Wilt thinks the majority of 80s centers were “lousy and wouldn’t make Overbrook High School”
Wilt, while a great player, was incredibly narcissistic and delusional.
Spent like half his career making up stories about himself btw
I heard he’s actually a virgin
The 20k partners is absolute cap btw.
Firstly he’d have gotten aids.
Secondly jfl he just picked a really big number. I think magic said like 500 per year?
The CIA hadn’t made aids yet when wilt was hoeing around
Assuming he was going at it in the 70s and 80s yeah it was out there
I don’t think you fully grasp how the transmission of HIV/AIDS works my friend. It’s highly unlikely for an HIV positive women transmit the virus to a HIV Negative man through vaginal sex. It’s certainly possible but not likely, even if wilt was having an inconceivable number of partners.
If HIV is transmitted through sex, it’s usually a positive man transmitting it to their partner, whether they are male or female. Also Anal sex is far more likely to transmit the virus as opposed to vaginal sex. That’s a key reason why there’s so much homophobia connected to HIV.
The per-act risk of HIV transmission via receptive anal sex without a condom is estimated at about 1.38% (or 138 per 10,000 exposures)
Even through the most dangerous method, transmitting it is extremely low.
One of my roommates from college had a father who was a doctor who worked on the AIDS crisis. He couldn’t figure out why it was spreading so fast. They had determined the transmission rate was incredibly low. For the math to make sense, gay men would have to have had hundreds of partners and be extremely promiscuous…
Well that’s what it was lol. When women are out of the equation, men fuck like rabbits. Women generally gatekeeping sex in most societies keeps STD transmissions much lower. Men can’t help themselves lol.
I won’t pretend to be a subject matter expert here but if you’re having sex with 20,000 people I have to assume that you’re doing some really weird shit and that anal sex would be quite normal and frequent for you.
I mean clearly not given that like a third of Africa has it and they burn gay people.
Plenty of Hollywood guys got it too having presumably straight sex which is why they lobbied for non-disclosure laws.
Edit: it’s lower, 20 % in South Africa among middle aged people.
This genuinely might be one of the most racist and homophobic comments I’ve read. The WHO has Africa’s HIV infection rate at 2.9%. IDK what David Duke authored research you’re citing for fucking 33% but you might want to reassess your world view dickhead.
There’s some stuff Wikipedia cites here, and some African countries have some pretty bad percentages
The highest of any of these countries is Uganda at 7.2%. Which is still substantially lower than the number OP was throwing around. Saying shit like a third of an entire fucking continent has AIDS (not HIV but AIDS) Is rooted is very dangerous racist and homophonic rhetoric. Shit like that needs to be swiftly corrected every time.
None of them comes close to any country where a third has it.
Not at all third, but still a shocking high number
Don’t be the kind of person Trumpanzees will use as propaganda
My bad was thinking about South African stats where it’s like 20% among middle aged demographics.
Either way it’s still very possible to get aids through heterosexual sex.
>homophobic and racist
There’s nothing really racist with pointing out an aids epidemic, and trying to paint AIDs as a disease that’s super hard to get for straight people is a billion times more homophobic than anything I’ve said.
You should be mature enough and old enough to know that many of those heterosexual man received the disease from homosexual sexual activities.
This is what the leaders of South Africa thought in the 90s, and that is why they are the aids capital of the world.
Most of those AIDs patients got it from heterosexual contact and let it progress because they weren’t diagnosed.
>heterosexual men having homosexual experiences
What does that even mean? They were molested? Heterosexual men do not like having gay sex.
His 20k claim is bullshit but your remark about getting HIV is way off base as well. The HIV transmission rate for insertive vaginal sex is 0.04% (1 in 2400) and the HIV transmission rate for insertive anal sex is 0.11% (1 in 900). Keep in mind, those rates are for having unprotected sex with an HIV positive person. Basically, it’s very rare and unlucky for a heterosexual male to get HIV unless they’re in a long-standing relationship with an HIV positive person.
Sounds like you’re talking in 2026 numbers.
So he would have gotten it twice over!
Double AIDS in the 80s was a death sentence.
