Post your All-Time Top 20

[NO-KG-AI]

I personally see MJ as the GOAT, but I can see the argument for the top spot for any of Wilt, Kareem, Russell, or Jordan, depending on how you rank things.

[Myth_Breaker]

1) Wilt
2) Kareem

3)-10) (too close to call):
- Magic
- Bird
- Jordan
- Russell
- Oscar Robertson
- Jerry West
- Hakeem Olajuwon
- Shaquille O'Neal

11)-20) (see above):
- Elgin Baylor
- Moses Malone
- Tim Duncan
- Johny Havlicek
- Rick Barry
- Julius Erving
- George Mikan (must get a nod due to being the best player of the 1st half of the 20th century)
- Karl Malone
- Bob Pettit
- Kobe Bryant (to me it's the year when he advanced from Top-30 to Top-20).

[Myth_Breaker]

Excellent...

Said one Celtics fan to another.

[Myth_Breaker]

21 to 25 (just for completion's sake)

Clyde Drexler
Walt Frazier
Patrick Ewing
Scottie Pippen
Dominique Wilkins

Drexler led his Blazers to a pair of Finals (lost to the Pistons and to the Bulls) and was a nasty all-around player who had a great scoring peak. Then he won a ring as Olajuwon's wing man. He looked pretty good with that top-2 MVP vote finish behind Jordan, though he struggled to get on the All-NBA teams because of MJ and Payton and Stockton, etc.

Frazier was an outstanding defender, won two rings, an All-Star MVP, 4 All-NBA First Teams and a bunch of Defensive Team selections... His position here is a no-brainer, Frazier wasn't a statistical monster because of the balance of Holzman's system (which actually inspired Phil Jackson's search for a system of balance and cooperation that ended in the triangle) but he was straight nasty.

'Nique? I float on where to rank these last three guys but 'Nique was as good a scorer as you'll find, played on some Atlanta teams that didn't really match up well enough with the beasts of the 80s and the early 90s to compete. I guess he might be lower, because I'd take Pippen over 'Nique on my team because you can always add more offense but Scottie's D was outstanding. I still rank Ewing over Scottie though, because he's your nasty 24/11 big man who plays amazing defense and all that.

And that's that.

These guys, especially Pippen, Drexler and Wilkins, over not only Barry, but BAYLOR?!

[tsherkin]

These guys, especially Pippen, Drexler and Wilkins, over not only Barry, but BAYLOR?!

Yep. I don't think much of Baylor, I have him top-30, not top-25. I value Pippen a lot more than Baylor.

Baylor was key in the development of the sport and had gaudy numbers but his achievements aren't sufficient to warrant a top-25 spot, IMO. Barry, well, Barry is #26 for me.

EDIT: To me, 'Nique and Baylor are, however, interchangeable. I have Baylor at #27 behind Barry but as with several other pairs and small groups, I flip-flop depending on my prevailing thought process.

[KNICKS1970]

These guys, especially Pippen, Drexler and Wilkins, over not only Barry, but BAYLOR?!

Yep. I don't think much of Baylor, I have him top-30, not top-25. I value Pippen a lot more than Baylor.

Baylor was key in the development of the sport and had gaudy numbers but his achievements aren't sufficient to warrant a top-25 spot, IMO. Barry, well, Barry is #26 for me.

EDIT: To me, 'Nique and Baylor are, however, interchangeable. I have Baylor at #27 behind Barry but as with several other pairs and small groups, I flip-flop depending on my prevailing thought process.

I sort of disagree. I think that Baylor was a better player than Pippen, even though his resume is somewhat lacking. I do think that Pippen is undervalued by a lot of people though. People are forgetting that he was a legitimate superstar, not just one of MJ's towel boys.

I disagree with anyone putting Mikan in the Top 20 or 30. The game didn't come of age until the Chamberlain-Russell era, and a lot of the unfair criticism that Wilt and Russ get (all the "they played against midgets!" nonsense) does apply to Big George. I think it's like ranking a lot of the deadball players at or near the top of the All Time baseball list just because they routinely hit over .400.

Some additional thoughts I've had.

--I've read a lot of books over the years about Wilt, and one prevailing thought I have when thinking about them: Kobe Bryant isn't the Michael Jordan of his generation, he's Wilt Chamberlain. From prodigious scoring outbursts, to the feuds with coaches, to questions about leadership qualities, the way they struggled with incorporating teammates, to the infamous failures in the postseason, to the championships that sometimes don't get the credit that they deserve, and the constant comparisons to other players (Russell and Kareem, Jordan and LeBron). It'll be interesting to see if Kobe's stature grows as Wilt's has, if people just forget about the negatives and just focus on the fact that he was such a dominant player.

