@Kcmatt7
Actually his data makes my case and my logic stands completely unimpeached by anything you've added.
You can continue to introduce fallacies and compound them into anything you like. I took the time to point out your fallacies to you once, starting with the fact that you fallaciously slid the era back to the era BEFORE small ball, which was not EVEN the era I was comparing. And I took the time to point out clearly and logically why his data made my case. You found not one fallacy in my reasoning. You merely took off on some other fallacious tangents.
I am not going to go through the ritual of pointing out your fallacies again. I don't want to be a grinch this early in the season.
I will just reassert the knowns.
Wilt actually did score 100 points in a game without charging, or traveling. He would have scored much, much more than 100 points that game had he been able to charge and travel at will. This is indisputable. How much is pure speculation. But when I was a kid, we all used to play grab by the rules for awhile and then occasionally just break all the rules for fun. We charged, and travelled, and hacked the charger, and so on. And what I remember is that if I could charge and travel at will, I was pretty much unstoppable. Because I was pretty strong and athletic, I could actually elude most of the gang tackling we did on the court to each other and I could hole the apple even with a guy or two holding me simply by getting to the rim. If I could do this, them imagine what Wilt might have done. Recall the impressive things Shaq, who couldn't shoot a lick, did.
Wilt actually did average circa 50 ppg without charging, or traveling. He would have averaged vastly more than that had he been able to charge and travel at will. Again, this is indisputable.
Wilt actually did maintain a relatively high shooting percentage when shooting essentially unprecedentedly high total FGAs, and an astronomical FG% when he tightened his FGAs to totals closer to what other centers, like Shaq have shot, and he actually did this WITHOUT being able to charge at will and walk as many steps as needed to score a dunk. Thus it is hardly anything but mastering the obvious to infer he would have shot a vastly higher percentage during both periods of his career had he been able to travel and charge at will.
Shaq never did anything without being able to charge at will and walk as many steps as needed to score a dunk; that was how it was during the era that he played. Wilt was still alive and watching the game, when Shaq played. In an interview of Wilt and Big Russ both Wilt and Big Russ made clear that they BOTH would have hung much bigger numbers being able to charge and walk at will. Surely we can trust two of the greatest centers of all time mastering the obvious, can't we? I mean, it isn't like they were lying out of vanity. No one seriously doubts that Wilt and Big Russ and Nate Thurmond and Willis Reed, and would have put up much bigger numbers being able to walk and charge at will had they played in the Shaq era. The total trips in the Shaq era may have been significantly less, but charging and walking would have largely off set fewer trips with higher percentages.
Shaq never shot a finger roll, much less mastered several a game.
Shaq never shot a turn around, fade away jump shot from 10-15 feet that I recall, much less mastered it and shot it in great numbers for 5 years, as Wilt did.
Shaq never played Bill Russell, or Kareem Jabbar in their primes. Wilt did.
Wilt would have made an awesomely higher percentage both in his early years and in his later years had he been able to charge and walk at will. Its just indisputable.
The point is: Shaq--without shooting skill--made high percentages, because he COULD charge and walk at will, even in an era with more contact allowed. Being able to charge and walk at will is a huge advantage. And the advantage is greatly magnified when you are massively bigger and stronger, as Shaq was. Charging and walking at his size were such gigantic advantages for Shaq that it did not matter that he played in an era with more athletic footers (if and only if we stretch the concept of "more" athletic to include the likes of awkward, knee injured guys like Dikembe Mutombo and Pat Ewing. It is therefore astonishing to me that anyone could reach a conclusion other than that if Wilt played in Shaq's era and were allowed to charge and walk like Shaq was, Wilt, being more athletic, and stronger, would have done even better than Shaq in Shaq's era.
Really, Wilt might have scored 120 or a 130 points in a game even in Shaqs era had he been able to charge and walk like Shaq. He couldn't have done it every night. But Ewing and Mutombo on bad knees? Wilt could pretty much have scored on them at will had he been able to charge and walk. Wilt could not have scored even a hundred on Olajuwan. But he could have hung 50-75 on Hakeem had Wilt been allowed to charge and walk playing Hakeem.
This underestimation, or even complete overlooking, of the advantage of charging and walking puzzles me.
