I freely concede that point, but the "Wilt played with midgets his entire career" argument is overplayed. I still stand by the fact that by the time the late 60s rolled around, we were beginning to see the modern NBA game with which everyone here is so familiar. The top rebounders in the league (Unseld, Reed, Abdul-Jabbar) were averaging between 13-15 rebounds a game. Oscar Robertson was no longer getting triple doubles every night, but obtaining more "realistic" averages of 25/7/7. During that era (which was the end of his career), Wilt was still leading the league with 18-20 boards a game.
If you adjust for the pace of the game and the number of missed field goals while ignoring the disparity in physical stature, Wilt's rebounding in today's game would probably be 13-15 a night. And that's if he's playing 44+ minutes a game. His rebounding would be similar to Dwight Howard, or Kevin Garnett in previous years.
You'd better add a rebound to that, because for the first 5 years of his career, Wilt averaged 47 minutes a game. His third year, he averaged 48.5 minutes a game - I believe that that was the year he never left the court when his team was on the floor. Personally, I think 14-16 a night would be about right - he would probably be both a space rebounder like Yao - except nobody would steal any rebounds from him, and also quick enough to grab rebounds outside of his area. If you extended Yao's minutes to 46 a game, he would probably get at least 12 rbg, so 2-4 more a game for an athlete like Wilt would not be a stretch.
No way. Yao isn't capable of playing 46 minutes a game like that. Major diminishing returns right there.
Let's make a friendly bet then. I am willing to bet that the Wizards will win more games than the Bulls.
I disagree. I think he'd be a better rebounder than Garnett or Howard. At the end of his career, Wilt was still averaging 44-45 minutes per game at 35 years old. By that time, there were a more than a few players in the league of comparable size (albeit still slightly smaller) who were 5-10 years younger...yet Wilt still played marathon minutes and outrebounded them all.
42-43 minutes per game, but point well taken. Yes, he led the NBA in rebounding those last few years, but look at the top five: Unseld (6-7), Cowens (6-9), Thurmond (6-10), and Kareem (who was averaging 21 points per game MORE than Wilt at that time). Wilt was a beast, and would be a 23-13 guy RFN, but possession count and size played a huge role in those numbers. His last three years, that you mentioned, his rebound rate (I'll let durvasa explain that, he's better at it) averages out to about 19.3 because there were more rebounds to get -- and it would be good for a top ten showing so far this year.
I definitely agree that there were significantly more rebounds to get. Teams were probably averaging 2000 more shot attempts per season. My "analysis" was mainly on relative performance, and not so much on the actual number of rebounds he grabbed. Yep, Wilt was still bigger than everyone else his last few seasons (albeit not to the same extent as in the late 50s when Wayne Embry at 6'8" was the biggest guy he faced). Reed, Bellamy, Thurmond, and Kareem were all around and they were at least 6'10" I believe. The fact that he was still leading the league in rebounding in the waning years of his basketball career leads me to believe that a young Wilt would be a better rebounder than a modern-day Garnett or Howard.
Maybe so but another question is whether or not he could duplicate Rodman's rebounding numbers in the modern era. Rodman was on a totally different spectrum when it comes to rebounding compared to modern day rebounding leaders.
It actually appears to me that Wilt's rebounding rate was higher in his late years with the Lakers than in his very early days as a Warrior. That may seem strange to say, since he was averaging nearly 10 rebounds less, but again when you adjust for the pace of the game and the just the number of missed shots available that's what it looks like. I remember posting about this a while back. If I can find that post, I'll repost it here. Keep in mind that when Wilt was a Laker, almost his entire focus was on rebounding and blocking shots. In his very early days, he couldn't focus nearly as much on the defensive end because he had to be such a prolific scorer. The obvious impact would be a reduced rebound-rate on the offensive glass (since the number of shots he was taking would be far more relative to the rest of his teammates, plus he had a penchant for taking those little fadeway shots), but I wouldn't be surprised if his defensive rebounding-rate was also a little less.
Well yeah, of course...if you want to do a pure statistical extrapolation, it makes sense to me that his rebounding rate was less in an era where he had to carry the scoring load for his team. However, that doesn't say anything about his ability to grab boards. My point is if he's capable of having an elite rebound rate at the age of 35, then he's clearly capable of having an even better one at the age of 25. Whether his rebound rate actually increased/decreased over the years is kind of irrelevant. The game evolved a great deal during his career, and his role on his teams changed a lot as well. Honestly, no I don't think so. Wilt was as strong as an ox, a tremendous leaper, and a great all-around athlete, but I doubt he had the quickness and innate timing that Rodman had.
Yes, but the difference between his peak years and his 35-year is probably no different than the difference between Rodman's peaks and valleys, or Ryan Bowen. Usually the slide is about the same. Well, that's what we're talking about here, isn't it? It's probably safe to say that, at his absolute peak, Wilt's rebound rate was probably around 25-26 percent. THAT'S when you start to take into account the size/athleticism differential. When allowing for that, thinking about Rodman's 6-6 frame, and remembering that the rate normalizes the pace difference between eras, Rodman's CAREER mark of 22+ seems more and more astonishing.
I like how we're violently...um...agreeing. Rodman was by far the most effective rebounder I'd ever seen. I just chimed in to debunk the whole "Wilt only played with midgets" statement someone made earlier.
Actually, his rebound rates prior to 1969 were miscalculated because they counted team rebounds on top of the actual player rebounds. For instance, in 1966 they have the Sixers at 5,652 rebounds, but when you add up the players' actual rebounds you get 5,014. Wilt grabbed 39% of those rebounds that year, last year KG led the league and grabbed 30% of the Wolves rebounds. They have Wilt at 19.2 for his rebound rate and KG at 19.6. I know rebound rate is not that simple but that 19.2 number is obviously wrong.
what's the big deal about that for a guy known for his rebounding ability? I'm pretty sure all great rebounders have career highs of over 25 rebounds. Mike freaking dunleavy Jr. grabbed 20 rebounds once!
That's a very interesting catch. I never noticed that. If that's true, then we can make a guess as to what Wilt's rebound-rate should be just based on player rebounds, and excluding team rebounds. The formula for Rebount-Rate is: Code: Reb-R = (PlyrRbs / (TmReb + OppReb)) * ( TmMin / PlyrMin ) We need to estimate OppReb if what you say if the figure on basketball-reference.com includes team rebounds. We can either guess that team rebounds were split 50/50 between the team and the opponents, or that the %difference in team rebounds was the same as the %difference in overall rebounds. Making the latter assumption, I calculate Wilt's new Reb-R as 21.6. And for the following season, it would be 22.2. We can also make best guesses for what his Reb-R might have been in earlier seasons when we don't have stats for Opponents. For example, in his rookie year, if we assume that his team got 55% of the rebounds (a dominant rebounding team), then his Reb-R would turn out to be 22.1. If his team grabbed 50%, then his Reb-R would be 20.1. And if they were a very poor rebounding team (very unlikely) and only grabbed 45% of the rebounds, then his Reb-R would be 18.1. It's safe to say that his Reb-R was probably between 20.1 and 22.1 in his rookie year.
Paging Tigermission Is the bet still on? And I made the prediction when they were like 7 games below .500. Since that time only Phoenix and Dallas have won more games They are soft, but so are the Phoenix Suns. Nobody plays defense in the East except the Bulls and maybe Detroit and Miami. THe Wizards are unstoppable and will win a lot of regular season games even though they don't play any defense
