Why Jordan and Not Wilt (Nor Any Other Player) Is the Greatest Player Ever

Since 1998, it has been rather obvious that Michael Jordan was the greatest basketball of all time.  It still amazes me that this is not 100 percent universal – similar to Babe Ruth in baseball.  

And because I have lived in Philadelphia for the last 15 years of my life, the player I hear most often, after Jordan, as the best player of all time is Wilt Chamberlain.  I think Wilt’s fans, both in and out of Philly, must be turning a blind eye to his shortcomings for them to be still saying this. The same goes for all the other great players in NBA history.

Just so I am clear from the beginning, I am not saying that the basketball community overrates Wilt’s abilities as a player for all-time purposes. 

Since I have never seen a list that I am convinced where the balloting was done perfectly, I do not know for sure what place Wilt would come in if there were one. 

To do it right, the poll would need to have a ton of votes (1 million would be nice) and each person doing the voting would have to be pre-screened as a knowledgeable basketball fan (any type of fan:  players, coaches, sports commentators, and serious fans (preferably ones who at least 25 years old).  Good luck ever putting that together.

That being said, judging from what I have seen and read, if there was perfect poll I am certain Michael Jordan would come in first and Wilt would come in somewhere between (and including) second and sixth. 

Personally, I would place him sixth, but you could convince me at a weak moment, he should be second.  This is because I see almost no difference between the second through seventh greatest players of all time (Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Magic Johnson, Larry Bird, Bill Russell, Wilt, and Oscar Robertson).

Of the top seven players of all time, poor Robertson had the least amount of talent (Jerry Lucas, then Abdul-Jabbar, but not a lot in totality) around him during his career. 

I would place him seventh (and I suspect he would come in seventh), partially because he had only one championship, but I am not sure if this is fair given what I just said.  As you can see, I feel sorry for the “Big O.”

(To give you my perspective, which I think is helpful:  I was born in 1959, I started watching NBA basketball in November 1969, which is the year Abdul-Jabbar came into the league and a few months after Russell retired.)

And for years, I always felt sorry for Wilt because of all the talent that Bill Russell had with the Celtics.  Some people labeled him a loser and Russell a winner because of the disparity of championships won (11-2) and the fact that Wilt’s teams lost to Russell and the Celtics every time in the finals.

I would not label Wilt a loser any more than I would label Oscar, Peyton Manning, and Brett Favre losers because they each only have one championship.  However, when I finally analyzed Wilt’s career in great detail about a year and half ago for my article, “The 25 Greatest Basketball Players of All Time”, I found out that Wilt and his teams underachieved in the playoffs, and this really bothered me. 

And as a result, I now feel less sorry for Wilt and realize now that some of the criticism that was thrown at Wilt was more valid than I originally thought.  I always thought that the great Russell/Chamberlain debate was a dead heat, but after what I learned from my research, I have to give the edge to Russell overall. 

I still think that Wilt is the better individual player (this is very clear...Russell had no shot), however, Russell was the better team player AND his teams overachieved in the playoffs.

In my opinion, Russell, along with Magic, Bird, and Jordan (once he had some talent around him) were all clearly better than Wilt at making players around them better.

Let me make another point before Chamberlain fans start telling me that I do not know basketball (I assure that this is not true) as they feverishly defend their sports hero. I do not think that what I am about to point out prevents Wilt from being a great, great player (he clearly was), or that it necessarily prevents him from the second greatest basketball player of all time. 

I do feel strongly, however, that these shortcomings do prevent him being THE greatest basketball player of all time.  And there is a big difference.

I can’t tell you how hard I am trying to be as objective as possible about all of this and to make sure that I am being fair to Wilt.  I know that Wilt fans are not going to agree with this because they probably already have their minds made up that Wilt is THE greatest player of all time. 

Fair enough, after all, most of us understand that in reality there is no way to be 100 percent sure about any of this, since it is just an opinion.  But, let me give you a made up scenario to demonstrate that even if I am not right (highly doubtful), that at least I am being fair about of all this.

Let’s pretend it is 1946 and you sitting in a conference room with, say, 11 other basketball enthusiasts, as the NBA is about to begin its inaugural season. 

The 12 of you start discussing what qualities a great basketball player must possess in order to go down in the future as the greatest basketball player ever years from now.  (I wrote an article “Who’s the Greatest of All Time in a Particular Sport” if this type of thing interests you.) 

You come up a list of qualities needed and agree, coincidentally, to evaluate and revisit your list and all the players who ever played 63 years later in the year 2009.

The dozen of you come with the following list of qualities:

1.    a great individual player, BOTH offensively and defensively;
2.    a great team player, including being great at making your teammates better;
3.    the player’s teams won lots of championships;
4.    the player won several MVP awards;
5.    the player was great in the clutch;
6.    the player was great at closing out and winning close games, especially in the all-important playoffs;
7.    the player’s teams performed better in the playoffs and not worse; and
8.    did the player’s mere presence intimidate their opponents because of the player’s dominance?

