When would you generally say LeBron surpassed MJ all-time?

[HeartBreakKid]

Here is my point. IF Russell was born 60 year later than he actually was, is it possible he would become a jump shooter? Or maybe he's just an elite roll man in the PNR. We already know he was a very good passer, does he really lean into that and be a souped up version of Draymond Green?

Or is he like you believe, not nearly as impactful?

We can't know. What we do know is putting him in a time machine and asking him to compete in an era he wasn't building his game to play in is totally unfair. Which is what you are doing when you project him into today's game with yesterday's skillset. Ironically nobody ever does this the reverse. They never ask how does Curry's impact translate when he doesn't get a 50% bump on his ability to shoot from range, when his ankles don't hold up playing in Chuck Taylor's without modern medicine/training, when he can no longer carry the ball on every dribble. We just think oh slow old white guys of course he dominates.

That's why we have to only judge players based on how they do in the environment they played in. Everything else is guess work. Sorry but it is.

And I have no idea what you mean about singling out luck. I'm just saying I'm trying to evaluate actual careers because its the only way to compare actual players and not my projections of them versus yours.

It's actually funny you mention Draymond, that's who I would compare Russell to as well. Player analogies aren't perfect but I think they can give a pretty good idea of what time travel would look like. With that, if we assume Russell is 20% better than Dray on defense (which I think may be generous), and make him an elite roll-man (which I would agree with), that makes him what, a solid MVP-level player? Still excellent, a championship cornerstone-type player (I would badly want him on my team) but not ATG.

I don't think he's close to as good a passer as Draymond, and there is no evidence to suggest he had any kind of shooting touch. Anything's possible, but my idea is, if you had to bet on it, what do you think is realistically possible? Elite lob threat, definitely, jump-shooter? Very long odds lol. That's kind of the point I'm making. I'm not one of these people denigrating old players at all, hence my username, but I do think we need to make at least some allowances for different eras.

For your 2nd point, I think I've actually brought this up before myself, but I could be mixing what someone said in a past thread on this. I would say that you're probably right, someone like Curry without a 3-point line is less impactful in the 60s.

However, I think it's inherently more impressive and meaningful to differentiate yourself modernly than it was in the 60s. ty 4191 has brought this up quite a bit, and it's actually changed my viewpoint. The game has advanced tremendously. The game has a ridiculously large talent pool and hasn't had a new team in 30 years. Schemes, knowledge, etc, the game has become much more solved now with billions of dollars of resources flowing into the league every year trying to figure out every gritty detail. And despite all this, someone like Curry is still a big outlier, and this absolutely should factor in.

And to the 2nd to last point, the 60s in of itself has a ton of guesswork involved unless you just want to count rings and MVPs, we have almost no data or film for it (which I'll be the first to admit, sucks). I've made this point before, but it's not about the conclusion or results, but the argumentation process itself that matters, and not taking into account era differences at all does a tremendous disservice to that process IMO.

It isn't "inherently" more impressive to differentiate yourself in modernity. The same exact issues exist in differentiating yourself today as they did 10 years ago, as they did 50 years before that. Your argument is solvability and things like that - what does that even mean? From the perspective of an individual it would make no difference if you were in the 60s, 2020s or 3020s - you would be a product of your time and would have the same obstacle both mentally and physically.

Also, you are greatly overrating how fast basketball improves, it was only a few years ago that the great sports minds in the NBA realized that 3 points is worth more than 2. Sports are dominated by jocks and ass-kissing businessmen, none of those two groups move things progressively. Basketball isn't complex, most sports are not.


This is like when people say things like "oh, it was so easy to make money 100 years ago all you had to do was learn how to read". That type of thinking makes no sense and is not baked into reality. It was not "easier" to stand out a 100 years ago in the work world, it was objectively harder because there was less opportunity and resources to learn from even if the skills required to do so are easy to acquire by today's standards.

"Oh, that Isaac Newton guy? He had it lucky because calculus had not been invented so all he had to do was invent it". Sounds pretty ridiculous to me - that is basically the basketball equivalent of what Bill Russell did. Literally all someone like Steph Curry did was be great at shooting (I assume this is what you mean by being an outlier, he of course can do more than shoot) - another rich ass kid with an all-star daddy will do exactly what Curry did but better.

Bill Russell changed the way the game was played. He thought so dynamically and differently that the coaches he had tried actively to make him not play his winning style. It's not comparable or "inherently" easier than what Steph Curry did at all. Do you think it is easier to create an entire genre as opposed to just a really good piece of art in that genre? Russell is not only an outlier but did so in a more abstract way.



