Why didn’t Wilt win more?

[ceiling raiser]

Why didn’t Wilt win in 65, 68, 69?

Why did his scoring drop as the league got less white?

Why did his team’s offenses get better as he took fewer shots?

Why did it take him until his 13th year in the league to become a defense-first player?

The more tape we see of him Wilt looks like an absolute monster. It just doesn’t add up to me.

[coastalmarker99]

Wilt had incredibly bad luck during his career.

60 breaks his hand after Red started using bush league tactics against him.

After he completely owned Russell through the first two games of the Ecf.

1962 EDF game 7: Warriors lose by 2 and Wilt goes 8/9 from the line and 7/15 from the floor while playing elite defence with even bob cousy praising him.

Meanwhile the rest of team goes 27/74 from the floor while his second best player Paul Arizin goes 4/22.

1965 EDF game 7: 76ers lose by 1 and wilt goes 6/13 from the line but 12/15 from the floor.

Meanwhile the rest of his team shoots 28/75 from the floor.

1968 half of that 76ers team was dealing with serious injuries.

Wilt himself was playing through a torn calf in that series and Russell himself acknowledged after the series ended.

that a lesser man wouldn’t have even played with the amount of pain that Wilt was in.


1969 VBK basically hated Wilt”s guts and let West and Baylor play hero ball while refusing to give Wilt” touches.

See game 3 of the 1969 finals for example in which Wilt was 6 out of 10 from the field.

But West and Baylor basically ignored him as they shot one out of 14 in the fourth quarter in a close loss.


1970 Wilt was coming off a serious knee injury that caused him to miss over 70 games that season.

1973 West pulled both of his hamstrings in the finals which doomed La as he was on fire in game 2 scoring over 40 before he got hurt.

[coastalmarker99]

[streamable] if[/streamable]

Why didn’t Wilt win in 65, 68, 69?

Why did his scoring drop as the league got less white?

Why did his team’s offenses get better as he took fewer shots?

Why did it take him until his 13th year in the league to become a defense-first player?

The more tape we see of him Wilt looks like an absolute monster. It just doesn’t add up to me.

Wilt”s scoring dropped because he decided he wanted to become more of a all round player.

The 1970 Lakers made a 33-year Chamberlain the number 1 scoring option on the team until he tore his patella tendon.


In those 9 Games that Wilt went back to his Scoring days instead of the all-round play-style that he adopted

Wilt
32 PPG 21 RPG 3 APG
56.5 TS (+5.4 rTS)

Furthermore.

After reading in 1968 that he was passing out to teammates due to being too old to score

A furious Wilt Chamberlain over the next three games averaged:

56.0 PPG (29.0 FGA)
32.7 RPG
4.0 APG
FG%: 79%

From those stats and the fact that Wilt posted the highest-scoring games in 1967 1968 1969.

You will see that he easily could have kept averaging close to 35 points a game for his entire prime had he wanted to.

[coastalmarker99]

Wilt didn’t have the luxury of playing on a stacked team as Russell did for most of his career until he was with LA.

That”s why he couldn’t sorely focus on defence

As who the **** was going to score the ball if he wasn’t doing it.


With the Lakers he had two elite guards in West and Goodrich who could do it.


With the 76ers he had Hal Greer who was inconsistent in the playoffs.

Both Billy C and Walker were not in their primes yet.

While Wilt was at his peak as a player.


With the Warriors.

Azrin was on the decline and the rest of his warriors supporting cast were horrible on offence.

Just look at the shooting percentages of everyone besides Wilt in the 61 playoffs.

[Doctor MJ]

Why didn’t Wilt win in 65, 68, 69?

A lot of questions here I think everyone needs to answer for themselves.

Let's first note, as we consider specific years, that Wilt's teams could have won. By this I don't mean "if only X had been done differently", but that there's enough noise in the game that the ball could have bounced their way. Hence I'd be looking to answer a question I'd put like this:

What things held back Wilt's teams in those years? This is a question that can also be asked of teams that win the chip, the main logical difference is that, you'd think, it would be easier to give answers when the team doesn't win.

In the case of '64-65, I'd tend to group the 76er part of the season with '65-66, and then focus on the question:

What is it that Alex Hannum saw that he felt needed to change?

And there my model is that he saw issues of predictability and passivity that came from everyone else just looking to give the ball to one man, and wanted to use an approach that made the supporting cast approach the game more proactively.

