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This is the Wilt Chamberlain thread for the Wins Added by Season Survey Project. viewtopic.php?f=64&t=1241811 Please read the project guidelines before posting in the thread.

For those who have already read the guidelines, just copy and paste the years below and fill in your answers.

Wilt Chamberlain
1960
1961
1962
1963
1964
1965
1966
1967
1968
1969
1970
1971
1972
1973

Please note that 1970 is a perfect example of not counting missed games in the player evaluation. It's quite (easily) possible for people to view Chamberlain's play in 1970 as better than in 1969, and the answer should reflect that. It should NOT be adjusted for RS games played.

ElGee wrote:Please note that 1970 is a perfect example of not counting missed games in the player evaluation. It's quite (easily) possible for people to view Chamberlain's play in 1970 as better than in 1969, and the answer should reflect that. It should NOT be adjusted for RS games played.

Yes, in 1970 according to Dean Oliver's estimates, the Lakers offense dropped by 3.5 points relative to league average from the previous year with Wilt missing 70 games (and Baylor missing 28). On average your estimates seemed to have Wilt's teams better defensively (notably 1966 and 1968), though Oliver seems to have them better offensively. I recall you had 1966 team defensive estimate at -3.4, quite a difference from Oliver's estimate at -0.4.

Wilt Chamberlain
1960: +6.0 (massive turnaround in year 1 for the Warriors. Still a little raw on the offensive end, he helped them like crazy on defense)
1961: +5.0 (dropped off a little in his sophomore year)
1962: +8.0 (don't see how much you can fault this year too much considering he more or less single-handedly came close to toppling the Celtic dynasty. Was within one Sam Jones bucket of it).
1963: +5.0 (probably his worst year, but it gets massively overblown. He had a truly putrid cast that year, just awful. No one even cracked 15 in PER, so he didn't have a single average team-mate. Team was worse than LeBron's worst Cleveland team IMO)
1964: +8.5 (epic, GOAT level stuff)
1965: +5.0 (not as bad as people make it out to be. Those who love the in out stats should note that the Warriors went 11-27 with him and 6-36 without him. He had a heart problem, can't exactly blame him this year for dropping off from his amazing 1964 season)
1966: +8.5 (back to form)
1967: +10.0 (the GOAT season IMO. Perfect storm of efficient offense, devastating playmaking, and demonizing defense. 21-29-9 in the Playoffs says it all).
1968: +8.5 (pretty close to that level again, he was carrying injuries towards the end though)
1969: +6.0 (leaves his prime. He was still pretty good in the regular season, for after all his presence did help the Lakers to their best ever record. In case people were expecting another Philly version of him, you need to understand Van Breda Kolff was to blame here. You get a 7'1 guy coming off back to back 24/24/8 and you want to stick to your guard centric offense? What gives?)
1970: between +4.0 and +5.0 (it seems like he was in for a hell of a season given the Lakers had an early 9-10 SRS stretch and he was rocking almost 40 ppg. Then he got injured, was terrible in whatever else few regular season games he played because of that, and returned to form in the Playoffs aside from the only supposed black mark on his career I will agree with, game 7 vs. Knicks)
1971: +6.0
1972: +7.5 (unexpected Russell-esque season late in his career. Easily the best player on the Lakers, and IMO he should've won the MVP over Jabbar)
1973: +7.0 (another shockingly impactful year at the ripe age of 36. Led an 8 SRS team with a 34 year old West who was more or less on his last legs, and a bunch of role players. Field goal percentage record of 72.7 this year).

Wilt Chamberlain
1960 - +6.0 WS (47.0)
1961 - +7.0 WS (48.0)
1962 - +15.0 WS (56.0)
1963 - +15.0 WS (56.0)
1964 - +18.0 WS (59.0)
1965 - +7.0 WS (48.0)
1966 - +5.0 WS (46.0)
1967 - +19.0 WS (60.0)
1968 - +16.0 WS (57.0)
1969 - +5.0 WS (46.0)
1970 - +5.0 WS (46.0)
1971 - +6.0 WS (47.0)
1972 - +12.0 WS (53.0)
1973 - +13.0 WS (54.0)

