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You should change his description from Grace Potter of all time to one of the greatest players of all time - calling him the greatest purple time outright is dishonest and incorrect in many NBA fans and experts opinions. Graves96 (talk) 08:21, 16 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Okay but that's f****** stupid too, there's no unanimously regarded goat player - I mean to be fair Jordan is favored by many is the goat, but some people would put Kareemd of them Graves96 (talk) 08:30, 16 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Possibly... it often depends on a person's age. I never would. Greatest ever really belongs at a bar conversation, not an encyclopedia. But with it being thrown around with Jordan, James, and Chamberlain articles, it's the way wikipedia works. Same thing at Wikipedia in tennis with Federer, Laver, Djokovic, Nadal, Tilden. Fyunck(click) (talk) 08:47, 16 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
What reliable sources are there that call Wilt the GOAT? The claim in the article is only supported by Fansided and Bleacher Report, which have been ruled unreliable by community discussions cited at WP:NBARSU. ESPN and The Athletic are among the WP:BESTSOURCES for the NBA topic area, and they rank him fifth or sixth. Left guide (talk) 11:21, 16 February 2025 (UTC) edited in response to recent restoration of content Left guide (talk) 22:17, 16 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Ranking a player is always subjective... it's always a he said she said... a water-cooler topic. None of them are worthy of an encyclopedia. But Wikipedia seems to like these things. Wording can be tweaked to say something along the lines of "Chamberlain has been called the greatest player in history" or something like that, as Jordan's should be. But I'd attempt to fix that article first. Fyunck(click) (talk) 21:22, 16 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
We can't tweak wording to say something that reliable sources don't say; that is original research which is prohibited by WP:OR policy. Do you have reliable sources directly calling Chamberlain the "greatest player in history"? If so, please provide them so we can discuss them and consider them for inclusion, thank you. Left guide (talk) 21:42, 16 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
If you're going to be completely Frank and accurate, you should make the wording on Jordans page " often considered the greatest (if not one of) players of all time" , and then put wilts as" considered one of the greatest players of all time". Graves96 (talk) 22:03, 16 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I've read enough books to say that both are often considered the greatest ever. But if you try to change that on Jordans article it will get reverted quickly. Compromises have been made through the years to accommodate those things. A more accurate and easily verified thing would be to have both say, "widely considered one of the greatest basketball players of all time." That would be fair for both of them. Heck now we have folks talking about Lebron James being better then each of them. or Kobi. It makes Wikipedia look more tabloid than encyclopedic. Fyunck(click) (talk) 22:27, 16 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
You know what if you were to make that change on all of them (and you should also put Kareem in the mix), I would have little issue with it - I personally lean towards Michael as the goat, but I can understand other people throwing in other names, it's just dramatically inaccurate to name two people as the singular greatest player of all time... Graves96 (talk) 22:30, 16 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Fyunck(click):I've read enough books to say that both are often considered the greatest ever. Can you please provide references to said books? That would be very helpful in moving this discussion forward. Left guide (talk) 22:33, 16 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I just plopped in a heap more refs to support. They are all over the place. Some even call him the "greatest athlete" ever, not just basketball. As far as all of them, I think it's a losing battle. We have managed to get them all out of the leads of tennis players, but some sports have more superfans, like basketball. Fyunck(click) (talk) 22:45, 16 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I think you have to consider where Wilt fits in the whole landscape of basketball commentary. I'm not surprised that you can find some sources that list Wilt as the best of all time, but some of those sources are relatively obscure (like an out of print DVD). There are plenty of other sources that don't even list him as one of the top 2 players. The Athletic had him at number 6. ESPN had him at number 5. I just don't think he's consistently listed at number 1 often enough for the lead to make the current statement. We can certainly consider softening the language in the Jordan article as well (but at least that statement in the lead is presented as a quote from the NBA, rather than something in Wikipedia's voice). Zagalejo (talk) 06:46, 17 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
You mean like the quote listed from the NBA from a 2025 website? "Asked to name the greatest players ever to play basketball, most fans and aficionados would put Wilt Chamberlain at or near the top of the list." Or Oscar Robertson when asked whether Chamberlain was the best ever, “The books don’t lie.” These are sourced in the article. Even a recent ESPN article on GOAT, the people involved would pick 4 or 5 players to always be included in that conversation... Chamberlain was always there!. This is an easy call to include him in the debate. Fyunck(click) (talk) 08:41, 17 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I wouldn't mind if you included that 2025 quote in the lead; "At or near the top of the list" is broad enough to cover all bases. The ESPN article isn't really as strong a source as you say. Look at how people respond to question three. Wilt isn't mentioned there. Zagalejo (talk) 13:29, 17 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
On second thought, I don't think that specific quote would resolve the contradictions between this article and the Jordan article, so I'm striking that part of the comment above. For the record, I think that that NBA.com legends profile is partially derived from a much older writeup which has received a few minor updates over the years. I see the "at or near the top of the list" line quoted in a forum post from 2003: https://forums.nba-live.com/viewtopic.php?f=21&t=11007&start=25. I'm curious just how old the NBA's original writeup is. Unfortunately, I'm not having luck with the Wayback Machine right now. Zagalejo (talk) 01:36, 18 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
By the way, that Oscar Robertson quote appears in newspaper articles and books from the 90s, and may be even older than that, so I don't think we should use it as evidence of current opinion. I see it in one book from 1997 (The Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame's 100 Greatest Basketball Players of All Time by Alex Sachare), which would have been published before Jordan's career was over and before LeBron was even in high school. Zagalejo (talk) 19:34, 18 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I could find books that call Bo Jackson the greatest athlete of all time, now you're just getting too subjective/generalist... That's a stupid point Graves96 (talk) 15:45, 18 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
level-4 vital article is rated GA-class on Wikipedia's content assessment scale.
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Done—Myasuda (talk) 12:05, 27 September 2024 (UTC)
Not done It's consistent with Michael Jordan's article. Fyunck(click) (talk) 08:25, 16 February 2025 (UTC)