Peaks project #9

[trex_8063]

Ballot #1 - Bill Russell '62

Ballot #2 - Julius Erving '76

Ballot #3 - Larry Bird '86

[b]1st ballot - Bill Russell 1962
2nd ballot - David Robinson 1995
3rd ballot - Julius Erving 1976

I have huge respect for Bill Russell and I explained before why I have him over Robinson.
About Julius - I think his peak is very underrated. 3rd best peak by perimeter player in my opinion. He's LeBron before LeBron, one of the most athletic players ever. Underrated mindrange game and playmaking. GOAT level playoffs (I think even better than LeBron 2009 run).
About his defense - based on what I've seen he was average man defender (really nothing special), but also he was OUTSTANDING help defender. Great at passing lanes and good help shotblocker for a forward.
He is also the best fastbreak scorer ever. Not as good at running fastbreaks as Magic or Cousy, but he was unstopable when he wanted to score. Even better than LeBron I think.
After him I have Bird, Magic and Oscar.

I don't change my choices. I'm suprised that KG is as high as 8 (he's very popular on this site).
After them I have Bird, Magic and Oscar.

For those voting Dr. J so high, I’m curious how you rationalize having him above Bird. Here’s the way I see the comparison, sort of breaking it down by broad game components:

Scoring
While I agree with 70sFan about the Doctor's mid-range game being underrated, Bird is in the conversation for GOAT mid-range shooter. Bird was also the far far far superior outside shooter (well ahead of his time from 3pt range; may well be considered among the GOAT’s in that category as well if he’d played nearer the modern era), one of the all-time great FT-shooters, had a superior post-game (was great at creating space around himself), was better off-ball (Bird was like an off-ball savant, really)..........really the only aspects of scoring that Erving has an edge at are as a finisher and transition scorer. He's a bit better at facing up and taking someone off the dribble, too (but he's not like Lebron James or Michael Jordan in this regard).
Overall, though…..I can’t see an argument to label Erving the better pure scorer. Erving’s best season as a scorer (likely ‘76) he was going for 34.4 pts/100 poss at +5.2% rTS. Bird’s got at least two seasons (‘87 and ‘88) demonstrating better scoring numbers than that. And in an NBA era that [I don’t think anyone would contest this] is tougher/more competitive than the ‘76 ABA.
Short answer: Bird is the better pure scorer. I don’t think the margin is huge, but it’s nonetheless clear to me.

Passing/Play-making
While I again agree with 70sFan that his playmaking is underrated, I disagree that he was “Lebron before Lebron”. From all I’ve watched of Erving, he doesn’t appear to have either the vision, or precision and willingness to find some of those more narrow openings to hit teammates with the pass (a la Lebron or Larry Bird).
His proficiency as a passer is more in league with someone like Elgin Baylor, imo. This isn’t a slam on Erving (Baylor’s passing goes underrated, too). But he’s [quite clearly, imo] a tier or two below guys like Lebron James or Larry Bird as a passing/facilitating SF.

Rebounding
Bird rebounded at a significantly better rate. Some of that is how he was used defensively (typically guarding PF’s and C’s), but still…...rebounding is not by any means a factor that can be used against Bird in a comparison to Erving.

Defense
As always, this is the toughest one to scrutinize, as we don’t have reliable statistical measures (at least not in their era(s)). A typical young casual fan may suggest “Dr. J easily” or some such, fueled by nothing more than the usual “Bird sucks at defense” narrative and the fact that Erving got a fair number of steals/blocks. Here’s how I see them defensively…..

While it’s true Bird was often “hidden” down low, generally guarding the opposing PF (because he lacked the lateral quickness to be good defensively against opposing SF’s), there’s two catches to this criticism: 1) he was GOOD (excellent even, imo) as a low post defender--->he was outstanding at using his lower body to create space, and would fight guys off their spot, make entry passes difficult, he bodied up hard when they got the ball, hands straight up on shots, was fantastic on the defensive boards, etc. 2) While it’s true that having to shift him off his position defensively means it created a potential mis-match for his team (the Celtics were fortunate to have a PF---McHale---who was capable of doing a decent defensive job on a SF), the thing is that in nearly any other era (or even on some teams in his own era) Bird would likely be played as a PF anyway, thus not creating a defensive mis-match for his team.
And wrt to Bird’s perimeter defense…..
imo, he made up for some of his short-comings in lateral quickness with fantastic anticipation and hand/eye coordination. He made some truly remarkable strips, low elevation blocks, and picked off passes (evidenced in the video Quotatious previously provided). Was also excellent at sneaking over from the weak-side to strip the ball from a post player.
In short: I agree with Quotatious’ stance that Bird was definitely a positive defensively (at least thru the majority of his prime).

As to Erving’s defense……
tbh, I’m not impressed with what I see of his man defense (something the 70sFan even echoed in his above post). Not saying he’s a BAD man defender; but he’s…..well, completely average to my eye.
He is, however, excellent in transition defense and in some other help defense scenarios, excellent at playing passing lanes, etc.

So overall, I’m not sure who to give the defensive edge to. Whoever gets the edge doesn't get it by much, imo.

So looking at all these factors combined: I’ve basically rated Bird the better scorer, passer, and rebounder, with defense being more or less a wash. As such, I’m very very comfortable rating Bird’s peak above Erving’s.


Where do you guys disagree that you can rate Erving higher?

fwiw, Quotatious, your assessment of Julius Erving has a sort of "luke-warm" tone about it. It's a relatively unflattering assessment which is nonetheless accompanying a 2nd ballot. It makes me wonder if it's more an affectation, rather than a strong opinion that Erving is actually better than Bird (+/- others).

[drza]

William Felton Russell !!!

OK seriously, as some have been pointing out, we don't have enough Bill Russell in this project. The default for many seems to be that he was great in his day, but it might not translate to the 3-point era so we're not necessarily convinced of his modern-day impact. I've found a sequence of my posts from the Top-100 project on Russell that pushes back against these thoughts. I'm going to combine parts of several of those posts, along with some new thoughts to make a case here.

David Robinson was electric...but there's a very real possibility that Russell's athleticism could have dwarfed Robinson's...which would make his modern-day physical defensive potential higher than Robinson's but with an (IMO) much finer basketball mind attached. At the very least, some food for thought that I'd love if someone would push back against because it could lead to some (much needed, probably tardy) analytic Russell conversation:

I. Russell's impact in his day
I've seen convincing data that Russell was personally having a GOAT-level impact on games, that his success drove his team success (and not the other way around), and that his approach and ability would have likely translated his impact a lot more than people credit.

So, first off, I'd like to post ElGee's initial blog on Russell's defensive impact. This article shows the estimated team defensive ratings of the Celtics from 1958 (the year before Russell's arrival) through 1970 (the year after Russell retired), demonstrating that the historic Celtics' defense arrived with Russell, directly followed Russell's career arc, peaked with Russell, declined as Russell declined, and then went away when Russell retired. The article is found here: http://elgee35.wordpress.com/2010/12/31/bill-russells-defensive-impact/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; There are few, at this point, that dispute that Russell was the engine behind the Celtics' defense. But I wanted anyone unfamiliar with this work to see the numbers, as it helps to cement the concept that the Celtics' weren't just some over-talented team that happened to win when Russell was around. They were a team that won with defense far above-and-beyond all else, and that the defense was thoroughly captained by Russell.

Per the article, in 1964 the Celtics' defense was 11.4 pts/100 possession better than league average (!), 5.6 points better than first place. In 1965, the year I argue was Russell's peak, the defense was "only" 9.9 points/100 possessions better than league average and was a full 8.0 points better than second place (!!!).

II. For those that don't think that Russell's impact could translate to the more modern game. From what I read, the main arguments used against him are some combo of a) the league is more athletic now than it was in the 60s, b) the arrival of the 3-point line reduces the impact of protecting the rim because the game is more spread out, and c) Russell wasn't much of a scorer by either volume or percentage. In response, I would point out a few things:

1) Russell was taller than you think. He was listed at 6-9 at a time period when players were usually listed by heights without shoes. These days, players are listed at heights with shoes which normally adds 1 - 2 inches. And anecdotally, when Russell stands next to players known to be 7-feet he often appears to be similar in height. In today's game, Russell would probably be listed at 6-10 or 6-11.

2) Russell was an insane athlete. He considered going to the 1956 Olympics as a high jumper. Track and Field News ranked him as the #7 high jumper in the world, and he was ranked #2 in the United States at the time when he would have had to make the decision (he instead decided to go lead the basketball team to Olympic gold). He also apparently already enjoyed psyching out his opponents the way he later would Wilt: http://www.worldsstrangest.com/mental-floss/5-things-you-didn%E2%80%99t-know-about-bill-russell/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Russell also told Plimpton that he reveled in psyching out other jumpers. “I recall we had one big meet with 34 jumpers. They wanted to start the bar at five-eight. I said, ‘Let’s start it at six-four—let’s get rid of all this garbage.’ I wore a silk scarf, basketball shoes, a track suit and black glasses. I took off the glasses to jump.”



3) Russell was a scorer in college. One of the big arguments used against Russell is that he couldn't score enough to play in today's game. I've seen folks say that in today's game, Russell would be similar to players like Joakim Noah or Ben Wallace. But Russell has stated before that he consciously chose the way that he played, to focus more on defense than on offense, in order to maximize his team's success (I can't find the quote, but if anyone has it please post it). But prior to that decision, Russell actually COULD score. In college, Russell averaged 20.7 ppg on 51.6% shooting from the field. He may never have projected into a monster scorer, but were scoring more of his focus (as it likely would be in today's game) there's no reason to believe he couldn't have done so.

