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Wilt Chamberlain
The appeal of a stretch 4 is for spacing purposes. A big that can shoot 3s brings the big guarding him out of the paint. In the older era where illegal defense was a violation, teams could achieve the same thing by just parking their big on the 3pt line - whether he could shoot or not was irrelevant. If the guy guarding your big at the 3 left his man the refs would blow the whistle.
Of course, this was magnified by the fact there was no prerotating on defense allowed in the NBA. So if someone did double, the big with the ball knew exactly where it came from. Add in the faster pace and this is why you see such dominant numbers from the All Timers of that era. Why would you even care so much about a 3pt shooting big when you can get any potential help out of the paint and let your Barkleys and Hakeems go 1vs1 anyway? When they are shooting in the 58-60%+ range its probably a better bet.
ok that makes perfect sense, good post.