Article: https://sports.yahoo.com/article/wilt-chamberlain-once-told-michael-144848604.html

What are your thoughts on this? Yes, they did change the rules because Wilt was so dominant. Do you feel they also changed the rules to help Jordan dominate? The main rules I believe he’s referring to were hard fouls (which became more enforced) and zones. I mean, Jordan was just as dominant, or possibly more dominant, before the rule was changed.

What are your thoughts?

29 comments

  2. Trash talk, nothing new.

    Every era always got the “Back in my day things were tougher” vibe lol this era will be no different

  4. Old heads will forever hate on the younger generation…but Wilt is the ONE man who can say “They changed the rules to stop me” and have it mean something.

    He’s not the GOAT or anything IMO, I don’t even have him top 10, but he was something unlike the game has ever seen.

  5. Entirely true. Now, I don’t think this is enough to say Wilt is definitely the GOAT or anything given his competition at the time.

    Would rules have been changed if Jordan was playing in Wilt’s era? Probably

  6. Great flex but Wilt getting dominated by his rival Bill Russell for most of his career makes it hard to put him above a couple of the GOAT names, especially Jordan. Very unique scenario for someone in the top 10.

  7. MJ himself said the defensive rules benefitted him when they decided to change them toward the end of his career

    E: to be clear, he said the defensive rules during his career benefitted him*

  8. I think the second part is a little overstated by fans but the first part is absolutely true. Wilt forced a bunch of rule changes. Size of the paint, not being allowed to inbound the ball over the basket.

    I think k the guy that has the strongest argument in regard to forcing rule changes is actually Kareem though. The NCAA banned dunking because of him.

  11. The future of the league was Jordan and his style of play so when the “Jordan Rules” were put into effect by Det, the league responded by making official changes to open up the floor. Those are easy to find.

    What wasn’t official though was the way the refs were allowing MJ to get away with his travels and carry. This led to AI and his crossover and eventually making it legal to perform all these gather zero, euro, hop steps which opened up the offensive flow.

  14. That conversation took place at the all-star game before the halftime ceremony where they brought out the NBA’s 50 Greatest Players of all-time.

    Edit: except for the ones who were deceased

  15. Yea a lot of old heads will say similar things, but when Wilt says I don’t get annoyed like when Charles Barkley says it.

  18. Everyone always talks about hand checking and how that makes it easier for current gen stars but leave out the illegal zone defense rule. AI commented on how easy the league was his rookie year with that rule. It is widely known that they waited for Jordan to retire for them to take away that rule.

    That being said, Jordan and all the other star players would have been elite in any era. They would have found a way to get it done with rules they hade.

  19. I don’t know if it was necessarily to “stop him”. Maybe more so to help shape the rules to be more fair. Who here is in disagreement that you can’t touch the ball when it’s on its way down or else it’s goaltending?

  20. Fair trash talk.

    But technically, they changed the rules to stop Bill Lambier too.

  22. The rules stayed the same in the playoffs, yet Wilt couldn’t deliver for shit haha.

  23. Not that all players were trash, but Wilt didn’t face the same level of quality player, and of the ones he did, they were fewer and farther between.

    Obviously the guys size and physical gifts made him special, but he didn’t really face true competitors like Kareem and Russel until later in his career, yeah?

    Deservedly lauded, but it’s a fools game to compare eras like this.

  24. I learned how to play basketball with my school in 2005. Can anyone shed light on any specific changes that occurred prior to this, like how during Jordan’s time a rule was different or didn’t exist?
    I read some comments about zone changes but I don’t really have context to anything like that since I played with rules that appear to mirror modern NBA standards. Except for traveling, we definitely couldn’t take a million layup steps.

  25. I always see this quote posted as some gotcha. The rules used to be really stupid. Imagine if players could still dunk free throws or if offensive goaltending just wasn’t a thing.

  27. This would make more sense if MJ didn’t average 28/6.5/6 on 59% ts in his rookie year

  28. I have MJ higher than Wilt all time, but I do think this is a valid point to consider

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