4) Russell was a master of both "horizontal and "vertical" defense", key to the modern game. On Doc MJ's blog "A Substitute for War", he had a really good article breaking down the difference between "vertical defense" (e.g. protecting the rim by waiting there to block shots) and "horizontal defense" (e.g. mobile help defense over a larger area). In the post (found here: https://asubstituteforwar.wordpress.com/2011/04/23/howard-is-the-dpoy-but-hes-no-garnett/#more-1569" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; ) there is a quote from Bill Russell: a Biography, that speaks to Russell's defensive style:

"Bill understood that Wilt’s game was more vertical, that is, from the floor to the basket. Wilt’s game was one of strength and power…Bill’s game was built on finesse and speed, what he called a horizontal game, as he moved back and forth across the court blocking shots, running the floor, and playing team defense."

Now, take a moment and think about what that might mean for the 3-point era. In this era, the best defensive anchors are able to move around the court. Pick-and-roll help defense (on- and off-ball) are incredibly vital. It's still good to be able to block shots, but the data indicates that it's also key to be able to blow up plays defensively before the shot can even go up. In the generation just prior to the +/- data, the generally agreed upon two best defensive players were Hakeem Olajuwon and David Robinson...both of whom were mobile bigs that were excellent at both horizontal defense and shot-blocking. In the +/- era (now from 1997-98 through 2014), the two most impressive defenders are the best shot-blocker (Dikembe Mutombo) and the most horizontal defender (Kevin Garnett). Mutombo and Garnett, in fact, have defensive seasons where their impacts on defense alone rival the very best individual offensive seasons in that stretch (including peak Shaq, Kobe, Nash, Dirk, LeBron and Dirk) according to DocMJ's normalization method of RAPM across years.

From everything that we know, it is certainly fair to project that Russell in the current day might combine the best of the primary defensive strengths of Garnett (mobility, intelligence) and Mutombo (shot-blocking, timing). As such, Russell very likely would still have a defensive impact at least on the order of the very best offensive players of our time, even in the modern era with the 3-point line.

III. No, seriously, Russell's athleticism/comparison to modern day Russell-like defensive descendants

I agree to an extent therealbig3 but I think Russell still had the most perfect defensive body and most perfect defensive mind in history of C position, so to me it would probably translate to other eras, even if not at the impact he had in the 60s. I think there's a valid argument to be made Hakeem, Garnett, Robinson, Duncan are possibly as good as defensive players as Russell if playing in another era, and thus above him at their peaks when taking into account offense

But haven't we seen guys with a combination of the best of Garnett (mobility and intelligence) and the best of Mutombo (shot blocking and timing) in more recent times: Hakeem Olajuwon and David Robinson? I'd throw Duncan in that group, even if his mobility might have been the weakest between him, Garnett, Hakeem, and Robinson, and it's not like he was a sloth in his prime. Even Garnett himself was a bit of a shot blocker during his prime...he averaged over 1 bpg, peaking at 2.2 bpg, every year for the first 14 years of his career. Since then, he's still averaged 0.9 bpg, despite a noticeable reduction in mpg.

Even so, let's look at Hakeem and Robinson, who are the two most obvious comparisons to Russell defensively, when you look at their combination of mobility, athleticism, rim protection, and ability to force TOs. As far as their intelligence, both of those guys were considered two of the most intelligent defensive players of their era as well, Hakeem especially.

So Hakeem and Robinson seemed to have mastered the horizontal and vertical aspects of defense as well, and were as good at that as anyone ever. And I can guarantee that they still would not have been considered best in the game caliber players (and neither would have Duncan or Garnett) if they weren't also high-caliber offensive big men as well.

These were both interesting posts, from posters I really respect, so I certainly understand your argument. And I'm not even going to push back (too hard) against your logic and the conclusions you come to, except in this way:

On the continuum of those 4 players, I think that Garnett is pretty clearly the most mobile (granting that all are more mobile than the vast, vast majority of 7-footers) and that either Hakeem or Robinson likely the best leapers. All of them, plus Duncan, constitute some of the best combos of size, athleticism and intelligence that we've seen in the "Russell mold" of a defensive big man in the modern NBA.

The thing that I was trying to get across in my last post, though, is that Russell quite arguably blows them out of the water as athletes. The arguments that both of you make rely on these four being approximate to Russell on defense in the modern game. And maybe they are. But the other possibility is...

I mentioned that Russell was an Olympic caliber high-jumper. I came across another quote (from Havlicek, I believe) speaking on Russell also being an unbelievable sprinter (on the order of 13s seconds in the sprint hurdles). It's hard to quantify just exactly how fast Russell was, but I'm open to the possibility that his mobility and quickness might not have been "just" excellent for a big man...he very well may have had LeBron-type speed. And when you factor in the world class high jumping, he very well may have had LeBron leaping ability as well.

I guess my point is, Garnett/Hakeem/Robinson/Duncan kind of define our upper limit as far as the mobile, athletic, defensive monster big man of the modern era. But we've seen really big guys with absurd hops in recent years (Kemp, early Amare, Howard, Griffin) and now we're seeing just how absurd that kind of athleticism is in a Karl Malone-like body type with LeBron. Physically, if Russell's body was essentially similar to KG/Hakeem/Robinson/Duncan but his athleticism was on the order of LeBron, that opens the possibility that his defensive impact might translate much more faithfully to this era than we think. That, defensively, he might be as far beyond the best of this era as he was beyond the best of his era.

I mentioned that Russell was an Olympic caliber high-jumper.

That "sounds" better than really is, but in reality doesn't say much about his athleticism, because Olympic caliber high jumper in 1957 = high school caliber high jumper now.

Not really. Russell high-jumped 6-10 before the invention of the Fosbury Flop, which revolutionized the whole event. Fosbury himself went from a career-best jump of 5-4 to a then-world record of 7-4 using the technique. I won't intimate that Russell would have also gained 2 feet with the technique, but it would clearly have put him well, well outside the bounds of a high school caliber high-jumper. In fact, with the new technique and modern equipment Russell would still likely be at least borderline world class as a high jumper...which puts him far outside of the norms for an NBA center. Yes, likely even more athletic than David Robinson (possibly to a significant degree).

[JordansBulls]

1st ballot selection: Magic 1987 - Great overall season dominant in the season and playoffs with a great overall playoffs record of 15-3.

2nd ballot selection: Bird 1986 - Great overall season dominant in the season and playoffs with a great overall playoffs record of 15-3 also considered on arguably the greatest team of all time.

3rd ballot selection: Wade 2006 - Put on a show in the playoffs especially the ECF and the NBA Finals pretty much singlehandedly dominating the finals with the highest PER ever for a finals.


--------- RS PER, WS48, --------- PER, WS48 playoffs
Magic 1987: 27.0, 0.263-------------26.2, 0.265 (18 playoff games, title)
Bird 1986: 25.6, 0.244--------------23.9, 0.263 (23 playoff games, title)
Dwyane Wade 2006: 27.6, 0.239-------26.9, 0.240 (23 playoff games, title)

Others to consider:
Moses Malone 1983: 25.1, 0.248 -----25.7, 0.260 (13 playoff games, title)
Julius Erving 1976: 28.7, 0.262-----32.0, 0.321 (13 playoff games, title) - ABA

[trex_8063]

William Felton Russell !!!

III. No, seriously, Russell's athleticism/comparison to modern day Russell-like defensive descendants

I'd add this video. It's a single play that really showcases some of the best of his athleticism:

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JWelUNrJUMM[/youtube]

The high camera angle doesn't really do justice to what must have been some serious elevation: he jumped OVER a guy who is probably around 6'3" or similar......the guy ducks a little, but still; and you can see him pass right between his legs as he goes over. I mean they do dunks like this jumping over someone in modern day dunk contests, and the judges give them 9's and such.
Also note, that if you view this video frame by frame, the time elapsed from when his feet are reaching the floor on one end (after collecting the rebound) to when the ball is leaving his finger-tips at the other end is less than 4.5 seconds (and that's while dribbling). Coordinated enough to scissor his legs over the guy who passes under him, while maintaining enough focus to convert the lay-up.

Russell was no doubt a legitimately insane athlete.

[eminence]

Not really. Russell high-jumped 6-10 before the invention of the Fosbury Flop, which revolutionized the whole event. Fosbury himself went from a career-best jump of 5-4 to a then-world record of 7-4 using the technique. I won't intimate that Russell would have also gained 2 feet with the technique, but it would clearly have put him well, well outside the bounds of a high school caliber high-jumper. In fact, with the new technique and modern equipment Russell would still likely be at least borderline world class as a high jumper...which puts him far outside of the norms for an NBA center. Yes, likely even more athletic than David Robinson (possibly to a significant degree).

Not entirely wrong, but as a bit of a trackster this info you're presenting makes it sound like the Fosbury flop technique just added 2 ft to the old high jump technique. For a bit more of the story Dick invented the flop while in high school (so the 5'4 mark is a young hs pr) and went on to perfect it to world class levels and jumped the 7'4 at the olympics 6ish years later. It's the better technique for sure, but not that much better.

[drza]

Not really. Russell high-jumped 6-10 before the invention of the Fosbury Flop, which revolutionized the whole event. Fosbury himself went from a career-best jump of 5-4 to a then-world record of 7-4 using the technique. I won't intimate that Russell would have also gained 2 feet with the technique, but it would clearly have put him well, well outside the bounds of a high school caliber high-jumper. In fact, with the new technique and modern equipment Russell would still likely be at least borderline world class as a high jumper...which puts him far outside of the norms for an NBA center. Yes, likely even more athletic than David Robinson (possibly to a significant degree).

Not entirely wrong, but as a bit of a trackster this info you're presenting makes it sound like the Fosbury flop technique just added 2 ft to the old high jump technique. For a bit more of the story Dick invented the flop while in high school (so the 5'4 mark is a young hs pr) and went on to perfect it to world class levels and jumped the 7'4 at the olympics 6ish years later. It's the better technique for sure, but not that much better.

Fair point. I was more trying to make the point that what Russell was doing in the 50s was well, well outside of the scope of the present day high schooler (which was the post that I was responding to). The Flop didn't add 2 feet, but it definitely made a significant difference which would likely have Russell's jump with that technique well into the 7-foot ranges.