You have to remember the % of straight women who have aids is really low (.004% in the eighties) so if we assume the women he was with were more promiscuous and 100x more likely than normal that’s still only 80 women with aids her slept with. There’s a .04% chance of transmission so you’re looking somewhere between 3.1 and 7.7% of contracting it. Also most of his encounters happened before aids was in America but even if we ignore that it’s still a small chance of getting aids from 20k encounters (which I don’t think he slept with that many women)
I was joking
Well I seriously over explained it then haha
overbrook high school sounds oddly specific for a basketball diss
This is anecdotal, but my mom was a cheerleader for the Suns in the 70’s, she never believed the number because Wilt didn’t shower after games. She said he smelled SO bad, she didn’t think he could ever hit that number.
If he was having vaginal sex with them, he probably wouldn’t have caught aids.
Brother go back to school and listen in class
It’s 2026. It’s really okay to update what you know.
If HIV aids was only psssible through gay sex, it wouldn’t be more common among straight people in areas where you can’t buy condoms easily.
To be fair, HIV is only spread through bodily fluids, and this guy probably has never made a girl wet. So to him all vaginal sex is as dry as the Sahara
Dry sex increases your odds of aids
It’s far more likely to transmit during anal sex. Which straight people can have. And it isn’t more common among straight people anywhere. What a weird thing to believe. Per capita isn’t remotely close. What you’re doing, in trying to protect the homosexual population, is actually spreading insanely dangerous misinformation for people who have anal sex.
So we are in agreement? You should go back to school and learn?
Where’s the fun in that
20k women, a large chunk are probably hookers so they’d likely have around 1-2k exposures to HIV if he gave a bunch of them repeat performances.
Keep in mind that like a third of Africa has AIDs and they don’t have nearly as many gay people.
Edit: I overestimated the numbers and it’s more like 10% in the big HIV countries
This entire paragraph is just all sorts of wrong
I’m exaggerating the numbers but given how prevalent it is in Africa, there’s clearly a lot of heterosexual transmission.
If you’re banging (probably) random hookers as often as he did in the 70s, he’d have had a bunch of encounters with hiv positive people
He wanted people to see him as the best, most dominant, best center without question.
But it was impossible with Bill Russel winning 11 in his time.
Then Kareem comes in, wins more titles and breaks Wilts favorite record, overall points. This is before jordan and others passed Wilt, he bitched about it for a while. Said that Kareem should retire before breaking it, he didnt deserve it.
Then Kareem trashed in this best way possible. A written statement
Not just any written statement, it was like an eloquent breakdown on why Wilts career went the way it did depsite all the individual statistical records
“This is why didnt win-By Kareem”
Yea the letter is hilarious, calls him a crybaby
Idk if it was him talking about it but I remember people claiming he was able to lift ridiculous weights.. Impossible for his body type to deal with
Yea the 500 pound bench or something lmao
While I’d never excuse it I kinda understand.
Imagine being THAT much better than your peers who are supposed to be the best of the best.
They changed rules over this dudes talent gap with the league
He was too focused on proving he was better than his peers that he kept losing to Bill
Yep. Russell dominated him mentally.
Ultimately I feel like that fueled his inferiority complex and feud with guys like Bill and even Kareem. For all his accolades Bill was seen as the “winner” whereas Wilt was the stats guy, which I can understand getting under one’s skin honestly.
To be fair at least one team offered him a contract to play in the 80s and he was like 50 or something at that point lol.
Half the owners in the 80s would make Vivek Ranadive look like a genius
His name is Ted Stepien
He said stupid shit like this all of the time. I assume he attempting to manufacture conflict with moner day centers because Wilt really thought he was still a far better player.
He also sexually assaulted Cassandra Peterson (who would later become better known as Elvira) at a house party in the 70s. It’s doubly fucked up because she’d considered him a friend
Great athlete, awful person
Dude put up 100 pts in a game. Someone no one has even come close to… I think it’s understandable if he’s delusional.
If Bam (2nd only to Bron) can score 83, you best believe LeBron could have scored 100 with no regards for his teammates or anyone else
Trueeee. If Steph shot like 70 3s in a game, he “only” needs to hit less than half of them to get there, never mind free throws, 4-point plays, layups you’d get from screens and plays etc. could definitely do it, just would look unprofessional and unserious.
