RealGM 2020 Top 100 Project: #4 (Bill Russell)

[Ambrose]

How much time until voting closes? I'm still unsure about my pick. Russell, Duncan and KG all have great cases.

Also interested in this. I'm wavering on Russell vs. Duncan.

[Hornet Mania]

All the Bill Russell analysis has been excellent. I still can't shake the feeling that Duncan was simply a better overall player and won about as much as anyone can in the modern era so the dominance isn't the difference-maker for me. I'll stick with Tim, but it solidified my opinion on Russell as being just behind him. Lastly I voted for Magic, the offensive GOAT imo.

After Magic a lot of guys are good choices. Shaq, Wilt, Bird and Hakeem are all guys I'm considering.

My vote:
1. Tim Duncan
2. Bill Russell
3. Magic Johnson

[limbo]

Ok, screw it, i'm voting:

1. Bill Russell -> I can see arguments for Russell placing lower, even potentially outside the Top 10, and i will go on record by saying if i was a GM and was drafting from the available pool of players to build a team around in the 3pt line era that features more talent, i'd go with KG and Duncan ahead of Russell without much hesitation, honestly. But that's not really what we're doing here necessarily. Russell played in a time period that he played in, and made the most of it. His impact really can't be denied. I think the #4 spot is a good place to put Russell in the scope of NBA history, as a pioneer/revolutionary of defense and the most decorated player in NBA history in terms of titles.

2. Kevin Garnett

3. Tim Duncan

[Doctor MJ]

Vote:

1. Bill Russell
2. Kevin Garnett
3. Tim Duncan

The details have already been hashed out so trying to keep it succinct:

I think what Russell did is one of the great human athletic achievements of all-time.

I think his approach to the game was beyond savvy on many levels. There are things he did that it's not right to say "He was ahead of his time" because most players in all future eras that will never understand the game like he did, but it's crazy to think he was doing this stuff at a time when NBA coaches themselves probably didn't understand.

As I say all that, he's always been very hard to rank against players outside of his own era and while I can make a case for him specifically at #1, quite frankly it's hard to feel passionately that "Oh no, he's definitely #4!" I completely understand why folks are picking other players against him.

Garnett in particular can be argued to be a superior version of Russell, and people have made good cases for that here. On that note, I would argue that Russell had a clarity of basketball purpose based around his defensive instincts from a young age that few other players had. As has been pointed out, he was always, always, always winning. People might not think it's that big of a deal that he won back-to-back national titles in college, but his San Francisco team was the only team in the '50s to do it, and he was playing for a coach who literally had only had losing records in the years before hand. Not to further knock Wilt here, but Kansas was a power house before Wilt arrived there that had recently won a national championship and they weren't able to win with him there. Russell just had an uncanny track record for making his teams win in a way that no one else in history ever has.

So I'm sticking Russell for now, though I will re-consider in the future.

Garnett vs Duncan is a debate for the ages as I've said. In the end I'm impressed by the fact that the evidence to me suggests that despite being more poorly used than Duncan, he still tended toward more lift and more portability than Duncan. But Duncan is the next spot on my list which I hope signals to people how much I respect this sustained excellence.

Back when I was starting getting involved in these discussions, we used to talk about the Immortal 6 - Russell, Wilt, Kareem, Bird, Magic, Jordan. Holding aside Wilt who I have criticisms of, I've never lost my incredible admiration for Bird & Magic. From a perspective of historical significance, the joint arrival of Bird & Magic in 1979 might have been the most clear-cut trampoline moment in basketball history. People had stopped caring about basketball, seeing two jaw-dropping basketball geniuses who made the game the best sport to watch in the world meant everything.

Longevity tho. While I have a tough time holding longevity against a guy like Russell who played easily long enough to surpass all who had come before in the NBA, the reality on Bird & Magic is that neither intended to have their stories ended so soon. And this is noteworthy to me because I feel like both had the game to be absolutely elite players for a very long time.

Without the HIV diagnosis, quite honestly I think we may have had conversations in the late '90s about "Is Magic better than Jordan again?". Jordan would have been spared the bulk of this presuming he just kept winning titles, but good luck doing that against Magic & Shaq.

Meanwhile, Bird had a specific injury to his back and was never the same after that. Maybe it was inevitable that his back would end his career prematurely but maybe not.