On a side note...what kind of "trackster"? Track is kind of my thing as well...I ran in college, the 110 high hurdles. I don't keep up with it as much as I used to, but my kids are getting a bit older and they ran track last year, so it probably won't be long before I get back into it for their benefti...

[drza]

William Felton Russell !!!

III. No, seriously, Russell's athleticism/comparison to modern day Russell-like defensive descendants

I'd add this video. It's a single play that really showcases some of the best of his athleticism:

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JWelUNrJUMM[/youtube]

The high camera angle doesn't really do justice to what must have been some serious elevation: he jumped OVER a guy who is probably around 6'3" or similar......the guy ducks a little, but still; and you can see him pass right between his legs as he goes over. I mean they do dunks like this jumping over someone in modern day dunk contests, and the judges give them 9's and such.
Also note, that if you view this video frame by frame, the time elapsed from when his feet are reaching the floor on one end (after collecting the rebound) to when the ball is leaving his finger-tips at the other end is less than 4.5 seconds (and that's while dribbling). Coordinated enough to scissor his legs over the guy who passes under him, while maintaining enough focus to convert the lay-up.

Russell was no doubt a legitimately insane athlete.

Good stuff! Also, did you peep where he took off from? That was like 2 feet inside the free throw line, he did a lot of gliding, and it appeared that he almost still could have finished that with a dunk if he'd have wanted to. In a dunk contest format, it looks to me like he could dunk from well behind the free throw line.

Also, Russell's apparently made claims about jumping up and grabbing the top of the backboard (I get that like 3rd hand, so if anyone has corroboration or a link for that claim it'd be great) and I really see no reason to disbelieve him.

[Dr Positivity]

Just to repeat from another thread, using my method of scaling up players TS% by the same amount average eFG did since the 60s, Russell's efficiency in 1960, 1962 and 1965 roughly translates to what these efficiencies would be in 2015:

1960: .582 TS%
1962: .559 TS%
1965: .542 TS%

Russell was not an inefficient player. He had above average eFG all 3 of those seasons. I made the comparison to Joakim Noah who peaked at .594 TS% in 08-09, slowed down to .579 TS in 10-11 and then by his career 13-14 season was at .531 TS%. Bill Russell's game also fits the profile of above average efficiency because he is a great athlete, likely gets tons of ORBs and doesn't shoot a lot.

With that said by mid 60s Russell's scoring volume considering the pace of pay is less impressive than a player like Noah. In 65 he scores 11.4 pts per 36 minutes with his team at 123.6 pace. 2014 Noah scored 12.9 points per 36 minutes with his team at 90.2 pace. For the same reason Russell's 4.3 assists per 36 minutes is not as strong as Noah's 5.5 assists per 36 minutes although we don't know if there's an assist tracking discrepency. I am not sure how strongly Russell's outlet passing which was considered a key to the Celtics offense showed up in the assist column or if those passes were more often 2 or 3 passes before the bucket.

Overall I would call him a positive offensive player. He has above average efficiency, strong passing for his league and I am guessing he is the best offensive rebounds in the league or close to it, even if his style is potentially more Drb driven, to help get back in transition

[Clyde Frazier]

Just to repeat from another thread, using my method of scaling up players TS% by the same amount average eFG did since the 60s, Russell's efficiency in 1960, 1962 and 1965 roughly translates to what these efficiencies would be in 2015:

1960: .582 TS%
1962: .559 TS%
1965: .542 TS%

Russell was not an inefficient player. He had above average eFG all 3 of those seasons. I made the comparison to Joakim Noah who peaked at .594 TS% in 08-09, slowed down to .579 TS in 10-11 and then by his career 13-14 season was at .531 TS%. Bill Russell's game also fits the profile of above average efficiency because he is a great athlete, likely gets tons of ORBs and doesn't shoot a lot.

With that said by mid 60s Russell's scoring volume considering the pace of pay is less impressive than a player like Noah. In 65 he scores 11.4 pts per 36 minutes with his team at 123.6 pace. 2014 Noah scored 12.9 points per 36 minutes with his team at 90.2 pace. For the same reason Russell's 4.3 assists per 36 minutes is not as strong as Noah's 5.5 assists per 36 minutes although we don't know if there's an assist tracking discrepency. I am not sure how strongly Russell's outlet passing which was considered a key to the Celtics offense showed up in the assist column or if those passes were more often 2 or 3 passes before the bucket.

Overall I would call him a positive offensive player. He has above average efficiency, strong passing for his league and I am guessing he is the best offensive rebounds in the league or close to it, even if his style is potentially more Drb driven, to help get back in transition

Maybe i'm missing something, but you know basketball reference has league avg TS% for every year, right? If we adjust russell's relative TS% in those seasons to last season's league avg of 53.4%, we get the following:

60: Russell 49.6%, League avg 46.3%, Russell +3.3 = 56.4% in 2015

62: Russell 48.9%, League avg 47.9%, Russell +1 = 54.4% in 2015

65: Russell 47.2%, League avg 47.9%, Russell -.7 = 52.7% in 2015

Which still puts him in an efficient range, just not quite as high as you had calculated.

[trex_8063]

Man, I'm all mixed up on how I want to rank these guys. This is partly a product of not having a full-formed all-time great peaks list going into this project. I had my top 6 pretty well formed in my mind, and was fairly set on the "who" of 7-9 (though not the order). After that it was a more vague jumble of names.

*Compelling cases for Russell (who's looking more and more like a very viable candidate to me).

**E-Balla's presented some compelling info on Robinson, which drza's articulated into more specific questions (previously my top candidate, now I'm not sure).

***Have been watching some '77 Walton on YouTube, and I find him super-impressive. I think I'm ultimately not going to lend him support just yet based on a couple factors: reduced minutes and durability.
The minutes is relevant to me, because even if his on-court impact is GOAT-level (and I'm not saying it is, btw).....someone measuring (via non-scaled RAPM, for instance) like +9.5 @ 33 mpg isn't providing more per game impact than someone delivering +8.3 @ 38 mpg (like a Shaq or a Lebron).
And though the Blazers managed in '77, across a variety of situations, your star missing 20+ games in the rs is gonna end up being an issue in some scenarios (even if he is ready to go in the playoffs). So ultimately, I'm not comfortable placing him ahead of some of the other top candidates.


I think my top 4 candidates right now are Robinson, Russell, Magic, and Bird (with Walton and Oscar in the immediate vicinity, too). The order is very much up for grabs in my head now.

[Owly]

William Felton Russell !!!

OK seriously, as some have been pointing out, we don't have enough Bill Russell in this project. The default for many seems to be that he was great in his day, but it might not translate to the 3-point era so we're not necessarily convinced of his modern-day impact. I've found a sequence of my posts from the Top-100 project on Russell that pushes back against these thoughts. I'm going to combine parts of several of those posts, along with some new thoughts to make a case here.

David Robinson was electric...but there's a very real possibility that Russell's athleticism could have dwarfed Robinson's...which would make his modern-day physical defensive potential higher than Robinson's but with an (IMO) much finer basketball mind attached. At the very least, some food for thought that I'd love if someone would push back against because it could lead to some (much needed, probably tardy) analytic Russell conversation:

I. Russell's impact in his day
I've seen convincing data that Russell was personally having a GOAT-level impact on games, that his success drove his team success (and not the other way around), and that his approach and ability would have likely translated his impact a lot more than people credit.

So, first off, I'd like to post ElGee's initial blog on Russell's defensive impact. This article shows the estimated team defensive ratings of the Celtics from 1958 (the year before Russell's arrival) through 1970 (the year after Russell retired), demonstrating that the historic Celtics' defense arrived with Russell, directly followed Russell's career arc, peaked with Russell, declined as Russell declined, and then went away when Russell retired. The article is found here: http://elgee35.wordpress.com/2010/12/31/bill-russells-defensive-impact/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; There are few, at this point, that dispute that Russell was the engine behind the Celtics' defense. But I wanted anyone unfamiliar with this work to see the numbers, as it helps to cement the concept that the Celtics' weren't just some over-talented team that happened to win when Russell was around. They were a team that won with defense far above-and-beyond all else, and that the defense was thoroughly captained by Russell.

Per the article, in 1964 the Celtics' defense was 11.4 pts/100 possession better than league average (!), 5.6 points better than first place. In 1965, the year I argue was Russell's peak, the defense was "only" 9.9 points/100 possessions better than league average and was a full 8.0 points better than second place (!!!).

II. For those that don't think that Russell's impact could translate to the more modern game. From what I read, the main arguments used against him are some combo of a) the league is more athletic now than it was in the 60s, b) the arrival of the 3-point line reduces the impact of protecting the rim because the game is more spread out, and c) Russell wasn't much of a scorer by either volume or percentage. In response, I would point out a few things:

1) Russell was taller than you think. He was listed at 6-9 at a time period when players were usually listed by heights without shoes. These days, players are listed at heights with shoes which normally adds 1 - 2 inches. And anecdotally, when Russell stands next to players known to be 7-feet he often appears to be similar in height. In today's game, Russell would probably be listed at 6-10 or 6-11.

2) Russell was an insane athlete. He considered going to the 1956 Olympics as a high jumper. Track and Field News ranked him as the #7 high jumper in the world, and he was ranked #2 in the United States at the time when he would have had to make the decision (he instead decided to go lead the basketball team to Olympic gold). He also apparently already enjoyed psyching out his opponents the way he later would Wilt: http://www.worldsstrangest.com/mental-floss/5-things-you-didn%E2%80%99t-know-about-bill-russell/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Russell also told Plimpton that he reveled in psyching out other jumpers. “I recall we had one big meet with 34 jumpers. They wanted to start the bar at five-eight. I said, ‘Let’s start it at six-four—let’s get rid of all this garbage.’ I wore a silk scarf, basketball shoes, a track suit and black glasses. I took off the glasses to jump.”



