Greatest Players in NBA History: Wilt Chamberlain
- By: The Professor
- On: 2/2/2012 3:59:00 AM
- View Comments : 31
Related: The Professor
As I alluded to in the opening of the Hoops Lab this week, there is a school of thought that Chamberlain’s cartoonish box score exploits may not be indicative of his actual value. But the really interesting thing about Chamberlain is that he had the ability to change his game to fit almost any style..he could do anything on the court. And when Coach Alex Hannum tailored Chamberlain’s role into more of a dominant defender/facilitator, Chamberlain’s impact went through the roof as he anchored one of the best teams in history.
Here is the basketball-reference link for Chamberlain's career, including stats and accolades. Wilt has almost too many interesting facts to list here, but here are some that stand out for me:
1. Chamberlain has the four highest scoring average seasons in NBA history, five of the top-six, and seven of the top-17. Chamberlain also has the three highest rebounding average seasons in NBA history, six of the top-seven, and 10 of the top-20.
2. Chamberlain led the NBA in assists in 1968, making him the only player in league history to lead the league in points, rebounds, assists, AND field goal percentage at some point in his career.
3. Chamberlain’s 1967 76ers team is widely considered one of the best teams in history. Chamberlain led them in scoring, rebounds, and assists. He shot 68% from the field to lead the NBA (second place was 52%), and he anchored a defense that finished a close second (92.9 points allowed /100 possessions) to Bill Russell’s Celtics (91.2 points/100 poss) in defensive ratings estimates. And this 76ers team was the only squad to beat a healthy Russel-led Celtics team in the playoffs in Russell’s career.
4. Chamberlain has established several records that will never be broken. While the 100-point game draws the most attention, his safest record is the 48.5 minutes per game he played in the 1961-62 season. You might recall that there are only 48 minutes in a regulation NBA game, and Wilt AVERAGED more than 48 minutes played. That will never come close to being touched again.
Thus, Wilt Chamberlain. Larger than life both on-and-off the court. And one of the greatest players in NBA history.
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Comments
On: 2/2/2012 7:23:00 AM
I know PER is an efficiency metric, taking minutes, pace, turnovers and other secondary stats into consideration but it is incredible that a guy who averaged 50-25 has a 31 PER. It shows that his 50-25 wasn't that amazing then when you consider the secondary factors as PER is the one transcendent stat. I mean it was amazing, led the league, but was equal to other all-time seasons of top players but not head and shoulders better.
On: 2/2/2012 9:29:00 AM
On: 2/2/2012 9:37:00 AM
On: 2/2/2012 10:35:00 AM
On: 2/2/2012 10:35:00 AM
On: 2/2/2012 12:12:00 PM
Most people try and play the game of discussing what Wilt and other earlier era superstars would be able to do if they played today but i think it would be easier to reverse it. If Patrick Ewing switched places (like in some vice versa type of movie role) with Wilt and he played for Wilt from the first day of his NBA career to the last, what type of production could we assume? Would he have been head and shoulders the creates scorer of his era?
I really think this is a better way of determining how superior, if at all, Wilt was to the modern elite big men of the NBA. I tend to think of those days as one big clack adult holding the ball above his head while a bunch of little white kids try and jump to reach it yet never even approach his chest in height. I know I am exaggerating it but that's my visualization.
On: 2/2/2012 2:05:00 PM
On: 2/2/2012 9:39:00 PM
On: 2/3/2012 1:29:00 AM
On: 2/3/2012 5:27:00 AM
On: 2/3/2012 5:46:00 AM
On: 2/3/2012 2:17:00 PM
On: 2/3/2012 2:25:00 PM
Professor- I have not read your Hoops Lab. I will try to. But if Wilt's "limitless abilities" didn't always transfer to the court, I must have under-estimated him. Because what did transfer to the court was the most dominate play to date in the NBA. And, if there is one area that truly doesn't transfer from that era to now, it's the media coverage, and accessibility of footage (or news clippings). I'm afraid that I can read your Lab several times, and would not be able to provide enough rebuttal to overcome the project's rankings based on news clippings. There will simply never be enough news clippings from that era to compete with the media coverage that the younger players have enjoyed. I recognize that you have no doubt tried extremely hard to be fair, but news clippings and interviews (although admittedly all that you have available) are not an accurate way to evaluate players. I would submit that instead of pulling a small sample size in 1965 to try and minimize Wilt's impact, go back to the stats over season's that no one has approached.