Anyway, I mention these whimsical scenarios in part to just make clear that Bird & Magic left achievement on the table, and this has always been known. I think it's fine if you value prime enough over longevity to still put them ahead of Duncan & KG, but as someone who tends to largely ignore longevity beyond a certain point, the gap between Duncan/KG and Bird/Magic here is not something that I feel I can brush aside.

Last: What about Shaq? In a recent thread I was basically called crazy for putting KG over Shaq, and I get it. Shaq was an absolute beast.

I need to make clear though that I'm someone who factors in off-court impact, and specifically off-court damage a player does to the franchises he is apart of, and as a Laker fan, I watched this closely for years. Now I'll say, I'm not as harsh on Shaq as I used to be. I now have a better understanding of how Orlando management screwed up and just how sociopathic Kobe was. If you just look at the oddness of these two events it's easy to start convincing yourselves that maybe Shaq was just a normal dude who normally would have had a happy long career in one place if only stuff hadn't happened.

I can't buy that though. I remember how selfish Shaq was and I remember how he acted whenever someone became in any way a rival in his mind. Shaq didn't just get petty, his attitude consumed him. He started burning hot, and there just never seemed to be a way to cool it down other than to let him leave your franchise.

I don't think you can expect to build a long-term franchise culture around Shaq the way I think you could with Duncan or KG, and that matters to me in terms of this list.

Now as I say this, you might point out: Didn't you vote for LeBron at #1? Doesn't that guy switch teams like Shaq? No, he doesn't actually. Yes there was bad feeling with both of his first two jilted lovers, but the bad feeling was driven simply because those teams 100% wanted him back and he left them.

And I'm not going to knock a player for changing employers when he's got good reason. A coder who goes from Google to Facebook is going to contribute less to Google than he'd otherwise have done, and thus would be lower on a theoretical "Google GOAT list", but no one in the industry is going to see that coder as unprofessional simply because he decided to take on a new challenge.

That doesn't mean I won't knock LeBron a bit for certain aspects of things, but by and large these things are negligible in the grand scheme of things in a way they just aren't with Shaq.

[Mazter]

4. Duncan
5. Russell
6. Magic

At the beginning I had Russell at 4. Because of the cases made for his poor offensive role and my own adjustment of the league strength pre-merger I dropped him a spot. Duncan was a much more better offensive player when needed to. Defensively you could say Russell was a better defender, but hey, continents are discovered only once. Someone discovered America, but that doesn't make him a better sailor or explorer than the once that came after him. They just ran out of continents to discover. Russell kinda had to invent defense in his era, Duncan perfected his defense in his own era. Well enough to combine for an all time record 31 All League selections over a span of 18 seasons. Russell is one of the greatest defenders of all time and was on top for 13 seasons, which at the time was the greatest longevity, but his lesser offense puts him under Duncan for me. Next up for me is Magic or Bird. Can't really grasp that people are considering Garnett over them. In the end I choose Magic based on a bit better on longevity and more titles.

[trex_8063]

Thru post #65:

Bill Russell - 12 (Doctor MJ, DQuinn1575, Dr Positivity, Dutchball97, Hal14, Joao Saraiva, limbo, mailmp, Odinn21, penbeast0, SeniorWalker, TrueLAfan)
Tim Duncan - 3 (Hornet Mania, Matzer, trex_8063)

Voting will mostly likely be open until ~3:30pm EST or so tomorrow.

One poster in particular has lobbied hard to get the thread(s) to stay open longer (although fwiw, another poster has suggested shortening them when the vote isn't close like this). I understand the concern or desire for extending them. And if turnout is much poorer than expected and/or the vote is very close, I may opt to leave them for an extra day.

But for the most part I intend to keep them close to 48 hours [though the 3:30(ish) stop-time tomorrow actually gives this thread 50-51 hours life].

There will be threads that go an additional 24 hours due to runoffs and/or holidays (where people tend to be busy with family, etc) already. And given the later than usual start to this project [due to later than usual conclusion of the 2020 season], we're already conducting this with the likelihood that the '21 season will finish BEFORE the 2020 Top 100 Project does [even without extending things over the usual 2-days per thread].
There's also the concern over peoples' stamina/interest in such a long-term project. It always wains as things go on, and very very few posters actually participate from start-to-finish. I must confess worry that extending things will only exacerbate that trend.

Spoiler:

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[limbo]

Next up for me is Magic or Bird. Can't really grasp that people are considering Garnett over them. In the end I choose Magic based on a bit better on longevity and more titles.

