How in the hell did Wilt get so many damn rebounds?

[Tottery]

He was huge compared to a lot of other players and was on the court for a lot of mins.

[TheBobster]

Have to give the man credit for paying every minute in a faster pace. Today’s players with today’s medicine are soo revered when they play 40+ minutes at a slower pace in a playoff series Yet wilt with no modern medicine in a faster pace dud of for an entire season!!!


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For sure, insane stamina because even though everyone played a lot of minutes, he played more than everyone else.

The thing to balance out is that even though the pace was faster, players covered less ground in the half court. Bigs essentially mainly camped in the paint and didn't have to travel too far defensively.

The game was also more physical then - there were only two officials and plenty of pushing, clutching and grabbing.

[Lalouie]

he was really tall

[coastalmarker99]

The 64-65 EDF's pitted a peak Russell and a peak Wilt against each other in what would be a monumental seven-game series.

Russell played 340 out of the 341 minutes, and Wilt played every minute. Russell fouled out with a minute left in the OT game four.


Game 1:

Russell 32 out of 121 (TRB% of 26.4)
Wilt 31 out of 121 (TRB% of 25.6)

Game 2:

Russell 16 out of 124 (TRB% of 12.9)
Wilt 39 out of 124 (TRB% of 31.5)

Game 3:

Russell 26 out of 123 (TRB% of 21.1)
Wilt 37 out of 123 (TRB% of 30.1)

Game 4:

Russell 25 out of 142 (TRB% of 17.6)
Wilt 34 out of 142 (TRB% of 23.9)

Game 5:

Russell 28 out of 122 (TRB% of 23.0)
Wilt 21 out of 122 (TRB% of 17.2)

Game 6:

Russell 21 out of 128 (TRB% of 16.4)
Wilt 26 out of 128 (TRB% of 20.3)

Game 7:

Russell 29 out of 122 (TRB% of 23.8)
Wilt 32 out of 122 (TRB% of 26.2)

Totals:

Russell 177
Wilt 220

Total Rebounds in the series:

882

TRB% for the entire series:


Russell 20.1
Wilt 24.9


Wilt also held a 35-22 edge in known blocks, which, as we know, reduces TRB%'s.


Also here is a fun fact Wilt had a higher career playoff rebounding rate than Dennis Rodman while playing nearly 19 extra minutes per game then Rodman did.

[coastalmarker99]

Simply put Wilt was the GOAT rebounder in NBA history.

Yes, Russell had a slightly higher average in the postseason... 24.9 rpg to 24.5 rpg...but, in their eight playoff series H2H's, Chamberlain outrebounded Russell in every one of them.

Including margins of 5, 6, and even 9 rpg! Oh, Chamberlain is also the all-time finals leading rebounder with a career average of 24.6 rpg.

He played in 13 post-seasons, and his low was 20.2 RPG.

He also had post-seasons of 28, 29, and even 30 rpg. And he had series of 30 and 31 rpg (both against Russell BTW.)

In his last post-season, at age 36, and covering 17 games... 22.5 rpg, in a post-season that averaged 50.6 rpg per team.

in the 2016 season the NBA averaged 42.0 RPG.)


That translates to 19 rpg in the 2016 playoffs. In his last season.

He played in 29 post-season series and was never outrebounded by an opposing center in any of them.


He was outrebounded by PF Jerry Lucas in one...and by a 21.0 to 20.0 rpg margin

However, when the two faced each other as centers a 35 year old Wilt, playing 47 mpg, outrebounded the 31-year-old Lucas, playing 46 mpg, by a 23.2 rpg to 9.8 rpg margin.

Wilt was outrebounding Reed by 14 rpg, Thurmond by 7 rpg, and Russell by 9 RPG.

[ArtMorte]

Have to give the man credit for paying every minute in a faster pace. Today’s players with today’s medicine are soo revered when they play 40+ minutes at a slower pace in a playoff series Yet wilt with no modern medicine in a faster pace dud of for an entire season!!!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

For sure, insane stamina because even though everyone played a lot of minutes, he played more than everyone else.

The thing to balance out is that even though the pace was faster, players covered less ground in the half court. Bigs essentially mainly camped in the paint and didn't have to travel too far defensively.

There's also much more emphasis on weight training and bulking up nowadays. Back then the players were leaner and that obviously helps with stamina.

