What are Bill Russell's Top 5 Seasons in order?

[JordansBulls]

What are Bill Russell's Top 5 Seasons in order? How would you rank them?

[mysticbb]

Well, I give it a try, even though it seems awfully tough to decide which season belongs among the Top 5 when you have such a consistent player.

1. 1962
2. 1965
3. 1960
4. 1963
5. 1964

Well, I would say that there is a case for 1958, 1959, 1961 and 1966 being among or at least pretty close to those listed seasons. His rookie seasons gets knocked down due to him missing a big part of it. And his coaching seasons were overall weaker.

[ElGee]

1. 1965
2. 1964
3. 1962
4. 1961
5. 1966

Very consistent player so hard to really differentiate. I like 64-65 as a clear peak - I tend to believe players peak later than most for a variety of reasons I've discussed before, and those two years are no exception. He was a monster in 61 and 62 too (63 was a slight down season IIRC compared to these prime period). My 2 cents...

[mysticbb]

1. 1965
2. 1964
3. 1962
4. 1961
5. 1966

I don't see 64 as better as 62, maybe you can elaborate why you think 62 was not his peak season?

He was a monster in 61 and 62 too (63 was a slight down season IIRC compared to these prime period). My 2 cents...

I would argue that the 61 season was the season slightly down, not 63. Why do think otherwise?

[ThaRegul8r]

I was curious to see people's response to this, because my hypothesis was that most people would choose '62 as his best season because it was his best scoring year, and, of course, more points = better.

[JordansBulls]

His top 4 are 1961-1963 and 1965. His best is between 1962 and 1965 for me.

[mysticbb]

I was curious to see people's response to this, because my hypothesis was that most people would choose '62 as his best season because it was his best scoring year, and, of course, more points = better.

That is a little simplistic, don't you think? I would even argue that scoring-wise the 1960 season was better, because Russell scored at a higher rate per minute and with higher efficiency than in 1962.

I tried to figure in the strength of the opponents, and in 1965 for example Russell played also worse opponents in average than in 1962.

[ElGee]

With the 1960's players, I'm basically using inferences from statics against the many stories (journalist and biographical) all in the context of what I can see about the team/players from limited film. In Russell's case, the Celtics show an upward trend defensively, which is where their dominance comes from. I believe Russell's *defensive* prime to be from about 1961-1966.

From 62-65 the Celtics are utterly dominant: they average 8.2 MOV with no one even close. This is really comical-level dominance, which made their margin of error enormous in the PS. (There were only two other teams in those 4 years with MOV's over 4 -- the impressive 1964 Royals and the 64 Warriors, who look like a monster defensive team.)

The Celtics defensive estimations take a jump in 1961. They look like this:
1961 -8.1
1962 -8.8
1963 -9.1
1964 -10.6
1965 -10.1
1966 -7.2

Red then retires and Russell takes over as coach, which IMO took away from his defensive focus, intensity and dominance (coupled with age).

The natural question is what happened in 61 outside of Russ? Anything notable? Well, I think Tom Sanders is one of the best defenders of the decade, but he only played 1000 minutes as a rookie. I just think Russell, at 26 ,who was a late bloomer/learner like Olajuwon (and something he discusses in Second WInd) put it all together a little bit more that year. In the postseason, they just destroyed Syracuse and St Louis. Both teams played fast in the RS and Syr had a good offense...Boston held them 12 ppg below season average.

In G1 of the Finals, Pettit was 5-18. The Hawk's TS% is 40.9% (season avg. was 46.5%). Russ w 28 reb and 7 blocks. (http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=Uc ... 6%2C382866)
In G2, Pettit went 12-32. Hawks shoot 41.4% TS. Russ grabs 31 reb.
In G3, Pettit clears 50% TS and the Hawks win (24-23 game for Russell) 47.6% TS for Stl
In G4, Pettit has his best game - 40 pts on 71% TS! 43.3% TS for StL
In G5, Russell says I've had enough of this: 30 pts (61% TS) and 38 reb while Pettit goes 7-22. Hawks shoot 43% TS.

To me, there was nothing down about 1961. I just thought he was slightly better in 1962, if anything because of his offense (playoff and RS).

1964 is the year Bob Cousy retired and everyone thought the team would regress. KC Jones plays 500 more minutes. Satch plays 200 more. Ramsay 250 fewer. Willie Nauls 1400 minutes. That's basically the entire roster turnover, with immense continuity. Russell discusses in Second Wind how it was the best defensive team he ever played on (amazingly pace estimations agree with his intuition). They played the two best teams of the period by far, as previously mentioned, and they absolutely crushed them. (The Royals averaged 93.2 ppg, down from 114.7) Reports discuss how well Russell played.

