Wilt Chamberlain discussion [Archive] - Message Board Basketball Forum

indiefan23

04-28-2009, 03:02 PM

Well, heres my post... I can't find the other thread.

LOL at the 1969 finals on youtube, can anyone watch this with a straight face and tell me this looks anything better than elite highschool ball?Looks like local ymca, check out the white guys drive 11 seconds in rofl, that bum wouldnt be sniffing a division 1 college these days yet he's getting 4th quarter time in the NBA finals, haha check out his free throw form then little skip as he misses rofl.Wilt looks like some freakshow with 5 feet long legs who put on a pair of shorts 8 sizes to small and accidently wondered on to an NBA court.Bill Russell?ROFL he looks like Ben Wallace with 30 pounds less muscle and a bad case of athritis, anyone who watches the 4th quarter and is impressed needs medical help.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uWhRNU-59K0

I was just in a huge argument about this. No one was there to agree with me. Where were you? This era of ball was WEAK. I said Jerry West wasn't athletic and this dude sent me a clip of Jerry West dribbling from half court and hitting an uncontested lay up. Then he laughed at me as if I had be done. He sent me other links where I realized that to crossover West had to turn his back to his defender first so he could switch hands wihtout losing the ball.

I dunno, some of my favorite facts about the 60's players who couldn't jump higher then me yet could hack today's nba. Please note: as crazy as it sounds these are all facts.

- Most of that era's players actually played with soccer balls

- the talent pool they came from was literally 1000's of times smaller

- the league was so bad defensively that a player could average 50 points, a triple double or 20 boards for a whole season

- Players didn't really know how to box out and rarely did, even on foul shots

- In 10 years from 1966 to 1976 the size of the league more then doubled from 9 to 24 teams allowing way more scrubs who had never once played at that level into the league to get beat up on by the pros

- At the same time as that expansion the ABA opened it's doors. 3 years later NBA owners voted 14-3 to let them merge cuz they knew they were getting crushed.

- Why? In 1976 when the merger happened 75% of the ABA players made the NBA sending many star's victims home

- of the 4 teams who merged the Spurs won division titles 5 of their first 6 years. The Nuggest were 1-3 games from the league's best record. The Nets who were the best team in the ABA were forced to sell their best player Dr. J and move the team due to the severe financial/draft limitations. Their other great player, Nate tiny Archibald broke his foot. The team still won 22 games.

- when the merger happened many stars stats plummeted... some from like, top five to out of the top 20 in many cats

- Elgin Baylor, a 6' 5" player averaged 35 and freaking 20 and 38/19 in back to back seasons. He was 6'5" and was one of the first players who could actually play, but he was 6'5". Thats almost a 40/20. Come on!

- one player had a 55 rebound game as well as many other 40+ 50+ games, as did a few other dominant players. In the past 25 years of basketball and more, there has not been a single game over 35 and only a handful close to it

- Jerry West at the 2 guard put up better numbers then Michael Jordan in his prime in the 90's, better then Lebron, better then Kobe in his prime, he was 6'2", could not jump, could shoot the lights out and D'ed up, but could barely dribble with his left hand... he was 6'2"

- While not playing basketball players did not spend time doing anything else but having sex with women and jumping. That's how Wilt had a 50" vert and planted his stilt in 20,000 pieces of trash... well u know, according to him.

Are there any others to add to the list? Which are your favorites? Every team averaging 3 guys on it's roster who couldn't even make the weak era NBA but were there cuz the ABA had a more competitive league? Jerry West putting up better numbers then Michael Jordan? Or a 6'5" guy's numbers actually approaching a freaking 40/20?

The stats were padded. The competition was weak. The ego's inflated. Its all obvious when you watch the footage of a finals game and wonder why there are no plays being run and people don't box out but still as I'm sure this thread has already seen there is some dude who's going to ignore all that above and argue till he's blue in the face that didn't matter. The player's leadership, tenacity and competitiveness would have made them much the same in today's game. But wait, I've saved the best fact for last.

Players would regularly smoke butts on the bench and at halftime!

The NBA, its cancertastic!

A.M.G.

04-28-2009, 03:21 PM

db23

04-28-2009, 03:22 PM

Ill post it again..., thats part 2 of the whole 4th quarter split up, watch the game, supposedly best two teams of the era, no BS stats etc, just watch them play, then tell me you are impressed.

LOL at the 1969 finals on youtube, can anyone watch this with a straight face and tell me this looks anything better than elite highschool ball?Looks like local ymca, check out the white guys drive 11 seconds in rofl, that bum wouldnt be sniffing a division 1 college these days yet he's getting 4th quarter time in the NBA finals, haha check out his free throw form then little skip as he misses (and this stiff scored 12 points in the previous quarter, against the "dominant" Wilt Chamberlain) rofl.Wilt looks like some freakshow with 5 feet long legs who put on a pair of shorts 8 sizes to small and accidently wondered on to an NBA court.Bill Russell?ROFL he looks like Ben Wallace with 30 pounds less muscle and a bad case of athritis, anyone who watches the 4th quarter and is impressed needs medical help.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uWhRNU-59K0

indiefan23

04-28-2009, 03:24 PM

Ill post it again...

LOL at the 1969 finals on youtube, can anyone watch this with a straight face and tell me this looks anything better than elite highschool ball?Looks like local ymca, check out the white guys drive 11 seconds in rofl, that bum wouldnt be sniffing a division 1 college these days yet he's getting 4th quarter time in the NBA finals, haha check out his free throw form then little skip as he misses rofl.Wilt looks like some freakshow with 5 feet long legs who put on a pair of shorts 8 sizes to small and accidently wondered on to an NBA court.Bill Russell?ROFL he looks like Ben Wallace with 30 pounds less muscle and a bad case of athritis, anyone who watches the 4th quarter and is impressed needs medical help.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uWhRNU-59K0

Do you know what happened? I just spent a wack of time in a thread with 0 support and a guy who thought West was more athletic then Magic and Bird.

db23

04-28-2009, 03:28 PM

Do you know what happened? I just spent a wack of time in a thread with 0 support and a guy who thought West was more athletic then Magic and Bird.

Was this in the thread I started about Wilt?Or did it go in to a seperate thread, either way they both arnt there now.Nice summary by you though, cant really put up an argument against those points.

32jazz

04-28-2009, 03:38 PM

Bill Russell wouldn't be an all-star in today's game, probably not even a starter. Backup PF at best.

Wilt would still be a star center, but not nearly as dominant as he was.

Bob Pettit wouldn't be **** either.

It was a weak era, no doubt. Basketball hadn't even been around for very long, and African-Americans hadn't been fully integrated into it (see all the unathletic white guys. THe basketball infrastructure had not been established yet.

Yes I am stupid & took the bait.

Go read a book young man.(Suggestions : They Cleared The Lane: The NBA Black Pioneers by Ron Thomas) The NBA has been a majority Black/African American league since the 64-65 season:rolleyes: In fact I hope someone would post a photo of the 65/66 Celtics & compare them with the 86 Celtics. The 66 Celtics was far 'Blacker" than the '86 pasty White Celtics who had maybe four Black Players.:rolleyes:

AGAIN: The NBA has been a majority Black league since around 64/ 65.

I know you guys are simply trolling for a response,but I made this post for OTHER serious posters who are not sure of the great legacy & Players of the '60's who are just as/or more capable/talented as today's player.

1)Elvin Hayes was an NBA all star in the 60's, 70's & 80's. (The 80's which is considered the leagues 'Golden Age')

2)Wes Unseld was a top three rebounder in the League in the 60's, 70's & 80's.

3)Kareem was 'technically' an all star in the 60's,70's & 80's as well.

Someone please find the team photo of the mid 60's Celtics & compare them with the '86 Celtics & see who had 'unathletic White guys'.

kentatm

04-28-2009, 03:47 PM

dude of COURSE the white guy with the early drive looks un-athletic. Thats Don Nelson. You know, the head coach of the Warriors. He was NEVER known as a super athletic guy. He was a hustle player.

Mark Madsen looks like ass driving the ball too ya know.

catch24

04-28-2009, 03:49 PM

25-30ppg & 15-20 rebounds is definitely not over exaggerating. Speed, Strength, his ability to "adapt"..lol common.

Niquesports

04-28-2009, 03:55 PM

Psileas

04-28-2009, 03:56 PM

Yes I am stupid & took the bait.

Go read a book young man.(Suggestions : They Cleared The Lane: The NBA Black Pioneers by Ron Thomas) The NBA has been a majority Black/African American league since the 64-65 season In fact I hope someone would post a photo of the 65/66 Celtics & compare them with the 86 Celtics. The 66 Celtics was far 'Blacker" than the '86 pasty White Celtics who had maybe four Black Players.

AGAIN: The NBA has been a majority Black league since around 64/ 65.

I know you guys are simply trolling for a response,but I made this post for OTHER serious posters who are not sure of the great legacy & Players of the '60's who are just as/or more capable/talented as today's player.

1)Elvin Hayes was an NBA all star in the 60's, 70's & 80's. (The 80's which is considered the leagues 'Golden Age')

2)Wes Unseld was a top three rebounder in the League in the 60's, 70's & 80's.

3)Kareem was 'technically' an all star in the 60's,70's & 80's as well.

Someone please find the team photo of the mid 60's Celtics & compare them with the '86 Celtics & see who had 'unathletic White guys'.

32jazz, you're correct. But, you see, some people choose to believe things that they saw nowhere, read nowhere (they hardly read at all, after all), never proved, but, because they weren't alive in that era, they found a good excuse to imply that they didn't miss anything serious. Some of them may believe that in 1950's you were considered a super athlete if you had a 20-inch vertical and that today's WNBA players would make a 60's roster. There's nothing to respond to these people without being in danger of having your IQ dropped by a lot.

And yes, you're also correct about the Celtics:

http://images.google.gr/imgres?imgurl=http://www.sportsecyclopedia.com/nba/boston/1986Celtics.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.sportsecyclopedia.com/nba/boston/celticschamps.html&usg=__w-PDcnkvW43Md9CohqGgj4xOwmM=&h=225&w=375&sz=23&hl=el&start=2&um=1&tbnid=oivaNCbvfMEjMM:&tbnh=73&tbnw=122&prev=/images%3Fq%3D1986%2Bceltics%26hl%3Del%26sa%3DN%26u m%3D1

Lol, only the '57 and '60 Celtics were whiter than the '86 Celtics.

DonDadda59

04-28-2009, 04:11 PM

Yes, the league has come a LONG way since the days when unathletic white guys were stars...

http://www.onemanfastbreak.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/nowitzki_mvp-292x300.jpg

http://www.nba.com/media/suns/nash_0506mvp_index.jpg

Wait... a short, skinny, white, unathletic Canadian winning not one but 2 MVPs, back to back? :wtf:

Because, as history has taught us, if you're not super athletic you won't do well in the modern NBA ::cough, Larry Bird, cough Tim Duncan, cough 7 championships 5 finals MVPs 5 regular season MVPs... cough::

Psileas

04-28-2009, 04:15 PM

A.M.G.

04-28-2009, 04:18 PM

Yes I am stupid & took the bait.

Go read a book young man.(Suggestions : They Cleared The Lane: The NBA Black Pioneers by Ron Thomas) The NBA has been a majority Black/African American league since the 64-65 season:rolleyes: In fact I hope someone would post a photo of the 65/66 Celtics & compare them with the 86 Celtics. The 66 Celtics was far 'Blacker" than the '86 pasty White Celtics who had maybe four Black Players.:rolleyes:

AGAIN: The NBA has been a majority Black league since around 64/ 65.

I know you guys are simply trolling for a response,but I made this post for OTHER serious posters who are not sure of the great legacy & Players of the '60's who are just as/or more capable/talented as today's player.

1)Elvin Hayes was an NBA all star in the 60's, 70's & 80's. (The 80's which is considered the leagues 'Golden Age')

2)Wes Unseld was a top three rebounder in the League in the 60's, 70's & 80's.

3)Kareem was 'technically' an all star in the 60's,70's & 80's as well.

Someone please find the team photo of the mid 60's Celtics & compare them with the '86 Celtics & see who had 'unathletic White guys'.
Hey, I believe you. I just assumed that since blacks had only just gotten civil rights and such that there was still a long ways to go in terms of african-americans having basketball facilities for their schools and such. I wasn't trolling, I believe you that it was a majority aa league.

But, don't you think that the ports infrastructure for young african-americans has improved just a tad since then? Especially since the black kids in the south could now go to previously "white" schools and enjoy the benefits of better facilities, training, and coaches?

And the game itself has changed so much, athleticism and size are so much more significant nowadays. A 6'2 white SG being a star nowadays, not happening. The standard height for every position has gone up, Centers used to be like 6'8 now they have to be like 6'11, PFs used to be like 6'6-6'7 now they're all 6'9+ etc, etc, the players are stronger, faster, heavier, and more athletic overall, the way the game is played reflects that.

Bill Russell would not be anything special nowadays, seriously. Maybe a star, but not the dominant defensive force he was.

And as for Dirk and Nash, yeah, there are a very few white stars, but not even close to what there was back pre-70's.

LJJ

04-28-2009, 04:19 PM

^lol.

http://img254.imageshack.us/img254/876/men27s20basketball20tea.jpg

Would they still be all stars today? I think not.

halffttime

04-28-2009, 04:23 PM

damn, didnt know the skills were that bad back then.. so many shots not even close to going in.. :rolleyes:

if only i was born in that era, with the skills i have now, id be HOF..

2LeTTeRS

04-28-2009, 04:25 PM

Niquesports

04-28-2009, 04:28 PM

Hey, I believe you. I just assumed that since blacks had only just gotten civil rights and such that there was still a long ways to go in terms of african-americans having basketball facilities for their schools and such. I wasn't trolling, I believe you that it was a majority aa league.

But, don't you think that the ports infrastructure for young african-americans has improved just a tad since then? Especially since the black kids in the south could now go to previously "white" schools and enjoy the benefits of better facilities, training, and coaches?
Big misconception that the "white Schools" had better coaches its still a false myth even today.
And the game itself has changed so much, athleticism and size are so much more significant nowadays. A 6'2 white SG being a star nowadays, not happening. The standard height for every position has gone up, Centers used to be like 6'8 now they have to be like 6'11, PFs used to be like 6'6-6'7 now they're all 6'9+ etc, etc, the players are stronger, faster, heavier, and more athletic overall, the way the game is played reflects that.

Bill Russell would not be anything special nowadays, seriously. Maybe a star, but not the dominant defensive force he was.

And as for Dirk and Nash, yeah, there are a very few white stars, but not even close to what there was back pre-70's.

many of the players are bigger but just in height you have 6'11 and taller players shooting 3pt which would be caused for a good benching in the 60's-70's Players like unseld and Reed although much shorter than a player like a yao would push him so far out of the paint he would be a nonfactor on the offensive boards. What many of the young guys that havent taken the time to understand the game is that the reason you dont see a lot of high flying dunks back in the 60's and 70's is because a player would have gotten put on his butt and the refs might not have called it. When I see players like pau Gasol getting buckets I just shake my head he would have gotten punked so bad b the real Centers of the NBA

Psileas

04-28-2009, 04:32 PM

And the game itself has changed so much, athleticism and size are so much more significant nowadays. A 6'2 white SG being a star nowadays, not happening.

Iverson may not be black, but he's 5'11. It might be hard, but not impossible. After all, no other SG produced as much as West in West's own era. So, since only West did it, this must mean that it wasn't easy to dominate as a 6'2 white SG in his era, either. And this, among others, makes West special. He beat odds of his own era.

The standard height for every position has gone up, Centers used to be like 6'8 now they have to be like 6'11, PFs used to be like 6'6-6'7 now they're all 6'9+ etc, etc, the players are stronger, faster, heavier, and more athletic overall, the way the game is played reflects that.

At least when it comes to the 60's-70's, wrong about the heights. From each position you listed.
Players are heavier and more athletic, but that's nothing that technology advances can't explain. Especially the weight difference isn't anywhere near as dramatic as depicted: In 2000, the average weight was 225 lb. In 1960? 206? In 1965, it was 213, which was 1 lb more than the average weight in 1985.

Bill Russell would not be anything special nowadays, seriously. Maybe a star, but not the dominant defensive force he was.

And this is why, exactly? What did Russell lack defensively that all modern great defenders have?

db23

04-28-2009, 04:33 PM

kentatm

04-28-2009, 04:36 PM

A.M.G.

04-28-2009, 04:37 PM

Iverson may not be black, but he's 5'11. It might be hard, but not impossible. After all, no other SG produced as much as West in West's own era. So, since only West did it, this must mean that it wasn't easy to dominate as a 6'2 white SG in his era, either. And this, among others, makes West special. He beat odds of his own era.

At least when it comes to the 60's-70's, wrong about the heights. From each position you listed.
Players are heavier and more athletic, but that's nothing that technology advances can't explain. Especially the weight difference isn't anywhere near as dramatic as depicted: In 2000, the average weight was 225 lb. In 1960? 206? In 1965, it was 213, which was 1 lb more than the average weight in 1985.

And this is why, exactly? What did Russell lack defensively that all modern great defenders have?
Allen Iverson may not be black? That's surprising.

As for Bill Russell, I'm just saying he wouldn't be a DOMINANT defensive force LIKE HE WAS BACK THEN. The dude was 6'9 and didn't have much offensive game, so how good of a star big man could he be nowadays? He would be like a taller Ben Wallace, which would not lead you to 11 titles nowadays.

DonDadda59

04-28-2009, 04:44 PM

And the game itself has changed so much, athleticism and size are so much more significant nowadays. A 6'2 white SG being a star nowadays, not happening. The standard height for every position has gone up, Centers used to be like 6'8 now they have to be like 6'11, PFs used to be like 6'6-6'7 now they're all 6'9+ etc, etc, the players are stronger, faster, heavier, and more athletic overall, the way the game is played reflects that.

Bill Russell would not be anything special nowadays, seriously. Maybe a star, but not the dominant defensive force he was.

And as for Dirk and Nash, yeah, there are a very few white stars, but not even close to what there was back pre-70's.

A 6'2" White SG couldn't be a star but a 5'11 165 lb Black SG can win 4 scoring titles and average 30PPG several times?

http://www.cavsnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2006/12/AllenIverson.jpg Look at how athletic

People have grossly overrated the athleticism of today and it's impact on the game. If size/athleticism was the only prerequisite for success in the NBA, then guys like Jason Richardson and Josh Smith would be sure-fire hall of famers. Also, most players in this era don't even use their size correctly. Zydrunas Ilguaskas is what 7'6"? When was the last time you saw him in the post? The guy's purely a jump shooter and he isn't an anomally, he's the norm. Oversized, soft jump-shooting big men who want nothing to do with banging down low and playing tough... that's today's NBA.

And why on earth wouldn't Bill Russel be the same defensive force he was back then? I mean Ben Wallace (6'9" same height as Russell) had a string of seasons where he averaged 13+ RPG and 2-3 BPG.... playing CENTER. Some of the best defensive players in this decade are some of the more unathletic players in the game- Tim Duncan, Bruce Bowen, Shane Battier, etc.

In summary, SKILL>>>>>>>ATHLETICISM

Niquesports

04-28-2009, 04:44 PM

32jazz

04-28-2009, 04:47 PM

32jazz, you're correct. But, you see, some people choose to believe things that they saw nowhere, read nowhere (they hardly read at all, after all), never proved, but, because they weren't alive in that era, they found a good excuse to imply that they didn't miss anything serious. Some of them may believe that in 1950's you were considered a super athlete if you had a 20-inch vertical and that today's WNBA players would make a 60's roster. There's nothing to respond to these people without being in danger of having your IQ dropped by a lot.

And yes, you're also correct about the Celtics:

http://images.google.gr/imgres?imgurl=http://www.sportsecyclopedia.com/nba/boston/1986Celtics.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.sportsecyclopedia.com/nba/boston/celticschamps.html&usg=__w-PDcnkvW43Md9CohqGgj4xOwmM=&h=225&w=375&sz=23&hl=el&start=2&um=1&tbnid=oivaNCbvfMEjMM:&tbnh=73&tbnw=122&prev=/images%3Fq%3D1986%2Bceltics%26hl%3Del%26sa%3DN%26u m%3D1

Lol, only the '57 and '60 Celtics were whiter than the '86 Celtics.

I know. I know.
But some kid who is serious unlike those trolling for a reaction may read this & I thought they should have a few facts.

Psileas. How bout those 'unathletic White' '86 Celtics who swept MJ & the Bulls in the playoffs & are generally considered one of THE greatest teams of all time ;at least top 3 or top 5 alltime.(Where are the 86 CeltIcs generally ranked? not rhetorical)
The '86 Celtics only had four(4) Black guys on the entire roster & only two(2) contributors(DJ & Parish were starters) while Sam Vincent & Sly Williams(nicknamed 'the garbage man':oldlol: ) were both doing cleanup duty with less than 10 MPG. This the golden age of the NBA.

Wes Unseld & Elvin Hayes (1960's holdovers) were still dominate way past their prime in the 1980's.

The average startng Center in '68(Wilt's prime) was 6'10

The average Center today is roughly 6'10 (not withstanding the inflated heights attributed to them)

Sixties era HOF Centers

I was gonna talk about HOF centers Walt Bellamy, Nate Thurmond, Willis Reed & other 7 footers like Walter Dukes etc..but it seems to be such a waste. Don't you think?

Where do rank the 'unathletic White' Celtics of 86?

Niquesports

04-28-2009, 04:48 PM

Allen Iverson may not be black? That's surprising.

As for Bill Russell, I'm just saying he wouldn't be a DOMINANT defensive force LIKE HE WAS BACK THEN. The dude was 6'9 and didn't have much offensive game, so how good of a star big man could he be nowadays? He would be like a taller Ben Wallace, which would not lead you to 11 titles nowadays.

Well a offensive liability like Ben which Russ wasnt helped lead a team to 1 title and they should have won at least 1 more. If Bill played today he would still be the great C what would stop him from winning 11 rings would be the salary cap and free agency not his skill.

DonDadda59

04-28-2009, 05:06 PM

32jazz

04-28-2009, 05:19 PM

You don't think this may have anything at all do with how they measured players then (without shoes) vs now (+ the exaggerated heights) and sometimes apparently not even updating their college measurements/weights back then.

:applause:

The only positon that has had any sigificant change in heigths are the 2 guard/off guard/SG ,but otherwise the players today are no taller than those of 68(Wilt's peak when he even led the leagus in assists:eek: over Big O ,Earl 'The Pearl Monroe, Walt Frazier, Jerry West, Leny Wilkens. All HOF guards)

The average staring Ceneter was roughly 6'10 then('68)

The average Center is rougly 6'10 today (even with exagerrated heights & the circus freaks they put into the league today)

Psileas

04-28-2009, 05:29 PM

Allen Iverson may not be black? That's surprising.

Scratch "not". I wanted to write "not white" but forgot to erase the "not".

As for Bill Russell, I'm just saying he wouldn't be a DOMINANT defensive force LIKE HE WAS BACK THEN. The dude was 6'9 and didn't have much offensive game, so how good of a star big man could he be nowadays? He would be like a taller Ben Wallace, which would not lead you to 11 titles nowadays.

First of all, if Russell played nowadays, this means that he wouldn't have existed back then and therefore, the NBA's 70's defensive stars would not be inspired by him, which would mean they would become less advanced than they actually were, Hakeem/Ewing and the others would in their turn also have the same fate and so on.
Second, yes, I know that Russell was 6'9 (6'9 1/2, to be exact, which is just a small notch below the average center height today).

Now, you mention offense and Ben Wallace. First of all, Wallace can't see Russell when it comes to passing and fast-break opening. Russell averaged more than 4 assists throughout his career and there were seasons when he'd average more than many starting PG's. He would at times grab a rebound, dribble down the court and pass to the open teammate. Wallace only once surpassed even 2 apg. Second, Wallace can't be told to score when needed. Russell wasn't a good shooter and a natural scorer, but, when told to, he could easily drop 20-30 points, even against Chamberlain. Wallace? Forget 30 points, how many times did he even get 20 points in a playoff game? 3 is the correct answer. Defense? Much closer, but you see that their overall impact just isn't the same.

Psileas

04-28-2009, 05:36 PM

Psileas. How bout those 'unathletic White' '86 Celtics who swept MJ & the Bulls in the playoffs & are generally considered one of THE greatest teams of all time ;at least top 3 or top 5 alltime.(Where are the 86 CeltIcs generally ranked? not rhetorical)
The '86 Celtics only had four(4) Black guys on the entire roster & only two(2) contributors(DJ & Parish were starters) while Sam Vincent & Sly Williams(nicknamed 'the garbage man' ) were both doing cleanup duty with less than 10 MPG. This the golden age of the NBA.

Did Sly Williams even finish the season with the team? I think they waived him in midseason, because he was too problematic a character and guys like Auerbach couldn't stand such liabilities.

Where do rank the 'unathletic White' Celtics of 86?

Top-5, like just about everyone does. I'm not sure where exactly, but it doesn't really matter, because any top-5 team ever could beat anyone and anywhere, including the 1-4 teams that may be ranked above them.

Scott Pippen

04-28-2009, 05:43 PM

Also David Thirdkill was on that '86 team, though does not appear to be in this team photo.

http://i41.tinypic.com/ettxj7.jpg

edit never mind that is the '87 team (I think). But he was indeed another black player on the '86 team

32jazz

04-28-2009, 05:53 PM

Also David Thirdkill was on that '86 team, though does not appear to be in the team photo.

http://i41.tinypic.com/ettxj7.jpg

Damn!!!! Be careful Pippen.

The glare from the pasty "White unathletic' skin of this team nearly blinded me:oldlol: Maybe that's why they swept MJ & the Bulls in '86?:confusedshrug: The glare from their skin blinded Jordan?:rolleyes:

Thank you Pip. Now place the 66 team with John Thompson/Russell/ Sam & K.C Jones,etc...... side by side. Proof of the'unathletic White guys' of the 60's.:rolleyes:

According to Psileas Williams was released mid season so that team only had three Black Players(DJ/Parish/Vincent) & one(Sam Vincent) only played less than 10 minutes per game.

Psileas

04-28-2009, 06:00 PM

I just checked about Sly. He only played 6 games (54 minutes) for the team. So, basically the "midseason" I referred to was probably an overstatement...

He was a naughty kid, even after retiring:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sly_Williams

32jazz

04-28-2009, 06:06 PM

I just checked about Sly. He only played 6 games for the team.

He was a naughty kid, even after retiring:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sly_Williams

I Guess Red Auerbach was a good judge of character huh?:eek:

So the '86 Celtics (top 5 team off all time)only had three Black players on the entire roster?(One doing clean up duty)

I used to dislike Greg Kite:confusedshrug: & Danny Ainge with a passion growing up a Laker fan.

Al Thornton

04-28-2009, 07:04 PM

http://failblog.files.wordpress.com/2009/04/fail-owned-fish-bait-fail.jpg?w=500&h=375

Sir Charles

04-28-2009, 08:18 PM

Yes I am stupid & took the bait.

Go read a book young man.(Suggestions : They Cleared The Lane: The NBA Black Pioneers by Ron Thomas) The NBA has been a majority Black/African American league since the 64-65 season:rolleyes: In fact I hope someone would post a photo of the 65/66 Celtics & compare them with the 86 Celtics. The 66 Celtics was far 'Blacker" than the '86 pasty White Celtics who had maybe four Black Players.:rolleyes:

AGAIN: The NBA has been a majority Black league since around 64/ 65.

I know you guys are simply trolling for a response,but I made this post for OTHER serious posters who are not sure of the great legacy & Players of the '60's who are just as/or more capable/talented as today's player.

1)Elvin Hayes was an NBA all star in the 60's, 70's & 80's. (The 80's which is considered the leagues 'Golden Age')

2)Wes Unseld was a top three rebounder in the League in the 60's, 70's & 80's.

3)Kareem was 'technically' an all star in the 60's,70's & 80's as well.

Someone please find the team photo of the mid 60's Celtics & compare them with the '86 Celtics & see who had 'unathletic White guys'.

1986 Boston Celtics = Greatest Team of All Time

Best Half Court Passing Game, Shooting Game, Shot Selection, High FG%, Defense and Team Oriented Team of All Time

http://assets.espn.go.com/photo/2007/1218/nba_g_85celtics_600.jpg

http://cache.boston.com/bonzai-fba/Globe_Photo/2008/06/19/1213880928_6510.gif

1 Black Starter: Robert Parish (C)
1 Mullato Starter: DJ (PG)

The Rest All Whities....:confusedshrug:

That 1986 Team Beat the Lakers in 4 of their Season Matchups...1 of them in Los Angeles without Kevin McHale...

They also knocked down 7`4 Athletic Freak Ralph Sampson and 6`10 Master Defender, Foot Worker, Agil, Stronger and Post Player Hakeem

How?

Fundamentals...

Fundamentas > Athletic Capacity...

Bill Walton Crippled as He was was More Effective playing 15-20 Minutes Than 90% of Centers that Year...

By the way that 86 Team was like Barkley said "Ugliest Team of All Time"...You Go By their Looks and You Wil Get Schooled..

Parish: A Hunchback Uncoordinated Looking Center
McHale: A Frankestiened White Boy that Couldn`t Jump Nor Was Potent
Bird: A Slow, Unleaping Country Boy...that looked more like a Doctor, Profesor than an Athleate...
DJ: A Fat Point Guard
Ainge: Your Common Urban White Boy that looked more like he should be a boy scout than a B-Ball Player
Walton: A White Hippie...Crippled...

YOU GO BY THEIR LOOKS...YOU GET 1986 OWNED! :applause: :pimp:

http://www.mrshafrir.com/bird-auerbach-16x20-thumb.jpg

Sir Charles

04-28-2009, 08:35 PM

Charles Barkley on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno 17 April 2009

http://www.funnynba.com/2009/04/charles-barkley-on-tonight-show-with.html

"Just Cause Your Fast...Doesn`t Mean You Can Play"

:applause:

Juges8932

04-28-2009, 08:43 PM

Scott Pippen

04-28-2009, 09:07 PM

indiefan23

04-28-2009, 10:49 PM

I know you guys are simply trolling for a response,but I made this post for OTHER serious posters who are not sure of the great legacy & Players of the '60's who are just as/or more capable/talented as today's player.

You know, I'm not trolling for a response. I'm sick and tired of me saying something like "Young Shaq was the most athletic big of all time" and then some other guy coming and trolling what I'm saying with some horse crap about how Wilt Chamberlain was a great arm wrestler and got lots of points and boards against players who couldn't jump or dribble and smoked butts during games. Its just BS.

You're a serious poster? Explain to me how in the 40's when that era started playing basketball (with soccer balls) the world population was three times smaller and bball was only popular in the states and then only played by a small proportion of the people. Today ball is international, the second largest and fastest growing sport in the world. So explain to me how you think taking the few hundred best players from a talent pool 1000's of times smaller and who have inferior training techniques and time to dedicate to the game can possibly produce a group of players at the same athletic level?

If we took two groups of random players in any sport, one was 100 and the other was 100,000, and we took the 10 best from each group and your wife's life depended on you betting on the winner, you're telling me you put the money of the best 10 from 1000? If you're serious, answer that and make me understand how it works.

1)Elvin Hayes was an NBA all star in the 60's, 70's & 80's. (The 80's which is considered the leagues 'Golden Age')

2)Wes Unseld was a top three rebounder in the League in the 60's, 70's & 80's.

3)Kareem was 'technically' an all star in the 60's,70's & 80's as well.

Someone please find the team photo of the mid 60's Celtics & compare them with the '86 Celtics & see who had 'unathletic White guys'.

Joking right? Hayes retired in 1981 long before the peak of the NBA which was absolutely 10 years later in the very late 80's and very early 90's. So did Enseld before the best rebounders in history were even drafted. Kareem was a great player but his career was winding down just as the best bigs of all time were young young players. After 81 Kareem was still in his prime and pulled down less then 8 boards for the rest of his career. A far cry from the 17 he pulled down in his hey day and weak era.

indiefan23

04-28-2009, 10:53 PM

With the possible exception of D Howard and Yao Russ would be a starting C in todays weak C day. I look at the Sorry C in todays game most are so soft you got players like Tony parker going to the basket with no fear of a hard foul. You got big stiff C shooting 3 pointers instead of banging in the paint. I laugh when people say Russ and Wilt counldn't play today yao is 7'6 and he shoots fade aways Shaq is like 40 and he still might be the best C in the league

Hmm... I'm not really commenting on today's game. Its an anomaly of werid rules driven by non-basketball agendas. I still don't think Russell starts though. Not at 215 and 6'9" at center. I more mean the peak of the NBA in the 90's. Today's game hasn't proven itself yet and is a weak era too. Its improving steadily though. I'm still not srue what I think fo the 00's. Its a transition era for sure. In that regard its pretty comparable to the 70s.

indiefan23

04-28-2009, 10:58 PM

Yes, the league has come a LONG way since the days when unathletic white guys were stars...

Wait... a short, skinny, white, unathletic Canadian winning not one but 2 MVPs, back to back? :wtf:

Because, as history has taught us, if you're not super athletic you won't do well in the modern NBA ::cough, Larry Bird, cough Tim Duncan, cough 7 championships 5 finals MVPs 5 regular season MVPs... cough::

Since when was coordination, speed, coordination at speed, durability and endurance not athletic traits? If Wilt had Dirk's skills he could hack an MVP today too. But he doesn't, so...

indiefan23

04-28-2009, 11:08 PM

Extra footage for the dude who's claimed like 150 times up to now that they played basketball with soccer balls back then (did the US even know what soccer was before the 50's?). Note that these pics aren't even from West's-Russell's-Wilt's era. They are taken before these guys were even born:

http://theinvisibleagent.files.wordpress.com/2009/02/teamtechhighbasketball1920.jpg

(taken in 1920)

http://images.google.gr/imgres?imgurl=http://www.departments.dsu.edu/dsuarchives/images/Sports/Mens%2520Basketball%2520Team1986-87%2520cropped%2520small.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.departments.dsu.edu/dsuarchives/histcalendar.htm&usg=__JrnQJkbV3ZkHWgnZNNef_B-9_ic=&h=1425&w=600&sz=104&hl=el&start=26&um=1&tbnid=uiCaVVxSwAG9JM:&tbnh=150&tbnw=63&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dbasketball%2B1920%26ndsp%3D21%26hl%3D el%26sa%3DN%26start%3D21%26um%3D1

(go to 1908 and check even the women's team)

http://images.google.gr/imgres?imgurl=http://www.americaslibrary.gov/assets/jb/progress/jb_progress_basketball_1_e.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.americaslibrary.gov/jb/progress/jb_progress_basketball_1_e.html&usg=__Fy5KwS6JOVG9-JKbTc0XRIzJjYc=&h=398&w=304&sz=17&hl=el&start=31&um=1&tbnid=yX-_l8c95rdWYM:&tbnh=124&tbnw=95&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dbasketball%2B1920%26ndsp%3D21%26hl%3D el%26sa%3DN%26start%3D21%26um%3D1

(pic belongs to the 1890-1913 section)

http://home.moravian.edu/public/arch/images/MBB1920-1921.jpg

(1921)

To anyone who knows anything about soccer, the NON-similarity to soccer balls, especially in terms of size, is obvious.

A soccer ball painted brown is still a soccer ball. From Wikipedia:

Development of equipment and technique

Basketball was originally played with a soccer ball. The first balls made specifically for basketball were brown, and it was only in the late 1950s that Tony Hinkle, searching for a ball that would be more visible to players and spectators alike, introduced the orange ball that is now in common use. Dribbling was not part of the original game except for the "bounce pass" to teammates. Passing the ball was the primary means of ball movement. Dribbling was eventually introduced but limited by the asymmetric shape of early balls. Dribbling only became a major part of the game around the 1950s, as manufacturing improved the ball shape. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basketball#Development_of_equipment_and_technique)

Sorry, try again.

indiefan23

04-28-2009, 11:13 PM

And as for Dirk and Nash, yeah, there are a very few white stars, but not even close to what there was back pre-70's.

I think the difference is that skill wise Dirk/Nash are just about flawless. There's almost no one with Nash's shooting zone percentages. Dirk is the same. And that's only considering one skill. Nash's passing/dribbling ability is insane and that's before you consider the speed at which he does it.

indiefan23

04-28-2009, 11:16 PM

You don't think this may have anything at all do with how they measured players then (without shoes) vs now (+ the exaggerated heights) and sometimes apparently not even updating their college measurements/weights back then.

Uh, lots of people are still listed barefoot and shoes don't add that much. Its incorrect to assume that every player from that era is 2 inches taller in comparison to today. And what about the average weight going way up without speed going down but up as well? Measurement changes to height, which are not universal at all, don't change that.

indiefan23

04-28-2009, 11:29 PM

damn, didnt know the skills were that bad back then.. so many shots not even close to going in.. :rolleyes:

if only i was born in that era, with the skills i have now, id be HOF..

I know huh? Its pretty amazing to watch those guys and realize that with your game you could probably make the NBA. I'm 6'2" and not blessed with the crazy fast twitch muscles and have known since HS there was no shot.

What I find amusing is how people just ignore how much jumping changes the game. When a guy can jump and kiss the rim its not even the same sport. I don't think many of the guys who are so offended have ever really played against a guy who can throw down on them. It goes like this:

You try to play hard.

