RealGM 2017 Top 100 List: #4

[eminence]

is it possible to move on from that one quote? I mean let's pretend for a second that it's true. Does it change anything at all about about we perceive Russell as a basketball player? For me it doesn't change a thing. Now let's go worst case scenario, not only is it not true, but Russell knew it wasn't remotely true when he wrote it, but he included it anyway in an attempt to intentionally deceive and elevate his legend. And then let's go the direction Doc wants to go and question everything Russell says in the light of it. Does that really change much of anything about how Russell actually played basketball?

Even if you now want to dismiss his psychological warfare against Wilt as pure crap now in the light of this one quote or no longer credit him for having one of the greatest basketball IQ's of all-time, how does any of that change the actual impact he had on the court?

I'm just struggling here with how much weight is seemingly being placed on something so insignificant. And this becomes a slippery slope because I promise you I can find all kinds of isolated quotes or anecdotes about probably every single player we will consider in this project. Shaq and Wilt alone made all kinds of Bunyanesque claim. Isn't it on me to take those for what they are and not say well now it calls into question their entire career?

Well, my perception of Russell is almost completely based on oral history because it's all I really have available to me. This doesn't hold for any players after Magic/Bird as I can essentially watch film to my hearts content of them. So yes, his and others credibility being called into question should absolutely change how I evaluate him as a player. The defense of the quote is far more damaging than him actually making it, in that someone who can't call that one out is pretty clearly never going to think of questioning anything about Russell, and as I made sure to mention in my vote it was not only that one quote. In this thread claims of his PG ability (walked back somewhat) and mid-range shooting were also made. And frankly, everything I have at my disposal as far as stats and film tells me those are simply not true. Russell has made additional quotes in reference to his own track career that don't look much better for him. Claims of 13.4 hurdles(though I'm a bit confused what hurdles these are supposed to be, maybe they still ran the 120 lows at that point in high school?), being able to easily drop 2-3 seconds in the 400 when already at 49.6. Track was my sport (no, I was not good) long before I got into basketball, and these quotes show me someone who is not in touch with their own athletic reality.

I also disagree with your statement about the weight put to whole deal. I'm not putting great weight to it at all, but in a game of inches every inch counts.

[Texas Chuck]

For the record I never defended the quote and in fact did the exact opposite by trying to verify it and posting the contrary evidence.

I still think it's much ado about nothing but clearly others disagree so it's time for me to accept that.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-J120AZ using RealGM mobile app

[colts18]

Can you imagine if we didn't have video of MJ's career. If someone said they MJ dunk from the 3 point line in a dunk contest, would you believe it? If they said he did a 360 from the FT line during a game would you believe it? I bet someone would defend it by saying MJ was a super athlete who was good enough to be respectable as a baseball player in his 30's

[eminence]

Anywho, lost in all this chatter about how high Russell could jump (lol), next thread I'd appreciate some input on KG's 90's seasons. I feel like the prevailing thought on them is solid allstar level seasons, but not too special, but looking back at some stats/Minny's play at the time I feel that that take underrates him by quite a bit.

[ardee]

I also don't think Russell being ranked behind Jordan, Kareem, and LeBron is some kind of insult to Russell lol.

It's definitely not, and I have him as GOAT. The lowest I can see Russell ranked is 6, Wilt can be ranked over him and I see a case for Magic.

Anyone else is blasphemy though.

[ElGee]

Looks like we have some disagreements here Elgee, because I definitely can't agree with Lebron "constantly stressing the defense by either calling their own number or a teammates', depending on which has a higher percentage play based on response of the defense". This has been perhaps my biggest Lebron critique for nearly 9 years here. He's a great passer and very unselfish, but a subpar facilitator. He doesn't set pieces much at all, which is why players tend to do worse playing next to him. I called the 2009 upset over this very thing despite Dwight having a weaker cast and no Jameer. Great defenses can stifle Lebron, and his under-utilization of teammates really leaves them out of luck grasping for spot up shots once Lebron dribble-dribbles and kicks.

Not going to get into LeBron as he's voted in (and my point stands for many other players) and he has 100-page threads every season breaking down his play. I'll just say (a) you are putting way too much stock in a small sample and bad matchup and (b) LeBron has the opposite effect that you are claiming.

----

With regards to Russell, on page 77 of Second Wind he talks about "looking down into the basket," and how he started practicing getting comfortable looking just over the front rim. He thinks he had a four-foot vertical with a running start.

