When a cherry picked group of stats excludes Jordan, Wilt, and Russell, I’m going to go out on a limb and say that group of stats isn’t the best measure of NBA greatness.
As I said before, Bird is 36th in total points (behind Lebron James), 17th in points per game (well behind Lebron James), 48th in total rebounds, 41st in rebounds per game, 36th in assists (neck and neck with Lebron James), 42nd in assists per game (behind Lebron James). All those rankings in the 30’s and 40’s does nothing to convince me he should be on Mount Rushmore. If you want to give it to him for playing at the same time as Magic, being a part of the Celtics/Lakers rivalries, and being white, I suppose you can. But let’s not pretend it’s based solely on his on the court play.
If you’d just look at the raw numbers from that series, the Lakers lost a very close series by 2 points in game 7. The ppg averages were 105.9 for Boston and 106.3 for the Lakers. Both teams won 3 at home and in game 7, when the Lakers had home court advantage, it came down to 2 points.
Russell had only 6 points that game while Wilt had 18. What probably resulted in a win was hack-a-wilt. He was 4-13 at the FT line. Going 7-13 would have won it and gone a long way to change public perception.
I think what was even more interesting was that it’s the only finals ever where a player on the losing team took home Finals MVP. Jerry West averaged 38 a game. Havlicek had a great series in his own right, putting up 28/11/4 and would probably win the MVP any other season but for whatever reason, West’s superhuman effort got him the trophy.
HOWEVER, it’s mostly moot because I think by 1969, both Wilt and Russell were second fiddles on their respective squads.
Their real showdown was 2 years prior in 1967 when Wilt and his Philly quad took out Boston in 5.
That’s kind of exaggerated- but the role players were some of the best role players ever.
In other words, playing with Bill Russell was good for those players and helped them win. Now try to consider it the other way around: playing with those guys was good for Russell and he wouldn’t have won so often without them. Unless you think put Bill Russell on a team with a handful of random average NBA players and they’d still win eight titles.
Let’s not overlook the role of the franchise itself in the players’ success. The cases of Wilt and Russell are quite good for this.
Russell was coached by the same man for his entire career (and then coached himself). That man, Auerbach, was one of the great coaches and GMs of all time. He created a highly effective fast-breaking offense. He created the role of the sixth man. He created modern scouting. He drafted the first black NBA player, and ignored the unwritten rules about how many black players were permitted per team, and was the first to start five black players. The Celtics were a stable, innovative organization, and this was a big part of their success.
Chamberlain did not enjoy that advantage. He played for four coaches in six years in Philly. The team was sold to new ownership a few years into his career, and moved across the country. He was traded because the team was struggling financially, something Boston didn’t have to deal with.
It’s just a roadblock. The fact is that he won the rings. Nobody will defend the idea, in so many words, that winning the rings by itself makes him the greatest (or second greatest behind the other guy with the million rings). But that’s where it starts and ends, it seems like. If you list a bunch of facts that are true about Russell’s career, like the fact that his defense helped his team and his teammates, and then say that’s winning basketball, because he’s a winner, which puts him above Wilt, who wasn’t a winner, you’re still just pointing at his rings, in the end.
It’s indistinguishable from me saying Derek Fisher was better than John Stockton: I don’t give a shit about Stockton’s gaudy individual stats, I care about wins. Fisher hit timely threes, kept a cool head under pressure, didn’t turn the ball over, was a veteran leader, etc. And like I said, the bottom line is, the man made his teammates better, which is why he’s got those rings on his fingers. It’s exactly the same argument. To point out how stupid of an argument it is, you have to bring up all the kinds of things that you have to ignore to put Russell in a class above Wilt.
And like pancakes said, it collapses entirely, anyway, when you consider that the Wilt/Hal Greer team ate the Celtics’ lunch in '67. Why wasn’t Russell making Havlicek and Jones and Jones better when the Sixers were hanging a buck forty on them in the deciding game?
I’d say yes. Malone was 100x better as a scorer of course but Rodman did everything else superbly. The best rebounder in the league, an excellent defender of big men, and a solid passer too. Since the Bulls had plenty of scorers, Rodman was far more valuable to them than adding Karl Malone would have been.
I think that’s another good example of hitting a roadblock. If there’s no agreement that Karl Malone brought more to the table than Rodman (who was a great great player) did, then we’re not speaking the same language.
