Doctor MJ wrote:fpliii wrote:I wonder if the pendulum has swung too far in the other direction. Speaking for myself personally, it's almost as if he's a broken player with myriad flaws, but I think this is overadjusting.
Legitimate Criticisms
• Limited post effectiveness (based on his efficiency, unless you assume he was poor at the rim/transition, had HC scoring issues)
• Potentially turnover-prone (some of this was based on a small tracking sample, but he seemed closer to Cousins than Shaq on the block)
• Unwilling to defend in space (this isn't unique to him, however in the modern NBA with switching/PnR spam would hurt)
• Supporting casts full of HOFs (his first few years his team was overrated due to pioneers, but with the Sixers/Lakers had talent)
• Middling scoring resiliency (had issues scoring at the same rate in the playoffs, some of this was due to pace, some due to C's D)
Positives Overlooked
• Durability (goes beyond stamina; 64 heart issues and 69 injury are the only red flag)
• Fairly coachable (i.e. McGuire, Hannum, Sharman - 68 playoffs a counterpoint, as is the VBK thing, but Baylor worsened fit RE:71-72)
• Ability to adjust (underrated portability, he probably can play an elite role alongside any other star)
• Longevity (Wilt signed a three year deal with the ABA in 73 and had a good feeling for his body; that's a long career)
• Obsession with stats (this sounds like a negative, but can you imagine Wilt, who loved to learn, with modern scouting/analytics?)
What do you all think? Should we give Wilt more benefit of the doubt? Should he be viewed as a top 10 lock? Or would he be a less-mobile (in terms of horizontal game), more durable David Robinson today?
A worthy topic certainly, though I am left wondering what you consider "overadjusting".
For myself generally, I generally rank him as the #2 player in history prior to Kareem. I'd think that while many would disagree with me putting Bill Russell ahead of him, that's more about a specific player comparison than it is about my opinion of Wilt being in freefall.
I have to acknowledge that I put more more-recent players ahead of Wilt than many do, and that this is most meaningful imho where I'm comparing him to other bigs. So for example, I put Hakeem Olajuwon and Shaquille O'Neal ahead of Wilt. Is this what you have in mind when you say "overadjusting"?
I say all this in part because I want to draw a distinction between pointing out Wilt's issues, and ranking Wilt super, super, super low. The guys I have ahead of Wilt were really, really, really good, and I think it's important that this isn't forgotten as we debate the Big Dipper.
Additionally, I cannot emphasize enough that I rank Wilt as a considerably more important player to basketball history than anyone else of his era, Bill Russell included. Sometimes it seems to me that people come into these arguments looking to rank players by their cultural importance rather than their actual team impact. Best not to conflate the two criteria.
To your points:
I want to specifically highlight wilts durability - both stamina and longevity. He's clearly exceptional here and this is no small thing. And, at some point in the future, Wilt moves back up my RealGM 100-style GOAT list, it will likely be because of this.
Coachable/Adaptable. You can't mention this without a Con indicating that Wilt might just decide he doesn't like a coach and won't do what he wants. Wilt was mercurial in the extreme, and seemed to be something like a pro-KD whose attitude changed dramatically not simply with different coaches and teammates, but based on off-court interests.
Stat obsession - this is definitely something I've thought about. His stat obsession I think caused some real problems for Wilt's impact back in the day, but with better stats, he'd probably do a lot better. Hard to say how much better, but it could be quite substantial.
But this also goes with the whole thing where Wilt probably would have respected the NBA a lot more in today's game and wouldn't have had his interest wane as much as a result. There's no what-might-have-been like Wilt, I think we'd all agree.
Most rational Wilt fans will concede that the 1969 season was Wilt's worst season of his career.
Had he managed to put up even a near-routine game six of the 1969 finals LA would have won the Finals.
Of course there has never been a worse coaching debacle in NBA history, than what the "Butcher" put up in '69.
And his hatred for Wilt started even before the season began. He went to Wilt and asked Chamberlain to play the high post so that a declining Baylor would be able to drive the baseline.
And while people" always call Wilt a "selfish stat-padder"...it was interesting that no one sacrificed more of his offence of the West-Baylor-Wilt trio...than Chamberlain.
And this was the classic comment from the incompetent coach...
"So we were able to throw the ball down low to Wilt and he'd score, but it was an ugly offence to watch."
Instead, VBK preferred the shot-jacking of Baylor, who put up one of the worst Finals in NBA history by a Top-25 player...shooting 39.7 from the floor (and a team-worst .38.5 in the entire post-season)...including games of 4-18 shooting in a game three six-point loss
BTW, Elgin and West combined to shoot 1-14 in the 4th quarter of that game); 2-14 from the field, and yes, 1-6 from the line, in a game four one-point loss; and then a game seven of 8-22 from the field, and couldn't hit anything in the last quarter, of a two-point loss.
And, as mentioned earlier, aside from keeping Wilt on the bench in the last five minutes of that game seven (and after Chamberlain helped key a run in which the Lakers wiped out 10 points from a 17 point deficit in a little over four minutes)...VBK's biggest coaching blunder occurred in the last seconds of game four.
The Lakers were leading the series, 2-1, and leading in the game, 88-87, and had the ball. You would think that VBK would have put the ball into "Mr. Clutch's" hands in that last possession.
Nope...he had Johnny Egan handling it, and as expected, he was stripped, and then with no time on the clock, Sam Jones, while falling down, hit the game-winning shot. And in game five, with Chamberlain easily outplaying Russell, in a 117-104 win...had Egan not lost the ball on that one play.. the Lakers would have won the finals in five games.
As for Wilt's decline in scoring throughout the 1968-1969 season.
Was it because he couldn't score...or was it because he didn't get the ball to shoot? Just earlier in the same season, he hung a 35 point game on Russell.
And of course, historically, he had multiple post-season series against Russell of 30+ ppg (and multiple post-season games of 40+, including must-win games of 46 and even 50 against Russell.
And yet...he only averaged eight FGAs per game in that series (and hit 50% of them.) In any case Wilt wasn't brick-laying in the series. He wasn't pulling an '04 Kobe, or an '07 Lebron...neither of whom could hit the broadside of a barn in those series...albeit they still fired away.
Interesting too, that in the 4th quarter of game seven, which is on YouTube BTW, at about the 10-11 minute mark, Russell picked up his 5th personal foul. The Lakers immediately went into Wilt, who went right away the "matador" defence of Russell for an easy layin
(BTW, I always found it laughable that Wilt would get ripped for "not playing defence with 5 fouls...which he clearly did even in this game...but Russell "played smart" when he was in foul trouble.) Why was that one sequence interesting, you ask? Because it was basically the last time Wilt would touch the ball anywhere near the basket. Instead of milking a sure thing...VBK let West, and the brick-laying Baylor take all the shots down the stretch.
Reggie Jackson is amazing and a killer in the clutch that's all.
