Post#18 » by penbeast0 » Wed Jul 19, 2023 8:57 pm
Vote: Wilt
Runner up vote: Shaq
Nominate: Mikan
Why Wilt? It seems to me that Wilt was far and away the most individually dominant player in the history of the league. He could play any center role and win any head to head matchup. With good coaches, that translated into great playoff success against everyone but Bill Russell. Again, outside of games against the Celtics, his playoff series winning percentage is over 80%.
He was the most dominant scorer ever when they needed him to score. Consistently going all game without a rest, he posted a 50 ppg season and others over 35 (in a faster paced league). And he did it consistently coming in 1st or 2nd in the league in shooting efficiency. His only weakness was his FT shooting. Shaq has similar strengths and weaknesses plus he played in the 21st century but while the overall league strength was much higher in the modern era, I'm not sure that's true of center. Wilt faced Russell in the playoffs, the greatest defensive force in NBA history, 10 times in his 14 years of play. The smaller league made the concentration of talent at the center position (the easiest to recognize) much greater with players like Walt Bellamy, Clyde Lovellette, and Walter Dukes, then Nate Thurmond and Zelmo Beaty, then Willis Reed, Wes Unseld, Elvin Hayes, Kareem, etc. such that roughly a 3rd of the centers he faced were generally HOF talents. Shaq played his best years in a league where David Robinson, Hakeem, Ewing, etc. were retired or close to it and the generation of Dwight Howard, Amare, etc. had not yet come into being. His only true HOF competition in his 3 peat years among the 28 other teams were post-injury David Robinson (Duncan was playing mainly PF), Mourning, and Mutombo with 2000 with the next best being Vlade Divac, Theo Ratliff, Dale Davis, Antonio Davis, and Ben Wallace with each only making 1 All-Star team and only Wallace getting a 3rd team All-NBA look.
He was one of the great rebounders, leading the league 11 times in 15 years (helped by his ridiculous minute totals, but also while conserving energy to play those minutes). Again, an area where the other great centers left (Shaq and Hakeem) were not generally the best of their era.
He turned himself into a post passer who led the league in total assists once (though both Shaq and Hakeem developed good post passing games, they passed far less as they continued to focus mainly on scoring). His shotblocking, from the sample size we have, would probably make him the all-time leader in blocks if extrapolated out. He was coachable for good coaches (he had some bad ones), changing his entire game for Alex Hannum and Bill Sharman.
And, he was the greatest physical freak combining size and athleticism in the history of the game as well, with only Shaq coming close. I find it hard to believe that he wouldn't be one of the two best players in the game in any era, including today. He was that great an outlier.
The arguments against him are his losses to Russell and the Celtics. Since I have Russell as my GOAT, that's a factor. If you think the Celtics were loaded with talent every year, then that mitigates as well. But either way, it's a real issue. Again, his record v. everyone else in the playoffs stacks up as better than LeBron, Jordan, Kareem, Duncan, or anyone not named Bill Russell. The other knock is that his great scoring didn't translate into great team Ortg. Again, a very legit criticism and the reason I haven't voted for him higher. Bad coaches are a partial explanation; they saw his individual dominance and just parked him in the post and told the team to throw everything in to him in the half court. Modern analytics have shown this to be an inefficient model for a team even when the individual numbers suggest it to be correct. Normally I'm a huge advocate for looking at team results to show how great an individual is, but I just can't get away from Wilt's ability to dominate like few others ever.
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IN terms of next, Magic led great offenses year in and year out, albeit with some of the most stacked teams in NBA history around him (truly stacked offensively, unlike the hit and miss offensive talent of the defensively focused Russell Celtics). The greatest guard left, nearly as far above his era and West/Oscar. That said, I will probably go with Shaq for my runner up vote. He was the most physically dominant modern player I have ever see, even more than LeBron, and his gravity and unstoppability (not a real word) were almost as unreal as Wilt's.
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I've made no secret that I don't use the "what if they put them in a time machine and magically transported them to today line of analysis. Mikan is easily, without a question, the most dominant player left. I have not supported him to this point because, I don't use a simple dominance factor either, but instead adjust for era and Mikan's was a pretty weak era.
Other names I would consider in terms of creating the best discussion: West/Oscar (Wilt/Russell dominated their era, those two dominated other guards by huge amounts but that's not quite the same), Durant/Giannis (the best modern player not yet nominated if the modern era is indeed that far beyond earlier ones.
“Most people use statistics like a drunk man uses a lamppost; more for support than illumination,” Andrew Lang.
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