Barkley : Harden is the greatest offensive talent to ever play

You sound frustrated.

Frustration can be a mental block for information absorption.

Feel better soon.

 

Its insulting to Wilt to say he can't.

Is this a black 7 footer thing?

 

No not frustrated...more like a bit incredulous that people take all these anecdotal stories as facts, but I'm not going to tell you what to believe. Like I said I don't believe it was that extreme.

 

Right...

Anyway James Harden is good at basketball and he doesn't bench 600lbs or have a vertical jump of 8 meters.

 

No it really isn’t. Wilt was a professional basketball player not a power lifter.

Get out of here with that other nonsense.

 

So if you dont believe it then you make up your own idea of what is truth about him based on preconceptions of what you consider normal?

Wilt was hyperbolic I agree but his contemporaries were all liars too?

Larry Brown, Pat Riley, Ricky Barry, Jerry West, Lenny Wilkens, Paul Silas, Kareem, Bill Russell, Oscar Robertson, Arnold, Red Kerr, Gus Johnson, Bob Lanier, etc. - all of these guys and more were untrustworthy?

Anecdotal evidence is still evidence, even in a court of law.

 

Those are people that say he’s strong not that he benched 500lbs. You’re not getting it.

 

I don't consider Wilt to be normal, but he wasn't even jacked. That doesn't mean he wasn't very, very strong, but I just take a lot of the stories about him with a box of salt. That starts with the ridiculous 20000 women thing which he even admitted to inaccurately estimating.

From what I understand most of those contemporaries just had stories about him being a strong, terrific athlete. I doubt every single one of them claim to have witnessed him bench 500 or leap 50".

 

I am just protective of the legends of the game.

Just because you did not witness personally does not mean it did not happen. Why do you feel need to mitigate or dilute these players accomplishments?

Picking up Arnold by one arm, lifting 6'10 Bob Lanier and moving him to the side like a tea cup, picking up 235 6'7 Paul Silas like a child and telling him no fighting, blocking 6'6 230 Gus Johnson then throwing him to ground dislocating his shoulder, dunking ball so hard it broke Red Kerr's toe, dunking while 6'5 John Havlicek was hanging from his arms and his feet were dangling in the air, palming bowling bowls are all feats of astounding strength.

What other athlete has done this?

The Big Dipper or Goliath (he hated Wilt the Stilt nick) was the original #13.

And very much like Harden, Wilt's abilities and accomplishments were derided, parsed, villified, minimized, mocked and qualified while he was literally changing the game.

 

Wilt at 7’2 330 pounds lifting 600 pounds is not far fetched. I’m 6 foot four and close to 255 pounds have done close to 500 pounds for 4 reps without a spotter and that was when I was cutting up for a comp at just over 230 pounds.

Someone with wilts frame and bone structure could easily do 600 pounds

 

You are freak Riko.

But I don't believe you, anecdotal evidence is bad.

 

Believe me or not it’s up to you. My way of training has always been what ever I weighed at the time I tried to lift at the very least 150 to close to 200 percent of my body weight on the bench. Atleast 100 percent on the squat rack. That’s the basic way of getting gains.

 

Bad joke. Should have used emoji to show sarcasm.

You are yoked, I believe you. I have no reason not too.

I take people at their word until proven otherwise.

And great bench tip, thanks.

 

Bob Cousy not considered one of the greatest passers/point guards ever by modern fans because he played before the 70's.

I'm sure he could not start on any team today because the pace in his era was ridiculously fast and athletes today are bigger, faster, taller and just plain gooder.

 

People existing that can lift 500 plus pounds isn’t really relevant to whether Wilt can do it. Easily lift 600lbs? No.

This guy lifts heavy things for a living.




That’s all he does. He’s 6’9” and weighs 395lbs. His max bench press is 550lbs and I can promise you he didn’t do it easily.

The difference between 6’9” and 6’4” in bench press is massive. Wilt was 7’2” and had arms longer than the tree in my front yard. Can you imagine the amount of bar travel that it takes to get from the rack to his chest and back up? That’s partly the reason why the mountain maxes out at 550 and not 650. But also part of the reason why he throws up a world record of 1100 on the deadlift.

Wilt was a professional basketball player not a power lifter. His build looks nothing at all like anybody pressing 500. Even at 300lbs he was carrying the bulk of his weight in his lower body.

Drock thinks this is some kind of insult to Wilt. It is not. Wilt was a great player and a great athlete, whatever he benched is immaterial to that.

 

Durant is taller than Harden and is a better shooter than Harden.

However he is not as strong as Harden, he isn’t as quick as Harden, he doesn’t have the same court vision, body control or the ability to stop on a dime and start up again.

James Harden’s skill set is very under appreciated.

The person that would know what Wilt could lift would be Arnold Schwarzenegger because they were in the gym together starting in 1968.

I found quotes from him saying Wilt did 180 pound tricep curls which according to Arnold freaked him out.

 

Yeah I’ve seen that one. I’d love to see Arnold come out and say he definitely witnessed Wilt doing a 500lb bench press. I’d have no problem being wrong.

 

180 triceps curl is badass.

 

He did... in the last year he said Wilt curled 180 lbs.

 

Sure. Nobody has said Wilt wasn’t badass. You’ve been arguing against straw men for the most part.