Sorry Ardee, I missed this. The thread took a negative turn and I must have overlooked this.
Wilt may have stopped scoring at his previous volume, but he was still the offensive anchor of the team.
Sure I can agree with that statement. However, I think for this thread then other's need to take this into account. Peak Shaq was the #1 offensive option, scorer, defensive anchor on that 2000 Laker squad. Using your statement, we have to remember that it then changes the comparison, right. We simply can't then say, well we all know Wilt could volume score and give credit for that in 67 because that wasn't his role, right?
Another part of the problem I have in this comparison is that we really do not have a ton of footage so we rely on newsaper articles on Wilt's performance, and now it is regarding a 7'1 facilitator/distributor removed from the system where he made his name as most dominant of his era. It is just very hard to fathom or even grade because I have no doubt about his defence/rebounding but I do question his effectiveness here. And by that, was it really Wilt or could you have ran the same offense through another player with the same success? Again, I do not take away from what he did statistically or the fact that it led to team success here.
Take a player like Steve Nash. He's never been the top scorer of his team, but can you ever legitimately say that it was Amare or Gortat that were the 'offensive anchors' and not Steve himself?
No, of course I wouldn't, but now imagine asking Nash not to pass or look for his teammates as much but the team impact increased because of this. Even if Nash was now getting many more rebounds would you still be as high on him?
And leave that example aside, Wilt was STILL the leading scorer of the team. I've heard people say (not you, of course, but others) he was the 5th option on the Sixers, and I find myself questioning if they've actually ever watched the film!
Ok, so first, if you have more footage for me especially around this year, I would really like to watch it. Here is my problem though. I think you would agree that Wilt's role vastly changed from years prior, agree? I'll be honest and try to give you the best analogy I can. When I think of Wilt and the footage I have seen from an offensive standpoint regarding assists, I think of how many view John Stockton and how he complied all of his assists. Many say he didn't take the shots he should have but also question the value of the assist he was producing.
So was it a Magic assist or Stockton assist as you state he was still the offensive anchor?
You're dead wrong when you say he just made the pass in a similar way Shaq did.
Shaq's passing was mainly when they dumped the ball in to him, and he passed in case of a double team.
I think I may not have explained this well enough. Let me try again, I mean that Shaq was a great passer as well and I have not seen Wilt do anything for a skill pass perspective that I do not think Shaq could have done himself. To confirm, I have seen both make very difficult, accurate and at times flashy passes.
The main difference obviously is that Shaq was never asked to reduce his scoring volume and take on that type of role so we cannot accurately say how he'd do in comparison.
Wilt's shot creation was on a completely different level. Wilt's passing was with the same intent a Nash or a Paul or any point guard passes: to create for a team-mate as he normally would!
I would need to see proof here. I have seen Wilt make great passes and very simple passes. The way he handled the ball in the post, one arm extended straight up etc, makes me believe while he could certainly pass he would mostly take what his teammates opened up for him. Nash/Paul, really open things up especially by dribble penetration and this is something I have not seen from Wilt.
Maybe I've not put this succintly. Imagine KG playing point-forward when he didn't have Casssell, and amplify that. The ball went into Wilt on EVERY possession, and he could choose to create for his team-mates (which led to 3 others averaging 18+ ppg), or he could score at record efficiency.
I'll be honest, I have 2 problems with this statement: 1) What I have watched of Wilt he wasn't a good enough dribbler for his size to do what KG does. 2) Of the footage I have watched, Wilt passed and a good amount of time a jump shot was made. Again, my premise is could you have replaced Wilt with Russell and achieved the same result here? Was the strategy to save energy for Wilt defensively where he'd make a greater impact?
Look, MacGill, you're a good guy, a good poster, and I respect your opinion on Shaq. Great player, and I'm thankful for what he did as a Laker fan.
Right back at you!
But Wilt in '67 had no flaws in his game. Dipper has posted about his scoring exploits in '67 itself. He didn't miss a shot for games in a row. There was a 60/40 game. 35 straight field goals. He could STILL score as well as his earlier days, and now he added pretty much everything else.
Ok, so let me put it to you this way.
If Wilt in 67 had no flaws in his game then what does that say about Wilt up and until this point in time then especially when we rank him all-time?
You don't take the greatest scorer the league had seen at the time and change that if nothing is wrong, right? But you then can't take what he did in 67 and say that if he had the right coaches at the time he could have replicated that performance before 67, especially when he had opportunity in LA. (btw I am not saying you said this, just in general). It is like you have to rank 2 different Wilt's altogether in a sense whereas with Shaq, it's pretty straight forward, outside of how you think he may or may not have meshed with other wings etc, what impact he provided and what you were getting with him.
Basically, Wilt in '67 was a point guard who averaged 25 rebounds a game, ran the best offense of the era, anchored the defense, and scored at 68% FG. And that's not hyperbole.
This year was incredible for him plain and simple. And to put it straight forward, defensively is not where I am going to declare the winner because both at peak were elite in this regard. It is offensively to me, where I rank peak Shaq ahead of Wilt. Wilt, wasn't a pg though, he did not bring up the ball on every play (he was a 7'1 center, of course not) and did not go up against the ball pressure a pg would see. He faced, what he saw most of his career and was comfortable in dealing with double teams etc.
Could Wilt make the right pass out of the double team, for sure. Yet so could Shaq and just as effectively. In fact, Shaq with Kobe played a ton of inside outside ball. Wilt's scoring load decreased and other's on his team picked up the slack, if you will. You know scoring in the nba is pretty easy and you know what the point differential between best/worse offense is. Data was provided that when Wilt left teams or wasn't playing, the offense did not drop or falloff very much so then now I am to believe he was providing Steve Nash impact on the court? Sorry, I need to see that then.
My thought is by reducing his offensive load the team could play much better team ball and get everyone involved. Sure, Wilt had big games and his team needing it at times but it doesn't detract from the fact that teams couldn't win with him to play as a high scoring center, which is what he was born to be, not a 7'1 pg. Hey, he did it and the team won but how Magic could not have been Wilt defensively, Wilt wasn't Magic running the sixer offense. And when out there and he got the ball, like throughout his career, no one could really match him so it is no surprise he'd be able to get the ball into the hands of one of his teammates, to me.
My final thought is this: If you could clone 2 Wilt's and Shaq's and left them to play as they did offensively & defensively at peak and then asked another teammate on their teams to step in defensively, both would fail to recreate the impact.
If you now asked them to recreate what both players did offensively, my opinion is LA has the much larger falloff.
Looking forward to your response
