why is Wilt ranked above Oscar and West?

[bastillon]

For years I have wondered why Wilt is ranked higher than Oscar and West. Both of them have great boxscore stats. Both of them have amazing impact stats (their teams went to sh*t when they were injured). Both of them were incredible playoff performers. What makes Wilt better than them? Of course boxscore RS stats favor Wilt but is there really an argument for Wilt outside of that? Specifically with Jerry West, consider the following, when both of them played with the Lakers West had far stronger impact than Wilt.

Wilt has some enormous question marks:
-offensive impact is incredibly inconsistent and suspect in general. his volume scoring didn't really help his team win. he was best suited to being 5th option on the floor. otherwise team offense wasn't very good.

With so few games, it's tough to get a complete picture but here's what I remember from each game...


'64 finals game, he looked lazy on defense to me (Russell scored some really easy points on him) but okay overall. Displayed a nice touch on his fadeaway, was a beast on offensive boards as expected (I really think people underestimate how much Wilt scored off of offensive boards at times), but his post game left something to be desired. Wilt did get a good amount of double teaming in this game.

'67 G4 vs. Boston, he looked great on defense to me but offensively just didn't have the fluidity and smoothness at all on post ups. It's not about whether the shots went in or not, just the moves themselves were really poor. He seemed to be very involved on offense, the guards ran a lot of their plays through him (get ball to Wilt, then Wilt passes it back --> shot).


Here's basically all his post ups from the above two games, again the point isn't whether he missed or made the shot, it's that he consistently just looked really awkward with his dribbling, footwork (which made me laugh) and mobility (ie. things that stay consistent game to game). Also bad habits like not keeping the ball high (making him prone to turnovers). I'm also pretty sure that Wilt ended up with games that on a sheet of paper look impressive statistically 27/38 in the '64 game and close to a triple double in the '67 game.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oemQKScZ7MQ[/youtube]

'69 finals game 7, I won't judge as Wilt left half way through. It should be noted a commentator did mention about Wilt's weakness on defense regarding pick and rolls/guarding players off screens IIRC and how Counts came in and did a better job of doing it. Really don't know how to judge Wilt's defense that season, '67 and '68 seem to be awesome but it seems like Lakers didn't see much of an improvement on defense by adding Wilt that year.

The '70 finals game 7 is the one where he looked really bad to me. Even though he wound up with a nice statline, and shot better than most of his team, he was the worst offensive option on the floor. Any time the ball was fed to him (which seemed to be the strategy in the first half), it was either a turnover, a bad offensive set, a bad post move, him drawing a foul but only to miss two FTs. If you ever watch this game, just take a note of how basically every offensive possession they went to Wilt for a post-up ended poorly.

'70 game vs. Bulls, looked like a force and what I imagine to be an example of 70s Wilt at his best.

'72 matchup with Kareem. Even though KAJ had a big game and ended the winning streak, Wilt was very impressive in his one on one defense. Good level of physicality and amazing at contesting KAJ's shots without fouling. And then later the '72 finals G5, probably his best total game that I've seen even though the competition (depleted Knicks frontline) was not impressive at all.


Maybe it's not fair because the games that are out there aren't exactly Wilt's best, but offensively Wilt looks really bad to me on post-ups, looks great as a finisher and offensive rebounder, inconsistent defensively though awesome in the 70s game. To be frank, I think Wilt wasn't as efficient of a post up option as people believe. His FG% in his scoring years is somewhat low for someone who I imagine getting a lot of putbacks, finishing a lot of plays around the basket efficiently, but on post ups? In some of the games he might shoot 7/14, but be like 1/6 on post-ups, miss most of the FTs on plays he was fouled on, and he looked turnover prone to me in every game as well. Then of course there is the concern others have pointed out of "overworking" him in the offense which produced gaudy stats but wasn't in the best interest of the team offensively.

-defensively he was pretty much like Shaq. In general, he was a positive but tended to have poor seasons. Specifically two weaknesses were glaring when it comes to Wilt: transition defense and pick and roll defense. In both areas Wilt was flat out horrendous. Dude didn't even attempt to guard a pick and roll. He just stood under the basket. This happened even in the biggest games of his life like G7s finals in 69 and 70.

