ABQCOWBOY
Regular Joe....
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Wilt was not done when Kareem came into the league. I would agree that he was at the end but certainly not done. He played 4 more seasons and average over 20 pts for two of those seasons and over 18 boards all four of those seasons. He was not the player he was early in his career, I would agree with that but then again, Kareem wasn't the player he would become, later either.
Olajuwon is a different discussion and we can have that if you like but pick your topic here. You want to talk about Wilt or you want to talk about Dream? I love Olajuwon and I believe that he is certainly in the discussion of the greatest centers of all time but I will simply say this, in 86, when Olajuwon was 23 and Kareem was 39, Kareem was 1st team all NBA. You will never hear me say bad things about Olajuwon but there is no way that he dominated Kareem. That's just not true.
The difference in talent between Wilt's NBA and Kareem's NBA, across the league, is night and day. It's a fact, Wilt faced something like less then 20 guys that were 7 foot his entire career. Kareem faced multiple players that had much more size on a nightly basis and teams had multiple big men that could match up. So yes, it was drastically different. If you doubt this, you can look up the rosters each player faced and it will become pretty evident that the difference was actually very pronounced. Not trying to argue here, I've just done that excercise before and I saw very clearly. Now, the one thing that I will say with Wilt is that he had to face Russell a lot and Russell was a great, great player, especially defensively. That would not have been a walk in the park but still, Russell was only 6'9/6'10 and maybe 215/220 lbs. Russell was a great, great player but he never averaged 20 pts his entire 13 year career. Never even averaged 19 so while Russell was tough defensively, Wilt could cost a bit more when he was defending against Russell and lets face it, after Kareem, that was the toughest player that Wilt ever faced in his entire career.
Kareem was not 7'3. Kareem was 7'2 225 lbs. I agree that they had different body styles. Wilt was much more powerful but that is because he was playing against much smaller men. So yes, he essentially was playing against physically inferior players. Shaq would have abused Wilt but that is a different discussion and I will take my own advice here. Chamberlin was 7-1 275 so yes, big difference in body types but that's why Kareem could play so well vs Wilt. Wilt couldn't physical dominate Kareem like he could the rest of the league. Kareem was mobile and could shoot with either hand. In 1959, when Wilt came into the league, there were only 8 teams. That means that Wilt really only faced 7 rosters. Of those teams, Philly had one guy that was 6'11 220 lbs. The next biggest guy on the roster was one 6'9 guy who didn't weight 200 lbs. Pistons had one 7 ft Center 220 lbs, next biggest guy was 6'9. Syracuse's tallest player was 6'9 225 lbs and one other guy also 6'9. Cincinnatti had one 6'10 205 lbs guy and one 6'9 center. Minnesota had two 6'11 Centers, one 220 and one 235 lbs, of which, the 6'11 235 guy actually played for Minnesota and St. Louis in 59. The other Centers who played for St. Louis were no bigger then 6'9. Boston, as I mentioned earlier had Russell and that was there tallest player. That's it, that was the competion that Wilt played against in the NBA at that time. Coming into the league, he saw one 7 footer. He was taller by an inch and outweighed him by 55 lbs. All others, he had overwhelming size and weight advantages against so it's really not all that difficult to understand why his numbers were how they were early in his career. Kareem did not play against that NBA. When he came into the league, the league had more teams and the overall size of players, in general were bigger. This would continue during his career. The competition was simply bigger, to say nothing of the quality of Centers. Much better centers in the league over Kareem's career. Jabbar faced way more HOF Centers then did Wilt.
I got nothing against Wilt but I think you have to look at it from the perspective of the league during each players career. There is no question that Kareem played in a league, at a time when the very best Centers in the History of the game were playing. Wilt didn't really see that kind of competition over the majority of his career.
JMO
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