Aside from team success, what separates Duncan and Garnett to any meaningful degree in your opinion?

Where i struggle with in regards to Duncan vs. KG is the 'reality' versus 'potential' scenario.

In reality, Duncan had more success. But in comparison to Garnett, that was largely influenced by having a better front office, better mentorship, better coaching, and better teammates on aggregate. Not only did Duncan have an advantage in all those areas, but KG had some of the worst situations from 1998 to 2007 in those departments to boot.

In reality, Duncan looked like the better offensive player throughout most of their primes, especially in the Playoffs. But in contrast to Garnett, i believe the 98-2007 era lacked the foresight/knowledge and coaching ability to maximize a player like Garnett's skillset on offense, while the same wasn't true for Duncan, who's offensive strengths were closer to those Big men we've seen in the past.

If Duncan and KG came into the league 5 years ago, the outcome would very likely be different. Post scoring is not a methodology for yielding great offensive results in the modern era. Bigs are asked to bring shooting/spacing, passing, mobility, general versatility, and those are areas i believe KG has an advantage over Duncan.

Basically, KG was a victim of being ahead of his time in a sense. On top of that he rarely had sufficient perimeter talent on his teams, in his prime, to maybe facilitate a natural offensive progression of his skillset into something that more resembles a modern offense... Instead, he was relied on being the primary scorer, usually alongside another Big man who was offensively inept and was clogging the paint.

[Jaivl]

Excuse me, could not post for the last days. Seems this one is a lock for Russell (which I disagree with) so I'll get #5 ready.

[Joao Saraiva]

Excuse me, could not post for the last days. Seems this one is a lock for Russell (which I disagree with) so I'll get #5 ready.

If your boy is Tim Duncan you should go for it. Who knows if it'll go in the run off.

[Ambrose]

If that's how the voting looks my vote won't matter much anyway so I'll go

4) Tim Duncan-Personally, I have found the arguments in support of him to be more compelling than those in favor of Russell despite coming into the project favoring Bill. The evidence provided by a few posters seems to suggest Russell was indeed a net negative on offense. While the defensive impact was simply unbelievable, the overall impact can be matched. The implications that 1) Russell was relatively turnover prone and 2) His passing is unimpactful resonate with me greatly. In my admittedly brief viewings of him, the vast majority of Russell passes were far more likely to be handoffs or standing still and flipping the ball backwards than actually creating for other players. That's not creating positive impact just like Wilt forcing the issue to win an assist title isn't.

I also haven't seen a sufficient counter to the ELO rating posted regarding dominance of the dynasties. When it comes down to it, I would rather start a franchise with Duncan than Russell. He had less of an ego (Heinsohn ROY, $1/year more than Wilt salary), brought considerably more value on offense, is the closest we have to Russell on the defensive end, brought more career value imo, and was the foundation of a 19 year run of dominance in the modern era that is slightly more impressive to me.

5) Bill Russell-Was originally my pick for 4, so obviously he's next in line.
6) Magic Johnson-The flip side of Russell as the offensive GOAT and weaker defensively. Though I am certainly open to hearing arguments for the like of Shaq, Hakeem and Wilt.

[DQuinn1575]

Thru post #65:

Bill Russell - 12 (Doctor MJ, DQuinn1575, Dr Positivity, Dutchball97, Hal14, Joao Saraiva, limbo, mailmp, Odinn21, penbeast0, SeniorWalker, TrueLAfan)
Tim Duncan - 3 (Hornet Mania, Matzer, trex_8063)

Voting will mostly likely be open until ~3:30pm EST or so tomorrow.

One poster in particular has lobbied hard to get the thread(s) to stay open longer (although fwiw, another poster has suggested shortening them when the vote isn't close like this). I understand the concern or desire for extending them. And if turnout is much poorer than expected and/or the vote is very close, I may opt to leave them for an extra day.

But for the most part I intend to keep them close to 48 hours [though the 3:30(ish) stop-time tomorrow actually gives this thread 50-51 hours life].

There will be threads that go an additional 24 hours due to runoffs and/or holidays (where people tend to be busy with family, etc) already. And given the later than usual start to this project [due to later than usual conclusion of the 2020 season], we're already conducting this with the likelihood that the '21 season will finish BEFORE the 2020 Top 100 Project does [even without extending things over the usual 2-days per thread].
There's also the concern over peoples' stamina/interest in such a long-term project. It always wains as things go on, and very very few posters actually participate from start-to-finish. I must confess worry that extending things will only exacerbate that trend.

