I remember this. Lew was a couple years in the league and the sports media turned on Wilt by no longer calling him "the greatest" and flipped to a "has-been."
Wilt took it personal. And he gave Lew everything he could handle. Lew would have never mastered that sky hook without having to battle Wilt.
An inspirational thread for us to hold on to this year.
Shout out to Doke!
Wow, according to those 30 Lew highlights, Wilt sucked
Look at those girlie man arms on Jabbar!
@drgnslayr Only a complete fool would raise the ire of Doke!
This footage shows how freakishly great both players were. Jabbar was so good he ate Wilt's lunch at first. But then over time you can see Superman keep searching for the set of adjustments needed to first contain Jabbar, then neutralize him, then dominate him. Wilt figured out Jabbar liked to play with the ball away from his body, liked his feet wide, liked one big step to explode into whatever move he used, but was very rigidly choreographed in Jabbar's awesomely efficient footwork. Jabbar was probably the best drilled, most fundamentally sound, offensive player combined with the most talent Wilt ever encountered, maybe the best in those regards of any center ever. Wilt could NOT stop Jabbar, if he played Jabbar straight up. But he could beat Jabbar rather handily, if he could break up Jabbar's rigidly choreographed footwork, deny him his favorite spots, and force Jabbar to play with the ball close to his body. In short, he cramped Jabbar's style by denying him the ability to use his full range of movement and his drilled footwork. To do it, Wilt needed some help from perimeter players to crowd Jabbar toward Wilt and strip him if he tried pivoting or dribbling for space to work. Once that was done, you can see Wilt trying to interrupt Jabbar's footwork. Only AFTER Jabbar's footwork was disrupted and Jabbar could not explode to full height, did Wilt then start challenging him. Wilt denied him his spots, his footwork and his range of motion, then blocked his shot. Very shortly Jabbar cracked from not being able to play his game and Wilt controlled him. It was an amazing clinic in finding an opponent's weaknesses. Thanks for posting it.
Wilt was determined. And Wilt had the attitude, "whatever it takes!" Fortunately, Wilt had rare athleticism that gave him many paths on the "whatevers."
Lew was a bit more formalized and stayed within his known skills.
I think we should all be glad their paths crossed. This was, and always will be, the "Frazier vs Ali" battle.
Copy and paste.
One more thought. I have always wondered if Jabbar would have been a better, or worse, player had he not smoked pot.
Jabbar had great gifts, great accomplishments, and great longevity, so pot, or not, might not have made a difference.
Pot may even have made him better. I read where he said he had some migraines and mood issues. Pot might have made them better, or worse. Can't say.
Wilt reputedly was not a big pot user. He was one of the early healthy life style guys, though that was overshadowed by his sexual exploits.
Wilt had pretty severe insomnia.
It is amazing how even the greatest of the great battle this or that disadvantage.
As pot grows in our society through legal or semi-legal means I'm sure it will become a bigger topic when relating to athletic performance.
If anyone has good info on this, please post it!
I'm having a hard time seeing it is as positive when considered all by itself. But when comparing it to other substance uses that it may be replacing for a similar effect, I see it different.
Pain management - Personally, I think pot is extremely helpful for pain management without the addictive risk of opioids. Someone close to me is a guard who played D2 ball and was given pain meds for his Achilles injury. He got hooked and is still battling that for now 2 1/2 years. He's a clean cut kid turned into a junkie and an upside down lifestyle. It's killing me. Really.
Recreation - It is far superior to alcohol, on so many levels. Pot is 100% non-toxic. Very few substances on our planet are 100% non-toxic. Also, it doesn't impact blood sugar levels... calorie free! Another thing.. it is not a depressant! It doesn't kill the liver, and instead, may be useful in preventing some versions of cancer.
Lifestyle - Mixed results here. Pot affects people differently. Regular use can lead to productivity issues with some people. Some users suffer issues like confusion, memory loss, lethargy and other things. Here, it depends on if you are comparing it to other substances or just viewing it on its own.
As far as Lew's substance of choice.... I don't know. Obviously, his performance results were great and he had a long career. He may be considered a "poster child" for pot use within the sports world, but I'm sure there are other examples that wouldn't fit well on a poster!
Great take!
Thoughtful and informative analysis.