The guy dunks on your head 3 times in a row and jumps from way outside the key to grab boards you can't box him out for.

You realize that you're being toyed with and the more you try the more he's going to stop playing and decimate you.

You test the theory and try harder.

He reverse dunks on you and throws in a pump for effect. After he comes down he gives you a wink and says confidently 'all day' as he jogs past not even breaking a sweat.

You call your buddy to help double team him. He dunks on both of you or dishes to his buddy for the open lay up.

That's actually a nice player. If they're not nice, after dunking on you for the 8'th time in a row going "WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO HHHHAAAAAAAAAAAAA!" or some shiz you realize how incredible people who can make the pros today really are because this dude is only 6'3" and you're playing in the local YMCA in a tiny city and you have to relegate yourself to a league where you can compete.

This is how ball works today.

Sir Charles

04-28-2009, 11:31 PM

You know, I'm not trolling for a response. I'm sick and tired of me saying something like "Young Shaq was the most athletic big of all time" and then some other guy coming and trolling what I'm saying with some horse crap about how Wilt Chamberlain was a great arm wrestler and got lots of points and boards against players who couldn't jump or dribble and smoked butts during games. Its just BS.

You're a serious poster? Explain to me how in the 40's when that era started playing basketball (with soccer balls) the world population was three times smaller and bball was only popular in the states and then only played by a small proportion of the people. Today ball is international, the second largest and fastest growing sport in the world. So explain to me how you think taking the few hundred best players from a talent pool 1000's of times smaller and who have inferior training techniques and time to dedicate to the game can possibly produce a group of players at the same athletic level?

If we took two groups of random players in any sport, one was 100 and the other was 100,000, and we took the 10 best from each group and your wife's life depended on you betting on the winner, you're telling me you put the money of the best 10 from 1000? If you're serious, answer that and make me understand how it works.

Joking right? Hayes retired in 1981 long before the peak of the NBA which was absolutely 10 years later in the very late 80's and very early 90's. So did Enseld before the best rebounders in history were even drafted. Kareem was a great player but his career was winding down just as the best bigs of all time were young young players. After 81 Kareem was still in his prime and pulled down less then 8 boards for the rest of his career. A far cry from the 17 he pulled down in his hey day and weak era.

:rolleyes:

Kareem pulled down 6-7 boards per game at ages 35-40 and playing only 28-33 Minutes Per Game..

Then Again...his Lakers had Enough Rebounders even on the Deep Bench...Magic hismelf, Worthy, Rambis, Thompson, McAdoo, Ac.Green..they alli took part of that Showtime Team with the Greatest Passing and Fastbreak IQ Ever.

Kareem whom at ages 39 to 41 faced Hakeem at ages 24 to 27 in a total of 13 games (missing stats from the 1985-86 season, Kareem at age 38!) achieved the following vs a 24 and 27 year Old Hakeem!!!:

Kareem (ages 39-41: Passed His Physical and Game Prime) vs Hakeem (ages 24-27: Total Physical Prime, Reaching his Game Prime):

Kareem: 15.2 PPG (10.8 FGA PG) on 56.7 FG%! , 5.8 RPG, 1.4 BPG, 0.5 SPG, 2.2 TOV and 2.8 Personal FoulsIN ONLY 28.4 MINUTE PER GAME

Hakeem: 21.8 PPG (18.3 FGA PG) on 47.5 FG% (LOWERED HIS FG%) , 11.9 RPG, 2.5 SPG, 2.6 BPG, 2.6 TOV and 4.0 Personal Fouls in 37.8 MPG

Hakeem was Less Effective Offensively on an Aging (Way, Way.....Passed Both Physical and Game Prime) 39-41 Year Old Kareem

Hakeem might have had Better Foot-Work, Cooler Fakes and Superior Floor Defender than Kareem but Kareem`s B-Ball IQ, Passing, Prime Rebounding, FG% And Overall Skill Set Was Superior. In his Prime Probably his Shot Blocking Capacity. Also lets remember a 70s Kareem and in his Lew AlCindor days...was way More Potent, Fater, Agil and had a Superior Leap than the one we can see in vid in the 80s.

Here We Go:

http://api.ning.com/files/jGTsl9YIheGbzstQ5c2mlHnlOrghXqGPw5qz9-D1Neo_/lewalcindor1967.jpg

http://content.cdlib.org/dynaxml/data/13030/bc/hb8w1009bc/files/hb8w1009bc-FID5.jpg

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_Jjqv_F4iq48/R9wVkhyO0wI/AAAAAAAACug/k8Pf27PICLg/s200/Lew+Alcindor.jpg

http://www.achievement.org/achievers/woo0/large/woo0-062.jpg

And Wilt was more than fine playing against a Total Physically Prime and Edging Game Prime Kareem :confusedshrug:

Kareem ages: 22-25 (Total Physical Prime, Entering Game Prime) vs Wilt ages 33-36 (After his 1971 injury, Passed His Physical Prime and Passed his Game Prime)

Kareem ages: 22-25 (Total Physical Prime, Entering Game Prime)

Seasons 1969-70 to 1972-73:

MPG: 42.6

31.4 PPG (shot 55.6% FG), 15.8 RPG, 4.2 APG and 3.1 Personal Fouls

Play-Offs 1969-70 to 1972-73:

MPG: 44.3

28.7 PPG (shot 49.1% FG), 17.1 RPG, 3.6 APG and 3.2 Personal Fouls

Wilt ages: 33-36 (Passed Physical Prime, Passed his Game Prime)

Seasons 1969-70 to 1972-73:

MPG:47.6 (Playing Longer at that Ages!)

16.7 PPG (shot 61.3% FG = Shot Way More Effective) , 18.7 RPG (Superior Rebounder) , 4.2 APG (Same as Jabbar) and 1.7 Personal Fouls (Lesser Fouls Commited and PLAYING LONGER!)

Play-Offs 1969-70 to 1972-73:

MPG: 46.9 (Playing Longer at those Ages!)

16.4 PPG (shot 52.8% FG = Still Shot More Effective!). 21.6 RPG (Superior Rebounder), 3.9 APG (Out Assited Kareem) and 2.7 Personal Fouls (Lesser Fouls Commited and PLAYING LONGER!)

Lets Remember Wilt wasn`t the Focal Scorer Anymore...He Came as a Role Player his Last Seasons...same way as Barkley did in the Rockets etc..

indiefan23

04-29-2009, 02:05 AM

You're wrong and I'm right because I rehash players stats in wild and crazy colors! and use mammoth crazy font sizes to hide the fact that I'm the biggest fanboy homer on an internet forum that's nearly totally comprised of fanboy homers.

Look at this, I'll prove I'm right by posting a bunch of grainy pics promoting players that aren't alive or haven't played in 20-50 years.

Whatever SC... nobody takes you seriously and I'm not either. Yammering on about nothing I said and posting pics of players scoring on weak defenses means crap all to me or anyone else. Lots of my favorites retired as well... you don't have to hate on new players to keep the old ones alive. Their time has past. Get over it.

indiefan23

04-29-2009, 04:27 AM

Damn!!!! Be careful Pippen.

The glare from the pasty "White unathletic' skin of this team nearly blinded me:oldlol: Maybe that's why they swept MJ & the Bulls in '86?:confusedshrug: The glare from their skin blinded Jordan?:rolleyes:

Thank you Pip. Now place the 66 team with John Thompson/Russell/ Sam & K.C Jones,etc...... side by side. Proof of the'unathletic White guys' of the 60's.:rolleyes:

According to Psileas Williams was released mid season so that team only had three Black Players(DJ/Parish/Vincent) & one(Sam Vincent) only played less than 10 minutes per game.

Why are you making it about skin colour? Its not that there were white or black people playing on a team, its that a group of super talented athletes were disadvantaged to the point where for part of that era they wern't even really allowed to play and didn't have the resources to train due to civil rights. Its that the competition in the league was weaker, not that one celtics team was more black. Thats just racist.

ie: as someone pointed out earlier in some way to try and say the era was stronger, go figure, that rucker park playground legend, The Goat, could grab a dollar bill off the top of the backboard but the NBA wouldn't let him play.

NuggetsFan

04-29-2009, 04:54 AM

honestly how many people here were actually alive when Wilt was playing:confusedshrug:

oh the horror

04-29-2009, 05:02 AM

32jazz

04-29-2009, 06:12 AM

:rolleyes:

Joking right? Hayes retired in 1981 long before the peak of the NBA which was absolutely 10 years later in the very late 80's and very early 90's. So did Enseld before the best rebounders in history were even drafted. Kareem was a great player but his career was winding down just as the best bigs of all time were young young players. After 81 Kareem was still in his prime and pulled down less then 8 boards for the rest of his career. A far cry from the 17 he pulled down in his hey day and weak era.

If you really believe Players before the early 90's are basically irrelevant/inferior there really is nothing else to discuss. Why waste your time on such inferior Players:confusedshrug:

I have no problem with your retardation ,but your lmited grasp of the facts are annoying.
First of all Elvin Hayes retired in 1984 (at an advaced age) & was still a great Player(NBA All star in the 60's ,70's & 80's)

Wes Unseld was a top three rebounder in the league in the 60's,70's & 80's right alongside the poor rebounding HOF'er Moses Malone:rolleyes:

Kareem only won one(1) Rebounding title his entire career (76) & was always a lesser rebounder(even at his prime) than Wilt & Wes Unseld who were far superior Rebounders. So what makes you think he would be any better at rebounding at an advanced age in the 80's:confusedshrug: (The man was in his late 30's by then for god sakes. Even at his peak Kareem was outrebounded for YEARS by an aging hobbled Wilt & 6'7 Unseld in the early 70's)

WE bring up race because certain idiots on the ISH never fail to mention that Wilt dominated 'unathletic White guys' of the 60's which is an offensive & utterly untrue myth. Why the F***k am I explaining aything to you:confusedshrug:

I can't read or respond to your nonsense/ignorance/idiocy. Just glad your nonsense is confined to this silly thread.

You've trolled & got your rise. Now get your napkin,clean your hands & wipe down the keyboards.

indiefan23

04-29-2009, 06:41 AM

Let's be honest here, all you people trying to take away from past legends... if guys like Tim Duncan, Allen Iverson, Dirk Nowitzki, Steve Nash, Paul Pierce, Kevin Garnett, Kevin Durant (and every other skinny, white, unathletic, etc player who have DOMINATED this era/decade) had played anywhere from the 60s-90s, you'd be doing the same thing you're trying to do to Wilt, Russell, etc.

"Tim Duncan was so slow and couldn't jump, he'd be a backup at best in today's league"

"Yeah Iverson scored a lot in his era but he was only 5'11 165 lbs!!! he wouldn't even be a D-3 player today, he's too small to even play PG, how would he play SG against all the athletic freaks out there today?!"

"Dirk and Nash were slow, unathletic white players who dominated before the league was majority black. They'd get dominated in today's league"

See where I'm getting at? Show some ****ing respect.

Uh, I'm not young. Why do you assume ignorance? I'm not ignorance and you're not showing any respect to anybody, including your favorite old school players, for saying so. You're not entitled to respect just because you perceive some sort of age difference so show some yourself.

Now, you watch people play from those games. And I've watched lots of them.

If Bob Cousy was doing this: (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PvI_iTbgTwU)

Jerry West had to check and be defended by other guards doing this: (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xWvH2l1-_dQ)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xWvH2l1-_dQ

3 time all defensive team bigs (Bill Russell) was getting owned on like this: (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j01q8A6pqps)

if Wilt hit game winning shots like this on a regular basis (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QaucITrlBn8&feature=related)

or any 7'1" center did this or anything like it in any fractional regard:
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=12yYRx0XK4A)

If DPOY candidate 7 footers were getting owned by Sam Jones like this (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJxbaDVBtkI&feature=related)

if there was anyone who could actually play like that then people wouldn't downplay anything at all. But no one did play like that because players from that era just were not that good. That kind of play didn't really exist until Dr. J and even then he wasn't as good as this and even IF he was, that kind of talent was totally scattered throughout the league. If we looked back to those games and saw players doing those things no one would say anything and people suggesting as much would get ripped for it. If any of the players you listed did go back their dominance would be so intense and extreme. Iverson could average triple doubles. Its unreal.

Instead, we look back at those games and they're not like we rememberd them. They're like this
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVtr2t7SvFE)

Almost 0 contact. Its like everyone has a little pocket of space 2 feet around them and defenders politely stay out of it.
And if you can find one clip even remotely coming close to this (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NLv2F33snCE#t40s)

I'll fly to wherever you live and eat your crusty underwear.

And explain please to me how Tim Duncan, Allen Iverson, Kevin Garnett, Kevin Durant are not athletic? That's retarded.

indiefan23

04-29-2009, 07:12 AM

:rolleyes:

If you really believe Players before the early 90's are basically irrelevant/inferior there really is nothing else to discuss. Why waste your time on such inferior Players:confusedshrug:

Early 90's? Naw, thats just the peak. Competition picked up big time in the late 70's and continued getting better. Pre 1980? I think the league is pretty frekin weak. By the 84 draft it was getting a lot stronger and after it in like, 86 - 93 (give or take) was a period of strength that has not been matched before or after.

I have no problem with your retardation ,but your lmited grasp of the facts are annoying.
First of all Elvin Hayes retired in 1984 (at an advaced age) & was still a great Player(NBA All star in the 60's ,70's & 80's)
Wes Unseld was a top three rebounder in the league in the 60's,70's & 80's right alongside the poor rebounding HOF'er Moses Malone:rolleyes:

Elvin Hayes in 1982 got 7.6 boards. in 81 Unseld had 10 boards. Thats a far cry from the 18/game they used to get. And it was before Ralph Sampson, David Robinson, Olajuwon, Rodman, Barkley, Mutumbo, Ewing, Webber, Sabonis, Willis, Laimbeer, Mahorn, Oakley, Buck Williams, Malone and many others I forget off hand were drafted. Not to mention all the other bigs who could board but were role players. Those were just stars. Because you pulled down 10 or 7 boards in 1982 does not mean you played in the 80's on the same level as someone like Larry Bird who played in the 80's against most of those guys. Is that retarded of me to say?

Kareem only won one(1) Rebounding title his entire career (76) & was always a lesser rebounder(even at his prime) than Wilt & Wes Unseld who were far superior Rebounders. So what makes you think he would be any better at rebounding at an advanced age in the 80's:confusedshrug: (The man was in his late 30's by then for god sakes. Even at his peak Kareem was outrebounded for YEARS by an aging hobbled Wilt & 6'7 Unseld in the early 70's)

Uh, cuz lots of people pulled down 15+ boards in the 70's. There were some decent players and then a bunch of scrubs who should not have even been in the league. Kareem never had elite boards in the 80's. His best season was 7.6 in 80-81 with the weakest pool of bigs in the entire decade. Kareem never got hurt and was still in his prime then too. As the talent got better every year and caught up with him he was getting like, 4 boards a game. So I'm not sure how that indicates anything.

WE bring up race because certain idiots on the ISH never fail to mention that Wilt dominated 'unathletic White guys' of the 60's which is an offensive & utterly untrue myth. Why the F***k am I explaining aything to you:confusedshrug:

Well, black people do play this game better then the white ones on average. Thats not racist: its a fact. Black people were still trying to drink at the water fountain when Russell started playing. Black people were more into boxing for the generation of players we are talking about as well. I think its pretty valid to assume it took a while for things to change. I don't think its a skin colour argument but just a competition argument. I don't really think its a myth. In the 50's they had race limits on how many black people could play for god's sake... just cuz that rule gets erased does not mean its equal footing suddenly.

I can't read or respond to your nonsense/ignorance/idiocy. Just glad your nonsense is confined to this silly thread.

You've trolled & got your rise. Now get your napkin,clean your hands & wipe down the keyboards.

What have I trolled? I'm in this thread cuz people trolled mine with this 50's 60's 70's era garbage. I don't see the nonsense either. I think claiming that a league of guys who can't jump more then a foot or two, don't play defense, don't box out on free throws and don't box out centers when they just sit in the paint on defense are weak. The players didn't even all play full time and smoked during games. How can you possibly suggest I don't have any valid points?

indiefan23

04-29-2009, 07:21 AM

I think at some points it tends to come around to being young and not having the ability, or perhaps the maturity to see the world from outside of your bubble.

Hmm...maybe more of a maturity issue...some younger fans here seem to understand quite a bit.

Um, I'm not young and am being quite reasonable. Do you watch games from the 50's stars and think "Those guys have the same abilities as MJ, Magic, Bird, Lebron, Kobe and Shaq." Do you watch the bench players and thing "Those guys have the same abilities as Robert Horry, Jamario Moon, Kevin McHale, Dennis Rodman and Lattrell Spreewell." Do you?

I don't so if you do tell me what I'm missing. There is nothing more or less mature then that.

And for the record the "you have to have watched it" argument does not work. Unless you're one of the few 10's of thousands who were in boston for the finals and went to the games, I've watched the same games you did and in the exact same way. Unless you think that the NBA finals, conference finals et al are poor choices to exhibit the quality of the league. Enlighten me if I'm in the dark.

indiefan23

04-29-2009, 09:17 AM

Yes but the problem is even then some people on this site (more than you may think) would also consider even the 1980s to be a "weak era", if you believe it or not. Again, just like the 1960s, it is a matter of ignoring what they don't care to know.

I would agree to an extent. The early 80s were weak compared to the mid-late 80's early 90's. The Lakers/Celtics/Bulls/Knicks were just powerhouse teams. Most of the best players in the 70's were retired or retiring, or in their last couple productive years by the end of the 70's/early 80's. There was a very large improvement when the ABA merged in 76, maybe a slight dip at the very end of the decade and things started exponentially started improving every season. For a while it seemed like every draft was bound to have at least a few significant stars. Then by the mid to late 90's that same group of players started slowing down to reset the cycle. I hope the next era actually turns out to be better then the 90's. Huge ball fan.

Psileas

04-29-2009, 09:31 AM

A soccer ball painted brown is still a soccer ball. From Wikipedia:

Development of equipment and technique

Basketball was originally played with a soccer ball. The first balls made specifically for basketball were brown, and it was only in the late 1950s that Tony Hinkle, searching for a ball that would be more visible to players and spectators alike, introduced the orange ball that is now in common use. Dribbling was not part of the original game except for the "bounce pass" to teammates. Passing the ball was the primary means of ball movement. Dribbling was eventually introduced but limited by the asymmetric shape of early balls. Dribbling only became a major part of the game around the 1950s, as manufacturing improved the ball shape.

Sorry, try again.

The only thing it's said is that basketball in its very first stages was played with a soccer ball. Then it mentions the brown balls, made specifically for basketball, AND THEN, in the late '50s, about the orange ball used today. Basketball firstly played by West and Russell in the late 40's-early 50's as kids was NOT in its first stages and therefore NOT played with a soccer ball. If your whole argument is about the ball being brown and having laces, that's a far cry from being a soccer ball.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basketball_(ball)

In early December 1891, the chairman of the physical education department at the School for Christian Workers (now Springfield College) in Springfield, Massachusetts, instructed physical education teacher James Naismith, known to many as the inventor of basketball, to invent a new game to entertain the school's athletes in the winter season. Naismith assembled his class of 18 young men, appointed captains of two nine-player teams, and set in motion the first ever basketball game, played with a soccer ball and two peach baskets tacked to either end of the gymnasium. The first purpose-built basketballs were made from panels of leather stitched together with a rubber bladder inside. A cloth lining was added to the leather for support and uniformity (identity). A molded version of the early basketball was invented in 1942.

What do we get here? That the first basketball game ever, in 1891, was played with a soccer ball and that 4 years after Jerry West was born, molded basketball balls already started existing.

http://images.google.gr/imgres?imgurl=http://www.blackfives.com/blog_pics/early_basketball.jpg&imgrefurl=http://blackfivesblog.com/%3Ftag%3D1930s&usg=__zN5Fo3kW0gaUMKy2IG3y_Ws8ZYs=&h=296&w=300&sz=162&hl=el&start=13&um=1&tbnid=se9QyHV1EI2F3M:&tbnh=114&tbnw=116&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dbasketball%2Bball%2B1930%26hl%3Del%26 sa%3DN%26um%3D1

Read what the ball writes on it. If it was a soccer ball, it wouldn't.

Read also the passage:

Did you know that early basketballs had laces? They had to be unlaced, pumped up, tested, and re-laced repeatedly until the air pressure of the rubber bladder inside was just right.

These balls evolved to include external air pump holes, but the laces remained until the 1930s, when laceless designs were first introduced.

Where are all the soccer ball references again? :confusedshrug: The only difference mentioned is the laces, which were removed in the late 30's/early 40's, depending on source. Nothing about size, weight and other properties that points to a soccer ball. It doesn't even mention the word "soccer" at all, because, even back then that soccer thing had become whole decades old.

Manute for Ever!

04-29-2009, 10:00 AM

Let's use Shaq as the dominant centre for the last decade (sorry giantgonzolez, and Tim Duncan is PF).

People say Wilt would suck today, well, let's see how each geneation's best centre compares to each other at different points in their career, rookie season and final season. I wont include blocks because stats haven't always been kept for them :

1959/60

Wilt Chamberlain (Rookie)
Age: 23
PPG:37.6
RPG:27.0
AST:2.3

Bill Russell
Age: 25
PPG: 18.2
RPG: 24.0
AST: 3.7
_________________________________________________

1968/69

Wilt Chamberlain
Age: 32
PPG: 20.5
RPG: 21.1
AST: 4.5

Bill Russell (Final Season)
Age: 34
PPG: 9.9
RPG: 19.3
AST: 4.9
______________________________________________

1969/70

Wilt Chamberlain*
Age: 33
PPG: 27.3
RPG: 18.4
AST: 4.1

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (Rookie)
Age: 22
PPG: 28.8
RPG: 14.5
AST: 4.1

*Chamberlain only played in 12 games due to injury
________________________________________________

1970/71*

Wilt Chamberlain
Age: 34
PPG: 20.7
RPG: 18.2
AST: 4.3

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
Age: 23
PPG: 31.7
RPG: 16.0
AST: 3.3

*First full season head to head
___________________________________________

1972/73

Wilt Chamberlain (Final Season)
Age: 36
PPG: 13.2
RPG: 18.6
AST: 4.5

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
Age: 25
PPG: 30.2
RPG: 16.1
AST: 5.0
_________________________________________

1977/78

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
Age: 30
PPG: 25.8
RPG: 12.9
AST: 4.3

Moses Malone (First NBA Season)
Age: 22
PPG: 19.4
RPG: 15.0
AST: 0.5
_________________________________________

1984/85

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
Age: 37
PPG: 22.0
RPG: 7.9
AST: 3.2

Moses Malone
Age: 29
PPG: 24.6
RPG: 13.1
AST: 1.6

Hakeem Olajuwon (Rookie)
Age: 22
PPG: 20.6
RPG: 11.9
AST: 1.4
_____________________________________________
1988/89

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (Final Season)
Age: 41
PPG: 10.1
RPG: 4.5
AST:1.0

Moses Malone
Age: 33
PPG: 20.2
RPG: 11.8
AST: 1.4

Hakeem Olajuwon
Age: 26
PPG: 24.8
RPG: 14.0
AST: 2.9
_________________________________________

1992/93

Moses Malone*
Age: 37
PPG: 4.5
RPG: 4.2
AST: 0.6

Hakeem Olajuwon
Age: 30
PPG: 26.1
RPG: 13.0
AST: 3.0

Shaquille O'Neal (Rookie)
Age: 20
PPG: 23.4
RPG: 13.9
AST: 1.9

*Moses Malone played in only 11 games due to injury
_________________________________________________

1994/95

Moses Malone (Final Season)*
Age: 39
PPG: 2.9
RPG: 2.7
AST: 0.4

Hakeem Olajuwon
Age: 32
PPG: 27.8
RPG: 11.9
AST: 3.6

Shaquille O'Neal
Age: 22
PPG: 29.3
RPG: 11.4
AST: 2.7

*Moses Malone played in only 17 games due to injury
__________________________________________________

2001/02

Hakeem Olajuwon (Final Season)
Age: 39
PPG: 7.1
RPG: 6.0
AST: 1.1

Shaquille O'Neal
Age: 29
PPG: 27.2
RPG: 10.7
AST: 3.0
___________________________________________

So, Wilt played against Russell and Kareem. Kareem played Moses and Olajuwon. Olajuwon played Shaq. From these numbers, you could acertain that a great big man is a great big man in any era.

Psileas

04-29-2009, 10:09 AM

Elvin Hayes in 1982 got 7.6 boards. in 81 Unseld had 10 boards. Thats a far cry from the 18/game they used to get.

Ahh, I see Mr "I blame you for calling 39.9 year old Kareem a 40 year old" still has issues with factual numbers. To set you straight, Hayes averaged 9.1 rebounds in 1982, along with 16.1 points, and this happened at the age of 36. He was an all-star up to 1980 (age 34), while, you know, Magic and Bird were there. He averaged 12.9/7.6 at 37, when Bird and Magic had long become established superstars and Moses Malone was the MVP.
Unseld grabbed 10.7 rebounds in his last season, at 35, playing 32.3 minutes, for a rate which was about 87% of the rate of his single best year, not an impressive slip.

And it was before Ralph Sampson, David Robinson, Olajuwon, Rodman, Barkley, Mutumbo, Ewing, Webber, Sabonis, Willis, Laimbeer, Mahorn, Oakley, Buck Williams, Malone and many others I forget off hand were drafted. Not to mention all the other bigs who could board but were role players. Those were just stars.

They already had enough bigs to face. It's funny how you pad the 80's-00's by mentioning players who had their primes in different periods and some of them almost never faced each other: What does Sabonis have to do with Laimbeer and Mahorn? What does Sampson have to do with players who had their prime in the 90's? Sampson was a human wreck, barely an NBA player, when Robinson was a rookie.

Let alone that many of these players were just tough and hard-working fighters (maybe marginal all-stars for once or twice at their best), not valid stars who were feared for their talent. Oakley, Buck Williams (who, btw, was very prolific even when Hayes was playing), Willis, Mahorn, these guys don't belong to the same category with Robinson, Ewing or Hakeem. Nobody ever said "oh my, how am I going to stop Oakley from torching me?".

Uh, cuz lots of people pulled down 15+ boards in the 70's. There were some decent players and then a bunch of scrubs who should not have even been in the league. Kareem never had elite boards in the 80's. His best season was 7.6 in 80-81 with the weakest pool of bigs in the entire decade. Kareem never got hurt and was still in his prime then too. As the talent got better every year and caught up with him he was getting like, 4 boards a game. So I'm not sure how that indicates anything.

Right troll, try 10.3 in 1981 and 8.7 in 1982. Kareem never grabbed exactly 7.6 rebounds. LOL at talent catching up with him at 41-42. I guess he should feel embarassed averaging 10.1/4.5 in 22.9 minutes at an age when most former players have become 50+ lbs fatter due to excessive sitting and beer drinking and are only able to play basketball at a decent level in 10-minute pickup games against actors/rappers or in leagues like the Swiss one.

indiefan23

04-29-2009, 11:37 AM

What do we get here? That the first basketball game ever, in 1891, was played with a soccer ball and that 4 years after Jerry West was born, molded basketball balls already started existing.

Yep, and I'm sure he had access to the latest in sports technology too.

If your whole argument is about the ball being brown and having laces, that's a far cry from being a soccer ball.

Its also a far cry from being a basketball.

Then it mentions the brown balls, made specifically for basketball, AND THEN, in the late '50s, about the orange ball used today.

You left out: Dribbling was eventually introduced but limited by the asymmetric shape of early balls. Dribbling only became a major part of the game around the 1950s, as manufacturing improved the ball shape.

FAIL!

indiefan23

04-29-2009, 11:46 AM

So, Wilt played against Russell and Kareem. Kareem played Moses and Olajuwon. Olajuwon played Shaq. From these numbers, you could acertain that a great big man is a great big man in any era.

Common, we both love Manute. Don't be dumb.

1. I've never said Wilt would suck. He's one of the few players who looks like would be effective. As for a lot of the other players in the league, well lots of them would never come close to the NBA and would have problems making a lot of high school teams.

2. I can find players who played each other all the way back to Naismith: it doesn't mean they can hang with Shaq and Olajuwon. The 70's were a weak era and thats why people who were 6'5" almost averaged 40 ppg and 20 rpg.

indiefan23

04-29-2009, 12:02 PM

indiefan23

04-29-2009, 12:14 PM

[QUOTE=Psileas]Ahh, I see Mr "I blame you for calling 39.9 year old Kareem a 40 year old" still has issues with factual numbers.[quote]

It wasn't 39.9 and 40. You said "When Kareem was 40 he did this" and then used the stats from his previous year to inflate how great he looked. It was blatent manipulation. On bball ref which we both used it says Kareem's age was 39 and you just subtracted one to make him look better thinking no one would check. Then I called you on it and you came up with a BS excuse that "no man, his birthday is in the middle of the season so those are his stats at 40" pretending as if you had honestly considered the situation and produced results. So I called you on that cuz you lied about the numbers and didn't even know his birthday was after the season ended when you lied to try and cover it up.

I can't handle your stubbornness. Sorry. You lie about stats and can't admit when watching tape of classic games that most of the players bloody suck. The sad thing is really that Kareem and all those guys were great but instead of just talk about their own greatness and acknowledge how amazingly the game took the road they paved, cuz thats what they did, they made everyone ahead of them WAY better, you've got to hang on and insult their memory by trying to pretend they are something they're not and refusing to let them be honored for who they were.

Improving the game is their legacy as they were the one's to improve it's quality in their own playing days. Its you disrespecting their generation of players, not me. By reusing to accept their flaws you highlight them and make the case look worse cuz you falsify stats to improve the case.

You could say "yea, Jerry West wasn't the most athletic guy and Kareem/Wilt sure didn't have a lot of other guys to compete against them, but its because they were so much better that everyone else raised their game to their level and we have the league we have today."

And I'd say "Yea I totally agree. You can't overstate the importance of doing something first. Its one of the best things about sports. Even though Michael Jordan took Dr. J and extended his style way past anything he ever did or accomplished, MJ always knows in his heart and acknowledged he'd never be the same player if Erving hadn't had his career first." Cuz thats how I and just about every single other person who's rational about the 50-70's era and see's it's flaws thinks.

Instead you go around posting pictures of old teams and laughing at people with other people who were fans of that era for being so stupid and young and saying things like "you had to have watched it" as if it erases the fact that no one is jumping over 2 feet when we've watched the exact same games you have on better TVs. Or are you going to claim the tube tv's in the 50's 60's were better too? How about the telegraph?

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db23

04-29-2009, 12:15 PM

Wilt and russell played in a league where the standard was dog****. the 69 finals showed the lakers vs celtics, 2 best teams, and its like watching ymca ball.All these
people bringing up the odd example of nash, iverson etc, if you threw them in to that clip it would look like michael jordan playing with 2 year olds.

Niquesports

04-29-2009, 12:29 PM

Why are you making it about skin colour? Its not that there were white or black people playing on a team, its that a group of super talented athletes were disadvantaged to the point where for part of that era they wern't even really allowed to play and didn't have the resources to train due to civil rights. Its that the competition in the league was weaker, not that one celtics team was more black. Thats just racist.

ie: as someone pointed out earlier in some way to try and say the era was stronger, go figure, that rucker park playground legend, The Goat, could grab a dollar bill off the top of the backboard but the NBA wouldn't let him play.

ITs sad that in the year 2009 with an African American president we still have ignorant people. I hope young man your under 20. Blacks have played and at a high level from the very begining. The Goat didnt play in the NBa because of a live style he chose like many other players in inner city playgrounds around the country. Also grabing a dollar bill off a backboard doesn't mean a player can play under a whistle and within a team concept running plays and playing without the ball.When young people get on and say silly things like a weak era I wonder how weak is this era when kids can come right out of high school and become impact players like in todays game.

Pinkhearts

04-29-2009, 12:37 PM

Admiral

04-29-2009, 01:25 PM

All this bickering, throwing stats around, heights etc, JUST WATCH THE DAMN VIDEO, ANYONE THAT CANT TELL HOW LOUSY THE STANDARD WAS BACK THEN BY WATCHING NO MORE THAN 2 MINUTES OF THE FOOTAGE NEEDS TO DELETE THEIR ACCOUNT.That standard is worse than current college ball, Adam Morrison and JJ Reddick were stars in current college ball, so anyone who thinks players from 60's NBA would translate to todays NBA needs to reconsider.

i think a gigantic DUH needs to go out to all of these "players from previous eras wouldnt be crap in this era" arguments. that's the case for the vast majority of ANY athlete from ANY sport from a much earlier era - especially in the beginning phases of a sport - you think babe ruth would stand a chance against today's pitchers?

Have NFL players always been this fast, athletic and generally HUGE?

why do you think world records are constantly being broken in the olympics?

Etc etc etc..

They may not be able to succeed in today's leagues but they set the precedent of the time - in 50 years, we may look back at Lebron or Kobe and think "man...they just wouldnt make it in today's league, look at how weak their game is compared to know - only need to watch 2 minutes to know" does that mean that right now what they are doing is any less impressive or important NOW? of course not. so please, stop.

Psileas

04-29-2009, 01:34 PM

Yep, and I'm sure he had access to the latest in sports technology too.

And I'm sure that all the great talents in the history of the game, including talents of today, had instant access to the latest of technology now. Every kid in the ghettos of N.Y, Chicago, Detroit, etc, learned basketball with official NBA balls and $200 shoes...
That's not even the point. The point is that you claimed players like West grew up playing basketball with soccer balls, which is false.

Its also a far cry from being a basketball.

At least you agreed for once that you were wrong. It was much closer to being a basketball ball than a soccer ball.

You left out: Dribbling was eventually introduced but limited by the asymmetric shape of early balls. Dribbling only became a major part of the game around the 1950s, as manufacturing improved the ball shape.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basketball

Dribbling was not part of the original game, but was introduced in 1901. At the time, a player could only bounce the ball once, and could not shoot after he had dribbled. The definition of dribbling became the "continuous passage of the ball" in 1909, allowing more than one bounce, and a player who had dribbled was then allowed to shoot.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oMwAJlCIIJw

That's from 1947.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TrRO1jCPrzg&feature=PlayList&p=E65C0FAAA9715D5E&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=13

That's from 1949.

The game was more static and dribbling rules were different in its early stages, but dribbling existed way before the 50's. Players like Cousy didn't learn how to dribble in the 50's, as NBA players...
Plus, no-one said that balls were of great quality. But, after the first years, they weren't soccer balls, that's for sure.

It wasn't 39.9 and 40. You said "When Kareem was 40 he did this" and then used the stats from his previous year to inflate how great he looked. It was blatent manipulation. On bball ref which we both used it says Kareem's age was 39 and you just subtracted one to make him look better thinking no one would check. Then I called you on it and you came up with a BS excuse that "no man, his birthday is in the middle of the season so those are his stats at 40" pretending as if you had honestly considered the situation and produced results. So I called you on that cuz you lied about the numbers and didn't even know his birthday was after the season ended when you lied to try and cover it up.

It was 39.9 and 40--actually the main discussion was about 38.9 and 39, but it's still the same point. Kareem became 39 a few days after the 1986 regular season ended and the playoffs began. In case you haven't encountered this before, when players celebrate their birthdays during a season, people don't subtract the stats they posted in that season before their birthday. Some even round up or down their ages.
Even going by your standards, it won't even help your case. Remember, we were discussing old Hakeem and old Kareem. After Hakeem turned 39, his scoring averages fell even more, to 6.1 ppg and 5.6 ppg in the playoffs. When Kareem started his 1987 campaign, he was older than Hakeem ever was as a player.

I can't handle your stubbornness. Sorry. You lie about stats and can't admit when watching tape of classic games that most of the players bloody suck. The sad thing is really that Kareem and all those guys were great but instead of just talk about their own greatness and acknowledge how amazingly the game took the road they paved, cuz thats what they did, they made everyone ahead of them WAY better, you've got to hang on and insult their memory by trying to pretend they are something they're not and refusing to let them be honored for who they were.
Improving the game is their legacy as they were the one's to improve it's quality in their own playing days. Its you disrespecting their generation of players, not me. By reusing to accept their flaws you highlight them and make the case look worse cuz you falsify stats to improve the case.

"I lie about stats", says the guy who did exactly that in his previous posts about Hayes and '81 Kareem. OK.
I fully acknowledge the greatness of everyone. What you forget is that the thing about greatness is that people who have it are able to adapt to their era. Cousy today wouldn't dribble like he did. Schayes wouldn't shoot like he did. Would they be equally successful now as they were back then? That's an assumption. But if you judge the "greatest players of all time", you have to do it either by comparing people vs people of their own era or, at worst, you can do it by estimating what older people would achieve with today's means. Not what older people would achieve today with the means of their own era, because you're comparing people, not technology.
Similarly, what you can't understand is that because players played in a certain way during a certain era, this reflected their whole natural talent and athleticism. You never saw West dunk in the very limited footage you watched, so you assumed that he couldn't do it. You never saw a certain player crossover, so you assume he couldn't do it, and so on. Would you also bet that a player like Jordan or Erving couldn't dunk between their legs because they never did it? If there was only as much footage available for Magic or Bird as for 60's players, would you bet that they couldn't dunk (because they rarely did)? Or that an "ancient" 1920 player would be unable to learn how to dribble in today's fashion?

