Personally I think scoring 63 in playoff game against a championship caliber team committed to stopping you and doing everything possible to win is far more impressive. When MJ dropped 63 on the Celtics, that was more impressive than 81 in a meaningless game against the lowly Raptors, or even a sideshow meaningless game in which Wilt scoreed 100. What was Wilt's playoff high?
Ummmm... no. Actually, as it got towards the end of the game and they realized what he was up to, they desperately tried everything they could to stop him... their best idea was to foul him, but it didn't work... What, because they were against the rules? Please. You know what else? What Shaq does on every offensive play is against the rules. Is it called? No. Wilt was constantly double-teamed. Not legal, but not called. Oh, and that precious star treatment of today? It was the opposite for Wilt... refs let guys get away murder on Wilt to equalize the game.
Wilt I believe throughout his entire career was a pretty bad FT shooter. It just happened to be one of those nights where Wilt wasn't missing much from the FT line. I think the stat line was he was 28-32, but throughout his career I think he hovered around 50% FT shooter. I think he was the first example of the Hack-a-Shaq technique and considering Wilt was before Shaq's time, you might call it Hack-a-Wilt. Were Wilt a better career FT shooter, you might even see a bigger scale of dominance between himself and the rest of his competition. He wasn't just a scoring machine though. He routinely lead the league in rebounds as well, and I believe lead the league in assists just because people said he was selfish. That's true dominance, and Kobe's performance isn't anywhere close to the feats Wilt has achieved.
Exactly...for someone of Wilt's size, he had a huge amount of versatility. He holds the only "Triple 20" in basketball history. He had something along the lines of 25 points, 25 rebounds and 20 assists in one game...although I can't remember the exact numbers. I'm sure you can google it. If they had recorded blocks/steals back then, I'm almost certain he would've had a few quadruple doubles. Hell, he may have even had a quintuple double at some point.
Is he factoring in the rules changes that allow guards to get to the basket easier? And the zone defenses that can take away the inside game?
Wilt's 100 point game was incredible, but I'm sorry, you MUST consider his physical dominance. In 1962, the NBA was a different league. Even with all this considered, his 50 ppg average one year was insane. Kobe's 81 point game was more difficult than Wilt's 100 point game. Again, the NBA was a different league 43 years ago and it's hard for us to realize how physically dominant Wilt was back then. He was way ahead of his time. Reading NBA.com's description of the game, the Knicks purposely fouled Wilt's teammates to prevent him from scoring, but the Warriors responded by fouling back to get the ball back. Wilt's game was less of a real game and more of a side show than Kobe's. To someone else, Kareem didn't enter the NBA until 1969. Wilt was drafted in 1959. Yes, the NBA's athleticism improved dramatically between those years.
Ummm...One thing people seem to be forgetting is that Wilt had 25 rebounds in that 100 point game, and he had as many assists as Kobe despite putting up 15 more shots
The thing i do not understand is saying that Wilt had it easier. You have to look at the time. in Wilt's time people might had lesser equipment and time to train, but the same goes for Wilt himself. You cannot compaire people in different times with each other, you have to compaire them with the people in his time and look at how much he dominated. And Wilt has dominated his time much more then Kobe has(because kobe doens't dominate hit time). he was a monster, we have never seen anyone be so dominant (over the people in his time) as he. Ofcourse kobe's night was great, but i will not see him as someone better then Wilt. Like so many people said the numbers Wilt averaged each year were unbelievable.
Is that a reflection on Wilt's abilities or the way the game was played back then....look at the score for crying out loud...we wouldnt reach those levels unless 2 high scoring NBA teams played in a 5 OT game.
