[Stardust]

No need for the insults, SD. I assure you that I am somewhat educated and my math skills are certainly good enough to read a stat line. All you have offered is an opinion because there are no stats available to you to support your position. It is akin to a lawyer resorting to insults and theatrics when he knows he is defending a guilty client. :biggrin:

According to Wilt, his average dropped after his first 7 seasons because his coaches asked him to shoot less and involve his teammates more, which he did. Obviously, with a shooting percentage of nearly 73% in his final season, if he had wanted to score more (or had his coach wanted him to), he could have done so. The bottom line is that once Wilt was surrounded by some decent players, he began passing the ball more and shooting less.

What Wilt did not do was let himself get out of shape to the point his rebounding numbers plummeted the way that Shaq's have (although Shaq was never in Chamberlain's class as a rebounder).

What you don't get about international basketball is that those teams are still much less athletic than NBA teams are. How many international players who are high draft picks are extremely athletic? Very few. They are prized by NBA teams because they are so often more polished skill-wise and come from more team-oriented systems than American college players. In other words, the international players have much in common with NBA stars of the 60s and 70s.

Hoot, you are insulting your ownself when you make comments about how the US dominated International Basketball of the 60's and did not acknowlege that the game is so much better today than it ever was. And in 20 years, it will be better than it ever was today. You cannot feasibly make comparisons of players from era's, it is not possible - EVER. A person would be completely out of their mind to think an NBA player would ever put up the single season numbers that Wilt did, that's just ludicrous to even acknowledge. International Players were not even playing in the 60's. The african nations did not even play the game then. The European nations did not cultivate Basketball players until the 70's. The US created the game, thus they had decades over any of the other countries.

Bottom-line, stats against inferior athletes by a player ahead of his time does not translate to today. It's an easy comparison about how much better athletes are today. Jesse Owens was the greatest athlete of his time. Today he would lose in High School track events! Wilt was the greatest player of his era. He would never put up those numbers today!