for the people who discredit Wilt's achievements

[jetpackbirdy]

Wilt cared about stats and only stats. Russell was about winning.

 

[mjsaver]

Damn shame dudes are tryin to downgrade the career of 1 of the greatest bigs of all time, to a run of the mill center whose career won't register a blip on the radar when its all said and done.

Of course he wouldn't avg 50 n 25 and dominate this era like he did his own, but to think even an avg center from our era could do what he did is just ridiculous.

Best way to determine how effective hed be in our era imo ( besides common sense) is to look at a prime Shaq and how he dominated. Its not like Shaq had an amazing skillset that Wilt could only dream of. They both dominated opposing bigs with a mix of strength, speed, and athleticism.

Wilt won two titles and played on his fair share of bad teams, so ill give him the benefit of the doubt (I think he's earned it) that if he played with a couple HOF sg's while they both were young his legacy would be a lot different.

 

[juice2352]

Originally Posted by jetpackbirdy

Wilt cared about stats and only stats. Russell was about winning.

Basically. I think this, more than anything is why I believe Russell > Wilt.
If Wilt had Russell's mindset, it wouldn't even be a discussion of who is better. Unfortunately, Wilt didn't understand the team aspect of basketball for nearly his entire career, which is why he didn't win more championships. Ask yourself, who gives you a better shot at winning (championships)? ...it's undoubtedly Russell. What kind of neurotic person trys to not get fouled out for their entire career to the point where they don't play defense with 4/5 fouls, leave your teammates out to dry, and lose a game?! You can't win with people like that, that's why no one wanted to play with him. Wilt could definitely play in today's era and probably be an all-star, but there is no way he wins championships unless he leaves that mindset back in the 60's.

 

[sooperhooper]

Originally Posted by YEEUPP

I just wanna pause for a second and showcase what amazing defense truly is...       He would be good, but not near what his stats were playing with players from 80's and later

Let that man cook

cats won't even let a man rest in peace without hating. He was the best of his time. Point blank.

 

[13saldana13]

If Wilt was born in the 80's and came in to the league today he would likely be an All-Star. He was a freak then, he would be a freak now. Imagine if Shaq and Wilt switched eras. Both would be great. Shaq's game might be less developed because of the lack of competition, but he would still be great. The game evolved, but when considering something like this you have to think about Wilt having all the tools (training, technology, moves) of the players today. 

 

[grittyman20]

Originally Posted by purplenurple1414

Originally Posted by dmbrhs

Read Bill Simmons' book. He murdered Wilt and there's no way to argue otherwise.

This.
Not saying he wasn't a great player, just that he's not close in the GOAT conversation.

I wasn't aware that Bill Simmons had the final say in all basketball discussions. Pardon my back

 

[buc em]

You guys just argue about anything and everything. Bunch of 18-30 year olds (at the most) that haven't seen anything more than some highlights and read some articles trying to act like they know more than they really do.

 

[big j 33]

Wait... you're saying sports fans sometimes speak out of their @%+ and are misinformed?

Oh

My

God

The very fabric of my existence has been shaken.

 

[trasoul82]

Wilt can't be judged properly. It's a matter of lack of evidence. Even if he was great, I'll never "appreciate" it due to lack of footage. Athletes are entertainers. I'm not entertained by stats. That is why Kobe's 81 > Wilt's 100 to me. Witness accounts (some of which question the way the stat was reached) + Wilt holding a piece of paper up don't wow me at all. Show me the game (the flow, the effort of the defense, crowd reaction, body language of the other 9 players on the court, etc), then I'll appreciate it.

 

[likethematrix]

Originally Posted by TraSoul82

Wilt can't be judged properly. It's a matter of lack of evidence. Even if he was great, I'll never "appreciate" it due to lack of footage. Athletes are entertainers. I'm not entertained by stats. That is why Kobe's 81 > Wilt's 100 to me. Witness accounts (some of which question the way the stat was reached) + Wilt holding a piece of paper up don't wow me at all. Show me the game (the flow, the effort of the defense, crowd reaction, body language of the other 9 players on the court, etc), then I'll appreciate it.

ding ding ding.
I saw shaq break a whole backboard.

I SEENT IT.

 

[negetive00plxco]

After Wilt Chamberlain retired he became a professional indoor and sand volleyball player and would regularly run marathons. There is not one center in the NBA right now who will be able to do that AFTER they retire. Keep in mind, he dond't just goof around with volleyball. He played professionally against the best players in the world. I'm sure most of you don't know much about voleyball, but just because you tall it does not mean you are good. You have to be quick and athletic to compete. (I used to play OH for a college volleyball team) One of my former coaches used to play with him down at the courts in Santa Monica and he told me straight up that Wilt was the best athlete he has ever seen in his life.

If wilt was teamed up with a point guard like chris paul he could still average the same statistics he did back then. No center would be able to keep up with him. Yes they are bulkier, but none of them are even as close to as fast. If someone could master the full court alley-oop Wilt would score 50 a game no problem.

 

[lieutenantdan93]

Originally Posted by negetive00plxco

After Wilt Chamberlain retired he became a professional indoor and sand volleyball player and would regularly run marathons. There is not one center in the NBA right now who will be able to do that AFTER they retire. Keep in mind, he dond't just goof around with volleyball. He played professionally against the best players in the world. I'm sure most of you don't know much about voleyball, but just because you tall it does not mean you are good. You have to be quick and athletic to compete. (I used to play OH for a college volleyball team) One of my former coaches used to play with him down at the courts in Santa Monica and he told me straight up that Wilt was the best athlete he has ever seen in his life.

If wilt was teamed up with a point guard like chris paul he could still average the same statistics he did back then. No center would be able to keep up with him. Yes they are bulkier, but none of them are even as close to as fast. If someone could master the full court alley-oop Wilt would score 50 a game no problem.

 

[moneymike9]

I love how NT discredits Wilt like he was just another run-of-the-mill scrub 

A lot of you refer to Simmons book, yet overlook the fact that Simmons losses objectivity when discussing Boston sports?

You guys realize that the guy hung 28.7 and 28.7 on the great Bill Russell on average right? The same Bill Russell that a lot of you folks revere and consider one of the best defensive players in the game 

 

[therickstah2001]

Bill Simmons book blew my mind...

 

[lesfamilia]

Could someone post Bill Simmons thoughts on Wilt?  I'm looking online but I can't find an excerpt or anything.

 

[juice2352]

Originally Posted by mogzz04

I love how NT discredits Wilt like he was just another run-of-the-mill scrub 

A lot of you refer to Simmons book, yet overlook the fact that Simmons losses objectivity when discussing Boston sports?

You guys realize that the guy hung 28.7 and 28.7 on the great Bill Russell on average right? The same Bill Russell that a lot of you folks revere and consider one of the best defensive players in the game 

Wilt > numbers than Russell when they played each other ...but again, Russell dominated Wilt in the only category that matters: W's.

 

[moneymike9]

Originally Posted by Juice2352

Originally Posted by mogzz04

I love how NT discredits Wilt like he was just another run-of-the-mill scrub 

A lot of you refer to Simmons book, yet overlook the fact that Simmons losses objectivity when discussing Boston sports?

You guys realize that the guy hung 28.7 and 28.7 on the great Bill Russell on average right? The same Bill Russell that a lot of you folks revere and consider one of the best defensive players in the game 

Wilt > numbers than Russell when they played each other ...but again, Russell dominated Wilt in the only category that matters: W's.

