Wilt Chamberlain scoring highlights 1960-1968

[QUOTE=fpliii]I'm not sure what TRUE TS% is, but here are the values if I change the coefficient to .44 for every playoff series:

[IMG]http://i.imgur.com/Xl8zCPC.png[/IMG][/QUOTE]

I won't argue with your research, especially when I wouldn't even know where to begin to do mine, but it still does seem a tad low.

Still, it is just a shade under a full percent. I suspect the rest of the league would have also benefitted, but probably at a much lower rate overall.

Overall, it does add probably at least a half percent against league average.

So, if he was shooting 4% above the post-season league average in his post-season career, which is about what he was doing, it would now be around 4.5%, and likely even higher, since those TS% numbers rose considerably after '66. In fact, it might now approach 5% over the course of his entire post-season career.

[QUOTE=LAZERUSS]I won't argue with your research, especially when I wouldn't even know where to begin to do mine, but it still does seem a tad low.

Still, it is just a shade under a full percent. I suspect the rest of the league would have also benefitted, but probably at a much lower rate overall.

Overall, it does add probably at least a half percent against league average.

So, if he was shooting 4% above the post-season league average in his post-season career, which is about what he was doing, it would now be around 4.5%, and likely even higher, since those TS% numbers rose considerably after '66. In fact, it might now approach 5% over the course of his entire post-season career.[/QUOTE]
The rest of the league benefited, but by very little. Again, you have to be very very bad at shooting FT's and attempt a lot of them. This was only an issue with the Wilt formula (since as I said, I found the opponent fouls for each game in his career instead of using league average PF rate), but from my initial research (quoting myself on RealGM), these were the only other players who were affected:

[QUOTE]In the first spreadsheet, see the last sheet for some test cases (I checked the players who averaged at least 9.5PPG from the above B-R queries). All of them fell between 0.6%-0.8%. I think these are probably the player-seasons most affected by the rule (you can try others yourself, or nominate them for me to attempt). Here they are:

67 Russell (+0.7%), 68 Green (+0.6%), 69 Russell (+0.7%), 73 Bellamy (+0.8%), 81 McGinnis (+0.7%), 69 playoffs Caldwell (+0.7%), 69 playoffs Russell (+0.6%), 69 playoffs Kimball (+0.6%), 70 playoffs Ogden (+0.7%), 75 playoffs Rowe (+0.8%), 76 playoffs Shumate (+0.7%), 79 playoffs King (+0.8%).[/QUOTE]

Of non-Wilt scorers from the era, West had one instance (68 playoffs) in which he was at +.5%.

This was really a Wilt issue alone.

BTW I fixed a problem with my estimated relative playoffs ORtg/DRtg estimates in my files that I shared last week. I was somewhat overrating offense and somewhat underrating defense because I double counted one term (higher positive number is better for both):

[CODE]Team pO pD
60 PHW 2% 6%
61 PHW -6% 4%
62 PHW 2% 6%
63 SFW -- --
64 SFW 2% -2%
65 SFW -- --
65 PHI 10% 2%
66 PHI -2% -6%
67 PHI 2% 9%
68 PHI 2% -0%
69 LAL -0% -2%
70 LAL 6% 10%
71 LAL -1% 7%
72 LAL 2% 9%
73 LAL 5% 5%[/CODE]

[QUOTE=fpliii]The rest of the league benefited, but by very little. Again, you have to be very very bad at shooting FT's and attempt a lot of them. This was only an issue with the Wilt formula (since as I said, I found the opponent fouls for each game in his career instead of using league average PF rate), but from my initial research (quoting myself on RealGM), these were the only other players who were affected:



Of non-Wilt scorers from the era, West had one instance (68 playoffs) in which he was at +.5%.

This was really a Wilt issue alone.[/QUOTE]

Your research is just remarkable.

:bowdown: :bowdown: :bowdown:

[QUOTE=LAZERUSS]Your research is just remarkable.

:bowdown: :bowdown: :bowdown:[/QUOTE]
All of that being said, a huge part of the lowered TS%, as you are aware, is due to Wilt's abysmal FT shooting. You obviously can't discount it though, since it's still a possession, but this research isn't an indictment of his ability to score from the floor.

