Wilt's Tall Tales

[CavaliersFTW]

They aren't excuses at all...the myth that weight training would ruin your flexibility and agility extended all the way into the 1980's. Chicago Cub great Ryne Sandberg gave an interview talking about how they were encouraged NOT to lift weights to maintain flexibility. Just look at the athletes in the 80's in baseball and basketball....then look at them in the 1990's when weight lifting started to become the norm....Just look guys like Jordan, Pippen, and Rodman before weights...they didn't start lifting until their mid-20's...Jordan didn't start until he was 26,27 years old. Then look at them after..

If your implying that somehow humans have evolved genetically over the last 50-60 years, your sadly mistaken..kids today grow up eating hormone-laced meat. Give Jerry West undetectable HGH for 6 months on weight training i guarantee he will put on 10-15 pounds of lean muscle.....GET A CLUE

How sturdy are the legs of Yao, Bynum, and Oden again?

Look at all that benefit from weight gain.

[Deuce Bigalow]

i can't help loling at those pathetic 60s "highlights"

a high school team stomps on those scrubs

[DKLaker]

There is no doubt that the overall athleticism of the league today is better than the 60's...even Bob Cousy has mentioned this on several occasions in interviews. However, the great players in the 60's were great enough athletes to be great in any era....Wilt, Oscar, West, Baylor, Russell, Bellamy....those guys could play today on just what they had. Of course they would be even better once they hopped of the time machine and were put on a NBA-level training and nutrition regimen.

No question that ALL of the guys you mentioned could play today....but not put up the freakish numbers they got because of going against inferior athletes.

[DKLaker]

i can't help loling at those pathetic 60s "highlights"

a high school team stomps on those scrubs

Yeah.....this is true, a top high school team would whip a lot of 60's teams.....not all.

[bwink23]

That's because they became men
a teenage-20s could do nothing and at age 28-30 would be still be bigger

NOT AT ALL....i'm guessing your not even 20 yet...your early 20's are the best time to gain lean muscle...you heal so much faster and recover much quicker. The weight you put on in your late 20's isn't the same type of weight in your early 20's. As you age, your muscles get heavy and flat. Jordan's musculature if had started lifting weights in college would have been much better than starting in his late 20's...i know cuz i've done it....I'm the same size i was in my late 20's as i was in high school, same weight, same fat index. But i wasn't nearly as strong or explosive. The muscles you develop in when your 21 don't compare to that of waiting until your 28....it's far from the same.

[bwink23]

How sturdy are the legs of Yao, Bynum, and Oden again?

Look at all that benefit from weight gain.

I do believe that too much weight is a detriment in basketball...Kevin Love dropped 20 pounds and it wasn't affected him one bit...in fact, he's more dangerous now with his increased speed and agility.

[Deuce Bigalow]

NOT AT ALL....i'm guessing your not even 20 yet...your early 20's are the best time to gain lean muscle...you heal so much faster and recover much quicker. The weight you put on in your late 20's isn't the same type of weight in your early 20's. As you age, your muscles get heavy and flat. Jordan's musculature if had started lifting weights in college would have been much better than starting in his late 20's...i know cuz i've done it....I'm the same size i was in my late 20's as i was in high school, same weight, same fat index. But i wasn't nearly as strong or explosive. The muscles you develop in when your 21 don't compare to that of waiting until your 28....it's far from the same.

A 22 year old man compared to a 30-35 year old man is a big difference most of the time (ofcourse there some people that are different)
and it's not because they've been working out, they're just bigger and wider

[jlauber]

Yeah...you take someone like Kareem, who was playing in the NBA in 1969, and transport him to 2011, and he wouldn't make a high school team. Of course, since he was routinely crushing Hakeem, even while he was 39 years old, that also means that Hakeem wouldn't make an eighth grade girl's chruch league, either. And, I guess, since Hakeem could play a young Shaq to a draw in the 90's, that Shaq would be joining him as a backup in the leagues that have 8 ft. baskets, and no one keep score.

[BlackJoker23]

prime joel anthony would be a 10x mvp in the 60s. only player to win the award in every single year of the decade. prime russell and wilt = lucky to make high school jv team in todays era

[bwink23]

A 22 year old man compared to a 30-35 year old man is a big difference most of the time (ofcourse there some people that are different)
and it's not because they've been working out, they're just bigger and wider

Your gonna be bigger when your older cuz your body puts on fat at a certain % as you age, that's common knowledge. i've been lifting weights on and off all my life and i'm 35 years old. I know what aging is about when trying to stay physically fit...i can lift hard all day and i will never be what i was when i was 21. The explosiveness in my muscles is not there anymore...the only way i could come close is with "help". There is absolutely no substitute for natural testosterone when your young....except through illegal means.

[Deuce Bigalow]

Your gonna be bigger when your older cuz your body puts on fat at a certain % as you age, that's common knowledge. i've been lifting weights on and off all my life and i'm 35 years old. I know what aging is about when trying to stay physically fit...i can lift hard all day and i will never be what i was when i was 21. The explosiveness in my muscles is not there anymore...the only way i could come close is with "help". There is absolutely no substitute for natural testosterone when your young....except through illegal means.

Testosterone levels are at their highest in the 20's. But doesn't mean we are at our strongest.
A 30-35 year old man 90% of the time is much stronger and bigger than a 21-25 year old man.

[jlauber]

prime joel anthony would be a 10x mvp in the 60s. only player to win the award in every single year of the decade. prime russell and wilt = lucky to make high school jv team in todays era

As difficult as it is to believe, it looks like there is another poster as dumb as as the Dunce & Dickwad twins. (Unless, of course, all three are one in the same?)

