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JordansBulls wrote:Duncan. He was able to take an organization that never won anything prior to him arriving to multiple titles whereas Wilt had to be traded twice in order to win.
Raaccoonn wrote:When Wilt was a high scorer his competition was pitiful.
His only real competition was a defensive specialist and most of the other guys didn't even play heavy minutes which means Wilt (who played 48mpg) would often be beating up on even lower quality backups.
Not to mention he had a good 30-70lbs on most of his opponents.
Wilt looked incredibly awkward dribbling the ball with his back to the basket and his footwork wasn't very good.
Reports that I have read from back then show he was stripped quite frequently.
His skill in the post was also very limited compared to guys like Hakeem, Shaq and Kareem.
He was effective mostly due to his length/size/athletic advantages which would not be nearly as potent in other eras.
Even with those advantages he was held below 50% in his first 3 years in the playoffs where he couldn't pad his stats against the worst competition... pitiful.
Wilt was posting empty stats for most of his early career and his only big impact seasons came towards the end of his career.
He only won on ultra stacked teams and in a limited offensive role.
Most overrated player of All-Time imo.
Duncan's career value is so much greater then Wilt's I dont see how you could possibly not rank him higher.
ushvinder88 wrote:Duncan has been matched up against players his own height his whole career and you can use the shoe measurements bullcrap as much as you want, players nowadays are much taller and there is no player today who is playing against guys 4-5 inches shorter and 30-70 pounds lighter on a nightly basis.
bastillon wrote:Dipper 13 wrote:thizznation wrote:bastillion if you just honestly called wilt inefficient, you seriously need to take a deep breath, do the best to put away your bias aside, and honestly reassess your views of Wilt. Are you watching Wilt's highlight clips where there are a lot of fade aways and extrapolating that to "that is an inefficient shot, he is shooting it a lot...that is poor shot selection, he is inefficient!!!"? How is Wilt inefficient? Throw me a bone here because I am not following you at all...
He has ranked a peaked Chamberlain (1967) behind Rodman 1997.
viewtopic.php?f=64&t=1197732&start=165#p33214311
lmao @ this moron. maybe first read what you're quoting instead of putting words in people's mouth ? Wilt was 5 inches taller than everybody else. he was 50-100 lbs heavier than everybody else. he was a 50% volume scorer. people will believe what they wanna believe but Wilt was a horrendous shooter, all time epic failure in that regard, and because of that he was so easily containable in the playoffs (offensive numbers go down across the board). people look at his stats and fall in love with him, but once you get past that the impact just isn't there. GOAT talent, great player, just lacked killer instinct and team oriented mentality. dude was playing on incredibly stacked teams from 66-73 and barely won 2 tainted championships (Russell injured in 67 postseason, Oscar injured in 72 postseason).
Not even close to true. Even the guys who like to use that don't use it as a sole method.
QuantMisleads wrote:bASTILLON, I have already called you a liar and called you out 4-5 times for saying Russell was injured in 1967 when he wasn't. You're quite simply a liar and nothing more.
ThaRegul8r wrote:NEW YORK (NEA) — Vincent van Gogh died a pauper, his genius unrecognized. William Shakespeare made a comfortable living but never considered himself the best writer in England in 1610—let alone the best in the world. Richard M. Nixon, as we all know was a long time blooming.
Things are different for Lew Alcindor, the Milwaukee Bucks’ 7-feet-2, 232-pound center.
At 23, he has been chosen Most Valuable Player in the National Basketball Association by an overwhelming vote of his peers.
Barring the possible existence of an unscouted Amazon basin Indian who is 7-feet-4 and can jump shoot from 30 feet with either hand, Alcindor is the best basketball player in the world.
And even those New York Knick fans who cheer when Alcindor slips and falls on the Madison Square Garden court will admit there is a good chance he is the best basketball player who ever lived.
Where, other than a very high tax bracket, does all this leave Lew Alcindor?
“I’m very proud and happy to be getting the MVP award, because I feel I’ve worked hard for it,” Alcindor says, smiling.
(Arranging an interview with Lew Alcindor is only slightly more difficult than arranging one with Mao Tse-tung but this is understandable for a man who has been standing out in crowds since his early teens. When reached, Alcindor is—or at least he can be—pleasant, articulate and unassuming.)
