Wilt vs. Duncan?

[thizznation]

bastillion if you just honestly called wilt inefficient, you seriously need to take a deep breath, do the best to put your bias aside, and honestly reassess your views of Wilt. Are you watching Wilt's highlight clips where there are a lot of fade aways and extrapolating that to "that is an inefficient shot, he is shooting it a lot...that is poor shot selection, he is inefficient!!!"? How is Wilt inefficient? Throw me a bone here because I am not following you at all...

[Dipper 13]

bastillion if you just honestly called wilt inefficient, you seriously need to take a deep breath, do the best to put away your bias aside, and honestly reassess your views of Wilt. Are you watching Wilt's highlight clips where there are a lot of fade aways and extrapolating that to "that is an inefficient shot, he is shooting it a lot...that is poor shot selection, he is inefficient!!!"? How is Wilt inefficient? Throw me a bone here because I am not following you at all...

He has ranked a peaked Chamberlain (1967) behind Rodman 1997.

viewtopic.php?f=64&t=1197732&start=165#p33214311

[Rapcity_11]

He has ranked a peaked Chamberlain (1967) behind Rodman 1997.

viewtopic.php?f=64&t=1197732&start=165#p33214311

Read again...

[Raaccoonn]

Actually Bastillion was 100% correct.

Wilt was horrifying inefficient as a scorer.
Lets examine his 6 seasons where he was a volume scorer (60-66)

60 = 49%FG / 49%TS
61 = 47%FG / 49%TS
62 = 47%FG / 50%TS

63 = 54%TS (decent)
64 = 55%TS (decent)

66 = 50%TS (crap again)

The rest of his career he wasn't relied upon to carry his teams offensively and he rarely took shots that weren't high percentage shots or easy layups/dunks.

The fact is Wilt was not that good offensively.
His footwork was mediocre and he looked awkward as hell when he put the ball on the floor with his back to the basket.
Numerous reports from back in the day say Wilt was a turnover machine.

Wilt is similar to Iverson.
They can both put up great volume offensively if given the green light due to their unique physical talents but in reality neither of them can have much of an impact offensively as volume scorers.

[Raaccoonn]

Also the era excuse doesn't fly.
Team defenses were far less advanced and double/triple teams far less common back then.

Guys like Oscar / West were able to maintain excellent efficiently throughout the 60's which disproves that argument.
There was nothing preventing Wilt from being more efficient offensively other then his own lack of ability/skill.

Oh and even in his later years where he was in a Russell/Chandler-Esque type role offensively he was still a big liability to his teams offensively because without being the main dawg on offense his FT% fell down to 35-40% which meant Hack-A-Wilt would actually be a useful strategy.

[Dipper 13]

Read again...

"what matters more is that Wilt-less Sixers would still put up about 5-6 SRS quite easily."


Clearly he is referring to the team under Coach Hannum (In 1967 they had 8.50 SRS). Since an individual's estimated per-possession adjusted point differential impact is the sole method of evaluation here for most, (notably the poster I quoted, as he has mentioned this before) this is interpreted as his ranking Rodman on par with Wilt.

[The Infamous1]

97 Rodman though?

And shot clock is 100% right about the word "impact" how it's used around here.

[Dipper 13]

Numerous reports from back in the day say Wilt was a turnover machine.

Would you please post just one of these reports?

*Quoting a RealGM poster does not count.

[bastillon]

bastillion if you just honestly called wilt inefficient, you seriously need to take a deep breath, do the best to put away your bias aside, and honestly reassess your views of Wilt. Are you watching Wilt's highlight clips where there are a lot of fade aways and extrapolating that to "that is an inefficient shot, he is shooting it a lot...that is poor shot selection, he is inefficient!!!"? How is Wilt inefficient? Throw me a bone here because I am not following you at all...