-Wilt's playoff performances were generally a huge downgrade from his RS performances. Wilt lost a record number of G7s. Not only his scoring numbers dropped down but even stats like FT% (and did so dramatically). All that screams a choker to me.

-when Wilt was changing teams there wasn't much improvement on the team he joined, nor was there a big impact on the team he left. Certainly the impact was nothing close to what we would expect from an all-time great. That is a f*ckin big red flag to me. See for details: viewtopic.php?t=1333570

I used to have a section for WOWY (or in/out) on blog. Since then I've improved the method, controlling for other key players and when possible, for when opponent key players missed games as well. I've also introduced a metric designed to capture WOWY quality in a single number, called WOWY Score, which is detailed below. There is also now a WOWY spreadsheet linked below.

This thread will be a collection of WOWY reports related to key players in NBA history and will be updated over time. I've also finally added some formal statistical analysis around the variance/accuracy of these numbers, and that is included in a player's table.

[...]

Here is the link to the WOWY spreadsheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1cFY3Qk8eLJo8_bKK0z4k8K-A3UpwQRGOCAsrSuUeQl0/edit?usp=sharing" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; (If you see a date format, that's google spreadsheet reading something like "04-05" as April 5th, or "04/05"." In that case, the month will be the first year of the sample and the day the second (e.g. "08/11/14" = "08-14.")

Chamberlain, Wilt

Spoiler:

Robertson, Oscar

Spoiler:

Russell, Bill

Spoiler:

West, Jerry

Spoiler:

Now when it comes to Oscar and West, none of those concerns are really there. Oscar and West sustained their level of performance in the PS. They had incredible impact on their teams. We know they were the reason their teams were winning because Cincy and LA ranked #1-2 all decade long in terms of offensive efficiency. Obviously when they were out, team offense went to trash. How is Wilt considered above them?

[Dr Spaceman]

This topic has made me reach into the back of my head and realize... I don't actually know. So I'll be watching this thread for sure. It's certainly not impossible than one or both of those two could be ranked above considering Wilt's propensity to get in his own way.

[euliss]

Something that makes older players a bit hard for me to rank is the lack of turnover stats. For Wilt in particular, i always imagined he'd be a player really prone to turnovers in those early volume scoring years like in 62'- given that that his teams strategy was too get him the ball on most possessions. And then for a lot of years he was 12+ FTA guy who shot in the high 40s/low 50s. So i'm a very suspect of wilts offensive impact during the beginning 5 years of his career

[D.Brasco]

Based on Accolades alone Wilt has 4 MVP's to the combined 1 of Oscar and Jerry. Not to mention his multiple scoring and rebounding titles.

I'm not sure what argument they actually have over Wilt as both them have a combined 2 rings to Wilt's 2 rings? Jerry's only ring came in an year that Wilt was finals MVP of the team. So they certainly weren't any more successful career wise. Some people have tried to criticize LeBron for being 2-6 in the finals well Jerry was 1-9.

Not to mention with regards to Oscar at least everything Wilt has been criticized for with regards to being a team player, also applies to Oscar he was especially unsuccessful prior to landing on the Bucks.

[bastillon]

Based on Accolades alone Wilt has 4 MVP's to the combined 1 of Oscar and Jerry. Not to mention his multiple scoring and rebounding titles.

I'm not sure what argument they actually have over Wilt as both them have a combined 2 rings to Wilt's 2 rings? Jerry's only ring came in an year that Wilt was finals MVP of the team. So they certainly weren't any more successful career wise. Some people have tried to criticize LeBron for being 2-6 in the finals well Jerry was 1-9.

Not to mention with regards to Oscar at least everything Wilt has been criticized for with regards to being a team player, also applies to Oscar he was especially unsuccessful prior to landing on the Bucks.

