2012.03.09 张伯伦 职业篮球的贝比鲁斯

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Wilt Chamberlain: The Babe Ruth of Pro Basketball
By Allen Barra
MARCH 9, 2012
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He electrified the sport at a time when few people were paying attention.

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The celebration of Wilt Chamberlain's career that accompanied the 50th anniversary of his 100-point game last weekend was too short and passed too quickly.

Wilt Chamberlain was the Babe Ruth of pro basketball. Like Ruth, he was by far the most dominant force in his time, and quite possibly of all time. Like the Babe, Wilt was the lightning rod for interest in the sport in a time when it was badly needed. In Chamberlain's case, he was more important to basketball than Ruth was to baseball.

Contrary to popular opinion, baseball was doing quite well at the turnstiles when Ruth came along and would have survived the stink of the Black Sox gambling scandal with or without him (though the recovery certainly would have taken longer). But without Wilt, who knows if the NBA would have made it from the 1960s—when it was scarcely one of the big three pro sports behind baseball and football—to the Magic Johnson-Larry Bird boom of the late 1970s and the Michael Jordan tidal wave a few years later?

If you doubt this, consider one extraordinary fact: Wilt played his 100-point game not in New York or even in the Warriors' home city of Philadelphia but in an odd-looking, plain concrete barn-like structure with an arched roof in Hershey, Pennsylvania, where the Warriors played several games a year in order to increase a fan base that wasn't showing them overwhelming support in Philly.


Try and imagine the equivalent in baseball: Babe Ruth hitting his 60th home run in, say, Newark, New Jersey, at a Yankees "secondary" park in front of a handful of fans. If not for an unknown student listening to a late night rebroadcast of the game who thought to tape the fourth quarter on a reel-to-reel, we'd have no live coverage of the game at all.

Chamberlain's triumph came at the Hershey Sports Arena. Today the HersheyPark Arena looks virtually the same, a practice facility for the AHL's Hershey Bears and home ice for a local college that is also open for public skating. It's easy to miss the notices that here Chamberlain played his landmark game: a small sign on a pole outside the main gates and a copy of the photo of Wilt holding up the handmade "100" in the back side of the lobby.

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There is one primary difference between the careers of Babe Ruth and Wilt Chamberlain: Ruth was—and is—regarded by most baseball analysts as the greatest player in his game. But basketball people have never quite been able to make up their minds about Wilt.

Back in the '60s, it was common to hear sports fans say things like "Well, yeah, he scores a lot of points, but it's just because he's so big." Yes, at 7'-1", he was big all right. The reply to everyone who said that should have been, "Yes, and how many clumsy, slow, seven-foot guys are superstars in pro basketball?"

The truly amazing thing about Chamberlain was not his size, but the agility and savvy that propelled him. There are great scorers in the game, and there are great rebounders. Seven times Wilt Chamberlain led his league in scoring and 11 times he led it in rebounding. LeBron James is having the greatest season of any player in basketball s history. And, indeed, LBJ has been dazzling, averaging, after 38 games, 27.7points. 8.4 rebounds, and 0.8 blocked shots per game.

Over 16 seasons, Wilt Chamberlain's averaged 31.1 point s and 22.9 rebounds per game. Blocked shots? We don't know—they didn't keep that stat for most of Chamberlain's career. The reason they started counting block shots was because Chamberlain blocked so many.

Actually, there was one more big difference in the careers of Babe Ruth and Wilt Chamberlain: Ruth didn't face the baseball equivalent of a Bill Russell. There are a great many basketball fans and analysts who will argue that Russell was greater than Chamberlain. There is much to support this argument, but here's the point that matters the most: During the span of Russell's career, Chamberlain's teams won a single championship while Russell's Boston Celtics won nine. Of course, there is the question of the supporting cast, and a fair person must concede that the Celtics, man-for-man, were much better than Chamberlain's teams.

But is there another way to compare them? First off, it needs to be remembered that Chamberlain and Russell were universally bigger than the game. In fact, to a large portion of the sports public in the 1960s that only paid attention to professional basketball when the championships came around, they were the game. It wasn't Boston vs. Philly, or, later, Boston vs. LA; it was Wilt vs. Russell.

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Chamberlain was the master—for all intents and purposes, the creator of the most crowd-pleasing power play, the slam dunk, and the shot-blocking specialist. And one of the greatest in the game, along with Wilt himself, was Bill Russell. They brought out the best in each other.