On: 2/3/2012 3:20:00 PM
Look, I am no fan of Chamberlain, the man. No one reading this despises the Jayhawks more than I. (For those too young to know, Wilt went to Kansas) But, fair is fair, and having watched him, and all of those since, I have a strong (if it hasn't shone yet) opinion that he was the best that I've ever watched.
On: 2/4/2012 7:59:00 AM
Firestone: Wait a minute, I, I gotta stop you here, Wilt, hold the phone here. You’re tellin’ me—Wilt Chamberlain is tellin’ me—that he thinks someone is gonna be better than he is,
Chamberlain: Mmm. (nods)
Firestone: Right now you think that he’s got all the potential to be better than you.
Chamberlain: Yeah.
Firestone: You’re saying that?
Chamberlain: Yeah. I’m sayin’ that because he already has a drive in an area that I didn’t have.
Firestone: Which is?
Chamberlain: Goin’ to the basket. Uh, durin’ my career—and mainly in my early days when I was scorin’ all those points—I-I had this thing in my head that I wanted to show people I was a complete basketball player. Y’ understand? And by doing that I developed the fadeaway jump shot, and the fingerroll and the hook shot, and all the tools that on offense basketball players had. When maybe... Wilt Chamberlain should’ve been goin’ to the basket and breaking guys’ hands off, y’ understand? And that would’ve made me... even more devastating. He’s doin’ that already.
That's just one example, but I hope it illustrates the point that I'm trying to get across. Wilt could do anything on the court, his abilities were endless...but in having that palatte of possibilities, he didn't always choose the parts of his game that could maximize his impact. Which lets a few players in history, such as Russell for example, impact the game at a higher level more consistently even without having as much raw ability.
On: 2/4/2012 12:54:00 PM
On: 2/4/2012 2:28:00 PM
You bring up another good point. The NBA wanted to limit Chamberlain. It didn't want a player dominating the way that he did, so they employed rules that were designed to retard his dominance. When Jordan came along, the marketing gurus had figured out that to make the NBA more popular, it needed to get the public exited about a superstar. Rules were overlooked to enhance Jordan's game. They tried to bring Wilt back to the norm, and they tried to raise Jordan more above the norm. If Wilt pushed off, traveled, or fouled, they couldn't wait to make a call. Jordan got by with all of this. I witnessed it.
And Professor- I might not have a problem with you saying that Wilt could have used his abilities to have been even better. I imagine that anyone who can dominate a sport at it's highest level as he did would have trouble getting motivated to play his best 100% of the time. When you can dominate going 95% I can see it happening. But saying that Russell impacted the game at a higher level more consistently, I can't go along with. Russell's TEAM was more consistent, but HE didn't impact the game the way that Wilt did. Switch those two players and leave the rest of the teams intact, and Boston has no competition. Russell was not the player that Wilt was.
On: 2/4/2012 3:08:00 PM
BTW, here is a site about under appreciating older stars in sports. It happens to concentrate on Bart Starr, but at the beginning the information pertains to any star in any sport. I think it's informative.
http://bleacherreport.com/articles/147037-bart-starr-is-clearly-underrated
On: 2/4/2012 3:42:00 PM
I hate to hijack this blog and turn it into MJ but how can you complain and compare how the league treated Wilt compared to MJ. Give us all a little more reedit for understanding history, as you have been very condescending this entire conversation. Not sure if you're aware but while pace wa sup in the 80s, the 90s drew top a near still and those Knicks teams were crushing anyone who went into the lane. Never before had the game been as physical.
Wilt played against a MUCH weaker class of player and that's why he accumulated all those numbers. It wasn't that he was superman, it was because he played a lot of games against 5 white guys under 6 foot 9. This is what everyone is thinking but nobody is saying; Wilt didn't play against the best of the best. We all know that for many documented reasons, such as pampering, air travel, technological advances etc, today's average player is HEAD AND SHOULDERS more athletic than the players from Wilt's era. HEAD AND SHOULDERS> Witness those very same clips of Wilt and you can't not notice this.