For '67-68, while one can certainly talk about health - also true in '64-65 - the fact that the 76ers saw their rORtg drop back down to mortal levels seems important:

'64-65 +0.5
'65-66 +0.4
'66-67 +5.4
'67-68 +1.3

It's always made me wonder if we're seeing adaptation by opposing league differences on a year delay. Now granted, it's weird to think that something that could be adapted too with dramatic improvement wouldn't be adopted for an entire year, and then got embraced by everyone the next, and so skepticism is warranted. But if this is not the answer, I do still think some other explanation is required beyond health and luck.

In '68-69 on the Lakers, I really think that if Wilt were to have embraced the defense and rebounding role that he later did under coach Sharman the Lakers probably win with some cushion.

Why did his scoring drop as the league got less white?

I don't think there's any direct relationship here.

There were reasons why his scoring dropped in his career.
There were reasons why more Black talent was growing.
But I don't believe the influx of talent forced the change to Wilt's approach.

Why did his team’s offenses get better as he took fewer shots?

As mentioned above, I think it has to do with the engagement of the rest of his team.

Why did it take him until his 13th year in the league to become a defense-first player?

The broadest phenomenon here I think is that people didn't actually realize that defense was the real way bigs dominated the game back then. Everyone could see that that was how Russell was successful, but Mikan was seen as a primarily offensive impactor, despite the fact that the evidence really suggests that once the NBA widened the key, MIkan's offensive effectiveness and impact really went down and thus his continued dynastic success was more about defensive advantage.

Further, even though Russell's defense was seen as a big deal in college, we shouldn't forget that Russell set the March Madness scoring record.

This to say that there really wasn't any known paradigm when Wilt entered the NBA of expecting bigs to dominate primarily through defense, and thus it shouldn't be a surprise that Wilt was expected to be an offensive star, and that his initial ability to score at such high volumes caused a lot of reluctance among everyone involved to believe that Wilt really shouldn't be looking to do what he was doing.

[coastalmarker99]

Why didn’t Wilt win in 65, 68, 69?

A lot of questions here I think everyone needs to answer for themselves.

Let's first note, as we consider specific years, that Wilt's teams could have won. By this I don't mean "if only X had been done differently", but that there's enough noise in the game that the ball could have bounced their way. Hence I'd be looking to answer a question I'd put like this:

What things held back Wilt's teams in those years? This is a question that can also be asked of teams that win the chip, the main logical difference is that, you'd think, it would be easier to give answers when the team doesn't win.

In the case of '64-65, I'd tend to group the 76er part of the season with '65-66, and then focus on the question:

What is it that Alex Hannum saw that he felt needed to change?

And there my model is that he saw issues of predictability and passivity that came from everyone else just looking to give the ball to one man, and wanted to use an approach that made the supporting cast approach the game more proactively.

For '67-68, while one can certainly talk about health - also true in '64-65 - the fact that the 76ers saw their rORtg drop back down to mortal levels seems important:

'64-65 +0.5
'65-66 +0.4
'66-67 +5.4
'67-68 +1.3

It's always made me wonder if we're seeing adaptation by opposing league differences on a year delay. Now granted, it's weird to think that something that could be adapted too with dramatic improvement wouldn't be adopted for an entire year, and then got embraced by everyone the next, and so skepticism is warranted. But if this is not the answer, I do still think some other explanation is required beyond health and luck.

In '68-69 on the Lakers, I really think that if Wilt were to have embraced the defense and rebounding role that he later did under coach Sharman the Lakers probably win with some cushion.

Why did his scoring drop as the league got less white?

I don't think there's any direct relationship here.

There were reasons why his scoring dropped in his career.
There were reasons why more Black talent was growing.
But I don't believe the influx of talent forced the change to Wilt's approach.

Why did his team’s offenses get better as he took fewer shots?

As mentioned above, I think it has to do with the engagement of the rest of his team.

Why did it take him until his 13th year in the league to become a defense-first player?

The broadest phenomenon here I think is that people didn't actually realize that defense was the real way bigs dominated the game back then. Everyone could see that that was how Russell was successful, but Mikan was seen as a primarily offensive impactor, despite the fact that the evidence really suggests that once the NBA widened the key, MIkan's offensive effectiveness and impact really went down and thus his continued dynastic success was more about defensive advantage.

Further, even though Russell's defense was seen as a big deal in college, we shouldn't forget that Russell set the March Madness scoring record.

