Garnett vs Russell

[LukaTheGOAT]

It's an extremely meaningful distinction, because we have some posters on here acting like modern players would just get ejected or be unplayable because they couldn't adapt their dribble. They easily could, as most here agree. Unfortunately the reverse does not hold true, West & Oscar can't just decide they'll start dribbling like Curry or Kyrie in the modern game.

This isnt the parallel, though. It's a fallacious argument to the extreme. Dribbling like Steph/Curry isnt at all necessary to success in today's game. Why you keep repeating that comparison is beyond me.

And it certainly doesnt equate to adapting to officiating in the older eras.

Who is the guard who had the dribbling skills of a 60s player, and improved his handle enough to become a star? Has that ever happened even once? Who is the worst dribbling star guard today? Is there even a single star guard today who lacks a 3pt shot?

I see your point but under this framing, no guard from that period would be able to develop sufficient handling skills for today, mostly because in your view, we didn't see them do it/they didn't have to.

I think people here are more willing to give older guys the benefit of the doubt that they could learn if the game required it. I understand why you aren't comfortable granting such an uptick in ability without seeing it, but the forum is coming from the view that if Oscar/West were lightyears ahead of other guards at the time, they should at least still be able to have great all-around ball skills today.

Though, this brings us to another question, which is how much do you believe the talent pool increase since then would obfuscate their apparent lead.

[LukaTheGOAT]

Guards from the last 10 years that won an MVP:

Harden, Westbrook, Curry

Harden's handles are good, not great. More equivalent to Jerry West (who also had both great range and great ability to drive and draw fouls though West didn't go through people as much).

Westbrook is a poor 3 point shooter but, like Oscar, made up for it with great playmaking, rebounding, and aggression, much quicker attacker than Oscar who was more like a Harden style bully ball attacker. One difference is that Oscar was a better midrange shooter for his era and would have a good chance to develop a strong 3 point game; Westbrook was a very good midrange shooter, Oscar was arguably GOAT in his era.

Curry is who you seem to think all modern guards are. They aren't. The game evolved to where Curry could be developed; no one in that era would practice 30 footers with any consistency because any coach seeing a young player taking them would sit him down and yell at him.

Harden has some of the best handles and space creation we have ever, and will ever see. For the people we have data on, he is probably the greatest 1 v 1 player ever.

[penbeast0]

This isnt the parallel, though. It's a fallacious argument to the extreme. Dribbling like Steph/Curry isnt at all necessary to success in today's game. Why you keep repeating that comparison is beyond me.

And it certainly doesnt equate to adapting to officiating in the older eras.

Who is the guard who had the dribbling skills of a 60s player, and improved his handle enough to become a star? Has that ever happened even once? Who is the worst dribbling star guard today? Is there even a single star guard today who lacks a 3pt shot?

I see your point but under this framing, no guard from that period would be able to develop sufficient handling skills for today, mostly because in your view, we didn't see them do it/they didn't have to.

I think people here are more willing to give older guys the benefit of the doubt that they could learn if the game required it. I understand why you aren't comfortable granting such an uptick in ability without seeing it, but the forum is coming from the view that if Oscar/West were lightyears ahead of other guards at the time, they should at least still be able to have great all-around ball skills today.

Though, this brings us to another question, which is how much do you believe the talent pool increase since then would obfuscate their apparent lead.

Well, let's assume the talent pool has increased 400%. So they would be the equivalent of 1 of the 4 divisions today (actually, never below 9 teams v 7.5 average today but close enough). Now, the two of them would be in the same division and every year for 8 years, they would usually be 20%+ above every other guard in that division in scoring volume, 20%+ in efficiency, Oscar would be 20%+ in assists while consistently pushing his team to the highest ORating, and West would be considered (at worst) the second best defensive guard in the division. There's no one in the league today that blows away their division by that type of margin, not Curry, not Luca, not Trae, no one is even close.

