When big men (centers & power forwards) of different eras are compared by casual fans one can be certain that they will give the most "props" to the players they grew up watching. Facts, official statistics, or the "eye test" have very little to do with their decisions. Truthfully speaking that is to be expected. They only know what they know, nothing more, and that is what makes them casual fans.
Fortunately all fans are not casual. The older coaches and fans bring up the dominance of Wilt Chamberlain or the defensives skills and unparallelled winning of Bill Russell. The middle aged fans and coaches say that Shaquille O'Neal and his peers were the most "dominant". Finally, the young players and fans counter with complete & irrelevant nonsense like "Wilt played against little white guys." Or my favorite, "Today's big men have more skills and jump higher."
For the record, I have seen Chamberlain and Russell at the ends of their careers as well as in countless highlights. All of the rest I have seen in college, and some as far back as high school. Instead of giving another opinion, I decided to rely on the facts. Here is what I found.
First of all, in order to claim big men of an era are more "soft" the players would have to be less durable, play less minutes per game, and/or use "load management", a clear sign of poor conditioning. In addition, all eras had Top 75 quality big men, so talent is not an issue.
Furthermore, it is useless to claim that superior rebounders are not "tougher". Rebounding prowess occurs because of heart and desire not height. The 6'4" Charles Barkley's career dominance on NBA backboards clearly proves my point.
With this being said the big men of Shaquille O'Neal's era were easily more physical and much more aggressive than today's big men. In addition, they were warriors who would look down on load management. Furthermore, a top bigman of today such as Joel Embiid would be considered lazy in the other eras. Over his eight year career Embiid averages only 41 games per year played, and 31.2 minutes per game. Compared to the 80.3 games per year played over 13 seasons, and 45.8 minutes played per game of Wilt Chamberlain, and Embiid looks like a total underachiever.
Furthermore, the bigmen of Shaq's era also look like underachievers in comparison to their predecessors. The primary reason is their lack of rebounding prowess. Both Wilt Chamberlain and Bill Russell averaged TWICE as many rebounds as any two big men of the other eras. That is correct. The COMBINED rebound per game totals of Shaguille O'Neal and Kareem Abdul Jabbar are less than both Chamberlain's and Russell's. In addition, there were several big men in that era who would easily lead the current NBA in rebounding (Nate Thurmond, Bob Pettit, Jerry Lucas, Walt Bellamy, etc.).
In conclusion, the younger the era, the "softer" the big man. Granted, big men like Giannis Antetokounmpo and Nikola Jokic have the skill, durability, and "heart" to play in any era. Unfortunately, many of their big man peers in the NBA cannot realistically make the same claim.
* Would you like to know who the Top 30 centers are of all-time? How about the Top 30 power forwards, along with how all were decided? For more detailed information about the Top 30 players if each position (150 total), click the link below.
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