Maybe the Bulls wouldn’t bother with a Rodman-for-Malone swap (I believe they definitely would have, but I can at least imagine them not wanting to upset the apple cart with a different, greedier form of petulant manchild), but meanwhile the Jazz would have laughed that offer out of the room.
good choices, of course. Put together a second team and have a game, let the winner play the best Harlem Globetrotter’s of the 50’s… Actually, let them play the AAU champ Peoria Caterpillars from the 50’s…before the NBA replaced such leagues.
Russell would have won with other teams… maybe not to the extent he did with the Celtics, perhaps, but if Auerbach had gone to the Lakers and drafted Russell, then maybe so. As I mentioned, there’s no way Don Nelson would have been a HOFer if he hadn’t played on the Celts… he was cut from the Lakers after 2 seasons because he was too damn slow. If Sam Jones or Tommy Heinsohn play along side Chamberlain, they’re not get enough chances to assemble HOF-worthy numbers. KC Jones made the HOF because of his part of 9 Championships in 10 years. Cousy had already made his case by 1956, but Sharman may have been borderline. And remember that during the 13 year run by Russell, the Celtics were drafting at the bottom. After Sam Jones was drafted in 1957, the only Celtic draftee to make an impact was Havlicek in 1962. The team got very, very old. And in the days before chartered flights and modern medical technology, 30 was old. Nelson, as I mentioned, was picked up for free. Bailey Howell was considered near the end of his career when the Celtics acquired him for a backup center (Mel Counts). Siegfried was cut by the Cincinnati Royals. Ramsey, Sharmin, Cousy, Henisohn, KC, all retired, and yet the Celtics kept on winning championships with Russell.
I remember after a Celtics victory, the first stat given was how many Celtics scored in double figures.
I assume you’re being serious, although it’s hard to believe. Short answer, is that KC Jone’s knees were shot in his last season, and Greer ran all over him. Also, that 1966-67 team was loaded with 4 future HOFers (Wilt, Greer, Walker and Cunningham). The real question is how the Celtics beat that team in the playoffs 3 out of 4 years, including 1968, when they came back from a 3-1 deficit in their series.
Auerbach was a great coach, but he coached in the NBA for 20 years, the first 10 without Russell. In the first half of his coaching career, he won just over 40% of his playoff games and never made an NBA final. In the second half, with Russell, he won over 65% of his playoff games and made 10 straight NBA finals, winning 9. I’d say Russell had much more to do with Auerbach’s legacy than the other way around. The most brilliant thing Auerbach ever did was trade his all-star center (Ed McCauley) for the rights to Bill Russell.
Hmmm. You didn’t directly answer the question, but you didn’t say he would have won with any team. So it turns out that what we’re saying isn’t that hard to understand after all. What does this tell us about the idea that some players are just WINNERS and some are not?
I don’t understand your point. Bill Russell is considered one of the smartest players ever… and particularly in his era. Intelligence is a skill that translates to winning. There was little in the way of game film before video. There were no assistant coaches or scouts when Russell played. He entered the NBA at the beginning of it’s second decade. His intelligence and understanding of the game gave him a large advantage. Chamberlain averaged over 50 points a game in his second season, but that was not the best way to build a great team. Chamberlain was no dummy, and at various points in his career he tried to be a smarter player and involve his team mates more, realizing that if he was 50% of the offense it would make it too easy for a team to key on him during the playoffs. But it was not as easy or intuitive for Wilt. He hit the right “chord” in 1966-67, but with the Lakers it was a rougher transition, particularly in his first year when he pissed off Van Breda Kolf. And please note that I put Wilt on Mt. Rushmore. He would have won at least 3 or 4 more championships if he hadn’t had Russell and the Celtics in his way.
Intelligence is a skill that leads to winning, just like other skills, but Russ had other talents as well. He was a top scorer on a college team that won back-to-back championships that went 56-0 at one point. Russell could have had better offensive stats in the NBA if that was the team needed, but he accepted and perfected a more useful role. Russell would have made any team better than anyone of his era. He would have made a crappy team respectable and a good team great. What’s amazing is how long he was able to do that.
Those are some good points, and I think it makes sense to point out that Russell could have scored more and didn’t because that wasn’t his role on the Celtics. What I’m saying is that giving Russell credit for his skills and attributes is a fundamentally different argument from saying he’s the better player “because he won more.”
