Author Topic: MJs top starting five  (Read 12769 times)

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Re: MJs top starting five
« Reply #75 on: May 28, 2020, 05:22:05 AM »

Offline Somebody

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There are so many deserving players but I'd settle on the following for an all-time starting 5

Oscar Robinson
Michael Jordan
Larry Bird
Kevin Garnett
Bill Russell
Oscar Robinson would have been the GOAT! A hybrid of Oscar Robertson and David Robinson? That would have been special! :P

Gimme Bill Bird though. Bird's shooting/scoring and basketball IQ + Russell's athleticism, defense and unparalleled winning mentality. Just wow!
Michael Garnett please 8)

Haha!

Looks like I'm yet another victim of auto-correct.  I'm not even going to bother fixing my original post, it's too funny.
Yeah lol. This is my all-time hybrid starting 5:
Stephen Jordan
Michael Miller
Larry James
Kevin Nowitzki
Bill Abdul-Jabbar

Bill Abdul-Jabbar (the former Lewis Russell) is a totally unfair mash-up.

Combining 7-2 height, olympic-track-level jumping athleticism, super instinctual shot contention & team defense and unstoppable scoring touch from within 8 feet.  Averages 30+ points, 25 rebounds, 6 assists, 10 blocks and 5 steals per game.

Do you mean Wilt Chamberlin?
No. Wilt was never Kareem level tall and he definitely did not have the offensive game Kareem did (high volume scoring on unrivaled efficiency + astute passing). He also lagged behind Russell a bit defensively.
Wilt led the league in assists one season (8.6 also had a 7.8 season).  He led the league in FG% 9 times.  Kareem led the league in FG% 1 time and obviously never led the league in assists (topped out at 5.4).  Different eras so the game was different, but you are really underselling Wilt.  And Wilt was 7'1' while Kareem was 7'2".  Wilt is also by far the strongest player the league has ever seen.  It isn't close.  Wilt is an unrivaled physical specimen.  It is one of the reasons he played 48.5 mpg one season (he missed like 25 minutes the entire season).  Wilt was just an incredible athlete.
With plenty of Rondo assists inflating his assist tally, and FG% is a horrible metric to measure overall efficiency across eras. Admittedly Wilt had an amazing year where he balanced scoring and passing in '67 and broke rTS% while being the offensive figurehead of his squad (albeit that squad was incredibly stacked and likely inflated his box stats), but he immediately started assist hunting after that season (you can go check articles back then talking about his obsession with racking up assists after '67), he never truly found that scoring/passing equilibrium that other great offensive big men had. You're probably overrating Wilt way too much, he was amazing but Kareem was on a different level offensively, especially when you factor in how well their teams fared on offence.
He was playing with younger stars and he was past his prime when he became an assist machine. He is on the record saying that the team mattered not how many points he scored.

When the media said all he could do was score, he became an elite defender. They said he couldn't pass, he became an elite passer. When they said he only started passing because he couldn't score any more, he put on a blitz of scoring. The man was a freak which is why in his era he put up crazy numbers. Today he could probably avg the same. In the 90s though I feel his numbers would drop some. 90s had a ton of solid big men and players across each position were big and fast and more importantly were allowed more defensive liberties.
Not really, his 1967 campaign is regarded by many as his finest season. He did start to decline after that amazing year though.

And that just screams narrative to me, Wilt was a dominant defender from day one. He "couldn't" pass because he was never really could balance his scoring and passing except for 1967 (and even then it wasn't truly a perfect equilibrium) and he never really scored in bunches again after he made the shift into a Tyson Chandler/Rondo hybrid on steroids in his latter years (still an MVP calibre player though). You can always check the team results if you don't buy this, Wilt's early 60s teams were defensively dominant and they only started getting good when he went to a loaded Sixers team and found that balance under Hannum while the Lakers offences were powered by Jerry West.
Wilt scored early on because his coach asked him to.  When he went to the Sixers and his coach asked to be more team oriented and pass more, he did exactly that.  Wilt did what his coaches asked him to do, which was mostly based on the talent (or lack thereof) that he was playing with.  There is a reason that when Wilt joined a team with real talent around him, they were the greatest team the league had seen to that point and blitzed the Celtics in 5 games.
And the results were not pretty until he shifted to that global approach, which pretty much takes those 50PPG seasons out of the conversation as his best offensive season even when he played with decent talent around him in Golden State - he had teammates like Paul Arizin, Guy Rodgers, Tom Gola, Nate Thurmond, etc. And the reason for blitzing the Celtics doesn't solely rest on Wilt (although he did up his game that year), that Sixers team was unbelievably stacked: Hal Greer, Chet Walker and Billy Cunningham formed a triumvirate that was strong enough to contend for a title by themselves (the 76ers were still a premier club in 1969 after Wilt's departure, ranking 3rd in SRS on the back of an excellent offence powered by that trio).
Isn't that what I said he became a assist machine when he had younger stars?

