Insane speed of Wilt Chamberlain

[SkyHookFTW]

0:35-0:39...we call that "make up speed" in NFL. That was old Wilt at 300 pounds, past his athletic prime running the floor and coming back for the block. Damn impressive. How anyone can say it isn't is beyond me.

[Cubbies2120]

Reminds me of this, Robinson running like a gazelle

Watch on YouTube

[OldSchoolNoBull]

Shaq is my favorite player of all time, but he wasn't on Wilt's level.

Far more skilled and a much higher BBIQ with Shaq.
Wilt was a great defender, but he relied solely on his physical dominance on offense, he didn't understand how to pass and wasn't very efficient. It's why he doesn't belong in the top 10 all time in my opinion.
Probably the 2nd best defensive C ever next to Russell, but Russeĺl was better because he knew he wasn't skilled enough to score so didn't try and just focused on passing and rebounding.

I don't know where you're getting this. He was in the top three APG for his position every year of his career but one. His TS was above the league average every single year, in fact routinely 5 and 6% above the average and even well above that in a few seasons.

[Yallbecrazy]

Shaq is my favorite player of all time, but he wasn't on Wilt's level.

Far more skilled and a much higher BBIQ with Shaq.
Wilt was a great defender, but he relied solely on his physical dominance on offense, he didn't understand how to pass and wasn't very efficient. It's why he doesn't belong in the top 10 all time in my opinion.
Probably the 2nd best defensive C ever next to Russell, but Russeĺl was better because he knew he wasn't skilled enough to score so didn't try and just focused on passing and rebounding.

I don't know where you're getting this. He was in the top three APG for his position every year of his career but one. His TS was above the league average every single year, in fact routinely 5 and 6% above the average and even well above that in a few seasons.

https://backpicks.com/2017/12/04/backpicks-goat-9-wilt-chamberlain/

[coastalmarker99]

Far more skilled and a much higher BBIQ with Shaq.
Wilt was a great defender, but he relied solely on his physical dominance on offense, he didn't understand how to pass and wasn't very efficient. It's why he doesn't belong in the top 10 all time in my opinion.
Probably the 2nd best defensive C ever next to Russell, but Russeĺl was better because he knew he wasn't skilled enough to score so didn't try and just focused on passing and rebounding.

I don't know where you're getting this. He was in the top three APG for his position every year of his career but one. His TS was above the league average every single year, in fact routinely 5 and 6% above the average and even well above that in a few seasons.

https://backpicks.com/2017/12/04/backpicks-goat-9-wilt-chamberlain/

My biggest problem with Ben Taylor is that in his Russell vs Wilt video

Watch on YouTube

;t=1s

1:52-on: Ben claims Wilt’s 1962 is not in the best 100 seasons of all time.

But Ben never tells his viewers that Wilt’s 1962 ranks in the TOP 4 ALL TIME in WS, OWS, and PER.

If that's not a top-100 offensive season, then where does it rank? Ben never says.

2:48-on: By ignoring era/context, Ben misleads his viewers about Wilt’s scoring rate per possession

Ben says that Wilt's PTS/poss would rank only 7th in the league in 2020.

But Ben TOTALLY IGNORES CONTEXT, the difference in league scoring efficiency (ORTG) between 1962 & 2020

CONTEXT: PTS/100 possessions (ORtg/DRtg) were 17% higher per possession in 2020 vs. 1962.

Adjusted to 2020 ORtg from 1962, Wilt’s 1962 would be: 45.0 PTS/100 poss, or 33.8/75.

That's not "7th in 2020"; that's 2nd after adjusting!

And it's 4th HIGHEST ALL TIME!

Ben focuses on Wilt’s scoring volume (without adjusting for era). Ben mentions Iverson as another volume scorer.

But Ben ignores that Wilt--unlike Iverson--combined very high efficiency with volume: 113 career TS+, including 110 TS+ in his high-scoring Warrior years.

3:21-on: Ben’s focuses on Wilt's unadjusted PTS/poss numbers.