Spoiler:

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Thanks for being the moderator I really appreciate it!

Here is the last time I’ll bring it up. But with Russell getting 14 out of 17 votes I’d rather see Number 5 with 4-5 great candidates argued. Duncan Wilt Garnett Magic Bird. Wouldn’t mind having that go 3 days; right now this post is like 4th quarter garbage time. Like I said last time, you’re the moderator and a good one

[Dutchball97]

Thru post #65:

Bill Russell - 12 (Doctor MJ, DQuinn1575, Dr Positivity, Dutchball97, Hal14, Joao Saraiva, limbo, mailmp, Odinn21, penbeast0, SeniorWalker, TrueLAfan)
Tim Duncan - 3 (Hornet Mania, Matzer, trex_8063)

Voting will mostly likely be open until ~3:30pm EST or so tomorrow.

One poster in particular has lobbied hard to get the thread(s) to stay open longer (although fwiw, another poster has suggested shortening them when the vote isn't close like this). I understand the concern or desire for extending them. And if turnout is much poorer than expected and/or the vote is very close, I may opt to leave them for an extra day.

But for the most part I intend to keep them close to 48 hours [though the 3:30(ish) stop-time tomorrow actually gives this thread 50-51 hours life].

There will be threads that go an additional 24 hours due to runoffs and/or holidays (where people tend to be busy with family, etc) already. And given the later than usual start to this project [due to later than usual conclusion of the 2020 season], we're already conducting this with the likelihood that the '21 season will finish BEFORE the 2020 Top 100 Project does [even without extending things over the usual 2-days per thread].
There's also the concern over peoples' stamina/interest in such a long-term project. It always wains as things go on, and very very few posters actually participate from start-to-finish. I must confess worry that extending things will only exacerbate that trend.

Spoiler:

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Thanks for being the moderator I really appreciate it!

Here is the last time I’ll bring it up. But with Russell getting 14 out of 17 votes I’d rather see Number 5 with 4-5 great candidates argued. Duncan Wilt Garnett Magic Bird. Wouldn’t mind having that go 3 days; right now this post is like 4th quarter garbage time. Like I said last time, you’re the moderator and a good one

You think KG will get more tractrion than Shaq and Hakeem? Last time I checked most people don't have KG as a top 10 guy let alone #5. I'm not saying it's a bad choice, because obviously that's personal for everyone, but I wonder if KG will really get in before Shaq and Hakeem.

[Texas Chuck]

[
You think KG will get more tractrion than Shaq and Hakeem? Last time I checked most people don't have KG as a top 10 guy let alone #5. I'm not saying it's a bad choice, because obviously that's personal for everyone, but I wonder if KG will really get in before Shaq and Hakeem.

I don't think KG gets in before Dream, but I think the KG guys tend to have KG higher than Dream guys have Dream so it makes sense KG would start getting traction earlier even if he ends up behind him in the final rankings.

I know I have players I am much much higher on than the group as a whole and so I might introduce them into discussions many slots before they will get voted in. For instance if people want to talk Dream, then I want to talk David Robinson. If people want to talk KG, I want to talk Dirk. And I might want to talk Oscar, West, and Kobe at the same time.

[Dutchball97]

[
You think KG will get more tractrion than Shaq and Hakeem? Last time I checked most people don't have KG as a top 10 guy let alone #5. I'm not saying it's a bad choice, because obviously that's personal for everyone, but I wonder if KG will really get in before Shaq and Hakeem.

I don't think KG gets in before Dream, but I think the KG guys tend to have KG higher than Dream guys have Dream so it makes sense KG would start getting traction earlier even if he ends up behind him in the final rankings.

I know I have players I am much much higher on than the group as a whole and so I might introduce them into discussions many slots before they will get voted in. For instance if people want to talk Dream, then I want to talk David Robinson. If people want to talk KG, I want to talk Dirk. And I might want to talk Oscar, West, and Kobe at the same time.

My bad, thought it was about who could actually get the #5 or #6 spots. It's always of value to have discussion about multiple players. I'm still unsure where I'll vote KG as well. Pretty much everything after #10 is still wide open.

