One of the greatest NBA players of all time, Wilt Chamberlain, always tried to make the case for himself as the GOAT, most of the time attacking Michael Jordan and his accomplishments. Wilt was one of the most dominant big men in the game and he considered himself the greatest to ever do it. A lot of people would agree with that, despite the fact that he only won two championships during his career.
Still, the records he broke and set were just fantastic, which made him believe (with due reason) that he has a shot at being the best basketball player of all time. Wilt always tried to play down Jordan’s accomplishments whenever he had the chance and Foobas Sport collected a series of videos where Goliath appears attacking MJ and making the case for himself as the GOAT.
Chamberlain was asked once if he was bothered by people picking Jordan as the GOAT, he said yes, claiming that MJ was better than a number of people but not better than him.
“It bothers me because we all have our opinions. Commence with what he’s doing and what he’s done and how the game is going today, he’s better than a number of people.”
Another person said he puts MJ first and Chamberlain second in the GOAT list only because of the titles Chamberlain won. He had a great response to that statement.
“I have a friend of mine who I talk to about once a week. You know what he says about Michael’s four championships? He doesn’t say anything about it. Because he has 11 (Bill Russell). I don’t think you can’t predicate who great a guy really is because he has championships. There are a lot of guys on those championship teams who’ve done nothing.”
When asked if Michael was the greatest scorer of all time, Chamberlain said:
“People don’t remember that my first seven years I scored a lot of points then I stopped scoring on my whole volition. I tried to do other things as I was asked to do other things and that’s what I did. So if I had continued to score I would probably average 40 points for my whole lifetime. Does that make me the best scorer? I really don’t know but one thing I do know, that all the years I was usually scoring all those points I was leading the league in percentile shooting and that’s also important because if you take all the shots then you should be making the highest percentage. When they compare me to Michael, Michal’s averaging 31 points for his lifetime, I averaged about 30 points of a lifetime, but I stopped scoring.”
Wilt was never afraid of expressing his real opinion on this matter, even claiming that he would beat MJ in a one-on-one game.
“I know you’ve already made Michael number one, but if you had to have Wilt against Michael my prime and his prime, how much money would you be willing to bet?”
He also compared eras, explaining that MJ wouldn’t be welcome during his time.
“He’s 6-foot-7 and like 197 pounds. Coming into what we call our domain, the paint for us big guys, we would’ve not been very wise of Michael if he was playing during our time. We would say, Michael, as long as you do all your fancy things outside of where we are, that’s fine.”
The Big Dipper also knew he had skills that could make Jordan’s life incredibly hard.
“I run around 105, 100 meters around 10, 10.2 and then in that area, 52″ vertical.”
During an interview with Conan O’Brien, Chamberlain made it clear, he would destroy Michael Jordan.
Conan: You think he’d have been crushed, is what you’re saying?
Wilt: I don’t think, I know he’d have been crushed. I wouldn’t have been good for Michael.”
You can say this was a dagger for this conversation when Chamberlain told MJ that until the league didn’t change the rules to stop him, he wasn’t that great.
“Mike, until you are so great that they start changing the game to stop your greatness, then I don’t think you have the right to make that accolades in that particular way.”
Chamberlain was never afraid to speak his mind and let people know how he felt about Michael Jordan and his GOAT status. He considered himself the greatest player of all time and could back up those claims.