If someone was 20% better than the best defender in the league they would obviously be the best player by a lot. Might be semantic but 20% is a pretty dang large number.

[LukaTheGOAT]

Honestly, I try to evaluate players on dominance relative to era.

But to be fair, time-machine arguments are just another version of eye-test evaluation and making educated guesses. Just like how there might be ample evidence to the contrary that player B> is better than Player A. Yet, people come to the conclusion that player A is better, despite the numbers, because they are "noisy," and or "player B is in a more advantageous situation."

Trying to project how good all-time greats would be in new eras is a lot like projecting current stars on different teams. We don't actually know what would happen or how things would play out, yet nonetheless we make assumptions with the evidence we know. It could be right or wrong but who is to say?

I certainly disagree some of the comments on MJ and Bill Russell's era-translation, however, it is not like I can prove it one way or another without a time-machine. Allowing for people to make for projections, is often largely apart of the imagination/creative side of basketball evaluation is often what makes it interesting, so things don't devolve into random plug-and-chugging of numbers to decide the best players.

[70sFan]

Is it going to be harder for Jordan to score as efficiently on twos now compared to then?

No, it would be harder for him to catch up elite scorers efficiency without any type of three.

I don’t see the logic that you have to either be really big or be a great 3 point shooter to be a top tier offensive player.

I didn't say elite, I said that he'd have to use three point shot more than he did in his prime. LeBron James isn't elite three point shooter, but he uses it.

Unless maybe you didn’t think Westbrook was having top tier impact just 6 years ago. I’m not going to sit here and look up everyone’s 3 point numbers but you get the point.

Well, of course if Jordan translates into Westbrook today that would be a huge disappointment. Westbrook was elite impact, but he was never really the candidate for the best offensive player in the league. It's all relative, I expect Jordan to be much better than Westbrook - the question would be about him vs the best offensive players of this generation.

I think there’s a difference between saying something like “Jordan may not be the best on O”, and “It’s gonna be hard to dominate without a 3”. Like there’s no factual basis for the 2nd statement, but maybe that’s not quite what you’re saying. But you don’t seem to have a real specific range or baseline for him. “Not struggling” isn’t really saying much.

Yeah, that's not what I am saying. I'm definitelt closer to the 1st statement if Jordan didn't develop any kind of three point shot. I think he would, so he would be in conversation for the best.

If you can just answer this part, what is the best and worst case you can see for him?

The best case is the best player in the world, I don't see any other way. He'd be still the best scorer in the league and elite off-ball player with playmaking quality. Especially with developed above average three point shot (which he was capable of in my opinion).

The worst case is probably below top 3 players and fighting for top 5 spot. Imagine Jordan who couldn't develop three (unlikely, but possible), who struggled with reads against zones and whose defensive style doesn't translate well. You'd still have one of the best scorers in the league, but with reduced playmaking and defense he would be closer to Durant or Tatum than to top 3 in my opinion.

I am closer to the best case than to worst case, but my point is that it's easier to imagine Russell time traveling to the 1990s and dominating the sport than Jordan doing the same for the 2020s. Jordan would need time to adjust and he would do that, but it'd take much more time than in Russell's case.

[capfan33]

Honestly, I try to evaluate players on dominance relative to era.

But to be fair, time-machine arguments is just another version of eye-test evaluation and making educated guesses. Just like how there might be ample evidence to the contrary that player B> is better than Player A. Yet, people come to the conclusion that player A is better, despite the numbers, because they are "noisy," and or "player B is in a more advantageous situation."

Trying to project how good all-time greats would be in new eras is a lot like projecting current stars on different teams. We don't actually know what would happen or how things would play out, yet nonetheless we make assumptions with the evidence we know. It could be right or wrong but who is to say?

I certainly disagree some of the comments on MJ and Bill Russell's era-translation, however, it is not like I can prove it one way or another without a time-machine. Allowing for people to make for projections, is often largely apart of the imagination/creative side of basketball evaluation is often what makes it interesting, so things don't devolve into random plug-and-chugging of numbers to decide the best players.

This basically sums up what I'm trying to say, all evaluation of players in general involves a decent amount of guesswork. I think it's just a question of how far you want to take it. And once again, I'm generally much more interested in why people give the conclusions they give as opposed to the conclusions themselves. I fully understand why people approach it the way Texas Chuck does.