He has ranked a peaked Chamberlain (1967) behind Rodman 1997.

viewtopic.php?f=64&t=1197732&start=165#p33214311

lmao @ this moron. maybe first read what you're quoting instead of putting words in people's mouth ? Wilt was 5 inches taller than everybody else. he was 50-100 lbs heavier than everybody else. he was a 50% volume scorer. people will believe what they wanna believe but Wilt was a horrendous shooter, all time epic failure in that regard, and because of that he was so easily containable in the playoffs (offensive numbers go down across the board). people look at his stats and fall in love with him, but once you get past that the impact just isn't there. GOAT talent, great player, just lacked killer instinct and team oriented mentality. dude was playing on incredibly stacked teams from 66-73 and barely won 2 tainted championships (Russell injured in 67 postseason, Oscar injured in 72 postseason).

[Rapcity_11]

"what matters more is that Wilt-less Sixers would still put up about 5-6 SRS quite easily."


Clearly he is referring to the team under Coach Hannum (In 1967 they had 8.50 SRS). Since an individual's estimated per-possession adjusted point differential impact is the sole method of evaluation here for most,

Not even close to true. Even the guys who like to use that don't use it as a sole method.

(notably the poster I quoted, as he has mentioned this before) this is interpreted as his ranking Rodman on par with Wilt.

Yeah, that's not a reasonable interpretation to make.

[bastillon]

lmao @ Wilt with multiple fadeaway jumpshots, everyone knew Wilt could score, rebound, pass the ball, block shots but everyone also knew he was the worst shooter in the league and couldn't handle the ball to save his life. yo can look up articles comparing Russell and Wilt and shooting/ballhandling will get cited notoriously as Russell's adv, even tho Russ was a non shooter himself. when Wilt was shooting fadeaway jumpshots it meant you were gonna win the game. not a coincidence why his efficiency was so weak in the early 60s compared to late 60s. he stopped taking those bad shots.

What the hell are you talking about

1960-61 NBA .509 (1)
1961-62 NBA .505 (2)
1962-63 NBA .528 (1)
1963-64 NBA .524 (2)
1964-65 NBA .510 (1)
1965-66 NBA .540 (1)
1966-67 NBA .683 (1)
1967-68 NBA .595 (1)
1968-69 NBA .583 (1)
1970-71 NBA .545 (3)
1971-72 NBA .649 (1)
1972-73 NBA .727 (1)

He was the most efficient scorer in the league for seven of his first nine years.

Are you actually trolling here? How can ANYONE call Wilt inefficient? I've heard people accuse him of MANY things, but INEFFICIENT? That's a new one.

maybe you're the one trolling here. you think you're gonna post some FG% garbage and that's gonna change anything ? first of all, Wilt averaged 52.6% TS during his first 6 years. after that, he was a 58.6% TS scorer for the rest of his career. and it's not just his weak TS%, it's more about the level of competition he was playing against. many guys in that league were undersized. Wilt was TOWERING over everyone else in the 60-65. imagine Shaq playing against Ryan Anderson or Kevin Love. just no way Shaq would post some 50% FG. Wilt wouldnt either if he wasnt shooting those inefficient fadeaway shots.

[bastillon]

"what matters more is that Wilt-less Sixers would still put up about 5-6 SRS quite easily."


Clearly he is referring to the team under Coach Hannum (In 1967 they had 8.50 SRS). Since an individual's estimated per-possession adjusted point differential impact is the sole method of evaluation here for most,

Not even close to true. Even the guys who like to use that don't use it as a sole method.

(notably the poster I quoted, as he has mentioned this before) this is interpreted as his ranking Rodman on par with Wilt.

Yeah, that's not a reasonable interpretation to make.

-make a false statement
-quote someone implying that he said the false statement
-use poor logic as a reasoning behind your statement

if you're putting yourself in the race for troll award or something I think you'll make a great candidate.

thank you rapcity there's someone sane left.