There is considerably more to Lew Alcindor than the considerable quantity of him that meets the eye, according to people who know him. They say he is wellread, intellectually deep. He is also a frank man who told a Milwaukee reporter he thought Milwaukee was a town for factory workers and got away without being boiled in beer despite the tender sensitivities of Milwaukeeans to slights from Easterners (Alcindor is from New York).
He describes himself as an athlete this way:
“Although there are still a lot of little things I do wrong, I think I am a player without any really big weakness. But I don’t think of myself as the best player there is. That would be too much of an ego trip. . . . I just like to think of myself as one of the players you debate about when you try to decide who’s the best.”
People in the Bucks organization talk of their pride, joy and meal ticket in glowing terms. Team trainer, Arnie Garber, for instance, says Alcindor “is always willing to take advice and accept help, and he never expects any kind of special treatment.”
Alcindor himself is not unwilling to acknowledge that he received help in winning the MVP award. He talks about the acquisition of Oscar Robertson:
“Having Oscar with us this year has helped me a lot. I don’t have to worry about our getting the ball downcourt any more, I don’t have to worry about the ball not being there when I get open and people don’t expect me to do everything for the team. I just have the utmost confidence in his ability.”
With the Milwaukee Bucks as phenomenally successful during the regular season as any pro basketball team has ever been, Alcindor’s immediate ambition is inevitable:
“I want for us to win the championship, of course. That’s the top and everybody wants to be on top.”
An NBA championship for the Bucks would embellish Alcindor’s achievement and might prevent him from suffering the fate of Wilt Chamberlain, who won the MVP award as a rookie but has been able to lead a team to only one tainted league championship and never was able to lead a team past Boston when his arch-opponent, Bill Russell, was healthy.
Apparently doomed to futility in reaching what Alcindor calls “the top,” Chamberlain, after reaching a personal peak of 50.4 points per game during this third year, lapsed into a career of uninspired toll that often has made him look like a bored wretch who made a flawed pact with the devil.
There is no Russell to plague Alcindor. The Knicks’ Willis Reed and the aging Chamberlain himself are his only near rivals, and barring injury he should soon be far past even them—if he isn’t already.
So the NBA title itself is the tangible height left to scale.
But if the Bucks win this year, what is left for Alcindor to do?
He says he feels he has improved this year on his biggest weakness during his rookie season — rebounding — without harming the rest of his game by relating what he did to his experience as a rookie.
Next season he will be more than ever a marked man; at the point where improvement yields diminishing returns; laboring at the peaks where the progress is painful and barely perceptible.”
Lew Alcindor laughs broadly and you believe him when he says that, yes, he is happy doing what he’s doing.
Next year he will have a new problem: relating to the experience of being the best there is.
http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=cZ ... 19,4176018
Quotatious wrote: Bastillon is Hakeem. Combines style and substance.
fatal9 wrote:For someone who was as physically dominant as Wilt relative to his peers, and as great of an offensive rebounder and finisher as Wilt was (as shown by his FG% when his teams stopped asking him for post scoring), a FG% of "only" around 50% is pretty low (combined with a TS% of under 55% and probably high TOV%). In the playoffs he's at only 52.4 TS% for his career. I don't doubt Wilt made a lot of those fadeaways, I doubt how efficient he was at making them. Just because you can show me footage of Karl Malone draining turnaround isolation jumpers from 15 feet doesn't mean he was efficient at making them...he just took a lot of them. But this is something I've stopped trying to argue with Wilt fans. I've read them say that his midrange game was comparable to a guy like KG, uh seems legit...considering he was one of the worst FT shooters in history.
On film, the offense looks predictable when he gets the ball. For example, watch game 7 of the '70 finals. I've seen his fans actually use this game as a "good" game by Wilt based on boxscore numbers (even put highlights of it on youtube) but look at how bad and predictable the offense is when it runs through him in the first half. Any time Wilt posts up it was either a bad shot, him drawing a foul but missing FTs (disrupts flow of offense and doesn't make defense pay for fouling) or a turnover. He was super efficient on finishes and offensive boards though (but barely converted any post up opportunities), and it kind of shows what I've thought about Wilt...he can have a nice game "FG%" wise but not be an efficient post up player. Doesn't it make sense WHY Hannum decided to not use Wilt as a post scorer anymore but mainly as a finisher/offensive rebounder? Maybe...he wasn't that efficient when used in that type of a role. It's why we don't see him make his teams great offensively during his volume scoring years despite what his boxscore numbers say.
