Basketball

Make a case for whoever you think is the best basketball player of all time?

Say why you think this person should be considered the G.O.A.T., and what put them ahead of the field. I think it's Michael Jordan, here's why : Awards NCAA Champion '82 14 time All-Star Olympic Gold Medalist—1984, 1992 Five time MVP—1988, 1991, 1992, 1996, 1998 7 time The Sporting News MVP Rookie of the Year—1984 Defensive Player of the Year—1988 11 times All-NBA—10 times first team, 1 time second team 9 time All-Defensive First Team Sports Illustrated "Sportsman of the Year"—1991 Named one of the 50 Greatest Players in NBA History in 1996 Records Most scoring titles—10 Most NBA Finals MVP awards—6 Highest career scoring average—30.12 Highest career scoring average playoffs—33.45 Most consecutive games scoring in double figures—866 Highest single series scoring average NBA Finals—41.0 (1993) "By acclamation, Michael Jordan is the greatest basketball player of all time."-Doug Collins "There's Michael Jordan and then there is the rest of us." —Magic Johnson "Michael is the best overall basketball player ever." -Steve Kerr Jordan scored a playoff record 63 points against the Boston Celtics in 1986, Celtics star Larry Bird described him as "God disguised as Michael Jordan. Jordan's total of 5,987 points in the playoffs is the highest in NBA history. He retired with 32,292 points placing him third on the NBA's all-time scoring list behind Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Karl Malone. In 1988, he was honored with the NBA's Defensive Player of the Year Award and became the first NBA player to win both the Defensive Player of the Year and MVP awards in a career He set records for blocked shots by a guard, and combined this with his ball-thieving ability to become a standout defensive player. His 2,514 steals are the second of all-time behind John Stockton and had 3 steal titles in his career. ESPN ranked him as the best athlete of the 20th century. I could go on and on about why MJ is the greatest ever, but I'm getting tired of typing all this, so you tell me who is the greatest and why?

Public Comments

1. The best player ever is the King Michale Jeffrey Jordan. No one is better, no one can make all that he already made.
2. You said all my friend. There will never be another MJ
3. Len Bias: Yeah, wow. It is more than 17 years since Len Bias's brief association with the Celtics, and he remains the greatest "what-if?" in team history. At least we saw Reggie Lewis play. Bias never played a game for the Celtics. He was a member of the organization for fewer than 48 hours, dying of a cocaine overdose in the wee small hours of June 19, hours after returning to Washington following a day in Boston as the Celtics' first pick in the 1986 draft. His death still reverberates in the team offices. Without any doubt, he would have directly affected the fortunes of the team well into the '90s, with predictable impact on the current situation. Michael Wilbon of the Washington Post and ESPN covered Bias during his first two years at Maryland, and he goes even further. "His death changed the history of the NBA," Wilbon says. "Because then there are no Bad Boy Pistons, and who knows when the Bulls would have won? Bird and McHale would never have had to play all those minutes. The Celtics would have kept winning." So Len Bias was that good? "This is my 24th year at Duke," says coach Mike Krzyzewski, "and in that time there have been two opposing players who have really stood out: Michael Jordan and Len Bias. Len was an amazing athlete with great competitiveness. My feeling is that he would have been one of the top players in the NBA. He created things. People associate the term `playmaking' with point guards. But I consider a playmaker as someone who can do things others can't, the way Jordan did. Bias was like that. He could invent ways to score, and there was nothing you could do about it. No matter how you defended him, he could make a play." "He was a can't-miss, big-time player who was going to the perfect team," says Celtics general manager Chris Wallace, then at the peak of his glory as editor of Blue Ribbon Magazine, the college basketball bible. "It was almost too good to be true." Forget the "almost," says Indiana Pacers CEO Donnie Walsh, whose team used the fourth pick in the '86 draft to select Chuck Person. "The Celtics had just won a championship. They had Bird, McHale, Parish, and Walton. And now they were getting Len Bias? I remember thinking, `This is unfair.' " A dynamite deal That "unfair" circumstance had come about because on Oct. 16, 1984, general manager Jan Volk had orchestrated a deal that sent guard Gerald Henderson to the Seattle SuperSonics for their '86 first-round draft pick. The idea was twofold: 1) Open up more playing time for Danny Ainge; and 2) Hope that the Sonics would deteriorate and ultimately provide the Celtics with a prime pick. The Sonics could not have cooperated much better. They won 31 games in the 1985-86 season and finished second in the lottery. The Celtics, winners of 67 regular-season games and their 16th NBA title, would have the No. 2 pick in the draft. The consensus two best players available were North Carolina center/forward Brad Daugherty, a 7-foot finesse player with a baby-fattish body, and Maryland's two-time ACC Player of the Year Bias, a 6-8, 225-pound forward with a Greek statue body. Red Auerbach admits he only had eyes for Bias. "Oh, yeah, I definitely wanted him," Auerbach says. "Absolutely. Because he was a ballplayer. He could handle the ball, he could shoot it, and he was just what we needed." "Remember that in 1986 Michael Jordan was not yet `Michael Jordan,' " says Volk. "And in scouting reports, it is customary to make player comparisons. Our basic report characterized Bias as a `Michael Jordan type who was bigger, with a better jump shot, but who didn't go to the basket as well.' " Philadelphia had