Is Wilt Chamberlain the biggest game 7 choker in NBA history?

[HBK_Kliq_2]

game 7 of the 1970 nba finals he went 1\11 from the freethrow line

game 7 of the 2nd round in 1968 he scored 14 points on 44% FG and 40% from the freethrow line

game 7 of the finals 1969 he sat out the final minutes of the game because of injury and got called a bitch by bill russell for it

game 7 of the 1962 2nd round he scored just 22 points despite averaging 35PPG in the entire playoffs that year



His two championships, he only won because he didn't play in a game 7. This guy is the biggest game 7 choker in NBA history. He has never ever played great in a huge game 7 and choked in embarrassing fashion in 4 different game 7's.

[coastalmarker99]

Wilt played in nine game sevens throughout his career and his teams went 4-5 in those games.

He also averaged 24.4 ppg, 26.7 rpg, 4.1 APG, 9.4 BPG, .62.6 FG%, .45.1 FT%, and a .57.9 TS%. BTW, that .62.6 FG% is easily the highest of a "GOAT" candidate.

[Manny98]

Biggest choker ever period

Why I don't have him in my top 10

[coastalmarker99]

Here are Wilt's full stat-lines in his 9 game sevens.


1962 vs Celtics 22 points and 22 rebounds to go along with 14 blocks.


1964 vs Hawks 39 points and 30 rebounds and 6 assists to go along with 12 blocks.


1965 vs Celtics 30 points (12-15 FG and 6/13 FT) to go along with 32 rebs, 2 assists 3 blocks


1968 vs Celtics 14 points (4-9FG and 6/15FT) to go along with 34 rebs 5 assists 12 blocks.


1969 vs Celtics 18 points(7-8 FG and 2/11FT) to go along 27 rebs 3 assists 10 blocks.


1970 vs Suns 30 pts (11-18 FG and 8/17FT) to go along with 27 rebs 6 assists 12 blks Game 7.


1970 vs New york 21pts)10-16 FG and 1/11 FT to go along with 24 rebounds and 4 assists.




1971 vs Bulls 25 pts( 7-12 FG and 11-17FT) to go along with 19 rebounds 9 assists and 11 blocks.


1973 vs Bulls 21pts(10-17 FG and 1-1 FT to go along with 28 rebounds 4 assists and 8 blocks.

[coastalmarker99]

Biggest choker ever period

Why I don't have him in my top 10




Here are Wilt's numbers in 23 of his must win games in the post season...13 of which came against HOF starting centers.

12-11 W-L record

31.1 ppg (Regular season career average was 30.1 ppg)

26.1 rpg (Regular season career average was 22.9 rpg)

3.4 APG (Regular season career average was 4.4 APG)

54.0 FG% (Regular season career average was .54.0 FG%)

BTW, that .54.0 came against post-season NBA's that averaged an FG% of .43.5... or over 10% higher than the post-season league average!

3 games of 50+ points

5 games of 40+ points (including a Finals 40+ elimination game)

13 games of 30+ points

6 games of 30+ rebounds

20 games of 20+ rebounds

BTW, that 31.1 ppg ranks just behind MJ (31.3 ppg) all-time

[Manny98]

Here are Wilt's numbers in 23 of his must win games in the post season...13 of which came against HOF starting centers.

12-11 W-L record

31.1 ppg (Regular season career average was 30.1 ppg)

26.1 rpg (Regular season career average was 22.9 rpg)

3.4 APG (Regular season career average was 4.4 APG)

54.0 FG% (Regular season career average was .54.0 FG%)

BTW, that .54.0 came against post-season NBA's that averaged an FG% of .43.5... or over 10% higher than the post-season league average!

3 games of 50+ points

5 games of 40+ points (including a Finals 40+ elimination game)

13 games of 30+ points

6 games of 30+ rebounds

20 games of 20+ rebounds

BTW, that 31.1 ppg ranks just behind MJ (31.3 ppg) all-time

2-7 record in game 7s

Choked a 3-1 lead

List goes on

Wilt has the biggest regular season to finals dropoff off any player ever.

He's basically a completely different player in the postseason and finals

[coastalmarker99]

The narrative that Wilt is a choker is unfair.


I mean how would we view Bird's legacy if he had lost game 7 of the 1984 finals at home while shooting 6 out of 18 from the floor.


Larry Bird would now have 2 rings instead of 3 but would that make him a lesser player in my eyes hell no as he reportedly was going to get the finals MVP regardless if the Celtics had lost.



How we would view Kobe's legacy had he lost game 7 of the 2010 finals at home while shooting 6 out of 24 from the floor.