3) Russell was a scorer in college. One of the big arguments used against Russell is that he couldn't score enough to play in today's game. I've seen folks say that in today's game, Russell would be similar to players like Joakim Noah or Ben Wallace. But Russell has stated before that he consciously chose the way that he played, to focus more on defense than on offense, in order to maximize his team's success (I can't find the quote, but if anyone has it please post it). But prior to that decision, Russell actually COULD score. In college, Russell averaged 20.7 ppg on 51.6% shooting from the field. He may never have projected into a monster scorer, but were scoring more of his focus (as it likely would be in today's game) there's no reason to believe he couldn't have done so.

4) Russell was a master of both "horizontal and "vertical" defense", key to the modern game. On Doc MJ's blog "A Substitute for War", he had a really good article breaking down the difference between "vertical defense" (e.g. protecting the rim by waiting there to block shots) and "horizontal defense" (e.g. mobile help defense over a larger area). In the post (found here: https://asubstituteforwar.wordpress.com/2011/04/23/howard-is-the-dpoy-but-hes-no-garnett/#more-1569" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; ) there is a quote from Bill Russell: a Biography, that speaks to Russell's defensive style:

"Bill understood that Wilt’s game was more vertical, that is, from the floor to the basket. Wilt’s game was one of strength and power…Bill’s game was built on finesse and speed, what he called a horizontal game, as he moved back and forth across the court blocking shots, running the floor, and playing team defense."

Now, take a moment and think about what that might mean for the 3-point era. In this era, the best defensive anchors are able to move around the court. Pick-and-roll help defense (on- and off-ball) are incredibly vital. It's still good to be able to block shots, but the data indicates that it's also key to be able to blow up plays defensively before the shot can even go up. In the generation just prior to the +/- data, the generally agreed upon two best defensive players were Hakeem Olajuwon and David Robinson...both of whom were mobile bigs that were excellent at both horizontal defense and shot-blocking. In the +/- era (now from 1997-98 through 2014), the two most impressive defenders are the best shot-blocker (Dikembe Mutombo) and the most horizontal defender (Kevin Garnett). Mutombo and Garnett, in fact, have defensive seasons where their impacts on defense alone rival the very best individual offensive seasons in that stretch (including peak Shaq, Kobe, Nash, Dirk, LeBron and Dirk) according to DocMJ's normalization method of RAPM across years.

From everything that we know, it is certainly fair to project that Russell in the current day might combine the best of the primary defensive strengths of Garnett (mobility, intelligence) and Mutombo (shot-blocking, timing). As such, Russell very likely would still have a defensive impact at least on the order of the very best offensive players of our time, even in the modern era with the 3-point line.

III. No, seriously, Russell's athleticism/comparison to modern day Russell-like defensive descendants

I agree to an extent therealbig3 but I think Russell still had the most perfect defensive body and most perfect defensive mind in history of C position, so to me it would probably translate to other eras, even if not at the impact he had in the 60s. I think there's a valid argument to be made Hakeem, Garnett, Robinson, Duncan are possibly as good as defensive players as Russell if playing in another era, and thus above him at their peaks when taking into account offense

But haven't we seen guys with a combination of the best of Garnett (mobility and intelligence) and the best of Mutombo (shot blocking and timing) in more recent times: Hakeem Olajuwon and David Robinson? I'd throw Duncan in that group, even if his mobility might have been the weakest between him, Garnett, Hakeem, and Robinson, and it's not like he was a sloth in his prime. Even Garnett himself was a bit of a shot blocker during his prime...he averaged over 1 bpg, peaking at 2.2 bpg, every year for the first 14 years of his career. Since then, he's still averaged 0.9 bpg, despite a noticeable reduction in mpg.

Even so, let's look at Hakeem and Robinson, who are the two most obvious comparisons to Russell defensively, when you look at their combination of mobility, athleticism, rim protection, and ability to force TOs. As far as their intelligence, both of those guys were considered two of the most intelligent defensive players of their era as well, Hakeem especially.

So Hakeem and Robinson seemed to have mastered the horizontal and vertical aspects of defense as well, and were as good at that as anyone ever. And I can guarantee that they still would not have been considered best in the game caliber players (and neither would have Duncan or Garnett) if they weren't also high-caliber offensive big men as well.

These were both interesting posts, from posters I really respect, so I certainly understand your argument. And I'm not even going to push back (too hard) against your logic and the conclusions you come to, except in this way:

On the continuum of those 4 players, I think that Garnett is pretty clearly the most mobile (granting that all are more mobile than the vast, vast majority of 7-footers) and that either Hakeem or Robinson likely the best leapers. All of them, plus Duncan, constitute some of the best combos of size, athleticism and intelligence that we've seen in the "Russell mold" of a defensive big man in the modern NBA.

The thing that I was trying to get across in my last post, though, is that Russell quite arguably blows them out of the water as athletes. The arguments that both of you make rely on these four being approximate to Russell on defense in the modern game. And maybe they are. But the other possibility is...

I mentioned that Russell was an Olympic caliber high-jumper. I came across another quote (from Havlicek, I believe) speaking on Russell also being an unbelievable sprinter (on the order of 13s seconds in the sprint hurdles). It's hard to quantify just exactly how fast Russell was, but I'm open to the possibility that his mobility and quickness might not have been "just" excellent for a big man...he very well may have had LeBron-type speed. And when you factor in the world class high jumping, he very well may have had LeBron leaping ability as well.

I guess my point is, Garnett/Hakeem/Robinson/Duncan kind of define our upper limit as far as the mobile, athletic, defensive monster big man of the modern era. But we've seen really big guys with absurd hops in recent years (Kemp, early Amare, Howard, Griffin) and now we're seeing just how absurd that kind of athleticism is in a Karl Malone-like body type with LeBron. Physically, if Russell's body was essentially similar to KG/Hakeem/Robinson/Duncan but his athleticism was on the order of LeBron, that opens the possibility that his defensive impact might translate much more faithfully to this era than we think. That, defensively, he might be as far beyond the best of this era as he was beyond the best of his era.

I mentioned that Russell was an Olympic caliber high-jumper.

That "sounds" better than really is, but in reality doesn't say much about his athleticism, because Olympic caliber high jumper in 1957 = high school caliber high jumper now.

Not really. Russell high-jumped 6-10 before the invention of the Fosbury Flop, which revolutionized the whole event. Fosbury himself went from a career-best jump of 5-4 to a then-world record of 7-4 using the technique. I won't intimate that Russell would have also gained 2 feet with the technique, but it would clearly have put him well, well outside the bounds of a high school caliber high-jumper. In fact, with the new technique and modern equipment Russell would still likely be at least borderline world class as a high jumper...which puts him far outside of the norms for an NBA center. Yes, likely even more athletic than David Robinson (possibly to a significant degree).

Haven't got a huge amount of time but the simple version of the pushback for Robinson / anti-Russell

1) Russell's impact in his day
The main "anti-Russell" (or skeptical, or pro-supporting cast) argument has always been, didn't the Celtics get off to as good a record (technically a better record but apparently worse SRS so split the difference for terminological ease) in 56-57 without Russell. That despite Russell's span being largely coincident with the arrival of Frank Ramsey (around a month after Russell). The other thing this season does (if the arguments/research I've seen online is right) is undermine (or rather mitigate) the Boston won with D, Russell played the D, ergo Russell won the titles and didn't have a good supporting cast reasoning, in that in that relative to expectations at the specific points of the season, Boston did improve on D with Russell, but he was also hurting them on offense (and this despite the arrival of Ramsey, and isn't relative to Ed Macauley, but an aging Arnie Risen (or whomever was getting the bulk of the minutes at center; Risen was the starter).

This isn't a strongly "anti-Russell" case. But it eats away a little at margins of the correlation=causation case of Russell's defense = championships.

And Robinson's impact wasn't bad either. Arriving in 89 on a -7.45 SRS team, he transformed them to a +3.58 (they weren't as good as 56 wins suggested). The teams aren't exactly identical to be fair, Terry Cummings arrived for Alvin Robertson and then serviceable big Cadilac Anderson; Elliott also arrived in the draft but wasn't very good (PER of 12.5) and Mo Cheeks and then Rod Strickland replaced Johnny Dawkins. Frank Brickowski regressed. Still the fabled Larry Brown was in charge of both teams. So this is a (very) noisy method. But the manner in which the Spurs got better upon his arrival (and fell in his absence in '97) are indicative of "impact".

Russell's impact in the modern game./ Russell the athlete
He would be listed as an inch taller.

He was an elite athlete, but then so was Chamberlain at that time. I could argue eras and talent pools and whether gymnastics (Robinson's other sport) shows a more refined coordinated athleticism than high jump. I think it's moot when it comes to these two though, they both had excellent applied athleticism (at least defensively - as I'll cover I'm less convinced on Russell's O, that's probably less "athleticism" than hands/touch though otoh). I don't think the concerns about time-travelling Russell are about that.

Russell as a scorer is where I get cynical. Two main sources 1) Russell was consistently had the lowest TS%, whilst taking the fewest fga's per 36 amongst all 30ish plus minute centers year on year throughout the 60s; 2) the aforementioned Boston offense tailing off on Russell's arrival (offsetting a lot of the points differential gained on D, sufficiently so that it was within the range of luck to make the W-L worse with Russell, and again this with Ramsey arriving a somewhat shoring up the SF spot). At the margins (now this is very little weight for me) there's also things like the high scoring games they had when Russell went down. I don't trust it because team's don't properly modify their style to account for playing without stars if they know the star is coming back in a week, and it's small samples so if I'm cynical about tiny WoWY/impact type stuff on defensive and net impact it's only right that I should be on O too (and other teams won't have been planning for defending a non-Russell team). And I haven't studied this systematically. But I've seen some people go bonkers over high points conceded in sans-Russell games versus the Lakers and Knicks and think as much as you want to weigh this (and as before, with me it's very little) the flip side should at least be acknowledged.

but were scoring more of his focus (as it likely would be in today's game) there's no reason to believe he couldn't have done so.