So, yeah, I'd guess they'd still be the two best guards in the league if they had grown up today if we are doing it by just projecting the talent pool.

[One_and_Done]

This isnt the parallel, though. It's a fallacious argument to the extreme. Dribbling like Steph/Curry isnt at all necessary to success in today's game. Why you keep repeating that comparison is beyond me.

And it certainly doesnt equate to adapting to officiating in the older eras.

Who is the guard who had the dribbling skills of a 60s player, and improved his handle enough to become a star? Has that ever happened even once? Who is the worst dribbling star guard today? Is there even a single star guard today who lacks a 3pt shot?

I see your point but under this framing, no guard from that period would be able to develop sufficient handling skills for today, mostly because in your view, we didn't see them do it/they didn't have to.

I think people here are more willing to give older guys the benefit of the doubt that they could learn if the game required it. I understand why you aren't comfortable granting such an uptick in ability without seeing it, but the forum is coming from the view that if Oscar/West were lightyears ahead of other guards at the time, they should at least still be able to have great all-around ball skills today.

Though, this brings us to another question, which is how much do you believe the talent pool increase since then would obfuscate their apparent lead.

The talent pool has improved by an astronomical amount, because the game is now a multi-billion dollar global industry and not a barely professional league still dealing with the effects of segregation.

Kids in Bill Russell's youth were mostly not allowed to play basketball, or faced serious discrimination. There was not alot of incentive to train to be a pro-baller growing up. In Russell's youth the biggest national star was Mikan, and the league was so unprofitable that Mikan's biggest rival (Bob Kurland) chose to become a salesman rather than go pro. There were no international players. I could go on.

Today it's not just about a bigger population, it's about the amount of money worldwide that is invested into finding guys with aptitude at a young age, training them early, and refining their skills. Everything has improved exponentially; training, medical, coaching, tactics, etc. There are relatively few guys from Russell's era who could even make the league today.

The number '400%' that Pen throws out above seems to be pulled out of nowhere, and appears to self-evidently lowball the amount the talent pool has grown. Even if we ignored all the factors above and focused only on population, the population of ppl playing basketball across the world has clearly grown by far more than 400% since Russell's youth... and we would be crazy to look at only population as a factor.

The US had a population of 150 mill in 1950 when kids like Russell would have been scouted as youths in today's game, and it's now 350 mill. Add all the international countries who ball and the population talent is drawn from is already going to be way above 600 mill. Of course, many kids in the US would have struggled to play early because of racism and segregation, or, I don't know, because the NBA was a fringe sport whose #2 star chose to pursue a career in sales rather than try to make a living playing ball. Today there's millions of reasons to become a pro baller, and hundreds of millions invested in finding and training these kids.

[eminence]

Though, this brings us to another question, which is how much do you believe the talent pool increase since then would obfuscate their apparent lead.

I generally go with approximately a 200% increase (3x) since the early/mid 60s for star level players (a bit slower for lower level players due to owners integrating more slowly at that level).

Rough reasoning - US population has approximately doubled since then, and approximately 1/3 of the top 30-40 guys in the league have been international players recently.

This assumes the impact/talent distribution of the early league was reasonably similar to the modern league (which I haven't thought too much on, but don't see an immediate reason to doubt).

[One_and_Done]

Though, this brings us to another question, which is how much do you believe the talent pool increase since then would obfuscate their apparent lead.

I generally go with approximately a 200% increase (3x) since the early/mid 60s for star level players (a bit slower for lower level players due to owners integrating more slowly at that level).

Rough reasoning - US population has approximately doubled since then, and approximately 1/3 of the top 30-40 guys in the league have been international players recently.

This assumes the impact/talent distribution of the early league was reasonably similar to the modern league (which I haven't thought too much on, but don't see an immediate reason to doubt).

I mean I explained this in the post directly above yours. Today 70% of players are black. In 1950 the majority of black kids faced either segregation or racism blocking them from the sport. That alone shows 200% can't even be close to the correct number.

