OT: PacerPerspective Never Answered My Email on Bill Russell

[Jammer]

PacerPerspective, AKA Andrew Perna, recently posted on this board some questions that he would like to compile answers to.

About 3 1/2 days before that post, I sent Andrew an email inquiring why he omitted Bill Russell from his article on the best draft picks of All-Time. Andrew ranked the top ten for each draft position, although I believe that the higher drafted players may have been done by Nick Obergan.

In any event, I am posting my unanswered email sent to andrew.perna@realgm.com here as I suspect that there might be a number of Celtic fans who would be curious as to the response.

My correspondance to Andrew is titled Where is Bill Russell in Your Ranking of the Top Draft Picks?

My email is below.

Hi, Andrew -

I used to be a big fan of the equivalent of your floor impact counter, before you created it. Before even the Bird index, I had my own little thing called the Jammer index, which I actually thought of in 1978, but started posting on the internet in the 1990's on the SportsTalk Boards.

I originally detested John Hollinger's PER, because I felt that it didn't factor in defense. After actually purchasing and reading Hollinger's book, and digesting it for 2 years, I eventually became a fan of http://www.82games.com NET PER, which you can find by clicking on the main page link for Roland Rating's, clicking on the column for NET PER, and presto, you get an NBA ranking by NET PER for all players that have played 35% of Total Team Minutes.

Anyway, moving on to the subject of this email, where is Bill Russell in your ranking of the top draft picks? The International Olympic Committee (not to be confused with the US Olympic Committee) program listed Russell at 6' 10" in the days when players were measured barefoot, rounded down, and player agents could not influence the listings. So, Russell was the same height as modern day PJ Brown, except possessed the quickness and mobility of a Chris Paul, with unmatched (6' 11" high jumper) explosive leaping.

In Russell's day, steals and blocks were not recorded. And, players, not journalists, voted for the MVP. The NBA players conveyed MVP on Russell 5 times (1959, 1960, 1961, 1963 and 1965) to a man averaging 15 ppg, 22 rpg and 4 apg. In effect, Russell was selected over several 25+ ppg scorers. What is the chance of that happening today? Russell was an All-Star Game MVP, 11 time NBA champion, whose college team won 56 consecutive games including two consecutive NCAA championships, and whose US Olympic Team, which he captained, averaged a margin of victory of approximately 51 ppg.

Whether you decided to omit him from your list deliberately, or if it was by accident, at the very least, he was worthy of mention in the article.

That is the extent of my email to Andrew, with 2 or 3 grammatical corrections made. I suspect that a few other RealGM members may appreciate Andrew's response as much as I will.

[Kefa461]

I too would like to see an answer.......Russ can't be omitted it must have been an accident.

[Bad-Thoma]

Outside of Boston fans Bill Russell is pretty under appreciated. Not saying this in reference to Perna's article, either he missed it or had his reason, I'm not going to judge. I personally think Russell was the GOAT, but people are too in love with scoring to realize it. Russ brought nothing but success everywhere he went, as a college player, as a pro and player/coach, and as an olympian. How he doesn't get the same recognition that a player like Wilt gets is beyond my comprehension.