One thing that both West and Oscar have on Wilt is impact stats. When they were injured, their teams played a lot worse. Not so much the case with Wilt (see OP for details). The other thing is their playoff performance. Neither Oscar nor West put up stinkers like Wilt in G7s of 69-70 finals. Another thing is leadership. Wilt had terrible intangibles. He didn't practice. Didn't even give a damn enough to live in the same city as the rest of his team. There are stories that it was detrimental to the team.

As for Oscar, he has never been criticized for not being a team player. That's asinine. He was always considered to be a team player. Sometimes he was criticized for being too harsh on his teammates in MJ-Kobe kinda way. But that is to be expected from a true leader. Also the criticism of his relative lack of team success makes little sense for two reasons:
1) Royals were putrid without Oscar. In the games he missed, they were the worst team in the league looking at their record in those games. See OP for details.
2) When he joined a talented Bucks team, they immediately skyrocketed to insane levels, and as we know both from his performance on the court, and stories off the court he was leading that change. So when he finally had good players around him, his team was very succesful. Sounds to me like KG of the 60s/70s.

Look at the difference:
Wilt joins the 68 Lakers with West. Lakers don't even get better in 69. If we account for West playing, they are actually worse substantially.
Oscar joins the Bucks in 70. They improve by 7 SRS and win a championship in dominant fashion.

[therealbig3]

Oscar joins the Bucks in 70. They improve by 7 SRS and win a championship in dominant fashion.

How much of that would you simply credit to Kareem getting a lot better?

[D.Brasco]

Based on Accolades alone Wilt has 4 MVP's to the combined 1 of Oscar and Jerry. Not to mention his multiple scoring and rebounding titles.

I'm not sure what argument they actually have over Wilt as both them have a combined 2 rings to Wilt's 2 rings? Jerry's only ring came in an year that Wilt was finals MVP of the team. So they certainly weren't any more successful career wise. Some people have tried to criticize LeBron for being 2-6 in the finals well Jerry was 1-9.

Not to mention with regards to Oscar at least everything Wilt has been criticized for with regards to being a team player, also applies to Oscar he was especially unsuccessful prior to landing on the Bucks.

One thing that both West and Oscar have on Wilt is impact stats. When they were injured, their teams played a lot worse. Not so much the case with Wilt (see OP for details). The other thing is their playoff performance. Neither Oscar nor West put up stinkers like Wilt in G7s of 69-70 finals. Another thing is leadership. Wilt had terrible intangibles. He didn't practice. Didn't even give a damn enough to live in the same city as the rest of his team. There are stories that it was detrimental to the team.

As for Oscar, he has never been criticized for not being a team player. That's asinine. He was always considered to be a team player. Sometimes he was criticized for being too harsh on his teammates in MJ-Kobe kinda way. But that is to be expected from a true leader. Also the criticism of his relative lack of team success makes little sense for two reasons:
1) Royals were putrid without Oscar. In the games he missed, they were the worst team in the league looking at their record in those games. See OP for details.
2) When he joined a talented Bucks team, they immediately skyrocketed to insane levels, and as we know both from his performance on the court, and stories off the court he was leading that change. So when he finally had good players around him, his team was very succesful. Sounds to me like KG of the 60s/70s.

Look at the difference:
Wilt joins the 68 Lakers with West. Lakers don't even get better in 69. If we account for West playing, they are actually worse substantially.
Oscar joins the Bucks in 70. They improve by 7 SRS and win a championship in dominant fashion.

All your points are personal opinion points. "Impact stats" really? I don't have the time right now but all the points you've brought up about Wilt have been refuted by others here before. Attempting to call out Wilt isn't a new concept here.

Either way you asked the question and I answered it. Better stats, better accolades, more of a cultural impact on the league, it's quite obvious why he is listed above those two.

[therealbig3]

The one thing I'll say about Wilt is...we give guys like KG and Hakeem the benefit of the doubt a lot by extrapolating what they were able to do when they had a competent team and management around them and applying that to earlier years, with the reasoning that they could have been a lot better if they had that their entire careers, and we shouldn't penalize them because of things out of their control...well, isn't it unfair if we don't apply that same logic to Wilt? Aren't his coaches as much to blame for his shortcomings as he is?