[OhayoKD]

I am closer to the best case than to worst case, but my point is that it's easier to imagine Russell time traveling to the 1990s and dominating the sport than Jordan doing the same for the 2020s. Jordan would need time to adjust and he would do that, but it'd take much more time than in Russell's case.

This question sort of intrigues me so I figured I'd tackle this. As 70's seems to avoid any sort of "era-strength penalties" I figure, we can offer Bill the same olive branch and project Bill with a best-case and worst-case scenario. I think with Bill the best analog to use here is Hakeem. He's a player with league-best or close to league best rs value throughout his prime, an elite playoff elevator, pulled off arguably the era's most impressive upset(86 lakers), and is one of the handful of players to pull off a "one-star" title. Jordan is of a similar calibre but Bill and Jordan diverge so much stylistically that its difficult to use MJ as a base. This is not rigorous but i'm going to say Hakeem was something like a +3.5 defender and a +3.5 attacker while Bill, in-era was a +1000 defender(not by srs but by championship probability ) and a nuetral attacker. If someone wants to argue he was more of a positive(+1) i'm open to hearing it.

Bill Russell vs Hakeem
So taking Russell out of his era I think here are the advantages Hakeem has defensively:
-> better at stripping balls
-> a bit more agile
Russell's advantages:
-> straight up better athleticism, jumping, ect
-> by extension better rim protection
-> smarter, more positionally sound
-> Better defensive playmaking

Using the frame we're applying with Jordan, Russell is probably a significantly better rim protector and i see the other aspects cancelling out so I can see giving Russell a +1-+1.5 advantage here to set him at +4.5 or +5.

Now, as unibro posits, you could argue "defense is as good as the attack they face", so maybe its generous of me to assume he doesn't lose out in terms of switchability/help as he's facing better attackers, but we aren't applying that sort of logic to Jordan's offense or defense, so for the sake of this exercise I am going to discount that.

With offense i'm going to apply the precept that scarcity is value and highlight Russell's potential as an offensive rebounder. In the 90's offensive rebounding was a very big deal. Something the Bulls would exploit very well with the likes of cartwright, grant and then... Rodman. Russell is a better jumper than rodman and much taller. Rodman was able to provide a lot of value to the Bulls from what we have, helping elevate them from 50 wins(srs, 42 by record)+rusty mj to 72 wins(fwiw by a 40 game wowy sample he was pulling of "kd on the warriors lift" ) and showing up as a clear clear positive on offense(+1?). My question here is how good Bill's "touch" is. If we assume it's good, then Bill should be able to offer better or similar value to rodman via rebounding(and passing to an extent). If we take him to be a +1 or +2 attacker we get a "best case" range that goes from +5.5 to +7. If his touch isn't good enough and he provides no value whatsoever on that end, we get to +4.5-+5.

Best case then is: +7, argument for for most valuable in the league along-side MJ and Hakeem
Worst case then is: +4.5, suped up dikembe, still a superstar if not in the "best player" conversation
My guess is something like +6-+6.5, not quite the best, but up there and maybe P O R T gives him a case?

I also think Bill will have an advantage as the most "scalable" player as almost all his value is derived from defense and offensive rebounding which both work extremely well with most superstars. On the other hand, I suspect Hakeem's scoring may make his value fluctuate less on a variety of lower-end casts(and for my money he does have a good case as the best floor-raiser of that era).

Now there are some of favorable assumptions I'm making to establish this range, but as 70's is doing the same with Jordan, and most of the people itt seem to want to give some benefit of the doubt, I think this framework is consistent with the spirit of this discussion.

Put him on the hawks, and maybe they establish a dynasty? Would love to know what you think

[capfan33]

I don't think he's close to as good a passer as Draymond, and there is no evidence to suggest he had any kind of shooting touch. Anything's possible, but my idea is, if you had to bet on it, what do you think is realistically possible? Elite lob threat, definitely, jump-shooter? Very long odds lol.

However, I think it's inherently more impressive and meaningful to differentiate yourself modernly than it was in the 60s. And despite all this, someone like Curry is still a big outlier, and this absolutely should factor in.

And to the 2nd to last point, the 60s in of itself has a ton of guesswork involved unless you just want to count rings and MVPs, we have almost no data or film for it (which I'll be the first to admit, sucks). I've made this point before, but it's not about the conclusion or results, but the argumentation process itself that matters, and not taking into account era differences at all does a tremendous disservice to that process IMO.

So first I just want to say I really enjoy reading your posts. I don't always agree with you, but you articulate your positions well and you make me re-think mine. I appreciate you engaging.