Now I thought of jumping as the distance I had to fall. I had to be at least four feet off the ground in order to have my eye level rise above the rim of a standard ten-foot basket...

And here's the quote in question:

Two years later, during the off-season at USF, some friends and I tested how high I could reach from a running start. I left chalk dust from fingertips at a point fourteen feet above the floor -- four feet above the basket and foot above the top of the backboard. I loved jumping. It would have been easy for me to dunk the ball even in a twelve-foot basket...

To me, this is deliberately ambiguous and when I read the book it didn't give me pause. He's not saying he touched 14-feet. He's saying the dust went up that high from wherever he touched. There are all kinds of things that don't really make me see this as deliberately exaggerated or dishonest: Maybe they weren't precise at measuring, and the point was really like 13-6. Maybe it was on a wall and he didn't realize he could get that Tom Chambers boost by "climbing" the wall. Maybe he really could only touch around 13 feet (could dunk on a 12-foot hoop) and the dust of the chalk was as high as a foot above his hand when they measured.

To me, it's totally reasonable to buy his eyes at the rim claim, and it's totally reasonable to think he could touch around what Doug Thomas did (+/- a few inches) based on that, his wingspan, his Olympic jumping pedigree and the video we have. His specific claim here is not the 14 feet, but the eyes just over the front of the rim. If he's 6-11 in shoes and his eyes are, say, 6-5, he needs about 40 inches with a running start to achieve this. 40 inches on like a 9-3 standing reach is just under 13 feet. Actually touching 14 feet seems highly improbable but I never took him to be boldly claiming that here.

[trex_8063]

Thru post #185 (27 counted votes, so player needs 14 for a majority):

Bill Russell - 13 (2klegend, ardee, BasketballFan7, Doctor MJ, drza, JordansBulls, kayess, Outside, penbeast0, SactoKingsFan, scabbarista, Tesla, Texas Chuck)
Tim Duncan - 7 (trex_8063, micahclay, Hornet Mania, eminence, Dr Positivity, Cyrusman122000, Clyde Frazier)
Wilt Chamberlain - 5 (wojoaderge, Winsome Gerbil, Narigo, mischievous, Joao Saraiva)
Hakeem Olajuwon - 2 (janmagn, andrewww)


@ Arman_Tanzarian - I could not count your vote due to lack of content/argumentation.
@ lebron3-14-3 - Did not count your vote as per your request. You can rejoin the panel any time.

Anyway, as no majority there, Hakeem is eliminated from contention, and the 2nd place votes are transferred: andrewww's goes to Bill Russell, janmagn stated Duncan as his second pick, making the count:

Russell - 14
Duncan - 8
Wilt - 5

So calling it for Russell. Will have the #5 thread up shortly.

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[70sFan]

I would add small thing in Wilt topic - people say that he played for stats and he didn't care about winning (hyperbole) but then they hated him for not playing like he did in RS. This is huge mystery for me.

We all know that it was McGuire who wanted Wilt to average 50 ppg. That wasn't Wilt choice, he accepted his role. In playoffs he stopped shooting on stupid usage and became more focused on playmaking and defense. It helped his team, they did well against Celtics. He shot less to help his team and yet we've seen how people claim that he was shut down by Russell because he averaged less than 40 ppg.

Maybe he wanted to lead the league in assists in 1968. I've never seen his quote about this topic. He played his normal role in playoffs though and without his injury, Sixers would have probably won title even without Cunnigham.

I don't believe it is logical to blame Wilt both for his RS "padded" achievements and playoffs "shortcomings". This thing needs much more context and analysis, which people rarely do. It's not a counterpost to one particular poster. I want to help all of people to look more in-depth at Wilt and his situation. I don't agree with many points about him and his volume shooting, but these points are interesting and supported by analysis and some facts. The way of thinking I'm talking about is illogical.

[An Unbiased Fan]

Looks like we have some disagreements here Elgee, because I definitely can't agree with Lebron "constantly stressing the defense by either calling their own number or a teammates', depending on which has a higher percentage play based on response of the defense". This has been perhaps my biggest Lebron critique for nearly 9 years here. He's a great passer and very unselfish, but a subpar facilitator. He doesn't set pieces much at all, which is why players tend to do worse playing next to him. I called the 2009 upset over this very thing despite Dwight having a weaker cast and no Jameer. Great defenses can stifle Lebron, and his under-utilization of teammates really leaves them out of luck grasping for spot up shots once Lebron dribble-dribbles and kicks.