the first pick, but the 76ers were strangely ambivalent. "We never could get comfortable with that draft," says Pat Williams, who was then in his final days as the 76ers GM. "We thought Daugherty was soft. And Jack McMahon, our chief scout, didn't want Bias. I remember him saying, `There's just something about him I don't like.' And Jack just passed. Jack wasn't infallible, but he was pretty good, and I didn't usually question him on personnel matters." The 76ers wound up trading the pick to Cleveland in exchange for Roy Hinson as part of a complete makeover that also included trading Moses Malone and other considerations for Jeff Ruland and Cliff Robinson. None of it worked out, because of injury. "It was the draft night from Hell," says Williams. Was McMahon prescient? Was he on to something about Bias's nocturnal habits? We'll never know. He died in the late '80s without ever specifying his reservations about Bias. Undeniable talent Few others had doubts about Bias. Daugherty sure didn't. "The one thing I always think about is how he elevated when he shot his jump shot," says the long-time Cavaliers center, now an ESPN college basketball analyst. "He elevated higher than anyone I've ever seen to get off that shot. Most people, Michael Jordan included, might shoot on the way up, but not Lenny. Every jump shot was released at the peak of his jump. He had a great mid-range game. He was deadly from 8 to 15 feet. "I remember a game at our place when Joe Wolf started out on him, and he couldn't do anything. Then Coach [Dean] Smith tried [7-foot] Warren Martin. Next he asked me if I wanted to try. He just took me outside. I was 4 inches taller, and I couldn't get near that jumper." "He was a physical specimen," says Johnny Dawkins, the Duke assistant who was a high school and college contemporary of Bias. "He had a very soft jumper, and he got up so high, no one could affect it. He would have been a terrific player in the NBA." A couple of guys down at Storrs, Conn., remember Bias very well. On Jan. 21, 1985, George Blaney put a Holy Cross team on the floor against Maryland. "He had a presence about him, and a capacity for taking over," says Blaney, now an assistant at UConn. "He sort of disregarded good defense." Thirteen months earlier, Jim Calhoun's Northeastern team had likewise played Maryland. "We were real good, but he took over the game," Calhoun says. "He was bigger, stronger, and quicker than anyone we had. He was one of those rare guys you looked at and said, `You know, he is going to be special.' " Ainge had played with Bias in Marshfield during the summer of 1985, and he knew. "He was perfect for us," says the Celtics' basketball chief. "I was never so excited. With Kevin, Robert, and Larry, he would give us the perfect rotation. I looked at it as a great fit for him and the franchise." Larry Bird was similarly smitten, declaring that he was so fired up by the pick that he was going to come back early to work with the kid. To people in D.C. (Bias was from nearby Landover, Md.), the idea of Bias joining the Celtics was downright sinful. "Out of all the guys I saw at that time," says ESPN's John Saunders, then a sportscaster at WMAR in Baltimore, "Michael Jordan was the gold standard. But I thought Bias had a chance to be in that category. I know I definitely never saw anyone improve as much as he did during his years at Maryland." "I saw great players from both the ACC and Big East every night," says Wilbon. "Jordan. Ewing. Mullin. Sampson. Later on, David Robinson. But Bias was the most awesome collegiate player of that bunch. That jumper was so pure. I mean, Michael Jordan, at that time, would have killed for that jumper. And Bias was 2 1/2 inches taller." Bias was not only a great prospect but also the perfect prospect for the team he was joining. He could have played behind both Bird and Kevin McHale, and Auerbach believes that partnership would have been maintained for many years. "He would have enabled them to cut back on their minutes and would have extended their careers," says Dawkins. "Losing him set the Celtics back for at least a decade." Fateful decision One "celebration party" changed all that. Bias chose to commemorate his new life by partying with cocaine, and it cost him his life. Everyone has a story. The Globe's John Powers was in Washington to do a story with Bias the next morning. He tried the house at 9:30 to confirm an 11 o'clock appointment, but the line was steadily busy. At 10, Powers's wife, Elaine, called. What was the name of the player you're there to interview? "Len Bias," he told her. "Did he call?" "No," she answered. "He's dead. It was just on the radio." Daugherty was at Raleigh-Durham Airport, preparing to board a flight to Boston, where he would be signing a joint Reebok deal with his friend, Bias. He refused to believe it when the first two people he encountered told him Bias was dead and didn't believe it until he called their mutual agent, Lee Fentress. "I remember his exact words," Daugherty says. "He said, `It's God-awful. He's gone.' I never got on that plane." Auerbach got a call from Bias's coach at Maryland, Lefty Driesell, at 4 in the morning. Volk got a call from a Channel 4 assignment editor at 6:15 in the morning. Ainge heard it when he stopped for gas en route to a morning round of golf. No one ever will know just who Len Bias really was. Some say he led a masterful double life. Daugherty swears Bias wouldn't even join him for a beer, let alone shove cocaine up his nose. Driesell's words during a pre-draft radio interview are still eerie: "Leonard's only vice is ice cream," Lefty insisted. Others say he had both good and bad acquaintances and that he knew both nice girls and naughty girls. But the one thing everyone agrees on is that he sure could play basketball. Assuming the binge that killed him was an aberration, he is the ghost that haunts the Celtics to this day. If he was just another