So Lebron is mortal? If he's suppose to be a rarer and a better athlete than Wilt Chamberlain (arguably the greatest ever) then I think he should be able to get it done w/o much of a supporting cast. 

Posted by zbrent716 on 7/15/2012 3:27:00 AM (view original):

Posted by dahsdebater on 7/15/2012 1:45:00 AM (view original):
You guys are both very intentionally missing the point, and I'm fairly certain you're both smart enough to know it.  I'm not remotely old enough to have seen Wilt play live, but I've watched plenty of full games of his (mostly playoffs).  As I mentioned previously, for the sake of this conversation I am absolutely NOT going to "normalize" to era.  Yes, Wilt was dominant.  He was a new kind of player, and the idea of the dominant low post scorer was still very new when Wilt was in his prime.  Do you honestly believe Wilt would be the same kind of dominant in today's NBA?  I don't. I think he'd be very good, very likely the best center in the NBA.  But if you watch Wilt in his prime and Kareem in his prime it seems to me that Wilt's moves don't even come close.  He got by on strength, but in today's NBA he wouldn't overpower everyone to nearly the same degree.  Certainly didn't have the strength of Shaq, and I wouldn't like Wilt very much in that matchup.  In fact, I think Chamberlain would have a hard time scoring effectively against Dik, who was always considered good but not great.  Any strong, defensively capable center could really slow down his game.  There has never been an era in NBA history in which Michael Jordan or LeBron James wouldn't be dominant.  Right now Wilt in his prime would likely go for 20-22 ppg, maybe 12 rebounds.  Those are similar to Kareem's career averages.  Saying that because Wilt dominated the game unlike anyone else in history and saying that he is the best player in the history of the game are not necessarily the same thing.

Put mostly simply, if you put Wilt in today's NBA do you believe he would dominate as much as LeBron?  Do you believe he would be the same kind of unique talent?  I don't.  Would Jordan be?  Hell yes.

Yes, Wilt in his prime, playing today, would dominate more than LeBron.

He might only hit 50% of his FT, but if he played with today's refs, he'd shoot 40 FT a game and foul out the opposing 4 and 5 on a nightly basis. The way to defend Wilt was to beat the **** out of him (way more than Hack-a-Shaq ever got). And refs, by and large, let it happen. That was the equalizer for Wilt's strength (and yes, he had as much strength as anyone, including Shaq). Today's NBA is built around building up the star, not bringing him down to the level of everyone else. Even if Wilt didn't get any superstar calls, and the game was just called straight up, he'd dominate today's game.

Was Wilt stronger than anyone else playing basketball during his era? Yes. But he's also stronger than the guys playing now. And beyond that, he wasn't only power - don't mistake him for an early version of Shaq. With the possible exception of Hakeem, his footwork was arguably the best ever for a big man, and when he was asked to pass, he cut his scoring by 10 points (down to only ~24 ppg) and collected assists instead (630 in 66-67 and 702 (league leader) in 67-68). For the sake of comparison, LeBron James has cracked 600 assists once (651 in 09-10) and has never been higher than 5th on the league.

Do me a favor, before you make the claim that Wilt just got by on strength.

Watch a young Wilt here, and an old Wilt here (some fantastic footage of older Wilt vs prime Kareem and their back and forth).

Don't just look at the dunks, but watch him run, jump, handle the ball, hit turnaround fade away jump shots off glass and finger rolls, and block the sky hook. If you watch those and still think Wilt was just Shaq light, I don't know what to tell you.

zbrent, you hit it on the head when you said, " Today's NBA is built around building up the star, not bringing him down to the level of everyone else. Even if Wilt didn't get any superstar calls."

This statement right here is why I have difficulty saying that today's players are as great as they seem at times. The NBA knows that if they put their stars on the pedestal the fans will be excite. ESPN knows if they talk about the stars and create some kind of drama (like making rivalries seem huge) will get them ratings. The NBA wants money so they make it easier for the stars to look like bigger stars. These players get calls for barely getting touched. Back in the day, players didn't get super easy foul calls. Maybe the stars got them a little easier than others, but compared to today's game, its not even close. Then add to that how many players flop and get calls. You rarely saw flops before. I'm not saying it's not a viable strategy, but it's just players taking advantage of a soft NBA.

I'm not debating the point whatsoever that the game is less physical now, and frankly I'm not a fan of that.  I wish there weren't so many fouls and the rules would allow for people to actually play defense.  I also wish they would call carries, double dribbles, etc.  None of that suggests that modern players couldn't quickly learn how to play in the tougher NBA, however, or that the old guys couldn't quickly learn to take advantage of the current way things are called.  I'm sure Bird and Magic with their massive basketball IQs would be drawing fouls with the best of them in a week.

my point was just that these guys have a bit of inflated numbers because of the rules. For example lets say instead of averaging 30 ppg, one might average 25 ppg. someone who has superior numbers to the older players might not be as superior under the same rules.