[Elpolo_14]

Bill anchor 12 best Defensive team in his era his entire career ( he played 13 year ) that value is insane. Also the Celtics weren't to good defense pre/post bill.
His Impact on Defense both individual and team impact is unmatched not a single player in history was able to improve and dominant one side of the floor as Bill. When interior defense was the most valuable aspect he was so good on that end to the point that make his team win even with subpar Offense

[eminence]

Though, this brings us to another question, which is how much do you believe the talent pool increase since then would obfuscate their apparent lead.

I generally go with approximately a 200% increase (3x) since the early/mid 60s for star level players (a bit slower for lower level players due to owners integrating more slowly at that level).

Rough reasoning - US population has approximately doubled since then, and approximately 1/3 of the top 30-40 guys in the league have been international players recently.

This assumes the impact/talent distribution of the early league was reasonably similar to the modern league (which I haven't thought too much on, but don't see an immediate reason to doubt).

I mean I explained this in the post directly above yours. Today 70% of players are black. In 1950 the majority of black kids faced either segregation or racism blocking them from the sport. That alone shows 200% can't even be close to the correct number.

You threw out a bunch of speculation and some misleading facts to arrive at a conclusion you'd reached without looking at anything resembling histories or stats. I'm sure Kurland was really slinging that petroleum while he was playing 50+ AAU games a year all around the country, not counting the numerous exhibitions teams played in those days. He was 110% a professional basketball player, he just didn't play in the NBA. Haynes/Tatum/Clifton prior to his NBA stint, all professional basketball players.

Black players were blocked from the early NBA (and the top level universities), and if you weren't a star level prospect/player it lasted through the 1960s (closer to late 50s/early 60s for stars). Blocked from learning/playing basketball? I'm sure it happened to some poor kid, but it was not a widespread issue.

You can talk with various state high school sporting associations (very difficult to find data for levels lower than that), and high school basketball participation was at its absolute peak post WWII (basketball was huge in the service and helped springboard the sport), notably higher than today. Depending on state/what periods we're comparing, I've seen anywhere from 2-3x as high of participation per capita (so there may have been outright more young men playing basketball in the early 50s than today in spite of the population more than doubling). This was true for both white and black kids/schools. Anybody working class or lower absolutely wanted to get to college and knew that basketball was a real opportunity to do so.

[One_and_Done]

I generally go with approximately a 200% increase (3x) since the early/mid 60s for star level players (a bit slower for lower level players due to owners integrating more slowly at that level).

Rough reasoning - US population has approximately doubled since then, and approximately 1/3 of the top 30-40 guys in the league have been international players recently.

This assumes the impact/talent distribution of the early league was reasonably similar to the modern league (which I haven't thought too much on, but don't see an immediate reason to doubt).

I mean I explained this in the post directly above yours. Today 70% of players are black. In 1950 the majority of black kids faced either segregation or racism blocking them from the sport. That alone shows 200% can't even be close to the correct number.

You threw out a bunch of speculation and some misleading facts to arrive at a conclusion you'd reached without looking at anything resembling histories or stats. I'm sure Kurland was really slinging that petroleum while he was playing 50+ AAU games a year all around the country, not counting the numerous exhibitions teams played in those days. He was 110% a professional basketball player, he just didn't play in the NBA. Haynes/Tatum/Clifton prior to his NBA stint, all professional basketball players.

Black players were blocked from the early NBA (and the top level universities), and if you weren't a star level prospect/player it lasted through the 1960s (closer to late 50s/early 60s for stars). Blocked from learning/playing basketball? I'm sure it happened to some poor kid, but it was not a widespread issue.

You can talk with various state high school sporting associations (very difficult to find data for levels lower than that), and high school basketball participation was at its absolute peak post WWII (basketball was huge in the service and helped springboard the sport), notably higher than today. Depending on state/what periods we're comparing, I've seen anywhere from 2-3x as high of participation per capita (so there may have been outright more young men playing basketball in the early 50s than today in spite of the population more than doubling). This was true for both white and black kids/schools. Anybody working class or lower absolutely wanted to get to college and knew that basketball was a real opportunity to do so.