You could say "yea, Jerry West wasn't the most athletic guy and Kareem/Wilt sure didn't have a lot of other guys to compete against them, but its because they were so much better that everyone else raised their game to their level and we have the league we have today."

And you could say the same thing for everyone who's ever played the game as an excuse. We know who Jerry West and Kareem faced. We know how good they were, especially compared to the means of their era. We know both that West was athletic and that Kareem faced a lot of great opponents. And we know that, while the game involved, it didn't do so in such a way to suddenly make Kareem or West look typical or even bad. Players didn't all of a sudden turn into supermen. Jordan started his career in 1985. It's been 24 years since then. Basketball evolved since then. But the question is, how much? Do we have many Jordans today? Many with his talent and athleticism?

And I'd say "Yea I totally agree. You can't overstate the importance of doing something first. Its one of the best things about sports. Even though Michael Jordan took Dr. J and extended his style way past anything he ever did or accomplished, MJ always knows in his heart and acknowledged he'd never be the same player if Erving hadn't had his career first." Cuz thats how I and just about every single other person who's rational about the 50-70's era and see's it's flaws thinks.

You already saw Jerry West doing a crossover and the only thing you did was you dismiss it as "bad looking". Zero praise for someone starting (along with Oscar) something way before Hardaway. You saw Wilt running like a guard and you pretended that it's nothing special and compared it to Oden's and a scrub's personal best. You seriously expect me to believe that you have such morals? You have already proved otherwise.

Instead you go around posting pictures of old teams and laughing at people with other people who were fans of that era for being so stupid and young and saying things like "you had to have watched it" as if it erases the fact that no one is jumping over 2 feet when we've watched the exact same games you have on better TVs. Or are you going to claim the tube tv's in the 50's 60's were better too? How about the telegraph?

Again, you were the first to start calling names and spit inaccuracies about West not being athletic, Wilt not being so good compared to today's players, mentioned things that never happened and wrong figures and you expect me to be like "oh, yes, you have a point about Kareem's competition being stiffs"?

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I don't care about your personal motos and ambitions. Keep them for yourself.

db23

04-29-2009, 01:37 PM

Wilt would average about the same as Prime Mutombo in todays league, maybe a fraction less.

Psileas

04-29-2009, 01:37 PM

Psileas

04-29-2009, 01:42 PM

2. I can find players who played each other all the way back to Naismith: it doesn't mean they can hang with Shaq and Olajuwon. The 70's were a weak era and thats why people who were 6'5" almost averaged 40 ppg and 20 rpg.

Just for fun, another wrong stat pull out by indiefan23. It has become as common as sand in the beach.

32jazz

04-29-2009, 03:10 PM

Just for fun, another wrong stat pull out by indiefan23. It has become as common as sand in the beach.

I didn't even bother ask him what 6'5 player averaged 40 ppg & 20 rpg.:rolleyes: Just too stupid to acknowledge.

But he points to an aging Kareem(who was 32/33 by 1980) & his falling rebound numbers of the late 80's to prove the 70's was a 'weak era' since Kareem dominated.

Kareem was hardly among the best five rebounders at his absolute peak against those so called 'weak Players' of the 1970's:rolleyes:

Top Rebounds per game(High rebound numbers are because of faster Pace of game & not ability of players):
1970
*Wilt -18.4- Injured most of season(Knee) but would have won it again
1)Hayes 16.9
2)Unseld 16.7
3)Kareem 14.5

1971
1) Wilt 18.6(on a ruined knee:pimp: barbarically repaired by todays standard)
2)Unseld-16.9
3)Hayes-16.6
4)Kareem -16

1972
1)Wilt-19.2
2)Unseld- 17.6
3)kareem-16

1973
1)Wilt-18.6
2)Thurmond-17.1
3)Cowens-16.2
4)Kareem-16.1

1974
1)Hayes-18.1
2)Cowens-15.7
3)McAdoo-15.1
4)Kareem

1975
1)Unseld-14.8
2)Cowens-14.1
3)Lachey-14.2
4)McAdoo-14.1
5)Kareem

1976
1)Kareem-16.9

1977
1)Walton-14.4
2)Kareem-13.3
3)Malone-13.1
4)Gilmore-13.0

1978
1)Truck Robinson-15.7
2)Malone-15.0
3)Cowens
4)Hayes
6)Gilmore-13.1
7)Kareem

1979
1)Malone
2)Kelley
3)Kareem
4)Gilmore-

Kareem could only muster about 4 top three RPG's finish & one(1) rebounding title at his absolute peak in the so called 'weak' 1970's:rolleyes: Wilt especially, & others used to criticize Kareem's relatively weak rebounding(compared to all time greats like Wilt). So to point out the rebounding numbers of a 'relatively weak'(historically speaking) rebounder like Kareem in the late 80's when he was in his late 30's & retired at 41 or 42 years of age is ludicrous. But I am preaching to the choir.

Niquesports

04-29-2009, 03:54 PM

32jazz

04-29-2009, 04:40 PM

What makes this discussion even the more silly is hearing people talking about the 70's and 60's being weak at center when you look at how weak todays Centers are. With the exception of D Howard is there any other dominating intimitating center today NO!!!!!!!!!!!

Big men of the 60's/70's like Nate Thurmond,Artis Gilmore,Bob Lanier,Willis Reed,etc.... would be easily among the top/more dominant Centers today (not to even mention Wilt & Kareem).

Because big men today do not want to play,nor can they can play, the 'back to the basket' traditional Center position(not glamorus enough) as these fundamentally sound big men of yore.

Tim Duncan is the last great 'back to the basket' big man & he is considered 'boring'/not glamorous' by most(the reason young players don't want to play in that manner anymore). His fundamental play is more in line with what the great big men of the 60's & 70's did & Duncan is not nearly as athletic as most of those guys. Yet people seriously believe they could't play today.

Could you imagine these same people would be criticizing the 'unathletic' Tim Duncan & swearing that he could not play with Shaq/Howard or today's big men if he had played in the 1970's. :rolleyes:

Niquesports

04-29-2009, 04:55 PM

Big men of the 60's/70's like Nate Thurmond,Artis Gilmore,Bob Lanier,Willis Reed,etc.... would be easily among the top/more dominant Centers today (not to even mention Wilt & Kareem).

Because big men today do not want to play,nor can they can play, the 'back to the basket' traditional Center position(not glamorus enough) as these fundamentally sound big men of yore.

Tim Duncan is the last great 'back to the basket' big man & he is considered 'boring'/not glamorous' by most(the reason young players don't want to play in that manner anymore). His fundamental play is more in line with what the great big men of the 60's & 70's did & Duncan is not nearly as athletic as most of those guys. Yet people seriously believe they could't play today.

Could you imagine these same people would be criticizing the 'unathletic' Tim Duncan & swearing that he could not play with Shaq/Howard or today's big men if he had played in the 1970's. :rolleyes:

Agreed even players like Unseld and Cowens would be starters for many teams. IF people think the Rondo foul was hard they should have seen a hard dave cowens foul or if they think the D howard elbow was rough play they should have seen a Unseld pick when was the last time anyone seen Yao give a hard foul or solid jaw shaking pick Im still waiting

indiefan23

04-30-2009, 11:38 AM

ITs sad that in the year 2009 with an African American president we still have ignorant people. I hope young man your under 20. Blacks have played and at a high level from the very begining. The Goat didnt play in the NBa because of a live style he chose like many other players in inner city playgrounds around the country. Also grabing a dollar bill off a backboard doesn't mean a player can play under a whistle and within a team concept running plays and playing without the ball.When young people get on and say silly things like a weak era I wonder how weak is this era when kids can come right out of high school and become impact players like in todays game.

Heh, I'm not young and I'm wondering who the ignorant one when you refer to your life being screwed up eating government cheese in the ghetto as a 'choice'.

Yea, KG could hold his own because the Western Conference bigs in 1996 cuz guys like Webber, Malone, Shaq, Dream, Robinson, Mutombo, Barkley... they were weak and sucked so hard. Good thing you are here to set me straight.

indiefan23

04-30-2009, 11:40 AM

Could you imagine these same people would be criticizing the 'unathletic' Tim Duncan & swearing that he could not play with Shaq/Howard or today's big men if he had played in the 1970's. :rolleyes:

If Duncan played in the 70's he would have out scored and out boarded Chamberlain. It would have been full on domination. My god you guys. Do you really see Tim Duncan level players when you watch that 1967 finals game?

Mikaiel

04-30-2009, 11:48 AM

If Duncan played in the 70's he would have out scored and out boarded Chamberlain. It would have been full on domination. My god you guys. Do you really see Tim Duncan level players when you watch that 1967 finals game?

In Wilt's final season in the league, when he was 35-36, his rebound rate was the same as Tim Duncan's career high ...

indiefan23

04-30-2009, 11:49 AM

This is what a soccer ball looks like in the old basketball days:

http://www.soccerballworld.com/images/englishballold.jpg

You can see the evolution of the soccer ball here.

http://www.soccerballworld.com/History.htm

Now can you see the similarities between a soccer ball at that time to a basketball? It is obvious they played basketball with a soccer ball and made changes to it as the game evolves. But even the old improved basketballs were definitely closer to the old soccer balls than a modern day basketball.

Pinkhearts, you've confused me. I made a point about how players used soccer balls in the 40's when guys like Jerry West would have started playing. But I was wrong because they took soccer balls, put different seams on them and painted them brown. Now, you still couldn't really dribble it because it wasn't actually round until the 50's and I'm doubtfull that a young Jerry West had access to the latest sports 'technology' with everyone being poor and a freakin war on soo... I made this point.

How is it you read what I said and understood what I meant? Like, I've said the same things to other people and they fire back at me as if I'm stupid saying "OH NO! THEY CALLED THEM BASKETBALLS THEN TOO!" This is obviously right because I'm far too young and stupid to be able to even tell when someone is slow from watching multiple full games of them playing sports. Apparently black and white video tends to 'slow down' over time because as the intelligent wisemen here have stated you had to have watched these things in the 50's when the black and white images moved much faster.

Anyway, didn't you know they 'called' them basketballs then? God you must be 15 and stupid.

indiefan23

04-30-2009, 11:52 AM

In Wilt's final season in the league, when he was 35-36, his rebound rate was the same as Tim Duncan's career high ...

In Wilt's last season his opponent rate was a 6'8" gheorghe muresan and he played with a ridiculous 25 more possessions a game.

Mikaiel

04-30-2009, 11:57 AM

In Wilt's last season his opponent rate was a 6'8" gheorghe muresan and he played with a ridiculous 25 more possessions a game.

Rebound rate doesn't care about pace. Rebound rate = Percentage of available rebounds you grabbed. Let's say you were on the floor for 10 minutes. During that time there were 20 rebounds you could have grabbed, and you grabbed 5 of them. Then your rebound rate for that game was 5/20 = 25%. Pace is not part of the equation.

And Wilt's rebound rate in his final season is the same as Tim Duncan's career high (19.6). Are you certain it's a sure thing Duncan would outrebound Wilt ?

Niquesports

04-30-2009, 11:57 AM

Heh, I'm not young and I'm wondering who the ignorant one when you refer to your life being screwed up eating government cheese in the ghetto as a 'choice'.

Yea, KG could hold his own because the Western Conference bigs in 1996 cuz guys like Webber, Malone, Shaq, Dream, Robinson, Mutombo, Barkley... they were weak and sucked so hard. Good thing you are here to set me straight.

IT may not be a choice for a child that is raised in the "getto" but it is a choice when a individual lives a life style of crime and drugs.

indiefan23

04-30-2009, 12:02 PM

I didn't even bother ask him what 6'5 player averaged 40 ppg & 20 rpg.:rolleyes: Just too stupid to acknowledge.

I said approaching 40/20.

Elgin Baylor 6'5"

1962: 38.3 ppg, 18.6 RPG. 1.7 points and 1.4 boards is approaching. Baylor was 6'5".

Why should anyone listen when you don't even know the game's history?

So to point out the rebounding numbers of a 'relatively weak'(historically speaking) rebounder like Kareem in the late 80's when he was in his late 30's & retired at 41 or 42 years of age is ludicrous. But I am preaching to the choir.

He was in his prime and never injured. He pulled down 10 fewer boards then the 70s. Dream peaked at 14. At 33 he was 10.9. What happened was that in the 60's and 70's, in comparison to the 80's and 90's talent sucked and was concentrated into a few decent players.

Mikaiel

04-30-2009, 12:08 PM

What happened was that in the 60's and 70's, in comparison to the 80's and 90's talent sucked and was concentrated into a few decent players.

You know some teams in the 80's wanted Wilt to come out of retirement right ?

indiefan23

04-30-2009, 12:10 PM

IT may not be a choice for a child that is raised in the "getto" but it is a choice when a individual lives a life style of crime and drugs.

Ha, okay, cuz I'm sure you know what living in poverty and racism in the ghetto is all about, right home boy?

So when you're raised in the ghetto and totally disadvantaged and you're a kid its not your fault. But when you turn 18 and graduate high school the fact that you're a victim of slavery AND segregation AND both your parents were crack heads thats your fault as an individual. Man, thats CLASSY!

indiefan23

04-30-2009, 12:11 PM

You know some teams in the 80's wanted Wilt to come out of retirement right ?

I'm guessing that was early, early 80's. I think Wilt would have been a decent player today I just don't think he has his crazy rebounds or is far and away the best. At all. And by today, I mean 90's. Today's game is totally wack for comparing centers.

Mikaiel

04-30-2009, 12:16 PM

I'm guessing that was early, early 80's.

Early 80's and mid-80's ...

32jazz

04-30-2009, 12:23 PM

The 70's were a weak era and thats why people who were 6'5" almost averaged 40 ppg and 20 rpg.

You said the 70's (Kareem we were speaking of)you friggin idiot & that's a long way from 1962(Elgin Baylor) when we have all acknowledged that the pace of the game was much faster than it is today.

Again keep your idiocy confined to this thread.

indiefan23

04-30-2009, 02:33 PM

Rebound rate doesn't care about pace. Rebound rate = Percentage of available rebounds you grabbed. Let's say you were on the floor for 10 minutes. During that time there were 20 rebounds you could have grabbed, and you grabbed 5 of them. Then your rebound rate for that game was 5/20 = 25%. Pace is not part of the equation.

And Wilt's rebound rate in his final season is the same as Tim Duncan's career high (19.6). Are you certain it's a sure thing Duncan would outrebound Wilt ?

Yea, I'm pretty sure. Elgin Baylor at 6'5" pulled down 19.8 boards a game.

You don't seem to be hating on me though so lets actually talk about it. The thing is when people try to say the era wasn't weak they end up almost universally talking about maybe what, 10-20 guys over a 20 year period? Most don't even bring that much up: they bring up Wilt mostly, and its only because of his enormous stats, lets be honest people. Then there are sprinklings of Kareem, West, Russell and then they try to argue that it wasn't weak because a few players were men amongst boys. You can see people who think they were better honestly and start shouting massive stats at you saying Shaq would get owned by the 60's or 70's league.

But here's the point. Even if we give it to them, lets say all those stars could have played today and played great, theres still 100's of other people in the league they refuse to discuss. Greg Ostertag was a 7'2" mobile/defensive center who was totally solid. He wasn't great at all. He was a role player. So heres my question: where are the 7'2" talented role players in the 1960s? Increased size has been poo poo'ed by people stating that the average has only slightly gone up but in reality an increased average by only a few points indicates huge differences across the board.

So lets put the cut off at 1980 and use Ostertag as the borderline roleplayer/starter guy. He played just under 20 mintues a game so we'll use that as a marker and 1980 as the cut off date. All time there have been 196 players over 7 feet tall. Of players who played even a single game before 1980 there were 32 of them. Of those 32 there were 19 who played under 20 minutes. Since 1980 there have been 163 7 footers, not including people who even played a single game in the 70's. Of them 119 did not play 20 MPG.

So what does this say? Since 1980 there have been 131 more 7 foot ball players and 119 who couldn't really make the cut to be a starter as opposed to 32 and 19 spread over just under 30 years on each side. Now you can say that in the 60's there were less teams which is true. By 68 though there were 14 teams and a rival ABA successfully recruiting at least 4-5 teams worth of top tier talent.

So while the early years outweigh the later years lets take the numbers past 1980 and pretend a new league formed taking 50% of NBA talent away weakening this facet of the league by a factor of 2. This is after the fact of the handicap of no players who played in the 80's and 70's counting towards 1980 (11 players). I think that more then makes up for the smaller number of teams.

You still have almost 3 times at 83 of history's 7 footers and exactly 3 times those who can't even start let alone being a footer at 57. And thats only considering height. If you take weight into account it just goes off the charts.

So anyway, this is way longer then I'm sure you were expecting, but when yes, I think TD would have out rebounded Wilt. If you want to say late 90's was weakening when he got there I agree, so you can pick Olajuwon over TD if you want. Or even Ewing or Mutombo honestly. They played in a time when nearly every team had a footer and a footer backing him up on the bench. Wilt played in an era when a 6'5" guy could average 19.6 boards a game yet come in fourth behind Wilt and two other 6'9" guys.

I mean, in that year alone there was only two other 7 foot players. Walter Dukes who averaged only 25 minutes a game and Harvey Halbrook, who averaged a Whopping 0 minutes a game for his illustrious career.

Anyway, I'm a bit spent on this whole topic honestly. I promise you some old dude is going to come on here, tell me I don't understand the toughness of players back then even though people played defense with 2-3 feet in front of the guy and picked them up at the elbow of the key. That's in a finals game 7 BTW. Thats a problem with these guys too. Since theres a real lack of stats like pace or even blocks and steals, or wingspans, or vertical leap, or sprint times or anything there is no way to factually go look at how high someone could jump. Instead we get anecdotal evidence which is ALWAYS seen with rose coloured glasses as they think back to their heros performing what was then the apex of the sport, so they remember it as they experienced it thinking as they thought "wow! no one has ever played ball tougher then Bill Russell!"

Or some other totally unquantifiable quality like 'courage' or heart. As if with 100's of millions of kids all trying to make the NBA qualities like courage, heart and toughness with 0 explanation as to why those qualities would vanish in the face of 100's of millions more people in the world playing ball. Guess what: toughness, courage and heart worked then AND now the same way and still get the best players to the big leagues. I'm willing to put Ben Wallace's and KG's toughness against anyone. Kevin McHale knowingly and actively injured himself to help his team win a title.

Okay, I'm out of rant juice. I dunno, I spent some time trying to figure out those numbers. What do you think? Sorry to rant in response to you. Nothing personal at all. ;0

indiefan23

04-30-2009, 02:35 PM

You said the 70's (Kareem we were speaking of)you friggin idiot & that's a long way from 1962(Elgin Baylor) when we have all acknowledged that the pace of the game was much faster than it is today.

Again keep your idiocy confined to this thread.

Heh, man, the 70's were weaker then the 60's. There was this thing called the ABA that was half the size and had half of the best players?

indiefan23

04-30-2009, 02:37 PM

Early 80's and mid-80's ...

Whom? I seriously doubt anyone would sign a 48 year old Chamberlian for anything but a publicity stunt. But I'm interested.

indiefan23

04-30-2009, 02:38 PM

indiefan23

04-30-2009, 02:49 PM

Because big men today do not want to play,nor can they can play, the 'back to the basket' traditional Center position(not glamorus enough) as these fundamentally sound big men of yore.

Heh, I think a lot of that has to do with rule changes. That's not as effective at all as it used to be. Thats why post 04 in his prime Duncan stopped shooting so much let Parker/Manu score more. Center is a weaker position today for sure but I think the rules are also huge contributors to that.

indiefan23

04-30-2009, 02:50 PM

Could you imagine these same people would be criticizing the 'unathletic' Tim Duncan & swearing that he could not play with Shaq/Howard or today's big men if he had played in the 1970's. :rolleyes:

Heh, and who's ever called Tim Duncan unathletic? Good crap. TD has been a pure machine his entire career.

Niquesports

04-30-2009, 03:27 PM

Weak compared to the late 80's to 90's. Yup.

IF you are older than 35 I will respect your opinion because at the least you saw Centers like
kareem
Moses Malone
Unseld
Reed
Cowens
Sam LAcy
Bob Lanier
Walton
Alivn Adams
Jack Sikma
Play not to mention the Big bodies of Clifford Ray and Tom Bowinkile then after the merger you had Dan issell , Artis Gilmore and Billy patluz this just off the top of my head. But my point isnt if the 70's Centers were better than the 80's C but that they were better than todays C.

32jazz

04-30-2009, 04:48 PM

IF you are older than 35 I will respect your opinion because at the least you saw Centers like
kareem
Moses Malone
Unseld
Reed
Cowens
Sam LAcy
Bob Lanier
Walton
Alivn Adams
Jack Sikma
Play not to mention the Big bodies of Clifford Ray and Tom Bowinkile then after the merger you had Dan issell , Artis Gilmore and Billy patluz this just off the top of my head. But my point isnt if the 70's Centers were better than the 80's C but that they were better than todays C.

Willis Reed.
Nate Thurmond also registered the leagues first Quadruple double in 74(?)(official since blocks & steals weren't kept before around 73/74) & Wilt was winding down his career.

No doubt that the 'Centers' of the 60's/70's are better than Centers of today. I do admit the talent & ability at the swing positions(SG/SF) is definitely better today OVERALL than in the 60's/70's.

Artis Gilmore & Bob Lanier are considered second tier guys(in the overall 70's) ,but would dominate today.

I am out of here Nique. Too ridiculous.

Raindrops

04-30-2009, 05:06 PM

Yea, I'm pretty sure. Elgin Baylor at 6'5" pulled down 19.8 boards a game.

;0

Dennis Rodman averaged 16.1 boards a game at the age of 35, and he was listed at 6'7 and 210 pounds. Charles Barkley put up a 19 and 14 at the age of 33 and he was listed at 6'6 (and that was far from his best season). Corrected for pace those are very similar rates to Baylors, so was the late 90's a weak era?

juju151111

04-30-2009, 05:50 PM

Willis Reed.
Nate Thurmond also registered the leagues first Quadruple double in 74(?)(official since blocks & steals weren't kept before around 73/74) & Wilt was winding down his career.

No doubt that the 'Centers' of the 60's/70's are better than Centers of today. I do admit the talent & ability at the swing positions(SG/SF) is definitely better today OVERALL than in the 60's/70's.

Artis Gilmore & Bob Lanier are considered second tier guys(in the overall 70's) ,but would dominate today.

I am out of here Nique. Too ridiculous.
stats were inflated tho. Nobody is avg 50 and 25 today.

Sir Charles

04-30-2009, 07:11 PM

I didn't even bother ask him what 6'5 player averaged 40 ppg & 20 rpg.:rolleyes: Just too stupid to acknowledge.

But he points to an aging Kareem(who was 32/33 by 1980) & his falling rebound numbers of the late 80's to prove the 70's was a 'weak era' since Kareem dominated.

Kareem was hardly among the best five rebounders at his absolute peak against those so called 'weak Players' of the 1970's:rolleyes:

Top Rebounds per game(High rebound numbers are because of faster Pace of game & not ability of players):
1970
*Wilt -18.4- Injured most of season(Knee) but would have won it again
1)Hayes 16.9
2)Unseld 16.7
3)Kareem 14.5

1971
1) Wilt 18.6(on a ruined knee:pimp: barbarically repaired by todays standard)
2)Unseld-16.9
3)Hayes-16.6
4)Kareem -16

1972
1)Wilt-19.2
2)Unseld- 17.6
3)kareem-16

1973
1)Wilt-18.6
2)Thurmond-17.1
3)Cowens-16.2
4)Kareem-16.1

1974
1)Hayes-18.1
2)Cowens-15.7
3)McAdoo-15.1
4)Kareem

1975
1)Unseld-14.8
2)Cowens-14.1
3)Lachey-14.2
4)McAdoo-14.1
5)Kareem

1976
1)Kareem-16.9

1977
1)Walton-14.4
2)Kareem-13.3
3)Malone-13.1
4)Gilmore-13.0

1978
1)Truck Robinson-15.7
2)Malone-15.0
3)Cowens
4)Hayes
6)Gilmore-13.1
7)Kareem

1979
1)Malone
2)Kelley
3)Kareem
4)Gilmore-

Kareem could only muster about 4 top three RPG's finish & one(1) rebounding title at his absolute peak in the so called 'weak' 1970's:rolleyes: Wilt especially, & others used to criticize Kareem's relatively weak rebounding(compared to all time greats like Wilt). So to point out the rebounding numbers of a 'relatively weak'(historically speaking) rebounder like Kareem in the late 80's when he was in his late 30's & retired at 41 or 42 years of age is ludicrous. But I am preaching to the choir.

Kareem was a great rebounder...Not Better Wilt or Moses but he was well beyond just a good or average Rebounding Center. Then if you look at Kareem`s FG% EFFECTIVE SKILL SCORING...with his Sky Hook and Skilled Touch he was REALLLY the 1st Feneace center....and he shot way more effective on Hakeem ages 24-27 (and himself passed his prime ages 39-41) and made Hakeem lower his FG% (7`3 and Hakeem was not a banger liek Moses whom could weather you down he was also a Feneace Center).

Also when you look at Kareem`s rebounding number one must also realize that his physical prime was from 1969-70 to about 1981-82: he wasn`t the strongest (he was strong though!) and his leap, potence agilit etc wasn`t the same as the 70s....from the pics you can just tell.

Wilt would dominate Today

In the physical 80s with players rich in fundamentals-passing game-ball iq-court vision and teams packed with great role players and superstars per team he would dominate!: imagine building a team built on a Rebounder, Shot Blocker and Athletic Freak as Strong as Wilt with a Great Fadeaway to good with that.

Kareem in the late 90s and 2000s with current ruels it would be laughable..to control his SPEED AND SKILL SET. A 7`3 with the SKILL SET OF A SF! Shooting, Jump Shot, Hooks, Layups and Dunks...GO loo kat Kareem`s head nearly touching the basket on a rebound when he was 21-22 at 7`3!

:confusedshrug:

Niquesports

04-30-2009, 07:54 PM

Kareem was a great rebounder...Not Better Wilt or Moses but he was well beyond just a good or average Rebounding Center. Then if you look at Kareem`s FG% EFFECTIVE SKILL SCORING...with his Sky Hook and Skilled Touch he was REALLLY the 1st Feneace center....and he shot way more effective on Hakeem ages 24-27 (and himself passed his prime ages 39-41) and made Hakeem lower his FG% (7`3 and Hakeem was not a banger liek Moses whom could weather you down he was also a Feneace Center).

Also when you look at Kareem`s rebounding number one must also realize that his physical prime was from 1969-70 to about 1981-82: he wasn`t the strongest (he was strong though!) and his leap, potence agilit etc wasn`t the same as the 70s....from the pics you can just tell.

Wilt would dominate Today

In the physical 80s with players rich in fundamentals-passing game-ball iq-court vision and teams packed with great role players and superstars per team he would dominate!: imagine building a team built on a Rebounder, Shot Blocker and Athletic Freak as Strong as Wilt with a Great Fadeaway to good with that.

Kareem in the late 90s and 2000s with current ruels it would be laughable..to control his SPEED AND SKILL SET. A 7`3 with the SKILL SET OF A SF! Shooting, Jump Shot, Hooks, Layups and Dunks...GO loo kat Kareem`s head nearly touching the basket on a rebound when he was 21-22 at 7`3!

:confusedshrug:

Sir Charles I must admit we agree . WIlt would be everything D Howard is and more. a more consistant scorer and would not get outplayed by taller Centers.
Kareem would be doing everything yao is supposed to be doing on a night in night out basis IF kareem was playing to day you could bet he would have been past the first round several times

Sir Charles

04-30-2009, 08:03 PM

Sir Charles I must admit we agree . WIlt would be everything D Howard is and more. a more consistant scorer and would not get outplayed by taller Centers.
Kareem would be doing everything yao is supposed to be doing on a night in night out basis IF kareem was playing to day you could bet he would have been past the first round several times

Wilt`s Rebounding Capacity, Shooting Touch, B-Ball IQ, Passing Game, Stamina is way above Howard`s....way above..:rolleyes:

Yao?...Yao would get Owned by a Prime Kareem....:rolleyes:

Undertoday`s Rules Yao would get fouled out by the Second Quarter...

Kareem had trouble with bulky stocky players that could rebound..like Moses or Howard...but he would just settle for Scoring and Passing...like he did passed his pime in the 80s. Kareem`s Passing Game is Just Out of this World too and would get his teamates better involved than any big man. Only Duncan is compareble today in that aspect today.

Kareem = Most Offensively Skilled Center Ever...:bowdown:

Mikaiel

04-30-2009, 11:26 PM

Whom? I seriously doubt anyone would sign a 48 year old Chamberlian for anything but a publicity stunt. But I'm interested.

The Cavs in the early 80's and the Nets in the mid-80's. And I'm not sure it would have been a publicity stunt. Apparently, in the early 80's, he dominated a pick-up game that included NBA players, even Magic Johnson. He said something like "There will be no lay-ups in this gym" and then he blocked a ton of shots. Years after he retired, in his mid-40s ...

Yea, I'm pretty sure. Elgin Baylor at 6'5" pulled down 19.8 boards a game.

I've never said Elgin Baylor would be successful in today's league. Obviously he would be way too undersized. But that doesn't mean he wasn't a great rebounder. He was undersized even back then. Not every 6'5 guys pulled down that many rebounds. He was like a Dennis Rodman. Let's say Rodman played in that era and pulled down 25-28 rebounds. You'd say there would be no way he would dominate in the 90's, or that Hakeem, Robinson, Ewing or Mutombo would have done better. But he outrebounded every one of those guys. He won the rebounding title 7 straight years with those guys in the league, sometimes by a comfortable margin, even in his mid-30s and he was only 6'7.

The fact that Baylor was one of the greatest rebounders of his era doesn't mean it was a weak era or anything. Size isn't everything when it comes to rebounding. Just look at some recent dominating rebounders : Dwight Howard, Marcus Camby, Kevin Garnett, Ben Wallace, Dennis Rodman, Charles Barkley, Moses Malone. None of those guys are over 7 feet. And they each won at least one rebounding title. With guys significantly taller than them in the league. How many rebounding titles Yao Ming, Manute Bol or Gheorghe Muresan have ?

Wilt dominating the boards in his era had nothing to do with him being taller than most guys around him. Or else Yao would be dominating right now. Or Elgin Baylor would have lost the rebounding battle every single night. Wilt was just a great rebounder. Let me say it again : In his last season in the league, during the 72-73 season, his rebounding rate was the same as Tim Duncan's career high (19.6%). All right let's say the competition was easier then that it is now. He was 35-36 years old. Clearly not in his prime. So now take a prime Wilt. I suppose his rebounding rate goes significantly up (there's no data for this). High enough to offset the difference in level of competition between then and now. There's nothing you can say that can prove Duncan would outrebound Wilt.

Have you seen some clips of Wilt ? The guy would be one of the most, if not THE most, athletic guys in the league. Do you really think he could play today and not dominate ? At least on the boards ? The 2nd and 3rd best rebounder in terms of rebounds per game this year were Troy Murphy and David Lee ... In rebound rate, they finished 4th and 7th. Kevin Love finished 2nd. Do you really think Wilt couldn't do better than that ?

32jazz

05-01-2009, 05:23 PM

I've never said Elgin Baylor would be successful in today's league. Obviously he would be way too undersized. But that doesn't mean he wasn't a great rebounder. He was undersized even back then. Not every 6'5 guys pulled down that many rebounds. He was like a Dennis Rodman. Let's say Rodman played in that era and pulled down 25-28 rebounds. You'd say there would be no way he would dominate in the 90's, or that Hakeem, Robinson, Ewing or Mutombo would have done better. But he outrebounded every one of those guys. He won the rebounding title 7 straight years with those guys in the league, sometimes by a comfortable margin, even in his mid-30s and he was only 6'7.

The fact that Baylor was one of the greatest rebounders of his era doesn't mean it was a weak era or anything. Size isn't everything when it comes to rebounding. Just look at some recent dominating rebounders : Dwight Howard, Marcus Camby, Kevin Garnett, Ben Wallace, Dennis Rodman, Charles Barkley, Moses Malone. None of those guys are over 7 feet.

Wilt dominating the boards in his era had nothing to do with him being taller than most guys around him. Or else Yao would be dominating right now. Or Elgin Baylor would have lost the rebounding battle every single night. Wilt was just a great rebounder. Let me say it again : In his last season in the league, during the 72-73 season, his rebounding rate was the same as Tim Duncan's career high (19.6%). All right let's say the competition was easier then that it is now. He was 35-36 years old. Clearly not in his prime. So now take a prime Wilt. I suppose his rebounding rate goes significantly up (there's no data for this). High enough to offset the difference in level of competition between then and now. There's nothing you can say that can prove Duncan would outrebound Wilt.

Have you seen some clips of Wilt ? The guy would be one of the most, if not THE most, athletic guys in the league. Do you really think he could play today and not dominate ? At least on the boards ? The 2nd and 3rd best rebounder in terms of rebounds per game this year were Troy Murphy and David Lee ... In rebound rate, they finished 4th and 7th. Kevin Love finished 2nd. Do you really think Wilt couldn't do better than that ?

:applause:

Only four(4) true 7 footers have even won rebound titles in the Leagues history:eek: :

Wilt(11 or 12)
Kareem(1)
Robinson(1)
Mutumbo(2 ?)

Height/size isn't the only thing involved in rebounding(ask Dennis Rodman).

Even at 19 rebounds per game in'61 Baylor was still not a top three rebounder when it came to boards per game:confusedshrug: A very good rebounder ,but not dominate like Wilt/Russell.

Not much else to add to that post.

indiefan23

05-02-2009, 02:51 AM

The Cavs in the early 80's and the Nets in the mid-80's. And I'm not sure it would have been a publicity stunt. Apparently, in the early 80's, he dominated a pick-up game that included NBA players, even Magic Johnson. He said something like "There will be no lay-ups in this gym" and then he blocked a ton of shots. Years after he retired, in his mid-40s ...

Hmm... I dunno man. Its totally possible of course. I think Bill Simmons wrote about this phenomenon though. Its a little wishy washy but there's a lot to it. If I played MJ would I embarrass my childhood idol and remind him that while he's the GOAT now he's a broken down old man shell of who is not relevant anymore? I wouldn't. Could Nique get layups on a 48 year old Wilt. I think so. When you play old men or children you show some class. Not to say its impossible, but at 45 your body has broken down. I still think thats a stunt.

I've never said Elgin Baylor would be successful in today's league. Obviously he would be way too undersized. But that doesn't mean he wasn't a great rebounder. He was undersized even back then. Not every 6'5 guys pulled down that many rebounds. He was like a Dennis Rodman. Let's say Rodman played in that era and pulled down 25-28 rebounds. You'd say there would be no way he would dominate in the 90's, or that Hakeem, Robinson, Ewing or Mutombo would have done better. But he outrebounded every one of those guys. He won the rebounding title 7 straight years with those guys in the league, sometimes by a comfortable margin, even in his mid-30s and he was only 6'7.

Yea, but Dennis focused only on boarding. Don't get me wrong: he's one of my fav players ever and maybe one of the most under rated ever. For a guy to approach a 40/20 season at 6'5", yea, I think Baylor could absolutely play in the NBA's peak. But what would his numbers be like? Remember that Baylor was in 5'th at almost 20 boards a game so for being a great rebounder he was average. Lets look at Rodman's best season on the bulls in 96/97. He pulled down 16.1 boards. #2 was Mutombo at 11.6. That year Wilt had 27.2 boards.

So if we were to translate Rodman's proportion to that season he will have averaged 16.1/11.6*27.2=37.7 boards a game. Wilt pulled down 27.2 BPG and because of that I recgonize he was massively above his era and I give him credit as one of the few players who could contribute in a significant way to the NBA at it's 90's peak. If Rodman was averaging almost 38 rebounds a game and outclassing his competition to that level. Could Rodman pull down almost 40 a game then? Probably. Wilt had 27.2 playing almost 13 more minutes and 25 more possessions against mostly undersized competition.

If Wilt gets credit for approaching 30, Rodman absolutly gets cred for 40 and I'm sure there are people who will say I'm assuming Wilt is second and the way I did it is dubious. They've got a point, but it won't be nearly as strong as they think.

Even if you only adjust for minutes alone, not the 25 extra possessions OR the incredibly weaker/undersized competition, Wilt's numbers come down to 20.14 BPG which is only 4 rebounds off what Rodman did in the 90's when only adjusting for their minutes. Likewise if Rodman played 47.8 minutes he would have grabbed 25 boards a game in 96.

Rodman is the best rebounder of all time and if he went back he would destroy Wilt, I'm sorry to say. If not in head to head matchups (though I doubt this: Rodman owned Shaq on multiple occasions) then statistically it would be pure and raw ownage and I would look at his play and numbers and say "yea, that guy could board in today's league."

But a big thing is that rebounding wasn't really the same in those days. Watch the tape and they're not even really boxing out on free throws or put a body on bigs in the paint. Also who can play 48 minutes a game today? When you're defending players like Allen Iverson you're going to pick up fouls. I always thought that never fouling out was Wilt's greatest acomplishment. Then I saw tape and realized that with players not really boxing out or playing physicial defense or DWade types crashing into the lane it really was not that big a deal.

And like I was saying, while you admit players then would have difficulty there's lots of people in this thread who claim not only that they'd be able to be the same, but that they'd be better then today's players.

