[Project:Primes of the top 10 ever] List the top 12 seasons between Bill Russell vs. Wilt Chamberlain

[falcolombardi]

Very well said. Nice work!

That said, we have to consider motivation and impetus here. Specifically, how Wilt was utilized by Frank McGuire in 1962 vs. how Red Auerbach used Russell that year.

What if Wilt:

1) Focused on defense and passing from 1960-1966?

2) What if he wasn't expected by coaches to shoot and score almost every time down the floor his first 7 years?

Re: 1962 and Frank McGuire:

"Chamberlain wanted to believe McGuire, but he thought Boston was unbeatable. It simply had too many good players. McGuire said it was true that Boston was better than Philadelphia when Chamberlain was scoring thirty-seven or thirty-eight points a game. But if he scored fifty points a game, McGuire said, the Warriors could beat Boston.

“Fifty?” Chamberlain protested. “Nobody can average fifty a game in this league.”

McGuire told Chamberlain he could do it. The other players wouldn’t be happy, he said, and he, McGuire, was going to have to put up with a lot of bitching, but that was his problem. He would have to convince them that the only way they could win was with Chamberlain shooting constantly. In McGuire’s view, Chamberlain wasn’t being selfish in taking so many shots. He just had the highest shooting percentage on the team. It made more sense to have your 50-percent shooter taking the shot than it did your 40-percent shooter, which meant that if one of Wilt’s teammates with a poorer shooting percentage did not pass to Wilt, that man was not acting in the team’s interest.

“I have two goals,” McGuire told Chamberlain. “I hope we win the championship. And I hope you break every record in the book.”

Source:
https://www.amazon.com/Rivalry-Russell-Chamberlain-Golden-Basketball-ebook/dp/B000FCKGSY/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=wilt+russell+rivalry&qid=1630955531&sr=8-1

Durant suddenly became crazy-resilient when he moved to the Warriors. Skeptics complained that it was a crazy-cushy situation (it was), advocates celebrated his realization of his capabilities now that he was separated from Westbrook. Both perspectives have merit, but both have to concede that Durant's '18-21 postseason run actually happened.

westbrook at the time he played with dursnt was probably a fairly high end 2nd option, he arguably was equally valuable to the thunder as durant from 2013-2016, more than one all time great didnt have anythingh as good as durant did in okc

is not as good as his situation with curry was but that was joining a 73 win team, as close to nba in easy mode as it gets

i feel that a lot of people are already forgetting how good westbrook was at the time and imagining him as Wizards westbrook or somethingh

[sansterre]

Truth be told, I don't watch a ton of film; I mostly try and extract tidbits from other people whose observations I have come to trust. But highlight films . . . they do have a kind of value but it's fairly limited.

It's not merely "highlight films". That's a very reductive/misleading take on the Wilt Chamberlain Archive. It's actually quite analytical, also- so much of it. Here's a great example. Just one of dozens of all players from that era, albeit- in large part- Wilt, himself:

Watch on YouTube

Apologies. I took a quick glance, saw a bunch of short videos, and assumed it was highlights. My bad for rushing to judgment.

If you want to pick out a selection of non-highlight videos that you find persuasive I would be happy to watch them.

[sansterre]

Follow-up.

I used to believe that Russell's veneration was pure unadulterated winning bias, that he was certainly good, but not the GOAT-candidate that many made him sound like. I won't say I'd looked into it too hard, but you can certainly see where that came from.

Then I read this: Article on Russell

and this: Article on Wilt

And suddenly I understood the argument. And more to the point, Russell's revered status had suddenly been defended using objective data instead of generic accolades. I'm not saying the articles are flawless (they're not - one part of the Wilt article actually really rubs me the wrong way, but that's beside the point) but they do a good job making Russell's case.

out ir curiosity, which part is what you find wrong in that wilt article ?

The graph with Wilt's volume on the x axis and Wilt's team's offenses on the y axis.

If you graph his whole career that way, there's an obviously strong inverse correlation between Wilt's volume and his team's offenses (meaning, as his volume goes up his team's offenses get worse).

But, of course he was at his highest volume in his worst team situations.

If you only look at his "Volume Scoring Years" (1960-66) you'd actually draw the exact opposite conclusion, as there's a pretty obvious positive correlation between Wilt's volume and his teams' offenses (Wilt increasing scoring led to better offenses). Don't get me wrong, none of those offenses were good, but if you only look at his volume years you'd conclude that his shooting more was a good move.

To be clear, I have an enormous amount of respect for Ben. He is literally the reason I got into basketball analysis. But I think this was a situation (which happens to all of us) where he knew what he expected/wanted to find and presented the data in the way that supported that conclusion, ignoring that Wilt's Warriors years were a fundamentally different situation (for which the data presents a completely different conclusion).

[falcolombardi]

Follow-up.

I used to believe that Russell's veneration was pure unadulterated winning bias, that he was certainly good, but not the GOAT-candidate that many made him sound like. I won't say I'd looked into it too hard, but you can certainly see where that came from.

Then I read this: Article on Russell

and this: Article on Wilt

And suddenly I understood the argument. And more to the point, Russell's revered status had suddenly been defended using objective data instead of generic accolades. I'm not saying the articles are flawless (they're not - one part of the Wilt article actually really rubs me the wrong way, but that's beside the point) but they do a good job making Russell's case.

out ir curiosity, which part is what you find wrong in that wilt article ?

The graph with Wilt's volume on the x axis and Wilt's team's offenses on the y axis.

If you graph his whole career that way, there's an obviously strong inverse correlation between Wilt's volume and his team's offenses (meaning, as his volume goes up his team's offenses get worse).

But, of course he was at his highest volume in his worst team situations.

If you only look at his "Volume Scoring Years" (1960-66) you'd actually draw the exact opposite conclusion, as there's a pretty obvious positive correlation between Wilt's volume and his teams' offenses (Wilt increasing scoring led to better offenses). Don't get me wrong, none of those offenses were good, but if you only look at his volume years you'd conclude that his shooting more was a good move.

To be clear, I have an enormous amount of respect for Ben. He is literally the reason I got into basketball analysis. But I think this was a situation (which happens to all of us) where he knew what he expected/wanted to find and presented the data in the way that supported that conclusion, ignoring that Wilt's Warriors years were a fundamentally different situation (for which the data presents a completely different conclusion).

that makes a lot of sense

i also got into serious basketball analysis through taylor, but i think he has serious aesthetic/preference bias in some players (portable/offball players prefered vs ball dominant or perceived as less portable ones)

he pulls all the positive stops with garnett, bird or curry in a way i dont think he does with duncan or wilt (for example odinn pointed out how he included every injury possible to defend some of garnett shortcomings in a way he didnt with duncan)