Wilt bam Kobe ain’t it ?
GOAT ladder is LeBron Bam MJ
He was player against plumbers and accountants though. Basically if Harden pulled up to a YMCA
Harden plays against podcasters and twitch streamers and still can’t get past 61
Tbf I’ve seen videos of him dominating Kareem and he average 50 points so he’s bound to be pretty sure of himself
Truly the ancestor to Shaw. Unstoppable, domineering, intolerable cuntface
Great player? He’s the best NBA player to ever exist.
Actually, he’s the best athlete to ever exist in the entire history of human beings.
He’s definitely not the best NBA player ever.
Kareem wrote one of the all time hit pieces on Wilt. those two just couldn’t stand each other.
Kareem tells that story of being on an elevator with Wilt and some guy walked on and asked them “how’s the weather up there?” And Wilt spit in his face and said “it’s raining”
Kareem was shocked which is funny because Kareem had a reputation for being a grumpy dude as well
Kareem was/is just introverted, i dont think he ever meant to be rude to anyone
Idk, one time I heard he was rude to this kid who was just asking him some questions while he was trying to fly a plane.
That was actually Roger Murdock. Common mistake.
You tell your dad to drag Bill Waltons ass up and down thr court for 48 minutes.
This is Bob Lanier erasure
I knew I was misquoting it. I forgot he was in that quote. Much like people forget about Bob Lanier
“You ever been in a Turkish prison?”
I think I saw a documentary about that.
True. Barkley has that great story he tells about when he made the All Star game with Kareem for the first time and he went up to him to tell him how honored he was and introduce himself and Kareem just looked up at him and said “I’m reading” lol.
That makes it even more impressive that he became such a vocal leader for black empowerment and equality.
I wish I’ll be able to overcome my social anxieties in order to help make this world a better place.
I hope when I grow up people call my rudeness social anxiety.
Basic decency aside…
Bill Russell did too. Funny, must be a coincidence
Russell apologized and was very wrong for his
Bill didn’t apologize because he was wrong and Wilt was actually a good guy. He apologized bc BILL is a good guy.
The biggest gripe between them was that Russell criticized Wilt for getting hurt in game 7 in the 1969 finals, when Wilt wanted to come back in but the Lakers coach refused to put him back in. Russell said if he had gotten hurt even if it was a broken back he wouldn’t have come out.
Russell would diss Wilt for a while until they reconciled at a commercial for Shaq’s shoes.
He was wrong, you’re criticizing a guy who played over 48 minutes a game in a season. Ruptured his patellar tendon and somehow came back for the playoffs that same season.
Saying your friend copped out because his coach won’t put him in the game is wrong.
Shit was also just a lot different back then and toughness and trash talking was on another level
The narrative at the time was that wilt subbed himself out, wasnt that hurt, and only wanted to be subbed in when the game got closer so he could be the hero.
I feel like neither of yall know your basketball history because neither of these things happened. There were no “hit pieces” between Bill and Wilt like there was between Kareem and Wilt
How was he wrong? Aside from (often exaggerated) athletic prowess, I’ve never seen anything good about Wilt.
Hey man, you’ve got like a 20% chance to be a offspring of Wilt, take it easy on our potential pop
Based on my appearance and my genes, I can say with 100% certainty that I am not a descendant of Wilt lol
Yea man, I’m fat, white and Australian so if I’m a mini wilt then there’s some funny business afoot
Could just be recessive genes.
/s
Basketball genghis khan
He helped create the next generation of nba athletes
Depends on who you ask like most people
You ask some people who knew him closely they’ll tell you he was extremely kind and had a big heart.
You ask others they’ll say arrogant and selfish.
I find him one of the more interesting athletes to read about, personally speaking
“Wilt Chumperlame”
Back in muh day
Guess what..every generation does this. Go look at the generational subs on reddit and notice how everyday peole do the same shit
Yup. The more things change, the more they stay the same.