Most of what you've just said is a bit misleading. The point isn't whether Kurland was continuing basketball as a hobby, while pursuing his actual career, it's that the NBA wasn't lucrative enough at the time for him to pursue it as a career; and he was the 2nd best player in the world at the time. Today the NBA isn't just a career, even the most fringe player can get life changing wealth.

Those supply & demand pressures influence recruitment for every other area of the job market, it would be weird if it didn't also influence basketball. The average salary was maybe $3000 a year in 1950, and there were only 170 jobs. Today the average salary is about $12 million, with 540 jobs available. Even with inflation, the 1950 salary is less than 40k. To act like that doesn't totally warp the employment pool is illogical. How could an increase like that lead to only a 200% increase in the potential player pool, even ignoring all the other factors?

To dismiss racism as something that only affected non-stars also strikes me as completely implausible. If you lived in the South, chances were you weren't getting a fair shot to play ball (assuming you could play at all). And how do racists identify who the good players were at a young age, so they can hinder them less? Odds are most would be impacted, especially considering poverty was another obstacle to many kids taking up basketball. Russell was in the much more liberal city of San Francisco and still experienced huge amounts of racism and hardship, and was cut from his HS team repeatedly because his skill level and understanding of the game was low. These sorts of obstacle must have hindered the entry of many. Russell was the rare exception who overcame it.

Then there all the other factors you've ignored like the entire international pool. A 200% increase in the potential pool of players strikes me as not even in the ballpark.

[70sFan]

By this logic, how much did talent pool grow from 1956 to 1969? Quite significantly using your criteria. The league was fully integrated, professional and salaries were significantly higher at that point.


How did that affect Russell's case for the best player in the league?

[One_and_Done]

By this logic, how much did talent pool grow from 1956 to 1969? Quite significantly using your criteria. The league was fully integrated, professional and salaries were significantly higher at that point.

How did that affect Russell's case for the best player in the league?

No, it wasn't. The first obvious reason it wasn't is that changing the laws didn't make racism and poverty diminish overnight. But more importantly, it's about kids being able to grow up in a desegregation environment. Changing the law in 1969 does nothing for the 1969 draft, because kids who missed out were missing out a decade and more earlier.

Obviously 69 was better than 56, but the factors I discussed were to undergo exponential improvement in future decades.

[70sFan]

By this logic, how much did talent pool grow from 1956 to 1969? Quite significantly using your criteria. The league was fully integrated, professional and salaries were significantly higher at that point.

How did that affect Russell's case for the best player in the league?

No, it wasn't. The first obvious reason it wasn't is that changing the laws didn't make racism and poverty diminish overnight. But more importantly, it's about kids being able to grow up in a desegregation environment. Changing the law in 1969 does nothing for the 1969 draft, because kids who missed out were missing out a decade and more earlier.

Obviously 69 was better than 56, but the factors I discussed were to undergo exponential improvement in future decades.

The league was half black in 1969, you have no idea what you are talking about.

[One_and_Done]

By this logic, how much did talent pool grow from 1956 to 1969? Quite significantly using your criteria. The league was fully integrated, professional and salaries were significantly higher at that point.

How did that affect Russell's case for the best player in the league?

No, it wasn't. The first obvious reason it wasn't is that changing the laws didn't make racism and poverty diminish overnight. But more importantly, it's about kids being able to grow up in a desegregation environment. Changing the law in 1969 does nothing for the 1969 draft, because kids who missed out were missing out a decade and more earlier.

Obviously 69 was better than 56, but the factors I discussed were to undergo exponential improvement in future decades.

The league was half black in 1969, you have no idea what you are talking about.

The G-League is mostly black today too. The percentage of black players doesn't correspond to the quality/depth of the player pool in a league, though their absence certainly can infer something.

