Could Michael Jordan Still Play at 50?

That's not true. Chamberlain was a health nut. He stayed in great shape throughout his career.

 

Uhm yeah, that's what I said.

Wilt was also supposedly the first NBA player of note to lift weights.

 

I misunderstood your post. I thought you were saying that Wilt was out of shape like Shaq was prone to be later in his career.

 

Wilt didn't have a first-team All-NBA player on his 1966-67 title team.

Had some great teammates, but in an 8-team league, none that made first-team All-NBA that season. Billy C made it a couple of times a few years later.

Heck, Russell didn't even have a first-team All-NBA teammate after Cousy in 1960-61. Combinations of West-Robertson-Baylor-Pettit-Lucas-Barry kind of dominated at the non-center positions.

 

I'm in the minority, but the reason why I voted yes is because of Jordan's intensely competitive nature. Just off the street, sure, he'd play very few minutes and look awful. But, if he really put his mind to it, trained, and was back in some sort of shape, I'd say he would be nowhere near his prime, but still quite possibly better than some of the younger guys out there - better than average, but below the current stars.

And he probably knows that and so this is not happening.

Unless he gambles away everything.

 

I didn't go back and check the all-NBA teams, but I figured Billy C, Hal Greer and Chet Walker, who later became HOFers, qualified.

Long about that time, Russell also had Havlicek on the roster with him.

Hell, in the days of the 8-team league, damn near every team had a couple HOFers on the roster. The suck-ass Pistons (30-51) had Bing and DeBusschere.

 

If my memory is correct, Hal Greer was a second team All-NBA choice the year the Sixers won the title.

 

Kind of a side note: C's when Bird and Maravich were in the same starting lineup:

 

Jordan's former trainer Tim Gover thinks that he could come back at 50. Good column by Adrian Wojnarowski:

http://sports.yahoo.com/news/nba--could-michael-jordan-play-at-50--his-trainer-is-ready-if-he-does-003920978.html

" As Tim Grover walked out of the Hall of Fame induction speech four years ago, the observances of Michael Jordan's old slights, the settling of old scores, had already come and gone in the trainer's mind. All those years with Jordan, and Grover understood to always be lurching toward tomorrow with the game's greatest player.

"I heard that speech differently than everybody else," Grover said. Grover heard Jordan raising the idea of playing in the NBA in his 50s, and that was all the nod he needed to begin preparations.

"If I ever get that call," Grover said, "I was going to be prepared for it. And I am."

Fifty pages inside a binder sit on Grover's desk inside his suburban Chicago home now, information and studies and research and innovations into regenerating the muscle fibers and anti-aging advances and nutrition. From his trips to Europe and Asia and the Far East, Grover has incorporated a small library of intelligence – backed with the most intimate knowledge of Jordan's body and mind and drive – to create a program that awaits the comeback of all comebacks at 50 years old.

"There's no doubt in my mind, that right now, Michael is still the best player on the Charlotte Bobcats," Grover said.

 

Again, it's what left in his legs. Jordan could score. There's no question about that. But there's no way he could run up and down a court for 20-30 minutes and average 30 points. I don't care about his competitive juices, father time has told him to watch the games from the sidelines.
And can anyone tell me why is this even a topic?

 

Why not ? I think it's a fun discussion. George Foreman was HW Champ at 50.

 

Because Big Media doesn't have anything to cover other than baseball players practicing, and they all copy off of each other.