Texas Chuck wrote:Im curious now how to hear how some of you deal with Bill Russell. Ive been involved in a nice discussion in the 2000s thread regarding KG and how some good posters analyze players.
So what do you make of a guy whose strongest cases for being in the top 5,10, maybe lower for some you? are defense and winning. The defense is harder to evaluate because we dont have nearly the data we have for the modern era and winning is obviously more about the team and some solid posters seem to completely seperate that out.
So I guess my questios is how highly do you think of Russell the player and what do you base your opinion on?
drza, ElGee, and Doctor MJ are three guys Im really interested in hearing from since they take a significantly different approach from me, but Im also interested in hearing anyone and everyone elses thoughts as well.
I think this is my first OP on here, lol
You're quite right that it's hard to quantify defense. I think thought that this analysis from ElGee hammers it home quite well:
ElGee wrote:Estimated Pace-Adjusted Numbers 1965ORtg
Code: Select all
1. Cincinnati 98.2
2. Los Angeles 97.5
3. Baltimore 97.1
4. St. Louis 94.1
5. Philadelphia 93.7
LEAGUE AVG. 93.4
6. New York 92.8
7. Boston 90.2
8. Detroit 89.8
9. San Francisco 86.8
DRtg
Code: Select all
1. Boston 83.5
2. St. Louis 91.5
3. San Francisco 91.9
4. Detroit 92.6
LEAGUE AVG. 93.4
5. Philadelphia 93.9
6. Los Angeles 95.8
7. New York 96.0
8. Cincinnati 96.3
9. Baltimore 99.0
So these are his estimates for offensive and defensive efficiency in '64-65. The caveats:
1) ElGee gets quote here because b-r doesn't list their attempts at this on the season pages, but they have made attempts and their numbers don't tend to be drastically different. If you're debating about whether these numbers or raw PPG is more useful, no need to debate that. These are much better.
2) Still b-r doesn't list them because we don't have all the data so some estimates are required. b-r as a business is being cautious with what they attach their name too. ElGee as an analyst is simply getting and giving the best estimates available.
3) This is not a random year. This is the year where Boston's outlier status is most obvious. However if this data were completely out of the blue, I wouldn't be mentioning it.
So understand:
The gap between #1 & #2 on defense is bigger than #2 and the worst team in the league.
The gap between Boston's #1 defense and league median is more than double what the comparable gap is on offense.
This tendency for a team to lap the field like this basically started and ended with Russell, and that's why his team won 11 rings.
Additionally: This tendency for defense to allow for far greater dominance than offense also basically ended after the '60s.
That's just pure numbers though. Qualitatively, what could make Russell so damn dominant? Let's compare him to a couple other guys:
1st, George Mikan and the old school bigs. These guys were big on defense but after goaltending was put in place they didn't do what Russell did. Most noteworthy difference: Russell was far more likely to leave his feet.
It might seem hard to believe that Russell's early coaches tried to get him to stop jumping so much to contest shots given how central that is to modern defense, but their reasons are still valid today: If the offensive player can get you up in the air without him actually committing to a shot, then you're at his mercy.
Russell got away with it not because he was more agile than Mikan, but because his instincts were incredible. He was jumping a lot, but he wasn't getting faked into jumping.
Of course Russell also was far more agile than Mikan, but the agility only really is able to be understood once you get to...
2nd, Wilt Chamberlain.
Now first with Wilt, don't use the '65 data I gave their to judge Wilt's capabilities. He was hurt that year. If I were to give the data from '64, you'd see Wilt's Warriors on defense was closer in effectiveness to the Celtics than they were to the pack. '64 wasn't a typical Wilt year either (it was particularly good), but without question Wilt when he was on was a great defender which should surprise no one.
What a lot of people have trouble getting their head around though is how Russell could be better than Wilt on defense if Wilt was basically just someone with Russell's agility and coordination but greater size.
And a major part of the answer is: Wilt wasn't that. Wilt was incredibly agile for his size, but he still wasn't as agile as Russell. So what did Russell's agility allow him to do? The Horizontal Game was what Russell called it.
Russell could actually challenge more shots than Wilt because he was agile enough to run out to the perimeter and get back in in time for the rebound in a way the larger Wilt couldn't.
Incidentally, Russell said Wilt was better at the Vertical Game, and meant that he was better at disrupting shots in terms of the vertical space that shots needed to go through. This shouldn't be trivialized...but remember that Russell was 6'9" with very long arms and was an Olympic level high jumper. Russell could contest shots well above the rim, and while you'd love him to be able to go even higher like Wilt, at a certain point the added vertical reach isn't worth the loss of agility.
Of course, this doesn't really touch upon the part of the game that was possibly the most important for Russell. So let's talk about...
3) Marc Gasol. Before this year I'd have brought up Garnett and Duncan, but Gasol seems like a particularly appropriate guy to pick right now.
Gasol just won the DPOY. Gasol isn't a great shot blocker and he gets 8 rebounds per game in a league where a dominant rebounder can still flirt with doubling that. He's not that quick, and so he really isn't able to influence huge amounts of space with respect to jump shooters. So why is he a great defender?
Because he's really damn smart. If you see how the play is developing before the play develops you don't have to be very fast to get to a disruptive spot. More than that, if you see where a player is developing you can tell your teammates to do things to stop the play before it stops. Gasol is a master at these things.
So was Russell. You may be aware that Russell coached the Celtics to title his last two years as a player. This wasn't a situation where Russell was so explosive and tireless that you didn't need to play smart as a team to win. It was a situation where Russell had already been the coach on the floor, so him becoming the official coach simply meant keeping track of player minutes, etc. (Not that that's easy when you're multi-tasking, and Russell said he would sometimes make some boneheaded screw ups his first year as coach leaving guys on the bench because he was too focused on the games.)
Anywho, you put all that together, and you've got basically the perfect body and mind for a defender. I don't believe any player has ever contributed more to his teams over a career except possibly Kareem who played forever.
As I say all of this though, while I'm sure Russell could adjust and thrive in the modern game, there's no doubt that the 3-point shot and range of modern shooting diminishes the impact of great shotblockers. Russell's impact today would be big, but it would not be what it was.