I could pull up Dennis Rodman's scoring numbers from college (at a lower standard but then one might be cynical about the talent pool in the NCAA in Russell's time) in terms of do college scoring numbers necessarily translate, but the point needn't be laboured that I don't think he could be an effective scorer. The point here is could he emphasise his offensive game without trading off defense. If Russell was managing his energy for D, I think that was the right thing. I really wouldn't want Russell emphasizing scoring.

On Russell's mobility and horizontal game. I don't think the point's your making are necessarily disupted, but I'm not sure that it makes up for the simple "in Russell's time the most efficient shot was the foul shot - assuming you got two of them or and-1 - and then a layup/dunk which has always been the best way to draw said free throws and then a gulf, and a great help defender covers that" argument. Now the three is a 60% TS look -on average- for a fair few shooter and quite a bit better than that when uncontested. Russell played in an era when many players were used to being able to take as long as they liked to get a shot that suited them. As such distance (jump) shooting was for the most part relatively primative. Russell's mobility is great in the modern game, but there are circumstances that just make any player whose main impact is blocking/altering shots less important than they were in the 50s/60s.

Okay I've spent too long on this already. The arguments aren't perfect or polished, but it's the gist of my concerns and why I've fallen on the more cynical side regarding Russell (or more positive about his teammates) in so far as they relate to your arguments.

Not really. Russell high-jumped 6-10 before the invention of the Fosbury Flop, which revolutionized the whole event. Fosbury himself went from a career-best jump of 5-4 to a then-world record of 7-4 using the technique. I won't intimate that Russell would have also gained 2 feet with the technique, but it would clearly have put him well, well outside the bounds of a high school caliber high-jumper. In fact, with the new technique and modern equipment Russell would still likely be at least borderline world class as a high jumper...which puts him far outside of the norms for an NBA center. Yes, likely even more athletic than David Robinson (possibly to a significant degree).

Not entirely wrong, but as a bit of a trackster this info you're presenting makes it sound like the Fosbury flop technique just added 2 ft to the old high jump technique. For a bit more of the story Dick invented the flop while in high school (so the 5'4 mark is a young hs pr) and went on to perfect it to world class levels and jumped the 7'4 at the olympics 6ish years later. It's the better technique for sure, but not that much better.

Without any pretence to expertise on this I've seen suggestion in one sports/science book that whilst obviously the Fosbury Flop is a more efficient technique in terms of requiring a lower centre of gravity to be achieved, they thought the straddle might be better because it's superior in some other way (maybe more efficient in terms of the energy of the running and jumping motion). Will see if I can locate it. This wasn't (iirc) a specialist in that area and so I'm (very) skeptical but thought I should mention it.

[The-Power]

double post

[The-Power]

I think my top 4 candidates right now are Robinson, Russell, Magic, and Bird (with Walton and Oscar in the immediate vicinity, too). The order is very much up for grabs in my head now.

Curious to see, what drives you to rank them higher than Paul, Curry and (to a lesser degree) Nash? I have all of them pretty close to each other and they have a lot of things in common, therefore I would love to get more detailed thoughts from you on that topic whenever you can find the time. And of course everyone can chime in and share his/her view, it's absolutely appreciated as well.

[Quotatious]

fwiw, Quotatious, your assessment of Julius Erving has a sort of "luke-warm" tone about it. It's a relatively unflattering assessment which is nonetheless accompanying a 2nd ballot. It makes me wonder if it's more an affectation, rather than a strong opinion that Erving is actually better than Bird (+/- others).

Let me explain - the case I've made for Erving is sort of "luke-warm", because I wanted to be as reasonable and objective about him, without overrating him, as I could be. His stats and accomplishments that year are staggering, but I wanted to look at them in a more critical way right from the get go, because I knew that someone else would eventually do it, if I didn't.

Now, let's take a look at the points you made:

For those voting Dr. J so high, I’m curious how you rationalize having him above Bird. Here’s the way I see the comparison, sort of breaking it down by broad game components:

So:

Scoring
While I agree with 70sFan about the Doctor's mid-range game being underrated, Bird is in the conversation for GOAT mid-range shooter. Bird was also the far far far superior outside shooter (well ahead of his time from 3pt range; may well be considered among the GOAT’s in that category as well if he’d played nearer the modern era), one of the all-time great FT-shooters, had a superior post-game (was great at creating space around himself), was better off-ball (Bird was like an off-ball savant, really)..........really the only aspects of scoring that Erving has an edge at are as a finisher and transition scorer. He's a bit better at facing up and taking someone off the dribble, too (but he's not like Lebron James or Michael Jordan in this regard).

I'll disagree with you about one thing here - Erving was a devastating 1 on 1 player. I don't think there's a significant difference between him and Jordan/LeBron (or at least between him and LeBron, because Jordan is IMO the best 1 on 1 scorer of all-time, among perimeter players). I saw that RebelWithACause called Erving an "average" ball-handler several times, in other threads. I've always stratched my head when I hear that, because if you left Doc isolated on the weak side, it was almost automatic two points. His huge hands (even bigger than Jordan's) allowed him to control the ball in a way that very few players can, both in terms of dribbling and controlling the ball in air. He had a deadly first step, great shooting touch on close range shots, used the glass very well (he's among the very best in this regard, IMO).

To say that Dr. J was a "bit" better at facing-up, is a clear understatement. Erving was WAY more explosive and he could get layups or dunks where Bird would get contested jumpshots, pretty often. Bird was better in the post, but Erving was quite adept at that, too (I'd say that Bird's advantage in the post comes mainly from his superior passing/playmaking, more than scoring, because in terms of post scoring, Doc was quite close to him).

Anyway, to me, the only thing that really matters is how well a player is able to put the ball in the basket, not the way he does it.

Overall, though…..I can’t see an argument to label Erving the better pure scorer. Erving’s best season as a scorer (likely ‘76) he was going for 34.4 pts/100 poss at +5.2% rTS. Bird’s got at least two seasons (‘87 and ‘88) demonstrating better scoring numbers than that. And in an NBA era that [I don’t think anyone would contest this] is tougher/more competitive than the ‘76 ABA.
Short answer: Bird is the better pure scorer. I don’t think the margin is huge, but it’s nonetheless clear to me.

I disagree again.

Bird averaged 25.8 ppg on 58.0% TS in the RS (27.6% usage), 25.9 on 61.5% TS (only 23.3% usage) in the playoffs, while also facing less defensive pressure because he had other dangerous scoring options on his team (especially McHale).

Erving averaged 29.3 ppg on 56.9% TS (29.0% usage) in the RS, 34.7 on 61.0% TS (28.2% usage) in the playoffs, and he was facing more defensive pressure, similar to other GOAT level athletic wings like Jordan and LeBron. '76 Nets was really a "one man team" compared to the '86 Celtics.

Per 100 possessions, Bird averaged 32.2 in RS (34.4), and 29.5 in the playoffs (Erving 37.4, so the postseason gap is pretty big, and remember that their playoff scoring efficiency was almost the same, with Bird having 0.5% edge, which is basically no edge at all).

I'd say Erving was the better scorer. It's close, obviously, but numbers favor Erving (his explosiveness off the dribble at least makes up for Bird's superior shooting).

Or, we can make the distinction that I like to make, and say that Erving was the better scorer, Bird was the better shooter. You know, the same case that is true for LeBron/Bird or even Jordan/Bird.

Passing/Play-making
While I again agree with 70sFan that his playmaking is underrated, I disagree that he was “Lebron before Lebron”. From all I’ve watched of Erving, he doesn’t appear to have either the vision, or precision and willingness to find some of those more narrow openings to hit teammates with the pass (a la Lebron or Larry Bird).
His proficiency as a passer is more in league with someone like Elgin Baylor, imo. This isn’t a slam on Erving (Baylor’s passing goes underrated, too). But he’s [quite clearly, imo] a tier or two below guys like Lebron James or Larry Bird as a passing/facilitating SF.

Based on my eye-test, Erving was a very good passer, he just wasn't much of a point forward (certainly nowhere close to LeBron, I would disagree with 70sFan about that), but obviously Bird is clearly better. No argument here.

Rebounding
Bird rebounded at a significantly better rate. Some of that is how he was used defensively (typically guarding PF’s and C’s), but still…...rebounding is not by any means a factor that can be used against Bird in a comparison to Erving.

Where are you getting this from? Erving averaged 11.0 rpg in RS (12.9 per 100 possessions, 13.6% TRB), and 12.6 in the playoffs (13.6 per 100 possessions, 14.4% TRB), Bird averaged 9.8 in the RS (12.3 per 100 possessions, 14.2% TRB), 9.3 in the playoffs (10.6 per 100 possessions, 12.1% TRB).

Rebounding is a toss-up (although the playoffs gap in Erving's favor is a little bigger).

Defense
As always, this is the toughest one to scrutinize, as we don’t have reliable statistical measures (at least not in their era(s)). A typical young casual fan may suggest “Dr. J easily” or some such, fueled by nothing more than the usual “Bird sucks at defense” narrative and the fact that Erving got a fair number of steals/blocks. Here’s how I see them defensively…..

While it’s true Bird was often “hidden” down low, generally guarding the opposing PF (because he lacked the lateral quickness to be good defensively against opposing SF’s), there’s two catches to this criticism: 1) he was GOOD (excellent even, imo) as a low post defender--->he was outstanding at using his lower body to create space, and would fight guys off their spot, make entry passes difficult, he bodied up hard when they got the ball, hands straight up on shots, was fantastic on the defensive boards, etc. 2) While it’s true that having to shift him off his position defensively means it created a potential mis-match for his team (the Celtics were fortunate to have a PF---McHale---who was capable of doing a decent defensive job on a SF), the thing is that in nearly any other era (or even on some teams in his own era) Bird would likely be played as a PF anyway, thus not creating a defensive mis-match for his team.
And wrt to Bird’s perimeter defense…..
imo, he made up for some of his short-comings in lateral quickness with fantastic anticipation and hand/eye coordination. He made some truly remarkable strips, low elevation blocks, and picked off passes (evidenced in the video Quotatious previously provided). Was also excellent at sneaking over from the weak-side to strip the ball from a post player.
In short: I agree with Quotatious’ stance that Bird was definitely a positive defensively (at least thru the majority of his prime).