junkie, well, what difference did it make? But if he was just a happy kid who made one horrible, fatal judgment, then the Celtics were deprived of the perfect bridge player to get them out of the '80s and into the '90s. At the least, give them the '87 title, and say that the 1988 Finals with LA would have been an epic. "You put an athlete like him in with a Larry Bird," says Krzyzewski, "and he would have made use of all his abilities. Bird wouldn't have seen him as a threat; he would have seen him as a treasure." Bias's death did more than disrupt the Celtics, says Coach K. It affected all those who love the game of basketball. "It hurt our sport," Krzyzewski says. "Above and beyond the loss of life, we never got to see one of those truly great ones become great." But Len Bias never got to see 23, let alone 40. APRIL 14 // Len Bias, a forward who averaged 25 points during his senior year at Northwestern High in Hyattsville, signs to play at Maryland. NOV. 27 // Bias plays his first game for Maryland in its season opener against Penn State, a 97-79 loss at the Baltimore Civic Center. He gets eight points and five rebounds in 18 minutes. 1983 FEB. 26 // Bias gets his first start and produces 13 points and six rebounds in an 83-75 win over Wake Forest. MARCH 17 // Bias makes a jumper from the top of the key with one second left to push Maryland past Tennessee- Chattanooga, 52-51, in the first round of the NCAA tournament. 1984 MARCH 11 // Bias earns Most Outstanding Player honors in the Atlantic Coast Conference tournament. 1985 MARCH 11 // Bias earns ACC Player of the Year honors and garners a second- team All-America spot after a junior season in which he averaged 19.1 points and 6.7 rebounds. MAY 2 // Bias tells coach Lefty Driesell he'll return for his senior season. 1986 FEB. 14 // Driesell gives Bias, Jeff Baxter and John Johnson a one-game suspension for violating curfew. MARCH 6 // Bias wins his second ACC Player of the Year award after averaging 23.1 points and 6.6 rebounds. MARCH 11 // Bias is named to the Associated Press All-America first team. MARCH 16 // Bias' college career ends in a 70-64 NCAA tournament loss to UNLV in Long Beach, Calif. He scores the Terps' final 13 points and finishes with 31 points and 12 rebounds. JUNE 17 // Bias is selected by the Celtics with the second overall pick. JUNE 18 // Bias spends the day in Boston at a dinner party and agrees to multiyear shoe deal with Reebok. JUNE 19 // Bias collapses at about 6:30 a.m. in his College Park dormitory room with Brian Tribble and teammates Terry Long and David Gregg. Bias is pronounced dead from cardiac arrest at about 8:50 a.m. at Leland Memorial Hospital in Riverdale. By the end of the day, reports emerge that cocaine was detected in his urine, police seal off the Washington Hall dormitory, and his body goes to the state medical examiner's office in Baltimore for an autopsy. JUNE 20 // Nine grams of cocaine are found in Bias' car by campus and Prince George's County police. Authorities rule Bias' death suspicious. JUNE 23 // Bias is buried. Several people say Bias was the best athlete to ever play in the ACC. Mike Krzyzewski and Dean Smith have both stated that Michael Jordan and Bias were the best players ever to come through the ranks of the ACC Who knows what could have been if this kid could've lived to be a pro.
4. me da!!!!!
5. Michael Jordan!!!!! He is the BEST player to EVER play the game PERIOD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
6. OBVIOUSLY WILT THE STILT CHAMBERLAIN. Unanimous First-Team All-America, 1957, 1958 NBA Most Valuable Player, 1960, 1966, 1967, 1968 Holds single game record for points in one game (100) against the New York Knicks in Hershey, PA, March 2, 1962 NBA 50th Anniversary All-Time Team, 1996 He was basketball's unstoppable force, the most awesome offensive machine the game has ever seen. Asked to name the greatest players ever to play basketball, most fans and aficionados would put Wilt Chamberlain at or near the top of the list. Dominating the game as few players in any sport ever have, Chamberlain seemed capable of scoring and rebounding at will, despite the double- and triple-teams and constant fouling tactics that opposing teams used to try to shut him down. As Oscar Robertson put it in the Philadelphia Daily News when asked whether Chamberlain was the best ever, "The books don't lie." Contents [hide] 1 Biography 2 Early Years 3 A Jayhawk, Then a 'Trotter 4 Taking The NBA By Storm 5 The Twilight 6 Career Statistics 7 Quick Facts [edit]Biography The record books are indeed heavy with Chamberlain's accomplishments. He was the only NBA player to score 4,000 points in a season. He set NBA single-game records for most points (100), most consecutive field goals (18) and most rebounds (55). Perhaps his most mind-boggling stat was the 50.4 points per game he averaged during the 1961-62 season--and if not that, then perhaps the 48.5 minutes per game he averaged that same year. He retired as the all-time in career points with 31,419, which was later surpassed by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Karl Malone and Michael Jordan. He is tops in rebounds with 23,924. He led the NBA in scoring seven years in a row. He was the league's top rebounder in 11 of his 14 seasons. And as if to prove that he was not a selfish player, he had the NBA's highest assist total in 1967-68. March 2, 1962: The night Chamberlain scored 100 points in a single game.But the most outstanding figures are his scoring records; Most games with 50+ points, 118; Most consecutive games with 40+ points, 14; Most consecutive games with 30+ points: 65; Most consecutive games with 20+ points: 126; Highest rookie scoring average: 37.6 ppg; Highest field goal percentage in a season: .727. And with many of these, the player in second place is far behind. His name appears so often in the scoring record books that his name could be the default response any