[70sFan]

Since we've got some outstanding posts about KG, I wouldn't be myself if I didn't try to make Duncan case here

A lot of people think that Duncan was less than ideal defender for pace and space era. I want to counter that with his performance in 2007 against Phoenix Suns - a team that played modern style of basketball over 10 years ago.

One of the first possessions in the game - Stoudemire goes to the other side of the floor, but Oberto stays and collides with Duncan. Nash quickly realized that there is a breakdown on defense and tries to take advantage of it. Duncan reads this situation well though - he pushes Oberto to put him in front of Nash and he reads Nash pass to Stoudemire quick enough that he's already in position to contest Amar'e shot (he blocked it).

Notice Spurs P&R defense - Oberto stays on Nash, while Duncan helps on Amar'e. Nash finds Thomas, but Duncan is already there. Suns have to reset the action now.

Nash tries to take Duncan on P&R, but Duncan shows excellent way to defend in drop coverage - he's always in position to help on Nash and he quickly recovers on Thomas (which led to traveling violation). Notice how Duncan's length made Nash not even trying to shoot inside.

Another try from Nash, Duncan stays well on his feet against him but Bowen stays on powerful screen and Nash makes a nice pass that led to Oberto foul.

I won't show every P&R action Duncan defends well, but Nash trying to exploit Duncan didn't work in that game.

Nash tries to take advantage of unset Spurs defense, but Duncan blocks his shot with ease. Focus on how Duncan tried to keep blocked ball inbouds.

Look how during the drive Duncan forced Nash pass with his reaction - normally it'd be pass to Stoudemire, but Duncan made subtle move toward him, so Nash passed to "open" Thomas, but Duncan quickly came back and blocked his shot. These kind of plays are the kind of defensive manipulation Russell talked so much about.

This is the kind of inside pressence that very few players could touch. Amar'e got a great position on Duncan, but Duncan almost blocked his shot anyway while not leaving the floor (he was soooo long). Then he contests Marion putback very well.

Another examples when Duncan's pressence alone made him successful inside. Even magishian like Nash and monster like Amar'e felt uncomfortable inside.

This time he defends drives from both Nash and Amar'e in the same action.

It's all from the first half, but you can see that (past physical prime) Duncan had huge value on defensive side of the floor, even against someone like Nash.

[Ainosterhaspie]

1. Duncan
2. Russell
3. Magic

I've had Duncan over Russell in the past, entered this project leaning Russell, but now that it comes to it, I have to lean back toward Duncan. The difference between these two is small.

When I started looking at various areas that matter to me, more of them favor Duncan than Russell. I think versatility is important. It's part of why I favor LeBron over MJ and Kareem over Russell, and ultimately that is what separates Duncan from Russell to me.

Duncan has a clear edge with comfortable separation from Russell as an offensive player. He's better as his team's offensive focus and he's better as an ancillary piece. He can shift smoothly between those roles depending on his team's needs.

Duncan also has a longevity edge. It's not real large, but it's there.

Russell has Duncan beat in winning more titles. The factor that gives Russell the clearest edge in achieving those extra titles is his superior defensive play. But is he so far clear of Duncan in defensive superiority that it wipes out Duncan's offensive advantage and more years of high end play as an explanation for all the extra titles?

I have a hard time accepting that. Duncan is an exceptional defender himself and Russell being that extreme an outlier compared to Duncan is frankly unbelievable. There must be something else going on.

So then I look at something like the Kobe/Shaq Lakers. Here are two guys that will probably be top 15 in this list. Duncan had to go through them between 99-04 to get a title. They also had an elite coach. Russell faced a similar duo in 69 (Wilt, West) and squeaked out a win, but does he have the same success if that's what he was facing every year? I doubt it.

Duncan also twice faced the Heat with another Duo in the all time top 20-25 club one of whom is number 1 in this list. He was past his prime, yet without an incredible sequence of missed free-throws and an iconic last second shot, he would have taken two series from that duo, once in convincing fashion.

Going back to the Kobe, Shaq combination. One thing that speaks to me about that pairing is that no matter how good a defender you are, you can't defend an elite interior threat and an elite perimeter threat at the same time. And the three point line exacerbates that limitation. Where once, you had to get closer to the basket, and therefore closer to the elite interior defender, to get a better shot, now the game is structured so an elite interior defender cannot have the same impact against a well balanced team as he could prior to the three point line.