[Deuce Bigalow]

As difficult as it is to believe, it looks like there is another poster as dumb as as the Dunce & Dickwad twins. (Unless, of course, all three are one in the same?)

[CavaliersFTW]

There are a few very valid points you made......finally

The 3 point line IMO has been the biggest factor.....possibly worst factor to change the game. It single handedly changed every position on the floor, that and the expansion of the league destroyed the classic Center position.

Bob Cousy was a HUGE STAR.....Jerry West.....plenty of guards were huge and were marketed to the extent of the times.

Marketing......YES, but without it the NBA may have folded by now.
In the 70's even the 1980 finals came on TV on tape delay AFTER the 11pm news. Most times if you wanted to watch a game you were up to 2am.
Hell, Magic's first game....I fell asleep briefly like 3 times during the game.....thank god I saw Kareem's winning shot at the buzzer and Magic hugging him like it was the champinship....I was screaming at almost 2am Highlights were limited to a clip or 2....if you were lucky and there was no ESPN or anything of that type.

In the 60's you would've been allowed a crossover if you had one....not the slop they allow today....but something reasonable. Cousy got away with some
stuff. Most guys only had 1 hand they could really dribble with.

Range, yeah meaningless without a 3 point line....you wanted to get the highest percentage shot....closest to the basket if possible.

Fouls....oh yeah, you could hack someone real good for sure.....there were no flagrant fouls.

Athleticism.....you are completely missing the boat here and you need to use common sense here.......if you look at athletic records.....track records and how athletes are faster, stronger and jump higher.......then you can easily understand that today's athletes are far superior. Trust me.....the guys in the 60's couldn't do a Westbrook or Griffin if you paid them double.

I still disagree, why do men run faster? Why do they jump higher?

Is usain a half second faster than Owens strictly because of athleticism? Or does the aerodynamic Nike's and speed suits, the cinders/dirt vs impact polymer rubber track surface, the hand-held stopwatch vs lasers have something to do with it....

Flip flop their gear and tell me the difference between them is going to be the same.....

High Jump is WAY different, they jump in different pits, they land on cushions, again - the surface of their starting position isn't dirt anymore, they don't land in SAW DUST - and because of this they can jump belly up and shift their COG. The fosbury flop instantly shot up high jump #'s by about a foot. It wasn't because people suddenly became more athletic, it was because of the new technique.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DEt_Xgg8dzc
1968. Still the 2nd longest jump of all time.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aT-0X...eature=related
1991 the longest jump of all time. only an inch and change further

Nobody is even remotely close to those two guys today, the gap between them and the best long-jumpers today is measured in feet. Even though it's been over 45 years since Beamon jumped and 20 years since Powell jumped

Human athleticism isn't necessarily what's getting better, equipment is. Yes, a guy like Cousy would have benefited from hitting the weights - but then again, so would Anderson Verajao.

Gus Johnson isn't flying as high as Blake Griffin?... then, I guess neither was Jordan? - Dawkins? - 'Nique? - Erving?... Come on it's probably just not in the back of your mind all the time... athleticism isn't all of the sudden superior because Griffin throws the ball through the hoop. I'm thinking... the constant replays from the most carefully selected camera angles out of a dozen to choose from, and the heart-attack reaction that all the fans, players, and announcers have + ESPN and Youtube keeping the action right in your face - replaying it over and over telling you how amazing it was has more to do with this perceived athleticism improvement than anything else. Good marketing is powerful. Griffin's dunks are powerful. But IMHO they aren't more athletic than the other skywalkers that have played throughout NBA history.

And remember, break-away rims is another thing that enhanced the dunk, and they weren't invented until 1979, before '79 you weren't allowed to "hang" on rims because they would shatter too easily. Dawkins shattered 3 in a short span and the NBA had to develop a rim that would bend down after 220lbs of pressure to alleviate the board from breaking and the fans quickly loved the emphatic split second hang's, plus that added "snap" sound of the spring recoil. It's all part of the theater. Then, players started hanging A LOT on the rims (Like Shaq). That stuff simply wasn't allowed at one point. Now, for further icing on the cake they actually have microphones in the net and rim. The NBA is an entertainment industry, and entertainment technology has rapidly improved. Much more so than league-wide athleticism.


And lifting weights, in a way, comes at the expense of agility and durability particularly for the big guys - though the smaller point guards do benefit from it I think since it doesn't erode their knees as quickly. But be honest does it really look like there's more athleticism today to you?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iS1GJ5wxyTc
~1980
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RiiHmlK9Bi4
~2012

[HighFlyer23]

They aren't excuses at all...the myth that weight training would ruin your flexibility and agility extended all the way into the 1980's. Chicago Cub great Ryne Sandberg gave an interview talking about how they were encouraged NOT to lift weights to maintain flexibility. Just look at the athletes in the 80's in baseball and basketball....then look at them in the 1990's when weight lifting started to become the norm....Just look guys like Jordan, Pippen, and Rodman before weights...they didn't start lifting until their mid-20's...Jordan didn't start until he was 26,27 years old. Then look at them after..

If your implying that somehow humans have evolved genetically over the last 50-60 years, your sadly mistaken..kids today grow up eating hormone-laced meat. Give Jerry West undetectable HGH for 6 months on weight training i guarantee he will put on 10-15 pounds of lean muscle.....GET A CLUE

but wilt was curling 340 lbs and boning 3 girls at the same time in an era with no weights

show me any scrub from the 60s ever getting up like this

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