beau_boy04 wrote:Michael Jordan = 6 rings
Wilt Chamberlain = 2 rings
Six rings - 6 final appearances - 6 wins
2 rings - mmmm he was great but he wasn't great enough to beat all his opponents because I'm sure there were more than twice he appeared in the Finals.
beau_boy04 wrote:During an interview, Michael Jordan was asked the question "Michael Jordan, the Greatest Player of all time?" and he said no because he never played against others greats such as Oscar Robertson, Bill Russell, Jerry West and others. --- I guess he was just being humble and respetfull because its very naive to say in public television that you are definitely the best player ever to play the game, though he was definitely the most competitive amongst them all.
Michael Jordan did have a big ego, but he was not arrogant like some other players (especially nowadays in the league). Michael Jordan has never himself said he was the best ever, nor said anything even similar to that.
Andrew wrote:
I rank Michael Jordan, Larry Bird and Magic Johnson as the top three in NBA history. They were not the biggest players in the game, as Wilt was, yet they had so much influence on the game, in both the contests they competed in and the future of the sport. Michael Jordan was below average height, yet dominated the league in scoring as Wilt did before him.
His skills, his awareness, his ability to pick apart the defense. His ability to seemingly player better and better as the stakes rose, the ability to take his game to another level, then another level and another level. All the defining moments, the incredible performances. Game 5 of the 1997 Finals, 38 points, 7 rebounds, 5 assists, 3 steals, the game clinching three...when he was clearly not feeling very well to say the least.
Madsnyb wrote:Michael Jordan may never have actually said it, but he sure hints to the fact that he was the best...I read "The Jordan Rules" the other day, and he seemed like a real jerk. I'm not sure how true everyting in this book is, it's been critisised a lot for containing lies on about everything, but if just a tiny bit of it is real, I'm glad I'm not one of his teammates. I must say I really lost my respect for Jordan by reading this book. Like calling his teammates for "his supporting cast" for an entire season. That can't be good for team spirit...
Gloveguy wrote:Andrew, I've heard of Wilt being a tad over 300 pounds and 7'3" in shoes. If he were in the league now, the only players who could compete with him in size would be Shaq and Yao Ming. The only big man who could compete with him in atleticism would be Kevin Garnett.
GloveGuy wrote:Also, keep in mind that Jabbar entered the league when Wilt was certainly passed his prime.
GloveGuy wrote:If we could retreat back from wins and rings, and look at the actual basketball player. Not who had the better career, not who put up the best career stats, but who in their prime would you want to start a team with.
GloveGuy wrote:Andrew, you put so much emphasis on winning, yet you only mention Bill Russell, the greatest winner in basketball, once. I'm not going to say that Wilt was the greatest winner, but playing against the player who was against the greatest basketball team of all time certainly affects your ring count. Basketball has never been a 1-on-5 game, though Wilt was certainly the first player in history to ever make it so.
GloveGuy wrote:But back to Wilt Chamberlain as a basketball player -- I'm not saying that he would score 50 ppg again. But he would dominate, moreso than any center would be able to.
GloveGuy wrote:Once again, I'm still not calling him the greatest and no one here is, but to not put him on the same plateau as Magic and Bird is ridiculous. The man was a phenomenal basketball player, and that's what matters in my mind.
Sauru wrote:my main point for defendering wilt in this thread is simply, i refuse to let some one say he was only that good cause of who he played. imo he would have no problem scoring on any center to ever play this game, 1 on 1. the problem there is, he would never, ever, ever, see a 1 on 1 in todays game. he would touch the ball and get swarmed by defenders. you mentioned his defense of some of the games great centers. i can agree with you here in saying that the other centers could and would score on him, but he certainly would have no trouble scoring on anyone. when i talk defense i talk bill, when i talk offense i am speaking of wilt. when i want to talk of a player who did both i speak of mike.
Andrew wrote:Wilt in his prime was listed at 7'1" 275 lbs. For the last few years, Shaq has outweighed him by about 50 pounds. In terms of size, Shaq certainly has the upper hand. But it's more than Shaq vs Wilt. Had Wilt come along in the 80s, he would have faced centres that not could have matched up to him in terms of size, but in terms of skill. It's not as though there weren't big guys back in Wilt's era, but in the words of Bill Russell, "(Wilt) was bigger, stronger than anyone (he'd) ever seen". In the last 20 years, there have been players that could have challenged him in size and ability much more frequently.
Wilt spoke of the difficulty he had with Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, noting him as "the first guy (he) felt he needed help guarding". Would Wilt have been so successful with up to at least four matchups with Kareem per year? The 1971 Finals would suggest Kareem wouldn't be a pushover for the Big Dipper.