But he never mentions that other great players of Wilt's era--Baylor, Oscar, and West--had lower numbers unadjusted for context than Wilt’s.

Thus, Ben never mentions that young Wilt was THE GREATEST SCORER OF HIS ERA

3:21-on: Ben claims that Wilt was a "black hole." To support this, he shows a graph of TSA/poss and AST/poss.

This graph is misleading bc--once again--Ben does NOT adjust for context: League average AST/poss were 28% LOWER in 1962 compared to 2020, so Wilt's AST should be adjusted up 28% to make 1962 equivalent with 2020.

Thus, by not adjusting for era, Ben is underestimating Wilt's AST/TSA by 28% in his misleading graph.

Ben also does not supply context by comparing Wilt to other "finishers," as Wilt was early in his career.

Wilt's best comparison is Shaq.

Adjusted for context and MP/G, Wilt’s first 7 years and Shaq’s first 7 are almost identical in TS%, TSA/AST, PTS/36, AST/36, and REB/36.

Regarding AST/TSA, Ben ignores most of Wilt's career.

Wilt was a “black hole” for his first 3 years.

But for 8 straight years afterwards, he was in the TOP-3 among all NBA centers in AST/MP (note: his high MP didn’t help him in this stat). And he was in the top-6 all 11 years.

Ben claims that Wilt was “an outlier of outliers” when it comes to being a “black hole.”

The reality: Wilt had 3 "black hole years, first 3. He had 4 years that were high scoring and higher than average AST for a center (next 4). He had 7 other years that were HIGH AST/LOW TSA

In fact, adjusted for era, Wilt—even during his high TSA first 7 years—was LESS of a “black hole” (based on AST/TSA) than:

Moses Malone Mourning Stoudemire Hayes Ewing Parish Howard McAdoo McHale Aldridge (among the top 40 or so big men)

Plus, Wilt’s adjusted TSA/AST for his first 7 high TSA years is not much worse than Hakeem's, Reed's, or Shaq's.

Furthermore, when we examine his WHOLE 14-YEAR CAREER, Wilt was one of the LEAST “black holes” (LOWEST TSA/AST) of top 40 big men (all stats adjusted for era):

5:10-on: Ben criticizes Wilt for his teams’ average/slightly-above-average ORtg.

But Ben never examines Wilt’s teammates. If he had, he would have discovered that Wilt had poor offensive teammates his first 6 years with the Warriors.

5:28: Ben criticizes Wilt’s 1965 Warriors for being last in ORtg.

Yet he never mentions that Wilt was trade mid-1965.

Warriors went from 108.0 P/G with Wilt to 103.1 (4.9 FEWER) without Wilt.

Similarly, 76ers went from 111.4 P/G without Wilt to 113.9 (2.5 MORE) with Wilt.

6:21-on: Ben reverses causation by claiming that Wilt’s increased passing improved his teams’ ORtg by allowing his teammates to score more.

The causation is the reverse: Once Wilt got better teammates with the 76ers and Lakers, Wilt had good offensive players he could pass to.

Ben concedes that the 1967 76ers had a high ORTg. (In fact, it was the highest in NBA history to that point--not mentioned by Ben, of course.)

But Ben omits that Wilt’s increased efficiency in 1967 (129 TS+ !!) was the main factor that led to his teams’ improved ORtg that year.

7:36-on: Ben misleads by focusing on Bill Russell’s All-Star teammates from 1959-66.

In the early NBA, All-Stars are VERY MISLEADING. In an 8-team league, each team typically got an average of 3 players per year.

Ben never mentions Hall of Fame or All-NBAs. Thus, he omits that Russell played with TWICE as many top players per yr.

Russell played with: 67 HOF player-seasons (5.2/yr) 22 All-NBAs (1.7/yr)

Wilt with: 36 HOF seasons (2.6/yr, HALF as many) 10 All-NBAs (0.7/yr, LESS than HALF)

8:46-on: Ben focuses on the Celtics improvement in DRtg with Russell beginning in his rookie year.

