moofs wrote:With Wilt and Russell, the argument is always "look at their stats" (odd coming from me, eh iggy?) or "respect the history of the game" or "they wouldn't have the reputation and stats they did if...". The thing is, how many of the people making those arguments have actually seen a significant amount of them playing? Highlight clips don't count. Take a look at your rosters from that era, and there was just an absolute dearth of big men. There would be a few 6'9" and 7'0" guys here and there, but they'd all weigh 210 and score 4ppg. If you're a true athlete at a good height, regardless of your absolute skill, you're going to destroy a guy who is only out there because he's tall (Keith Closs and Shawn Bradley, we're looking at you). Just another case of me wondering how good those guys really were... I know I can't say, I've never seen them play.
Really, there's obviously not many great big men playing right now either, but the ones that are out there, even if they aren't the least bit great, are definitely not 210lbs. I mean, the 61-62 Warriors only had 3 guys over 6'6", Wilt, Joe Ruklick, and Frank Radovich. I'd like to see what happened if you put a team with the two Colliers up against a team with the other two guys. I'd wager they both would have a better career high scoring set than 20|22 pts / 6.4|6.4 ppg.
There's plenty of old archives. ESPN Classic and NBA TV are two good sources ranging from the early 60s to the early 00s. Other games can be downloaded via torrents and internet sites - and no, these aren't just highlights. If you have time to watch some of the old games, you'll see how the game has evolved over the years.
Back to your point...If you're talking strictly about the 50s and the 60s, then yes, I am not going to disagree that Wilt and Russell's numbers were inflated due to their opponents' small size. But really the point is whether or not their games would translate today (since we're also considering Hakeem into the discussion).l
Despite being 7'1'' and 270, Wilt had nimble feet that allowed him to maneuver through defenders with his footwork and quickness. I would say his agility would have been as good as Hakeem's. To have that kind of specimen in that era, where sports medicine and nutritional sciences weren't nearly comparable to what we have today, is almost unheard of. I personally can't help but wonder how good he would be when benefiting from the privilege players didn't have back in the 60s. Offensively, he was untouchable and no big man had such offensive tools besides Hakeem and Kareem. And just like how teams had double-teamed Shaq back in the day, Wilt will destroy anyone if he was left on single coverage. Defensively, he was great but not nearly as dominant as Russell or Hakeem was, because of his emphasis and role on offense. Overall, I think he'd put up numbers slightly better than Dwight's.
Now, let's move to Bill Russell. I am a big Russell fan and I own plenty of Celtics games (both legally and illegally), so I am confident that I understand his game more than any other player that played in his era. Russell was just fundamentally sound on both ends of the court. On the defensive end, he was a terrific man defender as well as a help defender, again almost as good as Hakeem if not better. Though he wasn't necessarily a dominant scorer, he had a 15 ft jumper and post moves but his main threat on offense was to grab offensive boards and distribute the ball. He was arguably one of the best passer, capable of dishing from either the high post or the low post, make a quick outlet pass or even a full court baseball pass for the easy bucket. I personally think his scoring numbers would have been significantly better, as indicated by his playoffs numbers, had he taken more attempts than some of the lesser effecient scorers: Bill Sharman, Bob Cousy and Tommy Heinsohn. But his biggest interest on the court was setting up his teammates and do the rest of the dirty work which his teammates couldn't offer. In that sense he'll fit in to any team you can possibly imagine. Today, he'd be easily contending for the DPOY and I can see him average somewhere around 14/18/4/1.5/3.
So yeah, I believe both Wilt and Russell have no problem playing today. In fact, I think they'll be among the elite players in this league. We have to realize that if they're playing today, they will play under the same circumstances as that of the current players. I really don't mind people arguing that Hakeem was the greatest center of all-time, but I also have trouble rationalizing that guys like Wilt, Russell, and Jabbar will be mere scrubs if they're playing today.
moofs wrote:p.p.s. I always thought Dolph Schayes was supposed to have been GOOD!?!!? http://www.basketball-reference.com/pla ... ydo01.html I remember Worrell always saying "Danny's good, but he's not the player his his daddy was!" The dude shot over 40% ONE TIME (40.1%) for his career. Iverson would die if he saw this given how he gets knocked for his turrble percentages.
This I can't disagree with. Based on what I have heard about Dolph Schayes and from what I have seen from Bob Cousy, they are among the few so called legends whose game wouldn't translate well today. Both players loved to shoot but ironically they were poor scorers. But then again, the game in the 50s or the 60s was drastically different from what we see today. If you consider the bigger picture, teams back in those days preferred a high-paced offense and competed mainly using their speed. With that in mind, they had less emphasis on what we today call 'high percentage shots' and clock management (remember the shot-clock era only began in 1954). To me it's not all that surprising to see them shoot such low percentages. Moreover, I am more surprised at how guys like Jerry West, Sam Jones, and Gail Goodrich shot at a much higher percentage.
In the 60s, the game adopted a mix of half-court sets and quick transitions. Take Red Auerbach for a minute. He's considered the greatest basketball coach of time not simply because he won 9 championships. What people don't realize is that he expanded the game by introducing hard-nosed defense and set plays. He also introduced the idea of sixth man and role players, was also the first coach to properly execute the fast break. With increased complexity involved in the strategy of the game, many teams had to readjust to this new style of basketball. It is clear that there was a major difference between the 50s and the 60s, and this evolution continued through the decades.