As to Erving’s defense……
tbh, I’m not impressed with what I see of his man defense (something the 70sFan even echoed in his above post). Not saying he’s a BAD man defender; but he’s…..well, completely average to my eye.
He is, however, excellent in transition defense and in some other help defense scenarios, excellent at playing passing lanes, etc.

So overall, I’m not sure who to give the defensive edge to. Whoever gets the edge doesn't get it by much, imo.

I'll agree with your assessment of Bird's defense, and I'll even agree with what you said about Erving's 1 on 1 defense (it was average, but still probably a bit better than Bird's, at least on the perimeter, where Larry really struggled against quicker, more explosive players), but the thing is, there's a bit more evidence in Erving's favor. Nets had the best defense in the ABA with Brian Taylor being the only notable defender on that team aside from Erving, he made the All-Defensive 1st team, while Bird didn't even make a second team in '86, and Parish/McHale/DJ were all more important for the Celtics defensively than Bird was. Erving's help defense seems to be superior than Bird's.

I'd say Doc gets the edge on D. It's not a big edge, but he gets the upper hand. It's hard to speak with conviction if we have so little game footage of '76 Erving compared to what we have for '86 Bird, though. At least I would agree with you that whoever gets the edge on D (to me it's Doc, like I've just said), doesn't get it by much.

So looking at all these factors combined: I’ve basically rated Bird the better scorer, passer, and rebounder, with defense being more or less a wash. As such, I’m very very comfortable rating Bird’s peak above Erving’s.

And I rated Erving as the better scorer, Bird the better passer, rebounding is about equal (marginal edge to Doc), and defense goes to Erving by a small margin...Overall, I give Erving the edge, but unlike you, I don't feel "very very comfortable" rating Erving's peak above Bird's. I think it's very close, but Dr J gets the edge based on my evaluation of their seasons.

For what it's worth, I would say Bird's edge in terms of passing is the biggest gap between them in any area, but...

How about advanced metrics?

Erving had higher PER, WS/48, BPM and VORP in both regular season and playoffs (well, Bird had higher playoff VORP, but he played 18 games compared to 13 for Doc, but RS + PS total VORP is slightly in Erving's favor, 11.7 to 11.1, with Bird playing 100 games and Erving 97).

Also, Doc had a bit higher total WS that year - 21.4 to 20.0, in less games played. That implies he made a bit higher impact.

Now, you can say - "but Bird played in a much better league" - sure, that would be true, but realistically, how much of a difference could that make, in terms of their numbers? Considering that Dr J put up by far the best numbers of his season against the best (on paper) team in the league, the Nuggets, in the highest pressure situation you can be in - the finals, I see no reason why Doc's stats would decline by any significant margin, if he played against stronger opponents on a regular basis (and the '76 Nuggets were easily better than an average NBA team in '86, I'm sure you would agree with that). Anyway, I'm still taking those numbers with a grain of salt - otherwise, I would argue for Doc right after Jordan and LeBron, because at face value, his numbers (especially playoff numbers) definitely warrant such a high ranking.

Besides, Bird played on a team with several very good scoring options - especially McHale, but even Parish, DJ and Ainge. That's one of the most stacked teams ever. So, Bird played in a much stronger league, but he had a much stronger team around him, as well. Erving played in a much weaker league, but he had a much weaker team around him, too. It evens out.

Oh, and getting back to my somewhat "luke-warm" description of Erving - well, my description of his finals performance was the furthest thing from "luke-warm", as I said he was every bit as good as 91-93 Jordan and 00-02 Shaq, he has a legit case for the GOAT finals performance (especially considering that his team was an underdog, while MJ's and Shaq's teams were the favorite every time).

I'm not sure if you would agree with that, but I think we are really splitting hairs here. I wouldn't have a big problem about Bird (or Magic) getting in before Doc, because it's very close, but right now I feel like Erving was a little bit better. In this particular case, we comparing two players who achieved almost everything you can possibly achieve - won RS MVP, playoffs/finals MVP, league title, made All-Pro 1st team...Erving also made All-Defense 1st team. Basically everything except for DPOY (which didn't exist in '76, but if it did, then Artis Gilmore probably would've won it).

Hell, I'm not even sure what my #1, 2 and 3 votes will look like, 5 spots from now. The gaps between peaks are clearly smaller than the career-wise gaps we were talking about in the top 100 project (and even those gaps were rarely big, to begin with...).

[Clyde Frazier]

Hmm... it's possible Dr. J's ball handling is being underrated here due aesthetics. He kinda slapped the ball down as he dribbled, especially on the fast break. Similar to the way Barkley dribbled in his Sixers days. While it may have looked a little sloppy, I think it was just as effective given his big hands and long strides once he went to make his moves.

Also, his ability to get off shots at the rim in tight spaces was pretty incredible. This also had a lot to do with his body control.

The below footage is from 74, but it's pretty similar to the way he was playing in 76.

https://youtu.be/sLWGRDjuAIw

[mischievous]

fwiw, Quotatious, your assessment of Julius Erving has a sort of "luke-warm" tone about it. It's a relatively unflattering assessment which is nonetheless accompanying a 2nd ballot. It makes me wonder if it's more an affectation, rather than a strong opinion that Erving is actually better than Bird (+/- others).

Let me explain - the case I've made for Erving is sort of "luke-warm", because I wanted to be as reasonable and objective about him, without overrating him, as I could be. His stats and accomplishments that year are staggering, but I wanted to look at them in a more critical way right from the get go, because I knew that someone else would eventually do it, if I didn't.

Now, let's take a look at the points you made:

For those voting Dr. J so high, I’m curious how you rationalize having him above Bird. Here’s the way I see the comparison, sort of breaking it down by broad game components:

So:

Scoring
While I agree with 70sFan about the Doctor's mid-range game being underrated, Bird is in the conversation for GOAT mid-range shooter. Bird was also the far far far superior outside shooter (well ahead of his time from 3pt range; may well be considered among the GOAT’s in that category as well if he’d played nearer the modern era), one of the all-time great FT-shooters, had a superior post-game (was great at creating space around himself), was better off-ball (Bird was like an off-ball savant, really)..........really the only aspects of scoring that Erving has an edge at are as a finisher and transition scorer. He's a bit better at facing up and taking someone off the dribble, too (but he's not like Lebron James or Michael Jordan in this regard).

I'll disagree with you about one thing here - Erving was a devastating 1 on 1 player. I don't think there's a significant difference between him and Jordan/LeBron (or at least between him and LeBron, because Jordan is IMO the best 1 on 1 scorer of all-time, among perimeter players). I saw that RebelWithACause called Erving an "average" ball-handler several times, in other threads. I've always stratched my head when I hear that, because if you left Doc isolated on the weak side, it was almost automatic two points. His huge hands (even bigger than Jordan's) allowed him to control the ball in a way that very few players can, both in terms of dribbling and controlling the ball in air. He had a deadly first step, great shooting touch on close range shots, used the glass very well (he's among the very best in this regard, IMO).

To say that Dr. J was a "bit" better at facing-up, is a clear understatement. Erving was WAY more explosive and he could get layups or dunks where Bird would get contested jumpshots, pretty often. Bird was better in the post, but Erving was quite adept at that, too (I'd say that Bird's advantage in the post comes mainly from his superior passing/playmaking, more than scoring, because in terms of post scoring, Doc was quite close to him).

Anyway, to me, the only thing that really matters is how well a player is able to put the ball in the basket, not the way he does it.

Overall, though…..I can’t see an argument to label Erving the better pure scorer. Erving’s best season as a scorer (likely ‘76) he was going for 34.4 pts/100 poss at +5.2% rTS. Bird’s got at least two seasons (‘87 and ‘88) demonstrating better scoring numbers than that. And in an NBA era that [I don’t think anyone would contest this] is tougher/more competitive than the ‘76 ABA.
Short answer: Bird is the better pure scorer. I don’t think the margin is huge, but it’s nonetheless clear to me.

I disagree again.

Bird averaged 25.8 ppg on 58.0% TS in the RS (27.6% usage), 25.9 on 61.5% TS (only 23.3% usage) in the playoffs, while also facing less defensive pressure because he had other dangerous scoring options on his team (especially McHale).

Erving averaged 29.3 ppg on 56.9% TS (29.0% usage) in the RS, 34.7 on 61.0% TS (28.2% usage) in the playoffs, and he was facing more defensive pressure, similar to other GOAT level athletic wings like Jordan and LeBron. '76 Nets was really a "one man team" compared to the '86 Celtics.

Per 100 possessions, Bird averaged 32.2 in RS (34.4), and 29.5 in the playoffs (Erving 37.4, so the postseason gap is pretty big, and remember that their playoff scoring efficiency was almost the same, with Bird having 0.5% edge, which is basically no edge at all).

I'd say Erving was the better scorer. It's close, obviously, but numbers favor Erving (his explosiveness off the dribble at least makes up for Bird's superior shooting).

Or, we can make the distinction that I like to make, and say that Erving was the better scorer, Bird was the better shooter. You know, the same case that is true for LeBron/Bird or even Jordan/Bird.

Passing/Play-making
While I again agree with 70sFan that his playmaking is underrated, I disagree that he was “Lebron before Lebron”. From all I’ve watched of Erving, he doesn’t appear to have either the vision, or precision and willingness to find some of those more narrow openings to hit teammates with the pass (a la Lebron or Larry Bird).
His proficiency as a passer is more in league with someone like Elgin Baylor, imo. This isn’t a slam on Erving (Baylor’s passing goes underrated, too). But he’s [quite clearly, imo] a tier or two below guys like Lebron James or Larry Bird as a passing/facilitating SF.

Based on my eye-test, Erving was a very good passer, he just wasn't much of a point forward (certainly nowhere close to LeBron, I would disagree with 70sFan about that), but obviously Bird is a clearly better. No argument here.