[picko]

1. He played a lot of minutes
2. The game was played at a much faster pace.
3. Almost nobody could shoot.

In his peak rebounding year - 1960-61 - Wilt averaged 47.8 MPG on a team that played at a pace of 132 in a league where the FG% was 41.5%. Wilt's team that year averaged 75 RPG and Wilt was grabbing around 36% of them.

To put that into some perspective, in Dennis Rodman's peak rebounding year - 1991-92 with Detroit - he grabbed 42% of his team's rebounds.

The thing that is underappreciated about Wilt's rebounding is that its rather damning on the quality of the league. If a player can regularly grab 30 or 40 or 50 rebounds a game then that's largely because the quality of players league-wide is somewhat lacking.

Thankfully, Wilt's rebounding records will never be touched.

[coastalmarker99]

To this day, Wilt Chamberlain remains the only NBA player to come back from a serious (e.g., torn patella tendon) knee injury in the same season.

The only other professional athletes to accomplish this feat were NFL players Rod Woodson and Fred Barnett.

Woodson tore his ACL in Week 1 of the 1995 NFL season, and he didn't return until Super Bowl 30.

Barnett tore his patella tendon during a 1996 pre-season game, he returned midway through the 1996 NFL season, but his team missed the playoffs with an 8-8 record.

Wilt tore his patella tendon in the 9th game of the 1969-1970 season and yet he still managed to make it back in time for the 1970 postseason in which he averaged 47.3 **** minutes per game over the course of 18 playoff games.

[JN61]

The pace was crazy in the early-60's. Especially in 1961-2 when all the records were broken. So more of everything.

Teams shot much worse at the time, so even more rebounds to be had.

Rebounds tended to be much more concentrated to centers than now. Wilt wasn't the only center of the era with huge rebound numbers.

Wilt played huge minutes. 48.5 mpg in 1961-2.

Sure but Russell and Wilt were still in the league of their own. 61-62 season just 4 players had over 15 rebounds per game and 14 players over 10. Wilt averaged 25.6 and Russell 23.6.

When we look that era those two and Lucas, Thurmond and Bellamy were big time rebounders. Even then they got nothing on Wilt. Even old man Wilt put these new era guys like Kareem into shame.

Wilt and Russell really took pride in the rebounding. They were basically Rodman's or Westbrook's of their era. You need to want that ball if you going to average over 20 rebounds per game no matter how much you play or how fast the pace is.

Like mentioned above. Wilt had bad injury at the time for his career and several years later as 36 year old he was averaging almost 19 rebounds per game (full 82 games as well). In the playoffs almost 23.

[70sFan]

3. Almost nobody could shoot.

Based on available evidences (FT shooting, tracked shooting data that we have), you're wrong. They definitely didn't shoot as well as players now, but they could shoot just fine.

We also should mention the big change in 1969 when the league adopted new model of basketball. It made miracles for shooters - the league average in FT% got up rapidly. So not only they shot on decent efficiency (worse than now, but decent) - they only played with far worse ball that didn't help their efficiency

The thing that is underappreciated about Wilt's rebounding is that its rather damning on the quality of the league. If a player can regularly grab 30 or 40 or 50 rebounds a game then that's largely because the quality of players league-wide is somewhat lacking.

1. Wilt put regulary 50 rebounds games? He had exactly one 50+rebounds game, which is the NBA record. Regulary 40 rebounds per game? He had total of 14 40+ rebounds games in his long career. He never averaged 30 rpg despite huge pace and huge minutes.

2. You just proved that Wilt's high rebound numbers are related to pace and minutes, so why should it be an indicator of the league strength? By your logic, Rodman proves that 1990s was a horrible era because he rebounded even more rebounds per possession - he just played less minutes and the game was slower.

[Sofia]

Have to give the man credit for paying every minute in a faster pace. Today’s players with today’s medicine are soo revered when they play 40+ minutes at a slower pace in a playoff series Yet wilt with no modern medicine in a faster pace dud of for an entire season!!!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

For sure, insane stamina because even though everyone played a lot of minutes, he played more than everyone else.

The thing to balance out is that even though the pace was faster, players covered less ground in the half court. Bigs essentially mainly camped in the paint and didn't have to travel too far defensively.

also balanced out by playing against chain smoking plumbers

[Roy The Natural]

He's on the top tier with Shaq/LeBron as the most imposing physical specimens of all time. A man as big as he was should not have been able to move the way he did.

