Best Center Of All Time

[Gee!]

Vote em up

 

[elindholm]

Ooh, if we're lucky, we can get another set of essays about how Russell is automatically the best since he was on the most championship teams.

 

[BC867]

Just as Babe Ruth changed the direction of Major League baseball by himself . . . weren't his 50+ homerun seasons something like triple what had preceeded . . . Wilt did the same for the NBA.

'Best' is an ambiguous term. He was certainly the most dominant.

George Mikan was the first, Shaq the latest. But Wilt's scoring averages, 100+ point game, and overwhelming rebounding stats put him in a category by himself.

Even his sexual stats were in a league by itself, but that's another story.

 

[George O'Brien]

I have always wondered how one can compare players prior to 1975 or so to guys who came after.

Today's players are a lot more athletic and are allowed to foul when playing defense. The anti-zone rules of the period were much stricter than after the changes in the late 70's, so great one on one players could not be double teamed. There were no three point shots and rules against traveling were actually enforced.

I am reminded of an interview of a top football player of the early 1950s who was asked how players of his era would fare today (the interview was in the mid 80's). His reply was that in his era guys played 60 minutes with no face masks, so he wanted to know how the "pantywaist specialists" of today would deal with his world.