Rebounding
Bird rebounded at a significantly better rate. Some of that is how he was used defensively (typically guarding PF’s and C’s), but still…...rebounding is not by any means a factor that can be used against Bird in a comparison to Erving.

Where are you getting this from? Erving averaged 11.0 rpg in RS (12.9 per 100 possessions, 13.6% TRB), and 12.6 in the playoffs (13.6 per 100 possessions, 14.4% TRB), Bird averaged 9.8 in the RS (12.3 per 100 possessions, 14.2% TRB), 9.3 in the playoffs (10.6 per 100 possessions, 12.1% TRB).

Rebounding is a toss-up (although the playoffs gap in Erving's favor is a little bigger).

Defense
As always, this is the toughest one to scrutinize, as we don’t have reliable statistical measures (at least not in their era(s)). A typical young casual fan may suggest “Dr. J easily” or some such, fueled by nothing more than the usual “Bird sucks at defense” narrative and the fact that Erving got a fair number of steals/blocks. Here’s how I see them defensively…..

While it’s true Bird was often “hidden” down low, generally guarding the opposing PF (because he lacked the lateral quickness to be good defensively against opposing SF’s), there’s two catches to this criticism: 1) he was GOOD (excellent even, imo) as a low post defender--->he was outstanding at using his lower body to create space, and would fight guys off their spot, make entry passes difficult, he bodied up hard when they got the ball, hands straight up on shots, was fantastic on the defensive boards, etc. 2) While it’s true that having to shift him off his position defensively means it created a potential mis-match for his team (the Celtics were fortunate to have a PF---McHale---who was capable of doing a decent defensive job on a SF), the thing is that in nearly any other era (or even on some teams in his own era) Bird would likely be played as a PF anyway, thus not creating a defensive mis-match for his team.
And wrt to Bird’s perimeter defense…..
imo, he made up for some of his short-comings in lateral quickness with fantastic anticipation and hand/eye coordination. He made some truly remarkable strips, low elevation blocks, and picked off passes (evidenced in the video Quotatious previously provided). Was also excellent at sneaking over from the weak-side to strip the ball from a post player.
In short: I agree with Quotatious’ stance that Bird was definitely a positive defensively (at least thru the majority of his prime).

As to Erving’s defense……
tbh, I’m not impressed with what I see of his man defense (something the 70sFan even echoed in his above post). Not saying he’s a BAD man defender; but he’s…..well, completely average to my eye.
He is, however, excellent in transition defense and in some other help defense scenarios, excellent at playing passing lanes, etc.

So overall, I’m not sure who to give the defensive edge to. Whoever gets the edge doesn't get it by much, imo.

I'll agree with your assessment of Bird's defense, and I'll even agree with what you said about Erving's 1 on 1 defense (it was average, but still probably a bit better than Bird's, at least on the perimeter, where Larry really struggled against quicker, more explosive players), but the thing is, there's a bit more evidence in Erving's favor. Nets had the best defense in the ABA with Brian Taylor being the only notable defender on that team aside from Erving, he made the All-Defensive 1st team, while Bird didn't even make a second team in '86, and Parish/McHale/DJ were all more important for the Celtics defensively than Bird was. Erving's help defense seems to be superior than Bird's.

I'd say Doc gets the edge on D. It's not a big edge, but he gets the upper hand. It's hard to speak with conviction if we have so little game footage of '76 Erving compared to what we have for '86 Bird, though. At least I would agree with you that whoever gets the edge on D (to me it's Doc, like I've just said), doesn't get it by much.

So looking at all these factors combined: I’ve basically rated Bird the better scorer, passer, and rebounder, with defense being more or less a wash. As such, I’m very very comfortable rating Bird’s peak above Erving’s.

And I rated Erving as the better scorer, Bird the better passer, rebounding is about equal (marginal edge to Doc), and defense goes to Erving by a small margin...Overall, I give Erving the edge, but unlike you, I don't feel "very very comfortable" rating Erving's peak above Bird's. I think it's very close, but Dr J gets the edge based on my evaluation of their seasons.

For what it's worth, I would say Bird's edge in terms of passing is the biggest gap between them in any area, but...

How about advanced metrics?

Erving had higher PER, WS/48, BPM and VORP in both regular season and playoffs (well, Bird had higher playoff VORP, but he played 18 games compared to 13 for Doc, but RS + PS total VORP is slightly in Erving's favor, 11.7 to 11.1, with Bird playing 100 games and Erving 97).

Also, Doc had a bit higher total WS that year - 21.4 to 20.0, in less games played. That implies he made a bit higher impact.

Now, you can say - "but Bird played in a much better league" - sure, that would be true, but realistically, how much of a difference could that make, in terms of their numbers? Considering that Dr J put up by far the best numbers of his season against the best (on paper) team in the league, the Nuggets, in the highest pressure situation you can be in - the finals, I see no reason why Doc's stats would decline by any significant margin, if he played against stronger opponents on a regular basis (and the '76 Nuggets were easily better than an average NBA team in '86, I'm sure you would agree with that). Anyway, I'm still taking those numbers with a grain of salt - otherwise, I would argue for Doc right after Jordan and LeBron, because at face value, his numbers (especially playoff numbers) definitely warrant such a high ranking.

Besides, Bird played on a team with several very good scoring options - especially McHale, but even Parish, DJ and Ainge. That's one of the most stacked teams ever. So, Bird played in a much stronger league, but he had a much stronger team around him, as well. Erving played in a much weaker league, but he had a much weaker team around him, too. It evens out.

Oh, and getting back to my somewhat "luke-warm" description of Erving - well, my description of his finals performance was the furthest thing from "luke-warm", as I said he was every bit as good as 91-93 Jordan and 00-02 Shaq, he has a legit case for the GOAT finals performance (especially considering that his team was an underdog, while MJ's and Shaq's teams were the favorite every time).

I'm not sure if you would agree with that, but I think we are really splitting hairs here. I wouldn't have a big problem about Bird (or Magic) getting in before Doc, because it's very close, but right now I feel like Erving was a little bit better. In this particular case, we comparing two players who achieved almost everything you can possibly achieve - won RS MVP, playoffs/finals MVP, league title, made All-Pro 1st team...Erving also made All-Defense 1st team. Basically everything except for DPOY (which didn't exist in '76, but if it did, then Artis Gilmore probably would've won it).

Hell, I'm not even sure what my #1, 2 and 3 votes will look like, 5 spots from now. The gaps between peaks are clearly smaller than the career-wise gaps we were talking about in the top 100 project (and even those gaps were rarely big, to begin with...).

This is a really good Pro-Doc argument. Idk if it'll change my view on Bird vs Doc but it'll make me reconsider at the very least.

How do you think Wade stacks up to Bird and/or Dr J?

[lorak]

I mentioned that Russell was an Olympic caliber high-jumper.

That "sounds" better than really is, but in reality doesn't say much about his athleticism, because Olympic caliber high jumper in 1957 = high school caliber high jumper now.

Not really. Russell high-jumped 6-10 before the invention of the Fosbury Flop, which revolutionized the whole event. Fosbury himself went from a career-best jump of 5-4 to a then-world record of 7-4 using the technique. I won't intimate that Russell would have also gained 2 feet with the technique, but it would clearly have put him well, well outside the bounds of a high school caliber high-jumper. In fact, with the new technique and modern equipment Russell would still likely be at least borderline world class as a high jumper...which puts him far outside of the norms for an NBA center. Yes, likely even more athletic than David Robinson (possibly to a significant degree).

And that's not where conversation ended, because my response back then was:

That "sounds" better than really is, but in reality doesn't say much about his athleticism, because Olympic caliber high jumper in 1957 = high school caliber high jumper now.

Not really. Russell high-jumped 6-10

Source?

which revolutionized the whole event. Fosbury himself went from a career-best jump of 5-4 to a then-world record of 7-4 using the technique.

Cmonn drza, his 5-4 mark was before or at the beginning of high school, so natural psychical growth has A LOT to do with improvement. In high school, when he was using his "flop" technique, he still wasn't the best in the country, for example: "(...) the next year took second place in the state with a 6 ft 5.5 in (1.969 m) jump."

During 1968 Olympics he won, but it's not like he had big advantage over players using old technique (he was first with 2.24m, but needed three attempts, second place player had 2.22m and third 2.20m). In fact on next Olympics in 1972 the best result was set by player using OLD technique (Juri Tarmak won). So it's not so obvious new technique would give big advantage (if any), especially to so big player like Bill (the best high jumpers are usually around 6-1 to 6-5.)

Anyway, suggesting that Russell would gain 2 feet or anything close to that is irrational. Fact is Fosbury was using his technique on world stage since around mid 60s and 7-4 results or even 7-5 (by legendary Valeriy Brumel) weren't uncommon at the beginning of the 60s! (source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Men%27s_high_jump_world_record_progression" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;). And high schoolers right now jump 7-4 regulary (world record for HS is 7-7)... so way better than Russell back then or even better than Fosbury career mark.

[eminence]

Without any pretence to expertise on this I've seen suggestion in one sports/science book that whilst obviously the Fosbury Flop is a more efficient technique in terms of requiring a lower centre of gravity to be achieved, they thought the straddle might be better because it's superior in some other way (maybe more efficient in terms of the energy of the running and jumping motion). Will see if I can locate it. This wasn't (iirc) a specialist in that area and so I'm (very) skeptical but thought I should mention it.

There's a lot of truth to that. The reason the flop is so popular is because it is so much easier to teach.

Even after the introduction of the flop at the highest level in '68 the two techniques battled back and forth for the 70's, retaking championships and world records from the other technique. If it weren't for the injuries to Valeriy Brumel (probably the greatest high jumper of all time and then world record holder) before the '68 olympics and then to Vladimir Yashchenko who reclaimed the world record for the straddle I think we could still see the two duking it out.