Not going to get into LeBron as he's voted in (and my point stands for many other players) and he has 100-page threads every season breaking down his play. I'll just say (a) you are putting way too much stock in a small sample and bad matchup and (b) LeBron has the opposite effect that you are claiming.

TS% with and w/o is a big simplification of the issue though. Within the vaccum of times that a star is off-court, one wouldn't expect other players to be as efficient due to the difficulty of replacing the value of the star. Put equal value on court in place of Lebron and you would have different numbers.

But the issue again is that Lebron doesn't utilize talent around him well. For all his talents, he's never figured out that putting his teammates into positions where they best succeed is the optimal way to adapt his game. Instead players all have to change their play to fit Lebron's ball dominance. Again, nice for box scores....but I have never regarded the impact of that type of approach very high.

For example, the common theme with nearly every Lebron team is that they seem to "need more help". But the truth is he forces other player sot be one-dimensional, and with stars it's really apparent.

10 Bosh in Tor: 24.0 ppg on 59.2% TS, 11 rpg
11 Bosh in Mia: 18.7 ppg on 56.9% TS, 8.3 rpg
^
Bosh was forced towards the perimeter to give Lebron more space to the hoop. What made his great in Toronto(versatility) was negated by his new role. On court Lebron utilized Bosh like a Rashard Lewis. For all his court vision, passing skill, and unselfishness....Lebron failed to do the most important task of getting the ball to Bosh where he would be most effective. Now Bosh was still good, just not nearly as good as he was in Toronto. This is the Lebon-Effect. Players like Wade or Kyrie are able to deal better sicne they have the ball in their hands more. But a non guard will take a hit.

Speaking of which, lets look at the 2nd great bigman Lebron got paired with.

14 Love in Min: 26.1 ppg on 59.1% TS, 12.5 rpg
15 Love in Cle: 16.4 ppg on 56.2% TS, 9.7 rpg
^
Carbon copy of Bosh. Another "Future HOFer" turned into a player teams won't even trade for. Another star big turned into a roleplayer. i'm not going to go down Lebron's rosters and point out how marginal everyone is treated, but it's what I see very single season.

What does it say for a player when he gives you a 10 in production, but drops star players around him from a 8 to a 6, and roleplayers from 5 to 4. The overall team suffers while the 10 player puts up massive box scores. The Cavs could get Paul George next season, and two weeks into the season you'll already start hearing the "PG sucks now" whispers.

I know I'm being hard on Lebron in this post, but like with Wilt and Shaq, I seeing glaring flaws that prevented his teams from winning as much as they should have. At the end of the day, a big measurement for star players is end result vs expected result. Russell was favored every season, but he DID deliver the title as expected, so I have to give him major credit. MJ was much the same, Once he got talent around him, he won nearly every season. Kobe/Hakeem(didn't have great teams most seasons) got the expected result nearly every year. Magic, Bird, TD had a few hiccups, but won a nice percentage of expected results. For Lebron.....he's around Shaq's level and a notch above Wilt in this regard. Which is fitting considering these are the 3 most impressive talents ever, but who never built the legacy of success that one would have expected. People look at the 2009 run against two crap EC teams, and then the collossal upset in the ECF, but give Lebron praise for his box score. Meanwhile I see his teammates turned into props against a lesser opponent no less.

NBA is 5 on 5, but Lebron tends to make it 5 on 1.

[Joao Saraiva]

Looks like we have some disagreements here Elgee, because I definitely can't agree with Lebron "constantly stressing the defense by either calling their own number or a teammates', depending on which has a higher percentage play based on response of the defense". This has been perhaps my biggest Lebron critique for nearly 9 years here. He's a great passer and very unselfish, but a subpar facilitator. He doesn't set pieces much at all, which is why players tend to do worse playing next to him. I called the 2009 upset over this very thing despite Dwight having a weaker cast and no Jameer. Great defenses can stifle Lebron, and his under-utilization of teammates really leaves them out of luck grasping for spot up shots once Lebron dribble-dribbles and kicks.

Not going to get into LeBron as he's voted in (and my point stands for many other players) and he has 100-page threads every season breaking down his play. I'll just say (a) you are putting way too much stock in a small sample and bad matchup and (b) LeBron has the opposite effect that you are claiming.