I have a hard time with pot, but especially with claims about it good and bad. Science is going through a tough time with a lot of its once reliable journals starting to have to admit that the published research so heavily based on research grants from organizations with a sympathetic agenda to a lot of the organizations that may develop and exploit the research commercially cannot be replicated. One editor of Science magazine, if I recall correctly, finally threw up his hands and said most scientific publications claiming statistically significant findings just cannot be replicated independently and that science generally as a source of reliable information has been temporarily at least compromised. This is catastrophic if true. I am sorry I cannot point you to this story, because it has been several months ago and I just cannot find it after trying. That may say more about my memory, and about false information flying around the web, than about scientific journals. But even CDC has admitted to its publications and positions on vaccine toxicity related to thimersol (with a mercury based preservative component) in MMP supposedly NOT triggering autism, as having been false. Robert Kennedy, Jr., who has been leading the charge on vaccine toxicity and who recently published findings of his commission he has conducted for the Trump administration indicates that unreproducible research findings in many fields are now in question.
Unreproducible research findings refers to a second team of scientists taking the same data and models and coming up with differing results, indicating either accidental or intentional errors having been made in the first finding. It does not refer to differing approaches to studying the same phenomenon failing to tend to support each other's conclusions. To my knowledge, that can of worms has not even been opened yet.
And, of course, this comes at a time when two VERY troubling realizations have converged. Potentially broad based publication of unreproducible research findings may have coincided in the last decade, or two, with the production of a lot of global cooling, then global warming, then global climate change research findings. In short, there is now a possibility that the global climate change research is compromised, and that the climate projection modeling forecasting effects may be based on faulty research, and may be being falsified also. This is potentially huge. There is now a scary possibility that global climate change research findings have been contrived as a cover for both effects of global climate engineering activities (weather management and weather warfare), and as a phony rationale for creating international institutions to gain greater economic control over who gets to control the global economy. It means that climate change advocates may be the real climate deniers and that the conspiracy theorists and thousands of scientists that dissented about athropomorphic global warming may have been the climate realists after all. It is all too soon to tell.
What we do know is that all the propagandists and mind controllers and all those that have reason to fudge the numbers will be playing both sides of climate change, and both sides almost any research based issue being debated for their short term advantage.
My grad studies were in science. Probably the biggest take away from those long days of study is that "research" can easily be manipulated to form whatever result wanted. Ethics, high intelligence and protocols are crucial in forming quality studies. In the old days, most quality research was performed in the university setting. Many of those grants have dried up. Most research is performed by privatized research facilities, often funded through foundations trying to give an impression of legitimacy. But the truth is most of these organizations are on a mission to support their theories often motivated by profit.
Then, on top of this, the media is an uneducated soundboard of hype for all these findings, which are presented more like facts instead of just the findings of a single study. Meanwhile, the public isn't educated to know that studies do NOT prove anything beyond their findings for that particular study. And results are exposed in "confidence levels" not labels of true or false.
There are so many ways to manufacture results "researchers" want. The easiest pathway is through statistics. The methodology is crucial. Anything can be supported when working backwards through statistics, using a fishing strategy to support the target findings.
Global warming is not a scam. We are just starting to deal with some heavy realities. But the political fight should have never been directed towards global warming because it is a tougher battle to support how much of an impact mankind has on warming. The real fight should have stayed on pollution. Remember 20 or so years ago when the fight was on pollution instead of global warming? Do you think that was a mistake to change the conversation to warming?
The focus on pollution can be directly connected to our own health. The focus on pollution opens the door to just about everything concerning personal health; food and water quality, med toxicities (including vaccines), indoor pollutants, lifestyle areas impacting health... etc etc etc. That is a can of worms BIG BUSINESS does not want opened. BIG BUSINESS wants the masses focused on global warming not pollution!
I have two children.... ages 4 and 2. I am worried about the effects of global warming especially thinking of their futures. But I'm more concerned with their health. There is record respiratory disease in children. Blowing off the charts! But you don't see this hyped up on the news. You don't hear our news explaining how all the products sold in grocery stores has levels of toxicity and are basically a fraud of what they are making claim to. How much real nutrition is in that store-bought tomato? Why aren't the ingredients to processed foods easier to understand? How come the rug you bought for your house will out-gas very toxic chemistry you will inhale for decades? Why does the air we breath contain levels of benzene, toluene, xylenes, mercury, sulfur dioxide, VOCs... etc etc etc.
Confidence in "research findings" has largely collapsed and just become fuel for political partisanship. Both sides look for any findings supporting their agenda and blast all findings that go against them. This happens on both sides of the political aisle. Once again... BIG BUSINESS fuels these fights and give large contributions to both sides of the aisle. They just want the focus to stay away from their desire for a government of corporatism.
Through all of this, I am still a capitalist. I just believe that we need to regulate against monopolistic practices. Our DC politics are corrupt. Bribery is legal! Look at this FBI sting focusing on "illegal contributions." Heck... this is an everyday event in politics and all legal! More than that, it has been supercharged with recent laws like Citizens United!