Malone averaged 25 points and 10 rebounds a game for his career. Rodman averaged 7 points and 13 rebounds. Malone also averaged more assists, though that may paint an incomplete picture of their passing abilities. The per-36 minute stats knock about a point off Malone’s average and give Rodman one extra point and two more rebounds a game, but still. I’m not sure how to compare and weigh their defensive abilities or setting screens, but if you offer me a choice between the best rebounder ever and another guy who gets almost as many rebounds a game but scores more than three times as many points… let’s say that’s not a hard choice. It would be very hard for Rodman’s superior rebounding and other skills to cancel out that enormous deficit in scoring, and if we’re talking about fundamentals, it should be mentioned that Malone was one of the best ever at getting to the free throw line and Rodman was one of the worst foul shooters ever. It’s true that the Bulls didn’t need Karl Malone, but then again, they had Jordan and Pippen. And they won three titles without Rodman.
Sorry- the best rebounder in the league, not the best ever. For their full careers, Rodman has the 10th-highest rebounds per game average and Malone ranks 26th. It’s just not a huge difference.
I think best rebounder ever is completely fair, actually. In terms of percentages I bet it’s true by a wide margin.
Certainly I’m serious. JohnT said that he’d rather have Russell because Russell’s the guy who wins, and Wilt’s the guy who scores a hundred and doesn’t win. The subjective and out-of-Russell’s control factors that you’re talking about aren’t supposed to matter in this conversation. I think the things you’re pointing out - like the fact that it was bad for Russell’s team when his legendary teammates’ knees were shot vs. not shot - are absolutely fair things to point out in Russell’s defense.
But this is how it works with “clutch” and “winners,” whether it be Manning and Brady or Alex Rodriguez and Jeter or LeBron and everyone else: when the guy I think is the best is also the guy who won, those wins are proof positive of his winning ability and are not only relevant, they’re the only thing. When he lost, or when the “choker” wins, well, shit, it’s a team game, let’s take a look at context and shades of gray. LeBron’s a great example. I am very confident that you could find conversations on this message board about LeBron from before he won, with one camp saying he literally could never win, and with the other side saying uh, he’s really good, he probably will, it seems plausible. Because winning isn’t actually magic, and nobody really believes that it is. But they like to believe that they believe that it is.
Well there’s a frustration with too many posters relying on stats like win shares and PPG and rebounds and assists. Basketball is much more of a team game than baseball, for instance. In baseball, players aren’t responsible for “getting other players involved in the offense,” for example. There are minor things like a batter taking a pitch to let a runner on 1st steal second, or sacrificing the player over, but really just occasional situational types of things. In basketball there are countless more things that “don’t show up in the scoresheets,” that don’t always translate into statistical totals like assists, for example. When coming down with a defensive rebound, knowing to risk the long pass on a fast break, or realizing that you can pass it to KC to bring it up and knowing that you’re going to beat your man up the court and have a 5 on 4. Understanding the effect of the fatigue factor and adjusting tactics in mid-game. There are all kinds of things we now understand that weren’t common knowledge back in the days before advance scouts and multiple video camera angles.
When Wilt engineered a trade from SF back to Philly, in 1965, the 76ers were flat out the best team in the league. The Celtics were old and they didn’t win their division the last 4 years of Russell’s career. (They finished 4th in 1968=69) I doubt the won a season series vs the 76ers in the 3 full seasons they had Wilt. Yet they won 3 championships in those last 4 years. And they were decided underdogs entering the playoffs those 4 years. So, statistically, the Russell and his teammates are not going to measure up. But they won. And even in the last 3 years, they probably didn’t measure up statistically within the 3 crucial series.
So what is a fan to conclude? That the Celtics were lucky to beat the 76ers in 1968 and lucky to beat the Lakers in 1966 and 1969? Or was it a skill that’s not accurately measured by win shares or PPG or RPG or APG? There’s no statistic for BBallIQ or Composure or Court Awareness so close playoff wins in game 7’s will have to do.
Most impressive stat of all: Bill Russell was 10 for 10 in 7th games of playoff series. Different cast of teammates, with Russell being the only constant. I don’t think that was just luck.
As I mentioned in the previous post, Russell was 10 for 10 in game 7 of playoff series. 10 for 10. And what’s amazing is that the last two game 7’s came vs teams that were better, statistically, younger and healthier and both involved comebacks in the series (1968 Eastern Divs finals down 3-1 vs the Sixers, and 1969 down 3-2 vs the Lakers) And what is more amazing is that Russell and the Celts could have hung it up after their 1967 defeat at the hands of the 76ers, and one it proudly having won 9 out of 10, but they persisted and won championships 10 and 11.
And, no, it wasn’t magic. But it was intelligence, composure and team work, not statistically captured, which puts anyone who didn’t see those games at a huge disadvantage.