Likewise.

I know some posters get upset if you only quote part of their post, so I want to be upfront I'm only doing so to be cleaner on the board and these are the specific parts I feel drawn to respond to. I'm not trying to edit you or disregard the post as a whole, I promise.

So in order. I just don't know regarding Russell. I do think its probably safe to say that real life Russell never attempted to become much of a jump shooter because he was dominating games without it. I think if he was born in 2001, he'd likely have at least tried. And we've definitely seen some guys who came into the league unable to shoot basically at all become reliable 3-pt shooters. So if Russell starts at a very young age, I'm not ready to say he wouldn't be able to shoot. But let me be clear, I'm also not saying he would. I agree he didn't show signs of it. But his skill development would be so different which is why I find little value in this kind of guess work.

You made some excellent points in the rest of your post but I don't want to derail the thread by responding to everything in detail. Just on this one last time to explain my thought process a little more thoroughly. I think the key point is "signs of it". I just try to look at a player's skillset in the context they operated in and think what is realistically possible in a different setting (usually more modern).

An example I'll give is Kareem and Walton. As you probably know, Kareem didn't really start playing basketball until 3-4th grade and didn't really dedicate himself fully to the sport until middle school I believe. Walton essentially lived and breathed basketball from the time he was in diapers from what I understand. Does this explain the gap in their passing ability/IQ? To a degree, yes, but I don't think there's any universe where Kareem is ever close to the passer Walton is. By the same token, even if Walton dedicated much more practice to scoring, I don't think he ever approaches Kareem as a scorer. This is a little bit of an extreme example but this is generally the thought process I'm going through. Kind of like confidence intervals in statistics, what do I think is possible and how confident am I in that.

[capfan33]

Here is my point. IF Russell was born 60 year later than he actually was, is it possible he would become a jump shooter? Or maybe he's just an elite roll man in the PNR. We already know he was a very good passer, does he really lean into that and be a souped up version of Draymond Green?

Or is he like you believe, not nearly as impactful?

We can't know. What we do know is putting him in a time machine and asking him to compete in an era he wasn't building his game to play in is totally unfair. Which is what you are doing when you project him into today's game with yesterday's skillset. Ironically nobody ever does this the reverse. They never ask how does Curry's impact translate when he doesn't get a 50% bump on his ability to shoot from range, when his ankles don't hold up playing in Chuck Taylor's without modern medicine/training, when he can no longer carry the ball on every dribble. We just think oh slow old white guys of course he dominates.

That's why we have to only judge players based on how they do in the environment they played in. Everything else is guess work. Sorry but it is.

And I have no idea what you mean about singling out luck. I'm just saying I'm trying to evaluate actual careers because its the only way to compare actual players and not my projections of them versus yours.

It's actually funny you mention Draymond, that's who I would compare Russell to as well. Player analogies aren't perfect but I think they can give a pretty good idea of what time travel would look like. With that, if we assume Russell is 20% better than Dray on defense (which I think may be generous), and make him an elite roll-man (which I would agree with), that makes him what, a solid MVP-level player? Still excellent, a championship cornerstone-type player (I would badly want him on my team) but not ATG.

I don't think he's close to as good a passer as Draymond, and there is no evidence to suggest he had any kind of shooting touch. Anything's possible, but my idea is, if you had to bet on it, what do you think is realistically possible? Elite lob threat, definitely, jump-shooter? Very long odds lol. That's kind of the point I'm making. I'm not one of these people denigrating old players at all, hence my username, but I do think we need to make at least some allowances for different eras.

For your 2nd point, I think I've actually brought this up before myself, but I could be mixing what someone said in a past thread on this. I would say that you're probably right, someone like Curry without a 3-point line is less impactful in the 60s.

However, I think it's inherently more impressive and meaningful to differentiate yourself modernly than it was in the 60s. ty 4191 has brought this up quite a bit, and it's actually changed my viewpoint. The game has advanced tremendously. The game has a ridiculously large talent pool and hasn't had a new team in 30 years. Schemes, knowledge, etc, the game has become much more solved now with billions of dollars of resources flowing into the league every year trying to figure out every gritty detail. And despite all this, someone like Curry is still a big outlier, and this absolutely should factor in.

And to the 2nd to last point, the 60s in of itself has a ton of guesswork involved unless you just want to count rings and MVPs, we have almost no data or film for it (which I'll be the first to admit, sucks). I've made this point before, but it's not about the conclusion or results, but the argumentation process itself that matters, and not taking into account era differences at all does a tremendous disservice to that process IMO.

