Tuned in to some <a href=”http://sports.espn.go.com/espntv/espnNetwork?networkID=18″ target=”_blank”>ESPN Classic</a> while enjoying my eggs, toast, and OJ before my ride in to work this morning. On, was a game between the 76ers and Celtics in which they said the 76ers prevailed in the series, breaking the Celtics string of championships so I’m guessing it was 1967.<br/><br/>Anyway, my claim is that <a href=”http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilt_Chamberlain” target=”_blank”>Wilt Chamberlain</a> would get dominated if he played today. I’m not saying he wasn’t great for his time, because duh, he was, but if you watch the play of everyone in that age it was awful; their dribbling skills were so poor, their defensive skills bad, they couldn’t jump, and they didn’t run very fast… I felt as if I was watching high school basketball… Heck, even worse… some of the stuff I saw looked house-league. Chamberlain freaking shot his foul shots granny-style! And he missed well more than half of them (that season)! That’s not to say that some of the guys were not great team-players or shooters, but that’s really all that struck me as decent or even close to on par with modern basketball.<br/><br/>So what made these guys better than the average joe? I’m guessing size. They were all taller than him. I firmly believe that anyone who was tall back in those days made a good basketball player since ability (there wasn’t any!) played such a little part. Unlike today, when we’ve got folks like <a href=”http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gheorghe_Mure%C5%9Fan” target=”_blank”>Gheorge Muresan</a> scattered about.<br/><br/>So that’s my frustration for the morning. I had never seen video of a game from that era… I’m wholly unimpressed. If you haven’t seen any, go out of your way to catch some.<br/><br/>On the other hand, comparing the players of those days to those of today might be like comparing the computers of those days to those of today. Saying they were bad would be ignorant… because we had to start somewhere. <img src=”http://www.iammike.org/cutenews/data/emoticons/neutral.gif”/><br/>