The fact that Baylor was one of the greatest rebounders of his era doesn't mean it was a weak era or anything. Size isn't everything when it comes to rebounding. Just look at some recent dominating rebounders : Dwight Howard, Marcus Camby, Kevin Garnett, Ben Wallace, Dennis Rodman, Charles Barkley, Moses Malone. None of those guys are over 7 feet. And they each won at least one rebounding title. With guys significantly taller than them in the league. How many rebounding titles Yao Ming, Manute Bol or Gheorghe Muresan have ?

Yea, but they're all an inch or two away with the exception of Barkley who was a ridiculously strong player. A 6'5" guy getting 20 boards indicates that size didn't matter so much and if not that then at least the stats are inflated. My whole point was that Yao, Gheorghe and Bol probably could have pulled off rebounding titles in the 70's but had no shot later. Across the board its evened out.

Wilt dominating the boards in his era had nothing to do with him being taller than most guys around him.

Sorry, I watch the game. Wilt is taller and people are not even attempting to force him out of the lane. He jumped, reaches over top and because he was the only one up there he grabbed the ball. His size had everything to do with it. You can see him doing this countless times on the tape.

Or else Yao would be dominating right now. Or Elgin Baylor would have lost the rebounding battle every single night. Wilt was just a great rebounder. Let me say it again : In his last season in the league, during the 72-73 season, his rebounding rate was the same as Tim Duncan's career high (19.6%).

I'm not even suggesting he was bad. I'm just saying his stats are inflated. At that time the ABA was kicking up and he still outsized everyone. I don't even care if Kareem was in the league. I mean, how blatantly stupid an argument is that? Kareem was in the eastern conference so Wilt played him twice a year for 4 years. Guys on this thread are raging about how dumb I am based on the fact that Wilt and Kareem matched up 8 times out of Wilt's 1045 NBA games and I don't think that means much. I mean, I've heard people spount ad nauseam that Wilt went against greats such as Kareem, Unseld and Dave Cowens, 3 others from the top 5 that year. But in reality Wilt only faced those guys 6 times total out of 82 games each year.

All right let's say the competition was easier then that it is now. He was 35-36 years old. Clearly not in his prime. So now take a prime Wilt. I suppose his rebounding rate goes significantly up (there's no data for this). High enough to offset the difference in level of competition between then and now. There's nothing you can say that can prove Duncan would outrebound Wilt.

Where are you getting Wilt's rebound rate from anyway? I didn't think stats on rebound % existed then. Unless you mean per 36 minutes, but if you do Wilt's per minute stats are not as good as Duncans anyway. soo.....

I think you're understating competition here. I'm 6'2". When I'm playing people who are like, 5'11" I can own them. When Wilt was 7'1", athletic and the league's premier boarders were 6'5-6'9", its a MASSIVE difference. I dunno, I saw Duncan totally handle Shaq on both ends of the floor. I see no reason why he wouldn't do freakishly better in a league so much slower and less athletic then he is.

Have you seen some clips of Wilt ? The guy would be one of the most, if not THE most, athletic guys in the league. Do you really think he could play today and not dominate ? At least on the boards ? The 2nd and 3rd best rebounder in terms of rebounds per game this year were Troy Murphy and David Lee ... In rebound rate, they finished 4th and 7th. Kevin Love finished 2nd. Do you really think Wilt couldn't do better than that ?

I think he could play today, sure. But he's not more athletic then Shaq. He's not more athletic then Camby in his prime. He's has nothing close to Dream's polish. He played a leauge of players who mostly would not make the NBA today. In today's (or 90's, is what I mean most) league you can jump out of the gym and be 7 feet, but if you're latteral movement is slow you'll get killed so you ride pine. The margin of error is so slim. For bigs the pounding they put on their bodies so much me intense. The training so much more scientific. Would Wilt 'dominate'?

I don't think so. I think he'd be good. If we put Wilt into a time machine and stuck him in a game vs prime Shaq this is what would happen. Shaq's enormously powerful and agile ass attached to his 350 lb body would swing back and knock Wilt into the stands and Wilt would wonder what in the name of hell just happened cuz people just didn't do that to him before. No one tried and no one in the history of the game was even capable.

And since I've had all these bull crap 'character' arguments thrown at me, I'm going to say he'd be much worse. Wilt, if anything, was an egomaniac. How would 'he' react to the pressures and temptations of being a massive celebrity, being offered movie deals, asked to present grammys, staring in commercials and generally making 1000's of times the amount of cash any normal person makes instead of just a few times it? I know what would happen. He would fold. Wilt claimed he slept with 20,000 women and you think he's going to handle all that attention? Wilt would go Kanye West in about 1 year and be enormously distracted. Its not a knock, he's just human. In all honestly, its probably those things that got to him before that prevented him from winning more titles.

indiefan23

05-02-2009, 03:00 AM

IF you are older than 35 I will respect your opinion because at the least you saw Centers like
kareem
Moses Malone
Unseld
Reed
Cowens
Sam LAcy
Bob Lanier
Walton
Alivn Adams
Jack Sikma
Play not to mention the Big bodies of Clifford Ray and Tom Bowinkile then after the merger you had Dan issell , Artis Gilmore and Billy patluz this just off the top of my head. But my point isnt if the 70's Centers were better than the 80's C but that they were better than todays C.

I'll give you today's centers but add the caveat that with the rule changes we really don't know what they'd be like. Those were so drastic: they're altered who's a good center to the point where being really big is a limiting factor. Agility is much more important as you can't camp out in the lane anymore. Yao for instance would have been MUCH more signifigant in the 90's and 80's. His size in 2000's hurts him. Are the 70's centers better then today's? I'm not sure because the postiion of center has changed almost to a power forward as the league has essentially forced everyone to play some style of small ball.

indiefan23

05-02-2009, 03:04 AM

:applause:

Only four(4) true 7 footers have even won rebound titles in the Leagues history:eek: :

Wilt(11 or 12)
Kareem(1)
Robinson(1)
Mutumbo(2 ?)

Height/size isn't the only thing involved in rebounding(ask Dennis Rodman).

Even at 19 rebounds per game in'61 Baylor was still not a top three rebounder when it came to boards per game:confusedshrug: A very good rebounder ,but not dominate like Wilt/Russell.

Not much else to add to that post.

Hmm... so of the 16 7 footer boarding titles you're telling me that 13 of them, or 81%, occurred when I'm saying being big while everyone else was small inflated your stats? Thanks for joining the team 32 Jazz.

PS: I hate Karl Malone. ;0

indiefan23

05-02-2009, 03:08 AM

My fellow wise man, this be all but the mere creedence of thought which thou shan't allow to all but cease to exist. Alas, this be the mere soul of the unwise man whom Dwight Howard be considered to most dominant player in league history to.

http://www.insidehoops.com/forum/showthread.php?t=129071&page=9

Ye 'ol Abe. Thou dost not read the disclaimer print. Ye be a dumb ass.

Disclaimer:

3. Only having access to stats from 1986 on I know this leaves players out of the mix. Honestly however basketball before this time was a different game. Sorry if it offends you but Wilt and Russel would not be anywhere near the players they were after 1986 on. That's my opinion I suppose, and I cede that on sheer dominance, Wilt would blow Dwight away on these lists, but I litterally don't have the resources to show that era's stats or I would. So this is really just about the more modern era of ball. On with it!

indiefan23

05-02-2009, 03:12 AM

No doubt that the 'Centers' of the 60's/70's are better than Centers of today. I do admit the talent & ability at the swing positions(SG/SF) is definitely better today OVERALL than in the 60's/70's.

Heh, wow. Okay, so if that's so much better do you really think Wilt stays on the court for 48 minutes a game? I don't at all and its a big part of why I don't think Wilt's performance against slow guards who can't jump or dribble counts for as much as you're saying. Not only could other centers not out rebound Wilt, but guards had almost 0 chance. Today, MJ or Carter would be able to get up to Wilt's level and snatch boards, get fouls. I don't know what the net effect of that is on Wilt's game but this thread is comprised mostly of people who say it would have no effect at all.

indiefan23

05-02-2009, 03:14 AM

Mikaiel

05-02-2009, 03:42 AM

Hmm... I dunno man. Its totally possible of course. I think Bill Simmons wrote about this phenomenon though. Its a little wishy washy but there's a lot to it. If I played MJ would I embarrass my childhood idol and remind him that while he's the GOAT now he's a broken down old man shell of who is not relevant anymore? I wouldn't. Could Nique get layups on a 48 year old Wilt. I think so. When you play old men or children you show some class. Not to say its impossible, but at 45 your body has broken down. I still think thats a stunt.

Have you seen how ridiculously in shape Wilt was ? The man ran in a marathon and a 50-mile race when he was 60 years old ...

Rodman is the best rebounder of all time and if he went back he would destroy Wilt,

I've never said I thought Wilt was a better rebounder than Rodman. I think Rodman is the best rebounder of all time, and also one of the most underrated player ever.

Sorry, I watch the game. Wilt is taller and people are not even attempting to force him out of the lane. He jumped, reaches over top and because he was the only one up there he grabbed the ball. His size had everything to do with it. You can see him doing this countless times on the tape.

So if size mattered that much, how come Baylor was a good rebounder back then ? By your logic, taller guys should have come up with the ball more often than not ...

I don't even care if Kareem was in the league. I mean, how blatantly stupid an argument is that? Kareem was in the eastern conference so Wilt played him twice a year for 4 years. Guys on this thread are raging about how dumb I am based on the fact that Wilt and Kareem matched up 8 times out of Wilt's 1045 NBA games and I don't think that means much. I mean, I've heard people spount ad nauseam that Wilt went against greats such as Kareem, Unseld and Dave Cowens, 3 others from the top 5 that year. But in reality Wilt only faced those guys 6 times total out of 82 games each year.

WTF ? :wtf: What kind of an argument is that ? You do know Wilt outrebounded Kareem when they played together right ? They played against the same competition, and he was pulling down more rebounds. While clearly out of his prime. And Kareem was in physical prime too. The "he only played against him twice a year" argument doesn't make any sense. Shaq only faced Hakeem twice a year when he was in the East. Dwight only plays Duncan or Yao twice a year. Dwight actually has more games against Jeff Foster, Zaza Pachulia, Kendrick Perkins, Andrew Bogut or Brendan Haywood than against Shaq, Duncan or Yao. So what ?

Where are you getting Wilt's rebound rate from anyway?

http://www.basketball-reference.com/

Unless you mean per 36 minutes

That stat doesn't rely on pace or minutes played.

But he's not more athletic then Shaq. He's not more athletic then Camby in his prime. He's has nothing close to Dream's polish.

1. Shaq didn't have anything close to Dream's polish, but Shaq was arguably the better player. No one can come close today to Kobe's polish, but LeBron is considered just as good as him or even better by a lot of people. Same thing with Wade.

2. I don't really like to talk about athleticsm. There are so many variables. So many different ways you can be considered athletic. How are you supposed to compare Jordan's athleticsm to Shaq's for example ? Or Jordan's and LeBron's ? What matters is that they all could do dominate the game physically, and Wilt could do it too. There's never been a guy like Wilt in this league. He was strong as hell, could run like crazy, had incredible stamina, could jump out of the gym. What more do you want ?

3. Not more athletic than prime Camby ? WTF ?

Manute for Ever!

05-02-2009, 03:50 AM

Indiefan23,

Are you just trying to increase your post count by posting 10 straight posts in the one thread? Just put it all in one post. :banghead:

Sir Charles

05-02-2009, 04:28 AM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=849_WdqJ8o8&feature=related

:bowdown:

Manute for Ever!

05-02-2009, 04:30 AM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=849_WdqJ8o8&feature=related

:bowdown:

Can you just get it all out of the way in one ****ing Wilt thread?!? Did you just find out about him or something?:mad: :banghead:

32jazz

05-02-2009, 05:07 AM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=849_WdqJ8o8&feature=related

:bowdown:

My absolute favborite sequence is at 2:28 & 2:38. Here Wilt rejects Kareems skyhook back to back in one(1) possession.

Most centers Karrem played (Olajuwon/Ewing/Parish....) would be lucky to get their hands on Kareem's shyhook once in their careers let alone twice(2) in one sequence & that was an older/injured Wilt.

Wilt would also hold most Blocked shot records had they kept the stat when he was playing. They only starting keeping it the season after he retired unfortunately.

db23

05-02-2009, 05:19 AM

Shame Wilt played like ass in the playoffs, where its gets tough, only averaging 22ppg and winning 2 chips.

32jazz

05-02-2009, 05:22 AM

Shame Wilt played like ass in the playoffs, where its gets tough, only averaging 22ppg and winning 2 chips.

Winning two finals MVP's?:rolleyes:

db23

05-02-2009, 05:25 AM

Winning two finals MVP's?:rolleyes:

Nobody belongs in Goat talks with only 2 chips.

Kebab Stall

05-02-2009, 05:30 AM

There's a couple of goaltendings in there, but overall a very fun mix to watch.

32jazz

05-02-2009, 05:35 AM

Nobody belongs in Goat talks with only 2 chips.

Where in this thread was he called GOAT B***ch? :confusedshrug:

There are other threads if you wish not to speak of Wilt's 'shot blocking abilities' which is what this thread is about.

You've been a good troll.:applause: Now Go away.

32jazz

05-02-2009, 05:50 AM

There's a couple of goaltendings in there, but overall a very fun mix to watch.

Goaltending rules did seem to be a bit more liberal(if we go by these clips only) during that time, didn't they? I don't know if these 'goaltends'(by todays standards) on the video were exceptions or the rule?

Although Wilt was also exceptional at cherry picking the ball at it's peak some were definitely descending at the time he blocked them.

No matter he was obviously(from most accounts) the most intimidating shot blocker in history & would no doubt own most Blocked shot records had they been kept.

db23

05-02-2009, 05:55 AM

Where in this thread was he called GOAT B***ch? :confusedshrug:

There are other threads if you wish not to speak of Wilt's 'shot blocking abilities' which is what this thread is about.

You've been a good troll.:applause: Now Go away.

Dont get upset,namecalling in a debate is a sign of Low IQ.He isnt in GOAT discussions, thats all.

Niquesports

05-02-2009, 09:53 AM

Hmm... what do you base that on? Which bigger centers did Wilt ever play against?

Heh, if Kareem had to put as much strain on his body as Yao did, and Kareem had 3 serious injuries because of that in his first 6 years playing, are you making this point now? Yep, I thought so. I mean, come on. You guys don't even try to make sane analogizes.

Why the excuses Yao has yet to play at the level that kareem has and this is against weak peers. You cant look at some tape and say hey this guy is bigger faster stronger than that guy so he must be better. How many players were bigger faster and stronger could jump higher than Bird,Magic,Barkley,isiah Thomas yet these players with IQ heart skill and will were able to out perform there opponent.This is the point with Russ and Wilt against today sCenters.

Psileas

05-02-2009, 09:59 AM

My own favorite is the one at 0:35-0:36. It happened during the 1957 NCAA final and it was the block that kept the score tied and sent the game into one of the 2 overtimes. The shooter seems to be at least 8 feet away from Wilt when the ball left his handsm and he wasn't even his personal opponent.

I agree to an extend with Manute that all the Wilt topics made by the same person and have the same reason should be merged, else they get tired. The same though should happen about similar topics about every retired legend.

db23, you're simply trolling and trying to piss people off with your 1-liners. Although I have you on ignore, you're still annoying because a lot of others don't and when it comes to topics like these you have absolutely nothing to offer but vandalize them with the same off-topic, tired crap all over again. I (and others) hate certain things like hip-hop, but we don't enter topics devoted to hip-hop just to say "yeah, you guys talk about hip-hop, too bad hip-hop sucks". You don't think Wilt is in the discussion for GOAT? We don't care. We've read/heard opinions of people who actually have a reason to talk and they are diametrically opposite to yours. After all, there are also people who think that the earth is flat, that the cosmos is 6,000 years old, etc, so extreme ignorance exists everywhere, and it only manages to convert simpletons and piss off normal people.

Psileas

05-02-2009, 10:05 AM

plowking

05-02-2009, 10:22 AM

Winning two finals MVP's?:rolleyes:

He has one.

indiefan23

05-02-2009, 10:29 AM

Indiefan23,

Are you just trying to increase your post count by posting 10 straight posts in the one thread? Just put it all in one post. :banghead:

I dunno, I just click reply and reply to people. Sorry if that hurts you somehow.

db23

05-02-2009, 10:51 AM

indiefan23

05-02-2009, 12:00 PM

Have you seen how ridiculously in shape Wilt was ? The man ran in a marathon and a 50-mile race when he was 60 years old ...

Yea, but running is an endurance sport. Basketball is an explosive agility sport. You don't really lose things like a slow heart rate as you age. Thats why soccer players last into their 40's: cuz its all running, where ball players are done in their early 30's.

I've never said I thought Wilt was a better rebounder than Rodman. I think Rodman is the best rebounder of all time, and also one of the most underrated player ever.

We agree there big time. I'm not saying you said it though: I'm saying that there was no Rodman's in Wilt's era to grab those boards from him. Its not even that: rebounding was so non-physicial then.

So if size mattered that much, how come Baylor was a good rebounder back then ? By your logic, taller guys should have come up with the ball more often than not ...

Cuz Elgin could jump and get up there. My logic is not restricted to size. If you're athletic its going to help. If you're big its going to help. If you're smart its going to help. Nate Robinson is smaller then me but I know he's out board me cuz his vertical is 48"'s. In that era having one of those 3 things would get you lots of boards. At the NBA's peak in the 90's with so much competition there were/are plenty of big players who were smart and were also athletic. As for today's players: I'm not really sure what I think of centers today. Its in a low period for sure but I think we need a few more years to figure out what the league is exactly.

I know I don't agree that slower older centers would be able to dominate. Today's center needs agility more then ever because relative to a pre-2004 center they constantly play out of position. For a guy like Wilt that might make it easier for him... like I said I'm not sure. I'll have to think about it more.

WTF ? :wtf: What kind of an argument is that ? You do know Wilt outrebounded Kareem when they played together right ? They played against the same competition, and he was pulling down more rebounds. While clearly out of his prime. And Kareem was in physical prime too. The "he only played against him twice a year" argument doesn't make any sense. Shaq only faced Hakeem twice a year when he was in the East. Dwight only plays Duncan or Yao twice a year. Dwight actually has more games against Jeff Foster, Zaza Pachulia, Kendrick Perkins, Andrew Bogut or Brendan Haywood than against Shaq, Duncan or Yao. So what ?

Well, its relevant. Only 3 players from the top 10 in Wilt's last season played in his conference. Positions 1, 2 and 10. If one conference has all the good rebounders its easier for you. I admit I didn't put a whole lot of thought into it, but Kareem didn't play against the same competition but played against stronger comp.

Either way, the point I'm making is not that there was no one else good. Its just that most everyone else was not good and it inflated those few good guy's stats. The league evolved and rosters filled out so that a few guys wern't dominating everyone else. Ie: just like I've been saying: competition is much better. Theres more parity. Look at this list for 1961.

and compare it to 1991, 30 years later.

1961
1. Wilt Chamberlain*-PHW 27.2
2. Bill Russell*-BOS 23.9
3. Bob Pettit*-STL 20.3
4. Elgin Baylor*-LAL 19.8
5. Bailey Howell*-DET 14.4
6. Walter Dukes-DET 14.1
7. Willie Naulls-NYK 13.4
8. Dolph Schayes*-SYR 12.2
9. Red Kerr-SYR 12.0
10. Wayne Embry-CIN 10.9
11. Johnny Green-NYK 10.7
12. Clyde Lovellette*-STL 10.1
13. Oscar Robertson*-CIN 10.1
14. Tom Heinsohn*-BOS 9.9
15. Rudy LaRusso-LAL 9.9
16. Tom Gola*-PHW 9.4
17. Cliff Hagan*-STL 9.3
18. Paul Arizin*-PHW 8.6
19. Phil Jordon-TOT 8.5
20. Jack Twyman*-CIN 8.5

1991
1. David Robinson*-SAS 13.0
2. Dennis Rodman-DET 12.5
3. Charles Oakley-NYK 12.1
4. Karl Malone-UTA 11.8
5. Patrick Ewing*-NYK 11.2
6. Brad Daugherty-CLE 10.9
7. Robert Parish*-BOS 10.6
8. Benoit Benjamin-TOT 10.3
9. Otis Thorpe-HOU 10.3
10. Derrick Coleman-NJN 10.3
11. Blair Rasmussen-DEN 9.7
12. Buck Williams-POR 9.4
13. Dominique Wilkins*-ATL 9.0
14. Bill Laimbeer-DET 9.0
15. James Donaldson-DAL 8.9
16. Lionel Simmons-SAC 8.8
17. Kevin Willis-ATL 8.8
18. Larry Smith-HOU 8.8
19. Larry Nance-CLE 8.6
20. Horace Grant-CHI 8.4

In 1961 there were a few people grabbing lots of boards. Wilt led the first five places by (2) 3 (3) 7 (4) 8 (5) 13 boards. The 7'th place guy was getting less then half of Wilt's boards and the 20'th place guy was getting a less then a third.

In 1991 Robinson led the top five players by (2) 0.5 (3) 0.9 (4) 1.2 (5) 1.8 boards. The 20'th place guy is getting well over half of the leader, Robinson, and the 7'th place guy is grabbing about 82% of Robinson's total.

I mean, you don't reach a player who got half of Robinson's until you hit about player 50-75. You hit that guy at player # 7 in 1961. Alvin Attles who's around 50 in 61 got 2.8 BPG which translates to I'm not sure how that's competitive. For competition to exist you need players who are able to compete on your level and clearly almost no one was on Wilt's level and there were plenty on everyone's level in the 90's. Parity. One thing that I know from playing with people in Asia: playing with lots of people who are not on your level sure makes you look better then you are.

So you're asking why does Wilt get higher percentages? I say its because his compeititon is not as good as he is. They're also not as good as TD in his prime by a long shot. TD also played PF in his prime with Robinson focusing on getting boards and defense all which very significantly deflated his numbers. TD in his prime would have been an absolute terrifying monster in the 60's. Again, there's no way to prove these things, but with his ridiculous footwork I'd imagine upwards of 30 boards at least.

That stat doesn't rely on pace or minutes played.

1. Shaq didn't have anything close to Dream's polish, but Shaq was arguably the better player. No one can come close today to Kobe's polish, but LeBron is considered just as good as him or even better by a lot of people. Same thing with Wade.

Hmm... not if your arguing with me. Dream was much better then Shaq. Shaq was lazy and didn't commit to D. If all you consider is scoring average, which is not that important a center stat anyway and which Dream was better at in either case, you can make that argument. Young Shaq in his first two years was awesome. Had he kept developing instead of got lazy he could have been the best ever.

Note on Kobe. I don't think his game is that polished. Its not really complete. I can think of other guards who are better then him at most everything. His post up game (Kobe's real weakness) is nothing compared to Jordan's. His jumper is inferior to Ray Allen's. His mid-range game is inferior to Dwayne Wade's. His team play/defense is inferior to Bron's and Wade's. His penetration is inferior to a lot of players. He does a great job of putting it all in one package, but his all around game is still not as good as Lebron's/Jordan's/Wade's.

Kobe can hit the three pretty well. But hitting 3's is not really that important for a 2 guards (PG's/shooters should care about that) which is why players like MJ/Wade don't really focus on it. I credit Kobe with improving every year. Even this year he's a much better player then last year. He's really taken a leap this year I think. But he's still not very good at understanding how to let a team's offense flow through him and defers to Gasol the same way he used to defer to Shaq. Which makes sense anyway since Pau Gasol might be the best player ever aside from Sabonis to run the triangle through. The lake show looks strong this year man and again to Kobe's credit, I think its because he has accepted the most effective role he can play on the team.

2. I don't really like to talk about athleticsm. There are so many variables. So many different ways you can be considered athletic. How are you supposed to compare Jordan's athleticsm to Shaq's for example ? Or Jordan's and LeBron's ? What matters is that they all could do dominate the game physically, and Wilt could do it too. There's never been a guy like Wilt in this league. He was strong as hell, could run like crazy, had incredible stamina, could jump out of the gym. What more do you want ?

3. Not more athletic than prime that ? WTF ?

Well, yea, but like I pointed out before there was no one else his size who could do anything like that. Camby if you forget was an athletic monster in his prime. A MONSTER. Teams in the east were retooling their rosters specifically because they had absolutely no answer for him.

Check this awesome game out...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sn3eiVcPF60

Anyway, whether you dislike or love Camby, I don't think you should take it as such an insult that he's my comparison point for Wilt. Cuz I know for an absolute, undebateable fact that I LOVE MARCUS CAMBY. I loved him in college. I loved him in Toronto. i loved him in NYC. I loved him in Denver. I loved him even this year on that crappy Clippers team. I've watched Wilt play lots and if he played today I think that's how they'd use him. Big athletic guy with speed can be a key contributor on a serious team.

I just disagree that he would dominate. I don't see it. Every concieveable aspect of his game has been improved on and the league has gotten much, much more physicial and bigger. Maybe if you used the 'if he were trained today' argument but I don't think its really valid. Training and natural ability make athletes who the players they are. Yea, if Wilt was trained better, he would be a better athlete and a better player and he would do better in the more competitive league. But he wasn't and that player I see on ESPN classic would be a shell of who he was in the 60's which was a player bigger then the game itself. To the point where he didn't really win but was considered far and away the best anyway. That's really my point.

And I'd just like to add that you seem pretty rationale. The Wilt Garbage That Has To Stop is not that. Its people who claim he would show all these young 'whipper snappers' a thing or two about how to play the game. He could play. He'd probably be decent. But he wouldn't come in and school Shaq in his prime based on the merit of schooling vastly inferior player in his own prime. It just doesn't cut it.

indiefan23

05-02-2009, 12:12 PM

Why the excuses Yao has yet to play at the level that kareem has and this is against weak peers. You cant look at some tape and say hey this guy is bigger faster stronger than that guy so he must be better. How many players were bigger faster and stronger could jump higher than Bird,Magic,Barkley,isiah Thomas yet these players with IQ heart skill and will were able to out perform there opponent.This is the point with Russ and Wilt against today sCenters.

I'm not convinced at all that Kareems peers were stronger then Yao's. Although I'm not sure. I don't think we have enough information yet after the rule changes that affected the center position so much and that Yao plays under. Its a much bigger change to the game then like, widening the lane or whatever and allows your opponent to much more easily deal with a traditionally dominant center.

And where does this notion that Magic/Bird/Thomas/Barkley wern't great athletes come from? Man, they were incredible athletes. Bird/Barkley were not strong? Magic wasn't big? Thomas was slow? ;0

Barkley could still jump 40"'s despite his weight. Magic used his speed/coordination/strength at his size to routinely overpower opposing points and guarded 4 positions. Thomas was fast as **** and coordinated as hell. Bird was strong as an ox and for his size could run fast forever. He was also 100% ambidextrous and could shoot 3's with both hands. I think this notion exists because MJ came in an athletically dominated everyone in every way but come on already... they were smart players but they were elite gifted athletes as well.

indiefan23

05-02-2009, 12:15 PM

Dennis Rodman averaged 16.1 boards a game at the age of 35, and he was listed at 6'7 and 210 pounds. Charles Barkley put up a 19 and 14 at the age of 33 and he was listed at 6'6 (and that was far from his best season). Corrected for pace those are very similar rates to Baylors, so was the late 90's a weak era?

No, they were just way freaking better then Elgin Baylor.

Niquesports

05-02-2009, 12:23 PM

I'm not convinced at all that Kareems peers were stronger then Yao's. Although I'm not sure. I don't think we have enough information yet after the rule changes that affected the center position so much and that Yao plays under. Its a much bigger change to the game then like, widening the lane or whatever and allows your opponent to much more easily deal with a traditionally dominant center.

And where does this notion that Magic/Bird/Thomas/Barkley wern't great athletes come from? Man, they were incredible athletes. Bird/Barkley were not strong? Magic wasn't big? Thomas was slow? ;0

Barkley could still jump 40"'s despite his weight. Magic used his speed/coordination/strength at his size to routinely overpower opposing points and guarded 4 positions. Thomas was fast as **** and coordinated as hell. Bird was strong as an ox and for his size could run fast forever. He was also 100% ambidextrous and could shoot 3's with both hands. I think this notion exists because MJ came in an athletically dominated everyone in every way but come on already... they were smart players but they were elite gifted athletes as well.

I think all would agree they were gifted basketball players but against there peers I would not rank either very high athletically. Would you rank Bird as great an athelet as Dominique Barkley as gifted an athlet as Larry lance Michael Cooper was a better athlet than Magic and they were on the same team. I would agree that Barkley might be the best ahtelt of the players I named if he was only as determined as MJ to be at top shape.

Mikaiel

05-02-2009, 12:43 PM

Yea, but running is an endurance sport. Basketball is an explosive agility sport. You don't really lose things like a slow heart rate as you age. Thats why soccer players last into their 40's: cuz its all running, where ball players are done in their early 30's.

Well, just call me when another NBA 7 footer runs a marathon when they're 60. Obviously you're not impressed so it must be pretty common.

Well, its relevant. Only 3 players from the top 10 in Wilt's last season played in his conference. Positions 1, 2 and 10.

Only 3 guys but that includes the top 2. In the end it even things out. And an extra 2 games isn't a big deal. Let's say it is. Then you can make the argument those other guys in the top 10 are there just because Wilt was in the other conference so he couldn't take rebounds away from them. Just like the No.2 and No.3 guy.

So you're asking why does Wilt get higher percentages? I say its because his compeititon is not as good as he is. They're also not as good as TD in his prime by a long shot. TD also played PF in his prime with Robinson focusing on getting boards and defense all which very significantly deflated his numbers. TD in his prime would have been an absolute terrifying monster in the 60's. Again, there's no way to prove these things, but with his ridiculous footwork I'd imagine upwards of 30 boards at least.

And if Duncan played in the 60's and got that many boards, we'd be arguing right now because you'd think there would be no way he would dominate in the 90's.

Hmm... not if your arguing with me. Dream was much better then Shaq. Shaq was lazy and didn't commit to D. If all you consider is scoring average, which is not that important a center stat anyway and which Dream was better at in either case, you can make that argument. Young Shaq in his first two years was awesome. Had he kept developing instead of got lazy he could have been the best ever.

Hakeem was a better player overall, but I think a prime Shaq was more dominant than a prime Hakeem. But that's another debate.

Note on Kobe. I don't think his game is that polished. Its not really complete. I can think of other guards who are better then him at most everything. His post up game (Kobe's real weakness) is nothing compared to Jordan's. His jumper is inferior to Ray Allen's. His mid-range game is inferior to Dwayne Wade's. His team play/defense is inferior to Bron's and Wade's. His penetration is inferior to a lot of players. He does a great job of putting it all in one package, but his all around game is still not as good as Lebron's/Jordan's/Wade's.

All I wanted to say was LeBron or Wade had holes in their games, sometimes pretty big ones. Kobe doesn't. He's not elite in every aspect of his game, but he's got no real weaknesses. His post game is not as good as Jordan's ? Well that's like saying he can't rebound like Rodman ... His post game is good enough.

I just disagree that he would dominate.

I'm not saying he could play a game against prime Shaq and humiliate him. But I just don't see how he could be anything less than a Dwight Howard if he played today. He would still dominate physically. He'd be in the top 2 most athletic players today. Or even in the 90's. Any era. He would be a 7'1 Dwight Howard. I don't care if you think the 60's and 70's were a weak era, the fact is Kareem played against the exact same competition, and he couldn't do some of the things Wilt did. Even though Wilt was in his 30's. So maybe Kareem was not that good then ? Then I guess Hakeem wasn't good either, because Kareem played extremely well against him. But then that means Robinson, Shaq, Zo and Mutombo are all crappy players.

Psileas

05-02-2009, 03:25 PM

WTF ? :wtf: What kind of an argument is that ? You do know Wilt outrebounded Kareem when they played together right ? They played against the same competition, and he was pulling down more rebounds. While clearly out of his prime. And Kareem was in physical prime too. The "he only played against him twice a year" argument doesn't make any sense. Shaq only faced Hakeem twice a year when he was in the East. Dwight only plays Duncan or Yao twice a year. Dwight actually has more games against Jeff Foster, Zaza Pachulia, Kendrick Perkins, Andrew Bogut or Brendan Haywood than against Shaq, Duncan or Yao. So what ?

You don't even have to go there, because, once again, the stats he's posted are blatantly wrong. Because Wilt faced Kareem a total of 17 times in the regular season (plus 11 in the playoffs), not 4 or 6 or whatever he wrote. Hayes and Unseld come 1 season before Kareem and, knowing that in this era, Eastern and Western teams faced each other in a much more balanced number of times compared to nowadays, it's a safe bet that he faced Hayes and Unseld even more times in the reg.season.

32jazz

05-02-2009, 03:26 PM

BTW, a few of them really are goaltending violations. However, we can't know from the video whether they were whistled or now. For example, from the games I've watched, I remember the plays at 0:44 and 1:08 having been whistled, though it doesn't show here. Defensive goaltending was banned way before Wilt.

I was wondering whether or not that was the case. Happens on these compilations routinely when a great play is highlighted ,but it was actually an illegal shot,dunk,block,etc,......

I still like the agression while the ball is in the air as it gave opponents something to think about as they entered the paint. Altered many opponent shots I am certain.

To me he is perhaps unofficially the NBA's all time shot blocker just as he was unofficially the 1967 finals MVP.(Although I'm not too excited over awards)

Psileas

05-02-2009, 03:28 PM

OK, out of curiosity, I searched a bit and Wilt faced Hayes 19 times up to 1972, while in '73 he played 4 games against the Bullets, a team that featured Hayes and Unseld.

Sir Charles

05-02-2009, 04:38 PM

I think all would agree they were gifted basketball players but against there peers I would not rank either very high athletically. Would you rank Bird as great an athelet as Dominique Barkley as gifted an athlet as Larry lance Michael Cooper was a better athlet than Magic and they were on the same team. I would agree that Barkley might be the best ahtelt of the players I named if he was only as determined as MJ to be at top shape.

Could Larry Nance jump off 1 foot straight up and under the basket (on one leg) at 284 lbs?

Nance was 6`11 205 lbs (rougly later in his career 235 lbs) but silky-light...etc...another type of built to Barkley fluctuated between 252 and 284 lbs most of his career but he felt his deal weight was 260-265 lbs (he felt weaker below that)

But my friend athletic Capacity Most Also Involve Potence, Torso Strength, Legg Strength and especially Interior/Natural Strength...Barkley`s Natural/Interior Strength was Off the Charts (even his coach in Phily mentioned that Charles was the Strongest Player, naturally he ever coached) and Top of All Time.

Don`t give me the nice looking muscle tone that weight lifting adds bull: rolleyes: ...that just adds to your Natural/Interior strength! but nothing can change your Natural/Interior strength initially (only vitamins from your teens till about 21 years of age)

Also Bird was quite fast for your average 6`9 1/2 er (average) ofcourse not the fastest of ones, he was quick, great 1st step etc

What Bird did not have was POTENCE...but who gives a f-u-c-k.. if you can Shoot like a SG!, Post up (very strong according to weight-thick boned aswell *See Rodman for that) almost in PF style!, Pass and See The Court like a PG!, Play the Game with BOTH HANDS! (what players today can?) and Won`t Go There With His Overall Skills, Fakes, Court Awareness, Timing, Anticipation, B-Ball IQ, Fundamentals etc...HIS WHERE JUST UNCOMPARABLE to Any Player today...

Bird had more of a SG-PG way of Playing (Skill Wise) with PF Post Up Skills and Rebounding than a your typical Pure Sliky, Fast and Leaping SF :rolleyes:

Sir Charles

05-02-2009, 04:40 PM

I'm not convinced at all that Kareems peers were stronger then Yao's. Although I'm not sure. I don't think we have enough information yet after the rule changes that affected the center position so much and that Yao plays under. Its a much bigger change to the game then like, widening the lane or whatever and allows your opponent to much more easily deal with a traditionally dominant center.

And where does this notion that Magic/Bird/Thomas/Barkley wern't great athletes come from? Man, they were incredible athletes. Bird/Barkley were not strong? Magic wasn't big? Thomas was slow? ;0

Barkley could still jump 40"'s despite his weight. Magic used his speed/coordination/strength at his size to routinely overpower opposing points and guarded 4 positions. Thomas was fast as **** and coordinated as hell. Bird was strong as an ox and for his size could run fast forever. He was also 100% ambidextrous and could shoot 3's with both hands. I think this notion exists because MJ came in an athletically dominated everyone in every way but come on already... they were smart players but they were elite gifted athletes as well.

:applause:

Exactly recently a couple of months I watched Larry Bird Sports Century and when he was being signed by the Celtics...he was writing with his LEFT HAND...What does that make you think?

nbastatus

05-02-2009, 04:50 PM

wilt thinks he could score 70 points in this era.

indiefan23

05-02-2009, 05:02 PM

Well, just call me when another NBA 7 footer runs a marathon when they're 60. Obviously you're not impressed so it must be pretty common.

Uh, its impressive but has no bearing on 'can he ball at 48' which I'm saying no, he can't.

Only 3 guys but that includes the top 2. In the end it even things out. And an extra 2 games isn't a big deal. Let's say it is. Then you can make the argument those other guys in the top 10 are there just because Wilt was in the other conference so he couldn't take rebounds away from them. Just like the No.2 and No.3 guy.