So, while I respect your opinion, you need to be a little bit more diplomatic and less condescending. In addition, making blank statements which come out of affection for your era aren't going to gather you many admirers or more importantly, believers.
On: 2/4/2012 3:42:00 PM
On: 2/4/2012 4:37:00 PM
On: 2/4/2012 7:01:00 PM
But that said, even your the analogy you gave with the Montana/Brady/Starr argument doesn't fit because my vote for #1 went to Bill Russell, a guy who's even older than Wilt. And for reasons that were at most tangential to the 11 championships. I don't know if you read my Hoops Lab when I made the case for Russell, but the reason I vote for him is that his defensive impact was so ridiculously off the charts that it dwarfed anyone else's offensive + defensive contributions. That the Celtics won entirely based on the fact that their defense was stupidly dominant, and that this defensive dominance could be traced exactly and almost entirely to Russell. This wasn't a case of his teammates pulling Russell to titles...just the opposite, Russell's defense allowed a lot of his teammates to make the Hall of Fame because they had a lot of championship hardware that they wouldn't have otherwise had.
Frankly, Wilt enjoyed his best team success exactly when his game most emulated Russell's. I really could care less about Wilt's ability to put up comic book box score numbers...I want to know whose contributions showed up most in helping their teams. And for players whose careers overlapped to such a large degree, it certainly looked like Russell with his defense was consistently having a lot more impact on the outcome of the game than Wilt with his limitless ability.
On: 2/4/2012 11:44:00 PM
Humor me, and let me make one last argument. Russell's defense was great. We agree. But in the regular season, in all the games that they played against each other, Wilt averaged 30.0 points per game. (Russell averaged 14.2) So against Russell's great defense that won all of those championships, Wilt's abilities still let him more than double Russell's output. (Wilt must've played a little defense, also, eh? They guarded each other) You're twisting my words when you infer that I said Russell's team pulled him to championships. I simply said that Russell's team was better than Wilt's. I stand by that. Russell played for two coaches (one was himself) while Wilt played for eight, none for more than two seasons in a row. And his teammates changed much more often than Russell's. With each change (coach or cast) his role changed. He was asked to score, and he did. Then asked to be a playmaker and he was. He was asked to play defense and rebound, and again, he adapted.
And, yes, he did put up cartoonish stats. That no one has matched. We should throw them out because they're cartoonish compared to everyone else? His stats were out of place with other players because HE was out of place with the other players. They shouldn't be discounted because they lead away from the conclusion that is desired.
On: 2/4/2012 11:58:00 PM
On: 2/5/2012 12:00:00 AM
On: 2/5/2012 12:19:00 PM
Also, you raise a good point by posting Wilt's and Russell's head-to-head stats...basketball isn't a 1-on-1 game. 1-on-1, yeah, I'd probably take Wilt. But if Russell's presence means that the opposing team is scoring appreciably fewer points than they would have otherwise, that is more important to me (and to my team's success) than the details of the box score. And against Wilt's teams, limiting him to much lower volumes and efficiencies than he scored against everyone else while also playing his normal role as a ridiculous help defender translated into a much less successful team offense for the opponent. Which, in the end, was what the Celtics needed in order to thrive.
On: 2/5/2012 2:23:00 PM
On: 2/5/2012 4:58:00 PM
On: 2/5/2012 7:37:00 PM
But I (perhaps I've mentioned this) watched the two teams play. And, Boston would've been a better team with Wilt as opposed to Russell. While it's romantic to root for the less talented player, Wilt would've improved that team. With Russell transferred to Wilt's team, they don't make the finals.
I know that I have made you dig your heels in against Wilt, and you will forever be more inclined to minimize his greatness. That's a shame. I really wish that you could have watched him. We'd be supporting the same viewpoint, I believe. I respect you and your opinion. I just feel that without seeing him, you aren't appreciating him enough. Therefore he unjustly gets moved lower in your all-time rankings. BTW, I think Russell was a much better person. But, that wasn't the topic. I wish I could agree, but having witnessed them, alas, I can't.
On: 2/7/2012 5:42:00 PM
Wilt was always the best player on the floor. Followed by the 5 Celtics, then his 4 teammates. That's why Wilt is the GOAT while the Celtics usually won. Not because one of the Celtics helped more.