If he was coached by Pop (or Red in the 60s), how much better would Wilt have been? That's why I don't want to drop him too low (I have him 9th on my list despite his shortcomings), because I think we should allow him some benefit of the doubt.

[bastillon]

Oscar joins the Bucks in 70. They improve by 7 SRS and win a championship in dominant fashion.

How much of that would you simply credit to Kareem getting a lot better?

Kareem got a lot better precisely because of Oscar. Consider that Kareem posted highest per-36 scoring stats of his entire career despite clearly lacking post skills from the late 70s. At the same time Kareem posted lowest assist36 stats of his career. That suggests that Kareem became more of a finisher in 71 which makes sense considering that Oscar was the playmaker of that offense. Not surprisingly, it coincided with Kareem's offensive efficiency skyrocketing alongside Oscar (+6% FG, +5% TS). Kareem himself credited his own improvement to Oscar. Surely, natural progress had some impact but not nearly as much as Oscar's presence on the court.

One might argue though that Kareem posted some insane statistical performances in Oscar's absence in 73 season. That would be a valid point. By no means am I implying that Oscar "made" Kareem or anything of the sort. I'm saying that Oscar's presence helped Kareem tremendously in 71. As years went by Kareem became more independent on Oscar, and was more of a playmaker on offense. But you can see that in 71 particularly Oscar was the reason for Kareem's progress.

[bastillon]

The one thing I'll say about Wilt is...we give guys like KG and Hakeem the benefit of the doubt a lot by extrapolating what they were able to do when they had a competent team and management around them and applying that to earlier years, with the reasoning that they could have been a lot better if they had that their entire careers, and we shouldn't penalize them because of things out of their control...well, isn't it unfair if we don't apply that same logic to Wilt? Aren't his coaches as much to blame for his shortcomings as he is?

If he was coached by Pop (or Red in the 60s), how much better would Wilt have been? That's why I don't want to drop him too low (I have him 9th on my list despite his shortcomings), because I think we should allow him some benefit of the doubt.

Woah, these are completely different situations we're talking about.

With KG we know that he had tremendous impact and that his production was immense. Lack of team success was therefore a product of incompetent players around him. Flip Saunders was a poor coach but nobody really blames Flip for Wolves failures. I mean you had guys like Troy Hudson and Szczerbiak playing 2nd fiddle. Obviously they weren't gonna beat peak Blazers/Lakers.

With Olajuwon situation is a lot different, particularly under Don Chaney (and that really is the only period when we even have to give Hakeem a pass for anything). Don Chaney was a terrible coach. One of the worst coaches of all-time. Check out his record outside of Houston. He was terrible, it's just that simple. Don Chaney thought it would be better if Rockets offense was ran through Maxwell who attempted more shots than Olajuwon. Don Chaney had no idea what he was doing in general. Rockets had terrible spacing, they couldn't throw a good entry pass etc. So that was a coaching problem. There is very little philosophy in getting the f*** outta way after entry pass. And he couldn't even do that right. Don't compare Don Chaney to any other coach mentioned here because there is no contest I assure you.

With Wilt, it really wasn't the problem with coaches as much as with Wilt's skillset in general. He was unable to make high impact offensively as a high volume scorer. Then he was unable to make high impact alongside Jerry freakin West. Defensively he wasn't guarding pick and rolls and didn't play transition defense. His post game is highly suspect (details OP). Should we give Wilt a pass for his inconsistent defensive effort in getting back or lack of inclination to step up and defend a pick? That would be ridiculous. The only thing that the coaches did for Wilt was to tell him not to shoot the ball. When you have to tell a player that, you know he's just not making a lot of impact offensively.

[bastillon]

All your points are personal opinion points. "Impact stats" really? I don't have the time right now but all the points you've brought up about Wilt have been refuted by others here before. Attempting to call out Wilt isn't a new concept here.

Either way you asked the question and I answered it. Better stats, better accolades, more of a cultural impact on the league, it's quite obvious why he is listed above those two.