1960 -6.0
1961 6.5
1962 7.5
1963 7.0
1964 8.0
1965 6.0
1966 7.0
1967 9.0
1968 8.0
1969 7.0
1970 6.0
1971 6.0
1972 6.5
1973 6.0

Wilt Chamberlain related In/Out



The 1970 Lakers are looked at from 2 points of view above:

(1) With West IN but Baylor and Wilt Out (26 games played) the Lakers were a +3.2 SRS, or 50-win team.
(2) With West and Baylor IN, the Lakers played 37 games without Wilt (+2.3 SRS or 48-win team) and 29 games with Wilt (+5.5 SRS or 57-win team).

The 65 76ers are also noteworthy because Hal Greer missed 9 of his 10 games post Wilt trade. With Wilt (No Greer) the 76ers were a 27-win team for those 9 games. With Greer, a 48-win team.

1960- +3.5
1961 -+4.0
1962- +4.5
1963- +4.0
1964- +6.0
1965- +4.0
1966- +7.0
1967- +8.0
1968- +7.5
1969- +4.5
1970- +4.0
1971- +4.0
1972- +6.0
1973- +5.5

Wilt Chamberlain Team Trends



Warriors
1959 [SRS] -2.3 [ORtg] -3.9 [DRtg] -1.3
------------------------------------------------------------------
1960 [SRS] 2.8 [ORtg] -2.5 [DRtg] -4.5
1961 [SRS] 0.9 [ORtg] -0.8 [DRtg] -1.5
1962 [SRS] 2.6 [ORtg] 1.7 [DRtg] -0.4
1963 [SRS] -1.9 [ORtg] -0.1 [DRtg] 1.7
1964 [SRS] 4.4 [ORtg] -1.4 [DRtg] -5.8
1965 [SRS] -5.5 [ORtg] -5.9 [DRtg] -0.7
------------------------------------------------------------------
1966 [SRS] -2.4 [ORtg] -2.4 [DRtg] -0.2

76ers
1965 [SRS] -0.1 [ORtg] 0.2 [DRtg] 0.4
1966 [SRS] 4.2 [ORtg] 0.4 [DRtg] -3.4
1967 [SRS] 8.5 [ORtg] 5.3 [DRtg] -2.4
1968 [SRS] 8.0 [ORtg] 1.3 [DRtg] -5.6
------------------------------------------------------------------
1969 [SRS] 4.8 [ORtg] 2.7 [DRtg] -1.6

Lakers
1968 [SRS] 5.0 [ORtg] 5.3 [DRtg] 0.5
------------------------------------------------------------------
1969 [SRS] 3.8 [ORtg] 3.6 [DRtg] -0.1
1970 [SRS] 1.8 [ORtg] 0.2 [DRtg] -1.5
1971 [SRS] 3.3 [ORtg] 1.3 [DRtg] -1.4
1972 [SRS] 11.7 [ORtg] 6.3 [DRtg] -4.4
------------------------------------------------------------------
1974 [SRS] 0.9 [ORtg] -0.3 [DRtg] -1.1

those '72 numbers are mighty impressive.

Who would be the best modern day comparison for '72 wilt? Ben wallace/Dikembe mutumbo on steroids? dwight howard?

D.Brasco wrote:Who would be the best modern day comparison for '72 wilt? Ben wallace/Dikembe mutumbo on steroids? dwight howard?

Nah, he was 10 times better than those two offensively.

Modern day would be a better shot-blocking, much more efficient Kevin Garnett.

D.Brasco wrote:Who would be the best modern day comparison for '72 wilt? Ben wallace/Dikembe mutumbo on steroids? dwight howard?

Worse offensively Miami Shaq.
Or David Robinson around 2002.

DavidStern wrote:

D.Brasco wrote:Who would be the best modern day comparison for '72 wilt? Ben wallace/Dikembe mutumbo on steroids? dwight howard?

Worse offensively Miami Shaq.
Or David Robinson around 2002.

Huh? Wilt's defense and rebounding was still very elite in '72. Shaq's defense was nothing special in miami hell his defense in his prime was arguably never as good as wilt in his later years.

