make another thread with Wilt vs Shaq only if youre so confident what people think. shaq plays among men, wilt played among boys
Ohhhh right, because 16-to-1 in 2002, at the very height of Shaq's career, clearly isn't enough already. Go ahead and start it yourself. How sadly delusional you are. Once again... Nate Thurmond, Maurice Stokes, Clyde Lovellette, Zelmo Beaty, Bob Pettit, Walter Dukes, Bob Lanier, and Bill Russell were not "boys," and there were only 8-10 teams in that era.
ohh yeah, because im sure some of those hakeem votes (read: homer votes) wouldnt have gone to shaq. right. they were boys. if you think wilt could avg 50/25 in this era, youre the one that's delusional. if you dont think shaq could avg 50/25 in wilt's era, youre delusional.
I don't want to get into this sub-debate but if Shaq played during Wilt's era, he would definitely put up some ridiculous numbers. As physically dominant as he was in the late 90s and early this decade, he would be far more dominant back in the day. He'd put up at least Wilt-like numbers.
Even if EVERY SINGLE ONE of Hakeem's votes went to Shaq, Wilt still wins 16-12. And I guarantee you that plenty would have gone to Wilt. You have a VERY strange defintion of "boy." I don't believe that, and I never said I did, either. But he'd still be MVP. No, he couldn't. His numbers would be plenty good, but they'd be more like 35 and 18. Shaq's ability to score would be tragically altered in that era because they actually called charging fouls, and the refs blatantly let players abuse Wilt to equalize his athleticism and strength advantage. Shaq couldn't handle that. Quotes: Bob Ferry admitted that he used to "push him in the stomach when he went up for a shot," while Wayne Embry said, "Forget pushing. I almost gave him a karate chop to the stomach. Half the time, he acted like he never felt it."
let me just say i dont like shaq and wilt is a fuggin' beast. still, id say shaq would own wilt. the only other good center back then was russell (am i wrong?) who has shaq had to face? yeah, id say better competition.
You can read all the books you want and quote all the no name Jabroni's you've blabbered off in your last few posts but how the hell are you gonna say a player can or can't do something in a certain Era which you weren't even alive in? You know to personally witness it? With your own eyes? So you can have your own actual perception and analysis and not something you read in print by another random author or old time stories from Grandpa. My my, you've got to be the most overly gullible person ever.
Again, Wilt had less good players to play against, but the good ones there were he saw FAR more often because there were so few teams (8 to 10-ish). Nate Thurmond, Russell, Lovellette, Petit... these guys were not pushovers.
Right... the books and people who saw the guy play are all lying to me. I'm just so gullible. As opposed to all these people who HAVEN'T read those books, haven't bothered talking to people who saw him play. Who in fact, have no source of information about Wilt other than ESPN. Clearly they are in a BETTER position to comment on his merits. That makes sense. My my, you've got to be the most non-sensical person ever.
Ol' Iverson is suffering from a severe case of "Wounded Ego" today.... according to espn and is out for the season.
Signed, The Bible Worst era of basketball, I think the Francis/Mobley/Cato era of ball had to have some negative influence on the outlook here. Though you could say the league was so bad 40 year old Jordan came back and gave it a shot in the arm, and even put up 20 a night. The fact he didnt take his team to the playoffs in TWO tries means maybe it wasnt too horrible, maybe? A strike shortened '99 season surely didnt help the outlook.
I think ya'll are being a bit tough on AI...or at least reading him wrong. In the pieces I read on ESPN ans SI, etc, AI's concerns were two things: 1. that he always said that when the time came that he couldn't play at the very best level he was quitting, and 2. that he's having difficulty scoring off the bench, and doesn't know how good bench players do -- he can't get into a scoring rhythm, and its frustrating to more than just his (understandably large) ego. I think he'd be happy to play off the bench if he didn't suck at it.
Opinions are bias. If you only watched Fox news all your life you would think George Bush is the next coming of Kennedy. Wilt played amongst little men, but in this era against REAL big men he would not have even averaged half of what he used to average. He may be one of the better centers if he was still in the Hakeem/Shaq/Robinson/Ewing era, but he would not be the best centers. We're talking about Wilt playing against physical specimens like Shaq, or rare hybrid centers like Hakeem, playing with so much accuracy, speed, and atheletism. Wilt would have a VERY tough time if he had to go against these centers, and I'm not even mentioning guards yet.
One the other side of the argument, Wilt would have been a lot more dominant if he had today's technology. What kind of athlete he would be if he had today's medical personnel, training, conditioning, coaching? What if he could ride charter plane to road games rather than the meager transportation in his days which made players more exhausted? There is a reason why we have more REAL big men (to use your terminology). Try compare Babe Ruth to Barry Bond, or Rockefeller to Gates. You have to factor in the "inflation" that comes with progress.