Those points were not personal opinions. Those were facts. Since you didn't bother to read the OP and instead chose to mock a phrase "impact stats", consider those charts carefully:

Chamberlain, Wilt

Robertson, Oscar

Russell, Bill

West, Jerry

Those are facts. Wilt's presence didn't make as much impact as you would expect from an all-time great. It's not even debatable. The data is overwhelming. No matter what period you're looking into, Wilt has never made a huge impact like we've seen from other guys in that era. Out of every superstar that ElGee analyzed, Wilt was 2nd worst ever in this regard. We're talking about large samples and a variation of situations (changing teams via trade or missing games due to injury, midseason changes or offseason changes, three different teams). There is no way you can explain all that by mocking it as "impact stats really". We're talking about legitimate factual data points. It is not just some numbers, these are facts that we should not scoff at but instead should analyze.

[Samurai]

Not saying this is the sole reason by any means, but Wilt was bigger than Oscar or West. Yes, I realize that isn't exactly a news flash, but the style of play in the 60's allowed bigs to have a much bigger impact on the game than in today's NBA. My point is Wilt being a C is a factor in being ranked higher; I would guess that the gap would be smaller, or perhaps even missing, if Wilt were a wing player.

[FuShengTHEGreat]

The one thing I'll say about Wilt is...we give guys like KG and Hakeem the benefit of the doubt a lot by extrapolating what they were able to do when they had a competent team and management around them and applying that to earlier years, with the reasoning that they could have been a lot better if they had that their entire careers, and we shouldn't penalize them because of things out of their control...well, isn't it unfair if we don't apply that same logic to Wilt? Aren't his coaches as much to blame for his shortcomings as he is?

If he was coached by Pop (or Red in the 60s), how much better would Wilt have been? That's why I don't want to drop him too low (I have him 9th on my list despite his shortcomings), because I think we should allow him some benefit of the doubt.

That "coaching" excuse doesn't fly with Wilt.

Wilt's coaches had a track record of success before he even joined them.

Bill Sharman led the Warriors to the 66-67 Finals vs Wilt's Sixers and gave them their biggest challenge.

Alex Hannum his coach in '67 when Philly won, won a title vs Boston in '58.

Then you have Van Breda Kloff who pro Wilt supporters I've seen called an idiot (ive heard him called even worst) of a coach for not letting Wilt back in the game in '69? They'd have you believe he was the worst coach ever and act like Wilt was on fire all Finals before he went to the bench instead of his horrid FT shooting and barely being able to achieve double figures in scoring in the series. Oh yeah: "it wasn't his job to score....his role had changed by then!". So Wilt who was a competent 20ppg scorer in the regular season suddenly when dropping a staggering -9ppg in the Finals vs his reg season average "role changed" in the span of a month? Gimme a break!

The same VBK that in the previous year to Wilt's arrival coached LA to a 52-30 record. The same VBK who coached the #1 offence in the NBA. The same VBK that coached LA to a 6 game defeat in the NBA Finals.

That isn't the coaching resume of a "idiot" to me.

[70sFan]

It depends on your criteria. If you value offensive anchor more than two way big, then you should have Oscar over Wilt. But then you should also have him over any big in NBA history. Oscar has a case for GOAT offensive player, he's amazing. West was great himself, around Kobe-Wade level.

You are talking about impact. Your numbers are based on small sample of size. Beside, West was injury prone player. I don't care if my player have huge impact if he didn't play. Wilt didn't miss games until 1969 injury.

I love Oscar and I don't want to talk about him in bad lights, but his team missed playoffs 3 times (if I remeber correctly). People love to bring Wilt 1963 season when he missed playoffs, but his team was horrible. Arguably much worse than any of Oscar's teams. I don't blame them for missing the playoffs, same with KG and Hakeem. Nobody should.

You are talking about Wilt inconsistent defense. From what I know, he has some amazing defensive seasons: 1964, 1968, 1972, 1973. That's all time great level defense. Beside that, you have some very strong years like 1960, 1966, 1967. He played great defense in 1962 playoffs. He's much more consistent than Shaq, who BTW anchored below average defensive team in 2001 season (peak Shaq).

You bring 1965 season as an example of Wilt impact. Wilt in RS had health problems and it's his worst RS during his prime (until. 1969). That's not good example without knowing context.