Could be because Russell had more quality teammates around him than Wilt, no?

 

[essential1]

26 and 13 is not nearly as dominant as 50 and 25.. Saying that much of his stats are a product of the era he plays is not discrediting him, it's being honest..... Players in baseball of the 1910s were judge differently than those of the late 20s and 30s... And different from those of the 60s.. And then the 90s...

Taking into account the era is done in sports... And not dishonest... Would Wilt still be dominant today? Most likely... But not nearly as dominant as he was during his career...

And that should be taken into account...

He's still top 10... And it doesn't really hurt his rank but a spot, maybe 2 at the most... BUT it is not discrediting his achievements...

 

[dmbrhs]

Simmons' Boston bias didn't even show in that chapter. That's what was so damning about it. Remember the theme of his book: The Secret. Russell did everything it took to WIN. And we view greatness, especially in the NBA, by WINNING. Wilt only cared about stats. Russell was a rebounder and defender. He trusted his teammates to take care of the rest, while being the on-court leader.

His stats aren't what people look at. Everyone knows he has ridiculous stats, and he is praised...appropriately. But in the end, it's no different than David Robinson's 71 point game. In both cases, he was fed the ball (and Wilt also miraculously went 28-32 from the FT line...he was a career 50% shooter). And he couldn't even get to the Finals until Duncan came on board.

 

[juice2352]

Originally Posted by mogzz04

Originally Posted by Juice2352

Originally Posted by mogzz04

I love how NT discredits Wilt like he was just another run-of-the-mill scrub 

A lot of you refer to Simmons book, yet overlook the fact that Simmons losses objectivity when discussing Boston sports?

You guys realize that the guy hung 28.7 and 28.7 on the great Bill Russell on average right? The same Bill Russell that a lot of you folks revere and consider one of the best defensive players in the game 

Wilt > numbers than Russell when they played each other ...but again, Russell dominated Wilt in the only category that matters: W's.

Could be because Russell had more quality teammates around him than Wilt, no?

The discrepancy in their teammates is over blown, slight edge to Russell. Wilt's teammates were capable of playing better if it wasn't always about getting Wilt the ball, Simmons also talked about that.
And for those calling him a homer and showing a bias...why did he rank Kareem and Magic over Bird in his pantheon? lol. The guy knows basketball, more than anyone on this board and made a really compelling for Russell. I'd like to see the same done for Wilt.

 

[CP1708]

Originally Posted by LESfamilia

Could someone post Bill Simmons thoughts on Wilt?  I'm looking online but I can't find an excerpt or anything.

TWO

RUSSELL, THEN WILT
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THE GREATEST DEBATE in NBA history wasn’t really a debate. I think this is strange. For instance, you might believe that the greatest television drama of all time was
[/font][/font][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]The Sopranos[/font][/font][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]. I believe it’s [/font][/font][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]The Wire[/font][/font][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]. If we knew each other and this came up after a few drinks one night, I would refuse to talk about anything else until you conceded one of three things:
1. "You’re right, I am an idiot, the greatest television drama of all-time was
[/font][/font][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]The Wire." [/font][/font][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]
2. "I don’t know if you’re right, but I promise to plow through all sixty-five episodes of
[/font][/font][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]The Wire [/font][/font][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]as fast as possible and then we can continue this debate."
3. "You’re bothering me. I need to get away from you."

Those would be the only three acceptable outcomes for me. Still, it’s a subjective opinion—I might believe
[/font][/font][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]The Wire [/font][/font][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]can’t be approached, but ultimately I can’t prove it and can only argue my side. That’s it. But if we were arguing about the greatest debate in NBA history—Bill Russell or Wilt Chamberlain?—I can prove Russell was better. There’s a definitive answer that involves common sense, firsthand accounts, relevant statistics and the valuable opinions of teammates, fellow players, coaches, and educated writers who watched them battle for ten straight seasons. [/font][/font][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]1 [/font][/font][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]
You know what it’s like, actually? Writing about O. J. Simpson’s murder trial. A few days after the Goldman-Brown killings, when the Juice made his aborted attempt to flee to Mexico, an overwhelming majority of Americans assumed he was guilty. His criminal trial started and we learned about a pattern of corruption and racism within the L.A. Police Department. We discovered that much of the blood evidence was mishandled. We watched the overwhelmed prosecution team unforgivably botch its case. But none of it mattered
[/font][/font][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]because this guy had to be guilty[/font][/font][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]. After all, his blood dripped all over the crime scene, he didn’t have an alibi during the time of the murders, he had a mysterious cut on his left middle finger that matched the drips of blood from someone who fled the crime scene, he had a history of threatening and beating his wife, there were no other suspects, and it seemed proposterous that so many inept policemen and forensic scientists could collaboratively conspire to frame someone on such short notice. [/font][/font][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]2[/font][/font][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]
Smartly, if not reprehensibly, the defense team battered the race card home—that was their only chance to get a guilty person acquitted, even if it meant splintering the country and damaging the relationship between blacks and whites in the process—and lucked out because many of the dense jurors couldn’t understood the damaging DNA evidence in the pre
[/font][/font][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]-CSI [/font][/font][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]era. To everyone’s disbelief, O. J. Simpson walked. Facing more competent attorneys and a lesser level of proof one year later, the Juice was pulped in a civil trial and ordered to pay the Goldman/Brown families $30 million in punitive damages. Fifteen years later, even though we haven’t convicted anyone for the murders of Nicole Simpson and Ron Goldman—!+%*, we haven’t even found a potential suspect—more and more Americans believe Simpson was innocent or not conclusively guilty. Give it another fifteen years and even more will believe he was framed. By the year 2035, nobody under forty will remember the details, just that O.J. walked and that maybe, just maybe, that meant he was innocent. None of this changes the fact that O.J. either killed two people himself or was "involved" with the dirty deed in some other way. It’s impossible to come up with any other reasonable conclusion. Unless you’re insane.
Same goes for the Russell-Chamberlain debate. Wilt was more talented; Russ gave his teams a better chance to win. Wilt had a greater statistical impact; Russ had a greater impact on his teammates. Wilt peaked in the regular season; Russ peaked in the playoffs. Wilt shrank from the clutch; Russ thrived in the clutch. Wilt lost nearly every big game; Russ won nearly every big game. Wilt averaged 50 points for one season; Russell was voted Most Valuable Player by his peers that same season. Wilt was traded twice in his career; Russ never would have been traded in a million years. Wilt was obsessed with statistics; Russ was obsessed with winning. Wilt cared about what fans, writers, and critics thought; Russ only cared what his teammates thought. Wilt never won a title in high school or college and won only two as a pro; Russ won two in college and eleven in the NBA. Wilt ignored The Secret; Russell embraced it. I shouldn’t have to waste an entire chapter on them for two indisputable reasons: Russell’s teams always beat Chamberlain’s teams, and Wilt was traded twice. Right there, it’s over. And really, it was over when Russell retired in 1969 as the greatest basketball player ever.

