http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WdmYTdjCXpU This is approximately 1.4% of his FGM during that time period, unfortunately many of the plays are just fragments, and a disproportionate amount come from ASG's but hey, it's something to watch and see how he scored a lot of points. I know through my archives of his entire career that this is not all of his offensive go-to moves (much more of his career as a Laker exists on film than his prime, and they reveal he liked to use several variations of baseline spins and up and unders that are underrepresented or completely absent here), but seeing these clips does reveal the majority of moves he used and probably was using the most frequently during that period of time (fade aways, turnaround Js, bank shots, finger rolls, reverse Layups, spin moves, transition baskets, tip ins, alley oops etc).
Great find! I love listening to that radio call. Never gets old and it blended well with the highlights. Wilt was an old guy when I watched him play. I remember his "go to" move being the finger-roll.
Post about Wilt from realgm which is spot on since a lot of people are fooled by few highlight videos:
The post above is no less misleading, those sources are two game halves edited down from their original sources for NBA tv purposes - and on top of that those are NOT all the possessions Wilt had in the post, in fact that video was made for the purpose of ridiculing Wilt. And in the 2nd game half (G4 EDF 1967) Wilt was suffering from 2 inflamed knees and shinsplints so bad he could hardly walk up or down a flight of stairs. His usual mobility was crippled by it, I can give you verbatim text of his situation coming into that game if you'd like. I don't know why people have such an agenda against Wilt, you'd think the guy couldn't tie his shoes based on how much people want to wish or believe he wasn't any good.
It's every post-up from two games from his two best years, '64 and '67. Nothing to ridicule him, he probably made more shots than he missed in that video. Regardless, there is a lot of data that shows he didn't have great impact on his team offense as a volume scorer, basically his team was good on offense just last two seasons of his career as a Laker when he was a role player and 66-67' season when he was in playmaker mode and had a lot of talent on his team. He was great, but he was Kevin Garnett great, David Robinson great, Karl Malone great, not top 10 of all time great.
I just looked up who typed that essay, surprise surprise it's the guy who edited that video (Fatal9) and he did exactly what he accuses 'highlight' mixes of doing, he cherry picked Wilt's touches. Only he did the reverse. He only acted as if he showed "all" possessions - the video is old and unlisted, I'm assuming he did it at a time when those games weren't readily available or easy for others to cross check. Nor did he include relevant context about G4 1967 in regards to Wilt's mobility.
Here's another example of Fatal9 cherry picking to suit his Wilt sucks agenda: Rick Barry wrote that in the early 70's in his book - great quote that supports Fatal9's agenda right? Context: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSTt_TxoFVo Fatal9 is what you call, a salty hater. The kind of person who thinks Wilt couldn't walk and talk at the same time or tie his shoes. Wilt sucked, despite owning practically the entire NBA record book by a mile, several MVP's, 2 titles as the best player on two record setting all-time great teams. Etc. Google some more of his posts about Wilt, and you will realize this.
I think it is ridiculous when people attack Wilt as a player or his record. Physically the guy was ridiculous. Back then he was a monster. Imagine giving a guy with that frame and that natural physical ability today's training, medical and even general dietary improvements over what he had back then! On top of that, he was playing in an era where the sport was still developing. Matching his skill set against today's best is very unfair. A player today can look at tapes of great centers going back decades and take parts of different players games. For Wilt, if he could sit down at a computer like today's young players can and watch all that footage, of course he would have been a better offensive and defensive player. Physically I have no doubt at all that if you put Wilt into a current day NBA game, he would dominate. He would destroy teams. Going further....if wilt was just coming into the NBA having grown up watching great centers and having all the physical ability he had....I think he would rack up MVP awards and Championships at a better rate than he did back in his day. He played in a different era with so many disadvantages. Attacking his record and his legacy is just stupid.
Nice video. And a 6'11 or so guy that gets 25-27 wow that's fantastic. IMO he would still dominate in today's game. Maybe not as much as in the 60s. He was like a mix of Dwight w his big body frame and idk durant ?! Or idk but he had some nice moves. Just the fact that he hit so many free throws and it was barely half way thru the game is incredible. Does anyone know how many fts he made and attempted ?