To get into that, we'll need to see the full tape to analyze his scoring. Fortunately, CavsFTW's scouting video will come out soon which will be some help in taking a look at Wilt's offensive game.

The other means of analysis is relative estimate ORtg trends. The difficulty in this, though, is that there's not much in the sample from seasons in which he had a good supporting cast and was still a volume scorer. We really only have the second half of 64-65, all of 65-66, and 69-70 before getting hurt (maybe someone could analyze his hot scoring stretches in 66-67, 67-68, 68-69 as well, but that's tough I think) though so it's tough to make those determinations.

This may be an unpopular view, but at the moment I think Wilt was more impactful on defense than he was on offense (he himself said he came into the league as a defensive player). Again, this is just my present stance, and I'm open to reconsidering with more data/information.

One thing was clear, however, and that was in Wilt's "scoring" prime post-season play, his games against non-Celtic teams is just way too low a number to consider it a sampling size. Only 22 games. He still averaged 35.5 ppg in them, and on a decent FG%, (and despite the .502 FG%, it was still MILES ahead of the post-season league average in that span, of about .420.)

But I really think three non-Russell series deserve mention, and two of those came in the '67 and '68 post-seasons.

The first one was his staggering 38.6 ppg, 23.0 rpg, .559 eFG% seven game series against Zelmo Beaty...and in a post-season that averaged 105.8 ppg on a .420 eFG%.

The second one was in the first round of the '67 playoffs, when Chamberlain averaged 28.0 ppg, 26.5 rpg, 11.0 apg, and shot .617 from the field. In the first two games of that series, he put up a 41 point game, on 19-30 shooting from the field, and then a 38 point game, on 16-24 from the floor. The rest of that four game series he concentrated on passing,...and in game three, he hung a 16 point, 30 rebound, 19 assist game.

The last one came in the first round of the '68 playoffs, and against HOFer Walt Bellamy. In that series, he held Bellamy to a .421 FG% (in a season in which he shot .541 against the entire NBA), while averaging 25 ppg on a .584 eFG% himself. Oh, and he outrebounded Bellamy by a 24-16 rpg margin, as well. In the first game of that series, he exploded for 37 points, on 17-29 shooting (and 29 rebounds.)

I don't think there is any question, that had Chamberlain had the benefit of playing in another conference instead of having to battle Boston in either in his first, or second round, in six of those eight seasons (and in four of his five "scoring" seasons), that his post-season numbers would have been considerably higher. And, given the fact that he was routinely hanging 60+ point games on the Lakers in his "scoring" seasons, and given the fact that Russell was putting up 23 ppg .540 eFG% and even 18 ppg .700 eFG% series against them, ...well one can only imagine what Chamberlain would have leveled them with.

[QUOTE=fpliii]All of that being said, a huge part of the lowered TS%, as you are aware, is due to Wilt's abysmal FT shooting. You obviously can't discount it though, since it's still a possession, but this research isn't an indictment of his ability to score from the floor.

To get into that, we'll need to see the full tape to analyze his scoring. Fortunately, CavsFTW's scouting video will come out soon which will be some help in taking a look at Wilt's offensive game.

The other means of analysis is relative estimate ORtg trends. The difficulty in this, though, is that there's not much in the sample from seasons in which he had a good supporting cast and was still a volume scorer. We really only have the second half of 64-65, all of 65-66, and 69-70 before getting hurt (maybe someone could analyze his hot scoring stretches in 66-67, 67-68, 68-69 as well, but that's tough I think) though so it's tough to make those determinations.

This may be an unpopular view, but at the moment I think Wilt was more impactful on defense than he was on offense (he himself said he came into the league as a defensive player). Again, this is just my present stance, and I'm open to reconsidering with more data/information.[/QUOTE]

No question that his FT shooting his overall production. But,..and this is important...his eFG%'s, especially against the post-season league averages, was just staggering. Why was that so significant? Again, when he was DEFENDED, he was still putting up huge scoring, and highly efficient games, from the field. No one, and that includes Russell and his swarming teammates, could stop him. Their only real defense was to foul, and hope that he would miss the FTs. And we really don't know just how many "and-one's" that Chamberlain had in his post-season career (well, maybe you do now.) Those are significant, because, whether he made the FT, or not, it was purely a bonus (obviously it was still a lost point in the long run, but, it was a point that the majority of the others were not getting.)