But a few years passed, and then a few more, and then a few more. Chamberlain’s numbers started to look more and more implausible. The "debate" heated up again. Now I have to waste a whole chapter debunking the six most common myths of the Chamberlain-Russell debate. So here we go.
[/font][/font]
MYTH NO. 1:

RUSSELL HAD A BETTER SUPPORTING

CAST THAN WILT
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There isn’t a simpler team sport to understand than basketball: if two quality opponents play a seven-game series, the dominant player should prevail as long as the talent level on both sides is relatively equal. We have sixty years of hard-core evidence to back this up. The ’84 Celtics were dead even with the ’84 Lakers, but Bird played better than Magic in the Finals. The ’93 Suns were better than the ’93 Bulls, but Jordan played out of his mind. Moses Malone was the dominant player in the ’81 Finals, but Houston’s collective talent couldn’t handle Boston’s collective talent. This isn’t rocket science. Since the 1976 merger, only one Finals result still doesn’t make sense on paper: when the ’04 Pistons soundly defeated a more talented (but quietly imploding) Lakers team,
[/font][/font][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]
3
[/font][/font][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]a wake-up call for a league that had been slowly gravitating toward lower-scoring games, fewer possessions, swarming, physical defenses and a much slower pace. As long as the talent level between two teams is [/font][/font][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]relatively equal[/font][/font][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman], the team with the best player should win. So the supporting-cast card works with Russell and Wilt only if we prove that the talent disparity was [/font][/font][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]not [/font][/font][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]relatively equal. Right off the bat, it’s almost impossible because the NBA didn’t expand to ten teams until 1967, giving everyone a good supporting cast (even the crummy teams). People seem to think Russell played with only Hall of Famers and poor Wilt was stuck carrying a bunch of beer-bellied bums; not only is that erroneous, but it would have been impossible given the numbers. Imagine the current NBA if you removed every foreign player, chopped the number of black players in half, then cut the number of teams from thirty to eight. Would every team end up with three All-Stars and four or five solid role players at worst? Of course. Welcome to the NBA from 1956 to 1966.
(Warning: If I just wrote, "Wilt’s teammates were better than you think and Russell’s teammates weren’t as great as you think," you wouldn’t believe me, so we’re covering each season in painstaking detail the way Barry Scheck clinically took apart the DNA evidence in the O.J. trial, and if we kill a few thousand trees in the process, so be it. To keep you entertained, I loaded the bottom of the pages with dumb footnotes.)

Here’s how the seasons shook out after Russell entered the league:
[/font][/font]
1957.
[font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]Russell joins Boston mid-January after banging out military duty, [/font][/font][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]4 [/font][/font][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]then the Celts squeak by Philly (featuring Hall of Famers Paul Arizin and Neil Johnston) in the Playoffs and meet St. Louis in the Finals. Boston has two stud guards in their prime (Bill Sharman and ’57 MVP Bob Cousy) and three terrific rookies (Russell, Heinsohn, and Frank Ramsey), while St. Louis has Bob Pettit (two-time MVP), Macauley (Hall of Famer) and Slater Martin [/font][/font][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]5 [/font][/font][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman](Hall of Famer, second-team All-NBA that season), as well as Charlie Share, Jack Coleman and Jack McMahon (three highly regarded role players). Since Boston won Game 7 in double OT, [/font][/font][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]6 [/font][/font][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]it’s safe to say these two teams were equally talented. [/font][/font]
1958.
[font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]The Hawks exact revenge thanks to up-and-comer Cliff Hagan (second-team All-NBA, Hall of Famer) and Russell’s badly sprained ankle. [/font][/font][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]7 [/font][/font][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]Again, even talent on both sides. [/font][/font]
1959.
[font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]Boston starts to pull away: three All-NBA first-teamers (Russell, Cousy, and Sharman), two promising guards (Sam and KC Jones), the best sixth man (Ramsey) and one of the best scoring forwards (Heinsohn). Even then, they needed seven games to get past Syracuse (led by NBA Top 50 members Dolph Schayes and Hal Greer) before easily sweeping Elgin and the Lakers. Through three years and two titles, Russell and the Celtics had the most talent exactly once. [/font][/font]
1960.
[font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]Boston handles Philly in six and needs seven to defeat a Hawks team with four Hall of Famers (including newcomer Lenny Wilkens). Meanwhile, Wilt wins the MVP as a rookie playing with Arizin (ten straight All-Stars), Tom Gola (five straight All-Stars, Hall of Famer), Guy Rodgers [/font][/font][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]8 [/font][/font][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman](four All-Stars) and Woody Sauldsberry (’58 Rookie of the Year, ’59 All-Star). Boston had more firepower, but not by much. Wilt wasn’t exactly stuck playing with Eric Snow, Drew Gooden, Sasha Pavlovic, Larry Hughes, and Turdo Sandowich like 2007 LeBron.
1961.
We’re kicking off a two-year stretch for the most loaded NBA team ever: Boston easily handles Syracuse and St. Louis for title number four. Meanwhile, Philly gets swept by a weaker Nats team in the first round, leading to Wilt throwing his first coach under the bus after the season (a recurring theme). [/font][/font][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]9 [/font][/font]
1962.
[font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]Still loaded to the gills, Boston needs seven games to defeat Wilt’s Sixers and an OT Game 7 in the Finals to defeat Baylor, Jerry West and the Lakers. I’m telling you, everyone had a good team back then. [/font][/font][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]10 [/font][/font]
1963.
[font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]The first sign of trouble: Sharman retires, Cousy and Ramsey are slipping, and rookie John Havlicek isn’t Hondo yet. Boston needs seven games to hold off Cincy (led by Hall of Famers Oscar Robertson, Jack Twyman, and Wayne Embry) and another six to beat the Lakers. [/font][/font][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]11 [/font][/font][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]Meanwhile, Philly moves to San Fran, finishes 31–49 and misses the playoffs with Wilt, Rodgers, Tom Meschery (an All-Star), Al Attles (KC Jones’ equal as a defensive stopper) and Willie Naulls (four-time All-Star). But hey, if they’d won more games, maybe Wilt wouldn’t have averaged 44.8 points that season. [/font][/font][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]12 [/font][/font]
1964.
[font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]Cousy retires and no Celtic makes first-team All-NBA, but that doesn’t stop Boston from beating a stacked Cincy team (led by Oscar and rookie of the year Jerry Lucas) and easily handling Wilt’s Warriors in the Finals (the same group as the ’63 Sixers, only with future Hall of Famer Nate Thurmond aboard). Boston won without a point guard or power forward this season—other than Russell, they didn’t have a top-twenty rebounder or anyone average more than 5 assists—but we’ll give them a check mark in the "most talent" department for the last time in the Russell era. [/font][/font][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]13 [/font][/font]
1965.
[font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]Ramsey retires and Heinsohn fades noticeably in his final season. Undaunted, the Celts finish with their best record of the Russell era (62–1 and smoke L.A. in the Finals thanks to their Big Three (Russell, Havlicek, and Sam Jones) and a bunch of role players (including a monster year from Satch Sanders). As for the Warriors, they self-destruct and lose seventeen in a row, eventually trading Wilt for 30 cents on the dollar to Philly midway through the season. [/font][/font][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]14 [/font][/font][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]For the first time, Wilt’s team matches Boston’s talent with shooting guard Hal Greer (ten straight All-Star games), Lucious Jackson (an All-Star power forward who finished eighth in rebounding that season), swingman Chet Walker (seven-time All-Star), point guard Larry Costello (six-time All-Star) and two quality role players (Dave Gambee and Johnny Kerr). That’s why the Sixers-Celtics series comes down to the final play of Game 7 at the Garden, with Havlicek stealing the inbounds pass as Johnny Most screams, "Havlicek stole the ball! Havlicek stole the ball!" [/font][/font]
1966.
[font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]Heinsohn coughs up a fifteen-pound oyster and retires, KC Jones is fading fast, and the Celts are forced to rely on aging veterans (Naulls and Mel Counts) [/font][/font][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]15 [/font][/font][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]and castoffs from other teams (Don Nelson and Larry Siegfried) to help the Big Three in Auerbach’s final season. For the first time with Russell, they don’t finish with the league’s best record as Philly edges them (55 wins to 54). As usual, it doesn’t matter—Boston beats Philly in five and wins Game 7 of the Finals against L.A. by two points. Philly had more talent this season. On paper, anyway. [/font][/font]
1967.
[font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]KC retires, another veteran castoff comes aboard (future Hall of Famer Bailey Howell), and Russell struggles mightily to handle the first year of his player-coach duties. [/font][/font][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]16 [/font][/font][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]From day one, it’s Philly’s year: given an extra boost by rookie Billy Cunningham and Wilt’s sudden revelation that
he doesn’t need to score to help his team win (more on this in a second), the Sixers roll to their famous 68-win season, topple the Celtics in five, and beat the Warriors in six for Wilt’s first title. This was the perfect storm for Wilt—his strongest possible team against Boston’s weakest possible team.
[/font][/font]
1968.
[font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]Wilt leads the league in assists. And Philly finishes eight games better than the Celtics. The aging Celts rally from a 3–1 deficit in the Eastern Finals to advance, then beat a really good Lakers team for Russell’s tenth title. After the season, Philly trades Wilt to L.A. for 40 cents on the dollar. [/font][/font][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]17 [/font][/font]
1969.
[font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]With Russell and Jones running on fumes, everyone writes the Celtics off after they finish fourth in the East. In the first round, they beat a favored Sixers team in five. In the second round, they beat a favored Knicks team in six—the same group that wins the 1970 title and gets blown for the next twenty-five years by the New York media as the Greatest Team Ever. In the Finals, as 9-to-5 underdogs to Baylor, West, Wilt, and the Lakers, they rally back from a 3–1 deficit and win Game 7 in Los Angeles.
So here’s the final tally: Over a ten-year span, Russell’s teams clearly had more talent than Wilt’s teams for four seasons (’61, ’62, ’63, and ’64) and a slight edge in Wilt’s first season (1960). In ’65, Philly and Boston were a wash. From
[/font][/font][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]’66 [/font][/font][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]through ’69, Wilt played for stronger teams, making the final record 5–4–1, Russell. For six of those ten seasons, you could have described the talent disparity as "equal" or "relatively equal." After Russell retired that summer, the ’70 Lakers lost the famous Willis Reed game in Game 7 of the Finals; the ’71 Lakers suffered a season-ending injury to Jerry West and lost to the eventual champions, the Bucks; the ’72 Lakers won 69 games and cruised to Wilt’s second title; and the ’73 Lakers lost a Finals rematch to the Knicks. Wilt retired after a ten-year stretch in which he played in the 1964 Finals and lost, then played for teams talented enough to win a championship [/font][/font][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]every single year for the next nine[/font][/font][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]. So much for Russell being blessed with a better supporting cast than Chamberlain. If there’s a legitimate gripe on Wilt’s behalf, it’s that Russell was lucky enough to have Auerbach coaching him for ten years. Then again, Red is on record saying he never could have coached a prima donna like Wilt. Also, if you’re scoring at home: Russell played with four members of the NBA’s Top 50 at 50 (Havlicek, Cousy, Sharman and Sam Jones); Wilt played with [/font][/font][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]six [/font][/font][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]members (Baylor, West, Greer, Cunningham, Arizin, and Thurmond). And Russell’s teammates from 1957 to 1969 were selected to twenty-six All-Star games, while Wilt’s teammates from 1960 to 1973 were selected to twenty-four. Let’s never mention the supporting-cast card again with Russell and Chamberlain. Thank you. [/font][/font]
MYTH NO. 2:

RUSSELL WASN’T A VERY GOOD OFFENSIVE PLAYER
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Here’s where history treated Russell unfairly. We glorify the unselfish passing of the ’70 Knicks, Wes Unseld’s one-of-a-kind outlets and Walton’s altruistic play on the ’77 Blazers, yet Johnny Kerr was the league’s first great passing center and Russell came next. Remember how Portland’s offense revolved around Walton’s passing in ’77?
[/font][/font][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]18 [/font][/font][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]The Celtics ran every half-court play through Russell after Cousy retired because they lacked a true point guard or a Jordan-like scorer. When you watch Russ on tape, his passing jumps out nearly as much as his defense—not just his knack
for finding cutters for lay-ups, but how easily he found streaking guards for easy fast breaks directly off blocks or rebounds. Here’s what Havlicek wrote in his imaginatively titled 1977 autobiography,
[/font][/font][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]Hondo[/font][/font][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman], about the first post-Russell season: "You couldn’t begin to count the ways we missed [him]. People think about him in terms of defense and rebounding, but he had been the key to our offense. He made the best pass more than anyone I have ever played with. That mattered to people like Nelson, Howell, Siegfried, Sanders and myself. None of us were one on one players…. Russell made us better offensive players. His ability as a passer, pick-setter, and general surmiser of offense has always been overlooked."
So why doesn’t Russell get credit for his passing?
[/font][/font][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]BECAUSE WALTON WAS WHITE AND RUSSELL WAS BLACK! [/font][/font][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]Just kidding; I was doing a Stephen A. Smith impersonation. [/font][/font][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]19 [/font][/font][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]Actually, Russell doesn’t get credit for the same reason that everyone thinks he played with eight Hall of Famers every year for thirteen seasons, or that his teams were always more talented than Wilt’s teams: because people don’t know any better, and because it’s easier to regurgitate something you heard than to look it up. Four things stand out when watching Russell on tape: his passing (superb), his shot blocking (unparalleled), his speed getting down the court (breathtaking), and his unexpected talent for grabbing a rebound, taking off with it, and running the fast break like a point guard (has to be seen to be believed). Russell was like a left-handed, infinitely more cerebral Dennis Rodman, only if Rodman had Walton’s passing talent, David Robinson’s athletic ability and Michael Jordan’s maniacal drive, and if Rodman could block shots like Josh Smith unleashed on the WNBA for an entire season.
(Would you have enjoyed playing with such a player? I thought so.)
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MYTH NO. 3: STATISTICALLY, WILT CRUSHED RUSSELL
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Wilt’s first nine offensive seasons were unlike anything that’s happened before or since. He averaged 37.6 points and 27.6 rebounds as a rookie, then 38.4 and 27.2; 50.4 and 25.7; 44.8 and 24.3; 36.9 and 22.3; 34.7 and 22.9; 33.5, 24.6 and 5.3 assists in
[/font][/font][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]’66; [/font][/font][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]24.1, 24.2 and 7.8 with a record 68.3% FG shooting in ’67; and 24.3, 23.8 and a league-leading 8.6 assists in ’68. For his career, he [/font][/font][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]averaged [/font][/font][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]30.1 points, 22.9 rebounds and 4.4 assists in the regular season. On paper, it’s staggering. [/font][/font][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]20 [/font][/font][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]Russell’s career offensive numbers can’t compare except for rebounds—he averaged 15.1 points, 22.5 boards and 4.3 assists per game, peaking in 1960 (18.2 points, 24.0 rebounds) and 1964 (15.0 points, 24.7 rebounds and 4.7 assists). In their head-to-head matchups, Wilt handed it to Russ statistically, although Auerbach and the old Celtics swear that Russ played possum for three quarters, allowed Wilt to accumulate stats and then smothered him in the fourth; he’d also relax during blowouts and allow meaningless numbers that didn’t matter (knowing that Wilt was obsessed with stats). Russell played 911 games in the last ten years of his career, with an astounding 142 of them coming against Wilt (15.6 percent) in a tiny league. By all accounts, Russ pulled a perpetual rope-a-dope against Wilt along the lines of Ali in Zaire, when Ali allowed Foreman to punch himself out, then finished him off later in the fight. Russ saved most of his anti-Wilt tricks for big games and big moments.
Here are their head-to-head stats in 142 games (including playoffs):
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Wilt: 28.7 points, 28.7 rebounds

