How impactful would Russell's outlier defence still have been if he was drafted to a bad team such as the Packers

[coastalmarker99]

In this hypothetical scenario where Russell is now drafted to an incredibly bad team such as the Packers in 1961 or New York in 1956 and spends his career with them.

Is Russell capable of having the same outlier impact that he pulled off with the Celtics?

If you say no.

How much do you think he still would have been able to lift those two teams' defensive ratings over the course of the 1960s?

For reference, the 1961-1962 Packers finished 7th out of 9th in defensive rating that season with a rookie Walt.

Then in the following years, they finished 9th out of 9th in 1963

5th out of 9th in 1964

9th out of 9th in 1965

8th out of 9th in 1966


meanwhile, the 1956-1957 Knicks finished 6th out of 8th in defensive rating that season.

7th out of 8th in 1958

7th out of 8th in 1959

7th out of 8th in 1960

7th out of 8th in 1961

6th out of 9th in 1962

[Dutchball97]

The year before Russell joined the Celtics their defensive rating was 91.7, which ranked 6th out of 8th in the league. In Russell's rookie year the Celtics had a defensive rating of 84. That was 2.9 points better than the 2nd best defensive team in the league and 3.9 points better than the best team of the year before (both time the Royals).

The Knicks were the worst defense in the league in 56 with a 92.8 rating. By 1957 they had improves somewhat to a defensive rating of 90.7, which saw them pass the Warriors and Pistons on that end by the slightest of margins. Both years the Knicks had no center of note of their roster. I really don't see any outcome outside of Russell making the Knicks the best defensive team in the league immediately.

[coastalmarker99]

The year before Russell joined the Celtics their defensive rating was 91.7, which ranked 6th out of 8th in the league. In Russell's rookie year the Celtics had a defensive rating of 84. That was 2.9 points better than the 2nd best defensive team in the league and 3.9 points better than the best team of the year before (both time the Royals).

The Knicks were the worst defense in the league in 56 with a 92.8 rating. By 1957 they had improves somewhat to a defensive rating of 90.7, which saw them pass the Warriors and Pistons on that end by the slightest of margins. Both years the Knicks had no center of note of their roster. I really don't see any outcome outside of Russell making the Knicks the best defensive team in the league immediately.

Something interesting to ponder is that.

The Celtics played the first 24 games of 1956-57 w/o Russell who was at the Olympics.

In 24 first games w/o Russell Celtics were

16-8, .66.7 % (pace of 55 W in 82 g)

Best record in NBA (Syracuse 2nd at .528)

105.2 P/G

100.6 P/G opponents

Thus, in 1956-57, the Celtics were by far the best team in the NBA without Russell while also having the best defence.


Though I am sure that once Russell joined the team that their defence got even better which explains why there was such a huge gap between them and rest of the NBA

[70sFan]

I'm confused, he'd be the same defensive player in such circumstances. Maybe you mean that his strengths might have been underutilized or that his impact wouldn't be viewed in the same light - these options are possible, but I don't agree that Celtics organization turned Russell into outlier defender.

Russell played the same way in college. He was absurdly dominant defender in USF. When he joined Boston, the team was known for being all offense and no defense team built around Bob Cousy. Red didn't adjust Russell game to his team, he adjusted his team to Russell. Red was a great coach, but Russell was a basically finished product when he came into the league.

I guess a lot of people wouldn't be nearly as high on Russell without all these rings etc. but his defensive impact wouldn't have been worse. I am also almost 100% sure that Russell would have turned around Packers/Bullets franchise like no player in their actual history. I wouldn't be surprised if they would have won a few titles after a rough start.

[Doctor MJ]

Key thing to me:

Russell invented his own style of play with little help from coaches.

USF and Boston both had the success they did because they allowed Russell to keep playing the role he created for himself.

The coaches in both circumstances deserve a lot of credit for letting Russell be Russell, and hence if another coach refused to do this he'd ruin things, but it wasn't about the coaches themselves being the innovators, and nor was it about Russell having just the right supporting cast to allow his role to work.

(As I say all this, shout out to KC Jones who was Russell's partner in crime and innovation partner in college, and who also played on the Celtics.)

[Owly]

The year before Russell joined the Celtics their defensive rating was 91.7, which ranked 6th out of 8th in the league. In Russell's rookie year the Celtics had a defensive rating of 84. That was 2.9 points better than the 2nd best defensive team in the league and 3.9 points better than the best team of the year before (both time the Royals).

The Knicks were the worst defense in the league in 56 with a 92.8 rating. By 1957 they had improves somewhat to a defensive rating of 90.7, which saw them pass the Warriors and Pistons on that end by the slightest of margins. Both years the Knicks had no center of note of their roster. I really don't see any outcome outside of Russell making the Knicks the best defensive team in the league immediately.

Something interesting to ponder is that.

The Celtics played the first 24 games of 1956-57 w/o Russell who was at the Olympics.

In 24 first games w/o Russell Celtics were

16-8, .66.7 % (pace of 55 W in 82 g)

Best record in NBA (Syracuse 2nd at .528)

105.2 P/G

100.6 P/G opponents

Thus, in 1956-57, the Celtics were by far the best team in the NBA without Russell while also having the best defence.


