It Could Take Longer to Measure Up to Wilt Chamberlain…
As a Milwaukee Bucks staffer for almost 20 years, Dick Garrett has been serving spectators from a courtside folding chair at Fiserv Forum. Recently, he witnessed Giannis Antetokounmpo flirt with the Washington Wizards, floating over the rim like he was playing slam dunk contest.
Garrett remarked, “He was scoring fifty-five points and he was doing it so easy, like no one could even challenge him.” “Gosh, I am thinking, a man competing against lads.”
Similar to what he saw over fifty years ago, but from an even greater vantage point.
Garrett’s dominance on the court reminded him of his first NBA season (1969–70) with the Los Angeles Lakers. In that well-known one-name homage to fame, he lobbed passes into the post from his backcourt position to the man best known as Wilt during a postseason run that ended in a Game 7 finals loss to the Knicks.
Wilt Chamberlain, who once set a record with 100 points in a game and averaged an incredible 50 points per game for a season, has been statistically compared to Antetokounmpo and other players this season to the point where one may question whether the sport has reached the pinnacle of athletic excellence.
Or, if its video-game mimicry is as much or more the outcome of competitive engineering.
Due to the widespread 3-point shooting, attack the floor considerably more; create passing lanes for players with exceptional physical attributes like Antetokounmpo so they can score or locate open teammates on the perimeter. What you get in a league where team scoring has increased by about 15 points from a decade ago is a plethora of eye-opening individual stat lines.