time a question arises concerning a scoring record in the NBA. During his career, his dominance precipitated many rules changes. These rules changed included widening the lane, instituting offensive goaltending and revising rules governing inbounding the ball and shooting free throws (Chamberlain would leap with the ball from behind the foul line to deposit the ball in the basket). No other player in NBA history has spawned so many myths nor created such an impact. It's difficult to imagine now, with the seemingly continuing surge of bigger skilled players, the effect of playing against Chamberlain, who was not only taller and stronger than almost anyone he matched up against but remarkably coordinated as well. A track and field star in high school and college, Chamberlain stood 7-1 and was listed at 275 pounds, though he filled out and added more muscle as his career progressed and eventually played at over 300 pounds. An incident recounted in the Philadelphia Daily News involving Tom Meschery of the Seattle SuperSonics illustrated what it was like to play in the trenches against Chamberlain. Meschery had the ball in the lane and put up four fakes before attempting his shot. Chamberlain slapped the ball down. Meschery got it again, faked again, and got it blocked again. Enraged and frustrated, the Seattle player ran up to Chamberlain swinging. As if in a scene from The Three Stooges, Chamberlain put his hand on the 6-6 Meschery's head and let him swing away harmlessly. After the third swing, Chamberlain told his former Warrior teammate, "That's enough". Meschery stopped. Chamberlain's power was legendary. Rod Thorn, who has been a player, coach, GM and NBA executive, remembers a fight in which Chamberlain reached down and picked up a fellow player from a pile of bodies as if he were made of feathers. The man was 6-8 and weighed 220 pounds. Chamberlain was one of the few players of his day who had the sheer strength to block a dunk. In a game against New York in 1968, Walt Bellamy, the Knicks' 6-11, 245-pound center, attempted to dunk on Chamberlain. "Bellamy reared back," one spectator who was there later recalled to the Philadelphia Daily News, "and was slamming the ball down when Wilt put his hand above the top of the rim and knocked the ball off the court. He almost knocked Bellamy off the court, too." [edit]Early Years Strength was something Chamberlain developed as a college and professional player. Photographs of him in high school show a slender, agile boy who, at 6-11, towered above the other players. In three varsity seasons at Philadelphia's Overbrook High, starting in 1952-53, Chamberlain led the team to records of 19-2, 19-0, and 18-1. His coaches there took full advantage of his gifts. The team would practice missing free throws so that Chamberlain could grab them and score field goals. At a time when goaltending was legal, Chamberlain sometimes infuriated his teammates by tipping balls in on their way down, even if they were on target. During his prep years, he scored 2,206 points and had individual games in which he scored 90, 74 and 71 points. In his senior year he averaged 44.5 points. In his 90-point game he scored 60 points in 12 minutes of the second half. "But it's nothing," Chamberlain said in the Philadelphia Inquirer in 1991, "when you consider that the team we were playing against was trying to freeze the ball." It was also during this time that one of his nicknames, "the Stilt," was coined by a local newspaper writer. Chamberlain detested it, as he did other monikers that called attention to his height, such as "Goliath." The names he didn't mind were "Dippy" and "Dipper," along with the later variant, "Big Dipper." The story goes that Chamberlain's buddies seeing him dip his head as his walked through doorways tagged him with the nickname and it stuck. [edit]A Jayhawk, Then a 'Trotter In 1955, Chamberlain announced he would play college ball at the University of Kansas. Because NCAA rules at the time prohibited freshmen from playing at the varsity level, Chamberlain was placed on the freshman team upon his arrival at Kansas. His first contest with the freshmen was against the varsity, which was favored to win its conference that year. Chamberlain later reminisced about the game in the Philadelphia Daily News: "We whipped 'em, 81-71. I had 40 or 42 points, about 30 rebounds, about 15 blocks. I knew I had to show them either I could do it or I couldn't." Chamberlain in his Globetrotters uniformChamberlain made his debut for the Jayhawks' varsity squad in a game against Northwestern on Dec. 3, 1956. He set a school record when he scored 52 points in an 87-69 victory. Chamberlain then guided Kansas to the 1957 NCAA title game against North Carolina. North Carolina beat Kansas by one point in triple overtime in one of the greatest college games of all time, but Chamberlain was named the tournament's Most Outstanding Player. The following year he was selected to all-conference and All-America teams. He showed his athletic versatility by winning the high jump competition in the Big Eight track and field championships, clearing the bar at 6-6. In May, 1958 Chamberlain decided to forgo his senior season at Kansas, opting instead to turn pro. But because of an NBA rule that prevented college players from playing in the league until their class graduated, he was in limbo for one year. He passed the time by playing for the Harlem Globetrotters in 1958-59 for a salary reported to be around $50,000, an astronomical sum at the time. [edit]Taking The NBA By Storm In 1955, the NBA created a special "territorial" draft rule that allowed a team to claim a local college player in exchange for giving up its first-round pick. The idea was to cash in on college stars who had built strong local followings, but the Philadelphia Warriors, who were owned by the cagey Eddie Gottlieb, took it one step further. They claimed Chamberlain as a territorial pick