TS% with and w/o is a big simplification of the issue though. Within the vaccum of times that a star is off-court, one wouldn't expect other players to be as efficient due to the difficulty of replacing the value of the star. Put equal value on court in place of Lebron and you would have different numbers.

But the issue again is that Lebron doesn't utilize talent around him well. For all his talents, he's never figured out that putting his teammates into positions where they best succeed is the optimal way to adapt his game. Instead players all have to change their play to fit Lebron's ball dominance. Again, nice for box scores....but I have never regarded the impact of that type of approach very high.

For example, the common theme with nearly every Lebron team is that they seem to "need more help". But the truth is he forces other player sot be one-dimensional, and with stars it's really apparent.

10 Bosh in Tor: 24.0 ppg on 59.2% TS, 11 rpg
11 Bosh in Mia: 18.7 ppg on 56.9% TS, 8.3 rpg
^
Bosh was forced towards the perimeter to give Lebron more space to the hoop. What made his great in Toronto(versatility) was negated by his new role. On court Lebron utilized Bosh like a Rashard Lewis. For all his court vision, passing skill, and unselfishness....Lebron failed to do the most important task of getting the ball to Bosh where he would be most effective. Now Bosh was still good, just not nearly as good as he was in Toronto. This is the Lebon-Effect. Players like Wade or Kyrie are able to deal better sicne they have the ball in their hands more. But a non guard will take a hit.

Speaking of which, lets look at the 2nd great bigman Lebron got paired with.

14 Love in Min: 26.1 ppg on 59.1% TS, 12.5 rpg
15 Love in Cle: 16.4 ppg on 56.2% TS, 9.7 rpg
^
Carbon copy of Bosh. Another "Future HOFer" turned into a player teams won't even trade for. Another star big turned into a roleplayer. i'm not going to go down Lebron's rosters and point out how marginal everyone is treated, but it's what I see very single season.

What does it say for a player when he gives you a 10 in production, but drops star players around him from a 8 to a 6, and roleplayers from 5 to 4. The overall team suffers while the 10 player puts up massive box scores. The Cavs could get Paul George next season, and two weeks into the season you'll already start hearing the "PG sucks now" whispers.

I know I'm being hard on Lebron in this post, but like with Wilt and Shaq, I seeing glaring flaws that prevented his teams from winning as much as they should have. At the end of the day, a big measurement for star players is end result vs expected result. Russell was favored every season, but he DID deliver the title as expected, so I have to give him major credit. MJ was much the same, Once he got talent around him, he won nearly every season. Kobe/Hakeem(didn't have great teams most seasons) got the expected result nearly every year. Magic, Bird, TD had a few hiccups, but won a nice percentage of expected results. For Lebron.....he's around Shaq's level and a notch above Wilt in this regard. Which is fitting considering these are the 3 most impressive talents ever, but who never built the legacy of success that one would have expected. People look at the 2009 run against two crap EC teams, and then the collossal upset in the ECF, but give Lebron praise for his box score. Meanwhile I see his teammates turned into props against a lesser opponent no less.

NBA is 5 on 5, but Lebron tends to make it 5 on 1.

Bosh and Love as third choices decrease their raw numbers. How unexpected.

ts% is not a good measure... blah blah blah...

Replace LeBron with equal value - there is no equal value in the league.

Unbiased fan... lol. Are you going to keep on bashing LeBron until the #100? Jesus **** Christ dude is a beast, was voted #3 just live with it.

[therealbig3]

So yeah, no longer relevant since he was voted in, but the offensive results of LeBron's teams tend to be awesome, especially in the playoffs, so his approach seems to work at a very high level, so I fail to see a valid criticism here.

Also, Bosh and Love were putting up big numbers on mediocre teams as the 1st options. They became 3rd options in Miami/Cleveland...of course they're not gonna average 25 PPG anymore.

And their ideal role actually appears to be exactly how they were used with LeBron.

[An Unbiased Fan]

Unbiased fan... lol. Are you going to keep on bashing LeBron until the #100? Jesus **** Christ dude is a beast, was voted #3 just live with it.

I've hardly mentioned Lebron at all(this is the first thread I even chimed in on), this was a reply to Elgee. The whole reason he was brought up was in comparison to players like Wilt, Russell, and Shaq who were in the discussion.