And your take on Chamberlain's defensive presence has been confirmed by Defensive Win Shares. He has the two highest "non-Russell" seasons in NBA history, and three more in the top-29 (and really, I think something is completely amiss if his '67 season only ranked 63rd.)

His individual defense, particularly in the post-season, was perhaps the best ever. He routinely limited his opposing centers to a much lower eFG% than their regular season averages. And, how about this? He held Russell even more under his regular season eFG%, in their 49 post-season games, than Russell held Wilt under his. And again, Chamberlain was putting up monster FG% seasons.

Of course, Kareem can attest to that, as well. In their two playoff series H2H's, Chamberlain held Kareem to .481 and .457, in seasons in which KAJ shot .577 and .574 respectively.

[QUOTE=LAZERUSS]Fpliii already admitted that it was TSA, and not TS%'s. No way was it only 1%.

And I have already disputed it.

Oscar played in 39 playoff games, in his scoring prime, and with rosters better than what Wilt had. Most all ended in the first round. And no, he wasn't be primarily defended by RUSSELL, either. Oh, and he was 2-7 in H2H games with Chamberlain, and Wilt outscored him over the course of those nine games, and easily outshot him from the floor.

Same with West and Baylor. The TWO COMBINED couldn't do any better against Russell's Celtics, than Chamberlain by himself.

And again, NONE of those three came within MILES of Wilt's eFG%'s either.


But, of course, the Wilt-bashers will just throw out 80 regular season games, and then turn around and give Oscar (and Hakeem) credit for FIVE playoff games in a post-season.

And again, NOT West, nor Oscar, nor Baylor, anywhere near the overall team success that Wilt had either, and they had far more loaded rosters than what Wilt had in his first six seasons. And then after Wilt's first six seasons, he was LIGHT YEARS ahead of all three of them.

And had Wilt had the luxury of playing against even good, instead of great centers, who knows what post-season numbers he would have put up.

He had playoff series of 37.0 ppg, 37.0 ppg, and 38.7 ppg against Red Kerr, who was a multiple all-star in his career, and then a 38.6 ppg .559 seven game series (and in a post-season that had an eFG% of .420) against Zelmo Beaty, who was also a multiple all-star. And then, in '67, he shelled Connie Dierking with a 28.0 ppg, 26.5 rpg, 11.0 apg, .617 eFG% series, and in the first two games of that four game series, he hung games of 41 on 19-30 shooting, and then 37 on 16-24 shooting against him.

Instead, he was battling Bellamy in 10 playoff games, Reed in 12, a peak Kareem in 11, Thurmond in 16, and Russell in 49. And in his peak seasons, he played in 67 post-season games, 35 of which came against Russell and another six against a peak Thurmond. Oh, and he was just crushing Russell and Thurmond in those series, BTW.[/QUOTE]

I'm not doubting Wilt's competition in the postseason but he's still only the 3rd best postseason scorer in his own era, after West and Baylor.

Oscar had far more loaded teams that Wilt? Are you shitting me? Even the two seasons Big O had both Jerry Lucas and Jack Twyman in their primes he had no defensive talent on his team whatsoever. And Lucas was injured in the '64 playoffs against the Celtics when Royals were at their best and Oscar won MVP.

Baylor and West had each other but how about that gaping hole at C? Russell was dominating their frontline.

[QUOTE]To get into that, we'll need to see the full tape to analyze his scoring. Fortunately, CavsFTW's scouting video will come out soon which will be some help in taking a look at Wilt's offensive game.[/QUOTE]

I am really looking forward to it.

But, having said that, it is just a pure shame that we don't have even ONE of Chamberlain's 271 40+ point games on video. Well, we do have the bulk of his '62 ASG, when he scored 42 points, on 17-23 (and he looked brilliant in that BTW.)

The reality is/was, there only exists about 2% of Wilt's actual game footage. And given the fact that those that watched an early Chamberlain have attested to the fact that he had very good range...

