How Wilt Chamberlain has been replaced by Ben Simmons.
One of the most bizarre NBA stories in the last fifteen years is currently unfolding. Hence, even though the other parallels are a little too strange, I can not resist but dumb it down by drawing comparisons to another all-time great who was traded twice in his prime. While his fellow star center missed a significant portion of the season, 25-year-old Ben Simmons, a two-time NBA All-Defensive player and All-NBA player, recently locked up the top seed in the East.
As of right now, only the two clubs with the lowest run totals in the league are interested in trading for Simmons, suggesting that his apparent trade value is zero. Hoops Wire claims that the Timberwolves and Cavaliers are those teams. Even so, how is this even logical? Furthermore, why does Chuck Klosterman’s statement, “I can not think of any athlete whose reputation is so drastically inferior to his real achievements,” sum up Wilt Chamberlain’s career?
Allow me to clarify: Wilt’s obsession with records and statistics, which he valued more than actual victory, was his worst weakness. For instance, since high school, he has been obsessed with maintaining the meaningless trend of never getting fouled out of a game. John Havlicek gave this description in “Hondo.”
In an attempt to appease the fans, Simmons posts pointless training videos of himself making threes against YMCA youngsters every offseason. Instead, it was, at most, a brief stoppage of the criticism. In the worst case scenario, it served as a magnifying glass into his biggest flaw and increased the pressure on him to make three-pointers against real NBA players.