Young Wilt was more similar to someone like David Robinson though. I don't buy that he's an unrepeatable athlete, and I truly think many players after him would have similar levels of dominance in the era he was in with the minutes and health he had.

[Roy The Natural]

Have to give the man credit for paying every minute in a faster pace. Today’s players with today’s medicine are soo revered when they play 40+ minutes at a slower pace in a playoff series Yet wilt with no modern medicine in a faster pace dud of for an entire season!!!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

For sure, insane stamina because even though everyone played a lot of minutes, he played more than everyone else.

The thing to balance out is that even though the pace was faster, players covered less ground in the half court. Bigs essentially mainly camped in the paint and didn't have to travel too far defensively.

also balanced out by playing against chain smoking plumbers

It's not that he was playing against "garbage" perse... but do we really think David Robinson wouldn't be doing something extremely similar in 1962? He would be massacring the league with his athleticism and size. I think most can understand that Wilt was great, but his statistics are inflated and his go-to shot in his early career is untranslatable to the league just 15 years later. He's like Jim Brown. Jim Brown is great an all... but the tall tales of greatness and dominance don't translate. Throw LaDainian Tomlinson in his prime into the 1960s and he's rushing for 3,000 yards a year... no one had even seen a jump-cut at that point.

[coastalmarker99]

Wilt was an unrepeatable athlete.


Shaq tried to play 48 minutes a night as Wilt did and he gave up after a week.


“Five games into the season, I stop Shaq as he’s walking off the court,” Jackson said.

The Lakers coach asked his big man, ‘What’s the best thing Wilt ever did?’ Shaq said averaging 50 points and 20 rebounds per game.

Jackson told him that Wilt played every minute of every game.

“Can you do that?” Jackson asked Shaq.

“I can do that,” O’Neal replied.

The next few nights, Jackson said he played Shaq all 48 minutes.

But just a few games later, Shaq’s teammate John Salley stopped to talk to Jackson in the locker room.

“Shaq says if you can give him a rest tonight, will you give him a rest?” Salley asked.



The fact Wilt at age 33 tore his patella tendon in the 9th game of the 1969-1970 season and yet he still managed to make it back in time for the 1970 postseason in which he averaged 47.3 **** minutes per game over the course of 18 playoff games is insane.


Never mind the fact that at the age of 36 in the 1973 playoffs Wilt averaged 47.1 minutes per game over the course of 17 games.

[coastalmarker99]

He's on the top tier with Shaq/LeBron as the most imposing physical specimens of all time. A man as big as he was should not have been able to move the way he did.

Young Wilt was more similar to someone like David Robinson though. I don't buy that he's an unrepeatable athlete, and I truly think many players after him would have similar levels of dominance in the era he was in with the minutes and health he had.

There have been eye-witness accounts (and by a well-known and respected man) of Chamberlain touching the top of the backboard (and it was repeated that both he and Russell were capable of it by several of the players that faced them.)

A well-known and respected sportswriter measured a vertical leap by Wilt at 42" (he witnessed Wilt touching the ceiling in a hospital and measured it afterwards.)

Hank Stram invited Wilt to a Chief's training camp in the mid-60's and was stunned when Chamberlain outraced his fastest running back.

In fact, he proclaimed that Wilt could have been an All-Pro (and keep in mind that he had 6-9 Buck Buchanon.)

There have also been those that credit Chamberlain with being a world-class volleyball player, as well. And how many other NBA players have ever had two legitimate offers to fight for the heavyweight boxing title?

Skills? Red Holzman was on record as stating that Wilt had a very good outside game in the early 60's and there is footage backing up his claim.

And none other than Larry Brown witnessed a summer league game in 1980, in which Wilt was blocking everything at the rim in a game played by the likes of Magic Johnson...and Wilt was in his mid-40's at the time.

Vandewege witnessed Wilt overpowering 7-4 Mark Eaton in a summer league game in the early 80's.

And how many other NBA players had legitimate offers to play basketball at age 50??!! Furthermore, how many other players have been responsible for countless rule changes??!!


what we do know is that Wilt was over 7-1 (and most in his era claimed he was at least 7-2.) He also had a measured wingspan of 7'-8".

We also know that SI ran an article in 1964 that claimed that Wilt was benching 425 lbs...and that was when he was in his mid-20's.

By the late 60's he was regarded as not only the strongest player in the NBA, but he was even mentioned as among the strongest athletes in the world.