The pot issue in our country is an interesting one. There have been studies performed on health issues concerning pot for decades. But the sources of those studies are in question. Our gov follows a very closed system for research in which they put confidence in. To some degree... this makes sense. But it is also used to control the power with research and the path taken. So the power works it way back to Congress, which works back to lobbyists, which works back to BIG BUSINESS!
The largest issue concerning pot relates to ownership of rights. Pot is natural, been used for centuries, been manipulated for specific results, both medical and recreational. That makes it a tougher entry for BIG BUSINESS. The tobacco industry would like to become the big pot producers, but how can they monopolize pot? They do it through patents on synthetic THC. As you read this today, BIG BUSINESS is busy in the labs, trying to find useful versions of THC.... CBDs.... CBNs...
The goal will eventually be to make pot HEAVILY ILLEGAL again except for the sale of pot through BIG BUSINESS. This is the goal. It is taking the path alcohol took. So there will be a need to demonize pot again. Suddenly, there will be propaganda produced showing that pot can be harmful if not purchased through BIG BUSINESS because their synthetic pot has somehow removed the risk.
That is the plan. However... there are massive risks in this approach. What we have discovered is that pot is a cocktail of substances and compounds that create very unique results from plant to plant, often depending on slight genetics mods, horticultural methodology, etc... and the discoveries are not easily exposed through synthetic science. In fact, pot has created many new mysteries relating to clone results through synthetic processes.
So perhaps BIG BUSINESS takes over pot. Meanwhile.... undergound "illegal" groups will continue to discover new effective results through organic processes. They will be targeted by BIG BUSINESS much the way drug cartels now fight it out in Mexico. This is going to get ugly. It already has. Many real scientists have been assassinated mysteriously based on their contradictory research concerning vaccines and other meds. Realize just how much money is involved? It truly dwarfs the entire illegal drug trafficking numbers. Not even in the same arena.
I'm no scientist, so I don't have any research or knowledge to base this on, but other than pain management, I think weed smoking would be either neutral or detrimental to athletes. Smoking, generally isn't good for lung stamina, so I can't imagine that it would help with endurance, etc.
It can be a relaxant, which is good, but too much probably would be like taking too many muscle relaxers.
I don't think its the huge issue its made out to be, but I also don't think it would be helpful to athletes.
I think it's relevance relates mostly to comparing it with other substances.
It won't be too much longer before sports media finally reports on the huge epidemic of athletes who have become addicted to opioids because they needed help with pain and originally turned to pain meds.
Pot can also be taken in oral form. Doesn't have to be smoked. That avoids the tar issue in lungs.
You just gave one of the best condensed discussions of the fight for pot I have read. Thx.
Pot has often been caught up in business dynamics.
Pot and booze. Booze won.
Pot and cotton. Cotton won. In Pre Civil War Dixie, Hemp was for naval stores (ropes and sails) and cotton was for clothes and bedding. Alas, hemp made better shirts, and steam ships and cable ended need for ropes and sails. But Brits and French wanted cotton and silk. Cotton won. Hemp became second fiddle.
Pot and medicine. Medicine won.
Pot and opioids. Opioids won.
Pot and cancer drugs. Cancer drugs won.
Pot and vaping. Vaping won.
Underneath it all is margins are bigger in what Pot has lost too.
Monopoly pricing is part of that.
Good post.
Pot doesn't have money backing it. At least... not yet. Big Business likes pot's current state being diffused into many small profiteers. This helps keep big money from coming to it's rescue because no big players involved.
Pot's legality related to pot being used as a tool to demonize Hispanic people crossing our southern border as well as other people of color. Pot was the tool used to defend racism -
"The effort to demonize cannabis was spearheaded by Harry Anslinger, director of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics from 1930 to 1962. Anslinger was able to stir up anti-cannabis sentiment by citing it as the cause of violent and unlawful acts by minorities. "Marijuana is the most violence-causing drug in the history of mankind," he stated. "Most marijuana smokers are Negroes, Hispanics, Filipinos and entertainers. Their satanic music, jazz and swing, result from marijuana usage.""
https://www.leafbuyer.com/blog/the-origin-of-the-term-marijuana/ ↗
Here is another example of how pot was attacked because of the economic threat of hemp to devastate the wood pulp industry. This is still a key factor today. Hemp has the promise to help our environment, yet it continues to be held back.
There has never been the avenue for profiteers to stand and support pot with large economic leverage. This has been the biggest issue around pot's legality.
Compare that to alcohol.