Wilt at 36

[Hoodey]

Originally Posted by GTA Addict

Keep in mind Wilt played an average of 116 offensive team possessions per game. Today's players who play 37-40 MPG are playing only 70-75 possessions per game. Jordan played 75 possessions per game, LeBron 75, Durant 74, Kobe 70, etc

That is to say, Jordan averaged 30 points per 75 possessions per game for his career. Wilt averaged 30 points per 116 possessions per game. There's a huge pace adjustment to be made for his numbers.

The other problem with trying to gauge his numbers in today's league is that there were drastically different versions of Wilt (or rather, he was used differently by different coaches). These were his numbers per 75 possessions:

1960: 21.6 pts, 15.5 rebs, 1.3 asts
1961: 21.7 pts, 15.4 rebs, 1.1 asts
1962: 28.2 pts, 14.3 rebs, 1.3 asts
1963: 27.3 pts, 14.8 rebs, 2.1 asts
1964: 24.9 pts, 15.1 rebs, 3.4 asts
1965: 22.8 pts, 15.1 rebs, 2.3 asts
1966: 20.8 pts, 15.2 rebs, 3.3 asts
1967: 15.7 pts, 15.7 rebs, 5.1 asts
1968: 15.1 pts, 14.8 rebs, 5.3 asts
1969: 14.5 pts, 14.9 rebs, 3.2 asts
1970: 20.5 pts, 13.8 rebs, 3.1 asts
1971: 14.8 pts, 13.1 rebs, 3.1 asts
1972: 10.9 pts, 14.1 rebs, 3.0 asts
1973: 10.0 pts, 14.1 rebs, 3.4 asts

I think the Shaq/Howard hybrid description is fair. Less scoring volume and efficiency compared to Shaq but more volume than Howard, probably the best rebounder in the league, and arguably the best defender in the league. 24-25 points, 14-15 boards, 3+ assists, 3-4 blocks during his peak

Wilt and Howard never belong together in a sentence.

Howard is considered great today, only because the center position has fallen farther than someone trying to ski off Mt. Everest.

Howard to me is more like a less pissed off 270 lb. version of Alonzo Mourning.

Just like Mourning, you watch Howard trying to make a post move against an able defender and you could get an episode of Eastbound and Down in before the ball goes up.

[chilltown]

Originally Posted by Dre

Goaltending.


Ridiculous nonetheless.

[Dre]

don't be hatin on my thread

[Attila]

I've seen Shaq in person from about 10 feet away. Wilt looks way taller.

[XxIrvingxX]

[dantheman9758]

Originally Posted by Geaux Tigers

From watching old footage of Wilt I dont see a big difference between he and other centers in the league in terms of size. What I see is a complete absence of athleticism among those players as well as an entirely different defensive philosophy. Every single one of those defenders stood flat footed and they only played the ball. Almost no contact at all. All you need 3 or 4 minutes of Youtube to show you that Wilt was a player that was far ahead of his time. I think he would be regarded as a great player in this day and age or any time period. The big however in all of that is that there is no way his numbers would be anything like they are now if he played in todays game. I think Shaq career arc would be a great comparison for Wilt if he stood in for Shaq. Wilt still lands top 10, but with hardly the legend.

just cause you haven't "seen" them doesn't mean there wasn't a plethora of elite centers of that era that would dominate today's crop of weak centers. Guys like Nate (or Reed, Bellamy, Unseld, Lucas, *young Kareem, Russell etc) just don't get as much attention as Wilt because Wilt dominated more than them. But that era was an ELITE era for bigmen. Better than the 90's IMO due to the sheer density of talent. When you look at how much skill, size, or court presence that they had those guys would easily be top tier centers today. Thurmond for example would likely be #1 or 2 in today's league. 6-11 w/o shoes (2" taller than Dwight) and a max reach that exceeded 9-6 (almost 4" more than Dwight) and clearly athletic and skilled.

[Ron]

Friday Night Video: Wilt Chamberlain was unlike any other

[ChrisWoj]

Originally Posted by dantheman9758

just cause you haven't "seen" them doesn't mean there wasn't a plethora of elite centers of that era that would dominate today's crop of weak centers. Guys like Nate (or Reed, Bellamy, Unseld, Lucas, *young Kareem, Russell etc) just don't get as much attention as Wilt because Wilt dominated more than them. But that era was an ELITE era for bigmen. Better than the 90's IMO due to the sheer density of talent. When you look at how much skill, size, or court presence that they had those guys would easily be top tier centers today. Thurmond for example would likely be #1 or 2 in today's league. 6-11 w/o shoes (2" taller than Dwight) and a max reach that exceeded 9-6 (almost 4" more than Dwight) and clearly athletic and skilled.

That video really paid homage to his touch around the basket, and makes it look like he was TREMENDOUSLY skilled around the hoop... and it made me curious, because I'd never heard that he had that level of touch. So I went to BBRef...