On top of this, combined with how teams played back then, he slowed down the offense. His Warrior teammates even complained about this, how they felt "shackled" around him. Some people might find it difficult to understand, I know I did a few years ago, but you can look like a great scorer in the boxscore but not be making much of an offensive impact at all. He looks amazing on offensive boards and as a finisher, but his post offense doesn't look as efficient as guys like Shaq, Hakeem, KAJ and the like.
Here are two games from Wilt's prime years where every post up he made is included (not handpicked misses or makes):
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oemQKScZ7MQ[/youtube].
The point isn't whether he made or missed the shots, those things vary game to game. But it's things like his awful footwork, how many dribbles he uses to make his move (this wouldn't fly in today's game where double teaming and trapping is waaay more common), his dribbles aren't fluid or in rhythm, his touch outside of 5+ feet away looks really awkward but it's pretty soft on his bank shot (though he is soo slow in getting into that move), has a bad habit of exposing the ball and he clearly doesn't have a lower base and center of gravity (long skinny legs) of a guy like Shaq to play the power game like him. These are things that are consistent on a game to game basis. But you guys can believe that a guy who was as horrible as Wilt at FTs had awesome midrange game. I just think it's a big leap of faith.
TL;DR: Wilt was an awesome finisher and awesome on the offensive boards but his post offense is very overrated. That combined with his historically bad FT shooting (and likely high propensity for turnovers) doesn't make him an efficient option in the post like his numbers would suggest.
Defensively, I've heard his fans compare his impact to Russell. Even at his best when he was motivated, I disagree with that strongly. He was a dominant shot blocker, a good man to man defender in the post in his later years and that's it. I've heard commentators point out how Wilt doesn't leave the paint and cover screen and rolls. Clearly doesn't have Russell's (or KG's or Hakeem's or Walton's) "horizontal" game. His defensive impact is inconsistent throughout his years. I see him defensively like I do Shaq. Great when he wants to be (though can be exploited by some weaknesses) but inconsistent effort wise. I'm pretty sure we have some data too of Wilt not improving offenses and defenses as much as you'd expect from someone with his boxscore numbers.
His year by year impact from team to team definitely doesn't say much in his favor either:fatal9 wrote:It's not just looking at one case of SRS dropping...his impact is questionable in a lot of years.
He put up 44/25 on a 31 win team in a season where he was healthy and played all games (also had two other all-star players on his team). How can you be that statistically and physically dominant and come out with such few wins? Then couple of years later, he was leading the Warriors to the worst record in the league at 11-27 in games he played, then he gets traded for peanuts, joins the Sixers who were 21-20 at the time they made the trade and finished 40-40. When Warriors made improvements next season, there are articles of Wilt's former Warrior teammates complaining about how "shackled" they were with Wilt on offense. Sixers of course became an all-time great team in a couple of years with Wilt literally being the last option on the floor scoring wise though improving other parts of his game (along with them adding guys like Billy C to the roster and guys like Chet Walker and Luke Jackson maturing).
Then he gets traded to the Lakers who were starving for a dominant center all decade and...nothing happens. The SRS of the team goes down from the previous year (despite West playing more games), they still lose to Boston in the finals and got lucky in that they didn't get knocked out in the first round by the Warriors (Mullins got injured). There are some absolutely scathing articles in LA newspapers at the time. Meanwhile Wilt's former team still wins 55 games and that is with their starting PF Luke Jackson basically missing the entire season. Then the following year, the Lakers still win 46 games (7-5 with Wilt, 38-31 without him...Baylor/West missed some of these games too). And the next year with Wilt playing all 82 games, they win 48. It should be noted that without West, Wilt leads the Lakers to an awful 3-10 record (the MOV of the Lakers over this stretch? -10.9) that year.
I'd like to think a top 5 player would show a little bit more impact than that over the years. This isn't one case of finding a "gotcha" incident, this is something we see over most of his career. Then there are major concerns about his playoff performances, mentality and leadership, effectiveness and portability of his scoring, the balance in his offensive game, impact on the rest of his teammates, inconsistency of his defense over the years, and on and on. And I don't think Wilt fans on this board or other boards get it when they try to argue exclusively through boxscore stats, everyone is aware of his numbers, but where is the impact you expect? What about all his flaws? Is this someone you are comfortable building a team around? People are wrong now that they decided to look at his career in depth rather than perform a very superficial analysis based on his raw stats like they were doing before?