Baloney. These cliches are usually offered in the affirmative, and they’re not a response to anything - they’re the foundation for a type of argument in Russell’s favor, not a response to the idea that Wilt is superior. They’re also universal to all sports.
Definitely true, and some of the newer stats are supposed to reflect this.
You didn’t cite any statistics. That to one side, there is still the question of matchups- not just Chamberlain vs. Russell, but how the styles and personnel of two teams stack up.
Or other things that aren’t reflected by oversimplifications, perhaps.
You were doing pretty well, but here we are again.
You don’t see 10 for 10 in 7th games as a stat, nor 11 out of 13, but I do. That’s the difference.
There are many advanced factors of the game that are now coached even in high school, let alone the pros, that weren’t so accepted in the late 1950s. Auerbach found his man in Russell to start to introduce these factors, but due to Russell’s innate intelligence, he really didn’t need much instruction. Again, Russ instantly transformed the team into champions, in spite of joining the team 2 months late because of the Olympics. So, my assumption is that Russell wouldn’t have had as big an IQ advantage over the rest of the league, with so much more instruction that is today taught early on.
One last point… you still over-rate the rest of Russell’s supporting cast. They were no where near as skilled as the cast that Larry Bird had in the 1980’s. Tom Sanders, Jim Luscotoff and Tommy Heinsohn were no match for McHale, Parrish, Maxwell and, for one year, Bill Walton. The backcourt of the vintage Celts was better, but DJ was no slouch and Archibald, then later Ainge were not slouches. Bird was a great player but still just 1/3rd of a big 3, and no where near the status of Bill Russell.
I think a stat isn’t what you think it is, Bellhorn. A basketball stat’s not a number that somebody made up; it’s a description of a real event. Not everything that happens on a basketball court is a statistic, but every statistic is a thing that happened. It takes a contortion of even the idea of a statistic to say that one team can beat another team in a playoff series while “not matching up statistically” within the series. It’s not possible, because a win is itself a stat, and it’s determined by points, which are stats, and those are determined by field goals and free throws, which are stats, and so on down until you get to PER and JChitRate, which is a stat I invented to make myself seem better. You can’t win by trickery over stats, or by smart decisions and sweet backscreens that don’t result in stops and points. You can get lucky and win despite some massive statistical disadvantage in one category or another, but how you did it will still be in the stats.
Anybody who’s ever played with somebody who plays the right way and somebody else who plays the wrong way knows that someone like Russell can be your best player without scoring a point. But it’s impossible to help your team statistically without helping them, and it’s impossible over the course of more than a few possessions to help a team in a way that doesn’t show up at all statistically. Russell’s effect on the Celtics isn’t magic. Nobody’s saying it didn’t exist. We’re just saying it isn’t beyond mundane comparison.
When I say that Randy Foye is a really really good basketball player who isn’t anywhere near as good as Kobe Bryant, I can say so from having personal experience, and I don’t need stats: Foye stopped a three on one and made the guy dribble out of bounds; and Kobe started getting double or triple-teamed at like three-quarter court (sometimes he even passed out of it). Those aren’t individual stats. If I like, I can pretend nobody else can understand if they haven’t really *seen *those guys, man. But since those guys were so good, they also both yolked on my head, and they’re also good NBA players. And the stats are there to say, yep, this one’s good and that one is way better. So you don’t actually need my opinion; you can just say hey check it out, Kobe had a 39% usage rate in an actual NBA season and was still really efficient, he must be able to score.
(Of course, that the statistics you think are missing the point about Russell’s contributions have him as far and away the greatest defensive player of all time, but they don’t become more useful to you by virtue of agreeing with you, I’ll allow.)
Again, no one is trying to exclude Russell’s success in game sevens or in Finals or just in general. Some of us are just saying that those things can’t be the alpha and the omega of the “who is good at the sport” debate, because that’s different.
If you’re talking about actually playing head-to-head, then any good modern team, and a lot of bad ones, will crush any team from the '50s.
Auerbach’s true strengths - innovation and team-building - were only unleashed when the Celtics gave him free reign to run the franchise. He didn’t have that with his previous teams (though he was still successful), which is why he resigned from two pro coaching jobs, until getting hired on with the Celtics to run things. Of course having a great player like Russell made Auerbach more successful (along with good 'ol dumb luck, like the Chicago Stags going out of business, allowing Auerbach to land Bob Cousy) that he would have been with lesser talents, but his career shows all the marks of a great basketball mind, who would’ve thrived anywhere he had control.