Wilt Chamberlain discussion

[QUOTE=32jazz]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:[/QUOTE]

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

[QUOTE=Niquesports]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.[/QUOTE]

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.

[QUOTE=32jazz]
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:[/QUOTE]

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?

[QUOTE=indiefan23]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?[/QUOTE]

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 ...

[QUOTE=Pinkhearts]This is what a soccer ball looks like in the old basketball days:


[IMG]http://www.soccerballworld.com/images/englishballold.jpg[/IMG]

You can see the evolution of the soccer ball here.

[url]http://www.soccerballworld.com/History.htm[/url]


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.[/QUOTE]

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.

[QUOTE=Mikaiel]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 ...[/QUOTE]

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.

[QUOTE=indiefan23]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.[/QUOTE]

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 ?

[QUOTE=indiefan23]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.[/QUOTE]


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.

[QUOTE=32jazz]I didn't even bother ask him what 6'5 player averaged 40 ppg & 20 rpg.:rolleyes: Just too stupid to acknowledge.[/quote]

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?

[quote]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.[/QUOTE]

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.

[QUOTE=indiefan23]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.[/QUOTE]

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

[QUOTE=Niquesports]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.[/QUOTE]

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!

[QUOTE=Mikaiel]You know some teams in the 80's wanted Wilt to come out of retirement right ?[/QUOTE]

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.

[QUOTE=indiefan23]I'm guessing that was early, early 80's.[/QUOTE]

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

[QUOTE=indiefan23] The 70's were a weak era and thats why people who were 6'5" almost averaged 40 ppg and 20 rpg.[/QUOTE]

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.

[QUOTE=Mikaiel]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 ?[/QUOTE]

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