I'm going now to find some newspaper clippings and determine definitively if Otto Graham was better than Brady.
On: 2/7/2012 9:11:00 PM
1) First, you never have to apologize for a good debate. That is entirely what I hope for with everything I write, so I thank you for obliging. And you didn't affect at all how I look at Wilt, so don't worry that you made me dig my heels in or some such. Going into the summer of 2010 I probably would have had Wilt over Russell. But after participating in two of these long-term projects...one in which we went season-by-season and laid out all the details from each year, and then this one where we studied whole careers, I just can't see any way Wilt had anywhere near Russell's impact consistently on the court. Wilt had individual brilliant peaks (note: NOT the years of gaudiest stats) that competed with the best of Russell, but on the whole there were too many times when his numbers weren't translating. Note: I don't blame Wilt for not winning titles when his team wasn't strong enough...but there were plenty of times when his team was stronger than Russell's, and he still came up short. To whit...
2) Your quote "Wilt was always the best player on the floor. Followed by the 5 Celtics, then his 4 teammates. That's why Wilt is the GOAT while the Celtics usually won. " is just flat false. In 1969 Wilt played with West and Baylor and the Lakers had the best record in the Western Conference, yet they lost to the 48-win Celtics the year Russell was to retire. In both 1966 and 1968 Wilt played next to 10-time All Star Hal Greer and 7-time All Star Chet Walker with lots of other talent on the team, sported the best records in the NBA, and lost to Russell's Celtics. So don't give me that it was always Russ on the more talented team and that's why he won, it's just flat not true.
3) I can't find the actual quote, but Wilt himself said in (I believe) 1978 that he couldn't have won as much with those Celtics as Russell did, that Russell's talent on defense, leadership, and outright focus on winning were things that he couldn't have replicated. Wilt wasn't exactly what you would call a humble man, so that statement holds a lot more weight for me than your assertions do about what Wilt would or wouldn't have done (no offense).
4) In 1980 the NBA voted on the Greatest of All Time, and Bill Russell was voted the GOAT. While I may not have personally lived through the Russell/Wilt era, MANY of the voters here DID. So again, I appreciate that you saw them play. But it's really getting ridiculous that you keep hammering that as your trump card for why Wilt is really the GOAT...many, MANY people saw both of them and disagree with you. It's an opinion question, so that's not to say that you're wrong. But just "I saw them play" isn't nearly enough to definitively say that Wilt was the best.
5) Re: 1-on-1 vs team impact. Again, every number that you've quoted to me about Wilt and Russell has been individual box score stuff. As I've said many times, in cases where team impact can be identified I care about that much more than I do what the boxes say. And in my Russell write-up (I may have to eventually make it a blog outside of just the Hoops Lab), I laid out the pretty clear evidence of Russell's ridiculous defensive impact on the TEAM defense. Here is a quick snippet of that case:
a. In 1956, the year before Russell arrived, the Celtics fielded one of the worst defenses in the league, about 1.5 points BELOW league average. In 1970, the year that Russell left, the Celtics defense again fell back to the middle of the pack, right at league average.
b. From Russell's arrival in 1957 until his departure after 1969, the Celtics were No. 1 in the league in team defense in 12 of 13 seasons (No. 2 in the other season). Not only were they the best, but they were by FAR the best, including a five year stretch from 1961 - 1965 in which they were on average about 10 points better than league average and more than 6 points better than the second best defense.
Meanwhile, as I pointed out in this week's Hoops Lab, Wilt may have been averaging 30+ points on good percentages, but when he switched teams in 1965 the Warriors didn't get any worse and the Sixers didn't get any better. When he left the Sixers for the Lakers in 1968, neither team changed that much again. He could overflow the box scores, but he just didn't have the impact on teams that Russell did.
And again, that's NOT just because of the ring count. If you continue to follow me on here (or if you've ever really read my stuff), you'll know that I loathe the practice of counting rings to determine a player's greatness. It's one of my biggest pet peeves. And prior to 2010, for that reason, I tended to think that Russell was a bit overrated and Wilt probably was better. But when I really dug into it and studied their careers, Russell's was characterized by making huge impacts on his team's fortunes...while Wilt...wasn't. And ultimately, that's the difference between them to me.
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