When Luka Doncic, Dallas’s 6-foot-7 do-everything Slovenian import, strafed the Knicks for 60 factors, 21 rebounds and 10 assists in a comeback extra time victory late final month, commentators breathlessly famous that nobody, not even Wilt, had ever posted such a line.
Walt Frazier, the Hall of Fame guard who broadcasts Knicks video games and as soon as shared a backcourt with Garrett at Southern Illinois, has an thought why.
“What you mostly see now are guys running up and down, dunking on people,” he stated in a phone interview. “Only a few teams buckle down on defense. They don’t double-team when someone goes off. When someone came in and dropped 40 on me, it was always, ‘Clyde got destroyed.’ Now Doncic scores 60 and no one even says who was guarding him.”
Frazier, 77, was echoing latest laments on the state of the game from the old-school coaches Gregg Popovich and Steve Kerr. It’s no shock that appreciation, or lack thereof, for the modern N.B.A. would break down alongside generational strains. For those that performed with or in opposition to Chamberlain, he’s basketball’s Babe Ruth, the sport’s all-time goliath. Everyone has a story, maybe on the tall facet, to inform.
Billy Cunningham, 79, a Hall of Famer and Chamberlain’s teammate with the Philadelphia 76ers, cited the night time Gus Johnson, a really robust ahead for the Baltimore Bullets, went at Wilt with each intention of dunking over him as he’d achieved earlier within the sport.
Chamberlain didn’t simply block the shot, Cunningham stated: “He actually caught the ball, and while Gus went to the floor, he just stood there holding it over his head.”
However grainy the video, nevertheless dorky the quick shorts, don’t strive to persuade Cunningham and firm that what Chamberlain achieved was the results of an historical, inferior period. They will remind you that he averaged 45.8 minutes per sport for his profession and infrequently sat one out, in stark distinction to the extra coddled fashionable star — who, in equity, represents a far larger monetary funding to defend.
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