Post#178 » by GreenDreamer » Fri Oct 23, 2009 7:10 pm
1. Michael Jordan
2. Bill Russell
3. Kareem Abdul Jabbar
4. Wilt Chamberlain
5. Magic Johnson
6. Larry Bird
7. Tim Duncan
8. Shaquille O'Neal
9. Oscar Robertson
10. Julius Erving
I've read a good deal of ignorant stuff on this thread regarding Bill Russell. Evidently some people just have no idea what kind of freak athlete this dude was. He did track and field on the side, while in college. He could run a sub 50 second 400 meters make when the world record was around 47 seconds, and his personal best high jump in 1956 (his senior year in college), would have placed him 4th in the Olympic Games that year. He did this PART TIME!!!! One of the greatest athletes to ever play the game, period.
Regarding the fallacy that Wilt was simply "deprived of good teammates," which is why Russell won so many more Titles, it should be kept in mind that Russell led the University of San Francisco to two NCAA Titles in his three years there, whereas Russell led Kansas to the Finals once, and lost. To put that in perspective, Kansas had already won multiple NCAA Titles before Wilt showed up there, and was a National powerhouse. USF, meanwhile, was never a basketball power before or after Russell attended it. In fact, it was the ONLY school which offered him a scholarship, and they just happened to luck out in getting him because of that. Russell, leading USF to those two Titles would be the equivalent of somebody taking a team like Santa Clara or Kent State to multiple chips today.
Russell was a freak athlete and one of the smartest players ever. He is, undoubtedly, the most dominant defensive player in the history of the game. He was also a great ball handler and passer for a big man, often leading the Celtics on their fastbreaks. Wilt was is in the league for the majority of Russells career, if you weren't aware of it, and Russell still won more MVPs than him. He was considered the better player back then, and there is NO REASON that ANYONE should think any differently today.
It is kind of funny that people drone on about how "defense wins championships", and this dude who won 13 combined NBA and NCAA Titles, is somehow a lesser player than a guy who won 2. Chamberlain, by his own admission, later on in his career decided that he had to start playing like Bill Russell and focus on defense and passing instead of scoring, which resulted in the Lakers 72 campaign. Hell, 1969 should have settled this debate forever. The Lakers were a supposed "dream team" and were expected to demolish the aging Celtics. Did they? Nope - to paraphrase Russell - they had to carry those victory balloons out one at a time. Bill was better than Wilt and anyone on this list not named Jordan... and that was only by a hair.