As for the original question, I'd take Duncan comfortably.
thizznation wrote:he was a 58.6% TS scorer for the rest of his career. and it's not just his weak TS%, it's more about the level of competition he was playing against. many guys in that league were undersized. Wilt was TOWERING over everyone else in the 60-65. imagine Shaq playing against Ryan Anderson or Kevin Love. just no way Shaq would post some 50% FG. Wilt wouldnt either if he wasnt shooting those inefficient fadeaway shots.
This is trolling, you are basically re-hashing the same old "Wilt only played against 6-5 white guys!" argument, this has been debunked so many times times by TrueLAFan and other posters.
FG% garbage? The stat that measures scoring efficiency from the field? What are you trying to prove here, my friend? That Wilt's fadeaway jump shots were not good? Yet, they were good enough to put him no. 1 in the league in efficiency from the field. Because you know, field goals are shot from the field. If you want to bring up TS%, that then involves free throws, and doesn't prove anything about Wilt's efficiency from the field. The cumulative amount of logic here is below zero.
By the way, you seem to be very anti-Wilt's 50% FG%. For the record, when scoring more then 35 ppg, no other player has even touched that. The highest is '87 Jordan at 48.1% FG. Kobe scored at about 45% from the field, Baylor and Barry even lower then that.
Shot Clock wrote:Only on Realgm where you can classify a league leader in FG% as an inefficient scorer.
A guy with a career .540 fg% in a comparison with a guy with a .507 fg% who never had to carry the same offensive load.
Quotatious wrote: Bastillon is Hakeem. Combines style and substance.
ThaRegul8r wrote:ElGee wrote:I'm having reservations about Wilt Chamberlain. I'm generally high on his 72 and 73 seasons, but this year his scoring is soooo low. Now, that wouldn't really be an issue if he could score more and just didn't, but he became infatuated with setting the FG% record, and stopped shooting everything unless it was basically a layup or dunk.March 28, 1973, Chamberlain didn’t attempt a shot or take a single free throw while playing 46 minutes in an 85-84 loss to Milwaukee. “Coach Bill Sharman, when asked why Wilt didn’t shoot, said, ‘I don’t know why. You will have to ask him. That really hurt, him not shooting’ ” (St. Petersburg Times, March 29, 1973). “Wilt Chamberlain, who entered the game with 24 successful field goal attempts in a row, kept the streak alive in an unconventional fashion. He took no shots at all” (The Milwaukee Journal, March 28, 1973). The Bucks finished their regular season winning 14 straight, setting an NBA record, and took a half-game lead over the Lakers in the race for best record in the Western Conference, homecourt advantage and $10,000 in playoff money. Kareem called it “our biggest win of the year.” The Lakers would need a win over Golden State in the last game of the regular season to finish 60-22 and force a special playoff with the Bucks to determine the best record in the Western Conference.
I don't like this trend of not doing what it takes to win a game for whatever reason. And you can see, the not shooting when his team needed it wasn't just Game 7 of the '68 Finals. There are other instance that can be found.Abdul-Jabbar, once he had recovered from the surprise of learning that Chamberlain had intended no offensive thrusts at all, wasn’t bad either. He suffered through an 0 for 7 shooting performance in the second quarter, but this was the sort of game that permitted such lapses.
And it was his shot — a 20-foot jump shot from the free throw area, no less, with Chamberlain waiting stolidly under the basket — that turned out to be the one that won the game.ElGee wrote:Even that wouldn't be a deal-breaker, except that in the NBA FInals, when West hurt his hamstring and Chamberlain was needed to shoulder a larger offensive role, he did this:
G3: 5 pts (2-4, 1-5) 5 ast
G4: 13 pts (4-8. 5-7) 5 ast
G5: 23 pts (9-16, 5-14) 3 ast
That, against a "small ball" team. It could be argued that his playoffs, offensively, were quite neutral/useless. He averaged 10 ppg on .556 TS%. His FGA's in the playoffs actually declined to 6.8 per game, despite increasing his minutes to 47 mpg. The whole thing is a little Ben Wallace-esque.
Yes, I know even at his age Chamerlain has some offensive game (as evidenced by G5, I imagine). But if the argument is he played a role within a system, then shouldn't we see better results than these when he's called upon? Shouldn't he be able to step up in bigger moments like we see other scorers over the years on balanced teams?