So basically, I see 64 and 65 on the same plain, I give an edge to 65 because of his offensive production that year. I could flip a coin though -- I consider 1964 (and 65) Russell to be a monster, monster peak on my very short list of GOAT seasons.

Finally, that leaves 1963 (versus, say, 1966). First, lets note that the 63 Celtics barely defeated the Royals in a funny series where home court didn't work. They then had a dog fight with the Lakers. To me, these were partial defensive disappointments compared to the other series against these teams at the time. Russ's offense was also arguably worse in 63 RS than in 61 RS.

In 66, again I'm deferring to the late peak and giving him another small edge as a more experienced player (if I assume 64 and 65 were his pinnacle this makes sense). I could actually go either way on 63 v 66 - I probably need to examine it closer to have stronger opinions.

[ronnymac2]

Yeah, I've always considered Russell's peak to be 1964-1965.

[thebottomline]

1965 has to be #1. His 1964 regular season might have been slightly better, but his 1965 playoffs was much more remarkable, particularly from an efficiency standpoint. 18 ppg on 70.2 FG% (a record) in the Finals. Not to mention a great Game 7 against Wilt in the prior round, 15/29/8 and 6 blocks, despite his mistake that nearly cost the Celtics the game.

[Doctor MJ]

As of others have said, it's really not easy to rank Russell's seasons.

To me the most salient parts of his career are:

'63-64. Here you have the test of "Yeah, but what would he do without Cousy?". The answer is just fine. If there ever was an argument that Russ only could concentrate on defense because of what Cousy did on offense, that dies here. What will Russ do when his team no longer has a point guard? Why, he takes over point guard duties himself while moving the team's defense up from GOAT worthy to "that should not be possible". It is with this year where you really start seeing Russell's just operating on a level of dominance that people just didn't and still don't think is really possible.

'68-69. Here you have the definitive slamming of the door on "Yeah, but if you gave Wilt that must talent around him, he'd beat Russell?". Nope. Give Wilt far more talent, force Russell to take on the coaching duties himself so that his mental task at all times requires 10X more focus than Wilt was ever capable of, do this with Russell past his prime physically, and Russell will still win most of the time. Dayum.

[ThaRegul8r]

To me the most salient parts of his career are:

'63-64. Here you have the test of "Yeah, but what would he do without Cousy?". The answer is just fine. If there ever was an argument that Russ only could concentrate on defense because of what Cousy did on offense, that dies here. What will Russ do when his team no longer has a point guard? Why, he takes over point guard duties himself while moving the team's defense up from GOAT worthy to "that should not be possible". It is with this year where you really start seeing Russell's just operating on a level of dominance that people just didn't and still don't think is really possible.

I was curious as to what other people's responses would be, but this is one of the reasons why '63-64 is #1 to me. Cousy retired, and everyone made a big deal about how Boston would do without Cousy, and combined with the fact that Cincinnati took them to 7 games the previous season, and this was supposed to be the year that Cincinnati was going to dethrone the Celtics. But Boston won the Division again without Cousy, won one more game without Cousy than they did with him the previous year, and had a higher SRS without him than with him. This proved to everyone that Cousy wasn't the reason Boston won titles—they crushed everyone in the postseason, and for leading the Celtics to the best record in the league sans Cousy, he's my '63-64 MVP. He didn't win it because of a controversial article he wrote in the Saturday Evening Post, as well as for publicly speaking out against a racial quota, for which he was punished in the MVP voting. As one writer said, “The honest convictions of Bill Russell, no matter how and where they may be at odds with somebody else’s, should not be transmitted into the countdown tally of N.B.A. polls. That’s dirty pool in my book.”

Russell said in Second Wind this was his best season, and interestingly enough, he set an NBA record for most defensive win shares this season. When you look at the season, you see he did things like block 12 shots in the fourth quarter alone (along with grabbing 33 rebounds) in a 119-102 win against Philadelphia Nov. 1 to break open what had been a close game and make it an easy win. In the postseason, after not winning MVP for the first time in three years, he had a statement game against Cincinnati in Game 1 of the Eastern Division Finals, with 18 points, 31 rebounds and 11 blocked shots, completing shutting out Cincinnati for the first five minutes of the game as he snuffed Jack Twyman, Wayne Embry and Oscar Robertson. After going down 0-3, Robertson said, “What are you going to do about Russell? He’s everywhere. He blocks everything. He’s got everybody bothered. You can’t play your game against him”; “Boston may be 3-0 against Cincinnati in this series, but Russell is the man who beat us. I voted for Bill as the NBA’s most-valuable player during the regular season and I’d do it again.”