Now, assuming that the player played with a decent amount of talent during their career, is there anything inherently unfair about any of the qualities on the list, or the list in general?  Well, I ran my list by a few intelligent, knowledgeable basketball fans, and no one saw anything wrong with the list, or any of the individual qualities on the list.

If you claim that the list is unfair, I suspect that you are being disingenuous because you do not like the implications as they apply to Wilt or to any other player that you think is the greatest player of all time, besides Jordan, of course.

Because Jordan is the only player in NBA history who satisfies everything on this list (or any reasonable list you could come up with) and is as close to a perfect basketball player as there ever has been. 

And that is why Jordan is the clearly the greatest basketball player ever and why the majority (or plurality, depending on the exact outcome of a perfect poll) of the basketball community thinks this is so. 

And not because all the millions of Jordan fans out there are all just a bunch of know nothing 6-year-olds mesmerized by his fancy dunks and exciting drives to the basketball.  Spectacular?  Yes, but he was also very fundamentally sound.

I once heard Red Auerbach say in an interview that he thought Russell was better than Jordan because if he had an all-time team he would have plenty of scoring, hence, he would choose Russell because he was a unique type of player with qualities other players did not have (so does Jordan, but he ignored that fact).

ESPN’s Tony Kornheisher of PTI says Magic (quickly corrected by Michael Wilbon, who says Jordan is the best all-time) is the greatest player of all time because he could play all five positions. These are NOT the correct standards.

The correct standard is, if you think about, is this:  Which player, if given 11 random players (we will give him at least 2 very good players or one great player so that he has a chance) to play with each year of his career would ultimately end up with the most championships.

And the reason that this is the correct standard is because in basketball, more so than any other major team sport (a quarterback in American football is the only player that comes close), a great player can have a large enough effect on the outcome of a game, so that he can POTENTIALLY lead his team to a championship.

In addition, the above example is the reality of the typical NBA player’s career, and not some kind of fantasy situation.  

Magic and Bird (for example) had more talent around them throughout their careers than Jordan and both ended up with fewer championship, hence, Jordan was better than both of them. 

Add the facts that Jordan was at least as good as them offensively and much better than them defensively, it really is very clear that Jordan is better than both of them.  I see no justification for putting Magic over Jordan and when they met in the finals it was rather obvious who the better player was.

This article is kind of a follow up to my “top 25” article, so I am going to repeat very little in what I covered in that article.  In summary, Robertson did not accomplish enough to be the greatest of all time, Russell was too poor offensively, and Abdul-Jabbar did not affect the outcome of a game to the same extent that Jordan did. 

As for Wilt, well, what I discovered in my latest research is not good news for him.

In summary, it wasn’t that poor Wilt did not have talent around him, or that he lost all the time in the playoffs to better teams with more talent; no, it was because Wilt did not get it done in the playoffs when he had the talent and because he never overachieved (i.e., never won a title) in the playoffs when he had a little less talent.

The bottom line if you want to be called the greatest player of all time in basketball, you have some team playoff success, and Chamberlain came up woefully short in that department. 

Here are the numbers, and I think they are ugly if that is the title you or your delusional fans are trying to associate you with.

For simplicity’s sake, I am just going to give you Russell’s (R), Jordan’s (J), and Wilt’s (C) numbers (and because the other players numbers are more middle of the road).  I am going to go with the rather straightforward assumption that the team with the best record during the regular season was the best team and most likely had the most talent.  Here goes:

Titles won:  R-11;  J-6;  C-2
Number of years that their team had the best record during the regular season:  R-9;  J-4;  C-4
Number of years their team had the better record when they made the finals:  R-9;  J-4;  C-4
Record in the finals:  R 11-1;  J 6-0;  C 2-4
Over/underachieved when their team had the best regular season record:  R +2; J +2; C -2
Over/underachieved when their team had the better record in the finals:  R +2; J +2; C -2
Number of playoffs series lost when their team had the better record:  R 1;  J  0;  C  5
Number of playoff series won when their team had the worst record:  R  5;  J  4;  C  2
Over/underachieved in the playoffs (series):  R +4;  J +4;  C -3

(Note:  In 1998, the Bulls and Jazz had identical records, however, the Jazz beat the Bulls both times that year and got the home court advantage.  Hence, I considered the Jazz to have the better record.)

MYTH #1:  The only reason that Chamberlain only won two titles is because he only played on two really good teams in his entire NBA career.

This is simply NOT TRUE:  Wilt’s teams had the best record in the league four times and he teams made the playoffs in 13 out of his 14 seasons.

The difference between Russell’s and Jordan’s success in the playoffs as opposed to Wilt’s is absolutely staggering.  Jordan and Chamberlain should have, if regular season records held true to form, had the same number of titles, but Jordan ended up with six (twice winning when he should not have) and Chamberlain ended up with two (twice losing when he should have won). 

Jordan’s teams NEVER, ever lost a playoff series when his team had the better record while this happened to Chamberlain whopping five times.  And three times, his teams were crushed despite having the better record (3-0, 4-1, 4-1). 

Jordan won four playoff series (twice in the finals) when his team had the worst record and Wilt only did this twice in the playoffs and never did it the finals.

Jordan NEVER ever lost in the finals while Wilt lost four times and twice when his team had a better record than the other team. 

MYTH #2:  Chamberlain kept losing to Russell in the playoffs every year because Russell almost always had the better team.

This is also VERY UNTRUE:  Chamberlain played against Russell eight times in the playoffs; each player was on the team with the better regular season record an IDENTICAL four times.

Yet, Russell’s teams won an astounding seven out of eight times. Wilt lost to Russell in the playoffs once in the finals (1969) and twice in the semis (1966 & 68) when his team had the better record during the regular season.  And Wilt never beat Russell when the Celtics had the better record. 

As a result, despite Wilt’s 76ers having the best record in the league three years running, Chamberlain only came home with only one title in those three years (1967).

And just in case you are going to claim that maybe Wilt and 76ers did not match up with the Celtics and that is why they lost (as opposed to Wilt underachieving again in the playoffs), this is also not true. 

In the two years in question the 76ers did just fine in the regular season against the Celtics.  In 1966, the 76ers won the season series, 6-4, and in 1968 the season series was tied, 4-4.

MYTH #3:  Chamberlain did not play with much talent throughout his career.

This is also simply NOT TRUE:  While I think Russell had a little a more talent throughout his career (because of the numbers of years each player played with him), Chamberlain also played with a lot of talent and the talent difference was less than people think.

Russell played with Bob Cousy (6 titles with Russell), John Havlicek (6), Sam Jones (10), Bill Sharman (3), and he also played with a fifth and sixth Hall of Famer, K.C. Jones (8) and 6-time all-star, Tom Heinsohn (8).  Perhaps you have heard of them. 

Cousy and Havlicek would make almost any knowledgeable basketball fan's top 25 (they made mine).  The CELTICS won 11 championships with Russell leading them; Russell did not win 11 championships by himself. 

Chamberlain, despite supposedly not having enough talent around to beat Russell's Celtics, actually played with, amazingly, 6 members of the 50 greatest players (Paul Arizin, Nate Thurmond (only one year), Billy Cunningham, Hal Greer, Elgin Baylor, and Jerry West); and Gail Goodrich and Tom Gola, both Hall of Famers (8 total) and 5-time All-Stars).  Perhaps you have heard of them also.  Maybe I should repeat that: eight Hall of Famers, the MOST of the seven best players of all time.

While Baylor was 34 when Wilt arrived in LA, he still two great years left (24.4 ppg, 10.5 rpg, 5.4 apg) and West was still in his prime and put up huge numbers (the second year he averaged a league leading 31.2 ppg).  However, both these years Wilt and the Lakers lost in the finals in seven games. 

Jordan played with only one member of the 50 greatest players of all time (Scottie Pippen) and only two possible Hall of Famers (Pippen and Dennis Rodman , for only three years).  And he was so great in the finals, that none of his six finals that he played in even made it to the seventh game and as mentioned, he won all six.  Huge difference.

While the reasons that Chamberlain underachieved in the playoffs are not as important as the fact that he did underachieved for purposes of our discussion, it does hold some interest.  My first theory is covered in my  “top 25” article, but it bears repeating:  Wilt, I suspect, lost playoff series because he was a lousy free throw shooter (.511), especially in the playoffs (.465). 

With the exception of possibly his final two seasons, Chamberlain was always both the best player on the team and the best offensive player on the team with a high career shooting percentage (.540) even in the playoffs (.522).  (In the first seven years of his career, he WAS the offense on his team.)

Russell, in contrast, was never the offensive focal point of his team.  Jordan was the best closer and clutch player in the history of the game and an excellent free throw shooter (.835).

And Jordan also came up huge defensive plays the fourth quarter of many of his playoff wins.  Honestly, aren’t these the type of things that you want from YOUR greatest player ever?

This is from my “25 greatest” article (which I trying not repeat, but this is important), “To be ranked No. 1 all-time, the player has to be able to lead his team to victory in any close games and especially in close playoff games.  A lousy foul shooter cannot do this.  Close games happen far too often in the playoffs for this not to be part of his repertoire.  He has to be able to get the ball in the final five minutes of a close game and score consistently, and that includes the times that he will inevitably get fouled.”

You can cite all the individual Chamberlain stats from now until the end of time and all that will prove is that he was a great individual player and maybe be the most dominant player during the regular season.  But, it won’t get you within a mile of being the greatest player ever. 

Take a minute now and go back and look at the list we came up with in 1946 for qualities you would want for the greatest player ever.  And then notice how Chamberlain comes up woefully short in several of them.

I am sorry to be the one to shatter some of Chamberlain's myths.  But, facts are facts and myths are meaningless.  And I think you are delusional if you that think that a player who succeeded so little in the post season was THE greatest player ever. 

Now take a look at our list and notice that Jordan is the only player is history that satisfies everything on the list or any other reasonable list of qualities that you would want from the greatest player.

Abdul-Jabbar was the next closest and that is why I would put him second.  But, Jordan did everything right once he hit his prime and was clearly the greatest player ever.  And, sorry, as of March 2009, this is not open to debate.