Ben is (mostly) right about Russell's great defensive impact.

But Ben never mentions that in Russell's rookie year, 1956-57, Celtics’ opponents averaged: 100.6 PTS without Russell (in 24 games) 100.0 PTS with him his rookie year (in 48 games)

Thus, getting rid of Macauley at center helped Celtics’ D before Russell even played one game.

Also, Ben never mentions that Celtics averaged: 54 wins and 5.6 PTS/100 better than average in DRtg his Russell's last four years.

In 1973, after Russell had retired, Celtics had: 68 wins and 5.8 PTS/100 better than average DRtg.

11:04-on: Ben talks about Russell impact on Wilt’s regular-season stats.

But Ben never informs viewers of the following: Head-to-head in the playoffs (8 POS, 1960-69), Wilt’s stats were nearly the same vs. Russell as vs. other playoff centers. Russell’s were considerably worse.

Ben claims to be "comparing" Wilt and Russell, yet he never analyzes Russell’s offence or Wilt’s defence.

[coastalmarker99]

Far more skilled and a much higher BBIQ with Shaq.
Wilt was a great defender, but he relied solely on his physical dominance on offense, he didn't understand how to pass and wasn't very efficient. It's why he doesn't belong in the top 10 all time in my opinion.
Probably the 2nd best defensive C ever next to Russell, but Russeĺl was better because he knew he wasn't skilled enough to score so didn't try and just focused on passing and rebounding.

I don't know where you're getting this. He was in the top three APG for his position every year of his career but one. His TS was above the league average every single year, in fact routinely 5 and 6% above the average and even well above that in a few seasons.

https://backpicks.com/2017/12/04/backpicks-goat-9-wilt-chamberlain/

Thinking Basketball likes to use analytics to adjust stats based on 75 possessions, 36 minutes played, etc. but he doesn't mention other well-known things like how pre-merger we may not have official statistics but we have averages that may as well be rock solid given how reputable the source is (Harvey Pollack the most revered NBA analyst and was a member of the NBA for over 60 years until the 2010's), and how statistics themselves were recorded differently back then.



According to those averages Wilt averaged 10.9 and 10.7 blocks per game with the Sixers.


He also doesn't mention how much harder it was to record an assist back then (if a player even dribbled or took any time after your pass it wasn't an assist) meaning that Wilt was actually averaging much more than 4 assists per game in some seasons of his career he also doesn't mention all of the restrictive rules regarding offence that made it that much harder to score in the first place and drove the fg% down.

There are fair points that Ben Taylor made for Russell's great defence as to why he ranks him over Wilt but we aren't being given a complete picture.


Yes, 50 pts weren't as many pts as we think given the number of possessions and minutes Wilt was playing under. But why is that a problem somehow for a player who is doing so much else in the other areas of the game too?

[Salieri]

Lol that’s not impressive. Actually that’s below average by today’s standards

Bro what you on? Say what you will about those other guys but Wilt was an incredible athlete. Imagine him with modern sports medicine, PT, and equipment... dude was a freak

Blah blah blah overrated....Yall boomers can hype up about Wilt all you want but he doesn't look all that impressive in this videos.

I sometimes wonder if some of you are trying to display your ignorance for all to see and help everyone disregard your opinions from that point on.

You jump in, use a derogatory term to describe older fans, brush aside their arguments in an offensive way with that "blah blah blah", spew your uninformed, non-backed by data opinion and even destroy basic grammar in the process (this videos? Really?). And you did all this without presenting one iota of information or logic behind your stance. Your post could be sadly reduced to a "you wrong cuz I say so".

You just sound like an edgy teen, full of aggression and in desperate need of some schooling when it comes to debating. Well, here's a free lesson for you youngster: that is not how you promote the exchange of ideas and incentivize debate. Quite the opposite. That is how you get people to tell you to shut up and listen when adults (and I'm talking about mental maturity here) are talking.