Russell is regarded by many as the greatest rebounder to ever play (or at least to play before Dennis Rodman). And he was an octopus under the boards, averaging 22.5 a game for his career. But Wilt averaged more rebounds in eight of the ten seasons they both played in the league, and against Chamberlain, Russell averaged just 14.8 rebounds per game. Wilt's career rebounding average was 22.9 per game, but against Russell he averaged 28.7, 4.5 more than he pulled down against the rest of the league.

As for scoring, not only did Chamberlain outscore Russell by a wide margin (which would probably be expected given the dependence of Wilt's teams on him) but his shooting percentage is 100 points higher than Russell's (.540 to .440).

But Wilt's superiority wasn't simply a question of more scoring opportunities. During the Russell years, Chamberlain averaged 34.5 points per game against the league; against Russell, he scored 28.7 points per game - 5.8 points below his league-leading average. That, of course, proves how much better defensively Russell was than the other centers around the league. Still, Wilt did average 28.7 points against perhaps the greatest defensive center who ever played and—and this really shouldn't be overlooked in any comparison of Chamberlain and Russell—poured 40 points or more against Russell 26 times. Russell, on the other hand, averaged a modest 14.8 points per game during the 10-year span against the rest of the league (he averaged 15.1 points per game during his 13-year career). Against Wilt, he averaged 23.7 points per game, 8.9 points higher than his regular season average. That shows you how adaptable and talented Russell was; it's also an indication that Russell could have scored more points if the Celtics had needed him to. He scored more against Wilt because he felt he had to. Against the rest of the league he didn't need to score as much for the Celtics to win.

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Still, Wilt averaged five points per game more than Russell during their head-to-head meetings. And he had a higher field goal percentage in mano-a-mano matchups.

Nothing, of course, is going to shake the faith of those who regard Russell as the better player or that his championship rings outweigh any of Wilt's statistics. Okay, then, let's leave it at this. Together they were the two most dominant players ever to play basketball, and the greatest rivals in American sports history.

Allen Barra writes about sports for the Wall Street Journal and TheAtlantic.com. His next book is Mickey and Willie--The Parallel Lives of Baseball's Golden Age.



张伯伦。职业篮球的贝比鲁斯
作者：艾伦-巴拉
三月九日, 2012
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在很少有人关注的时候，他为这项运动注入了活力。

barra_wilt_post.jpg
美联社图片


上周末，在张伯伦100分比赛50周年之际，对张伯伦职业生涯的庆祝活动太短了，而且过得太快了。

张伯伦是职业篮球的贝比鲁斯。像鲁斯一样，他是迄今为止他那个时代最具统治力的人，而且很可能是所有时代的人。和贝比一样，张伯伦也是这项运动的避雷针，当时人们非常需要它。就张伯伦而言，他对篮球的重要性超过鲁斯对棒球的重要性。

与流行的观点相反，鲁斯出现时，棒球在转盘上做得相当好，不管有没有他，都会在黑袜队赌博丑闻的臭味中幸存下来（虽然恢复的时间肯定会更长）。但是，如果没有威尔特，谁知道NBA会不会从20世纪60年代--当时它几乎是仅次于棒球和橄榄球的三大职业运动之一，到70年代末魔术师约翰逊-拉里-伯德的繁荣和几年后迈克尔-乔丹的浪潮？

如果你怀疑这一点，请考虑一个非同寻常的事实：威尔特打他的100分比赛不是在纽约，甚至不是在勇士队的主场城市费城，而是在宾夕法尼亚州赫尔希市的一个看起来很奇怪的、类似混凝土谷仓的结构，有一个拱形的屋顶，勇士队每年在那里打几场比赛，以增加在费城没有对他们表示压倒性支持的球迷。


试着想象一下棒球中的类似情况。贝比-鲁斯在新泽西州纽瓦克的一个洋基队的 "二级 "公园里，在少数球迷面前击出了他的第60支全垒打。如果不是一个不知名的学生在听深夜的比赛转播时想到用卷轴录下第四节的内容，我们根本就没有这场比赛的现场报道。

张伯伦的胜利是在赫尔希体育场取得的。今天，赫尔希公园体育馆看起来几乎没有什么变化，它是美国冰球协会赫尔希熊队的练习场，也是当地一所大学的主场，也对公众开放滑冰。很容易错过张伯伦在这里打过他的标志性比赛的告示：大门外杆子上的一个小牌子，以及大厅后侧的一张威尔特举着手工制作的 "100 "的照片副本。

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贝比-鲁斯和张伯伦的职业生涯有一个主要区别。鲁斯过去和现在都被大多数棒球分析家认为是其比赛中最伟大的球员。但是，篮球界人士一直无法对威尔特下定决心。

