No, the regular season does NOT matter "just as much". How you perform against shytty teams when everyone is playing at 70% effort is NOT as important as how you perform against elite teams when everyone is playing at 100% effort. And in the fukking 1960s, you couldn't even call regular season basketball 40% effort on the defensive end - they ran up and down the court shooting the first shot they got and straight didn't give a shyt.
So 1964 is the absolute best you could come up with?
First off, in 1964 the lane was only 12 feet wide. So Wilt Chamberlain could park himself right next to the basket and they practically dunk from there without even having to step in the lane. Can you imagine how much Shaq would dominate in a fukking 12-foot wide lane where he could just sit next to the basket all game? There was a reason they moved the lane out to 16 feet the next year.
In 1964 Wilt only played two rounds of playoffs.
First, he was matched up against 6’9”, 225lb 2nd-year center Zelmo Beaty and 6'9" 205lb White guy Bob Pettit. There were actual centers who only weighed 200 pounds in 1964. Wilt averaged 39ppg, but the Warriors only barely won the series in seven games.
Then he was matched up against 6'10", 215lb Bill Russell (no one else in the Celtics' top-8 was over 6'7"). Wilt averaged 29ppg but they got washed and the series was over in 5 games.
That's Wilt's greatest postseason. Winning 5 games and losing 7 while only facing ONE guy over 6'9".
How the hell is Wilt offensively unstoppable now when back in 1964, with a 12-foot wide lane and only one guy on the court over 6'7", he couldn't even break 30ppg while his team got rocked?
Here's some highlights from the best game of that Finals, which went 98-95 Celtics.
This the NBA Finals. This not a rec league game. This is the NBA Finals. This is not a rec league game. Try saying that to yourself over and over so you don't forget.
I gotta narrate the first three minutes.
0:24 - Wilt tips off against Russell who looks like he's giving up 5 inches to him. Wilt fails to control the tip, but the Celtic it goes to loses control of the ball and a White Warrior get it, hilariously dribbling further into the backcourt while crouching and staring at the ball.
0:32 - Some White guy buries a 16-foot jump shot. His defender doesn't even leave his feet, doesn't put his hand up, doesn't challenge the shot at all. This is the basketball highlight of the first four minutes.
0:49 -
WHAT DA fukk WAS THAT??? I can't even describe that - if some a$$hole tried that shyt in the gym with you you'd walk off the court and find a new team.
1:12 - Another White guy bricks an open jump shot (again, no challenge at all), and Wilt benefits from an
extremely weak loose ball foul call on the rebound. This is the supposedly "physical" 1960s, right?
1:30 -
Wilt barely even grazes the rim on the single worst-looking underhanded free throw I have ever seen in my life.
1:40 -
I'm fukking dying at this point. A White Celtic just drove into the lane, kicked himself in the ass with his own feet, and missed the entire basket from only five feet away.
He literally air-balled it from five feet without anyone even challenging. And the game just started so his legs are fresh! But Wilt doesn't box out, Russell gets the rebound and the put-back layup.
2:00 - Wilt sets up right at the edge of the key, which remember is only five feet from the hoop. They loft a pass to him, which Russell can't do anything about because he's just too short. Wilt catches the ball, takes one dribble while looking at the ball, then drops the ball in the basket. Russell doesn't even try to challenge the shot.
2:20 - The Celtics throw a pass to Russell posting up. Wilt appears to have been taking a nap. Russell misses the lay-in, which Wilt challenges by putting his arms around Russell's sides, but then gets the tip-in when Wilt doesn't even jump for the rebound.
2:30 - Warriors pretty hilariously bounce the ball off each other while passing in the wrong direction in an unforced error, but the Celtics don't get it, maybe because the attempted pass was so dumb it surprised even them.
2:40 - Warrior drives to the hole and loses the ball. Celtics get a fast-break lay-in on the other end.
3:00 - White Warrior drives to the hole in a give-and-go with Wilt, and hilariously slams the ball off the side of the backboard because the presence of Russell frightens him. Wilt gets the rebound and gets fouled.
Ref does a disco move in response to the foul that has me dying.
3:30 - Wilt completely bricks another underhand free throw.
The game goes on like that.
Someone gotta make gifs of this shyt.
No he was not.
First off, you're ignoring that Wilt only shot 47% from the line, so bad it cost his team big games left and right.
Second, Wilt was the only one of those guys who played with a 12-foot lane. Wilt was the only one of those guys who played in an era were there fewer than 5 Black men in the entire league over 6'9". And Wilt was the only one of those guys who played 48 minutes/game in an up-and-down league where they just threw up shots left and right. After 1965, when they widened the lane and more big men and Black players started joining the league, Wilt only averaged 22ppg in two postseason runs with the Warriors and then 15.8ppg in five years with the Lakers. And that was STILL with a wildly inflated pace, as Gil pointed out.
Third, postseason success DOES matter. Of course your team matters too, but Wilt had some stacked teams during those runs. If he couldn't even dominate against a Celtics team that was pretty much playing ONE guy over 6'7", how the hell he going to be the GOAT in some other era?
Ya'all get moist about ppg and regular season scoring records. You ignore that fact that the actual play is a joke and the contribution to success is weak at best.