There are a dozen great players worth consideration, but any Mt. Rushmore basketball court has to contain Mikan as it’s starting point.
Robertson, Russell, Jordan. imho
a true Rushmore for BBall would have 5 players, one at each traditional position. Add Cousy. Modern folks just don’t realize how good he was.
The pre-shot-clock, pre-foul-limit NBA was almost a different sport…ideally, you’d need pre- and post-1954 Mount Rushmores.
In that case, I’d go:
PG - Magic Johnson
SG - Michael Jordan
SF - LeBron James
PF - Tim Duncan
C - Wilt Chamberlain
It covers a nice span of post-'54 eras, too: '59-'73 (Wilt), '79-'91 (Magic), '84-'98 (Jordan), '97-? (Duncan), '03-? (James).
Mount Rushmore specifically means four, and I guess that frees people up from the team concept. If you want to pick an all-time team, that might look different.
If Lebron was smart he would have added a couple team orientated guys on his list. Not that he made a bad list either because I thought he did a good job with his list but putting Duncan and Russell along with Jordan and himself probably would have made him look better.
My list as of now would be
Michael Jordan…no doubter
Wilt Chamberlen…He was better than Russell, if I was building a team, I’d want Russell.
Magic Johnson…slightly over Bird
Lebron James…as much as I hate him
I would not take Mikan or Cousy only because the era they played in was in my opinion like the 19th century for baseball players and I would never choose Cap Anson or Cy Young over guys like Ruth, Williams, Cobb, W. Johnson as baseballs Mt Rushmore. The golden age of basketball started in the 80’s.
Jordan, Bird, and Magic aren’t team-oriented guys?
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Wilt’s stats were too ridiculous and rules were changed to address his domination. But yeah, Russell was better head-to-head. But how much of that had to do with the supporting casts? I never saw Russell play and saw just a glimpse of Wilt at career’s end. But I’d bet all the tea in China if Wilt and Chamberlain swapped teams, Wilt’s teams would have been even more dominating than the real-world’s Russell’s were.
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I’m always curious about this kind of statement. If Wilt’s better individually, why wouldn’t you want him? Alternatively, if you’d rather have Russell on an imaginary team, why doesn’t that make Russell better? It’s almost as if there’s a desire to consciously give Russell credit for things at the same time as you acknowledge that he doesn’t deserve it.
There is the fact that for the first half of his career he was maybe the best player there’d ever been, though. It’s true that he wasn’t quite the same for the second 10 or 11 years, but it’s also true that each half of his career was a pretty good career. Which I think kind of addresses the “trying hard” bit. I’ll take a low-effort 30/16/5/4 anytime I can get it, since the only time I can get it is when it’s coming from Kareem.
Similar to James dragging Cleveland to the Finals, Iverson dragged Philly there in 2000. Not saying Iverson is Rushmore-worthy, just an interesting parallel.
Can’t…resist…
It should be noted, though, that while Kareem was dominating the NBA in his early years, Artis Gilmore, Swen Nater, Maurice Lucas, Moses Malone, Dan Issel, Mel Daniels, Caldwell Jones, Marvin Barnes, Billy Cunningham, George McGinnis, Bobby Jones, and Spencer Haywood were playing in the ABA, instead of going up against Kareem in the frontcourt.
Philly’s defense and rebounding “dragged” them to the finals that year. Iverson’s positive influence on that team is highly exaggerated.
Iverson was the best player on that team, no?
Russell
Jordan
Kareem
Wilt
I’d love to put Duncan on the list, but he doesn’t measure up to these 4 in terms of overall importance to the NBA.
Almost 30 years after he retired, Larry Bird still ranks in the top 50 all-time in assists, rebounds, and points. The only other player to join him on this list? Kareem. Jordan isn’t on this list, neither is Malone (either Karl or Moses), Wilt, Johnson, or Russell.
So he wasn’t about stats, but Bird definitely put them up.
Whoa. Lynch (who played in ten games in the playoffs), Snow, McKie, T Hill and Mutombo were nice guys to have around, but are you seriously suggesting that was a team - a team starting Jumaine Jones in the playoffs - that had any business beating the Lakers in game one of those Finals, absent this questionable positive influence? How many other guys are on the list of dudes who they’d have been there with, in your estimation?
