Of the last 25 years of the league. Compare what are the best seasons of some of the best players in the league over the last 2 and half decades, and it is close. PLAYER PPG RPG APG BLKS FG% FT% YEAR ===== === === === ==== === === ==== GARNETT 24.2 13.9 5.0 2.17 .499 .761 03-04 K.MALONE 31.0 11.1 2.8 .61 .562 .762 89-90 T.DUNCAN 25.5 12.7 3.7 2.46 .508 .799 01-02 S.ONEAL 29.7 13.6 3.8 3.03 .574 .524 99-00 L. BIRD 28.7 10.5 6.6 1.23 .522 .882 84-85 C.BARKLEY 23.0 14.6 4.9 1.53 .594 .761 86-87 M.MALONE 31.1 14.7 1.8 1.50 .518 .761 81-82 P. EWING 28.6 10.9 2.2 4.00 .551 .777 89-90 OLAJUWAN 24.3 14.0 2.9 4.59 .501 .712 89-90 M. JORDAN 32.5 8.0 8.0 STL 2.9 .538 .849 88-89 MAGIC J. 23.9 6.3 12.2 STL 1.7 .560 .842 85-86 Also, which do you think represents the best overall season?
the best has to be Jordan... can't argue with 30-8-8 on 54% shooting wow. meanwhile over in the GARM people are excited about 15-6-6... haha TD's shouldn't be up there. That's not even the championship season. And one below Shaq has him beat on all statistical categories. Hakeems season and KGs season has lots of similarities. but whereas KGs stands out with assists, Hakeem did with blocks. 4.5 a game? sheesh. I would be stoked if Yao could get half of that.
Ironic/interesting that, with the exception of O'Neal, not one of those players was able to lead their team to a title during those seasons.
further skewed by the fact that a bunch of these people have never won a championship. but it kind of makes sense though. one hypothesis could be that the supporting cast wasn't good... hence the superstar has to put up extreme stats, yet that's not good enough to win anyway. only when they have the right peices and are able to get what they give him can they win it all.
I don't know if it's that skewed, considering that Bird, Jordan, Magic, Moses, Hakeem, & Duncan have an eyepopping 19 among them! EDIT: also take a look at Isiah Thomas' incredible 1984-85 season: 84-85 DET .458 FG%.809 FT% 4.50 REB 13.9 AST 2.31 STL .31 BLK 3.73 TO 21.2 PPG
i guess it just seems that way because the two people most famous / infamous for not winning championships... is on there. barkley and malone.
I understand now why before 1993, people considered Ewing and Robinson were better than Hakeem. But 2 titles changed everything. Image what if Starks had one less bricks. I really hate the Ewing bashing in this forum. The old Knicks was a one-man wrecking crow just like 93' Rox. Sometimes a title is just determined by luck.
Outplaying one (Ewing) for title I and destroying the other (Robinson) for title II can change things for some people.
Not that it was in the last 25 years, but you can't ignore Oscar Robertson's 61-62 season 30.8 pts 12.5 rebs 11.4 ast. .478 Fg% .803 Ft%. Steals and blocks N/A. Averaged a Triple Double! And least we forget Wilt's 61-62 season: 50.4 pts 25.7 Rebs. .506% Fg .613 Ft % Yeah, you read that right, 50 and 26. Freaking amazing. An interesting note that the two most mind blowing seasons happened in the same season.
I was mainly trying to point out just how special Garnett's season has been by historical standards. I don't think people really appreciate how great he was this year. I also think that Akeem and Oneal's numbers have more impact on the outcome of a game than Jordan's, simply because they could anchor a defense with their shotblocking. But MJ's numbers there are amazing to be sure.
You'd better take these numbers with a grain of salt. No way Wilt can average 50 pts and 26 rbs in today's league. He was 7'2 but only 275 lbs.
Someone in ********************* did a calculation. The amount of rbs were 3?% more in the 60s than today. He then scaled the player rbs based on the proportion of total team rebound and the result was: Rodman was a slightly better rebounder than Wilt.
Not that Ewings season isn't impressive, but I'd take Olajuwon's over it. Olajuwon had more boards, blocks and assists while only scoring slightly less. I still find it amazing he average 4.59 blocks a game. That's a crapload. People getting impressed over these one dimensional defensive minded centers (Ben Wallace) need to review Olajuwon's entire career - best defensive center ever?
Well, if you check the above stats, P.Ewing had 4 blks. He also shot a higher percentage(55.1% vs. 50.1%). He was definitely not one-dimensional.
Now that I think about it, how could there have been more rebounds available in the 60's? With the 24 second shot clock and the absolute crap shooting percentages today, you would think there should be more rebounds now.
I'll take these seasons out of those: S.ONEAL 29.7 13.6 3.8 3.03 .574 .524 99-00 OLAJUWAN 24.3 14.0 2.9 4.59 .501 .712 89-90 C.BARKLEY 23.0 14.6 4.9 1.53 .594 .761 86-87 M. JORDAN 32.5 8.0 8.0 STL 2.9 .538 .849 88-89 MAGIC J. 23.9 6.3 12.2 STL 1.7 .560 .842 85-86 And add in Wilt's and Oscar's best seasons as the best of the best.
the guy in ****************,net probably has better statistics. I just did a simple check from basketballreference,com. The 1964-1965 celtics averaged 71.9 team rebs. The 1970 Sixers averaged 70.4 team rebs. I guess that's at least 30% more than today. I don't know how they got so many rebs then.
My guess is that they got up and down the floor a lot more. Scoring was in the 110 point range as an average. This obvioulsy translates into more shots, thus more misses. Rationalize it how you want to, 50 pts and 25 rebs is still mythic. You cannot debate this.