I don't think it works that way. Wilt and Nate make up what, 15 games together? That's not enough to bring the averages of every other west big down that much. The best boarders were in the east which created parity. In the west were two elite rebounders and the rest who they cleaned up on.

And if Duncan played in the 60's and got that many boards, we'd be arguing right now because you'd think there would be no way he would dominate in the 90's.

If Duncan played in an era where they didn't box out in the NBA finals yea, I would be arguing that his stats were inflated and his dominance were an indication of it's weakness. I would also be saying he would have a tough time dominating in the 90's because in the 90s Tim Duncan DID NOT DOMINATE! He was one of the best of a huge crop of fantastic players.

TD will be a hall of famer but would Wilt make it? His game was not as polished as Duncan's because he spent the majority of his career playing against people who couldn't sniff his jock without being dominated by him. He's great for doing it but because of that I just see holes in his game. Competition raises your game and makes you a better player. Thats why they sent Yao to play in the NBA: because they knew he would never be able to compete at a higher level if he stayed in China.

Duncan did have that competition his whole career. Watch this NBA finals:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KTOPU5SvtIQ&feature=related

And tell me you see anything resembling Dwight Howard or Duncan. Or tell me you see someone like Iverson that Wilt has to try to defend in the paint and not pick up fouls against. Its just not there and it make's Wilt's game weak because when you see him play you can just tell how raw and undeveloped it is. He didn't have the advantages Duncan did, but thats a big reason why Duncan is better.

Heres the 1967 east finals and its still not much better.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVtr2t7SvFE

I'm seen lots of rookies who's games looked more developed honestly. And its not so much Wilt's fault as the game hadn't developed much yet. I mean, its the finals and they're giving people 2 feet of space and not boxing out for boards and the defense is just not sophisticated. Wilt is 30 here btw and already nearing the end of his prime. I mean, Wilt's size advantage as he catches a lob pass over the top and dunks on someone is present in nearly every single scoring/defensive play and the fact its pretty obvious.

Side note: Nice dunk on Russel at 1:20 though. That's vicious!

Hakeem was a better player overall, but I think a prime Shaq was more dominant than a prime Hakeem. But that's another debate.

He averaged more points. I think thats it.

All I wanted to say was LeBron or Wade had holes in their games, sometimes pretty big ones. Kobe doesn't. He's not elite in every aspect of his game, but he's got no real weaknesses. His post game is not as good as Jordan's ? Well that's like saying he can't rebound like Rodman ... His post game is good enough.

I don't think his post game is good enough at all. When Kobe gets pushed he lives and dies by the 3 because under tough defenses he really has nothing else unless someone else initiates the offense for him. And when he does get aggressively defended his passing/creating game is crazy weak too as he just seems to have issues making the right decision as opposed to jackin up some 3 pointer while being triple teamed. His shot selection has improved steadily but again he always has and probably always will force way too many shots. Lastly Kobe is a totally 100% lackluster leader. I don't know how many times I've seen him scowl at teammates but you can just tell from body language he has difficulty getting along with his teammates and you can tell from how he behaves that he doesn't make much of an attempt to correct it and create a winning attitude on his team. And I consider that a big part of a star athlete's game. I'm sorry, I honestly hate Kobe. He's really improved these past couple years though so I begrudgeingly give him credit. Kobe's problem: he's figuring out things at 30 he should have picked up when he was 23.

[qutoe]I'm not saying he could play a game against prime Shaq and humiliate him. But I just don't see how he could be anything less than a Dwight Howard if he played today. He would still dominate physically.[/quote]

Dude, how would he? Prime Shaq daddy is the same height, 75 pounds heavier and has so much more game in him. How would he box out Shaq for rebounds when he really didn't box out anyone for anything? Litterally, someone would have to take Wilt aside and show him where to put his feet and how to move his ass backward to force the other player out of the lane. How is that guy going to drop in a game and dominate Shaquille O'Neal?

He'd be in the top 2 most athletic players today. Or even in the 90's. Any era. He would be a 7'1 Dwight Howard. I don't care if you think the 60's and 70's were a weak era, the fact is Kareem played against the exact same competition

After the ABA merger Kareem never had more then 13 RPG. Still in his prime in the 80's he never averaged more then 10 RPG in 80-81. After that his boards declined to 8.7 and 7.5. Did he suck? Not really: he just was not the best rebounder in the league for the most part and the scrubs he and Wilt made a killing off of were drying up. He was getting old but that's hardly the whole story. He spent the rest of his career around the 6 RPG mark.

and he couldn't do some of the things Wilt did. Even though Wilt was in his 30's. So maybe Kareem was not that good then ? Then I guess Hakeem wasn't good either, because Kareem played extremely well against him. But then that means Robinson, Shaq, Zo and Mutombo are all crappy players.

Uh, yea, Kareem also was on the best team in basketball. But lets check it out. Before 86 I'm guessnig Hakeem probably had about twice the boards/blocks/steals as their averages suggest. I'm guessing since they nearly swept the Lakers to the finals in 85-86 Kareem wasn't overly effective there. 86 on Dream basicly handed it to him. 20 boards to 4... ouch.

http://www.basketball-reference.com/fc/h2h_finder.cgi?request=1&p1=abdulka01&p2=olajuha01

I 'love' Hakeem. :)

indiefan23

05-02-2009, 05:03 PM

wilt thinks he could score 70 points in this era.

Do you think he could? How about sleep with 100,000 women?

indiefan23

05-02-2009, 05:10 PM

:applause:

Exactly recently a couple of months I watched Larry Bird Sports Century and when he was being signed by the Celtics...he was writing with his LEFT HAND...What does that make you think?

Well, it tells me he eats and writes with his left hand (like many people who use both hands equally do) but because I'm not an idiot I know that he plays right handed hover is 'ambidexterous' like I said in my post. It makes me think that Larry Bird spent a summer dribbleing/shooting every single day with his left to make sure he could use it to play just as much as his right... cuz thats what he did.

You're a joke Sir Charles.

indiefan23

05-02-2009, 05:12 PM

OK, out of curiosity, I searched a bit and Wilt faced Hayes 19 times up to 1972, while in '73 he played 4 games against the Bullets, a team that featured Hayes and Unseld.

So 19 games out of 1045? I'm not impressed. The NBA was 'full' of scrubs. Thats why he averaged 3 times the boards as teh guy in 20'th and twice as many as 7'th.

Younggrease

05-02-2009, 05:14 PM

wilt thinks he could score 70 points in this era.

and he would be correct.

Psileas

05-02-2009, 05:24 PM

So 19 games out of 1045? I'm not impressed. The NBA was 'full' of scrubs. Thats why he averaged 3 times the boards as teh guy in 20'th and twice as many as 7'th.

19 of the 257 actually that he played between the seasons 1969-72, when he faced solely Hayes. And another 4 of 82 in '73, when he faced the combined duo of Hayes-Unseld.

Niquesports

05-02-2009, 05:40 PM

Could Larry Nance jump off 1 foot straight up and under the basket (on one leg) at 284 lbs?

Nance was 6`11 205 lbs (rougly later in his career 235 lbs) but silky-light...etc...another type of built to Barkley fluctuated between 252 and 284 lbs most of his career but he felt his deal weight was 260-265 lbs (he felt weaker below that)

But my friend athletic Capacity Most Also Involve Potence, Torso Strength, Legg Strength and especially Interior/Natural Strength...Barkley`s Natural/Interior Strength was Off the Charts (even his coach in Phily mentioned that Charles was the Strongest Player, naturally he ever coached) and Top of All Time.

Don`t give me the nice looking muscle tone that weight lifting adds bull: rolleyes: ...that just adds to your Natural/Interior strength! but nothing can change your Natural/Interior strength initially (only vitamins from your teens till about 21 years of age)

Also Bird was quite fast for your average 6`9 1/2 er (average) ofcourse not the fastest of ones, he was quick, great 1st step etc

What Bird did not have was POTENCE...but who gives a f-u-c-k.. if you can Shoot like a SG!, Post up (very strong according to weight-thick boned aswell *See Rodman for that) almost in PF style!, Pass and See The Court like a PG!, Play the Game with BOTH HANDS! (what players today can?) and Won`t Go There With His Overall Skills, Fakes, Court Awareness, Timing, Anticipation, B-Ball IQ, Fundamentals etc...HIS WHERE JUST UNCOMPARABLE to Any Player today...

Bird had more of a SG-PG way of Playing (Skill Wise) with PF Post Up Skills and Rebounding than a your typical Pure Sliky, Fast and Leaping SF :rolleyes:

Why is it that this is the only place where nobodies know more than people that played the game been around the game and covered the game. I have never read any article heard an interview or seen with my own eye anything that would prove Bird or Barkley to be incredible athlets WHy is it that when ever someone makes a point on a player people on ISh take it as an insult to that player.Bird could do many things but few will remember him as a great athelet Great Basketball player yes

Simple Jack

05-02-2009, 05:48 PM

A 6'2" White SG couldn't be a star but a 5'11 165 lb Black SG can win 4 scoring titles and average 30PPG several times?

http://www.cavsnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2006/12/AllenIverson.jpg Look at how athletic

People have grossly overrated the athleticism of today and it's impact on the game. If size/athleticism was the only prerequisite for success in the NBA, then guys like Jason Richardson and Josh Smith would be sure-fire hall of famers. Also, most players in this era don't even use their size correctly. Zydrunas Ilguaskas is what 7'6"? When was the last time you saw him in the post? The guy's purely a jump shooter and he isn't an anomally, he's the norm. Oversized, soft jump-shooting big men who want nothing to do with banging down low and playing tough... that's today's NBA.

And why on earth wouldn't Bill Russel be the same defensive force he was back then? I mean Ben Wallace (6'9" same height as Russell) had a string of seasons where he averaged 13+ RPG and 2-3 BPG.... playing CENTER. Some of the best defensive players in this decade are some of the more unathletic players in the game- Tim Duncan, Bruce Bowen, Shane Battier, etc.

In summary, SKILL>>>>>>>ATHLETICISM

You're right, and Allen Iverson is more skilled than Jerry West was. Watching West try to guard Iverson would be funnier than a Chappelle show skit.

And Russell wouldn't be the same because he's not playing against undersized, unathletic players with a fraction of the skill and strategies players have/know now.

Simple Jack

05-02-2009, 05:50 PM

and he would be correct.

No.

Niquesports

05-02-2009, 05:50 PM

So 19 games out of 1045? I'm not impressed. The NBA was 'full' of scrubs. Thats why he averaged 3 times the boards as teh guy in 20'th and twice as many as 7'th.

Voters for the 50 Greatest Players in NBA History

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (player), Marv Albert (media), Al Attles (team), Red Auerbach (team), Elgin Baylor (team), Dave Bing (player), Larry Bird (team), Marty Blake (team), Fran Blinebury (media), Bill Bradley (player), Hubie Brown (team), Wilt Chamberlain (player), Mitch Chortkoff (media), Bob Cousy (player), Billy Cunningham (team), Chuck Daly (team), David DuPree (media), Wayne Embry (team), Julius Erving (player), Joe Gilmartin (media), Sam Goldaper (media), Alex Hannum (team), Lester Harrison (team), John Havlicek (player), Chick Hearn (media), Red Holzman (team), Phil Jasner (media), Earvin Johnson (player), John Kerr (player), Leonard Koppet (media), Bob Lanier (player), Frank Layden (team), Leonard Lewin (media), Jack McCallum (media), Dick McGuire (team), George Mikan (player), Bob Pettit (player), Harvey Pollack (team), Jack Ramsay (team), Willis Reed (team), Oscar Robertson (player), Bill Russell (player), Bob Ryan (media), Dolph Schayes (player), Bill Sharman (player), Gene Shue (team), Isiah Thomas (team), Wes Unseld (team), Peter Vecsey (media), Jerry West (team)

Kareem
Moses
Wilt
Russ
Pettit
Cowens
Reed
DeBusschere
Thurmond
Unseld
Hayes
Walton
Lucas

These players from the 60's and 70's were pick by the above I guess they dont agree with you that the NBA was full of "scurbs" in the 60's and 70's but Im sure you know more about basketball than these nobodies

Simple Jack

05-02-2009, 06:42 PM

Voters for the 50 Greatest Players in NBA History

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (player), Marv Albert (media), Al Attles (team), Red Auerbach (team), Elgin Baylor (team), Dave Bing (player), Larry Bird (team), Marty Blake (team), Fran Blinebury (media), Bill Bradley (player), Hubie Brown (team), Wilt Chamberlain (player), Mitch Chortkoff (media), Bob Cousy (player), Billy Cunningham (team), Chuck Daly (team), David DuPree (media), Wayne Embry (team), Julius Erving (player), Joe Gilmartin (media), Sam Goldaper (media), Alex Hannum (team), Lester Harrison (team), John Havlicek (player), Chick Hearn (media), Red Holzman (team), Phil Jasner (media), Earvin Johnson (player), John Kerr (player), Leonard Koppet (media), Bob Lanier (player), Frank Layden (team), Leonard Lewin (media), Jack McCallum (media), Dick McGuire (team), George Mikan (player), Bob Pettit (player), Harvey Pollack (team), Jack Ramsay (team), Willis Reed (team), Oscar Robertson (player), Bill Russell (player), Bob Ryan (media), Dolph Schayes (player), Bill Sharman (player), Gene Shue (team), Isiah Thomas (team), Wes Unseld (team), Peter Vecsey (media), Jerry West (team)

Kareem
Moses
Wilt
Russ
Pettit
Cowens
Reed
DeBusschere
Thurmond
Unseld
Hayes
Walton
Lucas

These players from the 60's and 70's were pick by the above I guess they dont agree with you that the NBA was full of "scurbs" in the 60's and 70's but Im sure you know more about basketball than these nobodies

That's not how you make a point dude. If I find a single ex-nba player, preferably a great, saying something outlandish and stupid, I can claim it as truth because he played in the NBA and none of us did?

Regardless, these players' greatness should be examined not how they would do across eras, but how they played within their own.

indiefan23

05-03-2009, 01:20 AM

and he would be correct.

That's funny. He's going to score 25% more then his best season playing 30% fewer possessions and fewer minutes? Logic is a ***** huh.

zay_24

05-03-2009, 01:24 AM

List of bigmen I would take over wilt:
Shaq
Hakeem
Kareem
Mose Malone
Karl Malone
Barkley
Tim Duncan

indiefan23

05-03-2009, 01:24 AM

Voters for the 50 Greatest Players in NBA History

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (player), Marv Albert (media), Al Attles (team), Red Auerbach (team), Elgin Baylor (team), Dave Bing (player), Larry Bird (team), Marty Blake (team), Fran Blinebury (media), Bill Bradley (player), Hubie Brown (team), Wilt Chamberlain (player), Mitch Chortkoff (media), Bob Cousy (player), Billy Cunningham (team), Chuck Daly (team), David DuPree (media), Wayne Embry (team), Julius Erving (player), Joe Gilmartin (media), Sam Goldaper (media), Alex Hannum (team), Lester Harrison (team), John Havlicek (player), Chick Hearn (media), Red Holzman (team), Phil Jasner (media), Earvin Johnson (player), John Kerr (player), Leonard Koppet (media), Bob Lanier (player), Frank Layden (team), Leonard Lewin (media), Jack McCallum (media), Dick McGuire (team), George Mikan (player), Bob Pettit (player), Harvey Pollack (team), Jack Ramsay (team), Willis Reed (team), Oscar Robertson (player), Bill Russell (player), Bob Ryan (media), Dolph Schayes (player), Bill Sharman (player), Gene Shue (team), Isiah Thomas (team), Wes Unseld (team), Peter Vecsey (media), Jerry West (team)

Kareem
Moses
Wilt
Russ
Pettit
Cowens
Reed
DeBusschere
Thurmond
Unseld
Hayes
Walton
Lucas

These players from the 60's and 70's were pick by the above I guess they dont agree with you that the NBA was full of "scurbs" in the 60's and 70's but Im sure you know more about basketball than these nobodies

Um, being a 'great' player is done by being great compared to your peers. You have no point. Find me Greg Ostertag riding the pine in the 60's. If someone of Ostertag's caliber was in the 60's you'd have just listed him for me. Next.

indiefan23

05-03-2009, 01:25 AM

List of bigmen I would take over wilt:
Shaq
Hakeem
Kareem
Mose Malone
Karl Malone
Barkley
Tim Duncan

I think I would add Howard/Robinson/prime Webber too.

zay_24

05-03-2009, 01:30 AM

I think I would add Howard/Robinson/prime Webber too.
Good Idea, I forgot about Robinson, But wilt fanboys would start crying if somone would take Webber over Wilt.

indiefan23

05-03-2009, 01:30 AM

That's not how you make a point dude. If I find a single ex-nba player, preferably a great, saying something outlandish and stupid, I can claim it as truth because he played in the NBA and none of us did?

Regardless, these players' greatness should be examined not how they would do across eras, but how they played within their own.

I totally agree. Does Jerry West deserve to be in the hall of fame even though he couldn't hang with some of today's players? Absolutely: the guy was great and the reason so many players today are great.

I just think its silly how some people get carried away and think the talent of the guy they watched 50 years ago is comparable to today when the game has grown so much. If you were to insert West into last year's draft I wonder what round he goes in. The longer this thread goes on the list of things you have to ignore to maintain that belief gets.

indiefan23

05-03-2009, 01:52 AM

Good Idea, I forgot about Robinson, But wilt fanboys would start crying if somone would take Webber over Wilt.

Webber in his prime was an absolute monster. His game was so polished and he was so athletic/mobile. He'd kill Wilt. I mean, they seem to have this notion that Wilt's athleticism is comparable to today and list all these stats from when Wilt trained specifically for track and weighed nothing soaking wet. If Webber didn't hurt his knee he would be considered an all time super great.

A big part of the issue people don't mention either is the lack of stats to base comparisons on. As a fan its way too easy to look at film of your favorite player myopically and happen to not see their poor lateral movement of small vertical. Today all that stuff is measured but when you go back its all anecdotal. Wilt is more then he was. He arm wrestled strong men. Benched 600 pounds. Had a 50+ inch vertical and slept with 20,000 women. Today he would score 70 points a game.

Another part of this is look at those injuries. Wilt/Kareem/Russell really didn't have a serious injury when they played for the vast majority of their careers. Wilt hurt his knee but the league's more forgiving margin of error didn't really punish him for it much. Russel and Kareem didn't get hurt in a combined 36 years of play. I just don't see careers like that anymore cuz the demands put on your body and what you have to put out to win is so much greater.

indiefan23

05-03-2009, 02:09 AM

19 of the 257 actually that he played between the seasons 1969-72, when he faced solely Hayes. And another 4 of 82 in '73, when he faced the combined duo of Hayes-Unseld.

I thought I was being nice. So you want to include more seasons when the comp was even weaker?

32jazz

05-03-2009, 03:40 AM

I thought I was being nice. So you want to include more seasons when the comp was even weaker?

Are you a retard? You told me the 60's were better than the 70's due to the ABA?

Now the 60's are inferior to the 70's ?Make your point:confusedshrug: .I can quote you.

momo

05-03-2009, 04:46 AM

- Most of that era's players actually played with soccer balls

Wut?

This is when they are playing soccer for kicks between basketball games? Or ... what? Huffing paint? Did players do that back then? Please help me understand, because I am pretty much sure you hyperspaced right then.

momo

05-03-2009, 04:56 AM

...

You're a serious poster? Explain to me how in the 40's when that era started playing basketball (with soccer balls) the world populat...

You're a serious poster? Explain WTF you are talking about with this soccer ball silliness.

40's ball.
http://www.antiqueathlete.com/vintage-basketball-memorabilia.shtml
http://www.antiqueathlete.com/antique-basketball/leather-basketball-laceless.jpg

Niquesports

05-03-2009, 06:45 AM

Um, being a 'great' player is done by being great compared to your peers. You have no point. Find me Greg Ostertag riding the pine in the 60's. If someone of Ostertag's caliber was in the 60's you'd have just listed him for me. Next.

Too bad others dont agree IF Greg played today he be the second best Center behind Howard.

OutOfPlace

05-03-2009, 07:23 AM

Bodhi

05-03-2009, 08:15 AM

indiefan23

05-03-2009, 09:11 AM

Are you a retard? You told me the 60's were better than the 70's due to the ABA?

Now the 60's are inferior to the 70's ?Make your point:confusedshrug: .I can quote you.

Sure quote me.

He pointed out that the talent was weakerwas that it was waeker. I think the ABA made the 70's weaker but the ABA was around for 3 years of the 60's as well and that overlaps that time. Did the ABA's success in the late 60's .5 of the 70's offset the development in player's skills? I'm not sure 100% which weakness was greater to be honest. In the 60's people had no athleticism but in the 70's half the good players/teams in the world never played eachother cuz they were in two separate watered down leagues. I think both eras are a crap shoot of competition for various reasons.

Maybe instead of nit picking, nay saying and making excuses you should actually acknowledge that I've made a wack, and I mean a whole bunch, of absolutely solid points. Focusing only on nit picks only shows how little you have to stand on. This is a forum, not a thesis dissertation.

indiefan23

05-03-2009, 09:13 AM

Chamberlame was an unathletic stiff who would get merked the f*ck out by today's centers. Yao, Howard, Shaq and even Bogut, Okafor etc would be way too much for him to handle due to their superior size, strength and skills.

People will slam you for being a 'whippersnapper' or something for having that attitude. I say how can a player compete at the highest level when Darko Milicic knows how to box out better then you do, but you don't understand: Wilt arm wrestled strong men and ran marathons in his 50's. So maybe now you understand why that would make him dominate now, right? ;0

indiefan23

05-03-2009, 09:18 AM

I only read about half of this thread, but all I saw was the Wilt supporters posting list after list of statistics trying to prove that he'd be a star in today's league while ignoring every video of him actually playing.

Watch the videos. Basketball today isn't even comparable to basketball from the 60s and 70s. The game has improved so much that they look like different sports.

Thanks. I was starting to think I was crazy or that all the time I've spent learning about this game didn't count. I suggested that its not the same game at all, its like different sports and they just jumped all over me for being young and stupid. Of which I'm neither. I just don't understand how Wilt dominates a league in which he's one of the only players who dunks in a finals game and players don't box out on free throws.

I mean, they pretend that size and athleticism don't count and say as much. Then they say that Magic/larry/chuck/isiah were bad athletes who won with their basketball IQ. Except those players are the best to ever play the game and were fantastic athletes. In comparison to them the 50's/60's guys look like original nintendo to xbox 360.

They learned to play with soccer balls. Its all so crazy.

Psileas

05-03-2009, 09:25 AM

I thought I was being nice. So you want to include more seasons when the comp was even weaker?

How were you being nice since you once again tried to underplay his competition and you made the false point that Wilt faced Kareem, Hayes and Unseld 4-6 times in his career each? I included the seasons these specific players played altogether. Even if I included other seasons, things wouldn't change a lot. When Kareem didn't exist, Russell did, and Wilt faced Russell many more times even than Kareem.

I only read about half of this thread, but all I saw was the Wilt supporters posting list after list of statistics trying to prove that he'd be a star in today's league while ignoring every video of him actually playing.

Who posted Wilt videos to make certain points? That's right, Wilt supporters.
Who were the only persons who pretended to be unimpressed by them? Certain guys who had their agenda fixed beforehand. Read the general comments on these videos or in the videos Sir Charles posted in his threads and you'll see that people who were impressed included a lot more than his (very few in this board) "fanboys". Actually pretty much anyone not belonging to the same category with indiefan23.

Watch the videos. Basketball today isn't even comparable to basketball from the 60s and 70s. The game has improved so much that they look like different sports.

Who cares? We're comparing the greatness of players, not the form and evolution of the game, which, in big part depends on coaches, doctors, gymnasts, etc. Basketball today is different compared to the 80's as well (the form of 80's basketball was actually closer to 70's basketball than 00's), but I don't see anyone dare to mention it and try to belittle its protagonists. Also, watch the 40's game and compare it to 60's. Again, different game. The game changes all the time. Peoples' greatness remains. Eras matter a lot less than achievements. Your avatar depicts someone who lived 2000 years ago, so make the connection.

db23

05-03-2009, 09:38 AM

indiefan23

05-03-2009, 10:43 AM

You're a serious poster? Explain WTF you are talking about with this soccer ball silliness.

40's ball.
http://www.antiqueathlete.com/vintage-basketball-memorabilia.shtml
http://www.antiqueathlete.com/antique-basketball/leather-basketball-laceless.jpg

Ha, lets read the caption.

ITEM 6: 1940

Psileas

05-03-2009, 10:54 AM

Or Jerry West:

"Jerry Alan West was born into a poor household in Cheylan, West Virginia.[1] His main distraction was shooting at a basketball hoop which a neighbor had nailed to his storage shack."

And you think that these guys played with state of the art balls that are being auctioned off because of how rare they are?

Reminds me of:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larry_Bird

Larry Bird was born in West Baden, Indiana, the son of Georgia Kerns and Claude Joseph "Joe" Bird. He grew up in both West Baden and the adjacent town French Lick, which earned him the nickname "the Hick from French Lick" in his later basketball career. Financial troubles would plague the Bird family for most of Larry's childhood. In a 1988 interview with Sports Illustrated, Bird recalled how his mother would make do on the family's meager earnings: "If there was a payment to the bank due, and we needed shoes, she'd get the shoes, and then deal with them guys at the bank. I don't mean she wouldn't pay the bank, but the children always came first."[4] Bird sometimes was sent to live with his grandmother due to the family's struggles. Bird told Sports Illustrated that being poor as a child "motivates me to this day".[4]

The Bird family's struggle with poverty was compounded by the alcoholism and personal difficulties of Joe Bird. In 1975, after Bird's parents divorced, his father committed suicide.

indiefan23

05-03-2009, 11:03 AM

How were you being nice since you once again tried to underplay his competition and you made the false point that Wilt faced Kareem, Hayes and Unseld 4-6 times in his career each? I included the seasons these specific players played altogether. Even if I included other seasons, things wouldn't change a lot. When Kareem didn't exist, Russell did, and Wilt faced Russell many more times even than Kareem.

Hmm... did they play inter conference teams more then twice then? I looked at a schedule earlier and there were only 2 a year. Either way, even if it was. I don't think it mattered if Russel existed. He still played the vast majority of his career against incredibly weak competition. The existance of a few good players is pretty meaningless when all but 5 people in the league can pull down more then half your boards in a game.

I'm being nice because I give you the benefit of the doubt that those terrible,slow, non-athletes playing in those finals games actually were good athletes.

Who posted Wilt videos to make certain points? That's right, Wilt supporters. Who were the only persons who pretended to be unimpressed by them? Certain guys who had their agenda fixed beforehand. Read the general comments on these videos or in the videos Sir Charles posted in his threads and you'll see that people who were impressed included a lot more than his (very few in this board) "fanboys". Actually pretty much anyone not belonging to the same category with indiefan23.

Who's pretending to not be impressed? I've always liked Wilt and no one in any sport has ever come close to his level of domination of a single sport. Wilt was a man among boys. Its cool, but I don't find men beating up on boys overly impressive. No one is pretending.

Who cares? We're comparing the greatness of players, not the form and evolution of the game, which, in big part depends on coaches, doctors, gymnasts, etc. Basketball today is different compared to the 80's as well (the form of 80's basketball was actually closer to 70's basketball than 00's), but I don't see anyone dare to mention it and try to belittle its protagonists. Also, watch the 40's game and compare it to 60's. Again, different game. The game changes all the time. Peoples' greatness remains. Eras matter a lot less than achievements. Your avatar depicts someone who lived 2000 years ago, so make the connection.

Who cares? The era was weak. We aren't comparing their greatness: its who's the 'best'. Best means if they played eachother who would win. Who had perfected the art of ball more. Greatness/achievement matters lots and those guys get plenty of respect and credit for those things. They just named finals MVP after Bill Russel even though Michael Jordan is twice the player he was and I, the agenda driven guy you hate, claimed it was a classy move by the NBA.

Its not 'greatness' when you say who's better however. And you're not saying 'greatness' when you claim that Russel would dominate today, which you said. Players like Jordan and Shaq had the benefit of those doctors and coaches and it made them better players. Russel did not and it made him a worse player. Its cool... Russel got to be ahead of his time and invent jumping to block a shot. But at the same time it means he played in an era when people didn't know that jumping to block shots helped defense. The same can be said for 'boxing out on rebounds'. Except everyone not only knows all these things now, they have them perfected at the NBA level and if those guys came up they would be destroyed like children and its just ridiculous to suggest they wouldn't be.

Watch those videos. Almost no plays are NBA level. Its just obvious.

indiefan23

05-03-2009, 11:07 AM

Reminds me of:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larry_Bird

Except Larry Bird is 100 times the player West was and probably played on a 1. real hoop and 2. with a real ball.

Really, is the only argument that the all weak era team could hang with the all peak era team is that you can find touching similarities between the players that don't really address the differences in skills or abilities?

indiefan23

05-03-2009, 11:24 AM

Voters for the 50 Greatest Players in NBA History

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (player), Marv Albert (media), Al Attles (team), Red Auerbach (team), Elgin Baylor (team), Dave Bing (player), Larry Bird (team), Marty Blake (team), Fran Blinebury (media), Bill Bradley (player), Hubie Brown (team), Wilt Chamberlain (player), Mitch Chortkoff (media), Bob Cousy (player), Billy Cunningham (team), Chuck Daly (team), David DuPree (media), Wayne Embry (team), Julius Erving (player), Joe Gilmartin (media), Sam Goldaper (media), Alex Hannum (team), Lester Harrison (team), John Havlicek (player), Chick Hearn (media), Red Holzman (team), Phil Jasner (media), Earvin Johnson (player), John Kerr (player), Leonard Koppet (media), Bob Lanier (player), Frank Layden (team), Leonard Lewin (media), Jack McCallum (media), Dick McGuire (team), George Mikan (player), Bob Pettit (player), Harvey Pollack (team), Jack Ramsay (team), Willis Reed (team), Oscar Robertson (player), Bill Russell (player), Bob Ryan (media), Dolph Schayes (player), Bill Sharman (player), Gene Shue (team), Isiah Thomas (team), Wes Unseld (team), Peter Vecsey (media), Jerry West (team)

These players from the 60's and 70's were pick by the above I guess they dont agree with you that the NBA was full of "scurbs" in the 60's and 70's but Im sure you know more about basketball than these nobodies

Heh, its funny too. Look at that list. Its like, 80 or 90% comprised of people from the 60's 70's era. You think its a big secret they voted for their friends?

I mean, since the NBA at 50 happened how many of those guys are just going to get bumped from the new players who are obviously in that group? Kobe/Bron/Wade/Duncan/Reggie/Kidd/Iverson/Nash/Ray Allen/Carter/Dirk/Pierce. Maybe not Pierce. I made that list of 12 off the top of my head without thinking. You may balk at Carter but he's the best dunker in history and gets on for that. Allen is the best shooter. Dirk is the most skilled 7 footer ever. The rest should be obvious. And thats before you even factor in what people like Durant/Rose et al are going to do.

indiefan23

05-03-2009, 11:27 AM

Exactly, why do people keep ignoring this, there are enough game videos on youtube for anyone with eyes to see Wilt looked like Mutombo out there with some kind of mutated spider-gene.Nothing from the videos suggests he is anywhere near a Shaq/Robinson/Hakeem level of athlete.His skillset was awful and took advantage of playing against white stiffs who couldnt jump over a sunday newspaper or shoot a free throw.

The best reason: a 6'9, 215 lb guy could check Wilt in his prime repeatedly and win every time.

Psileas

05-03-2009, 11:56 AM

Hmm... did they play inter conference teams more then twice then? I looked at a schedule earlier and there were only 2 a year.

I won't believe this till I see it.

Either way, even if it was. I don't think it mattered if Russel existed. He still played the vast majority of his career against incredibly weak competition. The existance of a few good players is pretty meaningless when all but 5 people in the league can pull down more then half your boards in a game.

In a league with 10 teams, it's more than expected that only a few players with both high talent and big minutes will come close to the best one. It's also expected not to have an all-time great or even a decent opponent in all your games. No-one ever did that.

I'm being nice because I give you the benefit of the doubt that those terrible,slow, non-athletes playing in those finals games actually were good athletes.

Hayes was a better athlete (and player) than most of today's big men. Of course I won't ask you whether you agree or not, but I know most do.

Who's pretending to not be impressed? I've always liked Wilt and no one in any sport has ever come close to his level of domination of a single sport. Wilt was a man among boys. Its cool, but I don't find men beating up on boys overly impressive. No one is pretending.

I wasn't talking about his stats. I was talking about his overall game and athleticism. Every video of Wilt had most people admire him and admit that he'd be great even today, without needing any improvement. I find it very hard to believe that 80%+ of people who watched the video are Wilt's fans.

Who cares? The era was weak. We aren't comparing their greatness: its who's the 'best'. Best means if they played eachother who would win. Who had perfected the art of ball more. Greatness/achievement matters lots and those guys get plenty of respect and credit for those things. They just named finals MVP after Bill Russel even though Michael Jordan is twice the player he was and I, the agenda driven guy you hate, claimed it was a classy move by the NBA.

Its not 'greatness' when you say who's better however. And you're not saying 'greatness' when you claim that Russel would dominate today, which you said. Players like Jordan and Shaq had the benefit of those doctors and coaches and it made them better players. Russel did not and it made him a worse player. Its cool... Russel got to be ahead of his time and invent jumping to block a shot. But at the same time it means he played in an era when people didn't know that jumping to block shots helped defense. The same can be said for 'boxing out on rebounds'. Except everyone not only knows all these things now, they have them perfected at the NBA level and if those guys came up they would be destroyed like children and its just ridiculous to suggest they wouldn't be.

Watch those videos. Almost no plays are NBA level. Its just obvious.

Actually I (and most of the others) do talk about greatness. I don't really care what would happen if so and so changed eras and remained "only" as good as they were, because that would never happen. You're born and grow up in an era, yet, despite this obvious fact, some continue using the "time transportation" thing.
Despite this, I still believe that a lot of all-time greats would do fine in just about every era, because nature didn't suddenly make humans 50% more athletic in a span of very few dacades, neither did it suddenly double their brains and logic and natural talent to do something. The most fundamental differences of 60's basketball and today's basketball is advanced dribbling and game strategy. Yet, that's nothing that a decent player of any era would be unable to learn to an extent. You don't even need to be a super dribbler to succeed. Stockton never did fancy things but was an very good to elite PG, and that's from the late 80's to the early 00's. As for strategy? A lot of Euroleague players are more advanced than NBA players nowadays in this field, without being more talented at all.
Athleticism, you say? Not as big a difference as some think. Remember, today we do have the luxury of compiling the most athletic moments, the highest leaps, etc, of a player in lists from practices and draft camps or in videos taken from all their games. Not so with older ones, and this led a lot to believe wrong things. Some used to think that Baylor wasn't actually a good athlete. because the only aired videos of him for many years showed him only perform a couple of simple dunks, without getting too high. Recently though, appeared this pic of him (http://pro.corbis.com/search/searchFrame.aspx -- 2nd row, 3rd from left), which shows that he was much more athletic than these very limited videos made people think. Same with others.

Psileas

05-03-2009, 12:18 PM

Except Larry Bird is 100 times the player West was and probably played on a 1. real hoop and 2. with a real ball.

Except he isn't and that it's certain that even today a lot of the most talented players learn the game under miserable conditions, which shows that there are more things than the equipment you used as a child.
Oh, and except that Bird might have trained in hoops like this (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=du-fmgN_5Hc&feature=PlayList&p=4A407B932011BDCA&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=12) or hoops without nets (http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/basketball/nba/1998/bird/flashbacks/1988flash.html) and that your assumptions about Jerry West growing up playing with a soccer ball are just that.

Really, is the only argument that the all weak era team could hang with the all peak era team is that you can find touching similarities between the players that don't really address the differences in skills or abilities?

West's skills are well-known. Fast, great shooter, good passer, quick and long hands, quick shot release, defensive instinct. You brought up the "soccer balls" thing first.

Psileas

05-03-2009, 12:19 PM

The best reason: a 6'9, 215 lb guy could check Wilt in his prime repeatedly and win every time.

Russell wasn't 215 in the NBA. And his team won, Wilt usually outplayed him.

32jazz

05-03-2009, 01:01 PM

Russell wasn't 215 in the NBA. And his team won, Wilt usually outplayed him.

I wonder do people say foolish stuff like that about the undrafted Ben Wallace winning a ring over Shaq in 2004?

The fact that someone finds the time to post over ten pages :confusedshrug: about Wilt & the 60's/70's is a testament to their significance. You cannot have a serious discussion about the greatest players of all time without mentioning Wilt/Big O/Kareem.
Kareem(as well as Elvin Hayes) who technically played in the 60's,70's & 80's proves the continuity / fluidity of the game from that era up until today. They were great no matter which decade they played.(Kareem won the NBA finals MVP at 38 years of age in '85 just as he had in '71. Elvin Hayes was an allstar in '80 . Both feats at advanced ages )

Those guys legacies are cemented & internet rants cannot change the record books.

indiefan23

05-03-2009, 04:17 PM

Russell wasn't 215 in the NBA. And his team won, Wilt usually outplayed him.

Okay, so far

1. your arguing Bill Russel is a top 3 all time center. For evidence of this you say he played Wilt and beat him.