I don't want to talk about 1969 season, because I can't defend him for that year. He played poorly for his standard. Of course coach should get some blame, but Wilt as GOAT candidate should have played better. Based on what he did before, he should have played better.

Beside, you critique Wilt for having questionable impact on offense. Tell me how many times Hakeem did anchor great offensive team. I can tell you, not many. I still think he's great offensive player because I watch tape and see him dominating. Same with Wilt - when I watch 2nd half of 1964 NBA finals, I see Wilt killing on the offensive boards, being doubled and tripled in the post even without the ball, scoring from the post without any spacing. I love that people when talking about all time greats focus on their strenght and greatness, but when it comes to Wilt - he's poor P&R defender, he doesn't have Hakeem-esque footwork. I don't care, Shaq is as bad P&R defender and worse defender overall and yet any poster would love to have him his team. Kareem and Duncan don't have beautiful footwork, but it's deadly effective. Same with Wilt, he covered sooo much space with one crabb dribble, his finger roll is unpredictable, his fade away give him more range in the post than any of Shaq move. He's also great passer. I don't care that he didn't shoot hook shots or didn't do dream shakes. He's effective and I love his style of play. I think it's beautiful in a different way than Hakeem's. Simple but effective.


Overall, it's not bad having West and Oscar over Wilt all time. But Wilt has better longevity, better peak and comparable prime. He has more accomplishements. I have them just behind top 10 while Wilt around 5th-7th. Not huge gap, but clear one.

[Swoop4]

A summary of my arguments against the perception of Wilt's "failures"

1961: Arizin is even older, a rookie Al Attles doesn't help TOO much... But Wilt still gets them to the Playoffs, puts up a 37/23, but his supporting cast flops BADLY. Arizin, Gola and Rodgers combined to shoot 31% from the field. Warriors get swept by the Royals. Can't blame Wilt here, his team stunk it up.

1962: absolutely carried a worsening cast. Rodgers was completely awful as an offensive player now, shot 35.6% from the field. All his help is Arizin and Gola. Still no real shooting on the team. Wilt is great on both ends of the court, somehow makes them the second best team in the league, and comes one Sam Jones jumper away from upsetting the greatest dynasty in sports. AGREED Russ did a good job on him in the EDF, but really, if that jumper had missed, Wilt would be hailed as the 33/25 hero who single-handedly defeated the ultimate dynasty.

One jumper miss. One jumper miss and he goes down as a God. Is there some kind of strange thing going on that people seem to hate on him otherwise?

1963: His team dropped off a good bit, but seriously... We're talking a team with no shooting, no defense, had Arizin retire, Gola miss 60 games, and Wilt still has the team make league average offense AND defense? With that kind of supporting cast, blame the guy who goes 45/25, leads the league in FG% and anchors the defense? Where is the logic here?

1965: He drops off a bit due to the heart disease. Bad team results in the beginning of the year. If you want to hold that against him, fine. He gets traded to Philly because the SFW management is full of asses. Philly immediately improves, they go 11-3 in the first 14 games with Wilt. Then Greer, Costello and Jackson all get injured in the second half of the season. Wilt still drags them to .500 and then outplays Russ in the EDF, losing because HAVLICEK STOLE THE BALL. This is the second time that one play has decided whether or not Wilt beats Russell.

Again, one play. One 50-50 play. 25% chance he ends up with 2 titles already.

1966: he first of 3 straight MVPs. 30/30 in the Playoffs, and only loses to Boston because his two best team-mates, Greer and Walker, screw up badly, shooting 36% from the floor combined. Shades of what happened with Gola and Arizin in '61. Keep this in mind when talking about his supporting cast this year. How is it logical to blame the one guy who showed up when the rest of the team flops so badly?

1968: In the Playoffs, he dragged an injury ridden team past the Knicks, leading both teams in every major statistical category. He lost a game 7 to Boston by 4 points, in a game where Hannum had his only real failing as a coach. He simply couldn't devise a game-plan to get the ball to Wilt with Embry and Russell swarming him. The series was still so close despite the litany of injuries the Sixers had. Billy C was out of the series, Wilt had a bad calf problem, practically the whole starting 5 was hobbled.

