for the 3-to-make-2 and 2-to-make-1 rule in his formulas.

[lorak]

It's really interesting that so many people judge Wilt's individual impact based on team metric which is estimated (and estimations parameters are based on data from completely different league than during 60s). No logic in that at all.