We also knoe that he set a 110 hurdle record in high school. And we know that he participated, part-time on KU's track team. And by participated, I mean in the 4x100 (yes, he had sprinter's speed...and more on that in a few), the 440, the 880, the shotput, the long jump, the triple jump, and, he won a high jump championship.

Speed? There were those that claimed he was the fastest man in the NBA and for years at that. But, here is what we do KNOW. He was invited to a Kansas City Chief tryout in the mid-'60s by none other than Hank Stram.

Stram tested Wilt's speed, so he had him race the Chief's fastest running back, Curtis McClinton.

Chamberlain wiped him out. And by the time the tryout concluded, Stram offered Wilt a legitimate contract to play for the Chiefs.

Leaping ability? Well, we already know that Wilt was a high-jump champion (and it came the night after a basketball game in which the opposing team brutalized Wilt...as nearly every team did), and in a week in which he had little time to practice.

Now, we also KNOW that Wilt's coach set up a 12 ft. rim, at the time Wilt was there.

And, we know that the NCAA and NBA outlawed the dunking of FTs, because it was believed that Wilt was doing just that.

Now, whether he did dunk on a 12 ft rim, or dunked his FTs, we really don't know. There are articles that claim he did.

We also have an eye-witness account, by a respected sportswriter who claimed that he measured Wilt's vertical at 42"...which would then explain the other eye-witness account, by a respected Philadephia sports figure, of Chamberlain touching the top of the backboard. And BTW, there were other NBA players at the time that stated that both Russell and Wilt could accomplish that feat.

The internet is also plastered with Wilt's reported bench press...and most all of them place it at 500+.

We also have a ton of eye-witness accounts of extraordinary physical feats.

We also have an eye-witness account of Wilt, at age 59, benching 465 lbs.



And we have an interview mentioned in Cherry's book on Wilt, with a well-known weight-lifter, who was known to have benched over 500 lbs, claiming that Wilt was the strongest man he ever met.


According to everyone who knew him and played against him.


Wilt was clearly a once in a lifetime athlete,

[raylewis]

he was on the floor all game
today several players on a team rebound
no 3 point so the rebound ended up closer to the basket
HE SHARED MY BIRTHDAY FOR DECADES

[70sFan]

He's on the top tier with Shaq/LeBron as the most imposing physical specimens of all time. A man as big as he was should not have been able to move the way he did.

Young Wilt was more similar to someone like David Robinson though. I don't buy that he's an unrepeatable athlete, and I truly think many players after him would have similar levels of dominance in the era he was in with the minutes and health he had.

So you want to prove that Wilt wasn't that special as an athlete and compare him to another top 10 GOAT athlete in NBA history? What's the logic behind that?

[70sFan]

For sure, insane stamina because even though everyone played a lot of minutes, he played more than everyone else.

The thing to balance out is that even though the pace was faster, players covered less ground in the half court. Bigs essentially mainly camped in the paint and didn't have to travel too far defensively.

also balanced out by playing against chain smoking plumbers

It's not that he was playing against "garbage" perse... but do we really think David Robinson wouldn't be doing something extremely similar in 1962? He would be massacring the league with his athleticism and size. I think most can understand that Wilt was great, but his statistics are inflated and his go-to shot in his early career is untranslatable to the league just 15 years later. He's like Jim Brown. Jim Brown is great an all... but the tall tales of greatness and dominance don't translate. Throw LaDainian Tomlinson in his prime into the 1960s and he's rushing for 3,000 yards a year... no one had even seen a jump-cut at that point.

There has been plenty of big and athletic players in the league back then. Some of them weren't even good. Robinson would be dominant in any era, but I don't see any reason to believe that he would be able to do things Wilt do. He was much different player with much different style.

[Big J]

He's on the top tier with Shaq/LeBron as the most imposing physical specimens of all time. A man as big as he was should not have been able to move the way he did.

Young Wilt was more similar to someone like David Robinson though. I don't buy that he's an unrepeatable athlete, and I truly think many players after him would have similar levels of dominance in the era he was in with the minutes and health he had.

Robinson was stiff as a board. He didn’t have Wilts flexibility or malleability.

[hauntedcomputer]

David Robinson was hardly "dominant."

Miles away from Wilt-level dominance and they can't be mentioned in the same sentence.

Ironically one of the Top 75 guys said in his interview the crazy pace of the 60s was BECAUSE of Wilt and Russell--teams were trying to race down the court before centers had a chance to set up defensively. So you could argue that Wilt lost out on rebounds because of the pace.