Now, throw in some other players. Moses Malone. Often forgotten and underrated, big Moses would surely be able to stand up to Wilt. Robert Parish is another Hall of Famer who was no stranger to guarding some of the game's best pivotmen in big games. Patrick Ewing with his fine offensive game and the tough defense John Thompson preached at Georgetown. Alonzo Mourning and Dikembe Mutombo were also among the best defenders in the paint in the past couple of decades.
David Robinson, a tremendous athlete and extremely versatile player at the centre position. Hakeem Olajuwon, whose footwork and post moves would make great athletes like David Robinson look clumsy; and then there's the Dream's defense. And of course there's Shaquille O'Neal, whose physical dominance of his opponents is comparable to Wilt's, if not by numbers then by nature. You could even mention guys like Karl Malone, power forwards who are adept at guarding bigger players.
These guys would have put up numbers against Wilt, and Wilt would have put up numbers against them. They both would have had their great wins and disappointing losses. But Wilt wouldn't get 50 ppg. He wouldn't tower above his peers or dominate to the same statistical extent. He would still be a great player, a Hall of Famer and one of the greatest of all-time. But he wouldn't achieve those same marks.
The nature of the game has also changed too much. There's no way he'd be fed the ball so freely, so often, and allowed to shoot some 40 times on a nightly basis. He wouldn't grab so many rebounds (a recent book I've read has referred to the 50s and 60s as an era of "poor shooters", which might also explain the inflated rebounding numbers). He'd have some great numbers, he'd hold records, he'd be an awesome player. But I don't think he could get the kind of statistics that he did.
And speaking of statistics, I think it's important to note that he couldn't win a championship with 50 ppg, just as Michael Jordan could not win one with 37.1 ppg. He could not be the league's greatest scorer and a champion; Michael Jordan could. 10 times MJ led the league in scoring, six of those times he was on the championship team. Wilt won a title in Philadelphia, but he had to cut his scoring average in half to do it.
Even with all-time greats like Jerry West and Elgin Baylor at his side, he only won one championship, losing three times in the NBA Finals and once in the Western Conference Finals. Michael Jordan's teams weren't quite as talented top to bottom, and they won six championships. Say what you will about the quality of opponents in the 90s (which I think remains underrated), but it's not as though those Bulls teams were the Celtics of the 60s transplanted into the 1990s. They were able to win three consecutive titles twice, with only three constants. Achieving that, in an era of greed and money-driven player moves is no easy feat.
And of the 80s argument...the 80s is a decade that is remembered with many double standards. Michael Jordan's best statistical seasons came in the 80s, but when that is mentioned the 80s were "a decade with no defense; weak". But whenever the Bulls' success in the 90s is brought up, it's always "they didn't beat the teams of the 80s, a much stronger decade". Depending on the argument against MJ and the Bulls, the 80s is both weaker and stronger than the decades that preceeded and followed it.
Wilt was often called unstoppable. But that doesn't really explain why his playoff scoring average is almost 8 points fewer than his career regular season average. It's a point I've brought up before and it's usually ignored, but I think it illustrates a key difference between Jordan and Chamberlain; Jordan's heroics, his great stats and his outstanding performances came in November, they came in June and they came in between. Michael Jordan's "legend" includes many postseason triumphs. Wilt's postseason career is more closely associated with bitter defeat.
Someone who is "unstoppable" shouldn't get to the postseason and see such a massive drop in scoring output. The defense shouldn't be able to figure shut them down like that. And if the defense didn't shut him down, the other explanation is that he choked. Consistently shut down or choked; not exactly the qualities of an undisputed greatest player of all-time.
Oh, and about the referees "protecting" him - throughout history, especially the last 20 years, a lot of players have been given the benefit of the whistle. It has become another popular double standard devised to belittle Michael Jordan's accomplishments. Did his "star power" influence the referees? I'm sure it did. But plenty of other great players have also had the luxury of getting away with little tricks of their own, even against Michael Jordan.
I rank Michael Jordan, Larry Bird and Magic Johnson as the top three in NBA history. They were not the biggest players in the game, as Wilt was, yet they had so much influence on the game, in both the contests they competed in and the future of the sport. Michael Jordan was below average height, yet dominated the league in scoring as Wilt did before him.
His skills, his awareness, his ability to pick apart the defense. His ability to seemingly player better and better as the stakes rose, the ability to take his game to another level, then another level and another level. All the defining moments, the incredible performances. Game 5 of the 1997 Finals, 38 points, 7 rebounds, 5 assists, 3 steals, the game clinching three...when he was clearly not feeling very well to say the least.
Skills, athleticism, records, stats, success, championships, incredible performances, a fantastic mind for the game...these are all things that the greatest of the great tend to possess. Michael Jordan could boast all of these things in abundance. That is why I consider him to be the best player. That's something I can't conclusively prove. But at the very least, there should be no doubt that he's up there and his accomplishments are real and impressive.
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