2. You're saying Bill Russel is not 215, even though that's what the scales read when he was in the NBA.

3. You're saying Wilt was amazing, even though his team lost to a stacked Celtics team he usually outplayed Russel.

4. You're claiming that an uncontested lay up after a fast break off a transition steal at half court and an awkward cross over on a slow defender means Jerry West was more athletic then Magic and Bird and could not only athletically match up with players like Jordan, Iverson, TJ Ford, he could be a star against them and defenders like Bruce Bowen, Shane Battier and Ron Artest.

Sorry, you didn't mention #4 but so far its my favorite thing anyone has said on inside hoops. Bar none. So its got to be mentioned again.

indiefan23

05-03-2009, 05:45 PM

I wonder do people say foolish stuff like that about the undrafted Ben Wallace winning a ring over Shaq in 2004?

The fact that someone finds the time to post over ten pages :confusedshrug: about Wilt & the 60's/70's is a testament to their significance. You cannot have a serious discussion about the greatest players of all time without mentioning Wilt/Big O/Kareem.
Kareem(as well as Elvin Hayes)

I agree. They were and are extremely signifigant. Someone mentioned newton earlier. His significance is amazing. It stands out. But I had a much, much deeper understanding about how the world works then Newton by the time I had finished high school. I was better as a direct result of Newton's work and me being better then him, because of him, ss precisely what makes him significant. That is 'exactly' what the deal is with Russel/Wilt.

who technically played in the 60's,70's & 80's proves the continuity / fluidity of the game from that era up until today. They were great no matter which decade they played.(Kareem won the NBA finals MVP at 38 years of age in '85 just as he had in '71. Elvin Hayes was an allstar in '80 . Both feats at advanced ages )

The league was still incredibly weak in 1980 compared with 10 or even 5 years later. And Kareem may have won finals MVP but that in no way proves jack squat for so many reasons I have to make a list.

1. Parish was consistent, but no where near indicative of the best of the era.

2. One player who did well in one era and then was a shell of his dominance in the next indicates the previous one was strong, not weak. Averaging over 10 less BPG proves this when you mention Kareem. One player can not represent and prove anything about a generation of 100's of players.

3. 85 was the year the rookie season of the players who defined the peak of basketball. I don't think you can claim that Kareem playing rookie stockton/jordan/hakeem/Barkley/Willis/Thorpe and Malone/Ewing/Mutombo/Mullin/Oakley/Sabonis/Rodman/Robinson/Pippen (I'll just stop there, but it goes on for a while) were not even playing in the league yet.

4. Kareem had turned 38 like, a month before he had won that. Its disingenuous to state 38 when it suggests he played at that level a season later then he did. He played 95% of his games that season as a 37 year old. The season Kareem played when he was 38 was 85/86 when the Lakers went out to Houston because Kareem couldn't stop Olajuwon and Ralph Sampson. There is no rule for how to show age when comparing seasons but I think its just weak.

5. Kareem never had an injury. That luck combined with not playing physicial competent centers in the 70's results in his body not being broken down. Meaning Kareem was not your typical 37 year old player and was very much still in his prime albeit at the end of it. The way you frame it with his age it appears that even broken down at 38 he still was the MVP which creates a false sense of worth. Combined with the most talented players in history only being rookies. He wasn't broken down and it was more like a 30-33 year old player winning MVP today. A center's career in the 90's just did not last that long.

6. I thought it was classy of them to give the MVP to Kareem, but by that time the team was solidly Magic Johnson's. The offense ran through him 100% and Worthy was their scorer. as Kareem had moved into a key contributer/role player position. 18 PPG/14 APG/7 BPG agrees with me. Kareem obviously performed well and at a higher level for those 7 games but performing for a season at that level was beyond him.

Beyond that Kareem got shut out inside the paint. In the first game he had a 3 board/12 point effort. Then played great for two games for 17/14. Then he closed the series out with 6, 7 and 8 board efforts. Why did they endure the biggest finals smack down of all time? Cuz Kareem and the team stunk. Why did they win the series? Cuz Magic was, well, Magic and took over the series more and more every game they played.

1) 19-12-1 8/14
2) 14-13-4 5/9
3) 17-16-9 6/13
4) 20-12-11 11/20
5) 26-17-6 11/20
6) 14-14-10 5/15

I really love Kareem and his game. His sky hook was unstoppable. But he was not the same player at all even against the weakest period of 80's/90's superior talent and Magic was MVP of that series. Its a farce to suggest it wasn't.

7. The Lakers were STACKED! Its easy to look good on a team with Magic, Worthy and coached by Reilly.

8. Kareem's sky hook allowed him to turn and shoot on almost anyone. It was unblockable. Thats not a knock against Kareem but having a goto scoring move that does not depending on speed, strength or athletic ability helps a lot when you're 7'1" and can shoot it over everyone. As a center his stats were shells of his former play. He scored 23 points while his boards and blocks dipped below half of what he put up for regular seasons in the 70s. Suggesting as you did that Kareem did great against those players is a joke. He took them outside and shot over them because he knew he couldn't handle them inside. That why he went from his 70's numbers of 27/17/4blks to 23/6/1.6 blks.

I accept that he was getting old and all the valid reasons for his decline in production. But you're trying to say as a center he was still great in the 80's. He still had the sky hook and can probably still shoot it today with his eyes closed. As a center though, 6 boards and 1.6 blocks sucks just like your point does. Its weak and soft. And again, that was all played before the best bigs of all time were drafted or were out of their rookie seasons.

10. Kareem obviously has the worst rap and therefore is not cool. Rambis is obviously awesome! (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s2eFdO7H7cU)

Had to make one ridiculous point to match 'player a played awesome against one group of players and okay against a few of another group before they really learned to play therefore both groups are pretty equal.

Those guys legacies are cemented & internet rants cannot change the record books.

Man, you like to contradict yourself full circle huh? Whatever happened to:

The fact that someone finds the time to post over ten pages :confusedshrug: about Wilt & the 60's/70's is a testament to their significance.

I think the fact that there are pages and pages of posts countering it all is pretty significant too. You confuse honoring these guys with evaluating them. What competitor would want hear excuses trying to inflate the way they played into something it wasn't. I respect everything a guy like Kareem did and that's why I say what he did was have an amazing all time career spanning 20-30 years. But I respect it for what he was and don't try to turn him or any of those other guys into something they're not which suggests who they were was not good enough to get that respect in the first place.

I disagree with that and you reaching to find any way to ignore what people can see plainly from watching the games from that era. They just were not as good and it was not even the same game.

indiefan23

05-03-2009, 06:39 PM

In a league with 10 teams, it's more than expected that only a few players with both high talent and big minutes will come close to the best one. It's also expected not to have an all-time great or even a decent opponent in all your games. No-one ever did that.

Why? And you realize you just accepted that the era was weak? A league with 10 teams would have higher concentrations of talent making it more competitive and harder to dominate... except Wilt absolutely dominated.

Hayes was a better athlete (and player) than most of today's big men. Of course I won't ask you whether you agree or not, but I know most do.

Most don't. Most did when he played as a non-shell but that was over 30 years ago. I think you're getting better. Elvin Hayes could dribble, shoot and dunk. But I still have yet to see anything resembling Vince Carter jumping over a 7 footer to dunk on his head, or prime Webber's crazy athletic plays, or prime shaq/duncan/Robinson/Dream. What about prime Dyess? He's got nothing on him either.

I wasn't talking about his stats. I was talking about his overall game and athleticism. Every video of Wilt had most people admire him and admit that he'd be great even today, without needing any improvement. I find it very hard to believe that 80%+ of people who watched the video are Wilt's fans.

Neither was I. I said when you watch tapes of Wilt its obvious he's a man amongst boys. Where do you pull 80% from? You can't just invent a statistic on what people think, says its true and use it as an argument. I admire Wilt too, but a player who doesn't box out in a finals game rides pine. Its that simple.

Actually I (and most of the others) do talk about greatness. I don't really care what would happen if so and so changed eras and remained "only" as good as they were, because that would never happen. You're born and grow up in an era, yet, despite this obvious fact, some continue using the "time transportation" thing.

Its not time transportation its called evaluating 'basketball talent'. When you enter a conversation about talent (which is how the conversation started, and you clearly know is about) and bring up greatness its irrelevant because greatness is measured by things other then talent. You've stated that Wilt would dominate today. Is that based on his 'greatness'? Because Wilt got great walking over puny competition to the point that he didn't need to box them out but just reached over top of them for the board. You increase the competition and Wilt is no longer great. He could be good but thats not the player he was in the 60's.

Despite this, I still believe that a lot of all-time greats would do fine in just about every era, because nature didn't suddenly make humans 50% more athletic in a span of very few dacades, neither did it suddenly double their brains and logic and natural talent to do something.

Yes, nature does do this. The talent pool that Wilt/Jerry west came from is 1000's of times smaller. The spots in the NBA are the same relative to the game's growth. That means you build a team of the 10 best people from 100 random players and that's your 50's/60's era team. Then I build a team from 100 freaking thousand players and that's my modern era team. My players are going to jump higher, be smarter, be more dedicated, be tougher, be faster, shoot better, know more, experience more, have better luck then your team. If you include the FACT that your team trains in a vastly inferior and underfunded development environment with people who are still learning and figuring out what the best way to play is, such as, they have not figured out that jumping will help you block shots and improve defense, where as my team has the best ever offered training environment and 20-50 years more examples to learn from, then you tell me you put money on your team? BS. Something happened in the 30 years since the 60s. Basketball became the second biggest and fastest growing sport in the entire world. Instead of drawing on 10's of millions of poor ass kids growing up in war time America playing with soccer balls its drawing on a global population that has tripled since Jerry West took his first jump shot. A paragraph is a collections of sentences pertaining to one theme. I'm making this one oversized paragraph because it covered the single theme of you being totally and throughly owned for holding an intentionally ignorant view of how talent has dramatically spiked in this sport over a few decades. I know you know it has. You know it has. But admitting as much means you don't have a leg to stand on so you pretend you don't know. I watched the same game you did and those player, Psileies, sucked.

[qutoe]The most fundamental differences of 60's basketball and today's basketball is advanced dribbling and game strategy. Yet, that's nothing that a decent player of any era would be unable to learn to an extent.[/quote]

Those things make you an incredibly better basketball player. Heres the difference: the weak era players did not learn them. The peak era players did. That's why they're better.

You don't even need to be a super dribbler to succeed. Stockton never did fancy things but was an very good to elite PG, and that's from the late 80's to the early 00's. As for strategy? A lot of Euroleague players are more advanced than NBA players nowadays in this field, without being more talented at all.
Athleticism, you say? Not as big a difference as some think.

You're obviously a bit older. I dunno if you actually played basketball in your life or back in the day or whichever. But if you play against a guy who can truly has quicks AND can play above the rim, or if you ever did, you would never in your life say this. As if Stockton wins in the 90's at all without Malone/Others to execute crazy ahtletic crap off his sweet dimes. No player you've mentioned has the non-athletic qualities of Stockton OR trumps him as an athlete. He wasn't a dunker but he was crazy quick both in terms of speed and lateral quickness. That's why he leads nba history in steals and assists. And a fantastic shooter. His precision at speed is unmatched by anyone but Kidd/Nash but Stockton was a way better defender.

Remember, today we do have the luxury of compiling the most athletic moments, the highest leaps, etc, of a player in lists from practices and draft camps or in videos taken from all their games. Not so with older ones, and this led a lot to believe wrong things. Some used to think that Baylor wasn't actually a good athlete. because the only aired videos of him for many years showed him only perform a couple of simple dunks, without getting too high. Recently though, appeared this pic of him (http://pro.corbis.com/search/searchFrame.aspx -- 2nd row, 3rd from left), which shows that he was much more athletic than these very limited videos made people think. Same with others.

Its a good point but I don't think someone like Allen Iverson or Wade or Shaq is athletic because I've watched a highlight reel. Its because every single game I watch them play in they do crap on a regular basis that astoundingly athletic. Watch AI in his prime penetrate. Or Bron's power dunk from high screen curl. That's an all day play. I watch whole games then and don't see even a highlight that's comparable to things bench NBA players do with their eyes closed.

Okay, its been fun but you're getting mroe and more ridiculous. At least you're strating to admit their talent was lesser even if you're trying to do it in a roundaobut way.

Simple Jack

05-03-2009, 07:55 PM

Psileas - report back with the league leaders in FG% in the 60's.

Psileas

05-03-2009, 09:18 PM

Okay, so far

1. your arguing Bill Russel is a top 3 all time center. For evidence of this you say he played Wilt and beat him.

Not exactly. I don't have him over Wilt. Among all his teammates, he was the most vital part in winning 11 titles, but he still wasn't better than Wilt. I do give him full credit for limiting prime Wilt more than anyone else, though.

2. You're saying Bill Russel is not 215, even though that's what the scales read when he was in the NBA.

And you read it where exactly? To the official lists which almost never updated their lists after college? The same lists that have Artis Gilmore at 240 lbs?

3. You're saying Wilt was amazing, even though his team lost to a stacked Celtics team he usually outplayed Russel.

That's a main reason I put Wilt over Russell.

4. You're claiming that an uncontested lay up after a fast break off a transition steal at half court and an awkward cross over on a slow defender means Jerry West was more athletic then Magic and Bird and could not only athletically match up with players like Jordan, Iverson, TJ Ford, he could be a star against them and defenders like Bruce Bowen, Shane Battier and Ron Artest.

Sorry, you didn't mention #4 but so far its my favorite thing anyone has said on inside hoops. Bar none. So its got to be mentioned again.

The average person will recognise quickness when he sees it. Except if...he doesn't want to. Which has been your case in too many instances.

Why? And you realize you just accepted that the era was weak? A league with 10 teams would have higher concentrations of talent making it more competitive and harder to dominate... except Wilt absolutely dominated.

No, I said that having "only" 5 top ranked centers is nothing unexpected in a 10-team league. Actually, it makes things tougher for anyone. Hell, even 25+ team leagues didn't have many more great centers, and I won't even mention the percentage. Wilt's dominance over leagues with high concentration of good/great centers is a testament to his greatness.

Most don't. Most did when he played as a non-shell but that was over 30 years ago. I think you're getting better. Elvin Hayes could dribble, shoot and dunk. But I still have yet to see anything resembling Vince Carter jumping over a 7 footer to dunk on his head, or prime Webber's crazy athletic plays, or prime shaq/duncan/Robinson/Dream. What about prime Dyess? He's got nothing on him either.

Why mention Vince Carter? He's not a big man, so take him out. Duncan (who also didn't dunk like Vince Carter, and no big ever did) is not a great athlete by any means. Certainly not greater than Hayes. His game isn't based on athleticism, after all. McDyess? He could become great, but his prime period was cut very short. It happens with certain super athletic guys. Webber was very athletic, but you saw yourself that the best Webber wasn't the young athletic guy he used to be with WAS. He was still athletic with the Kings, but didn't do the same stuff he did in his early days.

Neither was I. I said when you watch tapes of Wilt its obvious he's a man amongst boys. Where do you pull 80% from? You can't just invent a statistic on what people think, says its true and use it as an argument. I admire Wilt too, but a player who doesn't box out in a finals game rides pine. Its that simple.

Regardless of who he was facing (and it certainly wasn't a man vs boys. Hell, Shaq has a bigger weight advantage compared to today's centers and you don'tsay anything), his talent could be easily seen. The moves that he tried alone are innovative beyond anything else seen back then and the standard he set remains extremely high for today's centers. How many centers shoot bank shots and fade-aways and finger-rolls and can accelerate and run like him and have his defensive instinct and dribble down the court, finishing a fast break with a behind the back pass, etc? Especially nowadays, I can't think of anyone.
Boxing out is strategy. It doesn't take real talent. No-one grew up to become great because he was great at boxing out and no-one started learning basketball by boxing out. It's still wrong that boxing out didn't exist, of course. All you showed me is 6 minutes of footage and you're trying to judge by this...

Yes, nature does do this. The talent pool that Wilt/Jerry west came from is 1000's of times smaller. The spots in the NBA are the same relative to the game's growth. That means you build a team of the 10 best people from 100 random players and that's your 50's/60's era team. Then I build a team from 100 freaking thousand players and that's my modern era team. My players are going to jump higher, be smarter, be more dedicated, be tougher, be faster, shoot better, know more, experience more, have better luck then your team. If you include the FACT that your team trains in a vastly inferior and underfunded development environment with people who are still learning and figuring out what the best way to play is, such as, they have not figured out that jumping will help you block shots and improve defense, where as my team has the best ever offered training environment and 20-50 years more examples to learn from, then you tell me you put money on your team? BS. Something happened in the 30 years since the 60s. Basketball became the second biggest and fastest growing sport in the entire world. Instead of drawing on 10's of millions of poor ass kids growing up in war time America playing with soccer balls its drawing on a global population that has tripled since Jerry West took his first jump shot. A paragraph is a collections of sentences pertaining to one theme. I'm making this one oversized paragraph because it covered the single theme of you being totally and throughly owned for holding an intentionally ignorant view of how talent has dramatically spiked in this sport over a few decades. I know you know it has. You know it has. But admitting as much means you don't have a leg to stand on so you pretend you don't know. I watched the same game you did and those player, Psileies, sucked.

You're funny, hotairfan23. This "1,000's of times bigger talent pool" reference is among the funniest things you've said up to now, because when someone comes to think about it, it makes as much sense as Santa Claus existing AND finding the time to offer gifts to millions of kids within a day. Basketball was 70 years old and played pretty widely when West was a rookie, yet you claim things that match to a sport at its infancy. Even if you assumed that only 10,000 people dealt seriously with basketball as athletes in the USA in 1960 (a really small number), this should mean that tens of millions of such people existed when your so called "strong eras" began. Assuming that we're talking about 1985, this would take an outrageous 40.6% increase of the talent pool each year for 25 years to get, say, to a 5,000fold talent pool. Of course, it would also mean that a huge population of the country are serious basketball players and if we exclude women, children, old people, sick people, etc, then...maybe pretty much any USA healthy male between 20 and 35 has to be a decent basketball player and have even a small chance to play in the NBA...This is basketball we're comparing, not computer sells of 1970 vs 2000.

Even the mention that in the 80's/90's the talent pool was thousands of times bigger than in the 60's means you're still claiming that actually people back then were untalented, implying once again that this was the reason they played that kind of basketball. Sorry, but if you think a player in the year 2000 has some special abilities planted in his DNA which would make him able to execute a crossover dribble, which wasn't used in the 60's (therefore making you assume that 60's players, talent-wise, could not crossover), you're not worth my time.

Those things make you an incredibly better basketball player. Heres the difference: the weak era players did not learn them. The peak era players did. That's why they're better.

Shooting, defense, passing, team play, even simple dibbling, I'll put all of these things above advanced dribbling.
60's-70's players knew all that stuff much better than 40's players, so if you want to call an era weak, then you should do so about the 40's. And, inevitably, you'll have to call our own era, right now, not the late 80's, not the early 90's, as the strongest ever. Because today's players can do these things even better now.

You're obviously a bit older. I dunno if you actually played basketball in your life or back in the day or whichever. But if you play against a guy who can truly has quicks AND can play above the rim, or if you ever did, you would never in your life say this. As if Stockton wins in the 90's at all without Malone/Others to execute crazy ahtletic crap off his sweet dimes. No player you've mentioned has the non-athletic qualities of Stockton OR trumps him as an athlete. He wasn't a dunker but he was crazy quick both in terms of speed and lateral quickness. That's why he leads nba history in steals and assists. And a fantastic shooter. His precision at speed is unmatched by anyone but Kidd/Nash but Stockton was a way better defender.

West was at least as athletic as Stockton, and I'm being gracious to Stock. Taking into account that Stockton played at a high level even when he was past 40, against players almost half his age, this doesn't even make it close. Stockton at 40, despite being in great physical condition for his age, wasn't considered fast or quick. Yes, Stockton had a great shot and even greater passing skills. See why being a super dribbler isn't all that important compared to other things? What did Jason Williams or Steve Francis achieve with their flash and quickness and fancy dribbling? I bet they'd exchange their gifts with Stockton's gifts any day.

Psileas

05-03-2009, 09:27 PM

Its a good point but I don't think someone like Allen Iverson or Wade or Shaq is athletic because I've watched a highlight reel. Its because every single game I watch them play in they do crap on a regular basis that astoundingly athletic. Watch AI in his prime penetrate. Or Bron's power dunk from high screen curl. That's an all day play. I watch whole games then and don't see even a highlight that's comparable to things bench NBA players do with their eyes closed.

Exactly, you're watching games every day. Compare this to watching 5-minute clips of older players, which are called "highlights", because these are among the only plays which are available and due to the lack of another word. Showing Jerry West taking his typical jump shot, which he did so many times every game, isn't a highlight and it never was. It's just a typical play and a sign that you have very few footage available. If all footage was available, there would be much better plays for guys like him.

indiefan23

05-04-2009, 02:40 AM

Except he isn't and that it's certain that even today a lot of the most talented players learn the game under miserable conditions, which shows that there are more things than the equipment you used as a child.
Oh, and except that Bird might have trained in hoops like this (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=du-fmgN_5Hc&feature=PlayList&p=4A407B932011BDCA&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=12) or hoops without nets (http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/basketball/nba/1998/bird/flashbacks/1988flash.html) and that your assumptions about Jerry West growing up playing with a soccer ball are just that.

They're not assumptions they're rational assertions. Its 'rationale' that Jerry West would not have played ball with a symmetrical ball because they didn't exist until the 50's. I think its rational to think that a poor kid with abusive drunk parents probably couldn't afford state of the art sports equipment.

The same for Bill Russel. He grew up the son of a janitor in a segregated 50's community. Something tells me he didn't have lots of cash on hand for high technology equipment.

West's skills are well-known. Fast, great shooter, good passer, quick and long hands, quick shot release, defensive instinct. You brought up the "soccer balls" thing first.

Yea, I brought it up because it was relevant.

indiefan23

05-04-2009, 02:49 AM

Exactly, you're watching games every day. Compare this to watching 5-minute clips of older players, which are called "highlights", because these are among the only plays which are available and due to the lack of another word. Showing Jerry West taking his typical jump shot, which he did so many times every game, isn't a highlight and it never was. It's just a typical play and a sign that you have very few footage available. If all footage was available, there would be much better plays for guys like him.

I've watched entire finals with Jerry West... where do you get the idea I've only seen highlights? Dude could shoot. But you know, Deshawn Stevenson can shoot. Brian Scalenbrine can shoot. Jason Kapano can really shoot. Being a great shooter is not enough today. You need lots extra to be a star. West was not that fast and could not dribble well and totally could not dribble great when going fast. I just don't see how he's effective with Ron Artest/Bowen/Battier or a slew of other defenders on him. His latteral quickness and lack of a handle would make it easy to stay in front of him. Its not like Jerry West broke people down and blew by them and as a shooter if you don't have something else on the table that makes you a role player on winning teams.

Why would a coach let you handle the rock when players like Nash/Kidd/Parker/Arenas/Kobe/Jordan/Stockton/Thomas et al are around? Why would they recruit/trade for you for that purpose? Jerry West == JJ Redick without the footwork and better defense.

indiefan23

05-04-2009, 04:48 AM

Not exactly. I don't have him over Wilt. Among all his teammates, he was the most vital part in winning 11 titles, but he still wasn't better than Wilt. I do give him full credit for limiting prime Wilt more than anyone else, though.

Well, the argument started when someone asked how Russel was top 3, but whichever.

And you read it where exactly? To the official lists which almost never updated their lists after college? The same lists that have Artis Gilmore at 240 lbs?

bball ref. It not like Wilt's 275 was measured differently then BR's 215.

The average person will recognise quickness when he sees it. Except if...he doesn't want to. Which has been your case in too many instances.

You showed me West running down from half court and a crossover that any 2 guard playing today can do. Any of them. TJ Ford today is quick. Jerry West today is slow in comparison. He's pretty average.

No, I said that having "only" 5 top ranked centers is nothing unexpected in a 10-team league. Actually, it makes things tougher for anyone. Hell, even 25+ team leagues didn't have many more great centers, and I won't even mention the percentage. Wilt's dominance over leagues with high concentration of good/great centers is a testament to his greatness.

That makes no sense at all. In a smaller league the competition would be more concentrated on fewer teams meaning it would be more competitive. If its more competitive its harder for a few players to produce more then everyone. That's why in 91 Robinson has only 3 more boards then the person in 20'th: there's so many betters players to compete with him. More teams means more players get in the league and that scrubby dude who can't board compared to everyone else gets in and gets beat up on by the guy who can.

Why mention Vince Carter? He's not a big man, so take him out. Duncan (who also didn't dunk like Vince Carter, and no big ever did)

Dwight Howard dunks like VC, and VC is the kind of player they have to guard against and that kind of player bigs have to defend against. Carter is still a forward after all. In Bill Russel's time 6'7" Carter could have played center,so he's totally in the conversation.

is not a great athlete by any means. Certainly not greater than Hayes. His game isn't based on athleticism, after all.

Now Duncan's a poor athlete? You're a joke. Lets see Elvin Hayes guard prime Shaq straight up and come away with 28/20/6blks. Do you know stupid saying Tim Duncan got to his level without being a truly elite athlete is? You basically say that any player who used their head and had good fundamentals was a poor athlete like they were in the 60's. TD is an incredible athlete with great speed, coordination and power for his size. He put it together with footwork Wilt and Russel couldn't even dream about.

Tim Duncan is an all time athlete. If he played in the 60's he would have matched up with Wilt and been bigger then him. Its just ridiculous.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c_-JyLBJc-s

McDyess? He could become great, but his prime period was cut very short. It happens with certain super athletic guys. Webber was very athletic, but you saw yourself that the best Webber wasn't the young athletic guy he used to be with WAS. He was still athletic with the Kings, but didn't do the same stuff he did in his early days.

Yea, it happens cuz you have to guard players who are incredibly large, fast, and powerful. It increases the chances you get hurt because ball is played at such a higher level/intensity. Once you get hurt your effectiveness is gone as you just get eaten by the top tier talent. I mean, don't you realize that a big reason guys like Kareem/Hayes had such great careers is because they never got seriously hurt in 38 combines seasons and a big reason for that is because the league was not as physicial?

Regardless of who he was facing (and it certainly wasn't a man vs boys. Hell, Shaq has a bigger weight advantage compared to today's centers and you don'tsay anything), his talent could be easily seen.

Uh, lots? He was a man against boys. Most everyone else was 4"'s shorter and 50-75 pounds lighter. Shaq is crazy but had peers who could compete with him.

Boxing out is strategy. It doesn't take real talent. No-one grew up to become great because he was great at boxing out and no-one started learning basketball by boxing out. It's still wrong that boxing out didn't exist, of course. All you showed me is 6 minutes of footage and you're trying to judge by this...

Boxing out is a skill and athletic play based on quickness to get to a spot, skill to know your footwork, and strength to clear/maintain it. Its at this point that I realize you've never played organized basketball. All true bigs become great because they're good at boxing out. You're coach won't let you play if you don't. Its one of the first things you teach a center. Watch, if you place your feet here and move like this, you can force him out of the way and get every board. Ask Rodman if he became great this way. That goes on your list of :banghead: comments.

[qutoe]You're funny, hotairfan23. This "1,000's of times bigger talent pool" reference is among the funniest things you've said up to now, because when someone comes to think about it, it makes as much sense as Santa Claus existing AND finding the time to offer gifts to millions of kids within a day. Basketball was 70 years old and played pretty widely when West was a rookie...[/quote]

Its not the 60's pool, its the 40's/50's pool that that generation came from. The 60's is when they played. And the loose calculation comes from Bill Russel who was born in 1934. The world population more then doubled over the next 30-40 years. So in the 40s/50's a proportion of the US's 140 million played ball. Since basketball was not nearly as popular as it was in the 60's/70's and was dwarfed in comparison to other sports like boxing/football/freaking lacross/baseball so naturally those sports drew the best and most athletes.

So you have a small proportion of 140 million that realistically have the opportunity to play and its obvious that other sports are more appealing to athletes and ball is seen as a goon sport. The sport is only starting to be played in other countries. This is obvious as it took until 1972 for team USA to even lose a single olympic game.

30 years later basketball is becoming a glamor sport attracting the best athletes. Its a total global game as people play seriously in every country opening the pool from a proportion of 150 million to billions. The population of the world instead of 2 billion has more then doubled at 4 in 1975 and 4.4 in 1980. So, the pool of people who have picked up a ball and shot at a hoop has gone through the roof. Nearly every single school in the entire world has a basketball hoop today as the game has become a global sport. So yes, when it goes from 'north american game played by small proportion of countries population totaling 150 million tops' to 'global game played by every country with populations in the billions' the talent pool is 1000's of times bigger.

How many people even played basketball by the time Russell was born? Seriously, how many? I can't see it topping like, 10-20 million. Can you? Half the population would be too old to have been around when it started being played. Half of that population would be into other sports, hell, at least half of that population because basketball is no where near the most popular sport. You're already down to about 30 million people total. You half it again because there's just lots of people who don't play sports at all. Thats 15 million. 1000 times is 1.5 billion. Given how much more popular basketball is in a massive way, the fact that everyone alive was born when the sport was established on all levels, the nearly every school that people attend in the world now has a hoop, that everyone knows superstars like Michael Jordan (he's an international brand) and that theres a 4+ billion amount of people in the world I don't see 1000 times the talent pool as being so crazy.

Its a ceiling but its not insane. Its loose and by no means accurate and doesn't have to be to get the point across. Lets say its a gross overestimation. Okay. So lets rank our 10 best random teams then.

At 1000 times you are picking from 100 people, me from 100,000 and my team beats the crap out of your's.

At 500 times you are picking from 100 people, me from 50,000 and my team beats the crap out of your's.

At 250 times you are picking from 100 people, me from 25,000 and my team beats the crap out of your's.

At 125 times you are picking from 100 people, me from 12,500 and my team beats the crap out of your's.

At 50 times you are picking from 100 people, me from 5,000 and my team beats the crap out of your's.

At 10 times you are picking from 100 people, me from 1,000 and my team beats the crap out of your's.

And I can assure you, its larger then 10 times. Its in the hundreds with 1,000's not out of reach.

Face the truth.

Even the mention that in the 80's/90's the talent pool was thousands of times bigger than in the 60's means you're still claiming that actually people back then were untalented... Sorry, but if you think a player in the year 2000 has some special abilities planted in his DNA which would make him able to execute a crossover dribble, which wasn't used in the 60's (therefore making you assume that 60's players, talent-wise, could not crossover), you're not worth my time.

Well, they do. Its just logical that if you take the best from more people you'll get the better genes. And I've never said players in the 60's wern't talented. I just said they're not comparable to peak era players cuz peak era players are hyper talented. Especially when you actually don't just compare the stars but evaluate the majority of players. I'm pretty sure I could have made an NBA team in the 40's and 50's just from watching tapes.

Shooting, defense, passing, team play, even simple dibbling, I'll put all of these things above advanced dribbling.

Advanced dribbling? Crossing over is not advanced dribbling. One person could trap Jerry West on the wing and stop the fast break because Jerry was not confident to change directions while moving without his back turned to his defender. That's basic.

West was at least as athletic as Stockton, and I'm being gracious to Stock... See why being a super dribbler isn't all that important compared to other things?

Dear god. Jerry West was as athletic as John Stockton huh? Is that why Stock is the career leader in assists/steals in way less minutes and 1000's upon 1000's less possessions? That's a joke. Stockton played against Jordan/Pippen types and had to go to the hole agaisnt Dream/Mutombo/Ewing/Robinson. Stockton was quick, 'could' do the 3 primary dribbles a point guard should be able to do crossover in transition, through his legs, behind his back and could flat out play better then Jerry West. 'Fancy'. Love how you just pretend like people only do it to show off. Those are critical skills a guard uses to penetrate and break down a defense which Stockton did all the time. Stockton wasn't super flashy but could handle the rock. West could not.

Its not that West was a bad player. Its that he was not a Michael Jordan type player like his stats indicate. They're inflated because when he came into the league he was better then almost everyone else, but almost everyone else sucked a wet bag of suck.

indiefan23

05-04-2009, 05:34 AM

How many centers shoot bank shots and fade-aways and finger-rolls and can accelerate and run like him and have his defensive instinct and dribble down the court, finishing a fast break with a behind the back pass, etc? Especially nowadays, I can't think of anyone.

Uh, Big Baby Davis can do all those things.

Manute for Ever!

05-04-2009, 06:49 AM

Indiefan23, Psileas is probably the most knowledgeable poster on ISH. Why waste your time? He can actually back up and/or expand on his claims and know s the game inside out. Give it up.

Psileas

05-04-2009, 10:42 AM

Starting from the end:

Uh, Big Baby Davis can do all those things.

Yeah, to the same degree with Harold Miner could do all the things Jordan did...We watch games too, you know. If Davis could do all these things, people would actually care about him.

bball ref. It not like Wilt's 275 was measured differently then BR's 215.

Wilt's weight is among the very few that got updated (that's why I wrote "almost never", because there were exceptions), and even this was not his peak weight, which was at least 300 in his last seasons with the Lakers. Willis Reed was also listed at 235. Bob Lanier at 250. Wes Unseld at 245. These weights were college or, at best, rookie weights and didn't get updated. Same with Russell. Dwyane Wade is about 215 today and, despite his built, when you consider the very significant height difference, Russell had to be heavier. After all, if you think that an NBA Russell was 215, what the hell should be Russell's weight at college? 200 at most? At 6'9.5?

You showed me West running down from half court and a crossover that any 2 guard playing today can do. Any of them. TJ Ford today is quick. Jerry West today is slow in comparison. He's pretty average.

We see it differently. In comparison with today's average guards, I find him quicker.

That makes no sense at all. In a smaller league the competition would be more concentrated on fewer teams meaning it would be more competitive. If its more competitive its harder for a few players to produce more then everyone. That's why in 91 Robinson has only 3 more boards then the person in 20'th: there's so many betters players to compete with him. More teams means more players get in the league and that scrubby dude who can't board compared to everyone else gets in and gets beat up on by the guy who can.

You have to realize that once you normalize 60's players' stats into today's numbers, they are less impressive than they seem. For example, a player like West or Robertson could easily have 35 or even 40 ppg seasons if they had played in watered-down leagues, facing each other like 2 or 3 times a season and having the freedom to take even 30% of their team's shots. 60's players' stats were inflated due to pace, not due to poor competition.
Also, note that Wilt played a lot of minutes, so the adjusted stats of certain players would be closer if they could play as many minutes.
Third, you once again were wrong about the stats. Robinson was 4.6 rpg (aka 54.8%) above the 20th rebounder in the league. I won't even mention Rodman, who is the living proof that if you have a great talent somewhere and then you can concentrate on this specific area almost exclusively, you can become completely dominant, even in 90's leagues.

Dwight Howard dunks like VC, and VC is the kind of player they have to guard against and that kind of player bigs have to defend against.

Dwight Howard dunks like VC? Here's another good topic you wouldn't get many supporters, because you seem to mean it literally.

Carter is still a forward after all. In Bill Russel's time 6'7" Carter could have played center,so he's totally in the conversation.

After the mid-50's, Carter would never play center. Too short. Maybe he could do so against the shortest stiffs of the era, but not against serious competition.

Now Duncan's a poor athlete? You're a joke. Lets see Elvin Hayes guard prime Shaq straight up and come away with 28/20/6blks. Do you know stupid saying Tim Duncan got to his level without being a truly elite athlete is? You basically say that any player who used their head and had good fundamentals was a poor athlete like they were in the 60's. TD is an incredible athlete with great speed, coordination and power for his size. He put it together with footwork Wilt and Russel couldn't even dream about.

Tim Duncan is an all time athlete. If he played in the 60's he would have matched up with Wilt and been bigger then him. Its just ridiculous.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c_-JyLBJc-s

And yet, with all his "ridiculous athleticism", Duncan is still considered the most boring superstar maybe ever, he's considered an "old school" type of player, he prefers lay-ups to dunks, he prefers taking mid range and soft bank shots instead of beating the hell out of his opponents under the boards, he has virtually zero references among the NBA's elite athletes, the Spurs play some of the slowest basketball with him as the focal point of the offense and rarely execute fast breaks through him and he never got past 2.9 bpg, despite playing practically as a C.

Yea, it happens cuz you have to guard players who are incredibly large, fast, and powerful. It increases the chances you get hurt because ball is played at such a higher level/intensity. Once you get hurt your effectiveness is gone as you just get eaten by the top tier talent. I mean, don't you realize that a big reason guys like Kareem/Hayes had such great careers is because they never got seriously hurt in 38 combines seasons and a big reason for that is because the league was not as physicial?

Then I also guess Karl Malone or Moses Malone never cared about banging with big opponents and that's why they lasted that much. AC Green, with less athleticism than McDyess played for 1200 games in a row. Probably because he wasn't physical at all. John Stockton must have been a softie when it comes to this as well, which explains why he was still playing great at 40+. Robert Parish? Same. Kevin Willis? Same.

Boxing out is a skill and athletic play based on quickness to get to a spot, skill to know your footwork, and strength to clear/maintain it. Its at this point that I realize you've never played organized basketball. All true bigs become great because they're good at boxing out. You're coach won't let you play if you don't. Its one of the first things you teach a center. Watch, if you place your feet here and move like this, you can force him out of the way and get every board. Ask Rodman if he became great this way. That goes on your list of comments.