People can choose to pick and focus on Wilt's bad games in the playoffs but compared to other ATG's Wilt stacks up pretty well with everybody when it comes to being a game seven performer and elimination game performer.

[coastalmarker99]

2-7 record in game 7s

Choked a 3-1 lead

List goes on

Wilt has the biggest regular season to finals dropoff off any player ever.

He's basically a completely different player in the postseason and finals

16 PPG Lakers in 80 games/53%
25 PPG 76ers in 44 Games/54%
*34.7 PPG Warrior's 36games/50%


Wilt's Warriors playoff average is still the league record among all 30 franchise leaders in Playoff PPG, which includes Jordan Bulls.



Wilt played in 29 postseason series, the majority of them played from 1966-73, and Wilt's teams went 18-11 in them.

Anyone wondering about Wilt's drop-off in career average points from the regular season to the playoffs (30.1 to 22.5) should know that when Wilt was the main shot taker on his team he put up 39.6 season PPG and 32.9 playoffs PPG. in his first seven years.



Also Wilt had only one finals series in which he was looking to score. He attempted 24 shots per game in the 1964 finals as opposed to only 11.7 for the rest of his NBA finals career (30 additional games).





This has lead many to see his 18.6 finals ppg and conclude he must have not been as capable as his 30ppg regular-season career number indicates but it’s actually because his role changed so much and he played more finals in a fewer shot attempt role.

For actual apples to apples comparison:

33.8ppg, 27.9rpg, 4.1apg in 17 1964 regular-season games vs Russell

29.2ppg, 27.6rpg, 2.4apg in 5 1964 Finals games vs Russell

And Russell vs Wilt for reference:

14.8ppg, 26.4rpg, 6apg in 17 1964 regular-season games vs Wilt

11.2ppg, 25.2rpg, 5apg in 5 1964 Finals games vs Wilt

[coastalmarker99]

2-7 record in game 7s

Choked a 3-1 lead

List goes on

Wilt has the biggest regular season to finals dropoff off any player ever.

He's basically a completely different player in the postseason and finals

In his first 7 seasons in the league, Wilt led the league in scoring every year, he played in 52 playoff games, but only played in 1 NBA Finals series.


In his final 7 seasons in the league, Wilt never led the league in scoring, he played in 108 playoff games and played in 5 NBA Finals series.




If the award existed at the time, Wilt would have been named the 1967 Finals MVP, and he was named the 1972 Finals MVP.


Most of his critics love to bring up this out of context argument (e.g., 7.6 point difference between his regular season and playoff scoring average) in order to call Wilt a choker.




I would bet the farm that most people don't know that in those 52 playoff games when Wilt was a scorer he averaged 32.9 points, 26.6 rebounds, and shot .50.5 from the field.


No player in NBA history had a playoff series averaging 32 points and 26 rebounds, yet Wilt averaged that over the span of 10 playoff series.



Wilt for the record is the only player in NBA history to have multiple 50 point games when facing postseason elimination.

[coastalmarker99]

Also, the irony couldn't be more palpable about a Kawhi fanboy calling Wilt out for being a game seven choker.



Here are Kawhi's full game sevens stat-lines.



2013 vs Miami 19 points(8-17 FG and 2/4 FT) to go along with 16 rebounds to go along with 2 turnovers.


2014 vs Dallas 15 points)7-14 and 0/1 FT) to go along with 6 rebounds.


2015 vs Clippers 13 points(5-13 FG and 2/2 FT) to go along with 10 rebounds.


2019 vs 76ers 41 points) 16-39 FGA and 7/8FT) to go along with 8 rebounds and 3 steals plus 4 turnovers.


2020 vs Denver 14 points) 6-22 FGA and 0/0 FTA) to go along with 6 rebounds and 6 assists 2 steals and 1 block.


2021 vs Dallas 28 points) 10-15 FGA and 7/7 FTA to go along with 10 rebounds and 9 assists and 4 steals plus 1 block

[coastalmarker99]

Kawhi Leonard has averaged 21.7 points, 9.3 rebounds and 3.3 assists on 42 percent shooting and 25 percent shooting from three in 6 game sevens in his career.

[Axe]

Very alarming lmao

[ClipperRevival]

He's the GOAT choker for a top 10ish player. Bron was also in this convo but corrected his legacy in the 2nd half of his career. Wilt was a lover, not a killer.

[ClipperRevival]

https://youtu.be/s1KsYB0Jsew

[coastalmarker99]

He's the GOAT choker for a top 10ish player. Bron was also in this convo but corrected his legacy in the 2nd half of his career. Wilt was a lover, not a killer.

1964 Finals, and 1969 Finals, Russell didn't play particularly well but he escapes scrutiny because his teams win.

Russell's numbers against Wilt in the Finals:

1964: 11.2 ppg on a .38.6 FG%

1969: 9.0 ppg on a .39.9 FG%.