By all accounts Wilt could do it all. Your complaint boils down to he wasn't doing everything in the box score all the time. That's nitpicking a ton. We credit players like Russell and Kareem for playing their specific roles on teams yet they didn't show the same ability night in and out across all the stats either. Why doesn't Wilt get the same love for filling a role?
And I acknowledged that he had one amazing year in 1967 when the stars aligned and he adopted a global approach before jumping to the other end of the spectrum. My main point is that his offence with the exception of that one season and perhaps 1968 was generally not incredibly valuable because he had issues balancing both scoring and passing, there's no nitpicking unless you're fixated on the box score.

We give loads of credit to Russell because his outlier level defence carried those Celtics squads who were actually average or even below average offensively year after year in that 13 year run. We credit Kareem because he was an offensive and defensive anchor who could shore up even subpar supporting casts on both ends of the court for the entirety of his prime and had an amazing post-prime run. Wilt gets his due for being the greatest defender in his era save Russell and being a very good but not great (as in an offensive anchor who can take an offence to elite heights by himself) offensive player with the exception of 1-2 seasons in his career, it's not his fault that stories and fables from the 60s have inflated the perception of him in the eyes of some.
« Last Edit: May 28, 2020, 05:27:08 AM by Somebody »
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Re: MJs top starting five
« Reply #76 on: May 28, 2020, 06:20:13 AM »

Offline Csfan1984

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There are so many deserving players but I'd settle on the following for an all-time starting 5

Oscar Robinson
Michael Jordan
Larry Bird
Kevin Garnett
Bill Russell
Oscar Robinson would have been the GOAT! A hybrid of Oscar Robertson and David Robinson? That would have been special! :P

Gimme Bill Bird though. Bird's shooting/scoring and basketball IQ + Russell's athleticism, defense and unparalleled winning mentality. Just wow!
Michael Garnett please 8)

Haha!

Looks like I'm yet another victim of auto-correct.  I'm not even going to bother fixing my original post, it's too funny.
Yeah lol. This is my all-time hybrid starting 5:
Stephen Jordan
Michael Miller
Larry James
Kevin Nowitzki
Bill Abdul-Jabbar

Bill Abdul-Jabbar (the former Lewis Russell) is a totally unfair mash-up.

Combining 7-2 height, olympic-track-level jumping athleticism, super instinctual shot contention & team defense and unstoppable scoring touch from within 8 feet.  Averages 30+ points, 25 rebounds, 6 assists, 10 blocks and 5 steals per game.

Do you mean Wilt Chamberlin?
No. Wilt was never Kareem level tall and he definitely did not have the offensive game Kareem did (high volume scoring on unrivaled efficiency + astute passing). He also lagged behind Russell a bit defensively.
Wilt led the league in assists one season (8.6 also had a 7.8 season).  He led the league in FG% 9 times.  Kareem led the league in FG% 1 time and obviously never led the league in assists (topped out at 5.4).  Different eras so the game was different, but you are really underselling Wilt.  And Wilt was 7'1' while Kareem was 7'2".  Wilt is also by far the strongest player the league has ever seen.  It isn't close.  Wilt is an unrivaled physical specimen.  It is one of the reasons he played 48.5 mpg one season (he missed like 25 minutes the entire season).  Wilt was just an incredible athlete.
With plenty of Rondo assists inflating his assist tally, and FG% is a horrible metric to measure overall efficiency across eras. Admittedly Wilt had an amazing year where he balanced scoring and passing in '67 and broke rTS% while being the offensive figurehead of his squad (albeit that squad was incredibly stacked and likely inflated his box stats), but he immediately started assist hunting after that season (you can go check articles back then talking about his obsession with racking up assists after '67), he never truly found that scoring/passing equilibrium that other great offensive big men had. You're probably overrating Wilt way too much, he was amazing but Kareem was on a different level offensively, especially when you factor in how well their teams fared on offence.
He was playing with younger stars and he was past his prime when he became an assist machine. He is on the record saying that the team mattered not how many points he scored.