So while Duncan is a less impactful defender than Russell it's at least in part because Duncan's era limits the potential impact of elite interior defenders. Move Duncan back in time and he probably becomes a more impactful defender. Move Russell forward in time and he probably is less effective as a defender, and unless we assume offensive improvements (something I don't view as impossible, yet remain highly skeptical would actually materialize), Russell could well see teams taking advantage of his offensive limitations in ways that create significant problems for his team's offense.

I don't dismiss the argument that a player is shaped by his era and would develop differently in different areas, as well as the idea that dominating one's era is all that can be asked, so why penalize a player for missing something that wasn't needed. Yet despite that, I feel it's important to explore portability accross eras, and here Russell in my eyes is more suspect than Duncan. This circles back to my preference for versatile players.

--

Something that I haven't covered which I see as an exceptional attribute of both these players is their team first mindset. These two have clear separation from everyone else in this tier of player in this area and it was central to their success. Both consistently sacrificed personal statistical glory for the betterment of the team. They built team cultures that few other players would replicate in their position. Popovich is an elite coach, who may never have been seen that way, but for Duncan's willingness to be coached, his setting an example that the rest of the team followed. Russell was much the same.

--

I have Magic and Wilt as my remaining GOAT tier players with Magic edging Wilt.

[PistolPeteJR]

1. Bill Russell
2. Wilt Chamberlain
3. Tim Duncan

From thread about #3:

Bill Russell comes ahead of Wilt for me because him and the Celtics (I want to be careful not to say it was simply Russell despite him being the main reason) that stopped Wilt and his squads multiple times. There's no way that Russell can be slotted behind Wilt seeing how much success he had against him, and the sample size is not minuscule in the slightest.

I had a really hard time figuring out who I was going to slot at #5, but I'm going to go with Tim Duncan.

His peak was really, really stellar, but lacked the longevity on offense that guys like LeBron and Kareem have/had. His defense however was stellar and tops them without a shadow of a doubt. Does he benefit from Pop's coaching and having great guys next to him for his entire career? Sure, but he was definitely the leader of the group, and one could even argue that that was also the case way back in rookie season next to The Admiral.

[LA Bird]

Disagree that they can be framed as falling short of all time dominance in any way.

Well then, how do the Russell Celtics rank in regular season SRS, postseason adjusted ratings or ELO compared to the Duncan Spurs? The Celtics were the most dominant defensive dynasty of all time but not the all time most dominant dynasty period.

First off does winning 11 titles not count for anything?

Luck aside the rings argument have already been covered in the first part of the post you quoted already. They were statistically expected to win several more titles simply from the playoffs format alone. It's like if an eating contest changed the format from six inch subways to footlongs. Eating 10 six inch subways is impressive but it's the same as eating 5 foolongs. Just because both are sandwichs does not mean they are the same difficulty and 10>5. The same goes for titles won over 2 series vs 4 series. I don't see Russell's ring count as being any more impressive than Duncan's. They are both massive winners at the end of the day.

Regular season is not the same as playoffs or else the 2020 Bucks would be one of the best teams of all time. Secondly how is this not lapping the field?:

In 1960 they went 59-16 and has 7.62 SRS while the second best record was 49-26 and 2nd best SRS was 2.77.
In 1962 they went 60-20 with 8.25 SRS while the second best record was 54-26 and SRS 2.36.
In 1965 they went 62-18 with 7.46 SRS while second best record was 49-31 and 2nd best SRS was 2.68.

I don't see how this is anything other than completely crushing everyone in these regular seasons.

Of course they were dominant. The question is if the Russell Celtics were more dominant than other dynasties that came later, which your post never addressed. Secondly, you say regular season is not the same as playoffs and yet you cite these stats to show the Celtics crushing it... in the regular season. If they were the most dominant dynasty of all time, why were they pushed to single possession do or die games against teams they should have easily beaten based on their regular season record?

Also noting that they already had the regular season win mark so there was no motivation to chase 70 like the Bulls and Warriors season, and really had nothing to prove in any of these seasons.

The Celtics never had the best regular season win mark. Until Wilt's Sixers, that record belonged to the 47 Capitols coached by Red Auerbach. And the Duncan Spurs weren't chasing regular season win records either so how do you explain them still rating out better and for much longer?

