Was Wilt Chamberlain Good at Defense?
Yes. Probably very good.
Individual defense is extremely hard to measure even now, with player tracking and on/off and every box score recorded to within an inch of its life. For most of Wilt’s era the only stat we have is points allowed, which of course makes it even harder, but we can still use defensive rating (DRtg) estimates from http://www.basketball-reference.com which try to scale points allowed by pace, keeping in mind that opposing stats besides points weren’t recorded until 1971, and blocks, steals, offensive/defensive rebounds, and turnovers weren’t recorded until 1974, the year after Wilt retired.
credit Daniel Buffington
With those seemingly prohibitive conditions, should we even bother with DRtg? Let’s consider the years where Wilt and Russell were both in the league and check out the teams that led each season in DRtg.
Okay then! So we can be reasonably sure Russell was the best defender as his reputation suggests, but unlike in stock car racing there are positions between first and last, so how well did Wilt’s teams stack up quantitatively? Let’s look at his DRtg expressed in terms of league average (DRtg+):
Not bad at all! Wilt’s teams were better than average in every year but one, and frequently much better than (i.e. greater than one standard deviation from) average. In addition to their league best 1968 performance, also known as literally the only season a team ever defended better than a team with Bill Russell, three seasons they finished second only to the Celtics, plus a second place finish to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s Bucks by less than a tenth of a point per hundred possessions. (We skipped 1965 since Wilt was traded midseason, and 1970 since he only played twelve games.)
NBA All-Defensive teams weren’t awarded until 1969, though Wilt did receive two First Teams in the five years he was eligible. Let’s compare Wilt’s career DRtg+ against other centers to get First Team nods in that span, using the same criterion of ignoring injury limited seasons:
Please note that we’re only using Kareem’s Milwaukee numbers here, but otherwise using everyone’s full career. While he would go on to receive many additional All-Defensive nods, his Lakers were a merely good defensive team compared to the elite Bucks. If we included the next fourteen (14!!!) years of his career he would certainly fall below Wilt by this measure, but we’d also be introducing a significant different era - we haven’t even gotten to the ABA merger yet in this sample, which otherwise ends by 1975 at the latest for everyone.
credit Frank Bryan
Bottom line, Bill Russell remains the absolute head and shoulders gold standard of defense, but Wilt is clearly no slouch. He was probably the second best defensive center in any given year of his career, first behind Bill and then behind Kareem. Not bad for a guy who was pretty good on offense too.
