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Originally Posted by Lachlanwood32
It's been noted by NBA.com, USA Today and eye-witnesses that Wilt had been measured with a vertical of 48-50 inches. Now I'm not going to say I straight out believe that. But I seriously doubt that his vertical, before surgery, was a whole 13-15 inches less than claimed. That's a huge difference.
You do realize that there is a big difference between the vertical jump test and an in-game dunk, right? If you're judging your estimation off of pictures, it holds no credit. Firstly, dunking the basketball in a game is not about how high you jump. Wilt didn't need too get his head over the rim and dunk it with his forehead, believe it or not. You can't gather a players vertical jump off of dunks in a game. Especially back in the day when you get a nudge, then a few arms dangling on your shoulders, and then dunked it if possible while off balance.
I've never heard anyone from back in the day claim that Wilt's vertical was anything less than 38"+. Unless you can refute this and find one source from the 60s that can refute the hundreds that claim it was in the 40"s I'll stick to my story. None of the commentators, journalists, teammates, opponents, scouts or coaches. To me, that's enough evidence that it was legitimately that high. Not to mention his outrageous athleticism all around in endurance, strength and quickness. It doesn't make me skeptical at all, not when I hear of his other records.
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When did the obsession with measuring vertical leap begin? It wasn't until the 90s when all this talk about vertical leap started. Although we do know he cleared a personal best of 6'6" in the high jump (the world record being 8 feet by a guy more than half a foot shorter), do you really think a guy with Wilt's pride would actually submit himself to one of those vertal leap measuring tests if they even did them back then. Hell no, he'd say it's kids stuff, and push you to the side. Back in the day, the regular way to measure vertical was just visual. Wilt was so tall and when he'd jump, his head would be so high, that people would be bound to mistakenly guess he had a vertical in the 40 inch range. So no, I don't trust the 1960s commentators, journalists, teammates, scouts, and coaches. I trust accurate measurements and photographic proof. You don't always jump with the ball, you also have pictures and video of him jumping his hardest to block shots. Again, from what I have seen, I think his running vertical was about 34-36 inches (so his standing vert would probably be as low as 30-32).
BTW, Dwight Howard has 35 inch standing vertical and a 38 inch running vertical as he can he his head about an inch over the rim without the ball.