SkyHookFTW wrote:Salieri wrote:shotsquatch wrote:Honestly, Embiid may be a more impressive athlete in some respects, at least in terms of skillset. Embiid's bag is like a combination of Kobe and Shaq. It's uncanny watching a human his size move so fluidly.
In terms of skillset, I don't know and I won't fight you if you think so.
In terms on athletic brilliance, not even close. It's like they're two different species. Wilt would be twice as strong, twice as fast, twice as agile. He would be able to jump much higher, move his hands much faster, and let's not even talk about stamina.
Embiid is an impressive athlete, I'm not gonna deny it. For a guy that big to move that fluidly, it's really impressive. Except when you compare him to the closest thing we have had to a superhuman, which is Wilt.
Wilt is in a league on his own athletically, and Embiid does not belong in that league or even the one below it.
If Embiid even just has Wilt's endurance and could play 38-40 minutes a night he'd be the most impactful player in the league. We need the ghost of Wilt to visit Embiid one night and gift him some of that endurance.
Thing is, I understand where shotsquatch is coming from. He's a pretty smart and reasonable poster, and I've never found any of his posts nonsensical, I agree with him a lot.
And in this case, he might have a point that Embiid is more fluid than Wilt. Also, hand coordination is an athletic trait as far as I'm concerned, and there's little debate there: Embiid is noticeably better. I don't know about Wilt's tendency to fumble passes and whatnot, you would have to ask 70sFan because he surely has watched way more footage of him than me. But I do know that Wilt's shooting was never even decent, as proven by his FT problems, whereas Embiid is a legit threat from 3 and a very good FT shooter among big men. So yeah, there are areas where Embiid outshines Wilt and I have no problem admitting it.
But when talking about Wilt's athletic ability, I'm talking about raw athleticism. The old "citius, altius, fortius" mantra from the Classic Greek Olympic games two millennia ago. Being stronger, being faster, having more jumping power, capacity for moving your limbs quickly or general stamina.
And I think in that department, Wilt Chamberlain is arguably the most athletic human born since the beginning of the modern era, possibly ever. A guy that big shouldn't be jumping that high or running that fast while at the same time having that kind of core strength or limbs strength. As I said, the closest thing to a real life Captain America I've seen.
So yeah, Embiid could use a bit of Wilt's endurance. But then again, so would literally everyone else. Wilt averaged 48 minutes per game for a whole season once, ffs