[QUOTE]

Carl Braun said, "He [Wilt] disorganizes you under the basket the same way [as Bill Russell, on defense]. With Wilt, of course, there's that offense on top of it, which is better than Russell's. [B]He hit on all those jumpers."
"Yes, Wilt hit on those jumpers...Wilt did come into the league with a good touch from the outside, which made his early scoring that much more significant[/B]. He wasn't just dunking the ball then."

--Red Holzman. A View from the Bench. P.70[/QUOTE]

...I doubt we will ever really get to see the best of what Chamberlain was capable of.

[QUOTE=LAZERUSS]No question that his FT shooting his overall production. But,..and this is important...his eFG%'s, especially against the post-season league averages, was just staggering. Why was that so significant? Again, when he was DEFENDED, he was still putting up huge scoring, and highly efficient games, from the field. No one, and that includes Russell and his swarming teammates, could stop him. Their only real defense was to foul, and hope that he would miss the FTs. And we really don't know just how many "and-one's" that Chamberlain had in his post-season career (well, maybe you do now.) Those are significant, because, whether he made the FT, or not, it was purely a bonus (obviously it was still a lost point in the long run, but, it was a point that the majority of the others were not getting.)

And your take on Chamberlain's defensive presence has been confirmed by Defensive Win Shares. He has the two highest "non-Russell" seasons in NBA history, and three more in the top-29 [B](and really, I think something is completely amiss if his '67 season only ranked 63rd.)[/B]

His individual defense, particularly in the post-season, was perhaps the best ever. He routinely limited his opposing centers to a much lower eFG% than their regular season averages. And, how about this? He held Russell even more under his regular season eFG%, in their 49 post-season games, than Russell held Wilt under his. And again, Chamberlain was putting up monster FG% seasons.

Of course, Kareem can attest to that, as well. In their two playoff series H2H's, Chamberlain held Kareem to .481 and .457, in seasons in which KAJ shot .577 and .574 respectively.[/QUOTE]
I'm not a big fan of DWS, but the team wasn't exceptional defensively during the regular season. Here's the defense column from the table from before, with the season numbers too::

[CODE]Team D pD
60 PHW 5% 6%
61 PHW 2% 4%
62 PHW 1% 6%
63 SFW -3% --
64 SFW 7% -2%
65 SFW 1% --
65 PHI -1% 2%
66 PHI 4% -6%
67 PHI 2% 9%
68 PHI 6% -0%
69 LAL 0% -2%
70 LAL 2% 10%
71 LAL -0% 7%
72 LAL 3% 9%
73 LAL 4% 5%[/CODE]
Wilt's teams were generally very good defensively. 63 Warriors and 66 Sixers playoffs were his only bad defensive teams.

[QUOTE=LAZERUSS]I am really looking forward to it.

But, having said that, it is just a pure shame that we don't have even ONE of Chamberlain's 271 40+ point games on video. Well, we do have the bulk of his '62 ASG, when he scored 42 points, on 17-23 (and he looked brilliant in that BTW.)

The reality is/was, there only exists about 2% of Wilt's actual game footage. And given the fact that those that watched an early Chamberlain have attested to the fact that he had very good range...



...I doubt we will ever really get to see the best of what Chamberlain was capable of.[/QUOTE]
When did you start watching? Did you get to see much of Warriors Wilt, or mostly Sixers/Lakers versions?

If you saw younger Wilt, was he taking straight-on jumpers, or were they out of the post? Were there any non-fadeaways, and what kind of range are we talking?

[QUOTE=dankok8]I'm not doubting Wilt's competition in the postseason but he's still only the 3rd best postseason scorer in his own era, after West and Baylor.

Oscar had far more loaded teams that Wilt? Are you shitting me? Even the two seasons Big O had both Jerry Lucas and Jack Twyman in their primes he had no defensive talent on his team whatsoever. And Lucas was injured in the '64 playoffs against the Celtics when Royals were at their best and Oscar won MVP.

[B]Baylor and West had each other but how about that gaping hole at C? Russell was dominating their frontline[/B].[/QUOTE]

And, can you imagine what WILT would have carpet-bombed those Laker teams with? Hell, in his '62 season alone, he hung THREE 60+ point games on them, including a 78-43 game. Oh, and then he followed that up with THREE MORE 60+ games in '63, including a 72 pointer. My god, he might have been outscoring Baylor and West combined in some of those games.