If someone was 20% better than the best defender in the league they would obviously be the best player by a lot. Might be semantic but 20% is a pretty dang large number.

Great post as well, once again just don't want to derail this thread entirely, but is this true? By 20% better, I'm talking impact, would 20% better than Draymond automatically be the best player in the league by a margin? (Assuming lets say, +1 offense) That sounds a bit off to me but I'm open to being persuaded.

[OhayoKD]

It's actually funny you mention Draymond, that's who I would compare Russell to as well. Player analogies aren't perfect but I think they can give a pretty good idea of what time travel would look like. With that, if we assume Russell is 20% better than Dray on defense (which I think may be generous), and make him an elite roll-man (which I would agree with), that makes him what, a solid MVP-level player? Still excellent, a championship cornerstone-type player (I would badly want him on my team) but not ATG.

I don't think he's close to as good a passer as Draymond, and there is no evidence to suggest he had any kind of shooting touch. Anything's possible, but my idea is, if you had to bet on it, what do you think is realistically possible? Elite lob threat, definitely, jump-shooter? Very long odds lol. That's kind of the point I'm making. I'm not one of these people denigrating old players at all, hence my username, but I do think we need to make at least some allowances for different eras.

For your 2nd point, I think I've actually brought this up before myself, but I could be mixing what someone said in a past thread on this. I would say that you're probably right, someone like Curry without a 3-point line is less impactful in the 60s.

However, I think it's inherently more impressive and meaningful to differentiate yourself modernly than it was in the 60s. ty 4191 has brought this up quite a bit, and it's actually changed my viewpoint. The game has advanced tremendously. The game has a ridiculously large talent pool and hasn't had a new team in 30 years. Schemes, knowledge, etc, the game has become much more solved now with billions of dollars of resources flowing into the league every year trying to figure out every gritty detail. And despite all this, someone like Curry is still a big outlier, and this absolutely should factor in.

And to the 2nd to last point, the 60s in of itself has a ton of guesswork involved unless you just want to count rings and MVPs, we have almost no data or film for it (which I'll be the first to admit, sucks). I've made this point before, but it's not about the conclusion or results, but the argumentation process itself that matters, and not taking into account era differences at all does a tremendous disservice to that process IMO.

If someone was 20% better than the best defender in the league they would obviously be the best player by a lot. Might be semantic but 20% is a pretty dang large number.

Great post as well, once again just don't want to derail this thread entirely, but is this true? By 20% better, I'm talking impact, would 20% better than Draymond automatically be the best player in the league by a margin? (Assuming lets say, +1 offense) That sounds a bit off to me but I'm open to being persuaded.

I don't think its accurate at all. If i just round up the best defensive +/- stuff ever that gets you from +5 to +6. +6 is most definitely not "best player in the league by a lot"

[falcolombardi]

It's actually funny you mention Draymond, that's who I would compare Russell to as well. Player analogies aren't perfect but I think they can give a pretty good idea of what time travel would look like. With that, if we assume Russell is 20% better than Dray on defense (which I think may be generous), and make him an elite roll-man (which I would agree with), that makes him what, a solid MVP-level player? Still excellent, a championship cornerstone-type player (I would badly want him on my team) but not ATG.

I don't think he's close to as good a passer as Draymond, and there is no evidence to suggest he had any kind of shooting touch. Anything's possible, but my idea is, if you had to bet on it, what do you think is realistically possible? Elite lob threat, definitely, jump-shooter? Very long odds lol. That's kind of the point I'm making. I'm not one of these people denigrating old players at all, hence my username, but I do think we need to make at least some allowances for different eras.

For your 2nd point, I think I've actually brought this up before myself, but I could be mixing what someone said in a past thread on this. I would say that you're probably right, someone like Curry without a 3-point line is less impactful in the 60s.

However, I think it's inherently more impressive and meaningful to differentiate yourself modernly than it was in the 60s. ty 4191 has brought this up quite a bit, and it's actually changed my viewpoint. The game has advanced tremendously. The game has a ridiculously large talent pool and hasn't had a new team in 30 years. Schemes, knowledge, etc, the game has become much more solved now with billions of dollars of resources flowing into the league every year trying to figure out every gritty detail. And despite all this, someone like Curry is still a big outlier, and this absolutely should factor in.