even though he had played his college ball in Kansas. Gottlieb, one of the NBA's founding fathers, argued that Chamberlain had grown up in Philadelphia and had become popular there as a high school player, and since there were no NBA teams in Kansas, they held his territorial rights. The league agreed, marking the only time in NBA history that a player was made a territorial selection based on his pre-college roots. Chamberlain's rookie Fleer cardWhen Chamberlain finally slipped on a Philadelphia uniform for the start of the 1959-60 season, the basketball world eagerly awaited the young giant's debut -- and he didn't disappoint. In his first game, against the Knicks in New York, he pumped in 43 points and grabbed 28 rebounds. In a sensational rookie year, Chamberlain averaged 37.6 points and 27.0 rebounds and was named NBA Rookie of the Year, All-Star Game Most Valuable Player and NBA Most Valuable Player as well as being selected to the All-NBA First Team. Only Wes Unseld would duplicate Chamberlain's feat of winning Rookie of the Year and MVP honors in the same season. (Unseld did it in 1968-69.) With Chamberlain, the Warriors vaulted from last to second and faced the Boston Celtics in the 1960 NBA Playoffs. The series saw the first postseason confrontation between Chamberlain and defensive standout Bill Russell, a matchup that would grow into the greatest individual rivalry in the NBA and possibly any sport. During the next decade, the pair would square off in the playoffs eight times. Chamberlain came away the victor only once. In that initial confrontation, Chamberlain outscored Russell by 81 points, but the Celtics took the series, four games to two. Chamberlain with Warriors coach Frank McGuire on the cover of Sports Illustrated, 1961.Chamberlain's inaugural season seemed to take a heavy toll on him. After the postseason loss to Boston, the rookie stunned his fans by announcing that he was thinking of retiring because of the excessively rough treatment he had endured from opponents. He feared that if he played another season, he would be forced to retaliate, and that wasn't something he wanted to do. In Chamberlain's first year, and for several years afterward, opposing teams simply didn't know how to handle him. Tom Heinsohn, the great Celtics forward who later became a coach and broadcaster, said Boston was one of the first clubs to apply a team-defense concept to stop Chamberlain. "We went for his weakness," Heinsohn told the Philadelphia Daily News in 1991, "tried to send him to the foul line, and in doing that he took the most brutal pounding of any player ever.... I hear people today talk about hard fouls. Half the fouls against him were hard fouls." Despite his size and strength, Chamberlain was not an enforcer or a revenge seeker. He knew how to control his body and his emotions and rarely got into altercations. One indication of this was the astonishing statistic that not once in his 14-year career, in more than 1,200 regular and postseason games, did he foul out. Some people claimed he simply wasn't aggressive enough. "My friends would say, 'Hey man, you should throw [Bill] Russell in the basket, too.'" said Chamberlain. "They said I was too nice, too often against certain of my adversaries." Chamberlain vs. Russell: A rivalry of giantsOf course, Chamberlain didn't retire. He simply endured the punishment and learned to cope with it, bulking up his muscles to withstand the constant shoving, elbowing and body checks other teams used against him. In a virtual repeat of his rookie year, he poured in 38.4 points and 27.2 rebounds per game in 1960-61. The next season he made a quantum leap in his performance. Posting a phenomenal average of 50.4 points per game, he became the only player in history to score 4,000 points in a season. On March 2, 1962, Chamberlain set a record that may stand forever. In a game against the New York Knicks in Hershey, Pa., he scored 100 points in four quarters to help the Warriors win the game, 169-147. Despite the fact that Chamberlain had reportedly stayed out all night the previous evening, he obviously came ready to play against the Knicks. Chamberlain was so "on" that he even made 28 of 32 free throws, despite having, up to that point in the season, just a paltry .506 percentage from the stripe. He hit 36-for-63 from the field, about which he commented to HOOP magazine, "My God, that's terrible. I never thought I'd take that many shots in a game." Toward the end of the game, the Warriors went out of their way to feed Chamberlain the ball, to the point of fouling the Knicks whenever they had possession. In 1962, Chamberlain moved with the franchise to San Francisco, and he led the league in scoring in both 1962-63 and 1963-64. The Warriors lost to the Celtics in the 1964 Finals in five games. But midway through the following season, he was sent back home to Philadelphia. Two days after the 1965 All-Star Game (a game in which he scored 20 points and pulled down 16 rebounds), Chamberlain was swapped to the 76ers, formerly the Syracuse Nationals until the 1963-64 season, for Connie Dierking, Lee Shaffer, Paul Neumann and $150,000. In Philadelphia, he joined a promising 76ers team that included Hal Greer and Larry Costello in the backcourt and Chet Walker and Luke Jackson up front. The Sixers were a .500 ballclub in Chamberlain's initial year on the team. The following season, 1965-66, Philadelphia posted the best record in the league, at 55-25, but for the second year in a row the 76ers fell to Boston in the Eastern Division Finals. Philadelphia, which had added talented forward Billy Cunningham, started the year by winning 45 of its first 49 games en route to an 68-13 record, at the time the best in league history. In the division semifinals, the Sixers ousted Cincinnati. The division finals saw the 76ers matched up against the Celtics -- and Chamberlain matched up against Russell once again. After years of