That was one of my takeaways from David Halberstrom’s The Breaks of the Game about the late ‘70s post-championship Blazers. A lot of the concepts brought about could have been copied and pasted right into today, including the theme of players being paid way too much back then to care anymore (which was fascinating to read about players who make a couple hundred thousand).
Why are you spelling it that way?
Typo
Keep doing it. It’s provocative.
Even people in this generation are starting to do the same thing. I heard many people say that the 2010s were a lot better, and that today’s MVP candidates wouldn’t even finish top-5 in voting back then.
Basketball isn’t played the same way. This shit is almost always true because players right now are doing shit that would get called in 2010 and players in 2010 till now could not survive in the hand check eras. It’s a game that resembles the game but it’s so different that we are comparing distant things
Hand check era so overblown. You couldn’t double team. I went back and watched several Jordan games and he barely gets touched… most guys are giving a huge cushion to everyone in the 80s/90s cuz nobody shot 3s or pull up jumpers. The guys today would be more than fine.
The issue today is how much they let offensive players shove… which they absolutely need to reign in. It’s unwatchable and no era has been allowed to do it.
Those plumbers had to go up twenty ways uphill in snow
Some motherfuckers are always trying to ice skate uphill.
Certain things do get lost in newer eras, some good & bad, just like certain things get gained in newer eras.
There is a mistake in assuming things just continually improve, in every regard. I imagine older people will miss the good parts that get lost and younger people just wouldn’t get it.
That said, you can find Bill Russell saying the same thing during the Finals, saying those teams weren’t all that and wouldn’t be able to handle his era….
…..That was Jordan’s Bulls in the Finals, sometime from the 70 win season to the Last Dance.
Every generation prides themselves on thinking they’re better than the next generation
What’s funny is every generation should hope the next generation is better than them
The most latest generation is always be the best. It seems like every sport understands that, except basketball
I assure you baseball players do not understand that lol
Exactly
Well this dude is Wilt. He wasn’t saying his generation was better. Just him.
He specifically said current players were “lousy” and wouldn’t make a high school team from his day.
TBF, there isn’t a center in the history of the NBA who would have gotten the starting center position over Wilt in HS.
I mean ya touché I guess. I don’t think these are literal though (maybe they had crabs I don’t know; Wilt probably did). He’s just saying they suck from his perspective. And from that perspective, he’s kinda right.
The thing that gets me is that when Wilt says this kinda shit about the 80s and 90s, there is near universal recognition that it’s rooted in his personal insecurities, but when a player from the 80s or 90s says basically the same exact shit about the modern NBA, there’s a lot of people (not everyone) who acts as if they took the words right out of god’s own mouth.
What’s the difference?
Time. Even the oldest Redditors probably didn’t see Wilt play but a lot of them, myself included, did grow up watching the 80’s and 90’s players. People tend to overrate or over love things from their childhood years
It’s also how that study demonstrated that most people had their musical tastes set around 25-30 years old, and barely evolved past that point, the same applies to watching pro sports: I watched it played a certain way when I was younger, the Kobe Shaq VC Iverson and co, and now the game looks different so I’ll be quick to point out the things I don’t like about current NBA bball, and those may be objective critiques, but I’ll still focus more on the negative instead of focusing on the positive.
I feel like the age would be slightly younger for sports but definitely makes sense.
This is so true. I changed a lot from 20 to 30. Now that I’m about to turn 40, I’m not terribly different on things than I was 10 years ago.
Makes sense when brain maturation doesn’t finish until about age 25.
Someone finally gets it
I think there’s an aspect of old media having a stranglehold on information as well. David Stern’s NBA was experienced through the lens of corporate sponsorship. Companies spent millions to make billions on creating super hero personas for their spokespeople. There were all timers in that era, and I personally think the GOAT, but a huge chunk of r/nba had their formative years during this period and it shows!
People who act like the 90s players are right act that way because they grew up during the 90s
To be fair as i grow older i notice myself being the same about the 2010s, maybe thats just how life goes
I mean I also have a clear bias for mid to late 2010s basketball, since that’s when I first really got into the sport, but I also don’t think that anyone who played outside that one particular timeframe is a bum.
AMEN
AUSAR
80s/90s bigs were the peak of low post bigs. They wouldn’t thrive in today’s pace and space game but they for sure would have feasted in the 60s.