This to say that there really wasn't any known paradigm when Wilt entered the NBA of expecting bigs to dominate primarily through defense, and thus it shouldn't be a surprise that Wilt was expected to be an offensive star, and that his initial ability to score at such high volumes caused a lot of reluctance among everyone involved to believe that Wilt really shouldn't be looking to do what he was doing.

Wilt embraced playing the role he did under Sharman in 1969 as he led the Lakers to having the best defence in the playoffs while being number one in rebounding and in DWS.


The biggest problem to that team was Baylor’s ego as he refused to stop shooting the ball despite averaging just 15ppg on 38% in that playoff run.

1969 Finals game 7:

Lakers lose by 2.

Wilt goes 7/8 from the floor while Baylor shoots 8 out of 22 from the floor


Yes Wilt was a poor free throw shooter but he was the most efficient scorer of his era and far more efficient than his teammates outside of West


The fact that VBk didn’t even run plays for him in that series and had him playing the high post for a declining Baylor is a crime.


As a crippled Wilt the next year on one good leg averaged 23 PPG on over 60% vs New York.

[Doctor MJ]

Wilt embraced playing the role he did under Sharman in 1969 as he led the Lakers to having the best defence in the playoffs while being number one in rebounding and in DWS.


The biggest problem to that team was Baylor’s ego as he refused to stop shooting the ball despite averaging just 15ppg on 38% in that playoff run.

1969 Finals game 7:

Lakers lose by 2.

Wilt goes 7/8 from the floor while Baylor shoots 8 out of 22 from the floor


Yes Wilt was a poor free throw shooter but he was the most efficient scorer of his era and far more efficient than his teammates outside of West


The fact that VBk didn’t even run plays for him in that series and had him playing the high post for a declining Baylor is a crime.


As a crippled Wilt the next year on one good leg averaged 23 PPG on over 60% vs New York.

I think you can certainly argue that Baylor was the one holding the Lakers back more so than Wilt - Baylor's primacy on that team seems impossible to justify strategically.

I can't get behind the idea though that Wilt "embraced" what VBK wanted him to do. The implication there is that VBK made Wilt do something, Wilt cheerfully went about doing it, and VBK got vindictive against him anyway, which just doesn't seem to me to make sense in human relationships. It would also be more believable if Wilt never said anything bad about the guy...but of course, he did.

[70sFan]

Why didn’t Wilt win in 65, 68, 69?

Because winning is hard.

Why did his scoring drop as the league got less white?

The league was basically integrated in 1965 season and Wilt still had two very high scoring seasons then.
Wilt became a smarter player as he reached his peak. It's not atypical for players reaching their highest boxscore numbers before their actual peaks.

I think widening the lane changed the dynamics for Wilt a little bit as well.

Why did his team’s offenses get better as he took fewer shots?

His teams got better, so he didn't need to take these shots. I'd add that in his Warriors career, the best team offense he ever had was when he took the most shots.

Why did it take him until his 13th year in the league to become a defense-first player?

That's a myth, Wilt became a defense-first player in 1969 after a trade to LA.

[70sFan]

As always, I'm very grateful that I can discuss with you Doc on Wilt's case, so I will present some of my thoughts

For '67-68, while one can certainly talk about health - also true in '64-65 - the fact that the 76ers saw their rORtg drop back down to mortal levels seems important:

'64-65 +0.5
'65-66 +0.4
'66-67 +5.4
'67-68 +1.3

Since the data became available, Ben improved his estimation model for pre-1974 teams and the results for Philly looks this way:

'64-65 +1.1
'65-66 +0.6
'66-67 +4.7
'67-68 +2.2

Not a massive change, I just want to show likely more accurate data.

It's always made me wonder if we're seeing adaptation by opposing league differences on a year delay. Now granted, it's weird to think that something that could be adapted too with dramatic improvement wouldn't be adopted for an entire year, and then got embraced by everyone the next, and so skepticism is warranted. But if this is not the answer, I do still think some other explanation is required beyond health and luck.