frustration, Chamberlain finally got by his arch rival as Philadelphia raced by Boston in five games, ending the Celtics' eight-year stranglehold on the NBA title. Playing the Warriors in the 1967 NBA Finals, the Sixers came away with the championship, winning the series in six games. After his monstrous scoring year in 1961-62, Chamberlain's average dropped slowly each year until the 1967-68 season, when it rose slightly to 24.3 points per game from 24.1 the season before. During his first seven years Chamberlain scored an average of 39.4 points per game and led the league in scoring all seven seasons, a string matched only by Michael Jordan two decades later. In Chamberlain's second seven years, he averaged 20.7 points. Was the waning production attributable to the effects of age and better defenses? Chamberlain didn't think so. "I look back and know that my last seven years in the league versus my first seven years were a joke in terms of scoring," he told the Philadelphia Daily News. "I stopped shooting -- coaches asked me to do that, and I did. I wonder sometimes if that was a mistake." One of the main reasons coaches asked him to shoot less was to try to win more. Of the 14 years he played in the NBA, only twice did his teams emerge with the NBA title. In 1966-67, Sixers Coach Alex Hannum asked Chamberlain to pass the ball more often than shoot, and to play more aggressive defense. The strategy worked. Although he failed to win the NBA scoring title for the first time in his career, averaging 24.1 points, Chamberlain recorded the league's highest shooting percentage (.683), had the most rebounds (24.2 rpg), and was third in assists (7.8 apg). Chamberlain took his new role so seriously that he led the league in assists the next season. In 1967-68, he was also chosen to the All-NBA First Team for the seventh and final time and selected league MVP for the fourth and final time. After taking the Eastern Division that season, the Sixers were eliminated in the Conference Finals for the third time in four seasons by the Celtics. Soon after, Chamberlain was traded to the Lakers for Jerry Chambers, Archie Clark and Darrall Imhoff. [edit]The Twilight Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (then Lou Alcindor) and Wilt Chamberlain battle in the 1971 NBA playoffs.He spent his final five campaigns in Los Angeles and helped the Lakers to the NBA Finals four times in those five seasons. The most notable season was 1971-72, in which he scored only 14.8 points per game. But his contributions came in other forms. At age 35, he managed to grab 19.2 rebounds per contest and was selected to the NBA All-Defensive First Team. Chamberlain had become a great team player, complementing the styles of guards Jerry West and Gail Goodrich and forwards Happy Hairston and Jim McMillian. The 1971-72 Lakers set an NBA record by winning 33 games in a row en route to a then NBA-record 69-13 regular-season mark, one victory better than Chamberlain's 1966-67 Sixers team (the Chicago Bulls with Michael Jordan would post a 72-10 record in 1995-96 . The Lakers then stormed to the championship with a five-game triumph against New York in the 1972 NBA Finals. Retiring from the NBA at the end of the 1972-73 season, Chamberlain went on to demonstrate the full range of his talents. Eclectic didn't begin to describe his activities. Like many pro players, he spent a year coaching at the pro level, for the San Diego Conquistadors of the American Basketball Association. San Diego had wanted him to be a player-coach, but legal entanglements prevented that, and Chamberlain soon became bored with a coach-only role. In 1984 he acted in the movie Conan the Barbarian. Big-league volleyball attracted his energies for a while, as did tennis, running marathons and even polo. At one point he hoped to challenge Muhammad Ali to a world heavyweight fight. Even when he was in his 50s, a story would pop up every now and then about some NBA team talking to Chamberlain about making a comeback, figuring he could still give them 15 or 20 solid minutes as a backup center. Chamberlain, who loved the limelight, seemed to bask in those reports, but he never took up any team on its offer. Rather he continued to be a voracious reader who also published several books and involved himself with other pursuits including maintaining a lively bachelor's existence. In 1978, his first year of eligibility, Chamberlain was elected to the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, and in 1996-97 he was selected to the NBA 50th Anniversary All-Time Team. On Oct. 12, 1999, Chamberlain passed away at the age of 63 due to heart failure at his home, which he named Ursa Major after the constellation containing the stars forming the Big Dipper, his trademark in the basketball world. He left the NBA as a legendary figure to talk about for years to come. [edit]Career Statistics G FG% FT% Rebs RPG Asts APG Pts PPG 1,045 .540 .511 23,924 22.9 4,643 4.4 31,419 30.1 [edit]Quick Facts Full Name: Wilton Norman Chamberlain Born: 8/21/1936 in Philadelphia Died: 10/12/1999 in Los Angeles High School: Overbrook (Philadelphia) College: Kansas Drafted: Philadelphia Warriors (1959) Transactions: Traded to Phila. 76ers, 1/15/65, Traded to L.A. Lakers, 7/9/68 Height: 7-1 Weight: 275 lbs. Honors: Elected to Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame (1978); NBA champion (1967, '72); NBA Finals MVP (1972); NBA MVP (1960, '66, '67, '68); All-NBA First Team (1960, '61, '62, '64, '66, '67, '68); Second Team ('63, '65, '72); All-Defensive First Team (1972, '73); Rookie of Year (1960); One of the 50 Greatest Players in NBA History (1996). 