早在60年代，经常听到体育迷们说这样的话："嗯，是的，他得了很多分，但这只是因为他太高大了。" 是的，他身高7英尺1英寸，是很高大。对所有这样说的人的回答应该是："是的，在职业篮球中，有多少笨拙的、缓慢的、7英尺高的人是超级明星？"

张伯伦真正令人惊奇的地方不是他的体型，而是推动他的敏捷和精明。在比赛中，有伟大的得分手，也有伟大的篮板手。张伯伦有7次在得分上领先于他的联盟，11次在篮板上领先于他的联盟。勒布朗-詹姆斯正在经历篮球历史上最伟大的赛季。而且，确实，LBJ一直很耀眼，在38场比赛之后，平均27.7分。8.4个篮板，每场0.8次封盖。

在16个赛季中，张伯伦平均每场得到31.1分和22.9个篮板。阻止投篮？我们不知道--在张伯伦职业生涯的大部分时间里，他们没有保留这个数据。他们之所以开始计算封盖投篮，是因为张伯伦封盖的次数太多了。

事实上，贝比-鲁斯和张伯伦的职业生涯还有一个很大的区别。鲁斯没有面对相当于比尔-拉塞尔的棒球选手。有很多篮球迷和分析家会争论说，拉塞尔比张伯伦更伟大。有很多东西可以支持这一论点，但这里是最重要的一点。在拉塞尔的职业生涯中，张伯伦的球队只赢得了一个冠军，而拉塞尔的波士顿凯尔特人队赢得了九个冠军。当然，还有一个配角的问题，一个公正的人必须承认，凯尔特人队，人对人，要比张伯伦的球队好得多。

但是否有另一种方式来比较它们呢？首先，需要记住的是，张伯伦和拉塞尔普遍都比比赛大。事实上，在20世纪60年代，对于很大一部分只在冠军赛时才关注职业篮球的体育界人士来说，他们就是比赛。这不是波士顿对费城，或后来的波士顿对洛杉矶；而是威尔特对拉塞尔。

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张伯伦是大师--无论从哪个角度看，他都是最能取悦观众的力量型战术、扣篮和阻击专家的创造者。与威尔特本人一样，比赛中最伟大的人物之一是比尔-拉塞尔。他们互相激发了最好的一面。

拉塞尔被许多人认为是有史以来最伟大的篮板手（或至少是在丹尼斯-罗德曼之前的比赛）。他在篮板下是一只章鱼，职业生涯中平均每场22.5个。但威尔特在他们都在联盟打球的十个赛季中，有八个赛季的平均篮板数更多，而面对张伯伦，拉塞尔平均每场只有14.8个篮板。张伯伦职业生涯的平均篮板数为每场22.9个，但对阵拉塞尔时，他的平均篮板数为28.7个，比他对阵联盟其他球队时多拉4.5个。

至于得分，张伯伦不仅以很大的优势超过了拉塞尔（考虑到威尔特的球队对他的依赖性，这可能是意料之中的），而且他的投篮命中率比拉塞尔高100分（0.540比0.440）。

但威尔特的优势并不仅仅是更多的得分机会的问题。在拉塞尔时代，张伯伦对阵联盟时平均每场得34.5分；对阵拉塞尔时，他每场得28.7分--比他在联盟中的平均得分低5.8分。当然，这证明了拉塞尔的防守比联盟中的其他中锋要好得多。尽管如此，威尔特在面对可能是有史以来最伟大的防守型中锋时，平均得了28.7分，而且在张伯伦和拉塞尔的比较中，这一点确实不应该被忽视，他有26次在面对拉塞尔时得到了40分或以上。另一方面，拉塞尔在对阵联盟其他球员的10年时间里，平均每场比赛只得到14.8分（他在13年的职业生涯中平均每场比赛得到15.1分）。在对阵威尔特时，他平均每场得23.7分，比他常规赛的平均得分高8.9分。这显示了拉塞尔的适应能力和天赋；这也表明，如果凯尔特人需要他，拉塞尔可以得到更多的分数。他在面对威尔特时得分更多，因为他觉得他必须这样做。在对阵联盟其他球队时，他不需要为凯尔特人队赢得那么多分数。

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不过，在他们的正面交锋中，威尔特平均每场比拉塞尔多得5分。而且他在一对一的对决中的场均得分更高。

当然，没有什么能动摇那些认为拉塞尔是更好的球员或他的冠军戒指超过威尔特的任何统计数据的人的信心。好吧，那么，让我们把它留在这里。他们一起是有史以来打篮球最有统治力的两名球员，也是美国体育史上最伟大的对手。

艾伦-巴拉为《华尔街日报》和TheAtlantic.com撰写关于体育的文章。他的下一本书是《米奇和威利--棒球黄金时代的平行生活》。