Bball reference will never tell you how "big" players from the 60s vs now were/are:

[Danny Up]

Also one more thing... don't get caught up comparing images from the 60's with images from the present day either. Because another interesting thing happened at around that time. Camera technology improved rapidly. Zoom lenses became far more accessible to sports photographers - and zoom lenses are the type of lenses that optically "add lbs" and fill out the figures of subjects. Let me demonstrate:

Zoom lens on the right:

Wilt in the 70's at a weight of about 305lbs with a just-coming-into-mainstream telephoto "zoom" lens with perhaps 100-200mm zoom (better than typical 60's but still much less than modern):

Wilt at the same time/weight... with a lens more typical of the era, w/o much zoom - notice how much less filled out he appears:

Now for comparison, a modern sports zoom lens with a comparatively extreme (but now a days standard) 300-600mm zoom on Dwight Howard - who last season only weighed about 270lbs - much less than Wilt - but looks incredibly filled out in comparison to what old 60's and 70's cameras would capture:

"6-9 215 Bill Russell"

"7-0 260 Pat Ewing"

Now side by side with the same camera - the reality is they are much closer in size than list info / old pics would lend one to believe:

Pat Ewing was fat. Wilt and Russell were lean. Dwight is like 5 inches shorter than Wilt.

 

[Reggie]

This has been a recent fascination for me the past few years in wondering why the NBA chooses to lie about players heights so much. But at the same time I guess I can understand when they use the heights with shoes since they do play with them on. Though shyt like Beasley still be listed at 6'10 when even with shoes he measured at just over 6'8.

 

[IceCold]

Post of the year !
Sent from my SPH-L710 using Tapatalk 2

 

[Danny Up]

This has been a recent fascination for me the past few years in wondering why the NBA chooses to lie about players heights so much. But at the same time I guess I can understand when they use the heights with shoes since they do play with them on. Though shyt like Beasley still be listed at 6'10 when even with shoes he measured at just over 6'8.

It's like the circus and wrestling. to make things appear larger than life.

 

[dantheman9758]

This has been a recent fascination for me the past few years in wondering why the NBA chooses to lie about players heights so much. But at the same time I guess I can understand when they use the heights with shoes since they do play with them on. Though shyt like Beasley still be listed at 6'10 when even with shoes he measured at just over 6'8.

$$$ talks... my theory is once the NBA / ABA started throwing HUGE sums of money at players - player stock increased proportionately to the frequency of inflated list info. I think it started out as shock value. "6-9" Magic Johnson was before shoes were even thick, no way the 6-7.5 Magic had any reason to be listed 6-9 other than to portray him as larger than life. A 6-9 point guard sounds incredible and rare. Or the 7-4 "forward" Ralph Sampson (only 7-1 in RL)... paired up with the "7-0" (only 6-10 in RL) Akeem for some Twin Towers action. Shock value is value. They wanted to promote these guys to be as incredible as possible - kinda like pro-wrestling. I'm glad draft camps started to get real serious in recent years about tracking as much actual data as possible so that we don't just have to accept the NBA numbers at face value.

 

[Danny Up]

$$$ talks... my theory is once the NBA / ABA started throwing HUGE sums of money at players - player stock increased proportionately to the frequency of inflated list info. I think it started out as shock value. "6-9" Magic Johnson was before shoes were even thick, no way the 6-7.5 Magic had any reason to be listed 6-9 other than to portray him as larger than life. A 6-9 point guard sounds incredible and rare. Or the 7-4 "forward" Ralph Sampson (only 7-1 in RL)... paired up with the "7-0" (only 6-10 in RL) Akeem for some Twin Towers action. Shock value is value. They wanted to promote these guys to be as incredible as possible - kinda like pro-wrestling. I'm glad draft camps started to get real serious in recent years about tracking as much actual data as possible so that we don't just have to accept the NBA numbers at face value.

But wasn't akeem always listed at 6-10 I don't remember him being listed at 7-0 maybe it was when he added the h.

 

[dantheman9758]

But wasn't akeem always listed at 6-10 I don't remember him being listed at 7-0 maybe it was when he added the h.

 

[Danny Up]

I stand corrected. just remember him being listed at 6-10

 

[blackzeus]

It's always the same arguments "The league was full of white guys back then" meanwhile, Hornacek and Hinrich giving nikkaz nightmares, and nikkaz look frozen in time trying to guard slow ass Steve Nash. If anything, the athletes were better back then, because they didn't have all the products/access to elite trainers/etc that they do now. They literally woke up, put on a jersey, and went to go play

 

[Taadow]

I found this interesting and read it.

 

[Sccit]

dwight woulda been listed as 6'8" back then LOL

 

[threattonature]

I honestly don't think their is a better basketball poster then dantheman

Agreed.

 

[Brozay]

as always, @dantheman9758 dropping gems

 

[itsyoung!!]

I might be trippen but dwight looks "more filled out" because hes "only" (in your words) 270 lbs while wilt was 305 , but you arent accounting for the fact that Dwight is like 3-4 inches shorter than Wilt which is the real reason he looks more "filled out"

Wilt was probably 7'1 without shoes
while Dwight is maybe 6'11 with shoes and 6'9-6'10 without shoes, he looks closer to lebron size than hibbert size..


my brother is only 5'8 but in the NFL Draft and playing in the CFL they had him listed as 5'10

 

[dantheman9758]

I might be trippen but dwight looks "more filled out" because hes "only" (in your words) 270 lbs while wilt was 305 , but you arent accounting for the fact that Dwight is like 3-4 inches shorter than Wilt which is the real reason he looks more "filled out"

Wilt was probably 7'1 without shoes
while Dwight is maybe 6'11 with shoes and 6'9-6'10 without shoes, he looks closer to lebron size than hibbert size..


my brother is only 5'8 but in the NFL Draft and playing in the CFL they had him listed as 5'10

Do you really not see what the camera lenses are doing to subjects? - filling them out proportionately more and more the greater the level of zoom? I know Dwight is big but he's not cartoon-like big like some those 30,000 dollar NBA 600mm zoom lenses make him out to be, nor was Bill Russell stick figure skinny like the crude 60's 35 and 50mm lenses make him out to be. That's my underlying point.

Take a pic of Dwight with a normal point and shoot camera with no better lens technology than the old 1960's lenses and suddenly he looks human again. He's still 270lbs... but the lens changes how filled out he appears.

I'm just trying to point these things out because they aren't immediately obvious to everyone and they can greatly influence our perception of things if we aren't aware of them.