[coastalmarker99]

Wilt once said in an interview

That what hurt my career the most was that I wanted to be a consummate basketball player and I wanted to be able to shoot the ball instead of just taking it to the basket and dunk it as I should have.

I had great satisfaction shooting fadeaway shots, hook shots, finger rolls and unfortunately, most times that was more of a negative than a positive as if I just went out and took it to the basket every time as I should have I'd have averaged 70 or 80 points a game.

[BostonCouchGM]

Incredible how fast he got down the court, takes like 12 steps to go the full length of the court. If that.

Another observation is how unathletic and unskilled these guys look compared to current day scrubs even. Incredible how athlete's have evolved over the years.

Surely you're not referring to Wilt here?

I've seen Greg Monroe run the floor just as well if not better. Wilt's athleticism would look slightly above average in todays NBA at most.

Not a knock against him, for his time yeah he was one of the most athletic dudes out there, if not the most. It's impressive how far athletes have come compared to back then.

stop. There has never been and likely never will be a better athlete than Wilt. He'd be the most dominant force in the game no matter what era he played in. I'm not saying he's necessarily a better basketball player than MJ, and I don't put centers near the top of the GOAT discussion because so much of their success is predicated on winning the genetic lottery, but he would absolutely dominate today. Can you imagine the centers of today trying to run with him and guard him? And no, not one of them could keep up with Wilt. Not a single one

[dhsilv2]

Gotta love these threads, no middle ground at all.

Wilt was an insane athlete. Those thinking he was so far and away better than any other nba player ever...likely confusion from the athletic gap between now and then combined with so many weirdly slightly sped up videos out there, and then there's wilt's exaggerations, which get supported by the biggest exaggerator ever, Arnold. But he was clearly a freak of nature.

Wilt can't pass? Was inefficient? Oh lord...come on people. Now was wilt someone who wasn't always able to combine his scoring ability with his passing to optimize an offense? Yeah, he wasn't some savant like some of the all time great offensive guys...but there aren't many big men who fall into that. Shaq and Kareem are really the only two offensive savants I think of when I think centers. I might be forgetting someone.

Just blows my mind we can't appreciate greatness and be able to have a nuanced discussion on HOW great someone is, while not resorting to trying to downplay the player.

[70sFan]

Here's non sped up footage:

Watch on YouTube

Watch on YouTube

My clips aren't sped up either, did you even watch the video?

[70sFan]

Incredible how fast he got down the court, takes like 12 steps to go the full length of the court. If that.

Another observation is how unathletic and unskilled these guys look compared to current day scrubs even. Incredible how athlete's have evolved over the years.

Surely you're not referring to Wilt here?

I've seen Greg Monroe run the floor just as well if not better. Wilt's athleticism would look slightly above average in todays NBA at most.

Not a knock against him, for his time yeah he was one of the most athletic dudes out there, if not the most. It's impressive how far athletes have come compared to back then.

Show me Greg Monroe running that fast then, I'm waiting.

[70sFan]

Lol that’s not impressive. Actually that’s below average by today’s standards

Show me 7'2 300 lbs player running that fast then. It's certainly not Joel Embiid, who is one of the most athletic 7 footers we have now.

[70sFan]

Gotta love these threads, no middle ground at all.

Wilt was an insane athlete. Those thinking he was so far and away better than any other nba player ever...likely confusion from the athletic gap between now and then combined with so many weirdly slightly sped up videos out there, and then there's wilt's exaggerations, which get supported by the biggest exaggerator ever, Arnold. But he was clearly a freak of nature.

Wilt can't pass? Was inefficient? Oh lord...come on people. Now was wilt someone who wasn't always able to combine his scoring ability with his passing to optimize an offense? Yeah, he wasn't some savant like some of the all time great offensive guys...but there aren't many big men who fall into that. Shaq and Kareem are really the only two offensive savants I think of when I think centers. I might be forgetting someone.

Just blows my mind we can't appreciate greatness and be able to have a nuanced discussion on HOW great someone is, while not resorting to trying to downplay the player.

