I won't quote everyone because it takes too long going back and forth but my two cents on some aspects of the discussion:
- re: Supporting casts, one list of supporting casts gave a list of the number of all stars played with. In the Russell era there was a maximum of 3 per team (which meant Celtics were underrepresented and other teams overrepresented). Of course league size is also a factor which makes such comparisions fraught with risk of inaccuracy.
- In terms of Kareem's D, team level stats would suggest his defensive apex (at least in terms of impact, it could of course relate to energy and offensive burdens, or good D requiring multiple pieces) came in Milwaukee.
- In terms of the Celtic's dominance being unmatched in team sport, that rather needs prefacing with American,(taking major league/top tier, pro and male as a given)
- '68 being a problem for Wilt (specifically the defeat by Boston) is something I can't agree with. That team was all kinds of injured.
- The 80s as a golden age of basketball always rings slightly odd to me. I don't particularly see it with my eyes, but mainly there's the fact that the 80s consistently offers the fewest greats (players sorted by the era in which they primarily played) of any decade since the 1960s (i.e. the 50s have less) on pretty much every GOAT type list.
- Regarding 60s versus 70s in terms of competition: firstly of course it depends what you're talking about, championship probability, competition at a postion etc. But also when within a decade. If you're talking center position it very much depends on the point in time. Is it a year when Willis has arrived (and is playing center?); is it a year Thurmond has arrived (is he playing C? is he healthy?); how aggressive/comitted is Walt Bellamy? And you can do this on the other side to (which McAdoo are you getting, is Lanier healthy, what shape is Unseld in, is Hayes just looking to put points on the board). All these factors intermingle (e.g. ABA didn't affect the center position NBA much in the 60s taking just Mel Daniels of guys who would be in the NBA)
- Regarding "the idea that Boston was a superteam before Russell", no one posited that they were a superteam in '56 or prior. However there's substantial roster turnover, not just Russell. Heinsohn and the return of Ramsey for starters. The hot start 24 games may be a "reasonably small sample size" but it's larger than any other spell without Russell (almost as large indeed as the 25 to 28 game sample for the rest of his career noted by Elgee, the former number representing his both teams fully healthy number, 28 the full total) and comes with the benefit of showing Boston playing in a manner/style not accomodated to Russell (i.e. they aren't half-changing gameplans on a temporary basis, knowing Russell will be back soon, they're playing optimal ball for their personel.
- If you're using 50 wins as a benchmark of some kind (records with/without HCA split into 50 season games and others, you need to pro-rate to an 82 game schedule (ie only '69 Boston wasn't the equivalent of a 50 win team, though SRS that year would suggest that is underselling them).
- Ideally old game reports will cite the paper. Hometown reporting could be an issue (in particucular, apparently Boston through much, perhaps all(?), of the Russell era didn't send reporters to road games and relied on notorious homer Johnny Most's reportings for their info - will look into finding the source for this, whether it included playoffs - I read it recently). I know you can't do much if you're quoting someone else, but at least something to be aware of.
- I'll restate that Russell having a full career is a neat argument, but and indeed you wouldn't tell him he needed to play more to be the best-all time (as though that's what he played for). But I'd rather say that than tell Abdul-Jabbar that no more than 13 seasons count because that's all Bill Russell played. You could engage in counterfactuals about Russell's value into the 70s, but ignoring KAJ's longevity edge seems nonsensical.
- Mikan in play is interesting. Could come into play early based on his dominance, on the other hand "
NBA/ABA only, no college, international play, ABL, NBL, BAA or other pre-NBA play considered.
somewhat nobbles him, eliminating 3 title seasons. Would it not make sense to say that if a player is consideration-worthy based on NBA alone his pre-NBA stuff is considered. It just seems odd arguing on an incomplete career.
- re: Oscar on the Bucks, it's certainly plausible they win without him because of the extraordinary degree to which they dominated (SRS 11.91, 2nd best is Chicago's 5.47, best team they had to beat in the playoffs' was LA's 3.26. So if they have the seed they had, all else remains the same, no butterfly effect, then Oscar could be a pretty great player at that time adding 6,7,8 to their SRS and by some arguments Milwaukee would still be favourites. For me it isn't this case that "Oscar rode [Jabbar's] coat tails to victory" but nor do I think he was Kareem's equal at that point.
- Things said I'd disagree with
Baller2014 wrote:I think he had lost interest in helping the Bucks that year, between the injury and his desire to leave. I don't think it's fair to be too harsh on Kareem for this, because he had stayed in Milwaukee for over 5 years, and brought them a title, and it was racist to not allow players to become free agents. Forcing a trade was the only option players had back then.
If you believe he wasn't trying then surely that's a huge red flag. The one reason I'd be more okay with is if they had nothing to play for. But tbh though he doesn't do himself any favours in how he describes that last year in Giant Steps (the coverage is short, the tone is "it was time to move on") he still throwing up 30-14. I don't think there's too much to complain about, the team just wasn't very good (see the with/without split).
Quotatious wrote:Russell's career was individually (team-wise it was as well, but that's not what is important for me when I evaluate individual players) basically flawless - other than his really mediocre scoring ability, he was as complete of a player as you could ask for, while KAJ had a few playoff series when he clearly could've played better.
Russell's offensive flaws can be packaged as just "scoring" but it wasn't just low usage, it was low usage and low efficiency and being a liability at the line (in a discussion of '69 how he "shut down the paint" versus the 76ers is highlighted, that he shot 39.3% from the line that series is ignored). Jabbar didn't have a flaw close to that. He was guarded well by Thurmond sure. But he wasn't bad. And it wasn't like there aren't series where Russell was getting outscored close to 3-1 (thrice in single figures scoring out of 5 games), outrebounded etc by Wilt ('64) or if you're into team level stuff the '67 team being bettered by 10 points per game.
Okay that's more than enough to argue about (that's just from revisiting the first 5 pages).
Oh and this regarding this ...
ElGee wrote:
What you see is great impact for a rookie in 1957, especially one joining a team mid-season. It's not earth-shattering,
What did you do to isolate Russell's impact from the arrival of Frank Ramsey shortly afterwards?
*post edited to correct typo, and finish an incomplete thought in brackets
