Shaq comments on Top 5 Centers, including Hakeem (2011)

Did you ever see either man play?

 

I'm all about the legend of Wilt but the bolded part is hilarious. I believe that would have made him the strongest (or one of them) bench presser in the world at that time. Did not happen.

Wilt = Theo Ratliff 1.0

 

no he wasnt. i cannot stand this old school glorification of overrated players to mythic proportions just to preserve history and old fable myths.

wilt isnt the only player to block kareem's predictable sky hook. plenty of players have blocked kareem's sky hook. if you know what's coming every now and then you can time it to block the shot.

young hakeem has blocked the skyhook.

nate thurmond has blocked kareem's skyhook multiple times.

young robert parrish has blocked the skyhook several times.

david thompson has blocked the skyhook.

wilt was athletic. not denying that but he played against utterly inferior big men who could compete with him athletically. him averaging 50 per game is indicative of a weak league, a league in its infancy, unrefined with its rules and players. do you know what year wilt averaged 50 per game?

1962.

Same year oscar averaged a triple double and the same year russell averaged damn near 25 boards per game.

Weak competition and the refs rarely called 3 second offensive and defensive lane violations.

Wilt and russell's greatness do not translate over to different time periods. ive seen enough film to figure that out. they had crap shooting percentages. shooting is an indication of offensive skill. a skill that would translate in any era. THEY DIDNT HAVE NONE. WHATSOEVER. Kareem translates because he could shoot.

this isnt rocket science. check the film and you will find the truth.

finally somebody with some honesty. i cant stand people who put these overrated greats who would not translate in any time period other than the early 60s to mythic proportions in order to preserve history and whatever hero worship fable they made up in their mind.

wilt did not bench 500lbs.

another shameless lie just like him bedding 20,000 women despite the fact that wilt died childless.

How does somebody who allegedly is some playboy horn dog sleep with over 20,000 women yet bear no children?

Not only that, none of his teammates ever saw him with another woman of the court.

I guess that's why they call him the BIG DIPPER right?

get freaking real people.

 

Wilt did have a 92 inch wingspan as measured here...

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and was as strong as an ox....

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SSP it's like you don't want to believe his size, strength, and skills would translate in any era.

 

Really? You think a big man has to be able to be a shooter to translate to another era? You don't think Wilt's passing would translate or his inside game?

As a side note....the more I think about it and the more I read about Wilt and his amazing athletic feats I believe he had to be on steroids. That's the only thing that would make sense with his amazing ability to recover and his titanic strength.

 

I read or heard somewhere that the average Center was 6'5/6'6... But maybe you're right, I don't remember where I got that fron so it may not have been true.

But also, while the league was smaller, the ABA probably had more talent at that time. I think your comparison of Ben Wallace is fair, but Ben Wallace is far from the top 5 centers lol. Personally, I think Russell is the most overrated player I can think of. Great man and great leader though, can't argue that!

 

WTF? "crap shooting percentage"?

Less than two dozen players in NBA history have a better career shooting % than Wilt. He lead the league in shooting % 9 times, was 2nd twice and 3rd once. Let me say that again for you: He hit a bigger percentage of his shots than almost everyone who every played the game. In his last year, he led the league in FG% and at over .700, he was almost .150 points higher than the guy who came in second.

You can argue that he wasn't a great outside shot, but he never needed to be. Shaq wasn't that great beyond 10-12 feet either, but it didn't matter because both of them could score at will in the paint.

 

If Dream didn't go after John Starks, Knicks and Ewing would of gotten a ring.

 

the average center was 6'10ish in that era, no idea where this 6'5/6'6 thing comes from, Hondo, who was pretty much the prototypical swingman was 6'5 without shoes.

Wilt also had a nice little jumper, but his range was well and truly limited to inside 15 feet.

 

Shaq lives in Houston. For everyone saying our city is lame, nearly all the stars would tell u we r a Top-Flight city to live in, just have bad luck landing top draft spots post Yao, cuz of him never letting us suck. Truly robbed of a title with injuries.