Russ: 14.5 points, 23.7 rebounds
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At this point, you’re thinking, "Come on, Simmons, this is crazy. You have no case." Well, here are some more stats for you:
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Wilt’s record against Russell: 58–84

Russ’s record against Wilt: 84–58
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Hold on, we’re just getting started. Check out their playoff numbers.
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Wilt: 160 games, 22.5 points, 24.5 rebounds, 4.2 assists, 47% FT, 52% FG

Russ: 165 games, 16.2 points, 24.9 rebounds, 4.7 assists, 60% FT, 43% FG
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Hmmmmmmm. Russell’s numbers jumped and Wilt’s numbers dipped dramatically when there was money on the line, even though Wilt was routinely his team’s number one scoring option and Russ was number four or five. Sure, Wilt averaged three more baskets a game, but everything else was even and Russell happened to be a superior defensive player, teammate, basketball thinker and crunch-time guy. Which is how we end up with the following statistics:
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Wilt’s record for the Conference Finals and NBA Finals: 48–44

Russ’s record for the Conference Finals and NBA Finals: 90–53
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And these:
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Wilt’s record in Game 7’s: 4–5

Russ’s record in Game 7’s: 10–0
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And these:
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Wilt’s record in elimination games for his team: 10–11

Russ’s record in elimination games for his team: 16–2
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And these:
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Wilt: 2 championships

Russ: 11 championships
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So yeah, by any statistical calculation, Wilt Chamberlain was the greatest regular season player in NBA history. I concede this fact. For the playoffs? Not so great.

And then there’s this: since the Celtics didn’t need his scoring, Russell spent his energies protecting the rim, helping out defensively, controlling the boards, getting good shots for teammates and filling the lanes on fast breaks. In the process, he became the most dominant defensive player ever—nobody comes close, actually—and it’s statistically impossible to calculate his effect on that end.
[/font][/font][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]22 [/font][/font][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]Russell routinely swallowed up the extended area near the rim, handling all penetrators and displaying a remarkable knack for keeping blocks in play. Whereas
Wilt famously swatted shots like volleyball spikes for dramatic effect, Russell deflected blocks to teammates for instant fast breaks; not only did those blocks result in four-point swings, but Auerbach’s Celtics were
[/font][/font][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]built [/font][/font][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]on those four-point swings. That’s how they went on scoring spurts, that’s what stands out every time you watch those teams, and that’s why they kept winning and winning—they had the perfect center to launch fast breaks and the perfect supporting cast to execute them. Opponents eventually gave up challenging Russell and settled for outside shots, which doesn’t sound like a big deal except this was a notoriously poor era for outside shooting. [/font][/font][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]23 [/font][/font][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]So Russell affected every possession even without swatting shots, almost like a bouncer at a rowdy bar who kicks +%# for a few weeks and eventually lowers the fight rate to zero just by showing up. If that weren’t enough, Boston’s scorers famously saved their energies on defense because they had Russell lurking behind them to cover every mistake, so offense-first guys like Cousy, Sharman, Heinsohn and Sam Jones found themselves in the dream situation of worrying about scoring and that’s it.
Can you capture that impact statistically? Of course not. It’s impossible. They didn’t start keeping track of blocks until 1973, so there’s no quantitative way to prove Russell’s dominance on the defensive end; it’s like trying to measure Chamberlain’s offense dominance if nobody kept track of individual points, so we were forced to rely on stories from writers, teammates, and opponents, like, "There was this one game in Hershey, Pennsylvania, when Wilt really had it going against the Knicks. I swear, he musta had 100 points!"
[/font][/font][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]24 [/font][/font][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]Wilt matched Russell’s rebounding numbers and probably blocked more shots than any non-Russell center, but his defense couldn’t compare for two reasons. First, he wasn’t a natural jumper like Russell, someone who sprang up at a moment’s notice and jumped multiple times on the same play. (Since Wilt was carrying more weight, he was forced to set his feet, bend his knees and then jump, almost like someone leaping over a moving car. Many opponents learned to time those jumps and float shots over his considerable reach. [/font][/font][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]25 [/font][/font][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]You didn’t have the luxury of timing anything with Russell.) Second, Wilt was continually obsessed with a bizarre streak—for whatever reason, he wanted to make it through his entire basketball career without fouling out, so he’d stop challenging shots with four or five fouls even if he was hurting his team in the process. I’m not making this up.
(Seriously, I’m not making this up.)

(Wait, you don’t believe me? Here’s what John Havlicek wrote in
[/font][/font][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]Hondo: [/font][/font][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]"Wilt’s greatest idiosyncrasy was not fouling out. He had never fouled out of a high school, college or professional game and that was the one record he was determined to protect. When he got that fourth foul, his game would change. I don’t know how many potential victories he may have cheated his team out of by not really playing after he got into foul trouble.") [/font][/font][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]26 [/font][/font][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]
Translation: Wilt cared about statistics more than winning. If they kept track of blocks in the sixties, the Dipper would have become obsessed with those numbers (especially as they compared to Russell), dumped the never-fouled-out streak and inadvertently turned into a dominant defensive player, almost by accident, possibly someone who won five or six titles instead of two. But there was no statistical rush from defense. So Wilt settled on raking up offensive numbers, spiking blocked shots like volley-balls and pursuing his inane streak of never fouling out. It wasn’t until the ’66–’67 season that Wilt realized his teams were better off if he concentrated on rebounding, passing and defense. Here’s how he described that epiphany in his autobiography,
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Wilt: Just Like Any Other 7-Foot Black Millionaire Who Lives Next Door
[/font][/font][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman](now that’s a title!): [/font][/font][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]27 [/font][/font][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]
I was 30 years old when the ’66–’67 season began, and I was maturing as a man, and learning that it was essential to keep my teammates happy if I wanted my team to win.

[As far as epiphanies go, that ranks somewhere between Pete Rose admitting that he had a gambling problem and John Holmes glancing down at his fourteen-inch schlong and realizing he needed to try porn. Better late than never, I guess.]

I not only began passing off more and scoring less, I also made a point of singling my teammates out for praise—publicly and privately.

[Wow! What a sacrifice! What a guy! So wait … if you’re trying to win basketball games, it’s a good idea to be unselfish and to act like a good teammate instead of hogging the ball and blaming everyone else when you lose? Are we sure? Do we have confirmation on this?]

I realize now that this is the kind of thing that helped make O. J. Simpson’s teams at USC and Bill Walton’s teams at UCLA so successful. The same is true of Joe Namath and the Jets.

[Um … Wilt? The same was true for Bill Russell—you know, number 6 on the Celtics, the team that knocked you out of the playoffs every spring?]