That must be because scoring is up so much from the '60s, '70s, and '80s, right?  Oh wait...

We are talking, dahs, about the stars - not the whole team.

Sorry for abandoning you, dahs, but I couldn't take it.

Let me put this a different way.  What players at the 3, in their prime, do you think could match up well with LeBron?  I don't really think Bird had the athleticism to keep up with him, I certainly wouldn't take Havlicek over LeBron, and I think everyone can pretty much agree Pippen wasn't on the same level in terms of all-around game.  Who does that leave?  Dr. J and Elgin Baylor would be the two best candidates, but in both cases I'd argue that those guys were similarly talented scoring the basketball and rebounding, but not as exceptional passing the ball.  In any sort of Dream Team scenario, whether it be 1992, 2012, or all-time, you have to figure that the floor is going to be littered with guys who can score the ball.  Having an elite passer at the 3 is a huge luxury when everyone around him on the court can score.  The only other guy I would even consider would be James Worthy, but he's basically in the same boat as Erving and Baylor and doesn't have quite the same statistics to back it up.  At the end of the day I think that, at least on an All-Star team or better, LeBron in his prime is probably the best candidate to start at SF.  I'm sure the nostalgics will find this statement ridiculous, probably in favor of Bird.  Or Dr. J.  I don't know.

I think at center the picture is less clear.  There are obviously a huge number of people who would take Russell over Wilt, and with good reason.  I'd take Wilt, but I don't have to make the argument for the guy who won all the titles.  Kareem and Hakeem both have arguments against Wilt.  I've already mentioned that I think Shaq would match up very well (incidentally, against other great centers I'd absolutely take Wilt.  But the guy liked to play with power first, and Shaq has all his height with even more muscle.  Doesn't have the offensive skillset, not even close.  But I still think he'd really slow Wilt down).  And what about Ralph Sampson before his knee problems started?  There's a guy with the same kind of touch and court vision and skill that Wilt had, minus some power but plus 3 inches of height and a lot of wingspan.  I'd say the highlight videos of Sampson in college and in the first few years of his NBA career match up very well with highlight videos of Wilt like the one's zbrent posted earlier.  And if we're talking about how well guys transcend time, Wilt would handle the modern foul-happy NBA poorly compared to everyone else I've listed except Shaq - the guy only shot 60% from the free-throw line once in his career and had a career percentage worse even than O'Neal.

The point of all this is that the idea that LeBron is a unique talent and a top all-time player, particularly in regards to usefulness for an All-World caliber team, is not at all ridiculous.  Nobody in history has stats that match up with Wilt's, but the competition at the time was much smaller and weaker than either the Dream Team or the 2012 team or any other all-time elite team.  I don't hear anybody arguing that George Mikan is a Top 10 player in history.  He was responsible for rule changes just as significant as the ones Chamberlain was.  Until Wilt he was easily the most dominant player in history, but somehow because he's far enough back for very few people to remember watching him play firsthand there isn't the associated nostalgia and we don't have all kinds of people saying I'm a lunatic for not calling him one of the top 3 players of all time.  The fact is that the scenario is the same - for most of Wilt's career Russell was the only other guy in the NBA with the size and strength to match up with him.  Put him in today's NBA up against other 7 footers just about every game and he's probably the best center in the game, but maybe or maybe not the best player in the league.

1 - Maybe consider Oscar Robertson for the 3?

2 - Here's a list (keep in mind height measurements were (generally) done in bare feet):

6

Bill Russell

C

6-9

215

February 12, 1934

5

University of San Francisco

10	Red Kerr	C-F	6-9	230	August 17, 1932	7	University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
11	Swede Halbrook	C	7-3	235	January 30, 1933	1	Oregon State University

5	Doug Kistler	F	6-9	210	March 21, 1938	R	Duke University
12	Cleveland Buckner	F-C	6-9	210	August 17, 1938	R	Jackson State University
8	Phil Jordon	C-F	6-10	205	September 12, 1933	5	Whitworth
18	Darrall Imhoff	C	6-10	220	October 11, 1938	1	University of California

55	Wayne Yates	C	6-8	235	November 7, 1937	R	University of Memphis
32	Jim Krebs	C-F	6-8	230	September 8, 1935	4	Southern Methodist University
14	Ray Felix	C	6-11	220	December 10, 1930	8	Long Island University