And Game 5 in the series against Chicago, Chamberlain scored 21 on 8-for-11 shooting after getting into an altercation with Jerry Sloan the previous game.CHICAGO (AP) — The Chicago Bulls made the mistake of annoying Wilt Chamberlain into using the basket instead of just guarding it.
Big Wilt, who had averaged only seven points in the first four games in of the Western Conference semifinals, stuffed 8 of 11 shots and contributed 21 points and 29 rebounds to the Lakers’ 123-102 conquest of the Bulls in Los Angeles Tuesday night.
Chamberlain got irked midway in the game when Chicago’s Jerry Sloan, some 80 pounds more diminutive, challenged the Laker giant into an exchange of words and angry words.
Until his fifth game, Chamberlain had been averaging only six shots per game.
So he could score if someone made him mad, but not when the team needs it to win? I just have a problem with that.
fatal9 wrote:ElGee wrote:I'm having reservations about Wilt Chamberlain. I'm generally high on his 72 and 73 seasons, but this year his scoring is soooo low. Now, that wouldn't really be an issue if he could score more and just didn't, but he became infatuated with setting the FG% record, and stopped shooting everything unless it was basically a layup or dunk.
Wilt actually did this quite a lot it seems...
In late '67 for example, there was a game where Thurmond held him to 0 points - because Wilt took took 0 shots. Wilt normally did not shoot well against Thurmond and was held well below his ppg numbers, so either Thurmond played amazing ball denial or he chose to not shoot. This was at a time where he was setting FG% records, but it seems odd that someone who averaged 17 fga that season and 24 ppg, to not take a single shot over the entire game. There's a game against Kareem at the end of the '73 season (when Wilt had set a record for FG% with 72.7%) where he took 0 shots (Kareem would keep him under his typical shooting percentages most of the time, though Wilt would also do the same to Kareem). It was last game of the season (and winner got #1 seed), why shoot against a good defender when you've already set the record? I don't think he did it in the playoffs, but there have been cases where he has been suspiciously passive (several games vs. Celtics in the 60s, especially the game 7 in '68). I don't think the reasons were statistical though, I think he was genuinely afraid at times of failing in big games and figured if he wasn't involved or didn't shoot a lot of shots, he'd see less of the blame.
ThaRegul8r wrote:ronnymac2 wrote:This is going to be really tough. Was Kareem really THAT injured? He needs to get a spot, because I don't think his injury is enough to put him off a list or anything. I think he's the best player, but this might cost him something. Not sure how much.
Wilt IS looking like a good choice here. I was going to post the same ideas as Mufasa regarding Cowens vs. Chamberlain. I'd take the Stilt, too.
Wait, for #1? I don't see how. Wilt's gonna be my #1 for next season, but I don't see how he can get it here. As I posted in the article on the second page, the Lakers were the favorite over the Knicks. Before the series, one of the deciding factors was the fact that the Knicks had no one to match up with Chamberlain.The biggest problem for the Knicks will be stopping 7-foot-1 Wilt Chamberlain, who controlled the boards in last year’s series. New York has Jerry Lucas at 6-8 and injury-prone 6-10 Willis Reed, who didn’t see playoff action last year.
They had an undersized Jerry Lucas, and an injured Willis Reed who only played 69 games at 27.9 minutes per during the regular season, and was averaging 28 minutes a game in the postseason prior to the Finals. Yet Chamberlain wasn't the deciding factor, averaging 11.6 points, 18.6 rebounds and 3.8 assists. In fact, in the last three games—which New York won, Reed averaged 20.3 points on 52.8 percent shooting, 11 rebounds and 3.3 assists to Chamberlain's 13.7 points (55.6% FG), 17.7 rebounds and 4.3 assists.Frazier was the Knicks’ work horse that series […]. Still, Reed was awarded the finals MVP. One rationale for Reed winning the award was that he shot 28 for 53 from the field over the last three games. He outscored Chamberlain 61-41 in those games, all won by the Knicks.
So—as penbeast0 said, since Chamberlain didn't dominate a hobbled Reed despite the fact that this was one of the advantages LA had over New York—making this the SECOND time in two meetings that Wilt didn't dominate a less-than-100% Reed when the matchup was in his favor, and the Lakers were upset when they were the favorites, I don't see how there's a case for Wilt at #1.