You also forgot Brook Lopez

Yeah, I don't understand how people can't talk about Wilt without exaggarations. He's not some kind of demigod, but at the same time he's definitely faster than Greg Monroe The first clip in particular shows great speed and acceleration for someone his size.

I won't even touch these nonsense takes like "Wilt couldn't pass" or "Wilt wasn't efficient". The guy cites Ben Taylor's article as a proof and I know that Ben would strongly disagree with his hot takes.

[Mob Byers]

Surely you're not referring to Wilt here?

I've seen Greg Monroe run the floor just as well if not better. Wilt's athleticism would look slightly above average in todays NBA at most.

Not a knock against him, for his time yeah he was one of the most athletic dudes out there, if not the most. It's impressive how far athletes have come compared to back then.

stop. There has never been and likely never will be a better athlete than Wilt. He'd be the most dominant force in the game no matter what era he played in. I'm not saying he's necessarily a better basketball player than MJ, and I don't put centers near the top of the GOAT discussion because so much of their success is predicated on winning the genetic lottery, but he would absolutely dominate today. Can you imagine the centers of today trying to run with him and guard him? And no, not one of them could keep up with Wilt. Not a single one

Are we watching the same game footage? Do you not see how unskilled guys were back in Wilt’s era? Have you not seen how many big men are running the floor just as well and even better in some cases?

It is impressive how skilled players have become, especially after watching that old footage another poster shared. Hard to ignore the differences in skill imo.

[coastalmarker99]

It should be noted by fans and media that if you take Wilt out of the equation there have only been 30 to 40 games of 60+ points in Nba history as (Wilt had 32 by himself.) Or only 28 30-30 games (Chamberlain had 103 on his own.) Or only six 40-30 games (Chamberlain had 55.)

And If you take Wilt and his four highest-scoring seasons out from Nba history then MJ's 37.1 ppg would be the all-time record, and James Harden who plays today would be next at 36.1 ppg along with Rick Barry at 35.6 ppg then Kobe at 35.4 ppg.

BTW, Kareem's 34.8 ppg in '72 (also in the Chamberlain-era), is 10th all-time, and Baylor's 60-61 season of 34.8 ppg is 11th. So, strike Chamberlain from the record book, and the numbers are far more normal across all eras.

So it must be asked...why was it Chamberlain who was the only player in Nba history putting up those staggering scoring, rebounding, FG%'s, seasons.

The rules were the same for everyone, yet no one came close to what Wilt did. Maybe he really was that much better than his contemporaries as an individual player.

[TheGOATRises007]

Wilt Chamberlain is the greatest athlete in NBA history.

[70sFan]

I've seen Greg Monroe run the floor just as well if not better. Wilt's athleticism would look slightly above average in todays NBA at most.

Not a knock against him, for his time yeah he was one of the most athletic dudes out there, if not the most. It's impressive how far athletes have come compared to back then.

stop. There has never been and likely never will be a better athlete than Wilt. He'd be the most dominant force in the game no matter what era he played in. I'm not saying he's necessarily a better basketball player than MJ, and I don't put centers near the top of the GOAT discussion because so much of their success is predicated on winning the genetic lottery, but he would absolutely dominate today. Can you imagine the centers of today trying to run with him and guard him? And no, not one of them could keep up with Wilt. Not a single one

Are we watching the same game footage? Do you not see how unskilled guys were back in Wilt’s era? Have you not seen how many big men are running the floor just as well and even better in some cases?

It is impressive how skilled players have become, especially after watching that old footage another poster shared. Hard to ignore the differences in skill imo.

Show me all these bigs running the floor better than Wilt. Keep in mind that Wilt is bigger than anyone but Boban in the league right now.

[zimpy27]

Athletes today feel like another level with how smooth they are. Wilt was very fast but still looked so awkward.

[michaelm]

Wilt Chamberlain is the greatest athlete in NBA history.

Only in NBA history ?.