Russell led the league in rebounding with a career-best 24.7, becoming the first man in history to take a rebounding title away from Wilt Chamberlain. Jerry Lucas had the season high with 40, but Russell dominated the list for best rebounding games for the season, with eight of the top ten rebounding games for 1963-64:

TOP REBOUNDING GAMES OF 1963-64

40 — Jerry Lucas, Cincinnati at Philadelphia, February 29, 1964
36 — Bill Russell, Boston vs. Philadelphia, March 3, 1964
34 — Bill Russell, Boston at St. Louis, November 9, 1963
34 — Bill Russell, Boston vs. Baltimore, February 6, 1964
33 — Bill Russell, Boston vs. Philadelphia, November 1, 1963
33 — Bill Russell, Boston at Cincinnati, November 2, 1963
33 — Bill Russell, Boston at New York, February 8, 1964
33 — Bill Russell, Boston vs. San Francisco, February 15, 1964
32 — Bill Russell, Boston vs. San Francisco, November 30, 1963
32 — Wilt Chamberlain, San Francisco vs. Boston, January 7, 1964
32 — Bill Russell, Boston vs. Cincinnati, January 10, 1964
32 — Bill Russell, Boston vs. Detroit, March 8, 1964

Russell led the NBA with 21 games of 30 or more rebounds, with Chamberlain finishing second with four. Boston started off 20-3, with Tom Heinsohn saying, “The key to our start is that Bill Russell seems to be more determined than ever to win.”

'63-64 and '64-65 are clearly the top two to me. Basically it comes down to whether you prefer the best defensive year by the GOAT defensive player (and best rebounding year), or whether you prefer Russell's better offensive production along with the second-most single-season DWS in NBA history, with the largest margin over the runner-up (and second-best rebounding year). As ElGee said, it's a coin flip. I don't have any problem with people who rank '65 #1—depends on what you prefer. But in '64, with Russell dominating defensively, Boston was able to shut down league MVP Oscar Robertson, holding him to 28.2 ppg on 39.8% FG and 49.6% TS and 5.6 apg, down from 31.4 on 48.3% FG and 57.6% TS and a league-leading 11.0 apg in the regular season and 30.4 ppg on 53.6% FG and 65.7% TS and 11.2 apg in the previous round against Syracuse, and cut the highest scoring team in the league's scoring by 18.2%. Both he and the Celtics were at the height of their defensive dominance this season (Russell saying the '64 Celtics were “easily the best defensive team they ever had”).

Though he wasn't so much interested in the head-to-head matchup as doing whatever was necessary to enable his team to win, Russell did a better defensive job on Chamberlain in '63-64 than in '64-65, holding Chamberlain to 29.2 ppg on 50.9% TS, down from 36.9 ppg on 53.7% TS in the regular season, and 38.6 ppg on 56.3% TS in the previous round against St. Louis—while also having to contend with Nate Thurmond as well. He went toe-to-toe with Wilt on the boards despite his height and weight disadvantage, putting up two 30-rebound games against Chamberlain in the regular season, with Chamberlain posting two 30-rebound games against Russell. In the postseason, Russell had a 30-rebound game against Chamberlain, and Chamberlain had one against Russell. Russell out-rebounded Chamberlain two of the five games, and finished one rebound behind Chamberlain twice, but then was out-rebounded 38-19 in Game 4, which put Chamberlain ahead for the series. Excluding Game 4, Russell actually outrebounded Chamberlain 26.8 to 25. Chamberlain outrebounded Russell 27.6 to 25.2 for the Finals, averaging 45.8 minutes per game to Russell's 42.8 per game, grabbing 12 more rebounds in 15 more minutes. In Game 1, Russell outrebounded Chamberlain 25-23 and blocked 12 shots while playing only 32 minutes to Chamberlain's 44. In Game 2 he had 24 rebounds to Chamberlain's 25 while playing 39 minutes to Chamberlain's 44. So '63-64 Russell was better defensively against Chamberlain (“Russell played a routinely masterful series against San Francisco—and he had to rise to heights against the Warriors to neutralize Wilt Chamberlain, who was finishing his finest year”) and better on the boards than '64-65 Russell. Russell was better offensively in '64-65. Those two seasons and '61-62 are the top three for me.

[JordansBulls]

I think if off of the regular season I can definitely see Russell's 1964 season as #1 but in comparison with his other postseasons ('62, '63, '65, '66) he should seemed to be better in those.