Who Would Win?

[AH1971]

5 minutes ago, HoosierHoopster said:

I appreciate the difference of opinion and there really is no way to know so end of the day just my opinion. Don’t think you’re comparing the two at the same level of development though, Wemby’s still just a kid. Take the same comparison of MJ in his first couple complete seasons against other greats and he loses - but in his prime? Hard to say anyone stands equal to him (though Kobe seriously has a good argument) that’s more to my point. No one in today’s game can stop Wemby, still a kid, where will he be in his prime? And really a lot of stats on Wilt such as the vert are questionable. Respect your opinion, but disagree if comparing apples to apples. Wemby is a freak of nature 

This isn't about development. Wemby will never be the athletic specimen that Wilt was. Don't care if he's still a kid. That isn't something you develop, that's genetics. Take an athletic specimen like Wilt that grew up with today's modern game on top of modern weight/strength programs, he'd be the best basketball player on the court at all times. 

[PartyintheVillas]

In every sport with objective data, we know that college and sometimes high school athletes are the equivalent of the top athletes in the world in the 60s. There is romance in thinking these players were extreme athletes with extreme skills that could compete with the best for eternity, but it's just not the truth. Wilt would be an NBA player if he were transported from the 60s to now, but I'm not sure he's even an all-star. Michael Jordan and maybe 2-3 other players in the 80s could dunk from the free throw line. High schools kids do that now. High school kids now regularly compete against track and field world records from the 60s.

So much has changed, and it's not an insult to the 60's athletes. What they did given their knowledge and circumstances was absolutely amazing, perhaps relatively moreso than athletes today, but not equal in performance and ability.

[AH1971]

9 minutes ago, PartyintheVillas said:

In every sport with objective data, we know that college and sometimes high school athletes are the equivalent of the top athletes in the world in the 60s. There is romance in thinking these players were extreme athletes with extreme skills that could compete with the best for eternity, but it's just not the truth. Wilt would be an NBA player if he were transported from the 60s to now, but I'm not sure he's even an all-star. Michael Jordan and maybe 2-3 other players in the 80s could dunk from the free throw line. High schools kids do that now. High school kids now regularly compete against track and field world records from the 60s.

So much has changed, and it's not an insult to the 60's athletes. What they did given their knowledge and circumstances was absolutely amazing. Perhaps relatively moreso than athletes today, but not equal in performance and ability.

Athlete's in the 60's didn't train year round like NBA, college, or even high school kids do these days. They smoked cigarettes, drank liquor every night, and did whatever they wanted on top of working 2nd jobs in the summer. That doesn't dispel Chamberlain's God-given prowess which is unmatched by any NBA athlete today. It's hard to fathom what Chamberlain would look like with modern day weight training and a stringent regiment today like other professional athletes are on. He ran the 400m dash at Kansas in under 49 seconds at 7 feet and over 250 lbs. Wilt Chamberlain used to intentionally miss free throws just so he could rebound and dunk his own misses. The free throw lane was widened from 12 feet to 16 feet and the lane violation was created specifically for Chamberlain lol. 

[HoosierHoopster]

5 hours ago, AH1971 said:

This isn't about development. Wemby will never be the athletic specimen that Wilt was. Don't care if he's still a kid. That isn't something you develop, that's genetics. Take an athletic specimen like Wilt that grew up with today's modern game on top of modern weight/strength programs, he'd be the best basketball player on the court at all times. 

Ok I no longer respect your opinion vbg

[AH1971]

1 hour ago, HoosierHoopster said:

Ok I no longer respect your opinion vbg

Touche. 
 

I’ve seen Wilt play, you haven’t. Your respect means very little in this regard.

[HoosierHoopster]

1 hour ago, AH1971 said:

Touche. 
 

I’ve seen Wilt play, you haven’t. Your respect means very little in this regard.

Vbg = very big grin. Tongue in cheek. But all good

[RaceToTheTop]

I love how goal posts have been moved to give chamberlain today’s training and advances when the question by OP was obviously meant to compare an NBA team in 1964 to a college team in 2026.

[str8baller]

17 hours ago, AH1971 said:

There are players alive to this day who have played against him that have all said that, they aren't tall tales. Dunking was vilified in that era and even outright banned for some time. Offensive rules worked strongly against guys like Wilt in that era as well. Guys would foul out accumulating offensive fouls alone back in those days. 

Joel Embiid is probably the closest active comp to Wilt. Wilt was bigger, faster, stronger than Embiid and way more athletic. And don't get me started on stamina. Wilt for 40 minutes a game would rebound, outlet, sprint and beat everyone else down the court every single time. Embiid averaged 36 and 12 in 39 games during his MVP season. With today's rules that benefit offensive players on top of modern spacing, no reason to think Wilt wouldn't be a 40 and 15 guy. 