Fosbury flopped 2.24 meters in Mexico City '68 - not a world record

Progression of the HJ world record(new record holders only):
'63- Valeriy Brumel 2.28m - straddle
'71- Pat Matzdorf 2.29m - straddle
'73- Dwight Stones 2.30m - flop
'77- Vladimir Yashchenko 2.33m - straddle (broke the world record at age 18, injured just over a year later and his career was over)
'80- Jacek Wszola 2.35m - flop and the flop never gave up the record again (it has been upped several times since then)

current record:
'93- Javier Sotomayor 2.45m - flop

And now there's really no one left to coach the straddle at a high enough level to challenge for the crown (oh how we miss you Dyachkov), so I expect to see the flop dominate from now until someone comes up with something new. Depending on the jumper they really can maximize their talents with different techniques - there is only a 4.25 inch difference between the records of each technique and the straddle technique record was set 18 years earlier by a 19 year old (for reference Yashchenko would have taken silver at the most recent olympics with his then WR jump from '78).

[MyUniBroDavis]

William Felton Russell !!!

III. No, seriously, Russell's athleticism/comparison to modern day Russell-like defensive descendants

I'd add this video. It's a single play that really showcases some of the best of his athleticism:

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JWelUNrJUMM[/youtube]

The high camera angle doesn't really do justice to what must have been some serious elevation: he jumped OVER a guy who is probably around 6'3" or similar......the guy ducks a little, but still; and you can see him pass right between his legs as he goes over. I mean they do dunks like this jumping over someone in modern day dunk contests, and the judges give them 9's and such.
Also note, that if you view this video frame by frame, the time elapsed from when his feet are reaching the floor on one end (after collecting the rebound) to when the ball is leaving his finger-tips at the other end is less than 4.5 seconds (and that's while dribbling). Coordinated enough to scissor his legs over the guy who passes under him, while maintaining enough focus to convert the lay-up.

Russell was no doubt a legitimately insane athlete.

Speed wise, I would contend that he might actually be faster than Wilt. (was a track monster, obviously)
vertical jump wise, he is an absolute monster (I recall he said he could touch the top of the backboard once. Not sure if he was telling the truth, but he seems like a nice and humble guy)

To put his defense into perspective, when he left, the celtics defense became basically league average.
In his LAST year, the celtics defensive rating was 6.4 better than league average. the person that followed him out was a perimeter guy, I cant remember his name, but I think he was a HOF.

to put that 6.3+ with without in perpective, well, there really is no way lol. adjusting for modern averages, it is closer to a +8 rating, maybe +9.

Obviously, anchoring a medicore defensive team to be a GOAT level defensive team is harder than making a horrible defensive team a respectable defensive team.

But pretty much, considering a old Russell is +6.3 on defense, I shudder to think what a prime russell would look like (the +11 during his prime rating shows some insight though)
Here are some numbers post rookie year, as posted by Colts18

10-18 W-L
-2.03 SRS
123.18 PPG allowed vs. average O of 114.01 (-9.16)
123.18 PPG allowed vs. 108.69 (-14.49)

HE also made an estimate with Defensive rating that meant that the defensive rating difference with/without russell (not on-off) was around a +11.5 on defense alone.
Scaling it puts it at 14-15+ ish, and this is Basically his Career average, not counting his first few rookie years (where he was only extremely good on defense imo)

To put a 14+ career average rating in perspective...
on-off is typically decently higher than when the player is actually absent, for obvious reasons (for example, Mutombo one year was 12+ on-off, and 9+ when he left).

Consider this to b e a career average. and that making a decent team great defensively is much harder than, well, making a bad team mediocre (basically what mutombo did that year tbh).

Well, lets look at a player who sort of did this

Garnett's on-off rating on 03-04, with a Minnesotta lineup that was slightly below average on defense to among the leaders the next year, was 6.1. obviously, not a perfect example, but you get what I mean.
Draymond, in a similar situation, was 6.9 (though, scaling wise, OBVIOUSLY, Garnett is Much better once we scale, though, Draymonds DRAPM from the site that I saw was extremely impressive)


Now, since, in my preliminary studies, on-off is usually a more inflated version, ish, of when the player is literally absent (because on-off doesent factor in things like bench, etc)

Im going to use Mutombo's season as an example. for rounding purposes, Ill multiply Russell's by 1.33333

Russells "with/without? disregarding his first year, over his career, was somewhere between 8+ (an Extremely low estimate) and 11.5 plus (another low ish estimate) throughout his career. Consider how low career on-off averages are compared to peak year averages (for example,Ben wallace's career average is -6, he had a year where it was slightly over 10).
considering that, in my studies, the average correlation between on-off and actually being absent is 1.33 (actually, its FAR more, but still), lets multiply this by 1.33
and considering scaling (im using the 11.5 plus here), the 11.5 is probably closer to 13 ish, but lets keep it at 11.5
and considering that he took a decent defensive team to an ATG++++++++ defensive team,

This rating, in an on-off scale, career wise, approaches 15 ish. and consider this is his CAREER AVERAGE.
multiply this by the ben wallace 6 to 10 scale, and this goes to above 20, on DEFENSE ALONE, scaled and everything.

Now, this is Obviously just pure predictions and guesses. my research was like, 3 sample sizes due to my slow internet. and ON-OFF rating is far from a perfect statistic.

But imo, it can give a start as to how he was on defense.



I'd also like to say that there are times where I feel like his supporting cast is overrated. Lets ignore players, lets ignore the fact that alot of them were HOFs. what did they look like without Russell? they went 10-18. (aside from his rookie year)
in an 82 game season, thats 29 wins. (which overall is worse than the warriors before wilt came)



looking at how they played... despite all of the offensive talent I hear alot of people talk about on the team, they regularly ranked last on offense (either that, or Russell was absolutely dreadful on offense)


Even using the 7.3 estimate (which, upon furthur review, makes a little more sense in the offensive side of the measurement)
the prime average I would estimate still is easily in the higher teens defensively.

the 29 wins is probably the most suprising bit.

(in terms of overall career net rating, his career average is in the 10-15 range, all things considered

And last, but not least, lets consider that many say he elevated his game in teh playoffs (I mean, he definately usually seemed to have more success head to head in teh playoffs)

(-2.03 SRS without him, which makes it seem like they deserved to be that bad, if that makes sense)

keep in mind, this is all preliminary stuff.

and In his absolute peak, assuming he was a positive influence on offense...

As for everyone who says that someone who dominates on 1 side of the floor cannot be in this kind of discussion,
imo, Russell is the outlier.

Take hakeem's quickness, wilts rim protection, duncan's calm influence/team play (cant find the word), Garnett's leadership/defensive bball iq, Someones hands that are extremely quick, the recovery speed of, well, Bill Russell (literally, no one else compares - even Hakeem) and heck, chuck norris's beard, multiply those qualities by 2 (except for the beard, divide by infinity)

and you get Russell on defense.
(obvious hyperbole, but honestly, He was a monster)

now, NONE of the evidence above is anything completely solid. its a huge estimate, but imo, it does show a semblance of the true impact he had on D alone.

[drza]

That "sounds" better than really is, but in reality doesn't say much about his athleticism, because Olympic caliber high jumper in 1957 = high school caliber high jumper now.

Not really. Russell high-jumped 6-10 before the invention of the Fosbury Flop, which revolutionized the whole event. Fosbury himself went from a career-best jump of 5-4 to a then-world record of 7-4 using the technique. I won't intimate that Russell would have also gained 2 feet with the technique, but it would clearly have put him well, well outside the bounds of a high school caliber high-jumper. In fact, with the new technique and modern equipment Russell would still likely be at least borderline world class as a high jumper...which puts him far outside of the norms for an NBA center. Yes, likely even more athletic than David Robinson (possibly to a significant degree).

And that's not where conversation ended, because my response back then was:

Not really. Russell high-jumped 6-10

Source?

which revolutionized the whole event. Fosbury himself went from a career-best jump of 5-4 to a then-world record of 7-4 using the technique.

Cmonn drza, his 5-4 mark was before or at the beginning of high school, so natural psychical growth has A LOT to do with improvement. In high school, when he was using his "flop" technique, he still wasn't the best in the country, for example: "(...) the next year took second place in the state with a 6 ft 5.5 in (1.969 m) jump."

During 1968 Olympics he won, but it's not like he had big advantage over players using old technique (he was first with 2.24m, but needed three attempts, second place player had 2.22m and third 2.20m). In fact on next Olympics in 1972 the best result was set by player using OLD technique (Juri Tarmak won). So it's not so obvious new technique would give big advantage (if any), especially to so big player like Bill (the best high jumpers are usually around 6-1 to 6-5.)

Anyway, suggesting that Russell would gain 2 feet or anything close to that is irrational. Fact is Fosbury was using his technique on world stage since around mid 60s and 7-4 results or even 7-5 (by legendary Valeriy Brumel) weren't uncommon at the beginning of the 60s! (source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Men%27s_high_jump_world_record_progression" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;). And high schoolers right now jump 7-4 regulary (world record for HS is 7-7)... so way better than Russell back then or even better than Fosbury career mark.

And if you would like to continue, your stance isn't reasonable. (Edit: deleted my rant on my track credentials, and ceding the point after Mischievous' last point. I've always been taught that the Flop was clearly better. Perhaps I'm mistaken. Either way, though, the point stands. Russell would clearly, conservatively be a 7-foot-plus jumper today, and whatever his actual number is, the overall point is that he'd be absurdly athletic for a big man, even today).

Plus, modern day athletes have technology advantages that are just as huge and fundamental as the technique approaches. The modern-day track is WAY faster than the track materials of the 50s. The shoes are way different. The training regiments are way different. If Russell was jumping 6-10 in the 50s, he would absolutely be expected to be well into the mid-7s, conservatively, now.

And ALL OF THIS is besides the point. The point is that Russell was a near 7-footer that could high-jump 7+feet and sprint at the rate of the best sprinters. Whether he would actively compete in the current Olympics or not doesn't matter...the fact that no CURRENT near 7-footer in the NBA has that kind of athletic ability IS the point.