Basketball Time Machine

[stb]

If you could travel back in time to watch any player in their prime who would it be?

For me, I'd like to go back to the Bill Walton days at UCLA or Portland.  If he had been able to stay healthy, he'd be one of the all time greats.

[D.o.s.]

Probably Wilt Chamberlain.

[Fred Roberts]

Russ vs Wilt

[McHales Pits]

If you could travel back in time to watch any player in their prime who would it be?

For me, I'd like to go back to the Bill Walton days at UCLA or Portland.  If he had been able to stay healthy, he'd be one of the all time greats.

I already view Bill Walton as one of the all-time great centers. His 1976-77 season is everything I want from a prototypical center on my squad. Play dominating post defense, secure defensive rebounds, start the break, finish around the rim.

[hwangjini_1]

If you could travel back in time to watch any player in their prime who would it be?

For me, I'd like to go back to the Bill Walton days at UCLA or Portland.  If he had been able to stay healthy, he'd be one of the all time greats.

I already view Bill Walton as one of the all-time great centers. His 1976-77 season is everything I want from a prototypical center on my squad. Play dominating post defense, secure defensive rebounds, start the break, finish around the rim.

and passing. he may have been the greatest passing center in the game.

[slamtheking]

tough call.  choice of going back to see something I wasn't around for (like Russell Vs Wilt) or go back and relive something incredible I saw (Bird vs Dominique or '84 championship clincher, etc...)

[Donoghus]

-Russell
-Oscar Robertson
-Early 80s Bird
-Bias when he was at Maryland (died when I was 5)
-Jordan at UNC (just so I could compare him to Bias)
-Wilt
-Maravich at LSU
-Early 70s Hondo


Walton & UCLA and those Trail Blazers teams would be good ones too.

[fairweatherfan]

The easy answer is Russell, and that's probably what I'd pick.

I'm really intrigued by guys like Elgin Baylor and Bob Pettit, though, who put up ludicrous numbers early in league history but aren't remembered the same way other greats are.  I'd like to see what their games were actually like. 

[Snakehead]

For me absolutely Pistol Pete.  There's a lot I'd like to see but I have such a fondness for his story and his style (and how it fit into that era, unappreciated in my opinion) and also respect for how unlucky he was health wise.

To see him at the height of his powers in the NBA or in college when he was averaging 44 ppg would be special.