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Why wouldnt you compare stats through the ages, basketball hasnt changed much since the late 60s, athletic ability includedAre here people that want to compare the stats through ages?
Then
And nothing, just talking
Why wouldnt you compare stats through the ages, basketball hasnt changed much since the late 60s, athletic ability includedAre here people that want to compare the stats through ages?
Then
Including athletic ability?
The wtf of a day
Yup basketball hasn't changed - the teams scoring the same amount of points. There were fastbreaks before Auerbach and Mikan was an average player considerating stats.
btw - who was the first powerdunker?
And how much power dunks were in 60s and now?
BTW - havew you seen those games? (60's)
So your trying to tell me Wilt would suck if he played now, that Dr J. wouldnt be able to jump all of the sudden, right...
And Mikan didnt play in the late 60s.
Only highlights considering Im only 25, but I do know that Wilt could still dominate 90% of the centers in the league right now, and that players like Erving, Robertson, Unseld, Reed, Archibald and McAdoo would still have been pretty damn good no matter what era they had played in
No I'm just saying that if you would put players like james or Shaq into a time machine and send them to, for instance 1955 they would dominate the game game as nobody would do (from the '50 '60) in their time.
Would they consider to be as good as they were? (legacy wise)
Oh, well that of course I agree with you on, my whole point even bringing Oscar up in the first place was that I really think there are certain players that play this game that would have dominated no matter what. And the reason I brought up his stats was just because I had never really looked at them and they blew my mind
Maybe not all of them, and Wilt wouldnt be putting up 50 and 25 every game, but I think its reasonable that evne if he had played now, I would think he would put up half of those #, which would still probably put him in the hof. And maybe I went a little overboard saying that the game hasnt changed much, because overall no doubt the athletes have all gotten stronger and faster. But I do think there are certain players (like Dr J and Tiny Archibald) that still would have been the now
nope - it is a matter of training, medicine, basketball experience and all that making the players much better physicly.
As for talent, you can't measure that
Yea your right about that, doctors and trainers, even equipment is light years ahead of what it was, so I guess, your right, Im wrong
A differing opinion....
"People think it's all power with Shaq, but they're wrong," says 86-year-old Pete Newell, the big-man guru who coached against Wilt and who schooled Shaq at his offseason camp in the early '90s. "Here's what I've seen [O'Neal] do in one game: Bank off the glass. Little lob hook in the paint. Step-back move on the baseline. Quick spin move when he comes out on the other side to shoot. And a neat step-through move when he was doubled or tripled. You go over the history of centers and can you remember anyone, except maybe Hakeem Olajuwon, showing all that? And Hakeem didn't have the power game. I don't like to rate players according to who's best, but none of the great centers had Shaq's moves and counters, and none of them, including Wilt, had his strength."
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/ins...06/12/insider/
so yes Mikan belongs to that list
But I wasnt talking about all that, just pure talent translating to todays game
If I'm rating the top ten centers of all-time, there are two ways you can do it. You can just look at what the center overall accomplishments were, which would reward straight up championships and team domination and have players like Russell, Kareem, Mikan and Shaq at the top of the list.
And then you could list the best centers by the most talented. In this, you'd have to take into accounts aspects a player can't control (teammates, coaches, owners, injuries, market size, etc.) and examine why the players were either successful or unsuccessful at winning championships. If you do this, I think players like Chamberlain, Robinson, Olajuwon, Thurmond and maybe even Walton come out looking better.
In the first scenario, I'd probably put the top five as:
1. Russell
2. Abdul-Jabbar
3. O'Neal
4. Mikan
5. Olajuwon
In the second scenario, I'd rank them:
1. Chamberlain
2a. Olajuwon
2b. Robinson
4. O'Neal
5. Abdul-Jabbar
Russell might be the most accomplished winner in sports history, but he played with so many Hall of Famers that you have to take that into account. The Celtics wouldn't have been nearly as successful without him, but Russell needed the Hall of Famers to win championships, as well.
Abdul-Jabbar was great, but playing with the arguably the two best point guards of all-time has to be taken into account. O'Neal is dominant, but then again, he had the best shooting guard in the league on his team in each of his four championships.
On pure talent, I think easily the top three talented centers were Chamberlain, Olajuwon and Robinson. If you would have put any of these three players into situations where they played with multiple Hall of Famers or with the best guards in the league, they would have dominated. Chamberlain's teammates could rarely compare to what Russell had. Olajuwon probably had the best teammates of the three, but he had a lot of years where he had no talent around him. Robinson had the least talent around him in his prime than perhaps any dominant bigman in history, but did win when the talent (read: Duncan, Tim) arrived.
The style and pace certainly has. The game has slowed down as defensive strategy has evolved and improved, among other things.
I know I already said that I was wrong about this statement. All i was trying to say was that there were certain players of yester year that would still be great in todays game
I was with you until about here. In Shaq's defense Kobe Bryant didn't really blow up until the 2nd le run. That first le was mostly a result of Shaq's dominance...he was a monster putting up 30+ point and 20+ rebound (sometimes 40 and 20) games while Kobe was pretty much an inconsistent rising star that mixed good games with horrible ones.
He averaged 21 points, 4 assists and 4 rebounds their first le run, pretty decent. The next year he blew up though, so I guess 3 out of 4 championships he had the best shooting guard
Not agreeing on that part about Russ.
Celtics had Auerbach Cousy Sharman and McCauley but were not able to win championship. Russell changed that and they became the best teat in history. Just because of the infuence of Bill leadership.
As for Wilt - how come he lost the Finals against Knicks? with Baylor and west in the lineup. Because he had no such desire to the game as Bill had. He was playing in that decisive game like in a pick up game. All team doid it and Knoicks took advantage of it.
Specialists abounded in Shaqs prime time days. Dennis Rodman going off for lord knows how many rebounds per night, Jordan scoring 30+ per night, and Dikembe Mutombo blocking everything in sight for years doesn't exactly make it easy to lead in any category consistently.
Shaq has had solid numbers throughout. Just because he's not number one on a stat sheet more than once doesn't mean a thing.
When was the last time Tim Duncan lead the league in any major statistical category?
TIMVP,
I'm a bit of a Russell apologist, so I have to challenge you at least a bit on the Chamberlain statement. Chamberlain played with Thurmond (1 HOF) on the Warriors, Arizin and Gola (2 HOF's) on the Sixers, and West and Baylor (2 HOF's) on the Lakers. That's a fair amount of talent, I'd say, and he had it for much of his career.
An interesting fact: in 1980, at some 35th anniversary celebration of the NBA, the 1966-1967 Sixers were voted the greatest team of all time. They had basically the same team in 1967-1968, but didn't come near their previous success, largely because of Chamberlain's at ude issues (according to biographies). I think we have good reason to doubt that Chamberlain would have won had he switched places with Russell, since by many counts, he was usually more interested in himself than he was in winning. And I think this has to count against a player in "greatest" debates.
But that's just my two cents.
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