When the media said all he could do was score, he became an elite defender. They said he couldn't pass, he became an elite passer. When they said he only started passing because he couldn't score any more, he put on a blitz of scoring. The man was a freak which is why in his era he put up crazy numbers. Today he could probably avg the same. In the 90s though I feel his numbers would drop some. 90s had a ton of solid big men and players across each position were big and fast and more importantly were allowed more defensive liberties.
Not really, his 1967 campaign is regarded by many as his finest season. He did start to decline after that amazing year though.

And that just screams narrative to me, Wilt was a dominant defender from day one. He "couldn't" pass because he was never really could balance his scoring and passing except for 1967 (and even then it wasn't truly a perfect equilibrium) and he never really scored in bunches again after he made the shift into a Tyson Chandler/Rondo hybrid on steroids in his latter years (still an MVP calibre player though). You can always check the team results if you don't buy this, Wilt's early 60s teams were defensively dominant and they only started getting good when he went to a loaded Sixers team and found that balance under Hannum while the Lakers offences were powered by Jerry West.
Wilt scored early on because his coach asked him to.  When he went to the Sixers and his coach asked to be more team oriented and pass more, he did exactly that.  Wilt did what his coaches asked him to do, which was mostly based on the talent (or lack thereof) that he was playing with.  There is a reason that when Wilt joined a team with real talent around him, they were the greatest team the league had seen to that point and blitzed the Celtics in 5 games.
And the results were not pretty until he shifted to that global approach, which pretty much takes those 50PPG seasons out of the conversation as his best offensive season even when he played with decent talent around him in Golden State - he had teammates like Paul Arizin, Guy Rodgers, Tom Gola, Nate Thurmond, etc. And the reason for blitzing the Celtics doesn't solely rest on Wilt (although he did up his game that year), that Sixers team was unbelievably stacked: Hal Greer, Chet Walker and Billy Cunningham formed a triumvirate that was strong enough to contend for a title by themselves (the 76ers were still a premier club in 1969 after Wilt's departure, ranking 3rd in SRS on the back of an excellent offence powered by that trio).
Isn't that what I said he became a assist machine when he had younger stars?

By all accounts Wilt could do it all. Your complaint boils down to he wasn't doing everything in the box score all the time. That's nitpicking a ton. We credit players like Russell and Kareem for playing their specific roles on teams yet they didn't show the same ability night in and out across all the stats either. Why doesn't Wilt get the same love for filling a role?
And I acknowledged that he had one amazing year in 1967 when the stars aligned and he adopted a global approach before jumping to the other end of the spectrum. My main point is that his offence with the exception of that one season and perhaps 1968 was generally not incredibly valuable because he had issues balancing both scoring and passing, there's no nitpicking unless you're fixated on the box score.

We give loads of credit to Russell because his outlier level defence carried those Celtics squads who were actually average or even below average offensively year after year in that 13 year run. We credit Kareem because he was an offensive and defensive anchor who could shore up even subpar supporting casts on both ends of the court for the entirety of his prime and had an amazing post-prime run. Wilt gets his due for being the greatest defender in his era save Russell and being a very good but not great (as in an offensive anchor who can take an offence to elite heights by himself) offensive player with the exception of 1-2 seasons in his career, it's not his fault that stories and fables from the 60s have inflated the perception of him in the eyes of some.
How is actually putting up the stats being a fable? Kareem, Russell and most opposing teams would say Wilt was a team's main offense and defense, that stopping Wilt was the priority. The man was nearly unstoppable one on one if we are going to call out his passing then Kareem and Russell weren't good passers as those guy's assist were only slightly better than Wilt's early on while Wilt's did go up as his scoring dropped but theirs didn't. It's again nitpicking to not see that role as a reason to change play approach. The fact Wilt could do it all with the exception of free throws is proven in the numbers overall as well. If you combine the players of Kareem and Russell physically and stats that very much is Wilt. If Kareem was as athletic as Russell he would have scored more like Wilt. If Russell had more strength, length and feel for the offense he would have scored like Wilt especially since their fts were closer. Kareem is the guy most fabled as the sky hook wasn't exactly automatic and he benefited greatly by his Lakers teammates always setting him up even when past his prime. If any guy was chasing numbers at the end of their careers it was Kareem.