Don't worry, I played basketball and I know what your main point is. Which is wrong: This video (which I admit I should have posted it already) is about boxing out. Guess who are the poeple talking about it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yH1LnAQp4cM&feature=PlayList&p=D9248404D5180EB0&index=0&playnext=1

Psileas

05-04-2009, 10:42 AM

Its not the 60's pool, its the 40's/50's pool that that generation came from. The 60's is when they played. And the loose calculation comes from Bill Russel who was born in 1934. The world population more then doubled over the next 30-40 years. So in the 40s/50's a proportion of the US's 140 million played ball. Since basketball was not nearly as popular as it was in the 60's/70's and was dwarfed in comparison to other sports like boxing/football/freaking lacross/baseball so naturally those sports drew the best and most athletes.

So you have a small proportion of 140 million that realistically have the opportunity to play and its obvious that other sports are more appealing to athletes and ball is seen as a goon sport. The sport is only starting to be played in other countries. This is obvious as it took until 1972 for team USA to even lose a single olympic game.

30 years later basketball is becoming a glamor sport attracting the best athletes. Its a total global game as people play seriously in every country opening the pool from a proportion of 150 million to billions. The population of the world instead of 2 billion has more then doubled at 4 in 1975 and 4.4 in 1980. So, the pool of people who have picked up a ball and shot at a hoop has gone through the roof. Nearly every single school in the entire world has a basketball hoop today as the game has become a global sport. So yes, when it goes from 'north american game played by small proportion of countries population totaling 150 million tops' to 'global game played by every country with populations in the billions' the talent pool is 1000's of times bigger.

How many people even played basketball by the time Russell was born? Seriously, how many? I can't see it topping like, 10-20 million. Can you? Half the population would be too old to have been around when it started being played. Half of that population would be into other sports, hell, at least half of that population because basketball is no where near the most popular sport. You're already down to about 30 million people total. You half it again because there's just lots of people who don't play sports at all. Thats 15 million. 1000 times is 1.5 billion. Given how much more popular basketball is in a massive way, the fact that everyone alive was born when the sport was established on all levels, the nearly every school that people attend in the world now has a hoop, that everyone knows superstars like Michael Jordan (he's an international brand) and that theres a 4+ billion amount of people in the world I don't see 1000 times the talent pool as being so crazy.

Its a ceiling but its not insane. Its loose and by no means accurate and doesn't have to be to get the point across. Lets say its a gross overestimation. Okay. So lets rank our 10 best random teams then.

At 1000 times you are picking from 100 people, me from 100,000 and my team beats the crap out of your's.

At 500 times you are picking from 100 people, me from 50,000 and my team beats the crap out of your's.

At 250 times you are picking from 100 people, me from 25,000 and my team beats the crap out of your's.

At 125 times you are picking from 100 people, me from 12,500 and my team beats the crap out of your's.

At 50 times you are picking from 100 people, me from 5,000 and my team beats the crap out of your's.

At 10 times you are picking from 100 people, me from 1,000 and my team beats the crap out of your's.

And I can assure you, its larger then 10 times. Its in the hundreds with 1,000's not out of reach.

Face the truth.

First of all, we're talking about USA, not the world, so world population doesn't matter. After all, international players started playing in the NBA in the early 90's (of course I don't count these very few individual cases that happened earlier), so world population up to the late 80's doesn't matter.
The world population thing that you mentioned, along with the fact that the popularity of basketball exploded later compared to the USA (started from the late 80's and is still increasing), the fact that Team USA is no longer the "who's going for second?" dominator and the vast increase of internationals during the last seasons can easily mean that the real biggest talent pool exists nowadays.
Second, basketball's popularity even in the USA didn't stop growing at any point. Going by childhoods alone, which you did, Jordan-Magic-Bird belonged to the 70's talent pool (more like late 60's for the last 2 guys). LeBron belongs to the 90's pool. Like you did before, compare the popularities of the games in these decades (which you admitted was higher in the 90's) and you should similarly reach to the conclusion that LeBron's era>Jordan's/Magic's-Bird's eras. Especially if you add in the increase popularity of the game globally.
Third, whichever 25 or 30 year span you're comparing, even a 100-fold increase is still an extreme overexaggeration, not because I said so, but because the results do: Which span's pools do you want to compare? 40's and 70's? Let's say that there was a 400-time increase in this pool. If this increase was kind of steady, this would mean a 7.37-time deeper pool for each decade. This, in turn, should mean either that
1) A huge number of NBA teams should be added-I mean hundereds of teams during these 3 decades.
or that
2) with the number of the teams not increasing to an extreme degree (a 3-4 team increase is considered a big expansion), a huge percentage of players from year X should be out of the league or struggling to survive just a few years after beginning their careers.
Neither happened.

They're not assumptions they're rational assertions. Its 'rationale' that Jerry West would not have played ball with a symmetrical ball because they didn't exist until the 50's. I think its rational to think that a poor kid with abusive drunk parents probably couldn't afford state of the art sports equipment.

The same for Bill Russel. He grew up the son of a janitor in a segregated 50's community. Something tells me he didn't have lots of cash on hand for high technology equipment.

Once again you're trying to magnify certain things, like the symmetricity of the ball. The balls were not as high tech as today's balls, but we already saw that balls very similar to today's basketballs started existing by the early 40's. You must be talking about 40's players, not 60's. If 40's balls were as largely problematic as you claim, do you think there would be any reason for organizing pro leagues in that decade, with the most important equipment of the sport being at a horrible condition? Don't you also think that, while watching videos from the 40's NBA we'd be able to see the ball bounce and move in weird ways and directions every time it was dribbled, which we don't?

indiefan23

05-04-2009, 03:14 PM

Indiefan23, Psileas is probably the most knowledgeable poster on ISH. Why waste your time? He can actually back up and/or expand on his claims and know s the game inside out. Give it up.

Ha, yea, here's some AWESOME knowledge he's imparted on us.

Hey guess what... Tim Duncan, Larry Bird, Magic Johnson, John Stockton, Charles Barkley and Isiah Thomas were all poor athletes. Boxing out is merely a strategy. Oh yea, and being able to jump twice as high as your opponent is not a very important part of the game. Its just fancy showing off. He claims one player playing well in one era and only okay in the next is indicative of both eras being about the same. Its all such a crap shoot.

That's some kind of knowledge. The guy is a 'fan' of the game but understands little about it. He's one of the most myopic fanboys on the site, that's for sure. I can back that up... would you like to see it?

32jazz

05-04-2009, 04:04 PM

Psileas

05-04-2009, 04:06 PM

Ha, yea, here's some AWESOME knowledge he's imparted on us.

Hey guess what... Tim Duncan, Larry Bird, Magic Johnson, John Stockton, Charles Barkley and Isiah Thomas were all poor athletes. Boxing out is merely a strategy. Oh yea, and being able to jump twice as high as your opponent is not a very important part of the game. Its just fancy showing off. He claims one player playing well in one era and only okay in the next is indicative of both eras being about the same. Its all such a crap shoot.

That's some kind of knowledge. The guy is a 'fan' of the game but understands little about it. He's one of the most myopic fanboys on the site, that's for sure. I can back that up... would you like to see it?

-Jerry West was a poor athlete who couldn't even get his hand above the rim and trained with soccer balls. However, Stockton, Nash, Billups and Duncan are all great or elite ones. Even Bird and Magic, even at their worst, were worlds better athletes than West.
-Big Baby Davis could do all the things Wilt could (that's a new gem right here). Plus, Greg Oden could run faster than him at his prime.
-Within 30 or so years, the talent pool in the USA increased by 3.2 gazillion times, regardless of what results show.
-Rumors that most players back then were measured barefoot and their weights weren't updated are myths just to make them look better.
-Wilt facing 4-5 very good/great centers in a 10-team league is not enough to qualify as good competition.

(And many more that I have no will to recall).

Dude, your understanding, perceptions and estimations at a lot of things you discuss are ironically bad to try and blame others for not understanding the game. Forget me, the "Wilt homer". Try to tell any of these things mentioned above to any sensible person who knows about NBA history and you'll be laughed at.

Psileas

05-04-2009, 04:11 PM

Psileas , haven't you given this unreasonable clown enough jerkoff material. It's obvious this is how he gets his rocks off. Him having to acknowledge them(Wilt/Big O/Kareem...) is proof to their Towering legacies.His is silly/obscure 15 pages of confusion. I have never seen anyone questions Kareem's greatness which spanned three decades

You're right, and I had stopped like twice following the guy in this topic, but when I see certain things posted which are too obviously wrong to just ignore, I get into the trap of re-entering the (let's call it) conversation. I'll try to stop now, because it isn't getting anywhere. Let the others draw their conclusions.

chains5000

05-04-2009, 04:15 PM

This is the kid that said Howard was the most dominant center ever, right?:oldlol:

indiefan23

05-04-2009, 04:25 PM

First of all, we're talking about USA, not the world, so world population doesn't matter.

Well, I'm talking 'talent pool' which includes everyone who plays basketball which includes countries other then the USA, so you're wrong.

[qutoe]After all, international players started playing in the NBA in the early 90's (of course I don't count these very few individual cases that happened earlier), so world population up to the late 80's doesn't matter.[/quote]

The talent pool of players who played in the 90's came from those playing ball in the 70's/80's. It does matter.

The world population thing that you mentioned, along with the fact that the popularity of basketball exploded later compared to the USA (started from the late 80's and is still increasing), the fact that Team USA is no longer the "who's going for second?" dominator and the vast increase of internationals during the last seasons can easily mean that the real biggest talent pool exists nowadays.

Umm... yes, that was a point I made, its been expanding continuously.

Second, basketball's popularity even in the USA didn't stop growing at any point. Going by childhoods alone, which you did, Jordan-Magic-Bird belonged to the 70's talent pool (more like late 60's for the last 2 guys). LeBron belongs to the 90's pool. Like you did before, compare the popularities of the games in these decades (which you admitted was higher in the 90's) and you should similarly reach to the conclusion that LeBron's era>Jordan's/Magic's-Bird's eras. Especially if you add in the increase popularity of the game globally.

I don't doubt Lebron's era is going to be better for a second. Bron's era is not over yet though and is just picking up steam. After MJ et al retired the league slumped for a few years. Since the 2003 draft its been getting better every year. 6 years from 2003 things are really picking up as the 2003 and on rookies are getting closer to their potential just as Jordan's class started peaking right at the end of the 80's after being drafted in 84. This past year's class was even better. The year before was awesome too. I think the league was in better shape when Jordan came in to be honest but its not going to matter. In 10 years when Asia invades the NBA its going to go to another level we've never seen. For that matter I think the league has taken a step forward athletically.

I fully anticipate the 90's being overtaken... not as much as the 50's/60's was however. Who knows though in another 30 years, yea maybe. The thing about the older era was the sport was just still being developed as it was being played. The game changed so much from 1950 to 1960 its tough to even call it the same sport. Or consider 1940-1960. It really is not the same at all. That rate of change has slowed down as 1960-1980 does look like a lot more like it and 1980-2000 looks even more the same. At some point it will reach a tipping point where it stops growing and changing so much and people generally know how its played best and its spread enough that the pool is not expanding more.

Look at baseball. It started in the early half of the 18'th century. Over the next 50-70 years there was a lot of flux. Then in the 20's it hit it's own tipping point and the game is played more or less the same as it was from then on with very little change beyond roids.

I mean, in Bill Russel's career he invented blocking shots and you're trying to tell me it hit that point while he was playing?

Third, whichever 25 or 30 year span you're comparing, even a 100-fold increase is still an extreme overexaggeration, not because I said so, but because the results do: Which span's pools do you want to compare? 40's and 70's? Let's say that there was a 400-time increase in this pool. If this increase was kind of steady, this would mean a 7.37-time deeper pool for each decade. This, in turn, should mean either that
1) A huge number of NBA teams should be added-I mean hundereds of teams during these 3 decades.
or that

Do you pay attention or just read 1960's headlines. Its two fold.

1. Simple economics. 30 franchises have increasing talent. More talent with less teams makes more competition and easier to market, charge higher prices and make more money for everyone. This is 'exactly' what happened and it can be seen in the salaries reflecting the price people are willing to pay for better product and the ease of marketing. Once you have a group of people making a killing do you want more competition or do you keep profits for yourself? The NBA is a collection of 'owners' not of 'groups people like to play in'.

2. Have you not noticed that there are basketball leagues all over the world now? Euro league has become so successful that they are successfully starting to sign legitimate NBA players in their prime. There are 100's of more teams.

A 100 fold increase is not only possible but is lower then the ceiling. Basketball has become the #2 global sport. In the 40's it was what, the #10 US sport? #5 maybe? I mean... without thinking: boxing/Lacross/football/soccer/baseball/cricket. I'm not even sure where hockey and track fit into the equation and I forget when cricket/lacross peaked and fell or what other sports were huge. I do know that ball was popular but localized regionally.

2) with the number of the teams not increasing to an extreme degree (a 3-4 team increase is considered a big expansion), a huge percentage of players from year X should be out of the league or struggling to survive just a few years after beginning their careers.
Neither happened.

??? It happens every year. The stars are the best so they have long careers. The average career lasts 5 years. That means about an equal number of players last 7-9 years as last 1-3 years.

Once again you're trying to magnify certain things, like the symmetricity of the ball. The balls were not as high tech as today's balls, but we already saw that balls very similar to today's basketballs started existing by the early 40's. You must be talking about 40's players, not 60's. If 40's balls were as largely problematic as you claim, do you think there would be any reason for organizing pro leagues in that decade, with the most important equipment of the sport being at a horrible condition?

I think they'd organize but people wouldn't bother to really dribble because the balls sucked. I can't believe you're trying to tell me that because a decent experimental balls 'existed' poor white trash and segregated kids growing up in ghettos got them as presents.

Don't you also think that, while watching videos from the 40's NBA we'd be able to see the ball bounce and move in weird ways and directions every time it was dribbled, which we don't?

Man, I've watched old BAA games. They didn't dribble the ball. It was almost like a faster version of team handball. People passed, maybe bounce passed, and maybe took a dribble or two to reset their feet and move. You can actually see the game evolve watching clips year by year as the equipment starts changing the way the game was played. And yes, I've actually done this in my sports history class when I was in university. Nothing was standard and maybe one place had a soccer ball that bounced better then another place's soccer ball.

And it still really does not matter because poor ghetto kids are not going to be playing with NBA level equipment with a war on in the 1940's. Its just ridiculous. Even if there is a team in Indiana or in New York that has learned how to do something right or had a decent ball things were not wide spread. And that spread didn't reach those kids. Jerry West's parents threw beer bottles at him not expensive new basketballs from Spalding's 'inventor workbench room'.

Your problem is you think just because you're older you're the only one who knows anything credible. The game evolved over time and everyone played their part. I'm glad its continuously gotten better.

indiefan23

05-04-2009, 04:27 PM

This is the kid that said Howard was the most dominant center ever, right?

Uh, I said he dominated the league more then anyone since Wilt... and he is. What didn't you understand?

indiefan23

05-04-2009, 04:32 PM

Psileas , haven't you given this unreasonable clown enough jerkoff material. It's obvious this is how he gets his rocks off. Him having to acknowledge them(Wilt/Big O/Kareem...) is proof to their Towering legacies.His is silly/obscure 15 pages of confusion. I have never seen anyone questions Kareem's greatness which spanned three decades:confusedshrug:

23jazz, where did you get the idea that I'm challenging Kareem's greatness? Or Wilt or Big O?

Lord man. You really don't read what people said.

Kareem: played 20 seasons. Won zillions of titles. MVPs. Had one of the most unstoppable moves in history.

Big O: averaged a triple double over one season. Most like will never be done again. Nuff said.

Wilt: Averaged 50 PPG and 27 RPG.

Why would anyone question their legacies which are obvious?

indiefan23

05-04-2009, 04:37 PM

-Jerry West was a poor athlete who couldn't even get his hand above the rim and trained with soccer balls. However, Stockton, Nash, Billups and Duncan are all great or elite ones. Even Bird and Magic, even at their worst, were worlds better athletes than West.
-Big Baby Davis could do all the things Wilt could (that's a new gem right here). Plus, Greg Oden could run faster than him at his prime.
-Within 30 or so years, the talent pool in the USA increased by 3.2 gazillion times, regardless of what results show.
-Rumors that most players back then were measured barefoot and their weights weren't updated are myths just to make them look better.
-Wilt facing 4-5 very good/great centers in a 10-team league is not enough to qualify as good competition.

(And many more that I have no will to recall).

Dude, your understanding, perceptions and estimations at a lot of things you discuss are ironically bad to try and blame others for not understanding the game. Forget me, the "Wilt homer". Try to tell any of these things mentioned above to any sensible person who knows about NBA history and you'll be laughed at.

Heh, dude, I could care less if people laugh at me. My understanding is fine. If you have to lie about what I said to feel like you won that's okay... its just shameful cuz all those players you love lose.

indiefan23

05-04-2009, 04:39 PM

Psileas

05-04-2009, 05:36 PM

indiefan23

05-05-2009, 01:34 AM

Like I said before, I'll do my best to try not to continue this conversation for like 5 months more. There are still many points I could address, like the fact that even Euroleague (and other European championships) NBA-level players aren't that many and neither are European teams which are attractive and wealthy enough to invite them - Josh Childress must be the biggest NBA name playing in Europe today, and he was considered just an average or a little above average NBA player. A lot of these guys had NCAA careers and then got cut (or completely ignored) by NBA teams.

Also, I can't help but mention the following quote:

Reminds me of another guy who claimed so and had been banned. I just hope you're not him under another screen-name.

Because I've watched ESPN Classic? ;0

I didn't way Euroleague was NBA talent, but theres top talent playing elsewhere and those leagues are getting much stronger. You acted like there were no other high quality teams and there are. Those teams are better then NCAA D-League teams and theres more talent then just childress playing. Pargo comes to mind as well. And Delfino off the top of my head.

Kiddlovesnets

05-05-2009, 01:37 AM

Second best NBA player ever.

indiefan23

05-05-2009, 01:47 AM

sorry, I can't resist this. You're resorting to just plain lying.

-Jerry West was a poor athlete who couldn't even get his hand above the rim and trained with soccer balls. However, Stockton, Nash, Billups and Duncan are all great or elite ones. Even Bird and Magic, even at their worst, were worlds better athletes than West.

Yes, thats true.

-Big Baby Davis could do all the things Wilt could (that's a new gem right here).

He could do all the things you listed when I made that comment.

Plus, Greg Oden could run faster than him at his prime.

Greg Oden ran the floor as fast as Wilt did in a clip you showed me. You say 'in his prime' and list times Wilt the track athlete, not the in his prime ball player ran.

-Within 30 or so years, the talent pool in the USA increased by 3.2 gazillion times, regardless of what results show.

The talent pool in the world. I specifically said and re-clarified this. You're bald faced lying.

-Rumors that most players back then were measured barefoot and their weights weren't updated are myths just to make them look better.

You just assume players who are older you liked were 2"'s taller then everyone who played later despite the fact that plenty of people are listed barefoot and height in shoes varies totally from player to player. That is, you'd just tack on 2 inches with 0 facts backing you up. Constantly.

-Wilt facing 4-5 very good/great centers in a 10-team league is not enough to qualify as good competition.

Not when you're comparing it to a league of 30 teams with 50 good bigs. No, its not.

(And many more that I have no will to recall).

Dude, your understanding, perceptions and estimations at a lot of things you discuss are ironically bad to try and blame others for not understanding the game. Forget me, the "Wilt homer". Try to tell any of these things mentioned above to any sensible person who knows about NBA history and you'll be laughed at.

You're absolutely a Wilt old era homer. You look at tape of th 1967 NBA finals, admit they don't box out or play a sophisticated level of ball and that the players are way less athletic and then claim that they'd be able to compete on the same level in the 90's that Jordan played in. Watch the games side by side. The old era players were 'great' but there is 0 chance they could compete.

You even admit you have your head in the sand but are too proud to acknowldge it.

Actually I (and most of the others) do talk about greatness. I don't really care what would happen if so and so changed eras and remained "only" as good as they were, because that would never happen. You're born and grow up in an era, yet, despite this obvious fact, some continue using the "time transportation" thing.

You 'don't care' because you know the result and refuse to admit it.

indiefan23

05-05-2009, 01:47 AM

Second best NBA player ever.

I think you can make an argument for that but it really depends on the criteria.

Kiddlovesnets

05-05-2009, 01:50 AM

I think you can make an argument for that but it really depends on the criteria.

Wilt was once voted as second greatest player in an official ISH poll...

indiefan23

05-05-2009, 05:03 AM

Wilt was once voted as second greatest player in an official ISH poll...

Well, if a poss by fans is your criteria I think you have to do better. Kobe was voted by 34% of fans as the best playoff performer of all time. Magic had 6%. Bird had 4%. You think people who know basketball give fans, much less, ISH fans, any credit at all? Do you think they deserve any?

Psileas

05-05-2009, 07:35 AM

You just assume players who are older you liked were 2"'s taller then everyone who played later despite the fact that plenty of people are listed barefoot and height in shoes varies totally from player to player. That is, you'd just tack on 2 inches with 0 facts backing you up. Constantly.

I assume nothing. Open some books, ask people who know about the 60's and educate yourself.

Not when you're comparing it to a league of 30 teams with 50 good bigs. No, its not.

The 50th best big in any modern league is a low-impact scrub or, at best, a very mediocre player, with low basketball skills, especially nowadays. This doesn't constitute a "good big" or real competition.

You're absolutely a Wilt old era homer. You look at tape of th 1967 NBA finals, admit they don't box out or play a sophisticated level of ball and that the players are way less athletic and then claim that they'd be able to compete on the same level in the 90's that Jordan played in. Watch the games side by side. The old era players were 'great' but there is 0 chance they could compete.
You even admit you have your head in the sand but are too proud to acknowldge it.

You 'don't care' because you know the result and refuse to admit it.

The real reason you only care about straightly comparing players from different eras without any adjustment is because deep inside you know that older guys had much more talent than you give them credit and you fear that a more fair, adjusted comparison (which is the norm in comparing just about anything, except if you have ever met anyone who believes that the commander-in-chief of the army of modern Tanzania is greater than Alexander the Great, because Alexander's army used swords and shields) would greatly hurt the players you idolized.
No, really, you find me one sane person who would think like this in that army example. And this example is actually exaggerated, because war in the last 2,300 years progressed way, way more than basketball in the last 30-50. The equivalent of the Atom Bomb in 330 BC in basketball would be a player averaging like 3,000 ppg (or generally, a completely supernatural number) in the 60's/70's.

OK, off now.

indiefan23

05-05-2009, 10:31 AM

I assume nothing. Open some books, ask people who know about the 60's and educate yourself.

Ha, you deny then that you tacked on 2 inches to every 60's player's height? That's an 'assumption' because you don't know what the differences actually are. All the education in the world, of which I have plenty, is not going to change the fact that you didn't know the numbers when you claimed you did.

The 50th best big in any modern league is a low-impact scrub or, at best, a very mediocre player, with low basketball skills, especially nowadays. This doesn't constitute a "good big" or real competition.

I completely agree with you. That's why you should see my point about how the 60s were watered down when you have to go to the 50'th or 60'th player in 1991 to reach the player getting half of the leader, Robinson's boards. 30 years earlier you hit that mark at rebounder #7. Thanks for finally agreeing.

The real reason you only care about straightly comparing players from different eras without any adjustment is because deep inside you know that older guys had much more talent than you give them credit and you fear that a more fair, adjusted comparison (which is the norm in comparing just about anything, except if you have ever met anyone who believes that the commander-in-chief of the army of modern Tanzania is greater than Alexander the Great, because Alexander's army used swords and shields) would greatly hurt the players you idolized.

Greater? No. Who would win a fight? Tanzania would kill every one of them without sustaining a scratch 100 times out of 100.

The real reason I don't have adjusted stats? Well adjusted for what? My point is that possessions/watered down talent relative to the best players hyper inflated their stats. I don't really have time to pace adjust stats for 30 years of basketball. How can you say that? Everything I've posted has been making a case TO adjust their stats and discussing the factors which would have to be adjusted for to compare their play then statistically to play now.

No, really, you find me one sane person who would think like this in that army example. And this example is actually exaggerated, because war in the last 2,300 years progressed way, way more than basketball in the last 30-50. The equivalent of the Atom Bomb in 330 BC in basketball would be a player averaging like 3,000 ppg (or generally, a completely supernatural number) in the 60's/70's.

OK, off now.

You know I have never put down the 'greatness' of these players. At every juncture I've stated I think they are great and deserve their place in the sports history. I'm a fan of many of them. I love Kareem and watched him when I was a kid. I think West was a great shooter. I think Bill Russell was a great winner.

I have said one and only one solitary thing. These players could not achieve that same greatness as the players they were with the same skills and abilities in the modern NBA. Its the same way (but to a lesser degree) that Alexander the great would lose any battle to the army of Tanzina using the same methods they used to fight wars. I have not been unreasonable or even disrespectful to them. I'm pretty sure Jerry West will be the first to admit he didn't have the skills of Michael Jordan and that the closeness of their stats are not indicative of their relative skill sets. What does he have to prove? He's Jerry West. The only finals MVP to lose. The guy who's image is on every piece of NBA anything in the world. And he started it all shooting a soccer ball through a crap hoop after his father had drank to much. Then he went on to build championship teams as a GM.

That dude has nothing left to prove and I'm pretty sure he would admit the league has evolved to another level for many of the reasons I listed... the biggest of which I stated was that these players I supposedly disrespect pushed the league to a higher level and that the improvement was not a knock against them but their legacy. I'm not sure why his fans can not accept the facts/truth of the matter. You even went beyond this... you said the 50's players were in the same league. Its just preposterous. Watch Geroge Mikan and tell me he plays with Shaq. He does not. He loses to Shaq just like Alexander gets shot a bullet or his army is melted down with a tactical nuclear device.

32jazz

05-05-2009, 01:45 PM

The 50th best big in any modern league is a low-impact scrub or, at best, a very mediocre player, with low basketball skills, especially nowadays. This doesn't constitute a "good big" or real competition.

The real reason you only care about straightly comparing players from different eras without any adjustment is because deep inside you know that older guys had much more talent than you give them credit and you fear that a more fair, adjusted comparison (which is the norm in comparing just about anything, except if you have ever met anyone who believes that the commander-in-chief of the army of modern Tanzania is greater than Alexander the Great, because Alexander's army used swords and shields) would greatly hurt the players you idolized.
No, really, you find me one sane person who would think like this in that army example. And this example is actually exaggerated, because war in the last 2,300 years progressed way, way more than basketball in the last 30-50. The equivalent of the Atom Bomb in 330 BC in basketball would be a player averaging like 3,000 ppg (or generally, a completely supernatural number) in the 60's/70's.

OK, off now.
It is not even that much of an adjustment. The ignorant here would have us believe we have created a race of superhumans within one generation that athletes of the 60's could not compete with:rolleyes: ( Bob Beamon laughs)

Yet the idolization of today's GROSSLY overhyped shoesalesmen makes it just that much more amusing when they lose to 'unathletic' /soft Euro players in the 2002 World Campionships(6th place), 2004 Olympics & 2006 FIBA Championships losing to some teams with not a single NBA player on it's roster.

Elvin Hayes/Wes Unseld/Kareem & even Dr J prove that there is an indisputable continuity/fluidity of Basketball between the three decades(60's,70's,80's).

Sports is always evolving,but it isn't like the game of today is unrecognizable compared to the 70's /80's.

Bush4Ever

05-05-2009, 03:11 PM

It is not even that much of an adjustment. The ignorant here would have us believe we have created a race of superhumans within one generation that athletes of the 60's could not compete with:rolleyes: ( Bob Beamon laughs)

That obviously is not true as framed, but the interaction between athletic ability, drawing from a larger pool of talent, and most importantly the scientific gains in body chemistry, nutrition, etc (which HAS grown by leaps and bounds, especially in application) leads the average player to be noticeably more athletic than 40 years ago.

If you want to discuss something like track and field, virtually every single record from the 60s has been smashed, and the vast majority have been broken multiple times.

32jazz

05-05-2009, 04:27 PM

That obviously is not true as framed, but the interaction between athletic ability, drawing from a larger pool of talent, and most importantly the scientific gains in body chemistry, nutrition, etc (which HAS grown by leaps and bounds, especially in application) leads the average player to be noticeably more athletic than 40 years ago.

If you want to discuss something like track and field, virtually every single record from the 60s has been smashed, and the vast majority have been broken multiple times.

Let's look at(not all) just a FEW of your hero sprinters who have 'smashed' the world record recently: Tim Montgomery(doper),Justin Gatlin(Doper),Linford Christie(disgaraced doper),Maurice Greene(suspected doper with some shady payments to dope dealers),the East Germas,etc....as I said that was just a few as I don't have time to name them all:confusedshrug: .

Let's not forget Flo Jo who was transforming into a man before our very eyes & Maiden Marion Jones(who proved you can do it without detection):rolleyes: Please don't disgrace the names of great Track Athletes of the past with these dopers of the late 70's/80's & beyond. No one barely trusts the times/records anymore & the sports prestige has suffered accordingly.

The 100m record of '68(Jim Hines) stood for nearly two(2) decades & we know Bob Beamon's strory.

I admitted in my post that sports is always evolving ,but it is assinine to think that for some reason that Humans are somehow just so physically superior to those a generation or so ago.
I have acknowledged the evolution/improvement of equipment,training techniques,etc....:confusedshrug:

Then again we are talking about Basketball here & not the drug infested Track & Field world of today.

Fact is Elvin Hayes/Kareem/Wes Unseld/Dr J(technically),etc...had no problem playing in either one of the three decades(60's/70's/80's) & even excelled at very advanced ages well into 80's. It is a testamet to the continuity of the sport from the 60's to the 80's(NBA golden Era) up until today.

Now go let ESPN bombard you with how marvelous & super-human Dwight Howard & Lebron James are:rolleyes:

Bush4Ever

05-05-2009, 04:36 PM

Let's look at(not all) just a FEW of your hero sprinters who have 'smashed' the world record recently: Tim Montgomery(doper),Justin Gatlin(Doper),Linford Christie(disgaraced doper),Maurice Greene(suspected doper with some shady payments to dope dealers),the East Germas,etc....as I said that was just a few as I don't have time to name them all:confusedshrug: .

Let's not forget Flo Jo who was transforming into a man before our very eyes & Maiden Marion Jones(who proved you can do it without detection):rolleyes: Please don't disgrace the names of great Track Athletes of the past with these dopers of the late 70's/80's & beyond. No one barely trusts the times/records anymore & the sports prestige has suffered accordingly.

The 100m record of '68(Jim Hines) stood for nearly two(2) decades & we know Bob Beamon's strory.

I admitted in my post that sports is always evolving ,but it is assinine to think that for some reason that Humans are somehow just so physically superior to those a generation or so ago.
I have acknowledged the evolution/improvement of equipment,training techniques,etc....:confusedshrug:

Then again we are talking about Basketball here & not the drug infested Track & Field world of today.

Fact is Elvin Hayes/Kareem/Wes Unseld/Dr J(technically),etc...had no problem playing in either one of the three decades(60's/70's/80's) & even excelled at very advanced ages well into 80's. It is a testamet to the continuity of the sport from the 60's to the 80's(NBA golden Era) up until today.

Now go let ESPN bombard you with how marvelous & super-human Dwight Howard & Lebron James are:rolleyes:

If you don't like using professional times, you can use high school times or college times. The same pattern holds. Swimming times are another easy example.

I don't think anyone would argue that human beings have evolved to become superhuman beings, but rather than all of the tangential advantages afforded to today's athletes give the modern athlete a non-trivial edge in terms of athleticism compared to 40 years ago. Of course, exceptions will always exist. Some overlap does exist between eras, but the mean levels of athleticism are better today. Think of something like this, with the modern era on the right:
http://www.dtreg.com/LdaOverlapDistribution.jpg

Now go let senile old men bombard you with how Wilt had a 80 inch vertical, could bench press the state of Utah, and had sex with 20,000 women while bench pressing the state of Utah (that is a joke, don't freak out).

johndough

05-05-2009, 04:42 PM

Actually if you study T n F records the biggest jumps occured when there was no/lax drug testing. When testing was implemented, records moved much slower.

indiefan23

05-05-2009, 04:48 PM

Now go let senile old men bombard you with how Wilt had a 80 inch vertical, could bench press the state of Utah, and had sex with 20,000 women while bench pressing the state of Utah (that is a joke, don't freak out).

What? 'while' making love with 20 k women? Didn't he bench press the statue of Utah with his *****??

indiefan23

05-05-2009, 04:51 PM

It is not even that much of an adjustment. The ignorant here would have us believe we have created a race of superhumans within one generation that athletes of the 60's could not compete with:rolleyes: ( Bob Beamon laughs)

Yet the idolization of today's GROSSLY overhyped shoesalesmen makes it just that much more amusing when they lose to 'unathletic' /soft Euro players in the 2002 World Campionships(6th place), 2004 Olympics & 2006 FIBA Championships losing to some teams with not a single NBA player on it's roster.

Elvin Hayes/Wes Unseld/Kareem & even Dr J prove that there is an indisputable continuity/fluidity of Basketball between the three decades(60's,70's,80's).

Sports is always evolving,but it isn't like the game of today is unrecognizable compared to the 70's /80's.

When was Garbo unathletic? He did everything for the Raptors. 3 players prove jack squat about anything except 3 player out of 100's.

pierce2008mvp

05-05-2009, 04:52 PM

Discuss Wilt Chamberlain

The 60's were a weak era. Anyone can score on 6'4" white guys at center

32jazz

05-05-2009, 05:01 PM

If you don't like using professional times, you can use high school times or college times. The same pattern holds. Swimming times are another easy example.

I don't think anyone would argue that human beings have evolved to become superhuman beings, but rather than all of the tangential advantages afforded to today's athletes give the modern athlete a non-trivial edge in terms of athleticism compared to 40 years ago. Of course, exceptions will always exist. Some overlap does exist between eras, but the mean levels of athleticism are better today. Think of something like this, with the modern era on the right:
http://www.dtreg.com/LdaOverlapDistribution.jpg

Now go let senile old men bombard you with how Wilt had a 80 inch vertical, could bench press the state of Utah, and had sex with 20,000 women while bench pressing the state of Utah (that is a joke, don't freak out).

I have no problem with using the times of these( record breaking)PROVEN dopeheads/cheaters you are so impressed with :confusedshrug: I have never claimed that athletes of the past are somehow superior so I'm not under any delusion that Wilt is more athletic than D Rob or Dwight Howard.Unlike contemporary clowns (yourself included) I do not believe one to be any superior to the other.
I'm gonna say it again that it is obvious that training,equipment,techniques,etc....have improved, attempting to sqeeze a bit more out of our abilities, but it's foolish to believe humans are somehow physically superior.

That being said Athleticism isn't the only thing that determines Basketball greatness /success & I repeat:
Elvin Hayes/Kareem/Wes Unseld/Dr J had no problem playing in the 60's/70's & at advanced ages well into the 80's since we are talking about Basketball aren't we:confusedshrug: & not your doped up Track & Field Athletes of the past 2-3 decades or so.

Bush4Ever

05-05-2009, 05:08 PM

I have no problem with using the times of these( record breaking)PROVEN dopeheads/cheaters you are so impressed with :confusedshrug: I have never claimed that athletes of the past are somehow superior so I'm not under any delusion that Wilt is more athletic than D Rob or Dwight Howard.Unlike contemporary clowns (yourself included) I do not believe one to be any superior to the other.
I'm gonna say it again that it is obvious that training,equipment,techniques,etc....have improved, attempting to sqeeze a bit more out of our abilities, but it's foolish to believe humans are somehow physically superior.

That being said Athleticism isn't the only thing that determines Basketball greatness /success & I repeat:
Elvin Hayes/Kareem/Wes Unseld/Dr J had no problem playing in the 60's/70's & at advanced ages well into the 80's since we are talking about Basketball aren't we:confusedshrug: & not your doped up Track & Field Athletes of the past 2-3 decades or so.

RAGE = THE COOL :mad: :mad:

I'll let other people evaluate my statements and posting history since you seem to be upset.

32jazz

05-05-2009, 05:21 PM

RAGE = THE COOL :mad: :mad:

I'll let other people evaluate my statements and posting history since you seem to be upset.
^^^
:cry:

Good , because I really don't have patience for close minded Knucklheads nor the performance enhanced contemporary cheats they slurp at the expense of other wonderful more 'natural'athletes of another era.

indiefan23

05-07-2009, 09:45 AM

I have no problem with using the times of these( record breaking)PROVEN dopeheads/cheaters you are so impressed with :confusedshrug: I have never claimed that athletes of the past are somehow superior so I'm not under any delusion that Wilt is more athletic than D Rob or Dwight Howard.Unlike contemporary clowns (yourself included) I do not believe one to be any superior to the other.
I'm gonna say it again that it is obvious that training,equipment,techniques,etc....have improved, attempting to sqeeze a bit more out of our abilities, but it's foolish to believe humans are somehow physically superior.

That being said Athleticism isn't the only thing that determines Basketball greatness /success & I repeat:
Elvin Hayes/Kareem/Wes Unseld/Dr J had no problem playing in the 60's/70's & at advanced ages well into the 80's since we are talking about Basketball aren't we:confusedshrug: & not your doped up Track & Field Athletes of the past 2-3 decades or so.

