michael jordan is not the greatest ever.

[brahma rocket]

i'm tired of michael jordan being called the greatest ever to play basketball, he was even the 1# athlete of the century on espn. it makes me sick. how can a man that scored 100 points in a game,got 55 rebounds in a game, averaged 50 ppg. and 20+ rpg. in a single season not be called the best ever, i mean my god he has led the league in points, rebounds, assists and feild goal percentage throughout his career . wilt chamberlain is the greatest basketball player that ever lived.

[mantronix]

brahma rocket, I agree MJ is not the best bball player of all time neither is Wilt, How can you be the greatest when you dont play against quality competetion and Wilt played a bunch of short unathletic white guys. Magic and Bird were the best players of all time. They were best team players and clutch players.

[brahma rocket]

actually wilt's competition was hard, not because they were big and strong but because they knew him in and out , they keyed on him every time down the court, they played him every week, the league back then was much harder because the players were'nt spread out every where so it made the league compact yet filled with talent.it does'nt matter how tall the players were, wilt changed the game more than anyone. and i have a question for you , if larry bird was'nt white would he still be remembered the same way?

[Francis3]

Your an idiot, Jordan is the best of all time and that is final.

[brahma rocket]

why is jordan the best? and its you're an idiot , not your.

[Francis3]

I was just playing with you brahma rocket.

But now let me tell you why jordan is the greatest player. First of all, In jordans era he had alot of talented players playing in his era. In wilts era, not alot of teams and he was a big monster that not anyone could handle him. If you bring wilt in his prime to playing right now then he wouldnt average anything like that because right now alot of players are more physical and are taller and can just overpower him. Mj understood the game and what it took to win. Im not taking anything away from wilt but he isnt the best of all time. Mj is just a great athlete and is definetley the best of all time.

[brahma rocket]

well i guess are opinions are just very different and will never change. i think when a league is small and compact it is harder , and if we put chamberlain in the league now i think he would be averaging as much as shaq or more, but we will never know.its just too bad we never saw wilt in real life or i think alot of people's opinions would be much different.

[Dr of Dunk]

There may be taller people than Wilt, but there wouldn't be many, if any, that were better. He also still would be among the most athletic centers in the league. Any 7', 280 lbs guy that can play volleyball is athletic enough to play in this era. He wouldn't average what he did back then, but he'd still be one of the 2 or 3 best centers if not the best in the league.

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Rocket fuel pumps through these veins...

[This message has been edited by Dr of Dunk (edited January 01, 2000).]

The three best basketball players of all time come from Wilts "era"

As Jordan himself proclaimed. Russell is better, so was the Big O, and yes so was Wilt.

[CaucasionSensation]

Jordan is the greatest of all time. Think if Jordan had to play against 6-3 and 6-2 white guys almost every night (relative to those Chamberlain played against).

Wilt Chamberlain played in a time when the NBA was almost as much spectacle as sport and he was the ultimate freak within it.

Today the NBA is a meat market. Kids are being courted by Addidas and Nike often before they are even juniors in high school.

Wilt is a great player, probably even by todays standards, but Jordan is the greatest.

How about Babe Ruth vs. Mark McGwire or Ken Griffey Jr. Are stats really everything? I don't think so!

[brahma rocket]

when mikey scores 100 in a game maybe i'll think about him being the greatest.

[Rocket Fan]

I don't think you can say all that junk about if wilt played now. you can't punish a player for when he played. truth is if mj played during wilts time he would not have been as good because there was less in the way of physical conditioniong and also a big part of all this mj crap is hype and without the media that he had in the 90s mj would not be so hyped up

[Rocket Fan]

i mean come on wilt did it all. and i'm tired of this crap mj is a great athlete and he can play baseball too. MJ COULD NOT PLAY BASEBALL AT ALL. HE WASN'T EVEN GOOD ENOUGH FOR THE MINOR LEAGUES BUT HIS HYPE GOT HIM IN

[Rocketability]

I don't know if Jordan is the best bball player ever, but I do think he is a better player than Wilt was.

Both are GREAT players, though.

[alaskansnowman]

Remember Jordan's clutch performance against the Jazz while he was sick?

[brahma rocket]

remember wilt's 100 points in a game or how about his 55 rebounds in one.but if jordan was REALLY sick then that was a good game for him but i always thought he was faking it.

[DarkHorse]

No one will ever be able to prove who is truly the best of all time, cause it's so subjective. Of course they're going to say that MJ is the best of all time because of his popularity right now, and the fact that he's the most recent mega-superstar to grace the court. But if you look at history, at least 5 other guys have a good strong case as being the best ever. Depend on what you call the best. Those 5 (in no particular order):
Wilt Chamberlain
Bill Russell
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
Larry Bird
Magic Johnson

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Because this is MORE than a spectator sport...

[brahma rocket]

you know who else you should add to that list, the big O oscar robertson. triple double for a season.

[A-Train]

One thing about ESPN's countdown...It was a popularity contest, nothing more and nothing less...

There is actually a reason why Jordan was voted number one if you really think about it...

OK, you know that Jordan was going to be in the Top five simply because he's Michael Jordan, it was just a matter of where...The "voting" for this countdown was done, when...the second half of 1998?? What happened in June of 1998? Right, Jordan just buried the final shot of his career and beat the Utah **** (no, that's not a typo) for the second time in the NBA finals...So, MJ's heroics was probably the final image on all the voters' minds when they did the tabulation, therefore they were most likely thinking, "Whoa, that shot that Jordan hit in the NBA finals was pretty epic...I think I'll vote for him..."

Also, the fact that Jordan played in the age of TV and 24 hour cable networks and satellite dishes might have had something to do about it...

Personally, I think Dr. J is the best player to watch old highlights of...That fro was aweseome!!

AV

[DREAMer]

I think it's dumb to argue about who was the "greatest basketball player of all-time". You just can't substantiate it. What you can more easily argue is who was the best center, power forward, small forward, shooting guard, and point guards of all-time. It's much easier to compare.


My thoughts on Chamberlain:

1.) It is hard to complain about someone playing in a different era. But, if you're gonna say that today's NBA is watered down, I can say that yesteryear's NBA was a bunch of no-jumping white guys.

2.) I truly feel that Shaq would've been just as good as Wilt if they had been born in place of each other. And, I'm not the biggest O'Neal fan on the planet. I also feel that Hakeem is better then Shaq will ever be, so I guess you know where I rank him all-time.

3.) Although he was a "stats" phenomenon, I don't think he truly understood the team concept. If there's any truth to being too far ahead of your time, then Chamberlain is a perfect example.

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I have a dream.........his name's Hakeem.