Whereas with Wilt he's expected to win regardless of how he played. Like for example in Game 5 of the 1964 Finals he put up 27 points, and 38 rebounds.


Game 5 of the 1966 East Conference Finals, 46 points, 34 rebounds and 8 blocks but his teams lost those series so he copes all the blame.






But for example, in 1969 and 1973, he didn't play well and his teams lost. With Wilt people will always pick on him whether he performed well or not every time out because he always has to win in their eyes.


As Wilt famously once said no one roots for goliath

[coastalmarker99]

He's the GOAT choker for a top 10ish player. Bron was also in this convo but corrected his legacy in the 2nd half of his career. Wilt was a lover, not a killer.

Bird won his 1st of 3 championships by averaging 15ppg in the Finals... But since Bird's team ended up winning, just like Russell's team would end up winning with Russell putting up mediocre stats compared to Wilt, most people will forget about how much they actually did in a series if their team won.






Russell didn't outplay Wilt, it was Russell's teammates who were more dominant than Wilt's teammates



Wilt was putting up 30+points and 30+rebounds and 10 blocks while leading the series in FG% against Russell in most of their playoff matches, but since Wilt's teams usually lost people try to say Wilt "didn't show up". Nonsense.


People love to claim that the 1960 Celtics 7-1 PO record against Wilt shows that Russell is better than Wilt as a player.

Wilt fans say he dominated Russ individually but that Russ’s teammates outplayed Wilt’s.


This comment looks at the actual record, series by series and game by game.

I examined all 49 PO games. I tracked data in four categories: TS%, Pts, Reb, Ast.

The overall data showed this:

PTS: Wilt: 43-6 (Wilt had more points than BR in 43 games vs. 6 games for Russ.)

REB: Wilt: 32-18 (1 tie)

AST: BR: 27-15 (7 ties)

TS%: Wilt: 32-17

I figured out Russ/Wilt’s teammates’ data by subtracting Russ/Wilt’s stats from team stats.

PTS: BR's teammates: 40-9 (BR teammates had more points than Wilt's in 40 of those games, vs. 9 for Wilt's mates.)

REB: BR teammates, 33-15 (1 tie)

AST: BR teammates: 28-16-5

TS%: BR teammates, 26-23



Also, we know that Wilt and Russell played H2H in 8 PO series.

But who led in each category:

PTS: 8-0 Wilt

REB: 8-0 Wilt

AST: 6-2 Russell

TS%: 8-0 Wilt

Teammates:

PTS: 8-0 Russell's teammates

REB: 7-1 Russell's

AST: 5-3 Russell's

TS%: 5-3 Russell's

Therefore we see with the data that Wilt bested Russ in 26 of 32 (81%) categories over 8 PO series.

And that Russ's 11 teammates bested Wilt's 11 teammates in 25 of 32 (78%)categories over 8 PO series

[coastalmarker99]

He's the GOAT choker for a top 10ish player. Bron was also in this convo but corrected his legacy in the 2nd half of his career. Wilt was a lover, not a killer.

Wilt played on 12 winning teams in his 14 seasons, and in the two that he did not, he had a monumental season in 62-63, and that 64-65 playoff run where he carried a 40-40 team to within one point, in a game seven, of beating the 62-18 Celtics who featured 7 hall of fame players plus the GOAT coach in Red.

He went to 12 Conference Finals (by contrast, Bird went to eight.) He played on six teams that went to the Finals. He played on six teams that were Conference champions. He played on four teams that had the best record in the league.



He played on four teams that won 60+ games, including two that went 68-13 and 69-13 (and won 33 straight games.) And he anchored two of the two top 5 teams in NBA history in the 67 76ers and 72 Lakers.




Not only that, but as I mentioned earlier, he single-handedly carried inept rosters to within an eyelash of beating Russell's "dynasty", and in fact, he did beat that Dynasty (with a 4-1 blowout rout too.)

For someone who was considered a "loser", he was pretty bad at it. He gets ripped, but meanwhile, Kareem played an entire decade with underachieving teams. And he had numerous playoff disappointments.


Bird lost with HCA in six post-seasons, and he had some downright awful post-season series along the way.



Hakeem never played on a 60 win team and he was blown out eight times in the first round.

And Shaq was part of six sweeping losses in the playoffs.



MJ played on five losing teams and was 1-9 in his first ten playoff games.


He didn't even get to the Finals until his seventh season. Yet, all we read about is how big of a "loser" Chamberlain was.

[ClipperRevival]

The truth is simple, lies are complicated. Your essays prove my point.