Re: MJs top starting five
« Reply #77 on: May 28, 2020, 08:38:33 AM »

Offline Moranis

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Somebody,
Kareem's last year in Milwaukee the Bucks won only 38 games.  The difference between the 59 win and 38 win team was pretty much Oscar retiring.  The Bucks who were they were because of Kareem sure, but they didn't become a real contender until they added Oscar to Kareem and Dandridge and they didn't even make the playoffs in the heart of Kareem's prime after Oscar retired.  Kareem forced his way out of Milwaukee to go to LA and the Lakers, before Magic, were pretty mediocre winning 40, 53, 45, and 47 missing the playoffs once and only winning 2 playoff series in the 4 seasons.  In other words, I'm not sure we should really be crediting Kareem for elevating teams.  I mean in the 5 seasons in the heart of his prime (aged 27-31) he missed the playoffs twice and won just 2 playoff series.  Now sure the teams around him weren't that talented, but if Kareem is as good as you claim that shouldn't happen. 

To me it seems like you elevate certain people and don't hold them to the same standard as you do others.  Wilt Chamberlain was a better player than Kareem.  There is nothing that Wilt couldn't do on the basketball floor (except hit FT's consistently).  He was every bit the defender as well.  Wilt was a superb defensive player.  He rivaled Russell as the best defensive big man ever.  No one is in those two class as a defender (well maybe Rodman but he was a different sort of defender given his much smaller frame).  Wilt was a genetic freak.  The most physically gifted athlete that has ever played in the league.  He was not only the strongest NBA player ever, but also the most well conditioned NBA player ever.  He size, speed, strength, and most importantly skill made him unguardable.  If the metrics you are using don't show this, then the metrics are bad.  I mean that seriously.  There are only 3 people you could realistically call the greatest player ever Wilt, MJ, and Lebron.  No one else is even in the same stratosphere as player as those 3. 
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Re: MJs top starting five
« Reply #78 on: May 28, 2020, 08:49:52 AM »

Online DefenseWinsChamps

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There are so many deserving players but I'd settle on the following for an all-time starting 5

Oscar Robinson
Michael Jordan
Larry Bird
Kevin Garnett
Bill Russell
Oscar Robinson would have been the GOAT! A hybrid of Oscar Robertson and David Robinson? That would have been special! :P

Gimme Bill Bird though. Bird's shooting/scoring and basketball IQ + Russell's athleticism, defense and unparalleled winning mentality. Just wow!
Michael Garnett please 8)

Haha!

Looks like I'm yet another victim of auto-correct.  I'm not even going to bother fixing my original post, it's too funny.
Yeah lol. This is my all-time hybrid starting 5:
Stephen Jordan
Michael Miller
Larry James
Kevin Nowitzki
Bill Abdul-Jabbar

Bill Abdul-Jabbar (the former Lewis Russell) is a totally unfair mash-up.

Combining 7-2 height, olympic-track-level jumping athleticism, super instinctual shot contention & team defense and unstoppable scoring touch from within 8 feet.  Averages 30+ points, 25 rebounds, 6 assists, 10 blocks and 5 steals per game.

Do you mean Wilt Chamberlin?
No. Wilt was never Kareem level tall and he definitely did not have the offensive game Kareem did (high volume scoring on unrivaled efficiency + astute passing). He also lagged behind Russell a bit defensively.

Lol. This turned into a debate. I was making a half-joke. Wilt was a "7-2 height, olympic-track-level jumping athleticism, super instinctual shot contention & team defense and unstoppable scoring touch from within 8 feet." His averages may never have been "30+ points, 25 rebounds, 6 assists, 10 blocks and 5 steals per game," but they were bigger in some ways and smaller in others.

Re: MJs top starting five
« Reply #79 on: May 28, 2020, 09:46:18 AM »

Offline Somebody

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Kareem's last year in Milwaukee the Bucks won only 38 games.  The difference between the 59 win and 38 win team was pretty much Oscar retiring.  The Bucks who were they were because of Kareem sure, but they didn't become a real contender until they added Oscar to Kareem and Dandridge and they didn't even make the playoffs in the heart of Kareem's prime after Oscar retired.  Kareem forced his way out of Milwaukee to go to LA and the Lakers, before Magic, were pretty mediocre winning 40, 53, 45, and 47 missing the playoffs once and only winning 2 playoff series in the 4 seasons.  In other words, I'm not sure we should really be crediting Kareem for elevating teams.  I mean in the 5 seasons in the heart of his prime (aged 27-31) he missed the playoffs twice and won just 2 playoff series.  Now sure the teams around him weren't that talented, but if Kareem is as good as you claim that shouldn't happen. 