And to the 2nd to last point, the 60s in of itself has a ton of guesswork involved unless you just want to count rings and MVPs, we have almost no data or film for it (which I'll be the first to admit, sucks). I've made this point before, but it's not about the conclusion or results, but the argumentation process itself that matters, and not taking into account era differences at all does a tremendous disservice to that process IMO.

If someone was 20% better than the best defender in the league they would obviously be the best player by a lot. Might be semantic but 20% is a pretty dang large number.

Great post as well, once again just don't want to derail this thread entirely, but is this true? By 20% better, I'm talking impact, would 20% better than Draymond automatically be the best player in the league by a margin? (Assuming lets say, +1 offense) That sounds a bit off to me but I'm open to being persuaded.

2015-2016 draymond back when he still had a shot and could score a bit (lets say he was a +1 in offense) had monstrous impact in warriors. being arguably as important a player as curry those two playoffs runs as the offense slowed but the defense was resilient

If you took that draymond and made him significatevelh better in defense than he already was he would be a #1 player contender (maybe not in 2016 specifically with how absurd lebron was that year but in a lot of years)

[HeartBreakKid]

It's actually funny you mention Draymond, that's who I would compare Russell to as well. Player analogies aren't perfect but I think they can give a pretty good idea of what time travel would look like. With that, if we assume Russell is 20% better than Dray on defense (which I think may be generous), and make him an elite roll-man (which I would agree with), that makes him what, a solid MVP-level player? Still excellent, a championship cornerstone-type player (I would badly want him on my team) but not ATG.

I don't think he's close to as good a passer as Draymond, and there is no evidence to suggest he had any kind of shooting touch. Anything's possible, but my idea is, if you had to bet on it, what do you think is realistically possible? Elite lob threat, definitely, jump-shooter? Very long odds lol. That's kind of the point I'm making. I'm not one of these people denigrating old players at all, hence my username, but I do think we need to make at least some allowances for different eras.

For your 2nd point, I think I've actually brought this up before myself, but I could be mixing what someone said in a past thread on this. I would say that you're probably right, someone like Curry without a 3-point line is less impactful in the 60s.

However, I think it's inherently more impressive and meaningful to differentiate yourself modernly than it was in the 60s. ty 4191 has brought this up quite a bit, and it's actually changed my viewpoint. The game has advanced tremendously. The game has a ridiculously large talent pool and hasn't had a new team in 30 years. Schemes, knowledge, etc, the game has become much more solved now with billions of dollars of resources flowing into the league every year trying to figure out every gritty detail. And despite all this, someone like Curry is still a big outlier, and this absolutely should factor in.

And to the 2nd to last point, the 60s in of itself has a ton of guesswork involved unless you just want to count rings and MVPs, we have almost no data or film for it (which I'll be the first to admit, sucks). I've made this point before, but it's not about the conclusion or results, but the argumentation process itself that matters, and not taking into account era differences at all does a tremendous disservice to that process IMO.

If someone was 20% better than the best defender in the league they would obviously be the best player by a lot. Might be semantic but 20% is a pretty dang large number.

Great post as well, once again just don't want to derail this thread entirely, but is this true? By 20% better, I'm talking impact, would 20% better than Draymond automatically be the best player in the league by a margin? (Assuming lets say, +1 offense) That sounds a bit off to me but I'm open to being persuaded.

Seen in a few post seasons Draymond Green ramp it up and take over - and usually seems to be like a more dominating force than the opposing teams top star.

If you took a player and their defense was substantially better and say he was able to play like that all year that would be the best player I would think. Draymond's defense makes him look like a superstar at times, he has badly out played second tier guys like Damian Lillard.

Draymond 2.0? Yeah, I think that's the best player more or less. It'd be fun to see.

[70sFan]

I am closer to the best case than to worst case, but my point is that it's easier to imagine Russell time traveling to the 1990s and dominating the sport than Jordan doing the same for the 2020s. Jordan would need time to adjust and he would do that, but it'd take much more time than in Russell's case.

This question sort of intrigues me so I figured I'd tackle this. As 70's seems to avoid any sort of "era-strength penalties" I figure, we can offer Bill the same olive branch and project Bill with a best-case and worst-case scenario. I think with Bill the best analog to use here is Hakeem. He's a player with league-best or close to league best rs value throughout his prime, an elite playoff elevator, pulled off arguably the era's most impressive upset(86 lakers), and is one of the handful of players to pull off a "one-star" title. Jordan is of a similar calibre but Bill and Jordan diverge so much stylistically that its difficult to use MJ as a base. This is not rigorous but i'm going to say Hakeem was something like a +3.5 defender and a +3.5 attacker while Bill, in-era was a +1000 defender(not by srs but by championship probability ) and a nuetral attacker. If someone wants to argue he was more of a positive(+1) i'm open to hearing it.