I hope you remember me making a thread about 1967/68 Sixers case not too long ago:

viewtopic.php?f=64&t=2159841&p=96298890

In short, when I looked at Wilt game logs at basketball reference, I realized a big production slump at the beginning of 1967/68 season. During the first 30 games, Wilt didn't score well and his assist numbers were lower than his season average down:

First 30 games: 19.0/24.1/7.0 on 52.4 FG%, 34.7 FT% and 49.0 TS%
Last 52 games: 27.4/23.6/9.5 on 62.8 FG%, 39.7 FT% and 59.0 TS%

I decided to check the ORtg and DRtg for these two periods, the full methodology (very crude) is in the link. My results (using basketball-reference numbers this time):

Full season: +1.3 rORtg, -5.6 rDRtg, +6.9 NetRtg
First 30 games: -1.9 rORtg, -7.2 rDRtg, +5.3 NetRtg
Last 52 games: +3.4 rORtg, -4.4 rDRtg, +7.8 NetRtg

If the league adopted to Sixers offense, then we should see their offense tanking as the year went on. Meanwhile, I also calculated ratings for the last 29 games of the season when Wilt averaged 11 apg and the numbers don't support such scenario:

Last 29 games: +4.3 rORtg, -4.3 DRtg, +8.6 NetRtg

In fact, it looks like the Sixers progressively became better and better on offense.

Again, it's not something that ends this case, but I think it's important piece of information.

As mentioned above, I think it has to do with the engagement of the rest of his team.

It may answer the question for the Sixers situation, because Sixers had quite a lot of scoring talent around Wilt. In Warriors though, Warriors offense was the best in two seasons when Wilt took the most shots and the worst with the weakest volume from Wilt. Per Ben's database:

'59-60 -0.2
'60-61 +0.0
'61-62 +2.1
'62-63 +0.2
'63-64 -1.2

These numbers don't look that horrible considering Wilt supporting cast and 1962 actually looks quite good.

I also want to touch 1962 specifically a bit. A lot of people think that Wilt's high volume output made the rest of the Warriors players uninvolved and we know some anecdotes about that. When we try to look a bit closer at this situation, I think our perspective is a bit deluded by the massive 50 ppg number.

Recently, I have tracked a total of 40 (mostly incomplete) Wilt games from 1962-73 period. That gives me a sample of over 330 shots (as I said, very incomplete material). Over 24% of his shots and 27% of his scoring possessions (including FTs) came from offensive rebounds. I also made this tracking for 1962-68 period only and with a smaller sample I got the same results (within one perc. point). Wilt took a stagerring 39.5 shots per game in 1961-62 and he had around 47 scoring possessions. That gives us over 9 shots and almost 13 scoring possessions from offensive rebounds. I think it's fair to say that these shots didn't took scoring chances away from his teammates. When you add another ~15% of shots out of inside passes finishing and transition buckets, we only get around 24 shots left. Again, that's a lot - but it's not really that much considering the minutes Wilt played. In fact, Wilt's load is significantly smaller than the top heliocentric guys today.

Even if we compare these numbers to Shaq profile (I also tracked 2000-01 Shaq games), then it seems that O'Neal was considerably more "ball-dominant". Shaq took around 15% of his shots from offensive rebounds and only around 25% including garbage points. That gives us around 15 shots left for around 40 mpg in much slower pace.

I can't get behind the idea though that Wilt "embraced" what VBK wanted him to do. The implication there is that VBK made Wilt do something, Wilt cheerfully went about doing it, and VBK got vindictive against him anyway, which just doesn't seem to me to make sense in human relationships. It would also be more believable if Wilt never said anything bad about the guy...but of course, he did.

I am quite sure that Wilt wasn't cheerful to reduce his offensive role, but in the end that's what happened in 1969 playoffs. How can you explain his scoring attempts dropping so drastically in postseason otherwise? That Wilt was so upset that he didn't take any shots, despite team playing through him? We have much more 1968/69 Lakers footage than ever before right now and I Wilt certainly looked less involved on offense and more focused on defense than in 1970 for example.

About VBK - I get that most people wouldn't act this way, but it should be noted that for whatever reason VBK didn't like Wilt before he even came to the team. We all know his words of how Lakers didn't need Wilt after the trade happened. Maybe VBK thought so, but he shouldn't say such things just when a new player joins the team. For whatever reason, VBK dislike of Wilt was very visible (and vice versa) and I don't think you can reduce that only to the idea that Wilt didn't want to play defense - especially when we have footage from the playoffs showing that Wilt was engaged defensively.

[MyUniBroDavis]

Bill Russell bent him over and spanked him without consent unfortunately

[ty 4191]

Why didn't Wilt win more?

Why did his team’s offenses get better as he took fewer shots?

Do we ignore team success?

No, but we should fully contextualize everything. Here's an example:

Consider Wilt played his first three/formative years with coaches that 1) had little to no experience 2) were lousy and 3) totally misused and misunderstood Wilt.

--Neil Johnston: Coached only 2 years in the NBA, was fired after 1961.

