WASHED KING
, there's something that you're doing when you dismiss old players and automatically assume that current players would wash old players. You're failing to consider that environment + technology factors in. You're acting likeg it's just current player versus older player, but that's not the case.
"Lebron James would absolutely destroy anyone in the 60s." Look, by the time Lebron James was in HS, he was so good that damn near his entire senior season was on TV. Now imagine if he had never even touched a basketball until his sophomore/junior season. No 8th grade prep squads w/ coaches and athletic trainers giving him sage advice that he is just TAKING OFF with. Not even a little mini hoop in the living room as a toddler. Nothing. Just barely even introduced to basketball as a sophomore/junior, maybe as a freshman.
And not with nice shoes and shooting sleeves or knee braces. No, no, none of the technologies that today's NBA player practically grows up with. If you put Lebron playing against NBA players in the 1960s, no, you don't get the Lebron born in 1984. If we're going to imagine Lebron in the 60s, we're going to imagine Lebron born in the late 40s/early 50s.
And then on the flip side, if we're going to put Jerry West against today's players, we have to move Jerry West into today's timeline. Jerry West grew up doing farm work in West Virginia, like every other kid in West Virginia. Imagine him growing up in the late 90s on an AAU squad, having first been introduced to basketball at like 4. Imagine Jerry West going to a premier basketball HS, being given top notch coaching and athletic training since his age was single digits.
Then imagine that scenario... for Wilt. Or Russell. Start grooming Wilt Chamberlain to play basketball only starting at like age 5. Have him grow up wearing top of the line basketball shoes and doing basketball related exercises and drills hardcore starting in about junior high.
It's not just player versus player. It has to be:
environment + technology + player versus
environment + technology + player.
-foe