Insane speed of Wilt Chamberlain

[michaelm]

Athletes today feel like another level with how smooth they are. Wilt was very fast but still looked so awkward.

Bill Russell looks pretty fluid even by modern day standards. He was a world class high jumper.

[Jazztop]

Wilt was in a league of his own

Shaq is my favorite player of all time, but he wasn't on Wilt's level.

No - he was levels above Wilt. Let’s be honest - Wilt was a great athlete for his time but would just be merely above average today. Shaq, Dwight, Kemp, LeBron, Barkley, David Robinson, Jordan….they were far more athletic than Wilt. Some of this clips are laughable - especially Wilt blocking that shot on the break from the guy travelling like a snail then launching the shot from 4 feet off the floor.

[70sFan]

Athletes today feel like another level with how smooth they are. Wilt was very fast but still looked so awkward.

It's a matter of footage, it runs much less smooth than today because of lower frames rate.

[70sFan]

Shaq is my favorite player of all time, but he wasn't on Wilt's level.

No - he was levels above Wilt. Let’s be honest - Wilt was a great athlete for his time but would just be merely above average today. Shaq, Dwight, Kemp, LeBron, Barkley, David Robinson, Jordan….they were far more athletic than Wilt. Some of this clips are laughable - especially Wilt blocking that shot on the break from the guy travelling like a snail then launching the shot from 4 feet off the floor.

This is ridiculous post...

Do you judge athleticism by watching dunks highlights?

[Salieri]

Let's also take into account one critical factor that for some reason never gets consideration when we talk about how "clumsy", uncoordinated, unathletic or just plain bad these players in old footage look.

Those players look clumsy running up and down the court wth the ball because that's what the rules made them look.

You get any player from today's NBA and put him in 60's NBA, and he wouldn't be able to take 4 steps without getting called for carrying. This palming the ball, this carrying that everyone does nowadays and allows for a much more agile way to move with the ball would not be tolerated back then.

It's easy to look agile and fast when you only need to dribble the ball a couple of times along an entire half court while running at full speed. If you really enforce the carrying rule to the point where any hand placed on the "southern hemisphere" of the ball is a carry, the game of basketball becomes very different.

So when people say "wow, that player would look totally pedestrian in today's NBA, such a scrub", my response tends to be "well, this star everyone loves today wouldn't be able to play at all in the 60's, he would be a walking turnover as soon as he touches the ball".

Please keep that in mind next time you think players from old eras "were plumbers and played like plumbers" while believing any scrub today would be a HoFer yesteryear.

[zimpy27]

Athletes today feel like another level with how smooth they are. Wilt was very fast but still looked so awkward.

Bill Russell looks pretty fluid even by modern day standards. He was a world class high jumper.

Yeah he definitely looked fluid. Feels like watching a modern day athlete when watching him which is pretty amazing considering the shoes and technique training differences

[SkyHookFTW]

Lol that’s not impressive. Actually that’s below average by today’s standards

Show me 7'2 300 lbs player running that fast then. It's certainly not Joel Embiid, who is one of the most athletic 7 footers we have now.

Coincidence? Embiid’s favorite big is Wilt.

[shotsquatch]

Lol that’s not impressive. Actually that’s below average by today’s standards

Show me 7'2 300 lbs player running that fast then. It's certainly not Joel Embiid, who is one of the most athletic 7 footers we have now.

Coincidence? Embiid’s favorite big is Wilt.

Honestly, Embiid may be a more impressive athlete in some respects, at least in terms of skillset. Embiid's bag is like a combination of Kobe and Shaq. It's uncanny watching a human his size move so fluidly.

[Uncle Mxy]

Of course Wilt had to be insanely fast.
To get from woman to woman like that... dayum!

[Salieri]

Show me 7'2 300 lbs player running that fast then. It's certainly not Joel Embiid, who is one of the most athletic 7 footers we have now.

Coincidence? Embiid’s favorite big is Wilt.

Honestly, Embiid may be a more impressive athlete in some respects, at least in terms of skillset. Embiid's bag is like a combination of Kobe and Shaq. It's uncanny watching a human his size move so fluidly.