--Frank McGuire: Coached 1 year in the NBA, resigned (rather than be fired) after 1962.

--Bill Feerick: 2 years NBA experience, total, when he took over. Was fired after 1 year.

Wilt also had historically pathetic teammates, shooting/offense wise:

Code: Select all

Wilt (Teammates') TS Added
1960   -404
1961   -407
1962   -295
1963   -435
1964   -419
1965   -377
1966   -221
1967   226
1968   -14
1969   145
1970   13
1971   182
1972   385
1973   77

Sum   -1544

This was the fault of terrible, regressive myopic coaching and offensive strategy, not Wilt Chamberlain "trying to tank his teams by scoring and shooting too much". (Paraphrasing people's sentiments, repeatedly, over time on this Forum).

Once again, it's in all three of those books, painted everywhere, if you take all the time to read them and research, as many of us have, here.

https://www.amazon.com/Wilt-Larger-Than-Robert-Cherry-ebook/dp/B009N3585M/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=wilt+chamberlain+larger+than+life&qid=1635954831&sr=8-1

https://www.amazon.com/Rivalry-Russell-Chamberlain-Golden-Basketball-ebook/dp/B000FCKGSY/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=wilt+chamberlain+russell+rivalry+book&qid=1635954851&sr=8-1

https://www.amazon.com/Wilt-1962-Night-Points-Dawn/dp/1400051606/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=wilt+1962+book&qid=1635954870&sr=8-1

Here's just one excerpt apropos of 1961-1962:

"McGuire met Chamberlain for the first time at the Coco Inn, near the Warriors training camp in Hershey, Pennsylvania.

He told Chamberlain that he was supposed to be tough to coach, but that that was probably because Wilt had never had a coach who treated him like a man. McGuire pointed out that he, McGuire, had always been a winner and said that if Chamberlain listened to him and they worked together, it would be possible to beat Boston.

Chamberlain wanted to believe McGuire, but he thought Boston was unbeatable. It simply had too many good players. McGuire said it was true that Boston was better than Philadelphia when Chamberlain was scoring thirty-seven or thirty-eight points a game.

But, if he scored fifty points a game, McGuire said, the Warriors could beat Boston. “

“Fifty?” Chamberlain protested. “Nobody can average fifty a game in this league.”

McGuire told Chamberlain he could do it. The other players wouldn’t be happy, he said, and he, McGuire, was going to have to put up with a lot of bitching, but that was his problem. He would have to convince them that the only way they could win was with Chamberlain shooting constantly.

In McGuire’s view, Chamberlain wasn’t being selfish in taking so many shots. He just had the highest shooting percentage on the team. It made more sense to have your 50-percent shooter taking the shot than it did your 40-percent shooter, which meant that if one of Wilt’s teammates with a poorer shooting percentage did not pass to Wilt, that man was not acting in the team’s interest.

“I have two goals,” McGuire told Chamberlain.

“I hope we win the championship. And I hope you break every record in the book.”

So we must ask ourselves, how great and properly oriented can a young player be that has godawful coaching and management, works in a terrible offensive structure/system, on a team with very poor cohesion and (usually) poor morale?

All the while, Bill Russell was being treated like a proxy son and leader by the greatest coach/executive of that era (and, likely, in history).

[ty 4191]

Why didn’t Wilt win in 65, 68, 69?

Why did his scoring drop as the league got less white?

Why did his team’s offenses get better as he took fewer shots?

Why did it take him until his 13th year in the league to become a defense-first player?

The more tape we see of him Wilt looks like an absolute monster. It just doesn’t add up to me.

Wilt gets great coaching that uses him properly, great teammates, and then (in his old age, especially for that era), suddenly wins .718 of his games during the entire second half of his career. His teams set the record for wins twice (two *different* teams, no less).

Coaches and GMs who either overtly disliked/hated and/or totally mismanaged Wilt.

-Neil Johnston
-Ed Gottlieb
-Frank McGuire
-Bob Feerick
-Dolph Schayes
-Butch Van Breda Kolff
-Fred Schaus

Coaches who understood him well, treated him well, and used him properly/to his full potential:

-Alex Hannum
-Bill Sharman

In 14 years he only had two coaches that ever understood him, and that he could count on. That's only 6 of his 14 seasons.

Here are his team’s records for 4 of those years:

1. 68-13 (set all time record for wins)
2. 62-20
3. 69-13 (set new all time record for wins, different team)
4..60-22

That's a .793 winning percentage for 4 years. On two different franchises!!!!