Wilt averaged 18.6 rebounds in the Finals, and led the playoffs with 22.5 per game. But prior to the Finals, Wilt was averaging 24.2 rebounds a game in the postseason. So he was grabbing over 5 boards a game less against a hobbled Reed and a Knick team that wasn't even a good rebounding team—they were next to last in the league during the regular season. In those aforementioned last three games, Wilt out-rebounded Reed 17.7 to 11, but then you have to take into consideration the fact that Reed was only playing 32 minutes a game, while Wilt always played the full 48. 11 rebounds in 32 minutes is 16.5 rebounds in 48. So seeing how this was supposed to be LA's biggest advantage, again, I can't see it.
And if Wilt's elite defense put you over, Reed averaged 20 on 53% shooting over the last three games which NY won, and averaged 16.4 points on 49% shooting overall. Prior to the Finals, Reed averaged 10.8 on 45.1 percent shooting. So against Wilt, Reed—a hobbled Reed—averaged more points on a higher percentage than he did in all of the postseason prior to the Finals. I don't see how it's a plus that a hobbled player does better against you offensively than he did in the entire playoffs before facing you, and again, you're supposed to be your team's biggest advantage.
I'm sorry, I don't see any rationale for Wilt as #1. I'll make the case for him next year, but I see no logical argument this year.
Quotatious wrote: Bastillon is Hakeem. Combines style and substance.
Shot Clock wrote:Only on Realgm where you can classify a league leader in FG% as an inefficient scorer.
A guy with a career .540 fg% in a comparison with a guy with a .507 fg% who never had to carry the same offensive load.
Raaccoonn wrote:Actually Bastillion was 100% correct.
Wilt was horrifying inefficient as a scorer.
Lets examine his 6 seasons where he was a volume scorer (60-66)
60 = 49%FG / 49%TS
61 = 47%FG / 49%TS
62 = 47%FG / 50%TS
63 = 54%TS (decent)
64 = 55%TS (decent)
66 = 50%TS (crap again)
The rest of his career he wasn't relied upon to carry his teams offensively and he rarely took shots that weren't high percentage shots or easy layups/dunks.
The fact is Wilt was not that good offensively.
His footwork was mediocre and he looked awkward as hell when he put the ball on the floor with his back to the basket.
Numerous reports from back in the day say Wilt was a turnover machine.
Wilt is similar to Iverson.
They can both put up great volume offensively if given the green light due to their unique physical talents but in reality neither of them can have much of an impact offensively as volume scorers.
HomoSapien wrote:Warspite, the greatest poster in the history of realgm.
Raaccoonn wrote:60 = 49%FG / 49%TS (.493)
61 = 47%FG / 49%TS (.519)
62 = 47%FG / 50%TS (.536)
63 = 54%TS (decent) (.550)
64 = 55%TS (decent) (.537)
66 = 50%TS (crap again) (.547)
HomoSapien wrote:Warspite, the greatest poster in the history of realgm.
bastillon wrote:QuantMisleads wrote:bASTILLON, I have already called you a liar and called you out 4-5 times for saying Russell was injured in 1967 when he wasn't. You're quite simply a liar and nothing more.
you can call me whatever you want to. I dont really care, you know ? I only care about the discussion.ThaRegul8r wrote:NEW YORK (NEA) — Vincent van Gogh died a pauper, his genius unrecognized. William Shakespeare made a comfortable living but never considered himself the best writer in England in 1610—let alone the best in the world. Richard M. Nixon, as we all know was a long time blooming.
An NBA championship for the Bucks would embellish Alcindor’s achievement and might prevent him from suffering the fate of Wilt Chamberlain, who won the MVP award as a rookie but has been able to lead a team to only one tainted league championship and never was able to lead a team past Boston when his arch-opponent, Bill Russell, was healthy.
http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=cZ ... 19,4176018
Warspite wrote:Raaccoonn wrote:Actually Bastillion was 100% correct.
Wilt was horrifying inefficient as a scorer.
Lets examine his 6 seasons where he was a volume scorer (60-66)
60 = 49%FG / 49%TS
61 = 47%FG / 49%TS
62 = 47%FG / 50%TS
63 = 54%TS (decent)
64 = 55%TS (decent)
66 = 50%TS (crap again)
The rest of his career he wasn't relied upon to carry his teams offensively and he rarely took shots that weren't high percentage shots or easy layups/dunks.