I have always thought David Robinson or maybe Giannis is probably the closest Wilt comps although Wilt was likely faster and stronger than both. Him against Sam Alexis is funny.  
 

The idea that great athletes from back in the 60s and 70s would always be inferior to today’s athletes is also silly. I saw a 45 yr old George Foreman win the world heavyweight championship and he wasn’t nearly as good then as he was 20 years earlier when he first won his title. 

[str8baller]

16 hours ago, PartyintheVillas said:

In every sport with objective data, we know that college and sometimes high school athletes are the equivalent of the top athletes in the world in the 60s. There is romance in thinking these players were extreme athletes with extreme skills that could compete with the best for eternity, but it's just not the truth. Wilt would be an NBA player if he were transported from the 60s to now, but I'm not sure he's even an all-star. Michael Jordan and maybe 2-3 other players in the 80s could dunk from the free throw line. High schools kids do that now. High school kids now regularly compete against track and field world records from the 60s.

So much has changed, and it's not an insult to the 60's athletes. What they did given their knowledge and circumstances was absolutely amazing, perhaps relatively moreso than athletes today, but not equal in performance and ability.

Is your assertion that Michael Jordan would also be a routine athlete today? Because that’s just absurd (and not backed by data). 
 

What you’re referring to is largely specialization which has squeezed out more and more marginal returns in some things like track and field events as time has gone on. There’s also going to be a huge selection bias in many sports as things like rules and equipment change. In basketball that would be more akin to the advances in shooting we’ve seen. It says nothing of overall athleticism, which just statistically is highly unlikely to have changed at the genetic level that much over the last 50 years. 

[AH1971]

1 hour ago, str8baller said:

I have always thought David Robinson or maybe Giannis is probably the closest Wilt comps although Wilt was likely faster and stronger than both. Him against Sam Alexis is funny.  
 

The idea that great athletes from back in the 60s and 70s would always be inferior to today’s athletes is also silly. I saw a 45 yr old George Foreman win the world heavyweight championship and he wasn’t nearly as good then as he was 20 years earlier when he first won his title. 

Athletically Giannis is a good comparison, but Wilt looked like Embiid but with little to no body fat....he was that imposing. No amount of grainy black and white footage you watch of Wilt will do his physique justice. 

It's all recency bias. Wemby is on an historic run right now and may go down as one of the best of all time. But he'll never be as dominant or physically imposing as Wilt. Nobody will. 

[Stuhoo]

45 minutes ago, str8baller said:

Is your assertion that Michael Jordan would also be a routine athlete today? Because that’s just absurd (and not backed by data). 
 

What you’re referring to is largely specialization which has squeezed out more and more marginal returns in some things like track and field events as time has gone on. There’s also going to be a huge selection bias in many sports as things like rules and equipment change. In basketball that would be more akin to the advances in shooting we’ve seen. It says nothing of overall athleticism, which just statistically is highly unlikely to have changed at the genetic level that much over the last 50 years. 

My assertion is that the game has evolved dramtically from the early 1960's to today.

The league was only 15 years old during that championship series. If you watch enough of the 30 minute 1964 video, those teams have relatively terrible half court offense; spacing, shot selection, defensive close-outs - all of it. There are some superior athletes that would be outstanding still (Wilt, Sam Jones, Russell, Havlichek), but there's a whole bunch of under-skilled and not all that athletic guys too. But the video largely shows the shots that went in, and there a crap-ton of unguarded guys that take running hooks and one footed jump shots. Hands down and little pressure for perimeter defense, flinging the ball at the basket, etc. 

By the mid/late 1980's when Jordan started to dominate, the league was about 40 years old and the game film is pretty comparable to today's game. I expect that version of Jordan and his teammates would be very successful in any era. I also believe that those 1964 teams had players with dominant abilities, but that if you dropped those teams into the future against competent P5 currrent college teams, the 1964 teams would not fare especially well.

[AH1971]

15 minutes ago, Stuhoo said:

My assertion is that the game has evolved dramtically from the early 1960's to today.

The league was only 15 years old during that championship series. If you watch enough of the 30 minute 1964 video, those teams have relatively terrible half court offense; spacing, shot selection, defensive close-outs - all of it. There are some superior athletes that would be outstanding still (Wilt, Sam Jones, Russell, Havlichek), but there's a whole bunch of under-skilled and not all that athletic guys too. But the video largely shows the shots that went in, and there a crap-ton of unguarded guys that take running hooks and one footed jump shots. Hands down and little pressure for perimeter defense, flinging the ball at the basket, etc. 