The guy still has 68 records to himself on the books, 50 years after he retied.

Strength Of Competition:
Wilt faced the Celtics 90 times 1960-1965, by far the most of anyone in the NBA at that time. The Celtics had a .740 winning percentage those years. And the greatest defensive team in history those years, by far.

Wilt also faced the toughest defenses in NBA history in the playoffs: See, here, it's all laid out for everyone:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1PBH_Sb6IywvCQ8LDLtka4jOzuLdYRKIsvrjIyN67knM/edit?usp=sharing

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1DRXJdAr15iZmulqF0F_6SnxrB_b_PPFPM543ke30-qM/edit#gid=0

[frica]

Because Bill had a better understanding of his own strengths than Wilt.

[penbeast0]

[streamable] if[/streamable]

Why didn’t Wilt win in 65, 68, 69?

Why did his scoring drop as the league got less white?

Why did his team’s offenses get better as he took fewer shots?

Why did it take him until his 13th year in the league to become a defense-first player?

The more tape we see of him Wilt looks like an absolute monster. It just doesn’t add up to me.

Wilt”s scoring dropped because he decided he wanted to become more of a all round player.

The 1970 Lakers made a 33-year Chamberlain the number 1 scoring option on the team until he tore his patella tendon.


In those 9 Games that Wilt went back to his Scoring days instead of the all-round play-style that he adopted

Wilt
32 PPG 21 RPG 3 APG
56.5 TS (+5.4 rTS)

Furthermore.

After reading in 1968 that he was passing out to teammates due to being too old to score

A furious Wilt Chamberlain over the next three games averaged:

56.0 PPG (29.0 FGA)
32.7 RPG
4.0 APG
FG%: 79%

From those stats and the fact that Wilt posted the highest-scoring games in 1967 1968 1969.

You will see that he easily could have kept averaging close to 35 points a game for his entire prime had he wanted to.

This is one problem with Wilt, everything was personal and about him. Notice he isn't worried about working with Arizin to get Arizin his shots in Arizin's comfort zone, or about team goals when criticized, he is worried about Wilt.

The other problem is that Russell really was that good. Wilt v. everyone else wins over 80% of his playoff series (a better percentage than Michael Jordan), Russell and the Celtics just have his number (and, to be fair, everyone else's as well). I don't buy the idea that the other Celtics carried Russell, they won with great defense and bad offense. So Cousy in particular, and all the other high scoring, low efficiency types (Heinsohn, Havlicek, etc.) weren't creating great offense. Now they did have other good defenders (Sharman and Lotscutoff early, Sanders, KC Jones, and Havlicek later) but that isn't what most people are talking about when they talk about how loaded the Celtics were, they are talking about how many offensive threats they had ignoring that most of those players were inefficient chuckers at that end (other than Sharman, Sam Jones, and Bailey Howell).

[coastalmarker99]

[streamable] if[/streamable]

Why didn’t Wilt win in 65, 68, 69?

Why did his scoring drop as the league got less white?

Why did his team’s offenses get better as he took fewer shots?

Why did it take him until his 13th year in the league to become a defense-first player?

The more tape we see of him Wilt looks like an absolute monster. It just doesn’t add up to me.

Wilt”s scoring dropped because he decided he wanted to become more of a all round player.

The 1970 Lakers made a 33-year Chamberlain the number 1 scoring option on the team until he tore his patella tendon.


In those 9 Games that Wilt went back to his Scoring days instead of the all-round play-style that he adopted

Wilt
32 PPG 21 RPG 3 APG
56.5 TS (+5.4 rTS)

Furthermore.

After reading in 1968 that he was passing out to teammates due to being too old to score

A furious Wilt Chamberlain over the next three games averaged:

56.0 PPG (29.0 FGA)
32.7 RPG
4.0 APG
FG%: 79%

From those stats and the fact that Wilt posted the highest-scoring games in 1967 1968 1969.

You will see that he easily could have kept averaging close to 35 points a game for his entire prime had he wanted to.

This is one problem with Wilt, everything was personal and about him. Notice he isn't worried about working with Arizin to get Arizin his shots in Arizin's comfort zone, or about team goals when criticized, he is worried about Wilt.

