Lowest offensive impact to qualify for your top 25 all-time?

[OhayoKD]

did bill russell just throw playoff games to rest up or something? Based on the regular season dominance you'd be expecting them to sweep most of their opponents, right?

I doubt that being as competitive as he was but at the same time I don't think you can chalk it up to him necessarily either. I think the offensive players tended to be very inconsistent and they were also up against some very good teams. 8-11 team league means more talent per team in general.

iirc, tho, some of the teams that took them to 7 were 0 or even negative srs sides tho.

[jalengreen]

I'm not really sold on Russell being much of an impactful offensive player at all, so I don't think this is a matter of threshold.

I think that's a bit of a misconception people have about Russell tbh. I think when you factor in both his off rebounding and passing ability out of the high post which also created better spacing in the paint and his pick setting he actually did have good offensive impact. Even in terms of scoring he was mostly positive up to 1963 with 2 seasons above 80 ts add.

it feels as if the celtics consistently had all-time great defenses + below avg to bad offenses. i struggle to rate his offense very highly as a result

[penbeast0]

I find some guys (Barkley for example) tended to work harder during the playoffs where they often coasted during the regular season. This might be one reason why he was rated a strong playoff performer. Guys who tended to come out and bust their butts even if playing the Kings on a Tuesday night might not have had an extra gear to go to in the playoffs as they played full out more consistently in the RS. Don't know if this is true or not but it's one I have thought about.

[penbeast0]

I'm not really sold on Russell being much of an impactful offensive player at all, so I don't think this is a matter of threshold.

I think that's a bit of a misconception people have about Russell tbh. I think when you factor in both his off rebounding and passing ability out of the high post which also created better spacing in the paint and his pick setting he actually did have good offensive impact. Even in terms of scoring he was mostly positive up to 1963 with 2 seasons above 80 ts add.

it feels as if the celtics consistently had all-time great defenses + below avg to bad offenses. i struggle to rate his offense very highly as a result

Agree, and that was true even when he was shooting better than league average and scoring 15-20 a night. When the Celtics went from Macauley to Russell (and added Heinsohn and Ramsey), they went from a weak defense, good offense team to a ridiculous defense, bad offense team and that was consistent throughout Russell's full tenure with the franchise.

[ceiling raiser]

Do you have a lowest defensive impact to qualify for your top 25 too? Nash, Magic, Bird, Dirk? I don't think it matters where your impact is, offense or defense. It's the overall impact on winning that counts and if that is ridiculously one-sided but you are just that good on that one side, so what?

Well I agree with you. My thinking is that we should consider elevating defense-first players who were at the MVP level higher. I think people have higher standards for a defense-only/-mostly player than they do for an offense-only/-mostly player.

[Cavsfansince84]

Agree, and that was true even when he was shooting better than league average and scoring 15-20 a night. When the Celtics went from Macauley to Russell (and added Heinsohn and Ramsey), they went from a weak defense, good offense team to a ridiculous defense, bad offense team and that was consistent throughout Russell's full tenure with the franchise.

I don't think this line of reasoning really proves that Russell is some kind of bad offensive player for two reasons: 1. MacCauley was one of the best offensive players of the 50's. He was putting up 20ppg on incredible efficiency for his era. So you gotta take that into account and 2. As you said, they also added Heinsohn who shot more than Russell on worse efficiency. So you can't really put this all on Russell and Cousy's efficiency relative to era also started to drop that year as his ts+ went from 101 to 92. So that's a combination of things that I think that argue against Russell being mostly at fault for the Celtics ORtg drop off and as mentioned before, off rebounding doesn't affect ORtg quite as much as it does raw ppg.

[Cavsfansince84]

Well I agree with you. My thinking is that we should consider elevating defense-first players who were at the MVP level higher. I think people have higher standards for a defense-only/-mostly player than they do for an offense-only/-mostly player.

I generally agree and I think part of this is that even players such as Kareem, MJ and LeBron get thought of as offense first players and then even on a team like the 04 Pistons that were built on defense people are reluctant to say that Ben Wallace was actually their best player. Usually its more Billups & Wallace if that. So the perception is I think that defense just isn't as important. Even though I think most people would argue the Bulls were built on defense and you had teams like the Spurs which had a dynasty mostly built on their defense. It just doesn't carry over to individual players the way offense does.

[penbeast0]

I don't think this line of reasoning really proves that Russell is some kind of bad offensive player for two reasons: 1. MacCauley was one of the best offensive players of the 50's. He was putting up 20ppg on incredible efficiency for his era. So you gotta take that into account and 2. As you said, they also added Heinsohn who shot more than Russell on worse efficiency. So you can't really put this all on Russell and Cousy's efficiency relative to era also started to drop that year as his ts+ went from 101 to 92. So that's a combination of things that I think that argue against Russell being mostly at fault for the Celtics ORtg drop off and as mentioned before, off rebounding doesn't affect ORtg quite as much as it does raw ppg.

I agree there are other factors (including Auerbach's offensive scheme) but the idea that Russell's passing makes him a plus offensive player when his offenses were consistently bad despite complain changeover of personnel seems not born out by available evidence. Same reason I'm not as impressed with Cousy's offensive impact during the Russell years relative to other great PGs. Posters have argued that Cousy was a playmaker of the Oscar/Magic/Stockton/Nash caliber but it would see that if you have that type of offensive engine, you shouldn't be consistently that bad offensively. Cousy in the early to mid 50s, yes; Cousy in the late 50s to early 60s, not convinced.

[Cavsfansince84]

I agree there are other factors (including Auerbach's offensive scheme) but the idea that Russell's passing makes him a plus offensive player when his offenses were consistently bad despite complain changeover of personnel seems not born out by available evidence. Same reason I'm not as impressed with Cousy's offensive impact during the Russell years relative to other great PGs. Posters have argued that Cousy was a playmaker of the Oscar/Magic/Stockton/Nash caliber but it would see that if you have that type of offensive engine, you shouldn't be consistently that bad offensively. Cousy in the early to mid 50s, yes; Cousy in the late 50s to early 60s, not convinced.

ok but now I feel like you are bringing Cousy more into this which is part of the point I was making above. People love to say that the poor ORtg's of his teams were somehow mainly Russell's fault when he was usually like 3-4th in shots taken, was scoring at positive ts add up until 1963, was a good passer for his position and one of the best off rebounders for his era if not ever which shows up more in ppg than pure ORtg. Plus he was replacing one of the best offensive players of his era. I stand by Russell being a positive off player for nearly all of his career if not a ++ on offense up until the mid 60's. The low ORtg's are more on Cousy, Heinsohn and Hondo imo.

[penbeast0]

I don't think he was particularly a good passer early on when he was a positive ts% as basically a rim runner. He developed that skill as he moved out away from the basket where his lack of shooting was more exploitable. The offensive rebounding I certainly agree with you.

Funny, I'm normally the one defending Russell and saying that the Russell era versions of Cousy, Heinsohn, and Havlicek were overrated.