I also think there is some truth to the idea that it was harder to have as high a ceiling in 60s. I think the main reason the 67 Sixers have 8.5 SRS and the 72 Lakers had 11.65 is expansion. I don't think the Lakers had a more dominant season personally. Another way to put it is that in between 57 and 68, the only teams to break 5 SRS and 60 Ws were Russell Celtics and Wilt 76ers.

There were quite a few expansion team added by the early 70s but 1967? Adding one new team seems reasonable to account for the growth of the league and the inclusion of more black players. Besides, the comparison here is Russell against Duncan not Wilt.

[Owly]

1. Bill Russell
2. Wilt Chamberlain
3. Tim Duncan

From thread about #3:

Bill Russell comes ahead of Wilt for me because him and the Celtics (I want to be careful not to say it was simply Russell despite him being the main reason) that stopped Wilt and his squads multiple times. There's no way that Russell can be slotted behind Wilt seeing how much success he had against him, and the sample size is not minuscule in the slightest.

I had a really hard time figuring out who I was going to slot at #5, but I'm going to go with Tim Duncan.

His peak was really, really stellar, but lacked the longevity on offense that guys like LeBron and Kareem have/had. His defense however was stellar and tops them without a shadow of a doubt. Does he benefit from Pop's coaching and having great guys next to him for his entire career? Sure, but he was definitely the leader of the group, and one could even argue that that was also the case way back in rookie season next to The Admiral.

Your case for Russell hinges on an assumption of Chamberlain as a strong candidate for 2nd on the ballot. You do not make this case. As such one could agree with it all and have Russell not on their ballot.

[drza]

How I evaluate & rank, and what that means for Kareem, Russell, KG & Duncan

I'll start this post by talking about how I evaluate. If you look at my posts thus far, you'll probably notice some commonalities, even if I'm talking about different players. I talk a lot about impact, and use different approaches to try to estimate how much a given player contributes to lifting their team's results. When specific information is lacking, I look to trends for the type of player, and what those types of players tend to bring to the table as far as lifting teams. I find a lot of value in my "eye test" and basketball sense. And yes, I pay attention to box score stats, rings and accolades. But for me, none of those things are to be taken as the specifically necessary elements of a rote evaluation model.

In other words, there's no threshold of rings, accolades, points, team wins, or true shooting percentage that definitely connotes that a player is lifting his team. These, like all of the many other observations and facts, are events that I'm trying to correlate with a player's ability to lift his team. None of the observations are necessarily causal in-and-of themselves, but instead by looking at a lot of different things and running them through my own personal processor, I estimate how much these correlating events might in-fact be causal.

That is why someone like Kareem, who has a ton of very special elements that could easily get him into a GOAT discussion, slides a bit on my list. A decade ago, when entering the RPoY project, a resume that includes 6 rings, more MVPs than any other player in history and a host of counting achievements (including most points ever) spread over a two-plus decades was enough for me to expect to exit the project with him as my GOAT. I expected that a closer examination of Kareem's career would provide further evidence that he was in-fact the one whose career contributed the most to his team's success of any player in history.

But when I looked closer...it didn't. Yes, his skillset was other-worldly. Yes, his production and efficiency were everything that we ask for in players. But when the rubber met the road, as far as I can discern from the available evidence, Kareem's play was not providing the level of lift that some of his GOAT contemporaries was. He'd fill up the boxscores, and his teams no-doubt got better with him...he's still one of the greats. But his presence/absence didn't drive the team to the heights/lows of some of the other GOATs, and he wasn't often the catalyst/primary contributor to the championship-caliber units that he was on. He was outstanding, but (to give a contemporary example) he was often more than Anthony Davis than the LeBron...the guy whose importance was beyond question, who put up the gorgeous boxscore numbers, the one credited as being elite at both ends of the court...but not the one that was doing the MOST lifting for those championship teams.

On the other hand, you have players like Russell or Garnett. I find it so ironic that when I started that RPoY project, I expected to learn that Kareem (pre-Magic) and/or Wilt were the KGs of their generation...the players that were doing the most to lift their teams, they just happened to have the bad luck of not having great teammates when compared to more successful counterparts. Russell, in particular, I assumed was winning because he had a great cast and that he was the overrated one in the great debate.

