Doctor MJ wrote:There is a serious danger when you do this for making up your mind about someone and then just making excuses for everything that happens that goes against this.
It's not making excuses; it's just keeping the simple fact in mind that this is a team sport, rife with inputs into winning/losing that are outside of a player's control.
When we did the Retro POY project on the PC board I defined the terms loosely but said that it had to be based on the good you were doing your team in that year. It worked fine until we got to Wilt Chamberlain where I had a guy who basically insisted on voting for Wilt #1 no matter what.
His reasoning was easy to understand: "I think Wilt was the best player period. The fact that stuff went wrong in a particular year is just stuff that's bound to happen in a team game where things are out of your control."
So, every year to this guy, Wilt beats Russell...despite the fact that quite literally Russell kills Wilt in most years in terms of what he's doing for his team and the reasons for this are quite clear and precise and have everything to do with weaknesses in Wilt.
LeBron's issues are not anywhere near so severe, but the fundamental principle remains.
And I would agree with that guy. Without turning this into a thread hijack re: Wilt vs. Russell, here's where I would disagree with him: Russell and Wilt occupy the same tier in my rankings (I put Russell a spot ahead, even), largely due to the fact that I don't just look at the box score.
With that said, I also believe that the "weaknesses" that you attribute to Wilt had more to do with his use and the era than the player, which is why he still ranks where he does IMO.
lol at everyone that change opinion after every game! I didn't:
