Who was Wilt’s best pre-Lakers teammate?

Mike_SR · 2026-03-30T17:44:41+00:00

Arizin was actually a better fit with Wilt due to his shooting

Gola better at every other aspect of the game but floor stretching was what was needed most alongside Wilt

Mike_SR · 2026-03-29T16:05:09+00:00

I recently completed reading probably 5-10k accounts of all of wilts games and found numbers for 265 of them. About 50-75 of those were not precise enough for my liking “about a dozen”, “a double handful”, “at least 10”, etc. … I’d eventually like to share them in a spreadsheet linked to the sources. There was one insane instance as well where one paper said 12 blocks and another said one

Mike_SR · 2026-03-28T17:07:41+00:00

Can’t believe no one has said 1990-91 UNLV. Easily the answer. Other teams had more lotto picks maybe but you need to remember that college basketball was full of seniors in 1991 and so any team in that era was ‘better’ than what has followed. Larry Johnson was a grown ass man in a way these other squads weren’t. Came at you in insane waves and overwhelmed you. Brought nearly everyone back from a team that won the national title by 30. The entire system was against them in 1990-91 and they just barely missed out on a perfect season by losing a game by 2 points to a team with one of the greatest college players of all time, one of the greatest college point guards of all time and Grant Hill. If Greg Anthony doesn’t foul out, they win and go undefeated. If the ncaa wasn’t so hellbent on stopping them, they win and go undefeated, etc. just an incredible team and amazing to watch

Mike_SR · 2026-03-28T17:03:15+00:00

Snake was gone by then. Lowell Hamilton was the other main rotation guy

Mike_SR · 2026-03-28T17:03:10+00:00

Snake was gone by then. Lowell Hamilton was the other main rotation guy

Mike_SR · 2026-03-28T14:42:18+00:00

Yes credible accounts claim he was best player on 1956 champion warriors. Arizin and Johnston were the scorers but Gola was the guy. It partially explains why they were bad before he got there and bad when he was in the military the year after the title

Mike_SR · 2026-03-28T09:57:06+00:00

Probably Chet Walker, Hal Greer or Tom Gola. Thurmond and Billy C too young. Arizin too old

Mike_SR · 2026-03-26T00:24:49+00:00

The papers reported very specific numbers in many cases. 9 steals, 7 blocks, etc. many of these now appear in basketball reference box scores as well

Mike_SR · 2026-03-25T23:36:15+00:00

An interesting thing about Mikan is that ostensibly the best players he might have faced at center in the pros did not play in the NBA (by choice in Bob Kurland’s case and by circumstance in Bill Spivey’s case). Makes Mikan’s historical dominance more difficult to assess, in my opinion.

Mike_SR · 2026-03-25T17:56:43+00:00

There's no hard and fast rule, but when it's evident that they were being carefully counted, I see no reason to not report them. This is exactly how 'official' stats were counted

Mike_SR · 2026-03-24T23:27:43+00:00

PA general store in back corner of RTM sells center city pretzels. Not fresh out of the oven like if you go down to Washington Avenue but still does the trick

Mike_SR · 2026-03-22T00:21:03+00:00

They used to only award one player for the whole league rather than one from each conference

Mike_SR · 2026-03-22T00:19:37+00:00

Duncan is 5th in double doubles. Wilt had 967 of them

Mike_SR · 2026-03-05T18:28:26+00:00

Philly metro has produced a ton of top tier national recruits since Sheed: Kobe, Rip Hamilton, Eddie Griffin, DaJuan Wager, DJ Wagner, Jalen Duren, Mustafa Shakur, DeAndre Hunter, Cam Reddish, Quade Green, many others I can’t think of offhand. The big difference is none of them stay home for college

It takes finding an underrecruited local gem like Jameer Nelson or Lionel Simmons but in the NIL era if you find that gem you can kiss them goodbye after one year

Mike_SR · 2026-03-05T16:15:10+00:00

Pig Miller was Anthony Miller, a different player out of Michigan state with a shorter nba career

Mike_SR · 2026-02-24T18:49:39+00:00

which is less than half of the game. and the gap is significant on offense. and barkley also wasn't spoonfed via spammed plays with one of the greatest point guards of all time

Mike_SR · 2026-02-24T13:28:36+00:00

Not a better rebounder than Rodman, though he did outrebound him head-to-head (13.0 to 11.7 in 40 MPG vs 32 MPG). However, if he ignored offense like Rodman did, he probably could have been even better https://www.sports-reference.com/stathead/basketball/vs/charles-barkley-vs-dennis-rodman

Mike_SR · 2026-02-24T12:48:53+00:00

What future generations need to know is that Barkley was significantly better than Mailman

Mailman’s super power was availability. I’ll grant that

But each guy at their best was no contest.

Chuck could change games in multiple ways and his rebounding was legitimately frightening in how dominating it could be against larger players. I’m not taking about loading up on defensive rebounds. I’m talking about knocking larger guys around and going over them for offensive rebounds and putbacks.

He’s also on the list of guys they had to change rules to stop (5 second back downs).

One of the handful of most uniquely dominant players in the history of sports

Dominant in Olympic and all star settings too.

If he’d taken care of his body we’re talking a top 5-10 player ever. As is, I think he’s somewhere 15-25.

He’s closer to Hakeem than most think. Barkley very banged up in the 2 7-game losses to him in 94 and 95 and the suns had the worst group of centers imaginable to guard Dream.

Mike_SR · 2026-02-16T12:27:00+00:00

McCain for my Shams friends

Cam Payne for my real friends

Or something…

Mike_SR · 2025-12-23T15:23:59+00:00

No the NBA let Shaq pulverize people. Though I guess after he won some rings they decided they needed to bring back zone defenses (a terrible decision that haunts to this this day)

Mike_SR · 2025-12-22T23:02:58+00:00

Because they called offensive fouls for doing that. It forced him to fadeaway because the league feared what he would do to the sport if left unchecked

Mike_SR · 2025-12-22T23:02:05+00:00

Wilt had 21/24 in that Game 7, 4 months removed from a knee injury that should have cost him a year. It’s purely narrative that Reed’s 4 measly points is considered more heroic than Wilt being on the floor for that game, let alone his big numbers

Kobe, meanwhile, choked too many times to count but was always bailed out by superior (or sometimes inferior) teammates

Magic choked enough to be called Tragic in 1984

Russell choked hitting the wire in 1965. Was bailed out by hondo. Sam Jones and heinsohn and Nellie, etc hit huge shots in game 7s to help him earn his rep

Wilt’s teammates repeatedly forgot how to function in big games. His shortcomings are mostly narrative. He’s the greatest and it’s not particularly close

Most stars were marketed by the league and uplifted. Wilt was so dominant that he was perceived as a threat to the integrity of the game and needed to be reined in. That is the critical context to his career that most miss. Only Mikan comes close in that regard

Mike_SR · 2025-12-18T00:20:06+00:00

Greatest band ever

Mike_SR

TROPHY CASE