[thizznation]

he was a 58.6% TS scorer for the rest of his career. and it's not just his weak TS%, it's more about the level of competition he was playing against. many guys in that league were undersized. Wilt was TOWERING over everyone else in the 60-65. imagine Shaq playing against Ryan Anderson or Kevin Love. just no way Shaq would post some 50% FG. Wilt wouldnt either if he wasnt shooting those inefficient fadeaway shots.

This is trolling, you are basically re-hashing the same old "Wilt only played against 6-5 white guys!" argument, this has been debunked so many times times by TrueLAFan and other posters.

[ardee]

lmao @ Wilt with multiple fadeaway jumpshots, everyone knew Wilt could score, rebound, pass the ball, block shots but everyone also knew he was the worst shooter in the league and couldn't handle the ball to save his life. yo can look up articles comparing Russell and Wilt and shooting/ballhandling will get cited notoriously as Russell's adv, even tho Russ was a non shooter himself. when Wilt was shooting fadeaway jumpshots it meant you were gonna win the game. not a coincidence why his efficiency was so weak in the early 60s compared to late 60s. he stopped taking those bad shots.

What the hell are you talking about

1960-61 NBA .509 (1)
1961-62 NBA .505 (2)
1962-63 NBA .528 (1)
1963-64 NBA .524 (2)
1964-65 NBA .510 (1)
1965-66 NBA .540 (1)
1966-67 NBA .683 (1)
1967-68 NBA .595 (1)
1968-69 NBA .583 (1)
1970-71 NBA .545 (3)
1971-72 NBA .649 (1)
1972-73 NBA .727 (1)

He was the most efficient scorer in the league for seven of his first nine years.

Are you actually trolling here? How can ANYONE call Wilt inefficient? I've heard people accuse him of MANY things, but INEFFICIENT? That's a new one.

maybe you're the one trolling here. you think you're gonna post some FG% garbage and that's gonna change anything ? first of all, Wilt averaged 52.6% TS during his first 6 years. after that, he was a 58.6% TS scorer for the rest of his career. and it's not just his weak TS%, it's more about the level of competition he was playing against. many guys in that league were undersized. Wilt was TOWERING over everyone else in the 60-65. imagine Shaq playing against Ryan Anderson or Kevin Love. just no way Shaq would post some 50% FG. Wilt wouldnt either if he wasnt shooting those inefficient fadeaway shots.

FG% garbage ? The stat that measures scoring efficiency from the field? What are you trying to prove here, my friend? That Wilt's fadeaway jump shots were not good? Yet, they were good enough to put him no. 1 in the league in efficiency from the field. Because you know, field goals are shot from the field. If you want to bring up TS%, that then involves free throws, and doesn't prove anything about Wilt's efficiency from the field. The cumulative amount of logic here is below zero.

bastillion if you just honestly called wilt inefficient, you seriously need to take a deep breath, do the best to put away your bias aside, and honestly reassess your views of Wilt. Are you watching Wilt's highlight clips where there are a lot of fade aways and extrapolating that to "that is an inefficient shot, he is shooting it a lot...that is poor shot selection, he is inefficient!!!"? How is Wilt inefficient? Throw me a bone here because I am not following you at all...

He has ranked a peaked Chamberlain (1967) behind Rodman 1997.

viewtopic.php?f=64&t=1197732&start=165#p33214311

lmao @ this moron. maybe first read what you're quoting instead of putting words in people's mouth ? Wilt was 5 inches taller than everybody else. he was 50-100 lbs heavier than everybody else. he was a 50% volume scorer. people will believe what they wanna believe but Wilt was a horrendous shooter, all time epic failure in that regard, and because of that he was so easily containable in the playoffs (offensive numbers go down across the board). people look at his stats and fall in love with him, but once you get past that the impact just isn't there. GOAT talent, great player, just lacked killer instinct and team oriented mentality. dude was playing on incredibly stacked teams from 66-73 and barely won 2 tainted championships (Russell injured in 67 postseason, Oscar injured in 72 postseason).

