Wilt Chamberlain Measurement May Require More Than Statistics.
This season, a number of NBA players have performed akin to Chamberlain. He will, nevertheless, always be untouchable to some.
As a Milwaukee Bucks staffer for almost 20 years, Dick Garrett has been serving spectators from a courtside folding chair at Fiserv Forum. Recently, he witnessed Giannis Antetokounmpo flirt with the Washington Wizards, floating over the rim like he was playing slam dunk contest.
Garrett remarked, “He was scoring fifty-five points and he was doing it so easily, like no one could even challenge him.” “Gosh, I’m thinking, a man competing against boys.”
Similar to what he saw over fifty years ago, but from an even greater vantage point.
Garrett’s dominance on the court reminded him of his first NBA season (1969–70) with the Los Angeles Lakers. In that well-known one-name homage to fame, he lobbed passes into the post from his backcourt position to the man best known as Wilt during a postseason run that ended in a Game 7 finals loss to the Knicks.
Wilt Chamberlain, who once set a record with 100 points in a game and averaged an incredible 50 points per game for a season, has been statistically compared to Antetokounmpo and other players this season to the point where one may question whether the sport has reached the pinnacle of athletic excellence.
Alternatively, if competitive engineering is responsible for at least as much of its video game mimicry.
Due to the widespread 3-point shooting, attack the floor considerably more; create passing lanes for players with exceptional physical attributes like Antetokounmpo so they can score or locate open teammates on the perimeter. What you get in a league where team scoring has increased by about 15 points from a decade ago is a plethora of eye-opening individual stat lines.
Two nights after Antetokounmpo’s 45 points and 22 rebounds against the Bulls in Chicago, Garrett saw the Minnesota Timberwolves be dominated by Antetokounmpo for 43 points and 20 rebounds on December 30. Antetokounmpo became the first player to have seven assists at Chicago and five versus Minnesota.
Antetokounmpo is what Garrett referred to as the leader of a “big man revolution,” given his seven-foot stature and elastic wingspan that can fool people into believing he is scratching the ceiling.
Not just Antetokounmpo, Nikola Jokic in Denver, and Joel Embiid in Philadelphia—the tallest players in the league—have been guilty of resurrecting Chamberlain’s 1999 death from the headlines thanks to their statistical bingeing.
No one, not even Wilt, had ever recorded a line like Luka Doncic’s, the 6-foot-7, all-around Slovenian import from Dallas, scorched the Knicks for 60 points, 21 rebounds, and 10 assists in a thrilling overtime victory late last month, according to analysts.
Walt Frazier, the legendary player who used to play backcourt with Garrett at Southern Illinois and now broadcasts Knicks games, know why.
In a phone interview, he stated, “Guys running up and down and dunking on people is what you mostly see now.” Few clubs commit to their defense. When someone blows up, they don’t switch teams. It was always, “Clyde got destroyed,” when someone came in and dropped forty on me. Doncic now has a 60, but nobody has even revealed who was watching him.