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7. Bill Russell as compared to Michael Jordan *copy and pasted from my previous posts) 6 NBA Titles: (Pathetic, Russell has 11) 6 NBA Finals MVPs: (Finals MVP were only given during Russell's last year and was given as a consolation prize to the brave but heavily injured Jerry West. This marks as the first and only time that the Finals MVP was given to a player from the losing team. The award came with a Dodge pickup and, annoyingly for West, was colored Celtic green. Had Finals MVP been given much earlier, Russ would have won more. In fact, Jerry West (and his coach/general manager Fred Schaus) who lost 6 Finals encounter with Russ consider him as their most dangerous opponent, thats not counting the 4 Finals trip in which Russ left Bob Petit and the Hawks dazed and confused.) 6 NBA Finals Appearances: (Pathetic, Russell has 12) He's 6-0 (UNDEFEATED) in the NBA Finals. He also never been in a game 7 in the NBA Finals (that shows DOMINANCE). But Russell, he have a LOSS and several game 7's in the NBA Finals (meaning Jordan was more unstoppable). -Unstoppable my as$. Again youre missing the big picture. Jordan is NO POSITION to brag since he only made 6 trips to the Finals in his 15 year career (40% chance of going to the Finals, Russ is 91%). Russell is 11 for 12 in 13 years. Russ is a champion from his rookie year to his last. Whose more dominating again? 5 NBA MVPs: (Russell has 5 too and would have been more, if not his role as a player coach blur the impact of his two duties. Its hard to attribute the Celtic's success to Russell as the coach or Russell as the player) 1 NCAA Title (his shot sealed the deal): (Russell has 2, with a 55 game winning streak with an average winning margin of 15 during his senior years. No game winning shots needed. Unlike Jordan who is but a Robert Horry-role player on James Worthy's 1982 NCAA champion UNC team, Russell is the star and leader of his championship team.) 2 Olympic Gold Medals (84, 92): (Russell has only one in 1956. Pros were banned from playing the Olympics until iirc FIBA lifted it on 1989 w/c made it possible for the Dream Team, hence Jordan's 2nd gold medal. Had it been lifted earlier, Russell and countless other would have multiple Olympic Gold medals). 10 Scoring Titles: (Only 4 reb titles for Russ. but thats because he competed with Wilt, the best rebounder of all time. Not that stats are important to him. Read on.) 3 Steal Titles: (Steals and blocks were not officially counted in Russell's time. Russ would be #2 in blocks if it were officially counted, because Wilt again would be number one even if he has to roam the perimeter to do it. Its like a division of labor between the two men, Russ get all the rings, Wilt get all the numbers.) 1988 Defensive Player of the Year: (Russ is the 1969 DPoY, the first time the award was given; had it been awarded earlier, Russ would have won enough to fill a trophy case.) 1991 Sports Illustrated Sportsman of the Year: (Russ is the 1968 SI Sportsman of the Year) 9X All-Defensive 1st Team Selections: (1x. The All-Defensive team EXIST only during Russ' last year. Had it existed earlier, he would have been there all through out his career.). 11X All-NBA Selections: (Only 4 times, since sportswriters were the ones voting the ALL-NBA selections in those days and they are more impressed with Wilt's statistical accomplishment but the MVP was voted by players and coaches who have more intimate knowledge of the game w/c explains why Russ has more MVP's than Wilt). 14X All-Star: (Russ has 12 in 13 years) 2 Slam Dunk Titles: (Exhibition awards are worthless. During his college days, Russell is ranked World #7 in high jump and its not even his main sport. Athleticism?). 1985 Rookie of the Year (Russell got beat out by his own teammate, so how was even the best player on his team?) -Now here is a little trivia for you. Russ was TAKEN OUT of the running in every major award during his Rookie year. The techncality was he played only half the season because of his Olympic commitments. However, the ROY winner Tommy Heinsohn and the rest of the League, not just the Celtics knew that Russell is the true ROY. It was speculated that the NBA does not want to upset white fans by giving the ROY to a black man for 2 consecutive years - Maurice Stokes won it the year before -which is why they invented the "shallow technicality" to prevent Russ from winning.) 3X All-Star MVP: (Russ has one. Exhibition awards are worthless) 30.1 ppg career average (the record): (A shallow record. Wilt allowed his numbers to dip to putrid lows at the behest of his coaches who want him play a Russell-like role for his team, allowing Jordan to overtake it by a fraction. Russ is second to Wilt in career rebounding average with 22.5). 33.4 ppg career play-off average (the record): (Russ' 24.9 is the best career playoff rebounding average.). 7 of his 10 scoring titles were in a row (the record): (Do you really expect someone who average 13 field goal attempts in a game to compete with Wilt and Jordan in the scoring dept?) The Chicago Bulls all-time ASSIST leader (well so much for him being a ball-hog): (Russ was once ranked #5 in assists. And he's a center. Russ is one of the best passing centers in League history but his many outlet passes that anchors the Celtic fastbreak offense as not counted as assists.) 41.0 ppg average in the 1993 NBA Finals (the Finals record): (29.5 rpg, in the 1959 Finals. THE FINALS RECORD). 6 Three pointers made in the 1st half of game 1 in the 1992 NBA: (Grabbed 40 rebs in the Playoffs. Second to Wilt Chamberlain's record of 41. Three pointers dont exist in Russ time.) 35 Points made in the first half of game 1 in the NBA Finals (the Finals record):(Russ holds the NBA regular season record for rebounds in one half with 32 and quarter with 19.) Was named ESPN's Best ATHLETE of the 20th Century (EVER) -When asked by critics as to what was ESPN's criteria in making that Best Athlete of the Century, they couldnt provide it. I seriously question why would a someone like Jordan would beat Muhammad Ali, Babe Ruth, Jackie Robinson, Jim Thorpe (the decathlon athlete), Babe Didrikson, Bill Russell (the greatest winner in any f*cking sport and the one who broke the coaching color barrier) on the greatest list except in endorsement money. http://www.andersonsports.com/baseball/A... http://airjudden2.tripod.com/jordan/athl... 4 ESPY Awards: ESPN and ESPY awards dont exist during Russell's time. Russell has not been on speaking terms with ESPN for quite some time now due to the fact that an ESPN sportscaster made an erroneous comment on Russell's teammate Bob Cousy. Who cares about ESPY's when your unanimously called as the "GREATEST WINNER" on any sport. Thats a fact and not just a matter of opinion about Bill Russell. And if your the greatest winner in basketball doesnt that make the greatest basketball player? 