The fact is Wilt was not that good offensively.
His footwork was mediocre and he looked awkward as hell when he put the ball on the floor with his back to the basket.
Numerous reports from back in the day say Wilt was a turnover machine.
Wilt is similar to Iverson.
They can both put up great volume offensively if given the green light due to their unique physical talents but in reality neither of them can have much of an impact offensively as volume scorers.
Show me another player who avged 40ppg in a season that was more eff?
Wilt is the most eff 50ppg and 40ppg scorer of alltime.
Seriously how stupid do you have to think we are to believe that any 25pg player can be compared to a 38,40,50ppg player in eff? The guy is shooting 17FTA per game at 60% of course his TS% is going to suffer. Of course nobody is thinking about the fact that WIlt is putting 5 guys in foul trouble everynight and letting his teammates play vs bench scrubs for an extra 10-15mpg.
Comapred to his peers Wilts TS% and FG% look very good to elite even though hes putting up un heard of stats. This whole time machine comaprison is a 2 way street. If Wilt isnt eff than Howard isnt a good rebounder.
Im going to bet that before this thread is through someone is going to say that Wilt sucks on defense because he didnt get any blocks or steals.
MacGill wrote:
This is the biggest problem Dipper13 to me when trying to evaluate Wilt. No disrespect to you or the Wilt supporters but the perception I get for Wilt is as follows: The articles posted around Wilt's career, match the highlight videos so the conclusion is that Wilt played this way his entire career??
This is why I appreciate ThaRegul8tr's & Fatal9's posts because they also provide the other side of the context that isn't so readily made available.
A couple of points:
Reg, supplied an article detailing how in his 50 ppg season Wilt's teammates made it a goal to ensure not only did he get enough touches to make this happen but championed the idea for the good of the game at that time.
I have never seen a Wilt supporter respond to this claim and provide insight about this. I believe in this case Reg was making the point about how teammates can influences one ability on the court for the good or bad and thus the article was shared. No direct link but I believe it is early in the top peak project.
2nd point: Fatal9, one of my fav poster's, provides video evidence of a more normal Wilt like game, more of what we would expect to see and you can clearly see in Wilt much of the opposite to what people claim as truth in his abilities. Wilt vs Duncan thread. He certainly appears to be much more mortal in this 2:15 clip then in any other I have watched. And to confirm, any evidence you provide or videos shown, I watch/read in full detail.
I mean, someone has to own this footage of earlier nba and it needs to get released for proper evaluation. However, I am not so sure that this will benefit Wilt and what he brought to the game should this ever happen. Let me give you an analogy here:
We have all seen the Shaq highlight video's, where he is dunking on everyone, breaking the entire basketball net, not just the rim, etc. Now the reason one can critize Shaq is because almost every game, quote, etc is made public and more easily found. In reality, I know Shaq took plays off, didn't score everytime time down the court, hell he has been blocked, badly at times. Case and point I take the good with the bad but I still rank his overall basketball ability to what he did very high and I can back that up with statistical and video evidence if needbe.
With Wilt, I feel dependant on who the poster is determines what picture will be painted. Articles have been posted on this site citing no fg's taken, needing to be trashed talked to get motivated etc but I find none of the tenured Wilt supporters (I hold you here because you are a very informative poster regarding him) respond to this and just let it go.
The point I am trying to make is it's almost like because we know right now there is very little footage some poster's use this as a means to paint this indestructable picture of Wilt and use selected articles to back it up as fact. In today's world, most written opinion is easily disregarded as bias, uneducated or just plain ridiculous especially when in Wilt's time playing and in his 100 point documentary Russell himself states that he & Wilt were trying to get this sport on the map.
So to me, it makes sense then why the articles never really match up to the video eye test, right? Not to take anything away from Wilt but only to evaluate him on a proper level instead of the hype that I am sure was strategic to the times and critical to the game. I mean can you imagine what would happen when/if footage of his 50ppg season get released and posters see how his teammate's spoonfed Wilt? What will be the rebuttal then? How will people justify his impact etc? (BTW, none of that was directed at you, as you are a much more mature Wilt poster.) But the question remains. The playoff game(s) where he doesn't take a shot, look at what happened with Kobe in a somewhat like regard, right.