As for the rest of your post...again, you are giving Oscar's meager number of playoff games WAY TOO much credit. Only 39 total games in his scoring prime.

And one more time, Chamberlain was MILES ahead of West, Baylor, and Oscar, in eFG%'s in the post-seasons. He was even crushing the great RUSSELL for cryingoutloud (and Russell had his entire supporting cast backing him up, too.)

The only way to stop Wilt, was to foul him.

And finally...yes, let's just completely ignore full 80+ game seasons, and go with as little as five game playoff series...

:facepalm :facepalm :facepalm

[QUOTE=fpliii]When did you start watching? Did you get to see much of Warriors Wilt, or mostly Sixers/Lakers versions?

If you saw younger Wilt, was he taking straight-on jumpers, or were they out of the post? Were there any non-fadeaways, and what kind of range are we talking?[/QUOTE]

I started following the major sports around '63 ('63-64 for the NBA.) And Wilt was routinely hitting turn-around 10-12 footers, as well as fade-away bank shots back then. I don't really recall any of those 15 ft jump shots that he exhibited in college, but I am convinced that he shot them early in his NBA career, (which would explain his lower FG%s.)

And regarding that outside shot selection...while overall it may not have been as effective (and probably not even nearly as effective) as his other post moves and shots, it was still a means of shooting, and scoring. And it probably also opened up the defense (and defenders) somewhat, because, he was making at least some of them. In any case, it basically meant that Wilt could shoot at will, and score in doing so, (and who knows how many times he followed up his misses, either.)

Overall, he was MUCH quicker than anything that was displayed in Fatal's footage, and with more variety.

If you like, here is at least a taste of what THAT Chamberlain was capable of...

(and it is too bad that the near full version is no longer on YouTube)...

[url]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=09xvhy9paR0[/url]

[url]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TbkNazC351k[/url]

[QUOTE=LAZERUSS]I started following the major sports around '63 ('63-64 for the NBA.) And Wilt was routinely hitting turn-around 10-12 footers, as well as fade-away bank shots back then. I don't really recall any of those 15 ft jump shots that he exhibited in college, but I am convinced that he shot them early in his NBA career, (which would explain his lower FG%s.)

And regarding that outside shot selection...while overall it may not have been as effective (and probably not even nearly as effective) as his other post moves and shots, it was still a means of shooting, and scoring. And it probably also opened up the defense (and defenders) somewhat, because, he was making at least some of them. In any case, it basically meant that Wilt could shoot at will, and score in doing so, (and who knows how many times he followed up his misses, either.)

Overall, he was MUCH quicker than anything that was displayed in Fatal's footage, and with more variety.

If you like, here is at least a taste of what THAT Chamberlain was capable of...

(and it is too bad that the near full version is no longer on YouTube)...

[url]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=09xvhy9paR0[/url]

[url]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TbkNazC351k[/url][/QUOTE]
Cool, thanks for the info. 10-12 foot range doesn't seem unreasonable. If he could hit the 15 foot jumper he would've been a good fit at the high post, since there's the threat of a shot.

[QUOTE=dankok8]I'm not doubting Wilt's competition in the postseason but he's still only the 3rd best postseason scorer in his own era, after West and Baylor.

Oscar had far more loaded teams that Wilt? Are you shitting me? Even the two seasons Big O had both Jerry Lucas and Jack Twyman in their primes he had no defensive talent on his team whatsoever. And Lucas was injured in the '64 playoffs against the Celtics when Royals were at their best and Oscar won MVP.

Baylor and West had each other but how about that gaping hole at C? Russell was dominating their frontline.[/QUOTE]

BTW, during the WILT-era, and aside from Chamberlain, there were a TOTAL of FIVE 60+ point games (Baylor had four, and West had one)...

Chamberlain had 32.

If it were so easy to score 60+ points back then, how come Wilt was the only guy routinely doing it?

Same with 50 and 40 point games. Chamberlain was LIGHT YEARS ahead of his peers.

Why ONLY Wilt?