Man, what is your issue? Guy is a 'clown' now because he made a few reasonable points about how athletics has progressed? And why do the doping runners invalidate the ones who didn't dope?

Hayes/Unseld only played into the early, early 80's before it really got strong. Kareem/Unseld were shadows of their formers selves on teams led by players who were better then them.

Either way... if I can do things physically that you can't that means I'm physically superior. Its simple.

indiefan23

05-07-2009, 09:51 AM

^^^
:cry:

Good , because I really don't have patience for close minded Knucklheads nor the performance enhanced contemporary cheats they slurp at the expense of other wonderful more 'natural'athletes of another era.

You mean closed minded there huh? Whats your point anyway? Doping is almost a non-issue in basketball because it limits players agility. Players often need to drop not gain. I'm not sure which of your fav players' toes we stepped on because your reaction while barely disagreeing with anything anyone is saying is just intense. I bet you're kinda like that Psilias guy who got so offended I didn't think his favorite players wern't as good as their stats he started saying the greatest players in the history of the game were all poor athletes. He didn't go as far as to say Jordan was a poor athlete but he got close.

indiefan23

05-19-2009, 09:15 AM

stuff

Hey Psileas... your PM's on here are full. I'm trying to send ya something. Think you can clear it?

Roundball_Rock

05-19-2009, 10:29 AM

Psileas - report back with the league leaders in FG% in the 60's.

Out of curiosity I looked it up and compared it through eras. To save time I generally left out the player's names next to the ranking.

I also looked at FT % and assists.

1954

FG %

1) 49%
2) 45%
3) 45%
4) 42%
5) 42%
10) 40%
15) 38.5% (Cousy)
20) 37.5%

The top three in FGA took 1,300, 1,300, and 1,200 shots.

FT %

1) 84%
5) 81%
10) 76%
15) 73%
20) 71%

Assists per game

1) 7
2) 6
3) 5
5) 4.5
10) 4
15) 3
20) 2.9

1964

FG %

1) 53%
2) 52%
3) 51%
5) 49%
10) 46%
15) 45%
20) 44%

Only three players shot above 50%!

Wilt led the league with 2,300 shots taken, the next two highest were in the 1,700's. Wilt jacked up 3,200 shots in 1962 and 2,800 in the following year. To put that into context, Jordan's two highest seasons are 2,300 and 2,000--and this is someone who consistently took 300+ more shots then the second most proflic shot taker during his prime years! AI's two highest seasons are 1,900 and 1,800; Kobe's 2,200 and 1,900.

FT %

1) 85%
2) 83%
3) 83%
5) 82%
10) 79%
15) 77%
20) 74%

Assists

1) 11
2) 7
3) 6
5) 5
10) 5
15) 3
20) 3.1

1974

FG %

1) 55%
2) 54%
3) 54%
5) 51%
10) 50%
15) 49.5%
20) 49%

12 players shot above 50%, two shot at 50%.

FT %

1) 90%
2) 90%
3) 88%
5) 87%
10) 86%
15) 85%
20) 84%

Assists

1) 8
2) 7
3) 7
5) 6
10) 6
15) 5
20) 4.7

The three league leaders in FGA took between 1,791 and 1,759 shots.

1984

FG %

1) 63%
2) 60%
3) 59%
5) 58%
10) 57%
15) 56%
20) 56%

The top three in FGA took between 1,765 and 1,603 shots.

FT %

1) 89%
2) 88%
3) 87%
5) 86%
10) 85%
15) 84%
20) 84%

Assists

1) 13
2) 11
3) 11
5) 10
10) 7
15) 6
20) 5.6

1994

FG %

1) 60%
2) 57%
3) 56%
5) 54%
10) 53%
15) 51.5%
20) 51%

The three leaders in FGA took between 1,694 and 1,591 shots.

FT %

1) 96%
2) 91%
3) 90%
5) 89%
10) 87%
15) 85%
20) 83.5%

Assists

1) 13
2) 10
3) 10
5) 9.5
10) 7
15) 6
20) 5

2009

FG %

1) 61%
2) 60%
3) 58%
5) 57%
10) 53%
15) 52.5%
20) 51%

The three leaders in FGA took between 1,739 and 1,616 shots.

FT %

1) 98%
2) 95%
3) 93%
5) 91%
10) 88%
15) 87%
20) 87%

Assists

1) 11
2) 11
3) 10
5) 9
10) 7
15) 6
20) 5

These numbers suggest the 60's were a weak and unsophisticated era while the 50's were a joke. In addition, the stats from the 60's are inflated by pace and in Wilt's case by him taking a million shots a game. All that said, I still believe Wilt is a GOAT candidate and is in my top 5 of all-time but his record needs to be put into context. Back when he played only 3-5 players would shoot above 50% in a season. What does that tell you about the skill level of 60's players?

hall of fame

05-19-2009, 10:40 AM

Damn... 16 pages on the most overrated player ever. Good work. There is really nothing else to discuss about Wilt Chamberlain and other 60s superstars. Just about everyone knows by now that these guys were good for their time and would be rotting at the end of the bench in today's STRONG era, probably picking their nose or ear, scratching their arse, waving a towel, and/or chugging gatorade, etc. I'd recommend ignoring everything the poster Psileas has to say. He's some weird stalker kind of guy who always quotes you if you say anything about the 60s. Nobody ever really cares enough to read any of his posts, but he'll continue to act like people do. To be honest, he spends half of his time in real life studying 60s players. Pretty sad if you ask me.

As someone who has seen more than enough footage of Wilt Chamberlain and other 60s players, I can tell you that he'd be no better than Andrew Bogut in today's league. A guy like Dwight Howard is a far better athlete than Wilt "the quilt" Chamberlain ever was in his prime. People often bring up Wilt's 100 m time as evidence of him being an athletic freak, but I tell you that these times are made up. There is no proof of Wilt being a high jump champion or having a crazy 100 m time. It's all nonsense from guys who played with the guy or coached him during the 60s.

Wilt Chamberlain played the WEAKEST, MOST PATHETIC competition out of anyone in NBA history. The centers he went up against were 6'6" on average and no more athletic than a guy like Andres Biedrins or David Lee today. When Wilt scored 100, the toughest guy he was guarded by was basically a Mark Madsen clone. NOBODY with a shred of common sense takes the accomplishments of Wilt Chamberlain seriously. It's all good to read if you want some laughs, but we all know that he's not even among the top 5 players to ever play this game. A player like prime Shaq O'Neal would have no problem destroying all of Wilt's records in the 60s era of basketball. Just imagine Shaq playing Rik Smits and Todd McCullough every game instead of just in the Finals. Guy would have averaged 60 PPG, 35 RPG, 9 APG, 14 BPG on close to 70% FG if he wanted to.

60s = worthless era of basketball. The real NBA began in the 80s and continues today. Anything before the 80s = not taken seriously.

Roundball_Rock

05-19-2009, 10:42 AM

For further evidence of the inflated stats of the 60's, look at the all-time best single season performances in rebounding. Is it a coincidence they all occurred in or around the 60's?

Rank Player TRB Season
1. Wilt Chamberlain* 2149 1960-61
2. Wilt Chamberlain* 2052 1961-62
3. Wilt Chamberlain* 1957 1966-67
4. Wilt Chamberlain* 1952 1967-68
5. Wilt Chamberlain* 1946 1962-63
6. Wilt Chamberlain* 1943 1965-66
7. Wilt Chamberlain* 1941 1959-60
8. Bill Russell* 1930 1963-64
9. Bill Russell* 1878 1964-65
10. Bill Russell* 1868 1960-61
11. Bill Russell* 1843 1962-63
12. Bill Russell* 1790 1961-62
13. Wilt Chamberlain* 1787 1963-64
14. Bill Russell* 1779 1965-66
15. Bill Russell* 1778 1959-60
16. Wilt Chamberlain* 1712 1968-69
17. Bill Russell* 1700 1966-67
18. Wilt Chamberlain* 1673 1964-65
19. Jerry Lucas* 1668 1965-66
20. Bill Russell* 1612 1958-59

Here are the best seasons over the past two decades. Look at how low they rank. Rodman was arguably the most dominant rebounder ever yet his best seasons come in at 26th, 45th, and 76th all time.

26. Dennis Rodman 1530 1991-92
45. Dennis Rodman 1367 1993-94
60. Kevin Willis 1258 1991-92
76. Dennis Rodman 1201 1997-98
95. Dwight Howard 1161 2007-08
96. Dikembe Mutombo 1157 1999-00
99. Sam Lacey 1149 1974-75

A similar thing can be seen regarding field goals attempts, although the 60's skew is a bit less here than in rebounding, although this is mainly due to Michael Jordan.

Rank Player FGA Season
1. Wilt Chamberlain* 3159 1961-62
2. Wilt Chamberlain* 2770 1962-63
3. Wilt Chamberlain* 2457 1960-61
4. Wilt Chamberlain* 2311 1959-60
5. Wilt Chamberlain* 2298 1963-64
6. Michael Jordan* 2279 1986-87
7. Elgin Baylor* 2273 1962-63
8. Rick Barry* 2240 1966-67
9. Rick Barry* 2217 1974-75
10. Elvin Hayes* 2215 1970-71
11. Kobe Bryant 2173 2005-06
12. Elgin Baylor* 2166 1960-61
13. Bob McAdoo* 2138 1974-75
14. Tiny Archibald* 2106 1972-73
15. Wilt Chamberlain* 2083 1964-65
16. Elvin Hayes* 2082 1968-69
17. Jack Twyman* 2063 1959-60
18. Pete Maravich* 2047 1976-77
19. Elvin Hayes* 2020 1969-70
20. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar* 2019 1971-72
21. Michael Jordan* 2003 1992-93
22. Michael Jordan* 1998 1987-88
23. Wilt Chamberlain* 1990 1965-66
24. George Gervin* 1987 1981-82
25. John Havlicek* 1982 1970-71

29. Allen Iverson 1940 2002-03
32. Jerry Stackhouse 1927 2000-01
33. Kobe Bryant 1924 2002-03
55. LeBron James 1823 2005-06
56. Moses Malone* 1822 1981-82
Allen Iverson 1822 2005-06
58. Michael Jordan* 1818 1991-92
Sam Jones* 1818 1964-65
Allen Iverson 1818 2004-05
61. Tracy McGrady 1813 2002-03
Allen Iverson 1813 2000-01
63. Antawn Jamison 1812 2000-01
Alex English* 1812 1984-85
Hakeem Olajuwon* 1149 1989-90
104. Kevin Garnett 1139 2003-04

db23

05-19-2009, 10:45 AM

32jazz

05-19-2009, 11:16 AM

A similar thing can be seen regarding field goals attempts, although the 60's skew is a bit less here than in rebounding, although this is mainly due to Michael Jordan.

Rank Player FGA Season
1. Wilt Chamberlain* 3159 1961-62
2. Wilt Chamberlain* 2770 1962-63
3. Wilt Chamberlain* 2457 1960-61
4. Wilt Chamberlain* 2311 1959-60
5. Wilt Chamberlain* 2298 1963-64
6. Michael Jordan* 2279 1986-87
7. Elgin Baylor* 2273 1962-63
8. Rick Barry* 2240 1966-67
9. Rick Barry* 2217 1974-75
10. Elvin Hayes* 2215 1970-71
11. Kobe Bryant 2173 2005-06
12. Elgin Baylor* 2166 1960-61
13. Bob McAdoo* 2138 1974-75
14. Tiny Archibald* 2106 1972-73
15. Wilt Chamberlain* 2083 1964-65
16. Elvin Hayes* 2082 1968-69
17. Jack Twyman* 2063 1959-60
18. Pete Maravich* 2047 1976-77
19. Elvin Hayes* 2020 1969-70
20. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar* 2019 1971-72
21. Michael Jordan* 2003 1992-93
22. Michael Jordan* 1998 1987-88
23. Wilt Chamberlain* 1990 1965-66
24. George Gervin* 1987 1981-82
25. John Havlicek* 1982 1970-71

29. Allen Iverson 1940 2002-03
32. Jerry Stackhouse 1927 2000-01
33. Kobe Bryant 1924 2002-03
55. LeBron James 1823 2005-06
56. Moses Malone* 1822 1981-82
Allen Iverson 1822 2005-06
58. Michael Jordan* 1818 1991-92
Sam Jones* 1818 1964-65
Allen Iverson 1818 2004-05
61. Tracy McGrady 1813 2002-03
Allen Iverson 1813 2000-01
2003-04

Thanks for pointing out the hypocrisy of those who continue you call Kobe selfish:rolleyes: yet MJ/AI are all over the list of root toot shootingest guards to ever put on sneakers.

Also for the 3 first page threads of basicaslly the same several trolls questioning HOF'ers/ all time greats when a thread questioing AI's HOF credentials(which most of us agreed he was in) is closed.:confusedshrug:

Amazing.....

indiefan23

05-19-2009, 11:48 AM

Thanks for pointing out the hypocrisy of those who continue you call Kobe selfish:rolleyes: yet MJ/AI are all over the list of root toot shootingest guards to ever put on sneakers.

Also for the 3 first page threads of basicaslly the same several trolls questioning HOF'ers/ all time greats when a thread questioing AI's HOF credentials(which most of us agreed he was in) is closed.:confusedshrug:

Amazing.....

AI is the GOAT littleman. Of course he's in. Kobe is selfish. MJ shot 'way' higher %'s, had more assists, everything, and could win playing that style. Kobe could not.

Mikaiel

05-19-2009, 12:28 PM

Rodman was arguably the most dominant rebounder ever yet his best seasons come in at 26th, 45th, and 76th all time.

Arguably ? Are you kidding me ?

And if you want a more accurate stat, try rebound percentage (percentage of avalaible rebounds you grabbed while on the floor) :

1. Dennis Rodman, 94-95, 29.73% (!!!)
2. Dennis Rodman, 95-96, 26.56%
3. Dennis Rodman, 91-92, 26.19%
4. Dennis Rodman, 92-93, 25.99%
5. Dennis Rodman, 93-94, 25.74%
6. Dennis Rodman, 96-97, 25.61%
7. Dennis Rodman, 97-98, 24.08%
8. Jayson Williams, 95-96, 23.78%
9. Danny Fortson, 98-99, 23.70%
10. Moses Malone, 76-77, 23.38%

Career :

1. Dennis Rodman, 23.44%
2. Swen Nater, 20.85%
3. Dwight Howard, 20.51%
4. Moses Malone, 19.83%
5. Larry Smith, 19.30%
6. Ben Wallace, 19.12%
7. Dikembe Mutombo, 19.10%
8. Chris Dudley, 18.76%
9. Tim Duncan, 18.44%
10. Marcus Camby, 18.34%

Only 2 players have been able to have a higher rebound percentage for a season than Rodman's career average. If that's not f*cking sick, I don't know what is.

32jazz

05-19-2009, 01:42 PM

Arguably ? Are you kidding me ?

And if you want a more accurate stat, try rebound percentage (percentage of avalaible rebounds you grabbed while on the floor) :

1. Dennis Rodman, 94-95, 29.73% (!!!)
2. Dennis Rodman, 95-96, 26.56%
3. Dennis Rodman, 91-92, 26.19%
4. Dennis Rodman, 92-93, 25.99%
5. Dennis Rodman, 93-94, 25.74%
6. Dennis Rodman, 96-97, 25.61%
7. Dennis Rodman, 97-98, 24.08%
8. Jayson Williams, 95-96, 23.78%
9. Danny Fortson, 98-99, 23.70%
10. Moses Malone, 76-77, 23.38%

Career :

1. Dennis Rodman, 23.44%
2. Swen Nater, 20.85%
3. Dwight Howard, 20.51%
4. Moses Malone, 19.83%
5. Larry Smith, 19.30%
6. Ben Wallace, 19.12%
7. Dikembe Mutombo, 19.10%
8. Chris Dudley, 18.76%
9. Tim Duncan, 18.44%
10. Marcus Camby, 18.34%

Only 2 players have been able to have a higher rebound percentage for a season than Rodman's career average. If that's not f*cking sick, I don't know what is.

I agree Rodman 'should' be a first ballot HOF'er ,but didn't rebound pct only become an official stat in 1971? With all due respect to the legendary Tom Boerwinkle who had the highest rebound rate in 1971 & the venerable Larry Smith (5th all time) :confusedshrug: .........................

Smith & Boerwinkle barely played over 20mpg during their careers & Rodman played approx. 31mpg. Wilt /Russell & others averaged around 44/45 mpg so I would assume fatigue/time on the floor etc....would hurt their 'rates' just like everyone agrees 'pace' mpg skewers their averages.

Is there some 'unofficial' numbers for before '71? And even so doesnt' playing 45-48 in some cases:eek: hurt your 'rate' compared to Tom 'friggin' Boerwinkle & Larry Smith as well as Rodman?

And answer this also .Why is this thread still open considering it was a dead thread bumped by a troll for absolutely no reason after 2/3 weeks?

Psileas

05-19-2009, 02:32 PM

Hey Psileas... your PM's on here are full. I'm trying to send ya something. Think you can clear it?

Read what I wrote to you. Starting from a few hours from now, I will be out for quite a lot of time. No reason for the time being, because I don't have the time to respond. Maybe when I return. What was it about?

Simple Jack

05-19-2009, 03:35 PM

Out of curiosity I looked it up and compared it through eras. To save time I generally left out the player's names next to the ranking.

I also looked at FT % and assists.

1954

FG %

1) 49%
2) 45%
3) 45%
4) 42%
5) 42%
10) 40%
15) 38.5% (Cousy)
20) 37.5%

The top three in FGA took 1,300, 1,300, and 1,200 shots.

FT %

1) 84%
5) 81%
10) 76%
15) 73%
20) 71%

Assists per game

1) 7
2) 6
3) 5
5) 4.5
10) 4
15) 3
20) 2.9

1964

FG %

1) 53%
2) 52%
3) 51%
5) 49%
10) 46%
15) 45%
20) 44%

Only three players shot above 50%!

Wilt led the league with 2,300 shots taken, the next two highest were in the 1,700's. Wilt jacked up 3,200 shots in 1962 and 2,800 in the following year. To put that into context, Jordan's two highest seasons are 2,300 and 2,000--and this is someone who consistently took 300+ more shots then the second most proflic shot taker during his prime years! AI's two highest seasons are 1,900 and 1,800; Kobe's 2,200 and 1,900.

FT %

1) 85%
2) 83%
3) 83%
5) 82%
10) 79%
15) 77%
20) 74%

Assists

1) 11
2) 7
3) 6
5) 5
10) 5
15) 3
20) 3.1

1974

FG %

1) 55%
2) 54%
3) 54%
5) 51%
10) 50%
15) 49.5%
20) 49%

12 players shot above 50%, two shot at 50%.

FT %

1) 90%
2) 90%
3) 88%
5) 87%
10) 86%
15) 85%
20) 84%

Assists

1) 8
2) 7
3) 7
5) 6
10) 6
15) 5
20) 4.7

The three league leaders in FGA took between 1,791 and 1,759 shots.

1984

FG %

1) 63%
2) 60%
3) 59%
5) 58%
10) 57%
15) 56%
20) 56%

The top three in FGA took between 1,765 and 1,603 shots.

FT %

1) 89%
2) 88%
3) 87%
5) 86%
10) 85%
15) 84%
20) 84%

Assists

1) 13
2) 11
3) 11
5) 10
10) 7
15) 6
20) 5.6

1994

FG %

1) 60%
2) 57%
3) 56%
5) 54%
10) 53%
15) 51.5%
20) 51%

The three leaders in FGA took between 1,694 and 1,591 shots.

FT %

1) 96%
2) 91%
3) 90%
5) 89%
10) 87%
15) 85%
20) 83.5%

Assists

1) 13
2) 10
3) 10
5) 9.5
10) 7
15) 6
20) 5

2009

FG %

1) 61%
2) 60%
3) 58%
5) 57%
10) 53%
15) 52.5%
20) 51%

The three leaders in FGA took between 1,739 and 1,616 shots.

FT %

1) 98%
2) 95%
3) 93%
5) 91%
10) 88%
15) 87%
20) 87%

Assists

1) 11
2) 11
3) 10
5) 9
10) 7
15) 6
20) 5

These numbers suggest the 60's were a weak and unsophisticated era while the 50's were a joke. In addition, the stats from the 60's are inflated by pace and in Wilt's case by him taking a million shots a game. All that said, I still believe Wilt is a GOAT candidate and is in my top 5 of all-time but his record needs to be put into context. Back when he played only 3-5 players would shoot above 50% in a season. What does that tell you about the skill level of 60's players?

Thanks for putting that together. That was what I was trying to get at.

***When judging players on an all-time list, you have to take into consideration only their achievements and individual performance within their own era. Comparing across other eras is based on assumptions and it just hold for a logical argument.

indiefan23

05-19-2009, 03:51 PM

Thanks for putting that together. That was what I was trying to get at.

***When judging players on an all-time list, you have to take into consideration only their achievements and individual performance within their own era. Comparing across other eras is based on assumptions and it just hold for a logical argument.

Jack, there is no such thing as a logical player comparison. Logic is 1 + 1 =2 and there's just no black and white player achievements to add up like that.

You continue with this 'it can't be done' mantra. Comparing a player's achievements are just as illogical because winning a title in 1948 is just as affected by era as scoring 50 PPG. Its just not the same achievement. And what 'achievements' are you talking about anyway? Winning titles is no indication of how good you are as a player because teams win titles and a million things can prevent you from winning or even having winning seasons that have 0 to do with your personal talent. Was Mitch Richmond poor? Cuz he didn't win jack.

Really, the only logical way to compare players is to watch tape of them playing at their highest level and compare them by their performance.

I think its a little convenient that you hang onto this 'achievements' thing. The Pistons made the con finals 7 years in a row, so they achieved way more then the Sacromento Kings teams, but the Kings were way better because the east was intensely weak during those years and the same applies to the Celtics winning 11 of 13 titles. They were better then everyone, thats an achievement, but everyone stank, and that lowers the achievement.

The only reason someone would have for it is to protect their perceptions of those players. If you can ignore their poor play and only count up rings or whatever other era based stat you want you can ignore the fact that players today just play the game at a higher level. There is zero question that Mitch Richmond was a better player then say, tommy heinsohn. Richmond was an elite athlete. Tommy Heinsohn, well, he was a smoker, and there just no way around that fact. Mitch is better. Its that simple.

indiefan23

05-19-2009, 03:56 PM

Only 2 players have been able to have a higher rebound percentage for a season than Rodman's career average. If that's not f*cking sick, I don't know what is.

I LOVE the worm, but its gotta be said. He was a specialist. If he was trying to score more he does not get as many boards or get way up on that list as high so he's kind of an anomaly. Guys like Forston are there cuz they couldn't play 30 minutes without fouling out. Either way, I think it shows a totally weak and statistically era even if those guys had higher %'s. Wilt's case for everything is stats and without playing 25% more possessions every game or out bigging diminutive players, that's all he'd remain. A great big dude who didn't win much.

Psileas

05-19-2009, 04:16 PM

These numbers suggest the 60's were a weak and unsophisticated era while the 50's were a joke. In addition, the stats from the 60's are inflated by pace and in Wilt's case by him taking a million shots a game. All that said, I still believe Wilt is a GOAT candidate and is in my top 5 of all-time but his record needs to be put into context. Back when he played only 3-5 players would shoot above 50% in a season. What does that tell you about the skill level of 60's players?

I'll be out of the site for quite some time, so here's one last note, about this:

Some of these stats don't reveal anything about sophistication. The all-time highest FG%'s were during the mid-80's, not today. In the late 60's, they were already comparable to nowadays. FT's? Lower than today, but players were also fewer. You see yourself that in the early 70's, more players shot at high percentages, and most of these played in the 60's, as well. Assists? They were measured in a different way than today. Assist leaders having less assists can be explained by this and can also mean that the game was more team-oriented. And it was. High pace doesn't help individualism, and this is a main reason I don't buy 100% the absolute pace adjustments. Apart from Wilt, no superstar of the era took as high a percentage of his team's shots as Kobe or LeBron or younger Iverson. Even Wilt, given his playing time and pace, didn't take such an extraordinary number of shots.

indiefan23

05-19-2009, 04:30 PM

I'll be out of the site for quite some time, so here's one last note, about this:

Some of these stats don't reveal anything about sophistication. The all-time highest FG%'s were during the mid-80's, not today. In the late 60's, they were already comparable to nowadays. FT's? Lower than today, but players were also fewer. You see yourself that in the early 70's, more players shot at high percentages, and most of these played in the 60's, as well. Assists? They were measured in a different way than today. Assist leaders having less assists can be explained by this and can also mean that the game was more team-oriented. And it was. High pace doesn't help individualism, and this is a main reason I don't buy 100% the absolute pace adjustments. Apart from Wilt, no superstar of the era took as high a percentage of his team's shots as Kobe or LeBron or younger Iverson. Even Wilt, given his playing time and pace, didn't take such an extraordinary number of shots.

Yep, I think the biggest reason the 60's players are so hard done by, really they'd be all stars today, was the lack of rationality people from that era had, right? ;0 clear out your PM's. :rockon:

Sir Charles

05-20-2009, 02:41 AM

A PRIME Wilt is the Greatest Player that Ever Played by miles! :rolleyes:
Also the Best Most Complete Athletic-Physical Player ofAll Time
Also the Most Complre IMPAC (Technically-SKilled and Physical) Center of All Time

He played in Second Toughest Era in NBA History The Late 60s-Early 70s reason why it was very diffuclt for him to win same as for Charles, Malone, Stockton, Kemp-Paton (we know Lakers after his prime), Webber etc etc

Second Best Era`s After the 80s.

Early 90s and Mid 90s is close to that of the late 60s and early 70s

Late 90s and 2000s = One of the Weakest Eras in Competitive Team Ball Ever!. Team Expansion, Less Posibilities of Great Role Players, Stars and Supestars To Play Togheter, Zero Fundamentally Sound Players, Passing Game, Shot Selection, Court Vision, Rule Changes to Easen the Game and A WAY LESSER PHYSICAL ERA than Wilts

:violin:

indiefan23

05-20-2009, 04:17 AM

A PRIME Wilt is the Greatest Player that Ever Played by miles! :rolleyes:
Also the Best Most Complate Athletic-Physical Player ofAll Time
Also the Most Complre IMPAC (Technically-Slilled and Physicaly) Center of All Time

He played in Second Toughest Era in NBA History The Late 60s-Early 70s reason why it was very diffuclt for him to win same as for Charles, Malone, Stockton, Kemp-Paton (we know Lakers after his prime), Webber etc etc

Second Best Era`s After the 80s.

Early 90s and Mid 90s is close to that of the late 60s and early 70s

Late 90s and 2000s = One of the Weakest Eras in Competitive Team Ball Ever. Team Expansion, Less Posibilities of Great Role Players, Stars and Supestars To Play Togheter, Zero Fundamentally Sound Players, Passing Game, Shot Selection, Court Vision, Rule Changes to Easen the Game and A WAY LESSER PHYSICAL ERA than Wilts

:violin:

Ah, Sir Charles, thanks for the motivation.

http://www.fullcourtpest.com/2009/05/nba-fan-evolution-part-1-fan-eras.html

indiefan23

05-20-2009, 03:06 PM

Late 90s and 2000s = One of the Weakest Eras in Competitive Team Ball Ever!. Team Expansion, Less Posibilities of Great Role Players, Stars and Supestars To Play Togheter, Zero Fundamentally Sound Players, Passing Game, Shot Selection, Court Vision, Rule Changes to Easen the Game and A WAY LESSER PHYSICAL ERA than Wilts[/B]

:violin:

Yep, cuz when I think of Tim Duncan and David Robinson, I think of poor fundamentals, right?

Simple Jack

05-20-2009, 03:19 PM

Jack, there is no such thing as a logical player comparison. Logic is 1 + 1 =2 and there's just no black and white player achievements to add up like that.

You continue with this 'it can't be done' mantra. Comparing a player's achievements are just as illogical because winning a title in 1948 is just as affected by era as scoring 50 PPG. Its just not the same achievement. And what 'achievements' are you talking about anyway? Winning titles is no indication of how good you are as a player because teams win titles and a million things can prevent you from winning or even having winning seasons that have 0 to do with your personal talent. Was Mitch Richmond poor? Cuz he didn't win jack.

Really, the only logical way to compare players is to watch tape of them playing at their highest level and compare them by their performance.

I think its a little convenient that you hang onto this 'achievements' thing. The Pistons made the con finals 7 years in a row, so they achieved way more then the Sacromento Kings teams, but the Kings were way better because the east was intensely weak during those years and the same applies to the Celtics winning 11 of 13 titles. They were better then everyone, thats an achievement, but everyone stank, and that lowers the achievement.

The only reason someone would have for it is to protect their perceptions of those players. If you can ignore their poor play and only count up rings or whatever other era based stat you want you can ignore the fact that players today just play the game at a higher level. There is zero question that Mitch Richmond was a better player then say, tommy heinsohn. Richmond was an elite athlete. Tommy Heinsohn, well, he was a smoker, and there just no way around that fact. Mitch is better. Its that simple.

Boxing is a great example. Many boxing historians agree that someone like Harry Greb wouldn't compare with Middleweights of the 80's, 90's and of today. The reason he is considered an all-time great and in many peoples top 20 p4p list is because of his achievements and accomplishments in his own era.

Wilt never got to play now, and to compare his style of play in a completely different NBA league than today to today's players is just plain stupid. It's an argument that's based on assumptions which is a logical fallacy in itself.

Personal achievements are scoring titles, statistics, MVP's, All-NBA teams, DPOY's, etc...

That is how athletes should be ranked and it's been done quite successfully and with ease in Boxing.

indiefan23

05-20-2009, 03:23 PM

I'll be out of the site for quite some time, so here's one last note, about this:

Some of these stats don't reveal anything about sophistication. The all-time highest FG%'s were during the mid-80's, not today. In the late 60's, they were already comparable to nowadays. FT's? Lower than today, but players were also fewer. You see yourself that in the early 70's, more players shot at high percentages, and most of these played in the 60's, as well. Assists? They were measured in a different way than today. Assist leaders having less assists can be explained by this and can also mean that the game was more team-oriented. And it was. High pace doesn't help individualism, and this is a main reason I don't buy 100% the absolute pace adjustments. Apart from Wilt, no superstar of the era took as high a percentage of his team's shots as Kobe or LeBron or younger Iverson. Even Wilt, given his playing time and pace, didn't take such an extraordinary number of shots.

What kind of garbage is that? Wilt took almost 40 shots a game one year and almost 40% of the entire year's shots. Thats almost double iverson's most ball hoggish year. 3159 vs 1669, and that didn't help out wilt's individual stats? You just say things without actually knowing if they are true or not. Wilt took twice as many shots as Iverson and shot a much larger %age of his team's shots. Silly. Here are some more since Wilt was the only one.
player - seasons shooting more FGAs the iverson's max anomaly season.

Kareem - 6
Jerry West - 4
Elgin Baylor - 8
Bob McAdoo - 3

We'll just stop there cuz its foolish.

indiefan23

05-20-2009, 03:34 PM

Boxing is a great example. Many boxing historians agree that someone like Harry Greb wouldn't compare with Middleweights of the 80's, 90's and of today. The reason he is considered an all-time great and in many peoples top 20 p4p list is because of his achievements and accomplishments in his own era.

Boxing is a terrible example. It peaked long ago and has been in decline. Today's boxers would get punked by yesterday's.

Wilt never got to play now, and to compare his style of play in a completely different NBA league than today to today's players is just plain stupid. It's an argument that's based on assumptions which is a logical fallacy in itself.

Personal achievements are scoring titles, statistics, MVP's, All-NBA teams, DPOY's, etc...

That is how athletes should be ranked and it's been done quite successfully and with ease in Boxing.

Please, explain the 'logical fallacy'... like, what kind of fallacy is it? Making an assumption is not a fallacy, in fact, no argument can exist without some axiomic assumptions being made. Stating that there is only one valid ranking of athletes is a rather stupid assumption you are making. You're ranking the all time achieved players and I put Russell right up there, but if you rank of everyone to ever play, who is the most talented, that has nothing to do with achievement. Its a different ranking, not an invalid one.

You trying to tell me that beating the Detroit bad boy Pistons on your way to a title requires the same talent as the Fort Wayne pistons is patently retarded. You know its not. Therefore MJ's achievement of beating them is in fact 'greater' then Russell because he achieved something much more difficult. Again, I beat people at the Y's rec league, its a different league, so if I win the YMCA title 50 times does that make me thebest ever? No, because you ahve to compare the league I was playing in to the one Wilt and MJ play in, and its obvious I'm a lesser player. I know you can't argue that logic, Simple Jack. I'm not as good as MJ no matter how many championships at the Y I win. So how can you use it to argue about NBA players playing in lesser talented leagues? You can't. You know it. The weakness of your competition factors into how you should be evaluated and you know that. Yet simply refuse to admit it.

I can put up better stats, win more titles and accolades then any player in history if you lower the competition enough. Just tell me: would I be better then MJ then?

YoungRich

05-20-2009, 03:54 PM

I LOVE the worm, but its gotta be said. He was a specialist. If he was trying to score more he does not get as many boards or get way up on that list as high so he's kind of an anomaly. Guys like Forston are there cuz they couldn't play 30 minutes without fouling out. Either way, I think it shows a totally weak and statistically era even if those guys had higher %'s. Wilt's case for everything is stats and without playing 25% more possessions every game or out bigging diminutive players, that's all he'd remain. A great big dude who didn't win much.

4 mvps? 2 rings? diddnt win much? STFU

Sir Charles

05-20-2009, 03:56 PM

Yep, cuz when I think of Tim Duncan and David Robinson, I think of poor fundamentals, right?

Im refering to the "average player", "role player" not a Superstar :violin:

Sir Charles

05-20-2009, 04:12 PM

Chamberlain: Strongest and Most Athletic 7`1 (Leaping Ability, Speed, Potence, Off 1 Step Jump, Endurance, Stamina) of All Time
Chamberlain: Most Fouled Player of All Time
Chamberlain: Greatest Rebounder of All Time
Chamberlain: Greatest Shot Blocker of All Time
Chamberlain: Among the Top Assiters Centers of All Time
Chamberlain: Never Fouled Out a Game
Chamberlain: Played More Minutes Per Game than Any Player Ever
Highest Scoring Avg and FG% of All Time in his Peak: Most of His Shots Jumpers, Fadeways, Bank Shots and FInger Rolls away from the Basket (not Dunks)
Chamberlain: Creator of the Fadeway Bank Shot

http://wiltfan.tripod.com/index1.html

http://wiltfan.tripod.com/pictures.htm

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/sports/images/nba/1999/chamberlain/wilt2.jpg

http://media.kansan.com/img/photos/2008/02/14/30_Wilt1.jpg

http://imagecache.allposters.com/images/pic/LIFPOD/956089~University-of-Kansas-Basketball-Star-Wilt-Chamberlain-Playing-in-a-Game-Posters.jpg

http://www.dotphoto.com/SAN1/AA/25/DB/iAA25DBF1-4A0D-45F0-9EFC-1BF6091E2D9F.jpg

Chamberlain Ages 45-50. Look ath the Musucle Tone without 90s Vitamins and Weight Lifting Programs

http://www.nba.com/media/allstar2007/kareem_wilt_0215.jpg

Simple Jack

05-20-2009, 06:27 PM

Boxing is a terrible example. It peaked long ago and has been in decline. Today's boxers would get punked by yesterday's.

Please, explain the 'logical fallacy'... like, what kind of fallacy is it? Making an assumption is not a fallacy, in fact, no argument can exist without some axiomic assumptions being made. Stating that there is only one valid ranking of athletes is a rather stupid assumption you are making. You're ranking the all time achieved players and I put Russell right up there, but if you rank of everyone to ever play, who is the most talented, that has nothing to do with achievement. Its a different ranking, not an invalid one.

You trying to tell me that beating the Detroit bad boy Pistons on your way to a title requires the same talent as the Fort Wayne pistons is patently retarded. You know its not. Therefore MJ's achievement of beating them is in fact 'greater' then Russell because he achieved something much more difficult. Again, I beat people at the Y's rec league, its a different league, so if I win the YMCA title 50 times does that make me thebest ever? No, because you ahve to compare the league I was playing in to the one Wilt and MJ play in, and its obvious I'm a lesser player. I know you can't argue that logic, Simple Jack. I'm not as good as MJ no matter how many championships at the Y I win. So how can you use it to argue about NBA players playing in lesser talented leagues? You can't. You know it. The weakness of your competition factors into how you should be evaluated and you know that. Yet simply refuse to admit it.

I can put up better stats, win more titles and accolades then any player in history if you lower the competition enough. Just tell me: would I be better then MJ then?

You clearly don't know boxing but that's a whole different discussion.

Where do you plan on putting up these vast stats and personal accolades? The NBA always drafted the best of the best and it remains a professional sport, not a pick-up game in your local gym. You act like Wilt and Russell weren't insanely conditioned athletes.

Edit: For one you are begging the question. Also, your entire argument is based on a questionable and falsifiable assumption; oh look, there's another logical fallacy.

Making an assumption is not a fallacy, in fact, no argument can exist without some axiomic assumptions being made.

Axiomic? Really?