Again, it just doesn't add up to me. Sure he played on the Globetrotter's but all of the footage has him dunking (easy for him) haven't seen him utilized for his dribbling. Then you see him dribble in the post and you then know why. But poster's want to credit him as if he was part of the And1 tour. I think Wilt happened to be the circus attraction for a growing sport and certainly put the nba on the map. I think many of the articles, stroies that followed Wilt helped provoke the curiousity of non fans and like in his 50ppg season they utilized him like the big top feature. He was still a remarkable athlete and it takes nothing away with what he has done but it appears the legend of Wilt is off only by what people can read and see which happens to be tailored to promote Wilt rather then show full detail.
I just think there are other articles out there where people are hesitant to share because it may take away from this perception. And if the day full video evidence of Wilt comes out, I'll be one of the first in line to watch every single game available from start to finish.
OK, wow. It would be nice to be able to actually discuss these comparisons without the need for extreme hyperbole. Anyhow, read through the first few pages and have a few things to add in.
First point is around height. I am not sure what advantage poster's are trying to gain from this regarding Wilt's competition to current. Wilt was both tall and long so he'd be just as freaky in today's game. If I were going to make an argument around size of competition I would start with the length of players versus the height.
Simply put, you are scouted much harder today and length has become just as or even more important then overall height. If I am not mistaken, Dwight's standing reach is only a few inches shorter than Wilt's, who would be noticably shorter standing back to back which is also part of the reason why Russell was so effective. Great athlete, long arms. However, the league then from all the film I watched and even shown in this thread wasn't filled with players per position who could play taller than their height.
Many players well under 7' have very impressive wingspans which allow them to compensate for any inches lost in total height. I don't believe it is fair to blame Wilt for this though, as this is the progression of the game after him and which arguably he started the trend, but if comparing the two, it is a definate factor to consider.
As for thread question on who I would choose. I've been watching a lot more film regarding Wilt but the more I watch, the more unsure I am with him playing in today's game. In Wilt's era, I'd choose him over Duncan during that period because the rules and how the game was played then was perfectly suited for Wilt. I would choose Duncan for today's game, pretty confidently.
The problem is, there isn't enough footage on him but from what I watched on Wilt highlight video's or the cut & pasted games I think today's length per position would really bother Wilt and limit his 2 way effectiveness. I view Wilt as this well ahead of his time athlete who truly was a unique specimen. Outstanding size & length providing 2 way impact. However, I just haven't seen enough, especially regular ol games, not just highlight or select playoff games to trust how effective he'd be over Duncan, especially given the teams Duncan has competited against.
I actually have developed an appreciation for Wilt and what he has done to the game but to me, it shouldn't cross into the current nba model. I've really thought long and hard about this and for me to be able to say Wilt would mean I'd have to bet on him basically being able to modify so much of what he did and play style back in the 60's etc. And because of that, much of what he gets praised for during his era, he wouldn't be able to execute today so I need to go with the proven competitor.
I think Wilt was an incredible shotblocker for his day, fantastic timing and we can see footage of this. You also see that he was a good rebounder, and what I liked is that he boxed out his opposing player to gain more of an advantage. Duncan was also a very good rebounder & shot blocker and did this in a league where he wasn't considered the best athlete and one where Wilt wouldn't be head and shoulders above the competition like he was.
If I am being honest here, Wilt's fingerroll to the basket move would be eaten alive today and he'd be stript an awful lot trying to execute in the post. He'd most likely develop his fadeaway jumper but he'd be in a world where almost all players play above the rim which just wasn't what he played in. Duncan is not an offensive anchor but he is capable of carrying a large portion of the scoring load and increasing this into the post season. His defense, rebounding is pretty elite and he has a very good basketball IQ. He had a great coach in Pops from the start, but his poise and execution are very high level.
I think Wilt and all his great accomplishments and records deserve recognition and praise but should be left in his own time. Too many what if's that I am not sold on when comparing to more modern day players, too little full game coverage (he wasn't a highlight in every play, neither was MJ) and just way too many differences in how the game was played.
I also think the Wilt supporter's should be open minded to the idea that he's been away from the game now for over 40 years and you can't stay on top forever. I mean, as the game continues to progress, I would hope newer and better players come along utilizing all this information of past greats to help make others better. One simply cannot assume that a pioneer would excel if given the same tools, especially when they already played at such a high level to begin with. Personally, 40 years from now, I hope the consenus top 10 list looks completely different, hell imagine MJ barely making top 10