Nate Thurmond never shot better than 44.5% from the field. That video was clearly picking and choosing the best of Thurmond. And yeah, maybe you'll never see Dwight make shots like that, with that kind of touch ever... but his worst season from the field, for his career thus far, is 52%. We're talking a full 7.5% between Dwight's worst season (his rookie year) and Thurmond's best. Dwight's best season is a full 16.7% better from the field.

Total rebound percentage? Thurmond pulled down over 18.0% only once, 19.1%. Dwight? Has only been under 20% of total available rebounds one time. - his rookie season.

Comparing him to Bynum? He is more durable, but at only 68 games per season for his career he obviously wasn't a paragon of health. Bynum, like Howard, also saw his worst numbers his rookie year. Unlike Howard: an 18 year old Bynum was indeed worse than Nate Thurmond's best on the glass and as a scorer. After that however? His numbers have also dwarfed Thurmond's.


I won't argue with you if you're willing to say that Thurmond was dominant defensively. He was an old man before blocks and steals were even recorded. And even if they had been - I haven't seen enough of him to judge. Defensive contribution is far more subjective than offensive. So if he's that far ahead of those two defensively, that the fact that they were clearly better both as scorers and on the glass is negated, okay.

[dantheman9758]

Originally Posted by ChrisWoj

That video really paid homage to his touch around the basket, and makes it look like he was TREMENDOUSLY skilled around the hoop... and it made me curious, because I'd never heard that he had that level of touch. So I went to BBRef...

Nate Thurmond never shot better than 44.5% from the field. That video was clearly picking and choosing the best of Thurmond. And yeah, maybe you'll never see Dwight make shots like that, with that kind of touch ever... but his worst season from the field, for his career thus far, is 52%. We're talking a full 7.5% between Dwight's worst season (his rookie year) and Thurmond's best. Dwight's best season is a full 16.7% better from the field.

Total rebound percentage? Thurmond pulled down over 18.0% only once, 19.1%. Dwight? Has only been under 20% of total available rebounds one time. - his rookie season.

Comparing him to Bynum? He is more durable, but at only 68 games per season for his career he obviously wasn't a paragon of health. Bynum, like Howard, also saw his worst numbers his rookie year. Unlike Howard: an 18 year old Bynum was indeed worse than Nate Thurmond's best on the glass and as a scorer. After that however? His numbers have also dwarfed Thurmond's.


I won't argue with you if you're willing to say that Thurmond was dominant defensively. He was an old man before blocks and steals were even recorded. And even if they had been - I haven't seen enough of him to judge. Defensive contribution is far more subjective than offensive. So if he's that far ahead of those two defensively, that the fact that they were clearly better both as scorers and on the glass is negated, okay.

Well, a big reason Nate Thurmond scored inefficiently is because he was brought up under a unique coaching ideology that used a simple + - system in an era before "stats" were looked at under a magnifying glass. Nate's high school coach counted athletes points and subtracted what their opponent scored, efficiency wasn't even looked at as long as you scored and didn't get scored on. Thus Nate tried to put points on the board despite a relative inefficiency by today's standard - and more importantly he played defense that made even elite scorers like Wilt and Kareem scared to play him. By trying (and actually succeeding!) to outscore / shut down those caliber guys he'd shoot some pretty funky looking fg%'s but it was clear he made big impact despite the inneffficiency. A stat of Nate's that you won't find on bball reference is opponent fg% and opponent fga. He obliterated fg% and he impacted the attempts too. Opponents didn't just miss vs Nate, they also had no choice but to take less shots. He studied his opponents so he knew where to go to keep them from getting easy buckets - he kept them away from their "spots" and was one of, if not the best players ever to do that.

You can't really see Nate Thurmonds true value on bball reference because the impact of his game wasn't built around the simple stat sheets that were recorded at that time. Also, picking rebounding % from that era is no more straight forward than picking trb. In a faster paced game on relatively more minutes a stat like trb definitely goes up but it comes at the expense of rb%. Basketball reference is a nice tool and all, but mostly only when comparing players from the same era because context gets lost especially crossing 40-50 years. All of Nates stats including fg% and trb% wouldn't translate equally today.

Also, looking at his touch around the basket isn't "cherry picked" either, that footage is at least 90% of his grand total footage from that era - PERIOD - I even included misses. The reason it looks so impressive to you is most likely due to the complete lack quality of big men with back to the basket skill today. Our league's best center (Dwight) is the benchmark right now, and he lacks touch like that so I can see why Nate looks relatively impressive in that respect, and Bynum is a little better than Dwight (as far as touch is concerned) but after those two the drop off of center talent is significant. All NBA 3rd team last season was Tyson Chandler and he's only good for dunks and layups where as Nate had enough touch to roughly emulate other elite scorers of his time like Kareem's skyhook or Wilt's fadeaway. Nate was the #3 big man of the 60's, he had "better offense than Bill Russell and better defense than Wilt Chamberlain". IMO it is debatable if he'd be better than Dwight or not because I think Dwight has his own set of awesome traits (he's a stronger finisher around the rim and he IS just as good of a rebounder etc). But just the same, I'm confident Nate's value is beyond anything a guy like Bynum has proven capable of by virtue of defense alone.