Though I am sure that once Russell joined the team that their defence got even better which explains why there was such a huge gap between them and rest of the NBA

Preface: Russell had huge impact. He had that through his defense.

That said, doing year before to arrival without ... oh and Boston were net similarly as good as they would be for the rest of the season through the first 24 games as they would be through the last 48 with him (and also they lose Sharman for a spell in the early without Russell and then he basically comes back as Russell arrives and also then about a month later Ramsey arrives) and '56 is with Ed Macauley, a great scorer who was a 6'8 185lbs center and maybe not a great defender and Boston have other turnover such as adding Heinsohn, Phillip. So whilst I am very much inclined to think Russell made the Celtics more than vice-versa, I do think it's right to investigate flaws in the year-to-year method in this particular instance.

Other samples support Russell's enormous impact but are I suppose hard to separate from any "Boston effect".

One could certainly over-credit Red. At times he may have liked to perpetuate his own myth more generally for a psychological advantage (I think). On the other hand Auerbach coached and (as best I can tell) largely constructed a dominant (RS) Capitols team, outperformed the prior Blackhawk coach in '49, and generally had Boston above average (what that means versus talent levels is debatable) before Russell.

I do think being a great defense more-or-less requires team buy-in. If one player consistently lets his man waltz by him then a big can protect the rim and limit stuff but it's tough to prevent a light/no contest 10 footer (or else a pass to an open big ...). Mentally too, if you don't think everyone is trying, it would be hard not to get down, demotivated (especially at the end where rewards are less tangible and more at a team level). Not to say one individual can't have a big positive impact. Nor that Boston is special.

I do think a weak expansion franchise with no continuity would be a tough landing spot for any great. Maybe that hurts Russell early (New York, meanwhile, had some talented teams and giving them a defensive anchor, that looks like a really interesting team).

Still Russell was a great defender who had huge impact. It's difficult to be certain but the working assumption based on what we know is that that would roughly continue.

[capfan33]

The year before Russell joined the Celtics their defensive rating was 91.7, which ranked 6th out of 8th in the league. In Russell's rookie year the Celtics had a defensive rating of 84. That was 2.9 points better than the 2nd best defensive team in the league and 3.9 points better than the best team of the year before (both time the Royals).

The Knicks were the worst defense in the league in 56 with a 92.8 rating. By 1957 they had improves somewhat to a defensive rating of 90.7, which saw them pass the Warriors and Pistons on that end by the slightest of margins. Both years the Knicks had no center of note of their roster. I really don't see any outcome outside of Russell making the Knicks the best defensive team in the league immediately.

Something interesting to ponder is that.

The Celtics played the first 24 games of 1956-57 w/o Russell who was at the Olympics.

In 24 first games w/o Russell Celtics were

16-8, .66.7 % (pace of 55 W in 82 g)

Best record in NBA (Syracuse 2nd at .528)

105.2 P/G

100.6 P/G opponents

Thus, in 1956-57, the Celtics were by far the best team in the NBA without Russell while also having the best defence.


Though I am sure that once Russell joined the team that their defence got even better which explains why there was such a huge gap between them and rest of the NBA

Preface: Russell had huge impact. He had that through his defense.

That said, doing year before to arrival without ... oh and Boston were net similarly as good as they would be for the rest of the season through the first 24 games as they would be through the last 48 with him (and also they lose Sharman for a spell in the early without Russell and then he basically comes back as Russell arrives and also then about a month later Ramsey arrives) and '56 is with Ed Macauley, a great scorer who was a 6'8 185lbs center and maybe not a great defender and Boston have other turnover such as adding Heinsohn, Phillip. So whilst I am very much inclined to think Russell made the Celtics more than vice-versa, I do think it's right to investigate flaws in the year-to-year method in this particular instance.

Other samples support Russell's enormous impact but are I suppose hard to separate from any "Boston effect".

One could certainly over-credit Red. At times he may have liked to perpetuate his own myth more generally for a psychological advantage (I think). On the other hand Auerbach coached and (as best I can tell) largely constructed a dominant (RS) Capitols team, outperformed the prior Blackhawk coach in '49, and generally had Boston above average (what that means versus talent levels is debatable) before Russell.

I do think being a great defense more-or-less requires team buy-in. If one player consistently lets his man waltz by him then a big can protect the rim and limit stuff but it's tough to prevent a light/no contest 10 footer (or else a pass to an open big ...). Mentally too, if you don't think everyone is trying, it would be hard not to get down, demotivated (especially at the end where rewards are less tangible and more at a team level). Not to say one individual can't have a big positive impact. Nor that Boston is special.

I do think a weak expansion franchise with no continuity would be a tough landing spot for any great. Maybe that hurts Russell early (New York, meanwhile, had some talented teams and giving them a defensive anchor, that looks like a really interesting team).

Still Russell was a great defender who had huge impact. It's difficult to be certain but the working assumption based on what we know is that that would roughly continue.

I'm more skeptical of Russell's impact across eras than I am of his impact in-era, but I've seen this anecdote brought up multiple times before regarding how the Celtics were without Russell to start 1956-57 and it has made me question exactly how much impact Russell had in-era as well. I still regard him as the best defender of his era, but I do wonder if it's a smaller gap than people had previously thought.

[dygaction]

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