I would be careful about speaking like that to another poster, the mods tend to frown on that. Dipper 13 is one of the best and most well-informed posters on the board, he never makes a comment without backing it up with a source.

Two tainted championships ? Then what were the rings won by your idol Hakeem, when the GOAT retired for two seasons, and then never won again when he came back ?

By the way, you seem to be very anti-Wilt's 50% FG%. For the record, when scoring more then 35 ppg, no other player has even touched that. The highest is '87 Jordan at 48.1% FG. Kobe scored at about 45% from the field, Baylor and Barry even lower then that.

I guess if Wilt is such an epic fail, Jordan and Bryant must be even worse, right?

And killer instinct? What is this, Stephen A. Smith and Skip Bayless arguing? Going to be very hard to take anything you say seriously from now on.

[lorak]

lmao @ Wilt with multiple fadeaway jumpshots, everyone knew Wilt could score, rebound, pass the ball, block shots but everyone also knew he was the worst shooter in the league and couldn't handle the ball to save his life. yo can look up articles comparing Russell and Wilt and shooting/ballhandling will get cited notoriously as Russell's adv, even tho Russ was a non shooter himself. when Wilt was shooting fadeaway jumpshots it meant you were gonna win the game. not a coincidence why his efficiency was so weak in the early 60s compared to late 60s. he stopped taking those bad shots.

What the hell are you talking about

1960-61 NBA .509 (1)
1961-62 NBA .505 (2)
1962-63 NBA .528 (1)
1963-64 NBA .524 (2)
1964-65 NBA .510 (1)
1965-66 NBA .540 (1)
1966-67 NBA .683 (1)
1967-68 NBA .595 (1)
1968-69 NBA .583 (1)
1970-71 NBA .545 (3)
1971-72 NBA .649 (1)
1972-73 NBA .727 (1)

He was the most efficient scorer in the league for seven of his first nine years.

Are you actually trolling here? How can ANYONE call Wilt inefficient? I've heard people accuse him of MANY things, but INEFFICIENT? That's a new one.

maybe you're the one trolling here. you think you're gonna post some FG% garbage and that's gonna change anything ? first of all, Wilt averaged 52.6% TS during his first 6 years. after that, he was a 58.6% TS scorer for the rest of his career. and it's not just his weak TS%, it's more about the level of competition he was playing against. many guys in that league were undersized. Wilt was TOWERING over everyone else in the 60-65. imagine Shaq playing against Ryan Anderson or Kevin Love. just no way Shaq would post some 50% FG. Wilt wouldnt either if he wasnt shooting those inefficient fadeaway shots.

I agree with level of competition, but not so much with TS% point. Here's Wilt's TS% relatively to league average:

Code: Select all

year TS% PPG
1960   3,0   37,6
1961   5,0   38,4
1962   5,7   50,4
1963   5,7   44,8
1964   5,2   36,9
1965   3,4   34,7
1966   6,0   33,5
1967   14,4   24,1
1968   5,9   24,3
1969   7,3   20,5
1970   4,3   27,3
1971   5,8   20,7
1972   10,6   14,8
1973   19,1   13,2


So we have 3 really outliers years, but during rest of his career his efficiency was pretty consistent.

[Shot Clock]

Only on Realgm where you can classify a league leader in FG% as an inefficient scorer.

A guy with a career .540 fg% in a comparison with a guy with a .507 fg% who never had to carry the same offensive load.

[Doctor MJ]

Only on Realgm where you can classify a league leader in FG% as an inefficient scorer.

A guy with a career .540 fg% in a comparison woth a guy with a .507 fg% who never had to carry the same offensive load.

Interesting.

I wouldn't have called Wilt an inefficient scorer in any classical sense, but it's pretty dang telling that you're using FG% here. Have you seen Wilt shoot a free throw? His form is astonishingly sloppy. It's as if he's already given up.