Nah, man, shitting on any era that isn’t yours is a time honored tradition in the NBA. I look forward to the days when Giannis and Luka say the players from the 2040s couldn’t hack in their era. The torch must be passed down.
Teams were still concerned about the number of black players signed to rosters in Wilt’s day. Wilt’s day was demonstrably less of meritocracy than the 80s and 90s. Good players were stuck in the ABA because of archaic prejudices. If you could hoop in the 80s and 90s, you were on an NBA team. That wasn’t necessarily the case into the 70s. The past modern players get compared to is better than the past Wilt dominated.
I believe the modern NBA is shit and I will entertain that it could be a bit of insecurity as well.
Wilt though is different because he would never celebrate another players achievement. He’s been very toxic. I’m Obviously a huge Kobe fan but I’m not gonna shit on Bam scoring more. That’s just weird to me.
With that being said it’s not always an upward slope. Things do get worst. Then they get better.
Right now I believe we’re definitely in the downward slope of the game being worst than ever before.
Whats the best era in your perspective?
There was a short time in the 80s where the centers were not as great as some others. This is a huge overstatement of course though.
The late 80s mid 90s was a center renaissance.
Ewing, Hakeem, David Robinson, Shaq were all incredible to just name the immediate 4 that come to mind
I mean he’s right that 80’s Centers weren’t all that. Walton was post injury already, and then you had Abdul Jabbar (whose prime was in the 70’s) and Moses. The other guys included a Robert Parish, Mark Eaton… it was a relatively poor era for Centers tbf. A young Olajuwon was there but he’s really more a 90’s Center. The 90’s were the obvious revival for the position.
Yeah I was more thinking of like 84 similar to what you are saying here
Moses Malone won 2 mvps in the early 80s. Robert Parish was more of a defensive force but the Celtics won in 81 and 84 and he’s a HOFer. He’s just wrong
Wilt was a notoriously jealous player
He would have been great in any era but that’s why his perspective is kind of messed up
Shaq 1.0
Most older players are like this. They compare the game to how it was when they played. When Wilt played it was very restricted and completely different due to the rules and officiating
It’s one of the flaws of having a highly damn near psychotic competitive spirit..
This interview was from 1987 for anyone curious
Malone, Sampson, Hakeem, The Admiral, Ewing, Kareem, Parish
I love Wilt, but come on now.
Shaq. Wilt lived long enough that he and Russell discussed how they would handle Shaq.
That’s only a couple good ones from the 80s 😕 That’s exactly what he said
“a majority are bad”
Ok but what about this minority I listed???
Robinson is more 90s, he only played half a year in the 80s
To be fair, anyone who watched Jeff Ruland, Paul Mokeski and Randy Breuer play would say the exact same thing.
There were some very good centers in the 80s, Hakeem, Kareem, Ewing, Moses Malone, Parrish, jack sikma, Ralph Sampson, Artis Gilmore, maybe Mark Eaton, but there were a lot that were tall and not the greatest offensively
Didn’t Ruland though have a pedigree before hand and the injury really killed him? I remember but was pretty young when we grabbed him. It was like Lance Parrish again in a way to me.
We’re Wilt and Bill better than many 80s centers? Sure. Were they all bad? Hell no.
Not too different than Shaq sitting up there post-playing days talking mad shit about big guys being garbage (Dwight, Gobert, Javale, etc.)
would they make good milkmen or plumbers though?
Look. Everyday people do this sane thing including people commenting on this post. Go look at the geberation subs on reddit and you get a lot of this same shit.
Every generation thinks they are the best
Hating like a real philly ninja 🫡
Old heads been hating since the 80s
The NBA has some of the biggest egos in sports, and the generation that came after them is never as good as they were…
Every decade players become old heads and talk like that…Some are still playing and talking like that already as their days in the NBA are nearing the end
I truly hate this about human beings.
As a fan of history, this is a repeated trope among just about every fucking generation.
“Muh generation betta than these lousy kids”
It’s just old man screaming at a cloud wishing he was still relevant. It’s sad, and makes me view anyone that does it as a pathetic little man.
