Stephen A. Smith is known for his sizzling hot takes and the outspoken sports television personality tends to ruffle some feathers more often than not. Smith was recently talking about Stephen Curry being an all-time top 10 player in NBA history if he wins his 4th championship and he shocked many by stating that Steph would get in over Wilt Chamberlain.
Wilt is arguably the most dominant player in NBA history and, in many ways, he was Shaq before Shaq, but an even more imposing presence. They say records are meant to be broken, but Chamberlain set records that are unlikely to ever be touched.
He once averaged 50.4 points per game for an entire season and no one has particularly come close to beating his record of 100 points in a game either, despite the crazy three-point shooting we see these days. Someone who saw a little bit of Wilt was former NBA player Mychal Thompson, who just so happens to be the father of Klay Thompson. Mychal was in disbelief over Smith leaving Chamberlain out of the top 10 and he tweeted that Wilt should be one of four names automatically on every list.
Ya no…sum times I’m just confused…Steven A Smith took WILT CHAMBERLAIN…OFF of his Top 10 All Time list to add Steph to the list…OFF…WILT? HOW? WHY? The 4 names AUTOMATICALLY on this top 10 list are. Jordan Lebron Kareem n Wilt…THEN talk about the nex 6 players…Geez SAS…
— Mychal Thompson (@champagnennuts) June 18, 2022
“Ya no…sum times I’m just confused…Steven A Smith took WILT CHAMBERLAIN…OFF of his Top 10 All Time list to add Steph to the list…OFF…WILT? HOW? WHY? The 4 names AUTOMATICALLY on this top 10 list are. Jordan Lebron Kareem n Wilt…THEN talk about the nex 6 players…Geez SAS…”
Smith’s argument was that Bill Russell won 11 titles as compared to Wilt’s 2 and that the discrepancy has to be held against him, but as Mychal says, he is still got to be in the top 10. Russell’s Celtics were loaded with Hall-of-Famers and no one in the league could stand up to them.
It is easy to forget that among all the all-time greats from that time like Jerry West, Elgin Baylor, and Oscar Robertson, Wilt was actually the only one to ever beat the Celtics in the playoffs, as his Philadelphia 76ers crushed the Celtics in 5 games in 1967 to end their run of 8 straight titles. You can perhaps make some argument for Curry to be ahead of Wilt on the all-time rankings, but taking him out of the top 10 is a bit too much.