866 Games scoring in double digits ( the Record): (Russ has the most consecutive games with 20 or more rebounds. I dont even think Russ has a single digit night in rebounds during his entire career.) 1984 Naismith College Player of the Year: (The award does not exist during Russell's time. Russ is the 1955 NCAA Most Outstanding Player. James Worthy won a MOP when he lead UNC to the 1982 NCAA championship but Jordan never won a MOP because he couldnt even lead his team to the Final Four. ) 2,514 career steals (2nd most): (Had blocks and steals been officially recorded during Russell's time, he would have been near or at the top of the record list. Shot blocks were lobbied to be an official stat because of Russell.) 32,292 career points (3rd most): (21,620 career rebounds, the 2nd most). 5,987 career play-off points (the record): (Russell has 4,104 career playoff rebounds. The record.) He is the all-time leader in All-Star game points (262 career all-star points) (the record): (Exhibition records are worthless. How about winning the 1956 Olympic basketball gold medal with a margin of victory of 53.5? Its an Olympic record. A winning margin higher than the 1992 Dream team or the 1960 Olympic "superstar team" of Jerry Lucas, Jerry West, Oscar Robertson etc.) He has 8 seasons averaging 30+ ppg (the record): (Russ has 10 seasons averaging 20 rebs or more.) He has 12 play-off seasons averaging 30+ ppg (the record): (Russ ALWAYS avg 20 rebs or more in the Playoffs during his entire 13 years in the NBA.) He's the ONLY player at age 40 to score 40+ points (more then once): (Russ is the only player coach to win back to back rings.) 63 Points in the 1986 Play-Offs (the play-off record): (Russ grabbed 40 rebounds TWICE in the NBA Finals. Finals record.) 69 points (career high), 18 rebounds (career high), 4 steals, & 6 assist in a SINGLE game.: ( Russ is 11-0 in 11 deciding games and averaged 18 points and 29.45 rebounds.) 5 sixty or more point Games: (Russ has one of only two 50+ rebounding performance.) 32 Fifthy or more point games: (I could think of at LEAST 10 games in which he grabbed 40 + rebs. Seven in the regular season, 3 in the Playoffs.) 72-10 team record LED by MJ (the record): (Russ led the Celtics to 11 Championships, 12 Finals appearance and 13 Division Finals in 13 years. Unmatched consistency is better than a one time single season record.) He posted 28 career triple doubles: (NCAA Rule Changes because of Bill Russell #1: free throw lane widened from 6-12 feet). He posted 2 play-off career triple doubles: (NCAA Rule Changes because of Bill Russell #2: offensive goal tending was disallowed). 1997 NBA Finals Flu Game (38 points, 7 rebounds, 5 assist, 3 steals, & 1 block): (Russell played a Finals Game 7 with a bleeding eyeball. ). At any rate, if Bill Russell sees all of his stats bandied out like this, he'd be pissed off. Its against his philosophy. "Winning is the only thing I really cared about because I found out that when I left the cocoon of my childhood and I came into the world and young, that individual awards were mostly political. But winning and losing, there are no politics, only numbers. It's the most democratic thing in the world. You either win or lose. So I decided early in my career that the only really important thing was to try and win every game because when I got through no one could say, 'Well, he was the best at this or that.' The only thing that really mattered was who won. And there is nothing subjective about that." -- From The NBA at 50. Bill Russell has as many NCAA championship and NBA championship as Michael Jordan and Magic Johnson COMBINED.And youre gonna tell me that Jordan is the GOAT? Ha! Ha!
8. I think u have practically all the reasons to say that "MJ" is, and will be the best Legendary basketball player in the nba history and I totaly agree with u
9. Agree with MyKill 100%.
10. Oscar Robertson (The Big O) Just how good was Robertson? "He is so great-he scares me." - Red Auerbach The original Mr. Triple-Double averaged over 30 points, 11 assists, and 11 rebounds per game in his prime, not to mention a .485 FG% and a .838 FT% of his career. In just his second year in the league: 30.8 points, 12.5 rebounds, and 11.4 assists per game. He averaged over 30 ppg in 6 of his 14 years. This was before the 3-point line. And from old records of his range (shooting from 25 ft), Robertson probably would have averaged more points, around 40 ppg. He averaged 9.5 assists in his entire career. This was before players can take steps before they score to count as assists. This is also before people actually cared about assists as a stat. Some ESPN historian actually said if using today's rule on assists, the Big O would have made over 15 to 20 assists a game. He averaged over 9 rebounds a game in 5 of his 14 years. Magic Johnson, in comparison, only averaged over 9 rebound in one of his 13 years. He is also credited to inventing the head fake and the fade-away jumper, something that made Jordan so famous. ------------------------------- In 14 seasons: *12 time All-Star *ROY 1961 *4 time MVP Highest career scoring average—31.4 Highest career scoring average playoffs—31.8 Lead league in FT: 4 Top 3 in FT: 8 Lead league in assists: 6 Top 3 in assists: 10