By the mid/late 1980's when Jordan started to dominate, the league was about 40 years old and the game film is pretty comparable to today's game. I expect that version of Jordan and his teammates would be very successful in any era. I also believe that those 1964 teams had players with dominant abilities, but that if you dropped those teams into the future against competent P5 currrent college teams, the 1964 teams would not fare especially well.

Again, it all depends on what era set of rules you play by. Is there a 3 point line? Are they calling a travel like they do in the 60's or like they do today? A lot of guys in those videos look "unathletic" because they dribble and move with the ball standing straight upright. That's not because they are unathletic, it's because they had strict palming/carry rules back in those days. If how the game was played today was officiated the way it was in the 60's, there would be a carry or travel called on almost every possession, and if there wasn't there would almost certainly be an offensive foul called.

If a team from the 60's had to play a college team with modern rules today, it'd be interesting. The shooting isn't there and they would struggle to match 2's for 3's, and outside the Celtics not sure another team had a supporting cast to compete with modern athletes. However, a guy like Wilt could single handily keep his team in the game. You weren't allowed to initiate contact as an offensive player in that era and player disengagement was called an offensive foul almost every time. Wilt had to develop a fadeaway jumper to prevent himself from fouling out. He used to intentionally miss his shot just so he could rebound his own miss to position himself closer to the basket. 

[Pagoda]

17 minutes ago, AH1971 said:

Again, it all depends on what era set of rules you play by. Is there a 3 point line? Are they calling a travel like they do in the 60's or like they do today? A lot of guys in those videos look "unathletic" because they dribble and move with the ball standing straight upright. That's not because they are unathletic, it's because they had strict palming/carry rules back in those days. If how the game was played today was officiated the way it was in the 60's, there would be a carry or travel called on almost every possession, and if there wasn't there would almost certainly be an offensive foul called.

If a team from the 60's had to play a college team with modern rules today, it'd be interesting. The shooting isn't there and they would struggle to match 2's for 3's, and outside the Celtics not sure another team had a supporting cast to compete with modern athletes. However, a guy like Wilt could single handily keep his team in the game. You weren't allowed to initiate contact as an offensive player in that era and player disengagement was called an offensive foul almost every time. Wilt had to develop a fadeaway jumper to prevent himself from fouling out. He used to intentionally miss his shot just so he could rebound his own miss to position himself closer to the basket. 

Ha, gosh darn it the original post specified modern rules!  vbg 

[AH1971]

7 minutes ago, Pagoda said:

Ha, gosh darn it the original post specified modern rules!  vbg 

I said my piece on both. Wilt would probably foul out Reed and Alexis in the first half with modern rules.

[Stuhoo]

57 minutes ago, AH1971 said:

He used to intentionally miss his shot just so he could rebound his own miss to position himself closer to the basket. 

Please say that isn't so; it certainly would not help your theory that basketball back then was in any way comparable to today's game.

[AH1971]

21 minutes ago, Stuhoo said:

Please say that isn't so; it certainly would not help your theory that basketball back then was in any way comparable to today's game.

When have I ever said basketball then was comparable to today? If Wilt Chamberlain would have been allowed to drop step in that era he would have averaged 80 points a game. The NBA created half a dozen rules during Wilt's career to try and curtail his dominance.

[RaceToTheTop]

8 hours ago, str8baller said:

The idea that great athletes from back in the 60s and 70s would always be inferior to today’s athletes is also silly. I saw a 45 yr old George Foreman win the world heavyweight championship and he wasn’t nearly as good then as he was 20 years earlier when he first won his title. 

Bit of a difference in the two comparisons.  Basketball we are talking about a 60 year difference in training methods whereas Foreman/Moorer were 20 year difference.

Also of note that Foreman was down on all three scorecards (two of which were 88-83 Moorer) before Moorer got caught.  There are no one punch knockouts in basketball.

[Stuhoo]

7 hours ago, AH1971 said:

I said my piece on both. Wilt would probably foul out Reed and Alexis in the first half with modern rules.

Agreed. If Arrinten Page could dominate Reed Bailey then 1964 Wilt Chamberlain would put a nuclear armageddon on him!

[Demo]

Would love to see the both the look on the ‘60’s players faces if Burton busted out a move like this and it wasn’t called a travel or the look on Burton’s as he did that in front of old time refs and they had to stop laughing to blow the whistle to call it.

[Pagoda]

7 minutes ago, Demo said:

Would love to see the both the look on the ‘60’s players faces if Burton busted out a move like this and it wasn’t called a travel or the look on Burton’s as he did that in front of old time refs and they had to stop laughing to blow the whistle to call it.

For sure.

Personally, I really wish they would call this a travel.  The defender did a good job and Jalen should have been in deep trouble after the jump stop at 0:12 got him nowhere.  But, he gets another step to create some space at get a shot off.

Great shot, but c'mon.