The other problem is that Russell really was that good. Wilt v. everyone else wins over 80% of his playoff series (a better percentage than Michael Jordan), Russell and the Celtics just have his number (and, to be fair, everyone else's as well). I don't buy the idea that the other Celtics carried Russell, they won with great defense and bad offense. So Cousy in particular, and all the other high scoring, low efficiency types (Heinsohn, Havlicek, etc.) weren't creating great offense. Now they did have other good defenders (Sharman and Lotscutoff early, Sanders, KC Jones, and Havlicek later) but that isn't what most people are talking about when they talk about how loaded the Celtics were, they are talking about how many offensive threats they had ignoring that most of those players were inefficient chuckers at that end (other than Sharman, Sam Jones, and Bailey Howell).

Both Wilt and arzin averaged over 30 PPG in the first playoff series they played with each other.


Wilt clearly let azrin shoot the ball.

As look at his FG attempts in the three seasons they played with each other

1960 19.4

1961 19.4

1962 19.1


Even as Wilt”s Fga attempts rose in 1962 when he averaged 50 PPG
azrin”s attempts basically stayed the same.

[Owly]

Why didn’t Wilt win in 65, 68, 69?

Why did his scoring drop as the league got less white?

Why did his team’s offenses get better as he took fewer shots?

Why did it take him until his 13th year in the league to become a defense-first player?

The more tape we see of him Wilt looks like an absolute monster. It just doesn’t add up to me.

On Q1)

1) Of course it's a small sample, rerun and sometimes they will win. So we can come in with a limited framework if starting from "why did binary outcome X happen". So there's that caveat hanging over everything.

2) '65: worse at a team level (which includes Wilt). Unless there's more refined stuff, little team level stuff saying they're anything special. Tough start to the season health wise for Wilt.
'69: worse at a team level (as above, inc Wilt). Win% isn't bad but very pedestrian SRS and SRS rank. Despite the stars this team doesn't look that good.
'68: Injuries. Different reports give different players at the margin but basically the 76ers entire core were injured to some extent and it still went to 7 games. My guess is if healthy (a big if) 76ers win that one more often than not.

This is just my general opinion on the teams. This isn't to comment on how Wilt played. I haven't seen much of the games and I haven't even looked back at the boxscores for this. This is all very otoh.

[Narigo]

1960-64: Bad support
65-71(excluding 67): Bad Luck/injuries to himself and teammates

[Heej]

Bill Russell bent him over and spanked him without consent unfortunately

Lol I feel like if MJ and Bron played in the same era with the teammate and coaching luck both had in their careers it might play out kinda like how Wilt and Russell's did with this being a kind of general takeaway.

Wilt basically had inferior coaches and teammates for his entire career and had one golden season where everything clicked and clearly peaked higher than his counterpart. If you switch their careers I dunno if he'd be able to work with Auerbach kinda like idk how Bron would've worked with PJ.

But I've come around to the opinion that Wilt was saddled by similar problems as LeBron where the best option was to run things through them given their teammate and uncreative coaching situations, but there's evidence that the ability was there to play within a team setting and lift people around them cohesively.

Wilt probably had a chance with his Lakers superteam in his twilight years to be dynastic but that team had weird stuff going on seemingly almost every year. I do wonder what his career would've looked like if we just yoinked say KC Jones from the Cs and put him on Wilt's team his entire career. Or even someone like Sam Jones or Havlicek. That Celtics team was just unbelievably stacked looking at them man. They were basically the Warriors with like Paul George or Jimmy Butler on the team instead of KD lol

Ain't much you can do about that if you're Wilt

[HeartBreakKid]

Bill Russell bent him over and spanked him without consent unfortunately

Lol I feel like if MJ and Bron played in the same era with the teammate and coaching luck both had in their careers it might play out kinda like how Wilt and Russell's did with this being a kind of general takeaway.

Wilt basically had inferior coaches and teammates for his entire career and had one golden season where everything clicked and clearly peaked higher than his counterpart. If you switch their careers I dunno if he'd be able to work with Auerbach kinda like idk how Bron would've worked with PJ.

But I've come around to the opinion that Wilt was saddled by similar problems as LeBron where the best option was to run things through them given their teammate and uncreative coaching situations, but there's evidence that the ability was there to play within a team setting and lift people around them cohesively.

Wilt probably had a chance with his Lakers superteam in his twilight years to be dynastic but that team had weird stuff going on seemingly almost every year. I do wonder what his career would've looked like if we just yoinked say KC Jones from the Cs and put him on Wilt's team his entire career. Or even someone like Sam Jones or Havlicek. That Celtics team was just unbelievably stacked looking at them man. They were basically the Warriors with like Paul George or Jimmy Butler on the team instead of KD lol

Ain't much you can do about that if you're Wilt

No he did not. Do you think he was in Philly for only one year or something? He spent four years in Philly with Hal Greer and Chet Walker and won only once.