This had a big effect on his efficiency, and what's funny? If they had been using a TS% style stat back in the day, Wilt probably becomes a significantly better player. Given the way he obsessed about FG% later on while launching direct missiles at the front of the rim from the charity stripe, he probably would have started really grok how badly he was hurting his own efficiency by doing this.

[Shot Clock]

Only on Realgm where you can classify a league leader in FG% as an inefficient scorer.

A guy with a career .540 fg% in a comparison woth a guy with a .507 fg% who never had to carry the same offensive load.

Interesting.

I wouldn't have called Wilt an inefficient scorer in any classical sense, but it's pretty dang telling that you're using FG% here. Have you seen Wilt shoot a free throw? His form is astonishingly sloppy. It's as if he's already given up.

This had a big effect on his efficiency, and what's funny? If they had been using a TS% style stat back in the day, Wilt probably becomes a significantly better player. Given the way he obsessed about FG% later on while launching direct missiles at the front of the rim from the charity stripe, he probably would have started really grok how badly he was hurting his own efficiency by doing this.

No one ever claimed he was a great FT shooter. When discussing his "inefficiency" due to his inefficient fade aways TS% is not really relevant. (Bast's claim)

Even taking TS% into account Wilt is a career .547 TS % while Duncan is .551. Not exactly a big difference.
Then take into account that league TS% were much much lower then Duncan's era and it's advantage Wilt.

Wilt 1964 .537 TS% (League average .485)
Duncan same age .534 TS% (League average .516)

A few things changed for Wilt around 1964, he changed teams, coaches and therefore game strategies. The lane was widened to hamper Wilt but it actually opened things up in the center more. This was reflected in his FG% increases.

[fatal9]

For someone who was as physically dominant as Wilt relative to his peers, and as great of an offensive rebounder and finisher as Wilt was (as shown by his FG% when his teams stopped asking him for post scoring), a FG% of "only" around 50% is pretty low (combined with a TS% of under 55% and probably high TOV%). In the playoffs he's at only 52.4 TS% for his career. I don't doubt Wilt made a lot of those fadeaways, I doubt how efficient he was at making them. Just because you can show me footage of Karl Malone draining turnaround isolation jumpers from 15 feet doesn't mean he was efficient at making them...he just took a lot of them. But this is something I've stopped trying to argue with Wilt fans. I've read them say that his midrange game was comparable to a guy like KG, uh seems legit...considering he was one of the worst FT shooters in history.

On film, the offense looks predictable when he gets the ball. For example, watch game 7 of the '70 finals. I've seen his fans actually use this game as a "good" game by Wilt based on boxscore numbers (even put highlights of it on youtube) but look at how bad and predictable the offense is when it runs through him in the first half. Any time Wilt posts up it was either a bad shot, him drawing a foul but missing FTs (disrupts flow of offense and doesn't make defense pay for fouling) or a turnover. He was super efficient on finishes and offensive boards though (but barely converted any post up opportunities), and it kind of shows what I've thought about Wilt...he can have a nice game "FG%" wise but not be an efficient post up player. Doesn't it make sense WHY Hannum decided to not use Wilt as a post scorer anymore but mainly as a finisher/offensive rebounder? Maybe...he wasn't that efficient when used in that type of a role. It's why we don't see him make his teams great offensively during his volume scoring years despite what his boxscore numbers say.

On top of this, combined with how teams played back then, he slowed down the offense. His Warrior teammates even complained about this, how they felt "shackled" around him. Some people might find it difficult to understand, I know I did a few years ago, but you can look like a great scorer in the boxscore but not be making much of an offensive impact at all. He looks amazing on offensive boards and as a finisher, but his post offense doesn't look as efficient as guys like Shaq, Hakeem, KAJ and the like.

