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Share and Debate Basketball Takes
- Thread starter Mubs
- Start date
As in, not top 3 or not top 10?
I see Russell (and Cousy, Wilt, Baylor etc) the same way I see Jim Brown, Mickey Mantle, or pretty much any pre-1980 athlete, back when they drank and smoked and didn’t work out year round, in that it’s like greatness is greatness but they’d never hold a candle in todays game, or they’d be a radically different player in today’s game with conditioning and coaching. So like... how do you rank them is a pretty open question.
Fair enough about the combo guards. Yeah Pettit and Dirk was a close one but Pettit slightly edged it for me, both had very impressive playoff runs against Russell and LeBron but Pettit was a bit more impressive for me in the regular season so I put him there. All NBA every season of your career, (back when there were only two) is pretty impressive for me.
Hot stuff indeed, I’d be curious to hear why specifically :P
Bill Russell is a glorified Ben Wallace, an all-time great defensive player (and certainly a better passer than Wallace was) but he had the advantage of being a gigantic fish in a relatively small pond who beat up on a mostly-white league of 4 teams. Nothing about his game screams "top 10 player in the history of the NBA" if you transplanted him to any era after the merger, but we have a bad habit of glorifying players of the past.
That's a great point regarding your second sentence. To answer your question: not top 10.
See thats a problem you can’t just transplant someone directly to another era and expect them to succeed, the game has evolved far too much from his time for that. I’m of the opinion that a legend would remain a legend if he had grown up in a different era and their playstyle would have been adjusted accordingly. Also your point about ethnicity and the size of the league may have been true throughout the first part of Russell’s career but throughout the 60’s the percentage of black players increased greatly. By the end of his career the league had 14 teams as well.
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I think not putting Bill Russell top 10 is a little bit extreme, even if the eye test makes his stats look rather pedestrian (44% FG and like a 15 ppg avg career wise). At the end of the day, he has 11 rings and was dominant in his era, which had some pretty spectacular players (Wilt, Baylor, West, Robertson, etc.). It seem rather weird to judge an older player on how they would fare in today's game when the game has evolved over time and rules have changed along with the game.
I am genuinely curious as to why you ranked Lebron ahead of Shaq in the 2000s and Harden ahead of Kawhi in 2010s. Shaq was a four-time champ (3 FMVP), one-time MVP and had one of the most dominant stretch in NBA history while Lebron only had a finals loss and two time MVP b2b. Kawhi was a two-time champ, FMVP, and DPOY while Harden only has an MVP to his name. Ofc, Im not saying that only tangibles matter, but it seems rather odd for both placements when factoring in accomplishments.
TheValkyries
proudly reppin' 2 superbowl wins since DEFLATEGATE
Bill Russell wasn't just an all time great defender. Relative to his peers he's the greatest defender to ever play by far and it's not close. And his competition at the time was *squints* the most prolific offensive talent that Basketball has ever seen. As an example, In Wilt's best year he averaged 33 points in the seven game playoff series against the Celtics. He had to that point averaged 50 points a game over the course of the regular season. Wilt also averaged around 40 shot attempts a game that year, and decided against Russell, to only take 26 a game in that series.
Just imagine the level of defense required to make a man who seemingly could score at will to say "nah fuck it actually, I'm better off passing the ball away."
Just imagine the level of defense required to make a man who seemingly could score at will to say "nah fuck it actually, I'm better off passing the ball away."
Don't forget to account for the fact that anywhere from 10-15 of Wilts's 'shots' were just offensive goal tending before it was made a rule to slow down both he and Russell in 1956. Think how many more shots Shaq and points shaq would have if he could just camp out next to the lane and tip every shot in? Besides that, the pace in the 50's and 60's was insane. We are only now starting to approach the level of possessions they played with now that offense > defense thanks to so many rules changes. It's all in the book of basketball by that fuckwit Bill Simmons
It was a while ago that I did that so I’m not 100% sure of my mind at the time but part of it was definitely their performances over the entire decade e.g how much of the decade were they a top 5 or 10 player in the league and factoring in things like All NBA selections. In retrospect I would definitely say I’ve probably been a bit harsh on Shaq there but I’d stick with Harden over Kawhi, he’s definitely been a top player in the league for longer in the decade and had a bigger impact on the game itself imo.
Here's the real and true and undeniable GOAT list from who this old man has actually seen
1. Wilt
2. Wilt
3. Kareem
4. Magic
5. Bird
6. LeBron
7. Many tied
I was big fan of MJ but he's as much a product of hype, favoritism and timing as talent.
My top 3 list of best dynasties ever. Not most dominant but best. I take and seed the top 5 teams of each dynasty and consider how they'd fare in seven game series. Number one seed from Boston dynasty of the 80s against the top seed of their 50s-60s dynasty, like that. All the way down thru 5th seed. Like the 76ers best teams ever were 66 and 67 but we are having to look at top 5
1. Lakers of the 80s
2. Boston of the 80s
3. 76ers of the late 70s early 80s
Lakers of the 00s
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