Why were the old giants bad?

How would they determine an average height anyway? Don't they measure the players now? In past eras they did stories about exaggerated listed heights in the NBA. There would be no way to get an accurate measurement of 50s, 60s, 70s, etc. players to compare with the current group.

Here is an article in which contemporary player, J.J. Redick says that the top NBA players of pre-1980 would not be competitive today. He says they were playing against "plumbers and firemen." According to the article, many in the NBA agree with Redick.
https://thecomeback.com/espn/jj-redick-bob-cousy-plumbers-firemen.html

 

The U.S. population in the 1930s was 120+ million. Today, it's 330+ million. Only 14 percent of all men in the U.S. may be over six feet today, like there were then. But there are nearly three times as many men in that 14 percent category.

 

Of course I have:

https://runrepeat.com/height-evolution-in-the-nba

This is the most basic analysis of this topic, but it doesn't include the fact that players were measured without the shoes before the early 1970s. Since then, players height got inflated by around 1-1.5 inch (which can be seen when you analyze draftcombine measurements). To see more straightforward analysis, you can start here:

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That's a myth, Wilt faced centers that were on average as tall as centers today.

Sure, but NBA didn't exist back then. That's my point, you can't compare NBA to boxing.

 

No, they did it once two years ago but even then teams were inconsistent with it.

Teams had a simple way to get height numbers back then - they took college numbers. That's why most players were listed inaccurately back then.

Still, we have a lot of contemporary reports from preseason camps.

Redick has become a meme recently, you shouldn't take this too seriously.

Edit: I just looked at this article and these guys included here are not any experts or even "in the NBA". We're talking about Stephen A. Smith and his company, ultimate hot take artists.

 

That’s not a valid source. “Dantheman” is pushing an agenda with his cherry picked data and hilarious photoshop that makes Wilt’s head look like he’s Andre the Giant.

We both know that pro basketball existed before the NBA was officially formed that it’s irrelevant to use that as a cop out.

 

There were pretty much much 0 big guys in 1900. Only 4% of men in the USA, for example, were above 6' in 1900. https://naldc.nal.usda.gov/download/IND43861419/PDF

Nowadays 15% of all men and 20% of young men are equal or taller than 6 feet. Due to how standard deviations work (in height 1 SD is 2.5 inches), this means that a 6'6 person would be over 50x as rare in 1900 than 2020. 6'6 would be 4.5 standard deviations from the norm in 1900 and 3.5 in 2020. For IQ, 3.5 standard deviations is 152 (1 in 3,795) vs 4.5 standard deviations, 167 (1 in 251,000)

When you consider how many more countries (are into boxing) and people in general there are now, it's no surprise at all.

 

Yes you are correct. Three times as much of everything.

without the advances in sports, the giants still wouldn’t get a look in. They would have three times as many old school elite heavyweights to get past.

 

Population exists on a bell curve, not just as a multiple.

The bell curve shifted to the right, making the increase in big people disproportionate to the increase in the rest of the population.

 

He doesn't, he just posts data collected from articles from the 1960s. As far as I know, he never did what you accuse him of either.

Even if you don't believe dantheman, you can use offical sources and 1960s NBA was only one inch shorter on average than 2020s NBA.

What source do you have for "Wilt played against small guys"?

You specifically mentioned NBA, if you want to talk about pre-NBA leagues then it's another matter.

 

Redick is an idiot. Only an idiot would call Chamberlain, Oscar Robertson, Jerry West, Elgin Baylor, Bill Russell and John Havlicek plumbers.

 

I don't think he's an idiot, I think he does it on purpose.

 

These are the guys who Wilt scored 100 points against:
Player Pos Min FGM FGA FTM FTA Reb Ast PF Pts
Willie Naulls F 43 9 22 13 15 7 2 5 31
Johnny Green F 21 3 7 0 0 7 1 5 6
Darrall Imhoff C 20 3 7 1 1 6 0 6 7
Richie Guerin G 46 13 29 13 17 8 6 5 39
Al Butler G 32 4 13 0 0 7 3 1 8
Cleveland Buckner 33 16 26 1 1 8 0 4 33
Dave Budd 27 6 8 1 1 10 1 1 13
Donnie Butcher 18 3 6 4 6 3 4 5

Imhoff was 6’10, 220 making him a modern small forward who would get bullied by larger men like Lebron and Kevin Durant.

Buckner was a size smaller at 6’9, 210.

Everyone else on the Knicks was both shorted and lighter.

The Sixers were playing two guards who were about 6’0 and 180 pounds.

This doesn’t resemble modern pro basketball. I’ll go so far as to say that various Euro teams would smoke them.

This is like pretending that Fred Fulton was the same size and Wlad Klitschko.

 

Imhoff was 6'10 without the shoes, which is the size of average center in the league right now. His 220 lbs is his college weight, he weighed more than that as a pro. There is no way that KD would bully Imhoff, have you ever seen him on the court?

You picked this game only because Phil Jordon missed it and he was also 6'10 veteran. You also picked Knicks because they were relatively small team.

Again, this is Knicks starting lineup in 1962 season (measured without the shoes with college weights):

PG: 6'2 175 lbs Al Butler
SG: 6'4 195 lbs Richie Guerin
SF: 6'6 225 lbs Willie Naulls
PF: 6'5 200 lbs Johnny Green
C: 6'10 205 lbs Phil Jordon

Average: 6'5.4 and 200 lbs

This is 2022 Warriors starting lineup (measured with shoes with college weights):

PG: 6'3 185 lbs Steph Curry
SG: 6'6 200 lbs Klay Thompson
SF: 6'7 200 lbs Andrew Wiggins
PF: 6'6 230 lbs Draymond Green
C: 6'9 220 lbs Kevon Looney

Average: 6'6.2 and 207 lbs

I see no difference basically.

 

So you cherry picked the smallest team in the nba, which is just a bunch of shooters by design?

We can debate this further if you put your weird agenda aside.

 

This thread is is developing into Monty Pythons ‘archaeology today’ sketch.