In terms of skillset, I don't know and I won't fight you if you think so.

In terms on athletic brilliance, not even close. It's like they're two different species. Wilt would be twice as strong, twice as fast, twice as agile. He would be able to jump much higher, move his hands much faster, and let's not even talk about stamina.

Embiid is an impressive athlete, I'm not gonna deny it. For a guy that big to move that fluidly, it's really impressive. Except when you compare him to the closest thing we have had to a superhuman, which is Wilt.

Wilt is in a league on his own athletically, and Embiid does not belong in that league or even the one below it.

[thebigbird]

Here's non sped up footage:

Watch on YouTube

Watch on YouTube

They all look so bad lol. They can barely dribble without looking down at the ball.

[KrAzY3]

I've seen Greg Monroe run the floor just as well if not better. Wilt's athleticism would look slightly above average in todays NBA at most.

Not a knock against him, for his time yeah he was one of the most athletic dudes out there, if not the most. It's impressive how far athletes have come compared to back then.

Not trying to come at you specifically, but this is incredibly ill-informed.

Wilt was a near Olympic level track and field athlete. To give an example, his shot put way back then was good enough that it's better than the current gold medal Olympian's shot put in the decathlon. Another example would be, based on publicly released information, he was faster, stronger, and had a better vert than LeBron James, one of the best athletes of our generation. Wilt with modern methods of training would have been able to achieve absolutely insane things, but even if you just transported him forward in time he would be one of, if not the best athlete in the NBA.

He was a freak athletically, and they actually measured these things so it makes your take seem kind of ridiculous.

[UcanUwill]

Wilt, Russell and Robinson are probably 3 fastest centers ever, they were cheat codes, players that big should not suppose to be fastest players on the court.

[Kingdibs19]

Wilt was an oversized LeBron, which is even more amazing that it sounds when you think what happens to the body with that scaling.

Saying that does not make it true.

[Salieri]

Wilt was an oversized LeBron, which is even more amazing that it sounds when you think what happens to the body with that scaling.

Saying that does not make it true.

It's an opinion I have, entirely subjective and of course debatable. I wasn't trying to pass it off as fact.

This is a strange reply, since it could literally be applied to every post made on this board except the ones talking exclusively about cuantificable stats.

[70sFan]

Here's non sped up footage:

Watch on YouTube

Watch on YouTube

They all look so bad lol. They can barely dribble without looking down at the ball.

They dribbled the ball comfortably within the rupes that existed back then. You shouldn't except anything else from professional players.

[magicman1978]

I don't understand how people can think that there are a bunch of 7 footers walking around today that are just as fast/athletic as Wilt. Keep in mind, we're talking about athleticism, not skill. You can't look at footage with lower frame rates, stringent dribbling rules, poor equipment (shoes, floors), players traveling from city to city by bus allowing for less rest, recovery, and practice time, etc, etc, and compare that to all the advantages that modern players have and go - LOL, these guys are so unskilled and unathletic. If you think players today are advancing so much as athletes, show me centers today that are better athletes than guys who started playing 30 years ago like DRob and Shaq.

Stop dismissing athletes from previous generations because you can't grasp the context around what you are seeing in the footage. This is a 7'1" 290lb man playing every single minute of every single game on a team playing at a pace of 131 (average pace today is 99). And doing it as the primary offensive option and defensive anchor. That has to be one of the most impressive athletic feats in basketball.

[NBA Sheady]

But can he guard the pick and roll?

[JonFromVA]

First thing I thought was maybe the footage was sped up, but without any clocks or timers used in the game, I'm not sure there's a way to tell.

If the video was accurate it should be possible to compute the player's speed and compare it to modern players.

[Warriorfan]

Chamberlain was a college track and field star.
Under 11sex 100.

Story had it he beat Jim Brown in a race. So faster than 4.5 speed

https://medium.com/@gavin.ray/wilt-chamberlain-is-the-greatest-athlete-of-all-time-and-its-not-even-close-1e169af3aad0