Here are two games from Wilt's prime years where every post up he made is included (not handpicked misses or makes):

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

The point isn't whether he made or missed the shots, those things vary game to game. But it's things like his awful footwork, how many dribbles he uses to make his move (this wouldn't fly in today's game where double teaming and trapping is waaay more common), his dribbles aren't fluid or in rhythm, his touch outside of 5+ feet away looks really awkward but it's pretty soft on his bank shot (though he is soo slow in getting into that move), has a bad habit of exposing the ball and he clearly doesn't have a lower base and center of gravity (long skinny legs) of a guy like Shaq to play the power game like him. These are things that are consistent on a game to game basis. But you guys can believe that a guy who was as horrible as Wilt at FTs had awesome midrange game. I just think it's a big leap of faith.


TL;DR: Wilt was an awesome finisher and awesome on the offensive boards but his post offense is very overrated. That combined with his historically bad FT shooting (and likely high propensity for turnovers) doesn't make him an efficient option in the post like his numbers would suggest.


Defensively, I've heard his fans compare his impact to Russell. Even at his best when he was motivated, I disagree with that strongly. He was a dominant shot blocker, a good man to man defender in the post in his later years and that's it. I've heard commentators point out how Wilt doesn't leave the paint and cover screen and rolls. Clearly doesn't have Russell's (or KG's or Hakeem's or Walton's) "horizontal" game. His defensive impact is inconsistent throughout his years. I see him defensively like I do Shaq. Great when he wants to be (though can be exploited by some weaknesses) but inconsistent effort wise. I'm pretty sure we have some data too of Wilt not improving offenses and defenses as much as you'd expect from someone with his boxscore numbers.


His year by year impact from team to team definitely doesn't say much in his favor either:

It's not just looking at one case of SRS dropping...his impact is questionable in a lot of years.

He put up 44/25 on a 31 win team in a season where he was healthy and played all games (also had two other all-star players on his team). How can you be that statistically and physically dominant and come out with such few wins? Then couple of years later, he was leading the Warriors to the worst record in the league at 11-27 in games he played, then he gets traded for peanuts, joins the Sixers who were 21-20 at the time they made the trade and finished 40-40. When Warriors made improvements next season, there are articles of Wilt's former Warrior teammates complaining about how "shackled" they were with Wilt on offense. Sixers of course became an all-time great team in a couple of years with Wilt literally being the last option on the floor scoring wise though improving other parts of his game (along with them adding guys like Billy C to the roster and guys like Chet Walker and Luke Jackson maturing).

Then he gets traded to the Lakers who were starving for a dominant center all decade and...nothing happens. The SRS of the team goes down from the previous year (despite West playing more games), they still lose to Boston in the finals and got lucky in that they didn't get knocked out in the first round by the Warriors (Mullins got injured). There are some absolutely scathing articles in LA newspapers at the time. Meanwhile Wilt's former team still wins 55 games and that is with their starting PF Luke Jackson basically missing the entire season. Then the following year, the Lakers still win 46 games (7-5 with Wilt, 38-31 without him...Baylor/West missed some of these games too). And the next year with Wilt playing all 82 games, they win 48. It should be noted that without West, Wilt leads the Lakers to an awful 3-10 record (the MOV of the Lakers over this stretch? -10.9) that year.

I'd like to think a top 5 player would show a little bit more impact than that over the years. This isn't one case of finding a "gotcha" incident, this is something we see over most of his career. Then there are major concerns about his playoff performances, mentality and leadership, effectiveness and portability of his scoring, the balance in his offensive game, impact on the rest of his teammates, inconsistency of his defense over the years, and on and on. And I don't think Wilt fans on this board or other boards get it when they try to argue exclusively through boxscore stats, everyone is aware of his numbers, but where is the impact you expect? What about all his flaws? Is this someone you are comfortable building a team around? People are wrong now that they decided to look at his career in depth rather than perform a very superficial analysis based on his raw stats like they were doing before?

As for the original question, I'd take Duncan comfortably.

[Matt15]

Haven's really seen much of Wilt other than a few old Youtube videos, Ill have to go with Duncan.