Instead, what I found was that Russell is the one that appears to be the KG of his generation...the player that was providing the most lift of any player in his generation to the best that I can evaluate. But, unlike KG, he didn't spend the first 13 years of his career on teams with dramatically less talent than his contemporaries. Interestingly, he also didn't appear to spend his entire career with an overwhelming amount of support, either. Instead, he seemed to have good support, sometimes more and sometimes less than his primary rivals, but his own personal lift was so high that, instead of lifting poor Timberwolves teams from the lottery to 50-plus wins, Russell's lift was taking a good class up to legendary dynasty level.

And this is key, for me: the individual player's lift of his team is more important than the ultimate team result when evaluating the individual player. Because the player typically has little to no control of the caliber of his supporting cast, coach and/or front office. All he can control is how much he, personally, helps his team to win. So, if one player has 11 rings and the other has 1 that is at best only tangential evidence...I want to know how much a player provided to make his teams the best they can possibly be. The why is more important than a ring count.

Someone said in an earlier thread that they felt like my championing of Russell was in some ways another way for me to support Garnett. In a way, that's true, but not for any sinister reason. It's because I value a lot of the same things in Russell that I value in Garnett. That, to the extent I'm able to discern, Russell was providing generational magnitudes of lift, doing so in an additive way that encouraged his teammates to maximize their own input, doing so in a way that should fit perfectly onto pretty much any reasonably constructed team in history, and in a unique way that not many could match.

In other words, he had maximized impact magnitude. His impact was extremely scaleable. His game was incredibly portable. And finding others that could do what he does at a star level is difficult, making him a scarce commodity.

All four of those are true of Russell. They're also true of Garnett. And to a larger extent, in my estimation, than they are for any other player up for consideration. Including Tim Duncan...though I believe Duncan to be the next-best-thing.

To many, Duncan ticks the same "GOAT entry boxes" as Kareem does...multiple rings, multiple MVPs, outstanding skillset and universal acclaim among those that are anything more than casual analysts.

And I'll go even further, and say that I believe Duncan to have been a better, higher impact player than Kareem. When I examine all of the available data, Duncan was providing generational lift to his teams in a way that Kareem didn't seem to. I think a lot of that is due to the fact that Duncan was dominant on defense and good on offense, while Kareem was dominant on offense but "merely" great on defense. For big men in particular, the defensive dominance element seems to consistently be the one that generates huge lift (and portability, and scaleability, and scarcity) whereas big man scoring will almost always be not-as-valuable to helping the team as little man offense. But, that's part of a bigger conversation that I've also been trying to spark in other posts.

But, while better than Kareem, Duncan did not quite have the level of court-covering-team-carrying-horizontal-team-quarterbacking defense that Garnett did in his own era, or that Russell did in his. And on offense, Garnett had the skillset that fits best in almost any circumstances. Duncan was the better post scorer, but Garnett was the better passer, shooter and team offense hub. Both were at worst solid-to-good at each of those elements, but Garnett's overall skillset is the one that seems to be more valuable.

And THAT'S why, I believe, Garnett universally measures out with better impact stats than Duncan in both the regular season and (to the extent they're available) in the playoffs across their careers. Going back a couple of these projects, now, there are those that rail against the +/- stats, or their usage. The criticisms have evolved over time, and as it's become abundantly clear that the NBA teams themselves find strong value in impact-analytics there are fewer folks on here decrying the data as not useful. But even in this project already, there have been posts critical of using +/- data to support Garnett. Like it's some sort of illegal prop.

In reality, the family of impact stats (including and especially +/- stats) are the best that we have to quantitatively estimate how much a player is helping lift their team to success. They are, much like points per game, number of rings or number of accolades, a record of an event that's occurred and a way of characterizing that event. They are facts to be incorporated into the analysis.

But they are a very useful set of facts. Because they can help quantitatively support (or argue against) statements like the ones I made above regarding Garnett being better able to help lift a team than Duncan. I can say that typically horizontal big-man defense with smart, vocal leadership is even more valuable than rim protection. I can say that typically a big man that can space the floor and be used as a team-offense hub that creates looks for teammates is more valuable, portable, scaleable and unique than a traditional post game. And there may be some merit to those statements. But if I can support those generalizations with two decades of impact stats that demonstrated Garnett and Duncan consistently among the top few players in the NBA at providing that lift...but with Garnett consistently edging out Duncan, across a variety of different situations, in both the regular and postseason then yes, I believe that's compelling. That the impact data isn't the case by itself, but it's more evidence that strongly supports the case that had otherwise already been built.

Vote
1. Bill Russell
2. Kevin Garnett
3. Tim Duncan