You can have a majority of black players, and the player pool is still diluted because alot of the black players who could have made it never did, and instead worse black (and white) players got their spots.

The fact that the South was still very racist in the 50s and 60s strikes me as an obvious more important factor, and a fairly self-evident barrier that I shouldn't need to expand on much.

[70sFan]

No, it wasn't. The first obvious reason it wasn't is that changing the laws didn't make racism and poverty diminish overnight. But more importantly, it's about kids being able to grow up in a desegregation environment. Changing the law in 1969 does nothing for the 1969 draft, because kids who missed out were missing out a decade and more earlier.

Obviously 69 was better than 56, but the factors I discussed were to undergo exponential improvement in future decades.

The league was half black in 1969, you have no idea what you are talking about.

The G-League is mostly black today too. The percentage of black players doesn't correspond to the quality/depth of the player pool in a league, though their absence certainly can infer something.

You can have a majority of black players, and the player pool is still diluted because alot of the black players who could have made it never did, and instead worse black (and white) players got their spots.

The fact that the South was still very racist in the 50s and 60s strikes me as an obvious more important factor, and a fairly self-evident barrier that I shouldn't need to expand on much.

The G-league is a minor league, the NBA at the end of the 1960s was the major national league with the highest salary in the world among basketball leagues.

We don't compare 1969 NBA to 2025 NBA now, we're comparing 1956 NBA to 1969 NBA. By your own criteria the talent pool grew rapidly (and it's true) because:

1. The league was fully integrated.
2. The league salaries increased significantly.
3. The league was already 20 years old and was fully professional at that point.
4. The league got significantly more media coverage during that time.

The difference in the league environment between 1956 and 1969 is massive, so I ask you why Russell remained the best player in the league despite all these changes.

[One_and_Done]

Your question would only have relevance if I thought Russell was no better than Cousy or Mikan. Russell transcended his league enough that he was still among the best players by 1969, but given the league was exponentially better in 2025 I don't think that means much. Even by 1980 the league had changed radically from the 60s.

There are of course other problems with calling 1969 'fully integrated', etc, for the reasons I explained above.

[70sFan]

Your question would only have relevance if I thought Russell was no better than Cousy or Mikan. Russell transcended his league enough that he was still among the best players by 1969, but given the league was exponentially better in 2025 I don't think that means much. Even by 1980 the league had changed radically from the 60s.

It means much, because you put yourself at the position to set completely arbitrary cutoffs in the league history and decide when the league was legit and when not.

The league changed radically in 1980 compared to 1969 in a way that it had clear financial problems, games were on delay in TVs, we had significant drug abuse problems etc. Many may argue that the league was in a better shape in 1969 than in 1980 and if you look only at the sport level, there is no radical difference in style of play, players skillsets or strategy changes. Just the year before one finalist team was built around three 1960s all-stars, did they also transcended their league in the late 1960s? Doesn't look like they did.

[penbeast0]

Your question would only have relevance if I thought Russell was no better than Cousy or Mikan. Russell transcended his league enough that he was still among the best players by 1969, but given the league was exponentially better in 2025 I don't think that means much. Even by 1980 the league had changed radically from the 60s.

There are of course other problems with calling 1969 'fully integrated', etc, for the reasons I explained above.

Even if looking at just league size relative to player pool, 1969 had better average teams and players than 1980. The player pool wasn't expanding faster than expansion until roughly the mid 80s and it showed. Add the drug use, the lesser team cohesion due to free agency, etc. and the play in 1980 wasn't up to the standard set in 1969. And 69 wasn't necessarily the best year of the 60s with the decline of Russell and Chamberlain.

[One_and_Done]

Yeh I completely disagree.

[eminence]

I mean I explained this in the post directly above yours. Today 70% of players are black. In 1950 the majority of black kids faced either segregation or racism blocking them from the sport. That alone shows 200% can't even be close to the correct number.

