Quote:
Originally Posted by Tabe
Yeah, the "he played against short guys" thing has definitely been exaggerated over the years. What's definitely true is that the players he played against were nowhere near as good as later generations. Wilt's rebound statistics are significantly inflated because teams played at a breakneck pace while also shooting poorly. For example, in 1960/61 when Wilt set the rebounding record, teams took an average of 109.4 shots per game - EACH - while shooting 41.5% from the floor. That's an average of 128 rebounds per game for players to grab. Compare that to 2020/21 where teams took 88.4 shots per game while shooting 46.6% from the floor. That's an average of 94 rebounds per game - 34 fewer. So, yeah, your rebounding numbers are going to be higher if guys are throwing up 2.67 missed shots per minute.
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Perhaps it's been slightly exaggerated, but I wouldn't say greatly. There were definitely a lot more shorter (and not very athletic) white guys on the court back then than there are today. But height aside, those guys were terrible overall. And I mean TERRIBLE. Just watch film from the Wilt and Russell era. It's absolutely hilarious watching most of those guys playing, or trying to play, basketball. Also, let's not forget that these were mostly layups and short-range jump shots that they were missing too. Only a couple years prior to that, when Bill Russell won MVP, the league average FG% was 38%!!! If you shoot 38% today, you're getting cut. This was league average back then! You mentioned that in 2020/21 FG% was 46.6%, but that's including 3s, the 2-pt FG% was 53%, which is a much more apples to apples comparison if discussing how good they were at shooting the type of shots they were taking back then.
Also, guys like Wilt played the entire game back then, so he racked up more statistics. Let's compare Wilt's best rebounding season to Dennis Rodman's best season. If you take the average number of available rebounds of 73.3 per team from 1960/61 vs the 43.7 from 1991/92 and adjust for playing time (Wilt averaged 47.8 mpg, Rodman averaged 40.3 mpg), then Rodman's share of rebounds would have added up to 37.2 rebounds per game in the 1960 NBA season vs Wilt's 27.2. That's how much better of a rebounder Dennis Rodman was than Wilt Chamberlain. Don't get me wrong, Wilt was insanely great. At pretty much everything. But he couldn't even hold a candle to Dennis Rodman rebound-wise.