To me it seems like you elevate certain people and don't hold them to the same standard as you do others.  Wilt Chamberlain was a better player than Kareem.  There is nothing that Wilt couldn't do on the basketball floor (except hit FT's consistently).  He was every bit the defender as well.  Wilt was a superb defensive player.  He rivaled Russell as the best defensive big man ever.  No one is in those two class as a defender (well maybe Rodman but he was a different sort of defender given his much smaller frame).  Wilt was a genetic freak.  The most physically gifted athlete that has ever played in the league.  He was not only the strongest NBA player ever, but also the most well conditioned NBA player ever.  He size, speed, strength, and most importantly skill made him unguardable.  If the metrics you are using don't show this, then the metrics are bad.  I mean that seriously.  There are only 3 people you could realistically call the greatest player ever Wilt, MJ, and Lebron.  No one else is even in the same stratosphere as player as those 3.
That Bucks squad is underrated when you get past the basic W/L column, they were actually an average team by SRS (ranked 8th out of 18, slightly positive) even when Kareem missed 17 games, Dandridge fell off a bit, the squad lost Curtis Perry due to expansion and traded Lucius Allen for Jim Price without even factoring in Oscar's retirement. Their SRS was 2.6 when healthy, which is roughly in line with a high 40s win team as well as the usual for two way MVP lift on a meh squad. Kareem went to LA and had some of his best seasons there, lifting his team to the fringe of title contention even without Magic (similar result to 1975 on a barren squad in 1976 and then finished 5th, 8th, 8th out of 22 in SRS while finishing in the top 5 in team ORTG for those three years). This is exactly what an MVP calibre two way anchor should do and Kareem did exactly that with strong point differentials throughout the decade while anchoring strong defences in Milwaukee and leading elite offences in LA.

To me it's just you using rather outdated and frankly inconsistent methods in player evaluation, Wilt simply did not have the impact of Kareem besides for a handful of years in a prime against prime basis and loses out a lot in longevity. Your narratives of him being "the best" in this and that don't translate on the court and if you can't see nor understand the wealth of metrics telling you this, your narratives are the ones that are bad, not the metrics themselves. And that's your personal GOAT list even though Jordan and LeBron are GOAT candidates in my book, not mine nor honestly anyone who spends their time looking at what actually helps tease out value on the court instead of holding preconceived notions of a player and disregarding every piece of evidence that disagrees with them.
« Last Edit: May 28, 2020, 09:52:45 AM by Somebody »
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Re: MJs top starting five
« Reply #80 on: May 28, 2020, 10:59:31 AM »

Offline Moranis

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The 59 Warriors won 32 games and had a -2.29 SRS.  They added Wilt and won 49 games with a SRS of 2.77.  Wilt and a new coach were the only meaningful changes between the two teams.  Wilt's last full season for the Warriors they had a SRS of 4.41.  The next year he played 38 games (before the trade) and the team had a SRS of -5.49, the year after Wilt they were a -2.39 (that was Rick Berry's rookie year).  The 64 Sixers (year before Wilt) had a SRS of -3.75 (34 wins).  Wilt's half season the team had a SRS of -.13 (they took Boston to 7 in the ECF).  His first full season they won 55 games and had a SRS of 4.16 (that was 66).  That led to 67 which as we know was the greatest team ever to that point winning 68 games with a SRS of 8.50, which they followed up with a SRS of 7.96 (in a 62 win season - they took Boston to 7 without Cunningham).  The Sixers were respectable the year after Wilt but did have their SRS drop to 4.79. 