That is providing some context for the "failures" in his prime that some of the filthy comments out here are referring to. In reality he was literally a handful of bad breaks away from exiting the 60s with five titles.

[Swoop4]

Oh and also this.

Wilt has an unfair reputation as a 'big-game choker'. Take a look here at his performance in swing games, elimination games and game 7s through the years:

Wilt in do or die games...

1960 G3 vs. Nationals: 53 points, ? rebounds (playoff record at the time for pts)
1962 G5 vs. Nationals: 56 pts, 35 rebs (breaks his own playoff record)
1962 G7 vs Celtics : 22 pts, 21 rebs (7/14 shooting - Warriors were on the verge of pulling off this upset but Sam James hit a clutch shot. Wilt was undoubtedly fronted by the entire Celtics frontline, as was the case for most of his games vs. Celtics in mid-60s, a defensive strategy which would have been illegal in 80s/90s mind you)
1964 G7 vs. Hawks: 39 pts, 26 rebs, 12 blocks (many of which led to 14-0 run…and scored 50 pts a couple of days earlier in the pivotal game 5)
1965 G7 vs. Celtics: 30 pts, 32 rebs (famous game where Havlichek stole the ball, had 30/26 to save team from elimination the game before)
1968 G7 vs Celtics: 14 pts, 34 rebs, (wilt’s role different, but he definitely could have stepped up offensively in the second half)
1969 G7 vs. Celtics: 18 pts, 27 rebs (injured in final 6 minutes of game, attempted to come back, coach held him back...and Lakers end up losing close game on a lucky shot by Don Nelson)
1970 G7 vs. Suns: 30 pts, 27 rebs, 11 blocks (Lakers come back from down 3-1, and Wilt was 34 at the time)
1970 G7 vs. Knicks: 21 pts, 24 rebs (45 pts 27 rebs in the game before this to save Lakers from elimination, and AGAIN, he is 34 years old)

He has the highest FG% in game 7s of anyone: .626. Second highest rebounding rate of anyone (besides Russ) in game 7s. So the myth that Wilt is a big-game player really needs to be gotten rid of.

[lorak]

Those points were not personal opinions. Those were facts. Since you didn't bother to read the OP and instead chose to mock a phrase "impact stats", consider those charts carefully:

Chamberlain, Wilt

Robertson, Oscar

Russell, Bill

West, Jerry

Those are facts. Wilt's presence didn't make as much impact as you would expect from an all-time great. It's not even debatable. The data is overwhelming. No matter what period you're looking into, Wilt has never made a huge impact like we've seen from other guys in that era. Out of every superstar that ElGee analyzed, Wilt was 2nd worst ever in this regard. We're talking about large samples and a variation of situations (changing teams via trade or missing games due to injury, midseason changes or offseason changes, three different teams). There is no way you can explain all that by mocking it as "impact stats really". We're talking about legitimate factual data points. It is not just some numbers, these are facts that we should not scoff at but instead should analyze.

I'm not sure why there is one column removed from screenshots above... and it's the most important one called "wowy score", what Elgee define as: "Given that I have error rates, I can now use this information to create a WOWY Score -- a single number that essentially captures how impressive a given WOWY run is."

So lets look at wowy score, when given player missed at least 10 games (I think there's not much sense in using smaller samples when we deal with with/without data):