Bill Russell vs Hakeem
So taking Russell out of his era I think here are the advantages Hakeem has defensively:
-> better at stripping balls
-> a bit more agile
Russell's advantages:
-> straight up better athleticism, jumping, ect
-> by extension better rim protection
-> smarter, more positionally sound
-> Better defensive playmaking

Using the frame we're applying with Jordan, Russell is probably a significantly better rim protector and i see the other aspects cancelling out so I can see giving Russell a +1-+1.5 advantage here to set him at +4.5 or +5.

Now, as unibro posits, you could argue "defense is as good as the attack they face", so maybe its generous of me to assume he doesn't lose out in terms of switchability/help as he's facing better attackers, but we aren't applying that sort of logic to Jordan's offense or defense, so for the sake of this exercise I am going to discount that.

With offense i'm going to apply the precept that scarcity is value and highlight Russell's potential as an offensive rebounder. In the 90's offensive rebounding was a very big deal. Something the Bulls would exploit very well with the likes of cartwright, grant and then... Rodman. Russell is a better jumper than rodman and much taller. Rodman was able to provide a lot of value to the Bulls from what we have, helping elevate them from 50 wins(srs, 42 by record)+rusty mj to 72 wins(fwiw by a 40 game wowy sample he was pulling of "kd on the warriors lift" ) and showing up as a clear clear positive on offense(+1?). My question here is how good Bill's "touch" is. If we assume it's good, then Bill should be able to offer better or similar value to rodman via rebounding(and passing to an extent). If we take him to be a +1 or +2 attacker we get a "best case" range that goes from +5.5 to +7. If his touch isn't good enough and he provides no value whatsoever on that end, we get to +4.5-+5.

Best case then is: +7, argument for for most valuable in the league along-side MJ and Hakeem
Worst case then is: +4.5, suped up dikembe, still a superstar if not in the "best player" conversation
My guess is something like +6-+6.5, not quite the best, but up there and maybe P O R T gives him a case?

I also think Bill will have an advantage as the most "scalable" player as almost all his value is derived from defense and offensive rebounding which both work extremely well with most superstars. On the other hand, I suspect Hakeem's scoring may make his value fluctuate less on a variety of lower-end casts(and for my money he does have a good case as the best floor-raiser of that era).

Now there are some of favorable assumptions I'm making to establish this range, but as 70's is doing the same with Jordan, and most of the people itt seem to want to give some benefit of the doubt, I think this framework is consistent with the spirit of this discussion.

Put him on the hawks, and maybe they establish a dynasty? Would love to know what you think

I think you did a great job overall. I may not agree with Hakeem being more agile than Russell (at least with defensive movement), but it doesn't matter on the bigger scale. I agree that Russell would be a bit better than Hakeem defensively overall.

I think it would be hard to take peak Russell (not 1969 version, take that in mind) to the 1990s and believe he'd be a clear negative on offense. Russell was a very good offensive rebounder (not on Rodman level) which was extremely valuable back then. He was also athletic freak who could run transition offense by himself. He wasn't a liability in terms of his own offense as well - he could play in the post, spot up and beat defenders off the dribble and also shoot open jumpshots. I doubt he was very efficient on most of these shots, but he could do something when he had to. He also drew fouls quite well. Unlike other defensive minded bigs from the 1990s (Mutombo, Mourning, even Ewing), Russell was a fine passer as well and that makes him far more scalable.

I mean, the worst scenario I could see for him is being slightly better than peak Mourning - better defensively, different strengths offensively. At best, I see him as potentially the best player in the league.

Imagine 1962 Russell in more offense friendly environment, he could become a 18 pp75 scorer on decent enough efficiency, while being good passer, elite rebounder and very active off-ball player. Combine that with his GOAT-level defense and you come up with someone competing with Hakeem and Jordan for the MVPs.

[capfan33]

If someone was 20% better than the best defender in the league they would obviously be the best player by a lot. Might be semantic but 20% is a pretty dang large number.

Great post as well, once again just don't want to derail this thread entirely, but is this true? By 20% better, I'm talking impact, would 20% better than Draymond automatically be the best player in the league by a margin? (Assuming lets say, +1 offense) That sounds a bit off to me but I'm open to being persuaded.