O.J. and Bill and Joe always praise their teammates. They remember the name of every key guy who throws a key block or makes a good assist or a good defensive play, and they tell the player—and the press—all about it. That can’t help but make the player try even harder the next time, instead of maybe letting down, subconsciously, because he’s tired of being ignored and hearing how great you are all the time.
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[I don’t know, Wilt—this sounds too crazy. I thought basketball was an individual sport. They don’t keep stats for praising your teammates. I think you’re wrong.]

I was just learning this lesson in 1966, and it was reflected in my statistics.

["Granted, I threw away the first seven years of my career and everyone hated playing with me, but you have to hand it to me—I
[/font][/font][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]did [/font][/font][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]learn the lesson."]
Instead of me averaging 40 points a game, we had a great scoring balance. Hal Greer averaged 22.1, Chet averaged 19.3, and Billy averaged 18.5. Luke Jackson and Wali Jones also averaged in double figures. That’s the kind of balance Boston always had.

[The Celtics won the title every year for Wilt’s first seven years in the league. Only in 1967 did it occur to him that his teams should start emulating what worked for the best teams? Yeesh. Nobody ever said Wilt was a brain surgeon.]
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After he embraced "unselfishness" and won his first title, in classic Wilt fashion, he lost interest in

winning and became obsessed with his assist numbers. Suddenly Wilt was passing up easy shots to set up teammates, checking the scorer’s table multiple times per game, complaining if he felt like he hadn’t been credited for a specific assist, lambasting teammates for blowing his passes and taking an inordinate amount of delight in leading the league in ’68 (a record he bragged about more than any other).
[/font][/font][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]30 [/font][/font][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]As with anything else he did, Wilt failed to strike the right balance and settled into a bad habit of being [/font][/font][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]too [/font][/font][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]unselfish, taking only two shots in the second half of Game 7 against Boston while his teammates floundered around him. The heavily favored ’68 Sixers blew a 3–1 lead and choked in Game 7 at home, but as Wilt pointed out in his book, "Hal hit only eight of 25 shots. Wali hit eight of 22. Matty hit two of ten, Chet hit eight of 22. Those four guys took most of our shots and hit less than a third of them. But I got the blame."
So much for the lessons of Walton, Namath and Simpson. What did we learn about Russell, Chamberlain, and statistics? Well, Wilt’s teams revolved around his offense and Russell’s teams revolved around his defense. Wilt coexisted with his teammates; Russell made his teammates better. Wilt had to make a concerted effort to play unselfishly and act like a decent teammate; Russell’s very existence was predicated on unselfishness and team play. In the end, Russell’s teams won championships and Wilt’s teams lost them.

Russell 11, Chamberlain 2. Those are the only two numbers that matter.
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MYTH NO. 4:

WILT WAS A GREAT GUY
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Was Wilt a great guy to approach in the airport? Absolutely. Was he great to interview for a magazine or a talk show? You betcha. Did the people who knew him have great stories about him? No question. Was he generous with his money? Of course. If you were a stewardess, was this someone you would have wanted to blow under an airplane blanket? Apparently, yes. For such a good guy, it’s bizarre that Wilt sucked so much as a teammate. He just didn’t grasp the concept. For the first six years of his career, he hogged the ball, became infatuated with scoring records and demanded to be treated differently than his teammates. When things finally fell apart on the ’65 Warriors, legendary
[/font][/font][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]L.A. Times [/font][/font][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]columnist Jim Murray wrote, "[Wilt] can do one thing well—score. He turns his own team into a congress of butlers whose principal function is to get him the ball under a basket. Their skills atrophy, their desires wane. Crack players like Willie Naulls get on the Warriors and they start dropping notes out of the window or in bottles which they cast adrift. They contain one word: ‘help.’" [/font][/font][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]32 [/font][/font][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]Even when Wilt played more unselfishly and copied Russell’s game, he couldn’t maintain it for more than a year and became smitten with assists. He openly clashed with every coach except two—Frank McGuire (who let him shoot as much as he wanted, leading to the 100-point game) and Alex Hannum (and only because Hannum challenged him to a fight to get him to listen). [/font][/font][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]33 [/font][/font][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]He blamed teammates and coaches after losses, feuded with teammates who could have helped him (most famously, Elgin during the ’69 season) and demeaned opposing players to the press to make himself look better. He had a nasty habit of distracting his own team at the worst possible times—like the [/font][/font][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]’66 [/font][/font][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]Eastern Finals against Boston, when [/font][/font][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]Sports Illustrated [/font][/font][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]released a controversial Chamberlain feature before Game 5 in which he ripped coach Dolph Schayes and destroyed the morale of his team. [/font][/font][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]34 [/font][/font][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]
Some believe that Wilt achieved too much too soon, that he never understood the concept of

teamwork because he’d been the center of attention (literally) since he was in high school. In his Chamberlain-Russell book
[/font][/font][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]The Rivalry[/font][/font][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman], John Taylor writes that Auerbach believed Warriors owner Eddie Gottlieb "spoiled Wilt something fierce. A lot of times, Wilt didn’t even travel with his teammates. He was out of control. Auerbach doubted that he himself would have been able to coach Wilt…. Wilt spent that year with the Globetrotters, tasted the big money and stardom, and he began thinking that he was more important than his coach or teammates. Goty, afraid of losing the big draw, let him get away with it. Chamberlain had become convinced that people came to games in order to see him and that, therefore, the point of every game was to give him an opportunity to play the star. There was a certain box office logic to this thinking, but it made Chamberlain uncoachable, in Auerbach’s view, and as long as he was uncoachable, any team he played on would never become a real winner." [/font][/font][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]35 [/font][/font][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]
If you’re wondering how Wilt was regarded around the league, here’s the ultimate story: When San Fran shopped him in ’65, the Lakers were intrigued enough that owner Bob Short asked his players to vote on whether or not he should purchase Chamberlain’s contract. The results of the vote? Nine to two
[/font][/font][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]… against. [/font][/font][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]
Nine to two against!

How could anyone still think this was the greatest basketball player ever? In the absolute prime of his career, a playoff contender that had lost consecutive Finals and didn’t have an answer for Russell had the chance to acquire Wilt for nothing
[/font][/font][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]… and the players voted against it![/font][/font][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]36 [/font][/font][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]Would they have voted against a Russell trade? Seriously, would they have voted against a Russell trade in a million years?
(Note: if this were the O.J. trial, that last paragraph would be the equivalent of O.J. trying on the bloody glove.)
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MYTH NO. 5:

A COUPLE PLAYS HERE AND THERE

AND WILT COULD HAVE WON JUST AS MANY

TITLES AS RUSSELL
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Nearly every NBA champ had a pivotal playoff moment where they needed a big play and got it, but that doesn’t stop Wilt’s defenders from ignoring this reality and making excuses for every one of his near-misses: the ’60 Eastern Finals (Wilt injured his right hand throwing a punch in Game 4); Game 7 of the ’62 Eastern Finals (a controversial goaltending call proved the difference); Game 7 of the ’65 Eastern Finals (Russell nearly wore goat horns
[/font][/font][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]37 [/font][/font][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]before Havlicek saved him); Game 1 of the ’68 Eastern Finals (right after Martin Luther King Jr. was killed, when Sixers coach Alex Hannum never had his team vote on whether or not they should play, allegedly killing the morale of the team, even though they won Games 2, 3, and 4); Game 7 in ’68 (when Wilt’s supporting cast went cold); Game 7 of the ’69 Finals (when Wilt "injured" his knee in crunch time); and Game 7 of the ’70 Finals (when Willis Reed’s reappearance ignited the MSG crowd and Walt Frazier destroyed West). That’s all fine. Just know that Wilt’s teams sucked in the clutch [/font][/font][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]because Wilt sucked in the clutch. [/font][/font][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]The fear of losing overwhelmed him in big games. Terrified of getting fouled because of his dreadful free throw shooting, he played hot potato or settled for his
patented fall-away (the one that landed him fifteen feet from the basket and away from rebounds), and he didn’t want to foul anyone if he had four or five fouls because, you know, it would have interfered with his laughable no-fouling-out streak. That made him nearly useless in close games, like a more tortured version of Shaq from 2002 to 2007, only if Shaq was afraid to foul anyone and had a persecution complex.
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Here’s what NBA great Rick Barry wrote about Wilt in his autobiography,
[/font][/font][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]Confessions of a Basketball Gypsy[/font][/font][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman], which has the worst cover in the history of sports books: [/font][/font][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]39 [/font][/font][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]
I’ll say what most players feel, which is that Wilt
[/font][/font][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]is [/font][/font][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]a loser…. He is terrible in big games. He knows he is going to lose and be blamed for the loss, so he dreads it, and you can see it in his eyes; and anyone who has ever played with him will agree with me, regardless of whether they would admit it publicly. When it comes down to the closing minutes of a tough game, an important game, he doesn’t want the ball, he doesn’t want any part of the pressure. It is at these times that greatness is determined, and Wilt doesn’t have it. There is no way you can compare him to a pro like a Bill Russell or a Jerry West … these are clutch competitors.
Holy smokes! Some harsh words from a guy who wore a wig for an entire NBA season four years later. But let’s examine those Game 7’s in ’68, ’69, and ’70 again. In the first one, Wilt took two shots after halftime and steadfastly kept passing to his ice-cold teammates, then blamed them afterward because they couldn’t make a shot. In the second one, Wilt banged his knee and asked out of the game with five minutes to play, enraging coach Butch van Breda Kolff (who refused to put him back in, even if it meant costing the Lakers the title) and Russell (who uncharacteristically slammed Wilt that summer, launching a feud that lasted nearly twenty-five years). In the third one, Willis famously limped out and drained those first two jumpers, only it never occurred to Chamberlain, "Wait, I have a one-legged guy guarding me, maybe I should destroy him offensively!"
[/font][/font][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]40 [/font][/font][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]He just didn’t get it. Wilt never understood how to win; if anything, losing fit his personality better. Here’s how Bill Bradley described Wilt in [/font][/font][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]Life on the Run: [/font][/font][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]
Wilt played the game as if he had to prove his worth to someone who had never seen basketball. He pointed to his statistical achievements as specific measurements of his ability, and they were; but to someone who knows basketball they are, if not irrelevant, certainly nonessential. The point of the game is not how well the individual does but whether the team wins. That is the beautiful heart of the game, the blending of personalities, the mutual sacrifices for group success…. I have the impression that Wilt might have been more secure with losing. In defeat, after carefully covering himself with allusions to
[/font][/font][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]his [/font][/font][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]accomplishments, he could be magnanimous…. Wilt’s emphasis on individual accomplishments failed to gain him public affection and made him the favorite to win the game. And, simultaneously, it assured him of losing. [/font][/font][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]41 [/font][/font][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]
Here’s another way to look at it: nobody has any clutch stories about Wilt Chamberlain. If they existed, I’d pass some of them along. His three finest moments were probably Game 7 against the ’65 Celts, when Wilt was magnificent in defeat with 30 points and 32 rebounds; the clinching game of the ’67 Boston-Philly series, when he ripped Boston apart with a ridiculous triple double (29 points, 36 rebounds, 13 assists); and the clinching Game 5 of the ’72 Finals, when he destroyed an undersized Knicks team with a near-quadruple double (24–29–9 and 8 blocks). He’s the same

man who once explained to
[/font][/font][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]Sport [/font][/font][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]magazine, "In a way, I like it better when we lose. It’s over and I can look forward to the next game. If we win, it builds up the tension and I start worrying about the next game." Would Russell have ever said something like that? What do you think? Here were some of the famous clutch Russell games: [/font][/font][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]42 [/font][/font]
Game 7, 1957 Finals.
[font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]As a rookie, Russell notches a 19–32 and makes what everyone agrees was the most phenomenal play of his career—scoring a game-tying basket near the end of regulation that carried him into the stands, regrouping and somehow chasing down Jack Coleman from behind and blocking Coleman’s game-clinching layup. This whole sequence ranks incredibly high on the I Wish We Always Had TV Coverage for Sports scale. [/font][/font]
Game 7, 1960 Finals.
[font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]Russell scores 22 points and grabs 35 rebounds in a blowout of the Hawks. Ho-hum. [/font][/font]
Game 7, 1962 Eastern Finals.
[font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]In the year Wilt averaged 50 a game, Russell holds him to 22 in Game 7 (and scores 19 himself). [/font][/font]
Game 7, 1962 Finals.
[font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]Russell scores 30 points, makes 14 of 17 free throws and grabs an NBA Playoffs record 44 rebounds in an overtime win over the Lakers (the Frank Selvy game). Everyone agrees this was the definitive Russell game—near the end of regulation, every forward on Boston’s roster fouled out (Heinsohn, Sanders and Loscutoff), so Russell had to protect the basket and handle the boards by himself. Unbelievable: [/font][/font][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]30 points and 44 rebounds? [/font][/font]
Game 7, 1965 Eastern Finals.
[font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]Although Havlicek saved him from goat horns, Russell submitted a near triple double (15 points, 29 rebounds and 9 assists) that nearly would have been a quadruple double if they’d kept track of blocks back then. [/font][/font][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]43 [/font][/font]
Game 7, 1966 Finals.
[font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]Celts beat L.A. by two, Russell notches 25 points, 32 rebounds and God knows how many blocks. [/font][/font]
Game 7, 1968 Eastern Finals.
[font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]Russell scores 12 but holds Wilt to 14 … and for good measure, he coached the winning team.
Looking back, Wilt had five chances to knock Russell out of the playoffs in ’68 and ’69 with a superior team—including two Game 7’s at home—and only needed to submit
[/font][/font][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]one [/font][/font][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]monster performance to pull it off. Each time, he couldn’t do it. Each time, Russell’s inferior team prevailed. Each time, Wilt whined about it afterward. If Jerry West was Mr. Clutch, then Wilt was Mr. Crutch. [/font][/font]
MYTH NO. 6:

PLAYERS AND COACHES FROM THE ERA ARE

SPLIT OVER WHO WAS A GREATER PLAYER
[font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]
You have to believe me: I read every NBA book possible to prepare to write this one. No stone was left unturned—during the summers of ’07 and ’08 I spent more time on www.abebooks.com than Abe did. While poring over these books, I searched for insight on the Russell-Chamberlain debate

and kept a tally of every player, coach and media member willing to go on the record. (You can see a complete list of those books at the end of this one.) And I’m not sure what was more amazing—how many of them praised Russell, or how many of them crushed Wilt (including people who played with him and coached him). Since we could fill this entire book with quotes from people praising Russell’s unselfishness, competitiveness and clutchness, let’s narrow it down to six Wilt-related quotes that explain everything:

Butch van Breda Kolff (in
[/font][/font][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]Tall Tales): [/font][/font][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]"The difference between Russell and Wilt was this: Russell would ask, ‘What do I need to do to make my teammates better?’ Then he’d do it. Wilt honestly thought the best way for his team to win was for him to be in the best possible setting. He’d ask, ‘What’s the best situation for me?’" [/font][/font][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]44 [/font][/font][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]
Jerry West (in
[/font][/font][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]Goliath): "I [/font][/font][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]don’t want to rap Wilt because I believe only Russell was better, and I really respect what Wilt did. But I have to say he wouldn’t adjust to you, you had to adjust to him."
Jerry Lucas (in
[/font][/font][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]Tall Tales): [/font][/font][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]"Wilt was too consumed with records: being the first to lead the league in assists, or to set a record for field goal percentage. He’d accomplish one goal, then go on to another. Russell only asked one question: ‘What can I do to make us win?’" [/font][/font][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]45 [/font][/font][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]
Jack Kiser (in
[/font][/font][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]Goliath): [/font][/font][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]"Russell pulled the con job of the century on Chamberlain. He welcomed Wilt to the league. He played father-figure. He told him, man, you’re going to better all my records, but you have things to learn and I’m going to teach you because I admire you. [/font][/font][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]46 [/font][/font][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]He made friends with him. He got Wilt to the point where Wilt worried about making him look bad…. Wilt hated to lose, but he liked Bill so much that he didn’t like losing to him. Wilt could destroy Russell when he was inspired. But he held back just enough to get beat. He tried to win over Russell, but he wasn’t driven like he was against guys he disliked. I might point out Russell never said a bad word about Wilt until the night he retired and he hasn’t stopped rapping him since."
Bill Russell (in
[/font][/font][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]Second Wind): [/font][/font][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]"It did seem to me that [Wilt] was often ambivalent about what he wanted to get out of basketball. Anyone who changes the character and style of his play several times over a career is bound to be uncertain about which of the many potential accomplishments he wants to pursue. It’s perfectly possible for a player not to make victory his first priority against all the others—money, records, personal fame, and an undivided claim to his achievements—and I often felt Wilt made some deliberate choices in his ambitions."
Wilt Chamberlain (in
[/font][/font][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]Wilt): [/font][/font][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]"To Bill [Russell], every game—every championship game—was a challenge, a test to his manhood. He took the game so seriously that he threw up in the locker room before almost every game. But I tend to look at basketball as a game, not a life or death struggle. I don’t need scoring titles or NBA championships to prove that I’m a man. There are too many other beautiful things in life—food, cars, girls, friends, the beach, freedom—to get that emotionally wrapped up in basketball. [/font][/font][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]47[/font][/font][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman][font=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]I think Bill knew I felt that way, and I think he both envied and resented my attitude. On the one hand, I think he wished he could learn to take things easier, too; on the other hand, I think he may have felt that with my natural ability and willingness to work hard, my teams could have won an NBA championship every year if I was
as totally committed to victory as he was…. I wish I had won all those championships, but I really think I grew more as a man in defeat that Russell did in victory."

That might be true. But I’d rather have the bathroom puker on my team, the most beloved teammate of his era, the guy who didn’t care about statistics, the guy who always seemed to end up on victorious teams in close games, the guy who finished his career as the greatest winner in sports, the guy who was singularly obsessed with making his teammates better and doing whatever it took to prevail. I’d rather have Bill Russell. And so would anyone else in their right mind.

The defense rests.
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[winged wheel]

Originally Posted by Buc Em

You guys just argue about anything and everything. Bunch of 18-30 year olds (at the most) that haven't seen anything more than some highlights and read some articles trying to act like they know more than they really do.

This man speaks gospel, preach!!!

 

[grittyman20]

Someone said Simmon's book was unbiased, yet one of the myths he's trying to debunk is the fact that Wilt was a nice guy...

I mean that's gotta matter in this debate about who's the better player right?

 

[mister friendly]

[QUOTE name="Mister Friendly"]
Originally Posted by Mister Friendly

Xtapolapacetl wrote:
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Mister Friendly wrote:
[rule]

Xtapolapacetl wrote:

[rule]



Mister Friendly wrote:

[rule]



Xtapolapacetl wrote:


[rule]





Mister Friendly wrote:


[rule]



People are stupid they act as if sport was invented in the 1980s?

In a way it was. Definitely reinvented. Modern basketball was created between 1976 and 1979 because of three factors:


1. NBA-ABA merger

2. Introduction of the 3-point line

3. Magic and Bird


And it went on to become a very different sport from the game of the early 60s when Wilt put up his monster numbers. The sport we today enjoy definitely has its roots in the 80s. The style of basketball in 2010 is most definitely closer to the style of basketball in 1985 than 1960 was to 1985.[


1. You act like prime Shaq wouldn't average 50 in the early 60s if he constantly planted himself outside of that tiny 3 second area where some 6'8 white guy center half his mass was guarding him and Shaq took 40 shots per game like Wilt did.

No NBA player is focusing just on basketball during his offseason. Shaq was constantly starring in movies, recording rap albums or filming commercials in his offseasons and he still dominated. So it's not like modern players are doing nothing but working on their games in their offseasons.

I know the ABA wasn't around in the early 60s. I mentioned the NBA/ABA merger as an example of how ridiculous your statement that the less teams the league had, the less "watered down" it was. Did the league become more watered down as the amount of teams it contained increased? No. Because there was no shortage in talent, which was constantly increasing parallel with the league salaries, ready to fill all the rosters in the league.

2. Where have I called Dwight Howard a skilled player? Don't know why you're bringing that up. I've seen plenty of footage of those guys and I know the extent of their talent. But unlike Wilt, those guys all had great competition and many rivals throughout the league who could match them physically.

3. I'm not sitting here trying to argue that anyone won a championship by himself. But a clear pattern in post-1980 basketball can be seen where perimeter players leading their teams to a championship were the rule, and not the exception like in Wilt's days. And BTW Chauncey Billups won the Finals MVP. And a couple of years later when the Pistons had the best record in the league and someone from that team had to be picked as an MVP candidate, it wasn't one of the Wallaces, but Billups.

/quote]}























1. Yes NBA players are way more committed to their craft than they were in the 1960s. KD, Kobe, Melo, Duncan,Wade Dirk etc etc they all work hard in the offseason. Dont bring up lazy Shaq as an example of what a typically NBA players offseason is.

Who knows what Shaq wouldve been in the early 1960s, I'd assume he'd be less athletic since everybody is more athletic is modern times according to you. Shaq definitely wouldn't been as explosive as Wilt if he was placed in the 1960s with those training methods.

And your point about the NBA/ABA merger is wrong, they didn't add the whole ABA !
They only added 4 teams and players like Dr.J and Moses Malone wouldve been in the NBA without the ABA around. Pro Basketball did get watered down when the ABA came into existence as witnessed by the 1971-72 Los Angeles Lakers and their 33 game winning streak which was a product of having more pro Basketball teams therefore watering down the competition.

2. . I don't see you knocking Lebron because there aren't many players currently in the NBA with his physical ability. Wilt played against the people that were put against him, you don't need to make it about "6'8 White guys". You should leave race out of this.

3. Billups won the Finals MVP in 2004 but it was one of the Wallaces that finished in top 10 in NBA voting in 2004 not Billups and but thats besides the point. I said having a good big man has always been the most efficent way to win a championship even since the 1980s unless you had Jordan or a complete team

 

[scooterman87]

Wilt Chamberlain is responsible for the 3-point line, the reason there was a no-dunking rule, 3 seconds violation, the over the back foul and the reason you can no longer jump from the free throw line during free throws..... he's simply the standard