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Wilt the best ever from Pennsylvania?

  Mike White| Monday, June 8, 9:45 a.m.

The high school sports web site www.maxpreps.com did an interesting thing recently, picking the best high school basketball player ever from each state. Kevin Askeland did the story and some of the choices might surprise you.

The winner from Pennsylvania was Wilt Chamberlain, who played at Overbrook High School in the 1950s.

It's hard to argue with Wilt's selection, although some from the younger crowd might pick Kobe Bryant (Lower Merion High School). The selections had some critieria. The player had to play in the NBA. Also, the player had to do significant things in high school. The story brings up Bill Russell and how he wasn't much of a factor on his high school team.

Another interesting choice is Ohio. Maxpreps picked former Boston Celtic great John Havlicek as the best player from Ohio. I'm sure the younger crowd would go with LeBron. Here is the link for the story. http://www.maxpreps.com/news/article.aspx?articleid=1e2043a7-e250-de11-a973-001cc494dda6

But what do you think? Is Wilt indeed the best player ever from Pennsylvania? Or better yet. Let's localize things. Who is the best player ever from the WPIAL?

And who is the best ever from the City League?

It makes for interesting discussions. You can tell us your thoughts on the "comments" section of this blog.

 


Posted Jun 08 2009, 09:35 AM by Mike White

Comments

collegesportsfan wrote re: Wilt the best ever from Pennsylvania?
on Mon, Jun 8 2009 4:50 PM

Best PA:

Wilt

Kobe

Walt Hazzard

Billy Owens

Tom Gola

Best City of Pgh:

Ken Durrett

Maurice Lucas

Sam Clancy

Sonny Lewis

DeJuan Blair

WPIAL:

Jack Marin

Billy Knight

Armon Gilliam

Brad Davis

Dennis Wuycik

Mike White wrote re: Wilt the best ever from Pennsylvania?
on Tue, Jun 9 2009 3:43 PM

Not a bad list, but a couple points. In City League, you're missing Maurice Stokes (Westinghouse). He definitely belongs on list. There are many more from Pennsylvania also. As for WPIAL, you needed to have Norm Van Lier (Midland) and Simmie Hill (Midland). Also Dan Fortson (Shaler) - and that's just a couple. Willie Somerset (Farrell). And I might have to disagree with Armon Gilliam. If you're basing it strictly on what players did after high school, then he belongs. He had a long NBA career. But in high school, he doesn't compare to the others. He basically had one decent year in high school at Bethel Park, but he averaged around 10 points a game. Pete Cwalina was kind of the star of the team.