You threw out a bunch of speculation and some misleading facts to arrive at a conclusion you'd reached without looking at anything resembling histories or stats. I'm sure Kurland was really slinging that petroleum while he was playing 50+ AAU games a year all around the country, not counting the numerous exhibitions teams played in those days. He was 110% a professional basketball player, he just didn't play in the NBA. Haynes/Tatum/Clifton prior to his NBA stint, all professional basketball players.

Black players were blocked from the early NBA (and the top level universities), and if you weren't a star level prospect/player it lasted through the 1960s (closer to late 50s/early 60s for stars). Blocked from learning/playing basketball? I'm sure it happened to some poor kid, but it was not a widespread issue.

You can talk with various state high school sporting associations (very difficult to find data for levels lower than that), and high school basketball participation was at its absolute peak post WWII (basketball was huge in the service and helped springboard the sport), notably higher than today. Depending on state/what periods we're comparing, I've seen anywhere from 2-3x as high of participation per capita (so there may have been outright more young men playing basketball in the early 50s than today in spite of the population more than doubling). This was true for both white and black kids/schools. Anybody working class or lower absolutely wanted to get to college and knew that basketball was a real opportunity to do so.

Most of what you've just said is a bit misleading. The point isn't whether Kurland was continuing basketball as a hobby, while pursuing his actual career, it's that the NBA wasn't lucrative enough at the time for him to pursue it as a career; and he was the 2nd best player in the world at the time. Today the NBA isn't just a career, even the most fringe player can get life changing wealth.

Those supply & demand pressures influence recruitment for every other area of the job market, it would be weird if it didn't also influence basketball. The average salary was maybe $3000 a year in 1950, and there were only 170 jobs. Today the average salary is about $12 million, with 540 jobs available. Even with inflation, the 1950 salary is less than 40k. To act like that doesn't totally warp the employment pool is illogical. How could an increase like that lead to only a 200% increase in the potential player pool, even ignoring all the other factors?

To dismiss racism as something that only affected non-stars also strikes me as completely implausible. If you lived in the South, chances were you weren't getting a fair shot to play ball (assuming you could play at all). And how do racists identify who the good players were at a young age, so they can hinder them less? Odds are most would be impacted, especially considering poverty was another obstacle to many kids taking up basketball. Russell was in the much more liberal city of San Francisco and still experienced huge amounts of racism and hardship, and was cut from his HS team repeatedly because his skill level and understanding of the game was low. These sorts of obstacle must have hindered the entry of many. Russell was the rare exception who overcame it.

Then there all the other factors you've ignored like the entire international pool. A 200% increase in the potential pool of players strikes me as not even in the ballpark.

The first 100% was for the expansion in the US talent base, the next 100% was for the international game, as stated in my original post.

It's just more vibes based posting from you.

The average salary in the opening year ('47) was approximately $4500/year in an era the median household income was $3000/year, the NBA from the jump was a good career. At the top end (Mikan/Davies/Pollard/etc) players were at about 12k a year prior to counting signing bonuses (not as easy to track down, but Mikan in particular got a $25k signing bonus).

And 1947 =/= 1960, things had much improved by then. That Kurland went with a different pro league in '47 doesn't mean anything for anybody in 1960 (Haynes in '53 is the last example I'm aware of with an established star potential player turning down the NBA for a different career - as he stayed with the Trotters). Born in '26 he could've starred until ~1960. By the early 60s anybody who wanted to be a basketball player professionally was aiming for the NBA, and plenty of folks wanted to be basketball players (college incentive and the pay by then was well into 5 digits). It not being as lucrative as today doesn't change much, it was still an absolute top tier paying job *then* and had been going back into the 1940s.

Russell was 'cut' from his JV team in high school and immediately added to his varsity team, lol. 'Cut' my ass. Made for a good motivational story in a book though.

[eminence]

The league was half black in 1969, you have no idea what you are talking about.

Was this NBA only? I remember looking at NBA/ABA numbers and I had thought it was a fair amount higher than 50% (60 something).