Chamberlain had inferior coaches? Bill Russell literally didnt have a coach after 1966. You know how disadvantageous it is to play a full game while also managing everyone's minutes, fouls, who's hot and who's not, defensive assignments? Bill Russell had to do that by himself for the last 3 years of his career and won two titles still. There wasn't a legion of assistants in the 1960s like there are today either.

Wilt Chamberlain did have good coaches and had coaches that knew how to use him.


Wilt Chamberlain did have a better team situation than Russell for some of the championships he lost. I don't get how that is like Lebron James going against Stephen Curry. You're going to have to break that one down for me because I don't think Sam Jones is exactly Kevin Durant.

[coastalmarker99]

Bill Russell bent him over and spanked him without consent unfortunately

Lol I feel like if MJ and Bron played in the same era with the teammate and coaching luck both had in their careers it might play out kinda like how Wilt and Russell's did with this being a kind of general takeaway.

Wilt basically had inferior coaches and teammates for his entire career and had one golden season where everything clicked and clearly peaked higher than his counterpart. If you switch their careers I dunno if he'd be able to work with Auerbach kinda like idk how Bron would've worked with PJ.

But I've come around to the opinion that Wilt was saddled by similar problems as LeBron where the best option was to run things through them given their teammate and uncreative coaching situations, but there's evidence that the ability was there to play within a team setting and lift people around them cohesively.

Wilt probably had a chance with his Lakers superteam in his twilight years to be dynastic but that team had weird stuff going on seemingly almost every year. I do wonder what his career would've looked like if we just yoinked say KC Jones from the Cs and put him on Wilt's team his entire career. Or even someone like Sam Jones or Havlicek. That Celtics team was just unbelievably stacked looking at them man. They were basically the Warriors with like Paul George or Jimmy Butler on the team instead of KD lol

Ain't much you can do about that if you're Wilt

Here is what I think would happen if Wilt and Russell switched places with each other.




1957: '60 level Wilt wins title, although his stats drop a bit due to a stupid hand injury after punching Lovellette, making the series a close one.

1958: '61 level Wilt doesn't get injured like Russell did, wins title

1959: '62 Wilt is never told to average 50 ppg, still completely dominates the Lakers and wins title

1960: '63 Wilt wins title, '57 Russell easily wins the ROY, but can't lead the '60 Warriors past Wilt's Celtics.

1961: '64 Wilt wins title, dominates the Hawks in the Finals.

1962: '65 Wilt ruins the Lakers in the Finals, wins title. Russell's Warriors put on a good fight, but they are simply outmatched.

1963: '66 Wilt again is too much for the Lakers. '

60 Russell's defense and team spirit lifts the Warriors to a somewhat better record than '63 Wilt, who had been overused, but the Warriors still fall way short that season.


1964: Wow! That's peak Wilt playing for the arguably most dominant 60's Celtic team! The Celtics break the most wins record.

'61 Russell easily leads the Warriors to the Finals, but they are are no match for Boston.


1965: '68 Wilt leads the Celtics to another great record, but faces injury problems in the postseason. '62 Russell manages to outplay him in the playoffs more times than ever before and makes the series very competitive.

This is very close to call, I might give the Celtics a slight adv due to having the home court

1966: The Celtics beat the Sixers and the Lakers, Wilt's injury in the Finals comes too late and doesn't cost his team the title.

1967: '64 Russell leads an incredible Sixers' team, while '70 Wilt deals with his serious injury. Russell easily wins title.

1968: '65 Russell is healthy and still beasting with the Sixers. '71 Wilt plays solid ball.

The Sixers face injury problems and in the playoffs, the 2 giants' battle is epic. Could go either way.


1969: Another tough one, with '66 Russell on the Lakers and '72 Wilt on the Celtics. This goes to 7 games, but in the end La wins.

1970: '67 Russell leads the Lakers to the title.

While '73 Wilt's Celtics now seem too old and bored.


1971: Wilt has retired. Kareem's Milwaukee still beats Russell's Lakers (playing without West and Baylor), wins title.


1972: Either Milwaukee repeats or '69 Russell kind of limits Kareem enough to give the Lakers a tough victory. I give an edge to Milwaukee, though.

As I think Wilt's size and strength would have been more bothersome defensively for Kareem than Russell's quickness and smarts.