15	Wayne Embry	C-F	6-8	240	March 26, 1937	3	Miami University
13	Bob Boozer	F	6-8	215	April 26, 1937	1	Kansas State University
51	Hub Reed	C-F	6-9	215	October 4, 1936	3	Oklahoma City University
61	Bevo Nordmann	C	6-10	225	December 11, 1939	R	Saint Louis University

16	Bob Ferry	C-F	6-8	230	May 31, 1937	2	Saint Louis University
22	Ray Scott	F-C	6-9	215	July 12, 1938	R	University of Portland
23	Walter Dukes	C	7-0	220	June 23, 1930	6	Seton Hall University

29	Archie Dees	F-C	6-8	205	February 22, 1936	3	Indiana University
9	Bob Pettit	F-C	6-9	205	December 12, 1932	7	Louisiana State University
34	Clyde Lovellette	C-F	6-9	234	September 7, 1929	8	University of Kansas
14	Larry Foust	C-F	6-9	215	June 24, 1928	11	La Salle University

14	Charlie Tyra	C-F	6-8	230	August 16, 1935	4	University of Louisville
44	Archie Dees	F-C	6-8	205	February 22, 1936	3	Indiana University
33	George Bon Salle	F	6-8	220	July 1, 1935	R	University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
8	Walt Bellamy	C	6-11	225	July 24, 1939	R	Indiana University

Those are tall guys (6'8") on the other 8 teams Wilt faced during his 50 ppg season. Bold = Hall of Fame. Italics = All-star appearance(s) during career. Three of the 8 teams he played against during his 50 ppg season had Hall-of-Fame centers. That's 37.5% of his games matched up against other Hall-of-Famers.

Here is the list of 7'0 ft. tall (in shoes) players on the 16 NBA playoff teams (at any point in the 2011-2012 season)
EAST
Miami - 1 (Eddie Curry)
Boston Celtics - 1 (Ryan Hollins)
Indiana Paces - 2 (Kyrylo Fesenko; Roy Hibbert)
New York Knicks - 2 (Jerome Jordan; Tyson Chandler)
Orlando Magic - 0 (Howard listed at 6'11")
Atlanta Hawks - 1 (Jason Collins)
Philadelphia 76ers - 2 (Spencer Hawes; Francisco Elson)
Chicago Bulls - 1 (Omer Asik)

WEST
Oklahoma City - 0
San Antonio Spurs - 0 (Duncan listed at 6' 11")
Los Angeles Clippers - 0
Memphis Grizzlies - 2 (Marc Gasol; Hamed Haddadi)
Utah Jazz - 0
Los Angeles Lakers - 2 (Pau Gasol; Andrew Bynum)
Denver Nuggets - 3 (JaVale McGee; Kosta Koufos; Timofey Mozgov)
Dallas Mavericks - 3 (Dirk Nowitzki; Yi Jianlian; Brendan Haywood)

Now, I know you think Dirk could guard him, but *most* of these 7-footers would be completely helpless, no? And let's not forget, these are the "good" teams.

I didn't consider Oscar Robertson because he didn't play the 3, but he would certainly be a good choice.

Same would go for Magic if you wanted to play a smaller, quicker, more traditional PG.  Magic and LeBron are both great for this kind of exercise in the sense that you can put them in any position and they're able to succeed there.

Posted by dahsdebater on 7/16/2012 6:40:00 PM (view original):
I didn't consider Oscar Robertson because he didn't play the 3, but he would certainly be a good choice.

He was a G/F throughout his career, and he fits your justifications for James, only arguably more so on each point.

Posted by dahsdebater on 7/16/2012 6:43:00 PM (view original):
Same would go for Magic if you wanted to play a smaller, quicker, more traditional PG.  Magic and LeBron are both great for this kind of exercise in the sense that you can put them in any position and they're able to succeed there.

True, and this - more than anything - is where the game has changed from an athleticism standpoint. The mid-range guys now, in terms of height anyway, have better ball-handling and perimeter skills and look/feel/are more comfortable in the open floor. The evolution of the whole "point-forward". That's not true of most really big guys though.

I would make an argument for Scottie on lbj in this sense. Scottie was a very good scorer, not as good as lbj, but good. The key is not everyone needs to be the most elite scorer on the team, example Tyson Chandler, but they fill the defensive roles. Scottie is considered one of the best defenders in the game. Would you not like to match one of the best defenders in the game to cover one of the best scorers? He doesn't even need to shut down lbj, just slow him down. Who does that leave? Durant. one elite scorer will not win you the series. Would I take Scottie over lbj, no, but to say none on the dream team could stop him is wrong. Hell, Granger gave lbj problems in the playoffs.

one elite scorer will not win you the series

Dirk Nowitzki begs to differ.