Code: Select all

YEAR   G MISSED   WOWY SCORE      PLAYER   
65 PHI   43      2,0      Wilt Chamberlain
65 GSW   42      1,6      Wilt Chamberlain
70 LAL   37      2,0      Wilt Chamberlain
70 LAL   16      -0,1      Wilt Chamberlain
57 BOS   24      1,8      Bill Russell
57 BOS   19      0,5      Bill Russell
62 LAL   36      3,6      Elgin Baylor
65 LAL   15      3,3      Elgin Baylor
62 LAL   30      5,2      Elgin Baylor
65 LAL   13      4,0      Elgin Baylor
66 LAL   12      0,0      Elgin Baylor
70 LAL   16      -0,4      Elgin Baylor
65 LAL   11      4,9      Jerry West
68 LAL   41      4,8      Jerry West
63 LAL   26      5,4      Jerry West
67 LAL   13      3,0      Jerry West
68 LAL   27      5,1      Jerry West
69 LAL   20      3,5      Jerry West
71 LAL   18      3,1      Jerry West
73 LAL   13      4,8      Jerry West
68 SFW   25      6,4      Nate Thurmond
67 SFW   13      5,4      Nate Thurmond
68 SFW   12      3,5      Nate Thurmond
70 SFW   31      1,7      Nate Thurmond
74 GSW   16      1,9      Nate Thurmond
68 CIN   12      4,1      Oscar Robertson
68 CIN   10      3,8      Oscar Robertson
70 CIN   16      2,7      Oscar Robertson
70 CIN   13      2,3      Oscar Robertson
72 MIL   17      2,1      Oscar Robertson
73 MIL   27      1,6      Oscar Robertson
74 MIL   10      -1,9      Oscar Robertson


So actually Wilt doesn't look that bad, in fact better than '57 Russell (I know, he was a rookie, but still led Celtics to title, right?) and Thurmond is the best player from that group followed by Baylor (!) and West and Oscar. Unfortunately we only have one big sample for Russell, in which he doesn't look great. When we combine rest of his career missed games, then he is like Thrumond, but we can't draw much conclusion from something like that (adding 2-3 games from each season through players' career - that won't work with with/without data, because of too many differences between seasons).

[bastillon]

Not saying this is the sole reason by any means, but Wilt was bigger than Oscar or West. Yes, I realize that isn't exactly a news flash, but the style of play in the 60's allowed bigs to have a much bigger impact on the game than in today's NBA. My point is Wilt being a C is a factor in being ranked higher; I would guess that the gap would be smaller, or perhaps even missing, if Wilt were a wing player.

The thing is that Wilt's impact was not even close to Oscar/West level. Consider this: when Wilt joined the Lakers in 68-69, they played than they did just the season beforehand! Compare that to Oscar joining Bucks in 70-71. They skyrocketed by 7 SRS. If you look at the games Wilt missed, you see similar trends. There is no evidence whatsoever that Wilt's impact was anywhere near Oscar or West. People greatly underrate just how much better they made their teams look.

[Samurai]

Not saying this is the sole reason by any means, but Wilt was bigger than Oscar or West. Yes, I realize that isn't exactly a news flash, but the style of play in the 60's allowed bigs to have a much bigger impact on the game than in today's NBA. My point is Wilt being a C is a factor in being ranked higher; I would guess that the gap would be smaller, or perhaps even missing, if Wilt were a wing player.

The thing is that Wilt's impact was not even close to Oscar/West level. Consider this: when Wilt joined the Lakers in 68-69, they played than they did just the season beforehand! Compare that to Oscar joining Bucks in 70-71. They skyrocketed by 7 SRS. If you look at the games Wilt missed, you see similar trends. There is no evidence whatsoever that Wilt's impact was anywhere near Oscar or West. People greatly underrate just how much better they made their teams look.

I am not sure this is relevant to the question at hand. The question you posed for this thread is "why is Wilt ranked above Oscar and West". To which my opinion is that being a big playing in Wilt's era is a reason why he is ranked higher. Your responses seem to be saying that you don't believe Wilt should be ranked higher, which is fine, but that addresses a different question: should Wilt be ranked higher than Oscar and West. That is a different question.

[Doctor MJ]

Great thread. Makes me revisit the arguments.

Before I look at what others say, my thoughts going in to this:

What I've tend to find myself deciding on are the years where Wilt's team was better up through '68. The thing is that as we talk talk about Wilt's issues in helping his team win, there is still the fact that Wilt played on a lot of good teams where it's not like we'd say there was any doubt to who was the driving force of the team.

If I look to tally up who has more years where they are better, it's really hard to see how Wilt doesn't win unless I give the other guy the now much of the time even when his team is getting trounced by Wilt's.