Wilt's numbers are so over-inflated. The pace back then was WAY faster, not to mention under 15 NBA teams and the average player was 6'5". The same can be said for Oscar Robertson's trip dub season. When the pace is adjusted, Westbrook's 14-15 campaign was far more impressive and against far more talented and sizable players.. It's not even funny. Not saying they were scrubs at all, i'm just tired of people getting so aroused (yes, aroused) by old era numbers. It's a totally different game now, and people need to stop.
Your argument that superstar accomplishments back in the day are not as impressive as current superstar accomplishments are purely subjective and totally incarnate. You act like Oscar Robertson was this Kevin Durant type of super tall athletic freak playing in an era were everyone else was 5'10". At 6'5" tall the Big O was in line with the size and height of other Point Guards in the league during that era. Most Point Guards were in the neighborhood of 6'2" to 6'3" and there were only a couple in the whole league that season that were below 6'0". Why weren't the other Point Guards in that era putting up similar numbers? You want to know why? Because the Big O was just that damn good. Never fall into the trap of devaluing a previous generations accomplishments. Remember guys like Russel Westbrook would not have had the advantage of todays advanced sports nutrition, training, equipment, surgical procedures, medicine and the rules of today that do not allow a defender to do things like hand check wing players out on the court. And don't forget things like the 3 point shot and the restricted area that did not exist back in the day. There are simple things that absolutely no one ever considers like basketball shoes. Imagine playing in todays high tech basketball shoes and then playing a game in a pair of Chuck Taylors. You will almost feel like your barefooted by comparison. There is a very good chance that Russell Westbrook career would have been significantly altered forever after the injury he received in the play-offs a few seasons ago. It's very likely he would not be the player he was prior, not even close. Sports medicine and rehab were still a great unknown back then and players lost their careers to less significant injuries. How effective would Westbrook be if everytime he attacked the basket he got slammed to the hardwood by guys like Wilt Chamberlain, Bob Petit, Bill Russell and Walt Bellamy? That was basketball back then, today it's a flagrant 2 and a suspension. Each player should be judged solely on who he performed to the generation that he competing in.
Well, he was a 6'4 power forward. Defensive rebounds do count as defense in a possession game. And please don't bring up Love to refute that. Barkley fought as best he could. I recall him against Malone was not a cake walk for Karla, yet Barkley still grabbed the boards. But I agree, Barkley had very high bball IQ, so with his quickness and trunk making him impossible to back down, he could have been as good a defender as Chuck Hayes. I'm going to give him a pass by saying his offensive load made his overall job harder than Chuck.
I'll grant you that he was a terrific defensive rebounder (even better offensive rebounder) and a ferocious offensive player. I'll say this, he still has one of my favorite all time commercials. <iframe width="420" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/zYkR6iqgoDw" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <iframe width="420" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/stbELyZtdSw" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
I always thought Yao was a better offensive player and pretty darn close defensively, but Yao wasn't half the rebounder that Dwight is. The man is amazing. He makes small ball lineups a much easier choice. Impressive that Dwight surpassed these two monsters: <iframe width="420" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/enn4b5wGs5U" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> While we're sharing old commercials from the NBA: <iframe width="420" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/zzYW-6EF99M" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> Always good: <iframe width="420" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/_oACRt-Qp-s" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> And <iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/VWYReltxHio" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> What's an nba commercial explosion without nike just do it: <iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/PMqhYzQlCQ8" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
Go Dwight! Actually surprised guys like Mo and Hakeem don't have more. Rebound monsters early in their careers, and big time scorers. Got a future contender for you to add to the list: Andre Drummond - 6 in his career so far (bye bye A Davis), which includes 2 so far this season. Mind you, to catch up to Dwight, he would need to average almost 5 20/20 games per season for the next 8 seasons.....
holy crap...I've never seen that. Hey Clutch, all my base reps belong to don grahamleone for the year. Can you make that happen:??
the rebound data that I used was from bballref, but it begins at 1985. Moses will be much higher, if not the top modern era 20/20 ever. Plus, Akeem's first year isn't counted. Did he have a 20/20 as a rookie?
I wish I had league pass for every NBA team, but it's not in the cards. If it were, I'd go watch Drummond get his 25 and 29 against Indiana asap. That's incredible. It almost makes Dwight's 20/20 feel like no big deal. Of course, Drummond somehow lost that game.
Dwight is one of the best playoff rebounders ever. I never understood the hate. He's one of the best post defenders ever. That's all he needs to do. Shaq is so overrated. Such a terrible rebounder for someone his size and athletic ability. Just shows his laziness in rebounding and defense. He was a good post defender strictly based on being big. Barkley at 6'4 is a better rebounder than 7'1 350 lb Shaq....pfft. BTW i just watched Chucks 33 rebound game yesterday. Awesome. I dont get the Chuck hate either. He gave us what he could at hat point in his career. Could he have worked out harder to stay in better shape? Yeah, but his effort was there on the court. <iframe width="420" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/X57bkqZqNxE" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
hAkeem only had 4 as a rookie.... per bballref. And they have 33 of his games without a rebound figure, so it is at least 4 as a rookie Drummond up to 7 now
Every era is different. Trying to compare different players from different eras is difficult because so much has changed over the years. Even some of the rules, such as goaltending and hand checking, have changed making today's game much different than it used to be. While I do agree that it can be possible to to over value numbers in the past, it seems like a lot of people also under value the past and just say "well that isn't impressive because all the other athletes sucked". Or something close to that. Wilt Chamberlin, to me, is the best example of this. His numbers are stunningly ridiculous. He once averaged 50 points and 25 rebounds over an entire season. One season, he played every single minute that his team played. Because a couple of games went into overtime, he actually averaged 48.53 minutes per game that season (over the 48 minutes in a regulation game). He is the only player ever to record a quadruple-double-double (40+ in two different categories)- something that he did 5 different times. At the time, critics claimed he was a one-dimensional (offensive) and selfish player. The next season, he led the league in assists and is the only Center to ever lead the league in assists for a season. He has the highest ever PER for a season, as well as the second highest. If you look at most points scored in a game, Wilt Chamberlin has 15 of the top 20 games ever. He has so many other mind-blowing stats, but these are just a few. Sure. The argument against Chamberlin is that "the competition that he played against was so much weaker". If that is true, how come nobody else at the time even came close to those things? If the pace was so fast and the competition was so weak and everybody in the NBA was under 6 feet tall, how come George Mikan didn't do similar kinds of things? Or Willis Reed, Nate Thurmond, Bill Russell, Bob McAdoo, Walt Bellamy? These were other good or even great centers in the era, and they didn't even come close to those kinds of stats. IF you look at Bill Russell- even to this day a lot of people consider Bill Russell one of the best if not the best defensive player ever. They played against each other 142 times. In those games, against a great Celtics defensive team and a great defensive player in Russell, Chamberlin averaged 28.7 points (with a high game of 62 points) and 28.7 rebounds (with a high game of 55 rebounds). This is over the course of all of those games, including the later years after Wilt's prime. Like I said at the very beginning, even though Wilt's numbers are outrageous, it is difficult to compare him or Big O or other players from that era to players of today or other eras. But that doesn't make what he did less impressive and we shouldn't just completely disregard it.