[colts18]

TS% with and w/o is a big simplification of the issue though. Within the vaccum of times that a star is off-court, one wouldn't expect other players to be as efficient due to the difficulty of replacing the value of the star. Put equal value on court in place of Lebron and you would have different numbers.

But the issue again is that Lebron doesn't utilize talent around him well. For all his talents, he's never figured out that putting his teammates into positions where they best succeed is the optimal way to adapt his game. Instead players all have to change their play to fit Lebron's ball dominance. Again, nice for box scores....but I have never regarded the impact of that type of approach very high.

For example, the common theme with nearly every Lebron team is that they seem to "need more help". But the truth is he forces other player sot be one-dimensional, and with stars it's really apparent.

10 Bosh in Tor: 24.0 ppg on 59.2% TS, 11 rpg
11 Bosh in Mia: 18.7 ppg on 56.9% TS, 8.3 rpg
^
Bosh was forced towards the perimeter to give Lebron more space to the hoop. What made his great in Toronto(versatility) was negated by his new role. On court Lebron utilized Bosh like a Rashard Lewis. For all his court vision, passing skill, and unselfishness....Lebron failed to do the most important task of getting the ball to Bosh where he would be most effective. Now Bosh was still good, just not nearly as good as he was in Toronto. This is the Lebon-Effect. Players like Wade or Kyrie are able to deal better sicne they have the ball in their hands more. But a non guard will take a hit.

Speaking of which, lets look at the 2nd great bigman Lebron got paired with.

14 Love in Min: 26.1 ppg on 59.1% TS, 12.5 rpg
15 Love in Cle: 16.4 ppg on 56.2% TS, 9.7 rpg
^
Carbon copy of Bosh. Another "Future HOFer" turned into a player teams won't even trade for. Another star big turned into a roleplayer. i'm not going to go down Lebron's rosters and point out how marginal everyone is treated, but it's what I see very single season.

What does it say for a player when he gives you a 10 in production, but drops star players around him from a 8 to a 6, and roleplayers from 5 to 4. The overall team suffers while the 10 player puts up massive box scores. The Cavs could get Paul George next season, and two weeks into the season you'll already start hearing the "PG sucks now" whispers.

I know I'm being hard on Lebron in this post, but like with Wilt and Shaq, I seeing glaring flaws that prevented his teams from winning as much as they should have. At the end of the day, a big measurement for star players is end result vs expected result. Russell was favored every season, but he DID deliver the title as expected, so I have to give him major credit. MJ was much the same, Once he got talent around him, he won nearly every season. Kobe/Hakeem(didn't have great teams most seasons) got the expected result nearly every year. Magic, Bird, TD had a few hiccups, but won a nice percentage of expected results. For Lebron.....he's around Shaq's level and a notch above Wilt in this regard. Which is fitting considering these are the 3 most impressive talents ever, but who never built the legacy of success that one would have expected. People look at the 2009 run against two crap EC teams, and then the collossal upset in the ECF, but give Lebron praise for his box score. Meanwhile I see his teammates turned into props against a lesser opponent no less.

NBA is 5 on 5, but Lebron tends to make it 5 on 1.

LeBron's teams have played at a ~10 SRS since 2009. I don't see how that means the team is suffering. For god sakes his team beat a 73 win team and they are suffering lol. They won about what they were expected to win. They won 2 titles as underdogs (12 and 16) and lost one as a favorite (11). Hardly underachieving. You can't go to 7 straight finals with 3 wins and say they are suffering.

[An Unbiased Fan]

LeBron's teams have played at a ~10 SRS since 2009. I don't see how that means the team is suffering. For god sakes his team beat a 73 win team and they are suffering lol. They won about what they were expected to win. They won 2 titles as underdogs (12 and 16) and lost one as a favorite (11). Hardly underachieving. You can't go to 7 straight finals with 3 wins and say they are suffering.

7 straight finals in a historically awful East, so don't really care about his team's SRS when they face tons of negative SRS teams in the playoffs, and struggle once they face a decent team. 3 straight seasons where Lebron's teams lost to a lesser opponent in the playoffs. I give him major credit for 2016, but I don't see how he was the underdog in 2012. Those Heatle teams were never underdogs, they just under-achieved.

This is why I brought up Lebron in reference to Wilt. There's a bit of dismissal for his playoff shortcomings, but a keen focus on Wilt's.