Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Greatest NBA Player or Top 5

You might want to brush up on what you know about Mike and H335!

Ah, someone needs brushing up. Cause it was Magic and Bird that saved the NBA.

335 is a bomb waiting to happen, especially when you use too much of it...

Someone had to put it on the map to begin with.

Let’s bear in mind that if Jordan hadn’t left to play baseball, he very likely would have 8 rings.

Whatever you think of Lebron as a person, he pretty much deserves to be in the conversation for how good he has been for so long…..

I'm a huge Wilt fan. But, the NBA was showing taped playoff games before Bird and Magic came on the scene. Wilt makes my 5 best team. So does Bird.

Just to add to this, I was stationed in Long Beach, Cal in 1971 when the Lakers (Wilt, Jerry West and gang) rang up 33 consecutive wins along with the NBA championship. The same time Walton was at UCLA. Great year for basketball!

I think Jordan was the best of all time, but I preferred to watch Larry Bird the most. I doubt there will ever be another rivalry like Bird & Johnson. They were the best to watch.

I played HS basketball on 2 Class A state championship runners-up & lots of city league ball & loved to watch it until 10 years or so ago, when it just turned full frontal to thug ball.

So I haven't paid much attention to players since that time with maybe the exception of LeBron James & haven't watched more than a few minutes here or there................so that biases my opinions.

Jordan is the best player followed closely by Doctor J & Larry Bird............too bad he was hurt so much in his last several years, probably the best shooter ever, especially if it meant something.

After those 3, pick who you like.........Wilt wasn't much of a player, he was just waaaaaay bigger than anyone else at the time. Ditto for Jabbar, but he was a better player than Wilt.

Magic Johnson doesn't make my top 5, maybe not top 10; Kobe Bryant wasn't a favorite, but he was better.

LeBron James has to rank high, along with Oscar Robertson, Jerry West, Bill Russell, Stockton, Havlichek, Elgin Baylor, Rick Barry, George Gervin, Walt Frazier just to name a few more.

Besides Bird, some of the absolutely best shooters I've seen were Jerry West, Dave Debushere, Rick Mount, Rick Barry & Bill Bradley.

MM

Was Jordan the best? Larry Bird was a force to be reckoned with…

Better make room for Luka Doncic.

Maybe there is some confusion between "best" player and some of the better shooters?

Saying Wilt wasn't much of a player, to me, is like saying Dr. J wasn't much of a player.
He also wasn't way bigger, at least in height. The average height for a center when he played was 6'10". For the last 20 years its been 6' 11". He wasn't even the tallest player to play in the 1960's.

Jabbar was a better pure shooter, especially the farther he got from the basket. He was a better shooter than Dr. J. By the time he played Chamberlain, Wilt pretty much didn't try to score. He still led the league in rebounds most years (and probably blocked shots, steals for a center and assists for a center) despite Kareem and a lot of other HOF centers playing at that time.

Unfortunately the most points in a game with 100% shooting is 42 and it was set by somebody who wasn't much of a player. I think everyone believes Wilt just dunked the ball over everyone, like Shaq, but most of his points came from a fadaway. Refs actually called the game back then and his fadaway developed out of that necessity. He never fouled out of a game. Was he a lockdown shooter? No. But inside with the fadaway, every time. It was almost like the sky hook, except he scored even more.

Steph Curry is an insane shooter, but the game has changed today where there are some real easy points that just didn't happen back in the day. But he's lights out. Still took him 14 years and 3 pointers to score more as a Warrior than Wlit. Wilt set that mark in 6, despite not being much of a player...

Despite the contrary, if everything else is ignored and this becomes all about scoring, Wilt is the still leader and it isn't even close.

Guess we'll have to just disagree.

Yes, Wilt was a dominant force, no doubt & no doubt he did score, but he never ran a fast break, or even hustled up the court for a followup on one, couldn't dribble more than 3 feet & had no real passing skills other than out of necessity.

If you think he was the "best" player, that's fine; to me he was not; didn't say he wasn't dominant & didn't say he couldn't score.............just that he wasn't the "best" player, IMO. Kinda like a one trick pony.

Different views, that's all.

And yes, there was a semblance of reffing in those days compared to now; if Bird had played in the days of tighter reffing, he would have been even better..............he got beat like a cheap drum most nights, 7 way more than Jordan did as he got a LOT of preferential treatment. Again, just my opinion.

MM

I'll let video speak for itself.

Yes, of course the film (cherry picked) makes him look better in those clips than I remember, taken on the whole.

So rock on with your vision; I'll do the same with mine.

But I will say that Chamberlain was probably the best of all the really big men.

MM

i'll take wgaf for 100, alex

John Stockton. Besides being the best true PG ever, he stood up to all the wokesters regarding the vax-scene and masks. His alma matter, Gonzaga, revoked his season tickets over not wearing a mask to a game. Imagine doing that to the guy that put you on the basketball map. He has not been to a game since.

I would call the
I would call it cherry picked if his entire career was on video .

There's less than 10% of it out there, most from playing with the Lakers, where he quit trying to score after one season. He played for the 76ers when he lead the league in assists.

There's no video of the 100 point game, 70 point games or any of the games he blocked over 20 shots except maybe the Atlanta game in the 70s.

You can watch Larry drop 60 on the Hawks, Kobe score 80 or see every amazing pass Magic made any time you want. I consider those cherry picked.

Of the top ten highest scores with 100% shooting, Chamberlain has the top two spots and places two more times.

No question about it. He's an incredible talent.