2015-2016 draymond back when he still had a shot and could score a bit (lets say he was a +1 in offense) had monstrous impact in warriors. being arguably as important a player as curry those two playoffs runs as the offense slowed but the defense was resilient

If you took that draymond and made him significatevelh better in defense than he already was he would be a #1 player contender (maybe not in 2016 specifically with how absurd lebron was that year but in a lot of years)

The problem with Draymond as well is with collinearity with Curry, I know impact stats had him as like top 1-3 in 2016 but I don't think that would be the case 95% of the time. I think in most settings he's more like a top-10 player at best. Also, 2016 specifically was a huge outlier for him impact-wise if I remember correctly. The postseason numbers are interesting but I would have to do more research.

[70sFan]

Great post as well, once again just don't want to derail this thread entirely, but is this true? By 20% better, I'm talking impact, would 20% better than Draymond automatically be the best player in the league by a margin? (Assuming lets say, +1 offense) That sounds a bit off to me but I'm open to being persuaded.

2015-2016 draymond back when he still had a shot and could score a bit (lets say he was a +1 in offense) had monstrous impact in warriors. being arguably as important a player as curry those two playoffs runs as the offense slowed but the defense was resilient

If you took that draymond and made him significatevelh better in defense than he already was he would be a #1 player contender (maybe not in 2016 specifically with how absurd lebron was that year but in a lot of years)

The problem with Draymond as well is with collinearity with Curry, I know impact stats had him as like top 1-3 in 2016 but I don't think that would be the case 95% of the time. I think in most settings he's more like a top-10 player at best. Also, 2016 specifically was a huge outlier for him impact-wise if I remember correctly. The postseason numbers are interesting but I would have to do more research.

We have seen Draymond without Curry in the 2016 playoffs and he looked more than fine.

[iggymcfrack]

The 2016 Finals locked it up for me. Before that I’d say that LeBron was the best player ever, but Jordan was the greatest for his accomplishment. After LeBron had the best Finals ever to lead his woefully overmatched team from 3-1 down against the winningest team of all time, I didn’t feel the need to make the distinction any more.

[falcolombardi]

The 2016 Finals locked it up for me. Before that I’d say that LeBron was the best player ever, but Jordan was the greatest for his accomplishment. After LeBron had the best Finals ever to lead his woefully overmatched team from 3-1 down against the winningest team of all time, I didn’t feel the need to make the distinction any more.

If we are talking accomplishments bill russel is imo unmatchable

[falcolombardi]

Great post as well, once again just don't want to derail this thread entirely, but is this true? By 20% better, I'm talking impact, would 20% better than Draymond automatically be the best player in the league by a margin? (Assuming lets say, +1 offense) That sounds a bit off to me but I'm open to being persuaded.

2015-2016 draymond back when he still had a shot and could score a bit (lets say he was a +1 in offense) had monstrous impact in warriors. being arguably as important a player as curry those two playoffs runs as the offense slowed but the defense was resilient

If you took that draymond and made him significatevelh better in defense than he already was he would be a #1 player contender (maybe not in 2016 specifically with how absurd lebron was that year but in a lot of years)

The problem with Draymond as well is with collinearity with Curry, I know impact stats had him as like top 1-3 in 2016 but I don't think that would be the case 95% of the time. I think in most settings he's more like a top-10 player at best. Also, 2016 specifically was a huge outlier for him impact-wise if I remember correctly. The postseason numbers are interesting but I would have to do more research.

Ohhh, 2016 is for sure a outlier for draymond

i brought it up as an example of what peak draymond impact can look. A russel that reaches that level but even better consistently would be a strong #1 player contender

[Ursusamericanus]

After the 2020 ring for me. Had him as #2 until then.

[Gooner]

After the 2020 ring for me. Had him as #2 until then.

That's the most unimpressive ring ever. Lakers have been a disaster outside of that covid season. LBJ is 20 years in the league and he barely won 4 titles.

[migya]

After the 2020 ring for me. Had him as #2 until then.

That's the most unimpressive ring ever. Lakers have been a disaster outside of that covid season. LBJ is 20 years in the league and he barely won 4 titles.

AD performed better than any supposed 2nd best on a team that I can recall, certainly beer in that playoffs than any teammate Amy other top ten player had in their career.

[NbaAllDay]

After the 2020 ring for me. Had him as #2 until then.

That's the most unimpressive ring ever. Lakers have been a disaster outside of that covid season. LBJ is 20 years in the league and he barely won 4 titles.

It's about as bad as being on a forum for 4 years and still making 0 respectable posts.