"Wilt and the Game"

Where have you gone Wilt Chamberlain, the basketball fan turns its lonely eyes to you

Wilt the Stilt Chamberlain played basketball at the University of Kansas. He left Kansas U.  after his junior year in 1958. Wilt stood 7’1”, and flat-footed could lift his arms to a height of 9’6”.  Lest you think he was just an unusually tall guy consider: he was a star on the track and field team for three years and one former teammate said he was the best conditioned athlete he’d ever seen, that he never got tired. A sports writer coined the phrase “Wilt the Stilt” because of his long thin legs but the nickname he preferred most was “The Big Dipper”. He dominated college basketball and went on to have a Hall of Fame career in the professional ranks. 50 years later Wilt still holds many NBA records. He averaged 30 points and 20 rebounds a game for his entire career. (Today if an NBA player does a 30/20 game it’s the lead story on ESPN)  He had (45) 50 point games and (63) 40 point games in his career. His best professional year was 1961-62.

Think about these numbers: In that year he averaged 48 minutes a game which means he averaged playing every minute of every game. He fouled out a couple of times but his minutes in overtime games made up for it. That year his scoring average per game was 50.4, his shooting pct. that year was 73% which is still  a record and one not likely to ever be surpassed. Also, Wilt averaged 27.2 rebounds per game. You have to understand he was a force of nature. But his best moment occurred on March 2, 1962 in Hershey, Pa. His Philadelphia Warriors were playing the New York Knicks. They were playing in Hershey because the arena they played at in Philadelphia had been previously scheduled. That night Wilt scored 100 points. He had 59 points in the first half and made 22 of 33 shots in the first half. Overall he made 36 baskets by himself and the rest came on free throws as the hapless Knicks resorted to fouling him the minute he touched the ball.  His main moves were the slam dunk, a fade away jump shot that included using the backboard (bank shot) and his patented finger roll where he simply got high enough (the rim is 10 feet off the ground) to let the ball roll off his upturned hands into the basket. 

He wasn't just a one season wonder; years later in 1967 when he was playing against the Baltimore Bullets he made 18 straight field goals, still a record. He played 11 NBA seasons and retired arguably the most dominant force ever to play the game. Because he was an athlete (not just tall) after his professional basketball days were over he went on to play professional beach volleyball on the sands of Southern California. He was still playing professional volleyball well into his fifties. He is also in a professional Volleyball league Hall of Fame.

I never met him but I saw him 3 times. The first two times was when he played for the Los Angeles Lakers. My god what a show he put on. He slammed home basket after basket. He finger rolled, did the fade away jumper. One of the games I saw he scored 42, which was fairly routine for him. The second game he scored 39 but he was repeatedly hacked and fouled by the other team. You see Wilt was also a notoriously bad free throw shooter.  Had he made his free throws at the then league average of near 70% his career scoring average would have been even higher.

The third time I saw him was on the beach in Santa Monica long after his NBA days. I had gone there with a friend and he was walking across the parking lot. He was huge with his burly, muscular upper body on those long thin legs. I was staggered by him because I knew how famous he was and what an icon he was in the sporting world. But, here he was just headed to the beach in flip-flops and a gym bag as nonchalantly as ever.  He never sought the limelight like so many athletes do today.

This posting is NOT just about Wilt Chamberlain per se. I mention him and his scoring accomplishments to address 2 major problems with the game of basketball today.

Wilt’s scoring feats could never be done again because the game of basketball has changed too much. It is not the same game that Wilt played decades ago. It is in name (of course) and it’s still a case of whoever scores the most points wins but key things have changed the game for the worse. Basketball today is the antithesis of scoring points. I hate the way basketball is played today.

CONSIDER: Forget one person scoring a hundred points in a game most NBA teams do not score 100 points (collectively) in a game. Last night I saw the NBA’s NY Knicks play the Utah Jazz and after 24 minutes of basketball the score was 34-31. The half time score was 42-40. Look I announced games for Poway High School in San Diego and Poway used to have 30 points in the first quarter. Keep in mind high schools play 8 minute quarters and the NBA plays 12 minute quarters. I once announced a game where Poway scored 110 points and the team they played scored 69. One hundred seventy nine points in 32 minutes of action. The crowd was so excited they could barely catch their breath.