I don't think david robinson was very elite defense or rebounding wise in 2002 either. I want to say a much better tyson chandler maybe? both very high fg% and good rebounding and defense although chandler doesn't have wilt's passing game at all.

David Robinson was still elite defender in 2002. In fact he was better defensively then than Wilt in 1972, because Chamberlain was more similar to Shaq - very good post defender and very bad p&r/away from the basket.

Doormatt wrote:those '72 numbers are mighty impressive.

Yes, he should have won MVP that year as well. I'm sure that Lakers team is the all time leader in transition points off his outlet passing. Russell may have given Boston more opportunities though they didn't finish nearly as efficiently as these Lakers did. But his defense was even better. Despite what the team DRtg estimates may hint, Wilt was the top defensive big man that year. As Nate Thurmond said regarding the '72 team, "Nothing came down that lane. Nothing." Chicago Bulls Coach Motta also agreed that Wilt was the top defensive center in the league that year.

Dipper 13 wrote:

Doormatt wrote:those '72 numbers are mighty impressive.

Yes, he should have won MVP that year as well. I'm sure that Lakers team is the all time leader in transition points off his outlet passing. Russell may have given Boston more opportunities though they didn't finish nearly as efficiently as these Lakers did. But his defense was even better. Despite what the team DRtg estimates may hint, Wilt was the top defensive big man that year. As Nate Thurmond said regarding the '72 team, "Nothing came down that lane. Nothing." Chicago Bulls Coach Motta also agreed that Wilt was the top defensive center in the league that year.

Although by '72 Wilt had lost of lot of his scoring talents, he could still get opportunity pts. and and go one on one if needed. He simply didn't care much about scoring anymore. He was still a better rebounder than KAJ and all-around defensive player. Remember now he was more than ten years older than KAJ and had undergone major knee surgery by that time as well. KAJ's best year rebounding didn't equal Wilt's worst even allowing for pace.

Johnlac1 wrote:Although by '72 Wilt had lost of lot of his scoring talents, he could still get opportunity pts. and and go one on one if needed. He simply didn't care much about scoring anymore. He was still a better rebounder than KAJ and all-around defensive player. Remember now he was more than ten years older than KAJ and had undergone major knee surgery by that time as well. KAJ's best year rebounding didn't equal Wilt's worst even allowing for pace.

Some even believed it was his best all around season. Tom Heinsohn also said he didn't think Wilt reached his full potential until playing for Sharman. While I may disagree, it is easy to see why they would believe that given how successful Bill Russell was in the previous decade playing a defensive style.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bO1nB2FUxvE&t=14m24s

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ESDFppbQ2zM&t=8m23s

Dipper 13 wrote:

Johnlac1 wrote:Although by '72 Wilt had lost of lot of his scoring talents, he could still get opportunity pts. and and go one on one if needed. He simply didn't care much about scoring anymore. He was still a better rebounder than KAJ and all-around defensive player. Remember now he was more than ten years older than KAJ and had undergone major knee surgery by that time as well. KAJ's best year rebounding didn't equal Wilt's worst even allowing for pace.

Some even believed it was his best all around season. Tom Heinsohn also said he didn't think Wilt reached his full potential until playing for Sharman. While I may disagree, it is easy to see why they would believe that given how successful Bill Russell was in the previous decade playing a defensive style.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bO1nB2FUxvE&t=14m24s

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ESDFppbQ2zM&t=8m23s

It was only a fluke that Wilt didn't end up with five or six titles instead of the two he did win. Even going back to Wilt's early years, including his rookie season, the high-scoring Wilt came within a whisker of beating the Celtics three times in the playoffs. Not to take anything away from Boston, but the number of five or seven game playoff series they won by small margins would be difficult to repeat given the same circumstances.

You can even look at Wilt's rookie year when his clearly less-talented Warriors took Boston to six games losing the last by two points. Little known is the fact that Auerbach, while losing the second game of the series, and realizing that Wilt was unstoppable had his players needle Wilt into punching Heinsohn. Wilt hurt his hand so bad, he could barely shoot for the next two games both of which Boston won. Among all the other close series, I wonder what the sixties would have been like if Wilt had not hurt his hand in that series.