You can say whatever you want about the rules, but these kids today are skilled to all hell.
imagine you setting the ground work for others in your field. you put the work in and showed others how its done. now your retired at home and turn your tv on. you see these new nba players not even pay respect or appreciation to you but even low key dissing your era…
then you hear this back up is getting a contract thats 20x your life salary. you see them acting an ass on socials that forsure wouldnt have flied back in your day but they getting praise from kids and even sponsors hip deals off it. deals where even a year in would change your families lives but instead you have to tell your nephew you cant pay for his college because wtf i never even seen dude before.
you cant understand why these dudes might be bitter?
wtf are you taking about? What nba player outright disrespects others before them?
Never in my life have I ever heard any nba player disrespect Wilt, ESPECIALLY when this interview happened.
You’re making up excuses for old man to be angry at a cloud.
Wilt came to talk at one of the basketball camps I went to and he kind of said the same thing, an if you watch the game he was right. There were a bunch of big guys but until Shaq and Hakeem, no one was running on both ends of the floor and then setting up with proper footwork.
He told us a lot of points were being left on the table but guys that were getting in the mix but hoping that style and athlexism would carry them through
Hakeem was drafted in 1984
Yeah but it wasn’t until the 89-90 year where he really put it all together. Then he got hurt and had the heart thing and came back in the early 90s and took his game to the next level.
What? He led Houston to the finals in 1986. His reputation was already well established before the 90s. Point being, Hakeem was already a respected star in the 80s
Well Wilt that’s because they would be playing for your spot
Shaq its just like Wilt lol
Since the only center from the 80s I can name is Kareem I kinda suspect he was right.
Never heard of Hakeem? Ewing? Robinson??
I think of those guys as 90s players that’s when they had the moments everyone remembers them for.
Robinson was strictly 90s. Moses Malone is the correct name.
Drafted 1987; played 1989 so maybe its semantics whether he was an 80s center or not.
His 50 ppg season, when adjusted to per 36 stats, is what Giannis did during his MVP run. But Wilt was doing that against plumbers. He’s an asshole.
Tbh 80s (especially the first half) was the worst decade for the NBA by far. They had playoff games on tape-delay for god’s sake.
The 80s were by far the best era and it’s not close. You obviously werent watching. Magic / Bird. Jordan. Bad boy Pistons. The 80s was the golden age of centers so no idea what he is taking about.
Re-read my comment: early 80s were without doubt the nadir of NBA basketball. You’re right that the league started to make a comeback in the late 80s, but it wasn’t until the 90s that it really hit its stride. Bad Boy Pistons were 89-94, so more 90s than 80s. Bulls dynasty was all 90s. So bringing them up actually helps disprove your point.
Notice, too, how none of the iconic players from that era that you mentioned were centers. This is actually one of Wilt’s least bad takes.
Magic won his first title as a rookie in 1980. Hard to call that a nadir. Assessing the league based on television partner network strategy decision making is not the most robust analysis.
That’s evidence of a nadir, my friend. A rookie years before his prime shouldn’t be able to take over the league like that. You don’t know about the Cocaine 80s do you?
Jordan’s peak was in the 80s, or maybe 91 or 92. He was definitely an 80s player. That is the poster era, the playing with god era, the its gotta be the shoes era for Jordan. The Bad Boys were 87-90 (counting by the start of the season maybe), since the Bulls won in 91.
So he won 6 titles AFTER he peaked? Okay, if you say so…
Wilt’s the biggest bum in NBA history but bc he scored 100 and had impressive statlines on paper he gets praised by oldheads. Russ was always a superior player and winner
I watch videos of Wilt and everyone around him looks like they’re moving in slow motion and he really isn’t moving all that much faster. I call bullshit on all of the Wilt athleticism and strength myths. When he dunks there are three 6’5 guys watching him. In today’s NBA every team has 2-3 guys as big and more athletic as Wilt that would meet him at the rim. Shaq would have wrecked Wilt. Ewing, Barkley, Hakeem, Zo, KG, Kemp, The Admiral, Malone, Timmy, Rodman, Webber would have killed him. Wilt is Jay Huff in today’s NBA. I said what I said.