This idea that Wilt didn't positively affect the teams he was on just isn't borne in reality.  He made all of his teams better. 
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Re: MJs top starting five
« Reply #81 on: May 29, 2020, 01:35:23 PM »

Offline Somebody

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The 59 Warriors won 32 games and had a -2.29 SRS.  They added Wilt and won 49 games with a SRS of 2.77.  Wilt and a new coach were the only meaningful changes between the two teams.  Wilt's last full season for the Warriors they had a SRS of 4.41.  The next year he played 38 games (before the trade) and the team had a SRS of -5.49, the year after Wilt they were a -2.39 (that was Rick Berry's rookie year).  The 64 Sixers (year before Wilt) had a SRS of -3.75 (34 wins).  Wilt's half season the team had a SRS of -.13 (they took Boston to 7 in the ECF).  His first full season they won 55 games and had a SRS of 4.16 (that was 66).  That led to 67 which as we know was the greatest team ever to that point winning 68 games with a SRS of 8.50, which they followed up with a SRS of 7.96 (in a 62 win season - they took Boston to 7 without Cunningham).  The Sixers were respectable the year after Wilt but did have their SRS drop to 4.79. 

This idea that Wilt didn't positively affect the teams he was on just isn't borne in reality.  He made all of his teams better.
That's where I credit him being the second best defender of his era, the bulk of his impact came on the defensive end. His team's ORTG was still 2.4 points below average in his rookie season - only a 1.1 point improvement on that end relative to league average, the trend of his volume scoring not helping his team offences like a top end offensive anchor is absolutely borne out in the numbers. And his final Warrior season was buoyed by the addition of another all-time great defensive anchor in Nate Thurmond backing him up (he only averaged 25.9 MPG in the regular season, but he ramped up to 34.2 MPG in the playoffs in their finals run that year). Btw that defence still lagged behind Russell's Celtics by almost 5 points in DRTG! His Sixer runs were well-documented so I'll get right to the point - my point wasn't that those Sixers didn't need Wilt, but they were an incredibly stacked team even without him (as evidenced by their strong SRS and ORTG even after he left in 1969) and him being the offensive figurehead of that team doesn't make his 1967 season on par with elite offensive anchors on offence given that his results outside of 1967 and 1968 weren't all that amazing.

SRS and team ORTG/DRTG love Wilt, but not in the way the box score would have predicted - he was an amazing defensive anchor but was overshadowed by Russell on that end, and while his offence was good (or even great if you're talking about his 1967 season), it wasn't on the level of an elite offensive anchor. He also had some years where he had mixed value signals so it wasn't like his prime years were incredibly stable like Russell. This isn't exactly a GOAT level resume when compared with greats like Kareem, LeBron, Jordan and Russell. He's definitely a top 10 player of all time, but this is a guy who'd be closer to the lower end of that range rather than the very top.
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Re: MJs top starting five
« Reply #82 on: May 29, 2020, 02:58:38 PM »

Offline nickagneta

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I have now heard everything.

Wilt Chamberlain, the man who averaged over 30 points a game for his career, who scored 100 points in one game who led the league in:

PPG 7 straight years
RPG 11 years
FG% 9 years
TS% 3 years
PER 8 years
OWS 3 years
WS 8 years
WS/48 8 years

was only good on offense and not an elite offensive anchor.

My God, the man was the epitome of offensive dominance and the absolute definition of what an offensive anchor was in the league.

Re: MJs top starting five
« Reply #83 on: May 29, 2020, 04:11:48 PM »

Offline Moranis

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I have now heard everything.

Wilt Chamberlain, the man who averaged over 30 points a game for his career, who scored 100 points in one game who led the league in:

PPG 7 straight years
RPG 11 years
FG% 9 years
TS% 3 years
PER 8 years
OWS 3 years
WS 8 years
WS/48 8 years

was only good on offense and not an elite offensive anchor.

My God, the man was the epitome of offensive dominance and the absolute definition of what an offensive anchor was in the league.
Yep and if Somebody's metrics only say he was good and not great, then the metric is broken and can be disregarded entirely.  Given several of his positions with players with through the years, I think that is the case.  The metrics used just aren't accurate.  The simple reality is Wilt Chamberlain is the most dominant offensive force the league has ever seen.  He was so unguardable that the Celtics, with perhaps the greatest big man defender ever, didn't even bother to try to stop him and just focused on everyone else (which worked most of the time because Wilt rarely played with anyone else that could beat a team). 

I mean this is the opening statement on Wilt's NBA.com profile. https://www.nba.com/history/legends/profiles/wilt-chamberlain

Quote
He was basketball's unstoppable force, the most awesome offensive force the game has ever seen.

Wilt Chamberlain may not have been the most versatile offensive player ever, but he most definitely was the most dominant offensive player ever. 
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