I agree attacking his legacy is stupid, but I disagree with the notion that the game was primitive when he played and we need to apologize for what we see... The game was not primitive at all when he played it was over 70 years old, the game was just different in a few minor but important to understand areas that contribute to the different visual appearance and style of how teams set up on the floor and handled the ball etc. The people who criticize his era usually haven't seen enough or don't watch basketball from his era to understand it. Based on their usual criticisms most don't seem to pick up on or understand the one big fundamental difference between how the game 'looks' then vs now (outside a 3 point line spreading out spacing) which is the ball handling rule differences which applies mostly to guards and forwards of the time. You couldn't palm/carry the ball back then, so a lot of dribblers kept their dribble simple - their handles were solid, in the sense that they could go where they wanted to go when they wanted to go there w/o turning it over, if they couldn't, they passed. There wasn't a lot of routine crossovers and handling the ball 'creatively' as if you are on a playground unless you were really sharp and disciplined doing these moves with your hand straight up and down (like say, Archie Clark, or Tiny Archibald). If you weren't, you were going to get called for palming which is an automatic turnover. Most players TODAY could not dribble the way they dribble back then, Durant and Wade are two great examples that come to mind that constantly carry and can't seem to dribble without doing so. It's a 'rule' that is no longer called, and stopped being called more and more after the 1970's until by the late 90's it seemed all but gone for good. As for Wilt, do you really think a guy as big and strong as he was, while also being capable of shooting shots we praise Dirk Nowitzki for taking due to being "highly skilled" or shooting fingerrolls which practically nobody today can shoot, would need to mirror anyone else to score better? He is an example of the pinnacle of what can be done at center position, heck as I posted earlier in Rick Barry's opinion he IS the pinnacle of the center position and no one since did it as good (just his opinion, not trying to get into a discussion about who else is in that discussion of GOAT centers). Bottom line, he is really not someone who would need to watch other players to improve in order to play today. He's about as good as it has ever gotten. Here's an example of a good game sequence from that era: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EEgynFUSJjg That's definitely NBA level ball, just with a couple twists on the rules dictating how players move that's all.
He was 7-1 and 1/16th w/o shoes on, with a 7-8 wingspan, much bigger than 6-11. For comparison, Dwight in the draft measured 6-9 with a 7-4.5 wingspan. Though of course, Dwight may have grown a little since then, Dwight still looks under 6-10 w/o shoes. Wilt's shoulders were high up on his body too, which made him seem even taller than 7-1 (see in the video that clip of him standing next to Shaq).
LOL @ you for talking about somebody else cherry-picking when you have been blasted several times by many people for mis-leading, cherry-picking, exaggerating, and straight-up lying in pro-Wilt Chamberlain threads that you've created on Insidehoops.
Thanks for sharing, damn the guy has long arms, he dunks as easily as Shawn Bradley or something. Crazy how he's 'only' 7'1!!
"maybe" not as much? How about absolutely not even close. It's like saying that Bart Starr, Jim Taylor, Paul Hornung & the 66 Packers maybe wouldn't win the super bowl running toss sweeps against the 2013 Seattle Seahawks.
Why? Wilt's normalized stats, accrued in a much weaker era, aren't that much different from those guys at their peak (who happen to be alltime greats themselves).
What's the matter with his argument? He compared Wilt to some of the best to ever play, but not the best of the best. It's all but impossible to know for sure, but he can certainly validly argue that point. Some do so more strongly then others. In the context of era, Wilt is a best of the best. Across eras, I think he's one of the best, but not the best of the best of the best. The counter to the point someone like Sam might be arguing is context can also change in reverse. If Wilt is coming into the NBA today, having grown up over the last 18 years of the NBA, he might have a more polished offensive game, or be even better than he was, comparatively... but CERTAINLY would never put up the stats that he did historically. So the answer is who knows.