100% agreed.
They are but Russell has always been known for being the ultimate team player, same with Tim Duncan. they were never considered the best players during their eras. That’s why it’s tough to really put guys like Russell and Duncan on a Mt Rushmore list but I think Lebron would have looked a lot better had he added them.
They won 20% of the games in the finals, not exactly a stellar performance!
Many.
If you look at the 2000-01 76ers, their defense and rebounding carried the day. They were 5th in points allowed per possession, just 0.9 behind the first-place Suns. Their offensive rebound percentage was 2nd in the league, and their defensive rebound percentage was 9th in the league.
On the other hand, their offensive efficiency was a pedestrian 13th (of 29 teams), and their effective field goal percentage was 19th.
It’s fairly well accepted by most people that Iverson’s contributions were primarily on the offensive end. He got a lot of steals, but otherwise he was a net negative on defense because of his small size. He didn’t rebound at all. So Iverson contributed mostly on the offensive end, but he wasn’t even great there (174th in the league in shooting efficiency on huge volume). Because the 76ers defense and rebounding was so good, and Iverson played little role in either of these, you could replace him with any number of players who could create their own shot at average to below average efficiency. Normally such players aren’t conducive to winning basketball, but if you have a bunch of role players on your team, those guys often can’t get quality shots on their own. So having someone who can just chuck up a bunch of shots with a reasonable success rate makes sense.
Here are some extra thoughts on this on the Wages of Wins journal:
http://wagesofwins.com/2006/07/24/how-did-philadelphia-get-to-the-finals-in-2001/
Well, that’s a dumb thing to say, isn’t it?
Anyway, so what you’re saying is the Sixers were a bunch of role players who could rebound and defend, and Iverson was just a chucker doing something “many” other players could have done. And they were the second best team in the league.
Why hasn’t anybody else thought of that? Hey, Monta Ellis! Hey, Reggie Evans, Tony Allen, Patrick Beverly and Bismack Biyombo! You’re my new starting five; come play for the Sixers and lets go to the Finals!
If he took it as a question of individual excellence, as I do, his answers (given an era bias) make perfect sense.
Duncan’s on my Mt. Rushmore list, as it happens.
They were the only team that was able to defeat the '00-'01 Lakers in a playoff game. That has to count for something.
They were the finalist, but not the second best team in the league. The Spurs, Kings, Jazz, and Mavericks have stronger cases.
Eh, if you like, sure, those teams had better regular seasons. But the Sixers were 41-14 when they made the Mutombo trade, then Iverson got hurt, then they started shutting people down since they weren’t about to be caught. Their Snow/Ollie/Lynch/Geiger/Deke starting 5 wasn’t exactly representative of what they were bringing in the playoffs.
Wait, are you seriously comparing Bismack Biyombo to Dikembe Mutombo?! Mutombo was one of the best rebounders and shot-blockers in the league. He made 8 All-Star teams, won 4 DPOYs, and made three All-NBA 2nd/3rd teams. A more apt comparison would have been someone like Joakim Noah, although that comparison is hardly perfect.
It sounds like what you’re saying is that yes, the 76ers were good defensively and on the boards, but having a team of such players with one scorer isn’t a recipe for success. I would agree. This is sort of a cop-out argument, but that 76ers team was one of the worst finals teams of all time. The top 5-ish teams in the league were in the West that year (Lakers, Kings, Spurs, Mavericks, Jazz); the 9th seed in the west won 45 games. The 76ers achieved their gaudy record in part because they were in a much worse conference.
So in the same way that the 03-04 Detroit Pistons were the exception that proved the rule of “you need a superstar (or two) to win a title,” the 00-01 76ers proved the “you can’t win with one star and all role players” rule.
I have maintained for a long time that you could easily have replaced Iverson with players like Vince Carter, Tracy McGrady, or Paul Pierce and they would have been successful. Hell, even a player like Stephon Marbury (whose game I hate and would never want on any of my teams) would have been a pretty fair replacement for Iverson.