 

On the contary, Wilt is UNDERRATED, if anything. There has never been an athlete like him before or since. 7'1" with a 40" vertical? Are you kidding me?!

If you saw him in today's game, he would make LeBron look unathletic by comparison. That's the kind of physical presence he had in the game.

 

Since I never saw Russell or Wilt play I can only look at stats, and Russell's 44% career field goal percentage and mediocre scoring numbers makes me feel pretty confident about saying Hakeem should be ranked higher than him. With Wilt I really don't think I can make a judgement. His numbers are just ridiculous all around.

 

Closer to 7'2-7'3, even. He was a bit over 7'1 in socks.

 

is it a fair comparison? i don't know that it is. i just randomly named a player who succeeded with similar athleticism, size, and defensive instincts, just to show that Russell wasn't "too small" for modern era.
I don't think Big Ben was anywhere near as smart, though. Also, Ben needed Rasheed Wallace to complement him with vocal leadership.
Dwight, Alonzo Mourning are other "small" guys with Russell-like gifts.

 

Why is their this much debate about Wilt? If he played today, he would be the best center in basketball hands down.
His statistics would be nowhere near their epic points that he produced in the 60's and 70s. In today's game he would be averaging 22-25 points per game with about 12 rebounds a game.

Now if you compare Wilt with the centers of the 80's and 90's he would be one of the top 5 centers. Hakeem and Kareem are the two best centers of all time. Kareem had a better overall career, but Hakeem had a higher peak than any center ever. Wilt played the game very similarily to Shaqs in that he used his size and athleticsm to create produce points in the paint. So many great centers in those two decades. Hakeem Olajuwon, Kareem Abdul-Jabar, Moses Malone, Patrick Ewing, David Robinson,
Alonzo Mourning, Rik Smits, Shaquille O'Neal, Robert Parish, and Dikembe Mutombo

Russell was on team full of hall of famers and they won many championships. If Russell played his career on a team such as the Clippers or Jazz, would anybody remember him?

 

It should tell you plenty that virtually everybody who played during Dream's era thinks he is the best center of all-time.

 

They all have selfish reasons to think so. Their wins vs. Hakeem are so much more impressive if he's the no.1, and their losses are so much more excusable.

 

And then there's guys like Karl Malone, who are just a-holes who refuse to give anyone credit for anything.

 

I’m a huge fan of Hakeem, but I am amazed by the disdain given Bill Russell and must come to his defense. Although I’m not a young guy, I can’t say that I watched Russell, and I only saw the very end of Chamberlain’s career. But I don’t know how you can ignore Russell’s titles and stats. Between his Junior year of college (1954-1955), and his retirement from the NBA (after the 1968-1969 season) there were only two years when his team failed to win its last game. One of those years the reason is clear; he was injured in game 3 of the NBA finals and missed the remainder of the series. That’s 2 NCAA championships, 11 NBA championships in a 15 year period. He also won an Olympic gold medal during that period. He averaged 15 ppg and 22 rpg in the NBA, and probably blocked more shots than anyone in history, including Hakeem. No one has dominated basketball like Russell. Wilt Chamberlain only had 2 championships, because he played during the Bill Russell era (only 1 of his 2 championships came before Russell’s retirement). No player has dominated basketball in the way that Russell did.

 

It wasn't a player. It was a team that dominated the NBA for a decade. Russell was just one of those hall of fame talents that played on a team full of hall of famer's for a decade. The Celtics team had so much better talent than everybody else. It's similar to putting Lebron James, Tim Duncan, Chris Paul, Stephon Curry, and Kevin Love all on the same team. They just dominated. Russell was a defensive stopper for Celtics and played a hall of fame career. He played similarily to Dikemebe Mutombo. He was not a complete player such as Olajuwon or Abdul-Jabar who dominated on the offensive and defensive side of the ball. David Robinson was a more complete player than Russell and I would easily take Robinson over Russell.
Because a player was on a team that won a lot of championships does not mean that they was one of the best ever at their position. Otherwise players like Robert Horry would become an all-time great.