There was a recent Division I (highest division) college game where after 40 minutes of play the final score was 34-31. The lowest combined score since 1952. Wilt, would turn over in his grave to see what is going on in basketball. So too would Pistol Pete Maravich another shooting wizard from the late 60’s who often (himself) scored 34 points in a half. What in the name of Dr. James Naismith is going on?

 Here are the 2 biggest problems in basketball today and why it’s ruining the game.

The first problem is the installation of the 3 point line (now referred to as the “arc”).  The 3 point line was introduced as a way to add scoring (you could get three points for a basket instead of two if you could hit a longer range shot) and the theory was it would help teams catch up quicker if behind. It’s true that it has created a bunch of memorable last second “3 pointers” that have tied or won games.  However, these few ESPN video moments do not make up for the sluggish, woeful, ugly games that are played every day of a season.  Teams “jack up 3’s” all night long and miss anywhere from 50-100% of them. When these constantly raining missed shots carom all over the place it makes the tall player under the basket pointless. Why be a good re bounder and learn to box out the opponent? Why when the long range shot (some shots are 30+ feet out) is likely to bound backwards or angle off in some bizarre way? Traditional rebounds “under the basket” are mostly gone replaced by scrabbling for a ball that reacts like a pinball. 

So here is how it goes, a team brings the ball up court and all five offensive players spread out around the arc. Sloppy, truthfully illegal (if they called it the way the rule states) screens are set and the ball is passed around the perimeter. If a player doesn't get free to rush in for a layup and take his beating; one of the players will “jack up a 3 pointer”. Since at least 4 offensive players are behind the arc when the ball goes up there is no point rushing in to get a rebound (because you can’t even reasonably predict where it might go) so the whole offensive team immediately falls back to their defensive end of the court. The other team gets an easy uncontested rebound and they bring the ball up the court and do the same exact same thing. The game becomes a “half-court” shoot fest and thug a thon. The game slows down; there are few fast break transition baskets. The full court press perfected by UCLA back in the 60’s and a significant reason for their decade and a half dominance in college basketball is simply rendered useless.

Players today shoot 3’s in practice, that’s the game they want to play and most of them couldn't hit a mid-range jumper if their scholarship was on the line. I see these players today and sometimes the ball will be in their hands about 12-15 feet from the basket (inside the arc) and they are wide open (no one there to guard them) and they seem virtually paralyzed. They look lost. Years ago that was the land of scoring but today it seems more like no man’s land. Most times they will look to pass. Sidney Wicks, Curtis Rowe, John Vallely, Henry Bibby (Great UCLA players from the past) and scores of other lived off the 12-15 foot open shot.

The 3 point line along with allowing defensive players to virtually mug the offensive player and get away with it has made trying to get close to the basket the Bataan death march.

 I mean the defensive player(s) virtually climbs up on the offensive player’s back and/or grabs, slaps pushes and hacks away. The guy dribbling the ball must literally take his free arm and shove the defensive player backwards. In the past that in itself was a foul. Today it’s called self-defense and the officials let both actions go (the mugging and the effort to push the attacker away). The defensive big man literally shoves hacks and mugs his offensive counterpart. If every foul were to be called properly there would be no players on the court by half time. None!

The made 3 point shot can be impressive, the slam dunk dramatic but c’mon man with the 3 point line, the rough street ball fouls that aren't called, the lack of fundamental skills in general, the inability of a college player today to even understand that an uncontested 12 foot shot should be easier to make than a contested 25 footer, the game has de-evolved. An NBA team this year scored 58 points in a game. 58 total points in a game. Wilt the Stilt (alone) had 59 by half time in 1962.  Let’s get this game away from the innovators that have ruined it. Let’s get rid of the 3 point line, start calling the fouls, spend more time on fundamentals in practice (what kind of drills do they run in practice for god’s sake), and restore the game to the beauty it was. Hall of Famer Jerry West,  “Zeke from Cabin Creek” was a prolific college and NBA scorer (he was also on Wilt’s L.A. Lakers team) and he stood about 6’3”. If he were playing today he would average 12 pts. a game and sport 2 black eyes, and double hernia.

I swear if I win the Power ball lottery I’m going to start a 2 pt. league and get basketball back to the 120-119 thrilling games I grew up with. It was a game where players could show their basketball skills and innovative play.  I’d love to watch the UCLA full court pressure for about 10 minutes, a Sidney Wicks 12 foot bank shot, Pistol Pete drive the lane, Jerry West’s patented 15 footer or even better see a Wilt the Stilt finger roll.