--Bill Russell was the arguably the greatest defensive player of all time and unquestionably the greatest winner in the history of American team sports. I really don't understand why he's #6 on some people's lists. Does his lack of scoring matter that much? How about the way that no one started the offense like he did with his defensive rebounding and quick outlet passing (probably the best ever)?

--I know my reasoning, but I'm interested in hearing why people don't have Kareem as the #1 player of all time, considering he was such a dominant force and has perhaps the overall greatest resume of any player in NBA history, rivaled only by Michael Jordan.

[ThaRegul8r]

--Bill Russell was the arguably the greatest defensive player of all time and unquestionably the greatest winner in the history of American team sports. I really don't understand why he's #6 on some people's lists. Does his lack of scoring matter that much? How about the way that no one started the offense like he did with his defensive rebounding and quick outlet passing (probably the best ever)?

Because in many people's minds, scoring > everything else. To many people it's the most important part of the game, and defensive gets overlooked/undervalued—if defense is taken into account, it still ranks below offense in most people's minds. I commented not too long ago about how when people talk about and define clutch, you notice it's always about making the last-second shot/hitting big shots, while no one ever brings up clutch defensive plays that also win games/championships. Even though Russell always did whatever was needed by the team to win games/championships, including scoring when the situation called for it, a fact which many people seem to be unaware of. It's all about doing what your team needs to win. And Russell did that better than anyone ever, which is borne out by his unprecedented winning—which also includes a (then-)record winning streak at USF (until surpassed by UCLA), and the largest margin of victory in Olympic history which is still a record to this day. All that winning was not a coincidence. He did not "luck" into it, obviously the man knew how to win.

[Warspite]

--Bill Russell was the arguably the greatest defensive player of all time and unquestionably the greatest winner in the history of American team sports. I really don't understand why he's #6 on some people's lists. Does his lack of scoring matter that much? How about the way that no one started the offense like he did with his defensive rebounding and quick outlet passing (probably the best ever)?

Because in many people's minds, scoring > everything else. To many people it's the most important part of the game, and defensive gets overlooked/undervalued—if defense is taken into account, it still ranks below offense in most people's minds. I commented not too long ago about how when people talk about and define clutch, you notice it's always about making the last-second shot/hitting big shots, while no one ever brings up clutch defensive plays that also win games/championships. Even though Russell always did whatever was needed by the team to win games/championships, including scoring when the situation called for it, a fact which many people seem to be unaware of. It's all about doing what your team needs to win. And Russell did that better than anyone ever, which is borne out by his unprecedented winning—which also includes a (then-)record winning streak at USF (until surpassed by UCLA), and the largest margin of victory in Olympic history which is still a record to this day. All that winning was not a coincidence. He did not "luck" into it, obviously the man knew how to win.

Why is Russell #6 and Wilt #1??

Russell was asked to defend and rebound and made clutch plays. Wilt was asked to defend, rebound, pass, run the offense and be the greatest scorer in the history of the game. Wilt did what Russell did and did it better he just didnt have the same results (because he didnt have the same teams) Both Russell and Wilt did what there teams needed to win but Wilt always had to do more and most of the time he did more it just wasnt enough.

[ThaRegul8r]

--I know my reasoning, but I'm interested in hearing why people don't have Kareem as the #1 player of all time, considering he was such a dominant force and has perhaps the overall greatest resume of any player in NBA history, rivaled only by Michael Jordan.

Kareem's in the first handful of my favorite players of all-time, and at one point people used to call me Kareem because my go-to move was a hook that I patterned after Kareem, though of course I wasn't that good. lol

Kareem's one of the few players who has a legitimate case for #1, but at other times when I think about it I think you can't call him the best at his own position, so it varies for me.

One of the things said about Kareem was, “You must have someone on your team who demands the respect of the players and has earned that respect by what he does on the court. The coach can only do so much; then its up to the players. Kareem was one of the greatest players ever, but he was not that guy. He won a title with Milwaukee in 1971, when an aging Oscar Robertson came in to join him, and he didn’t win again until Magic arrived in 1980. Kareem is a thoughtful, quiet man. He is not the kind of leader who can inspire a team, despite his greatness on the court.” On the other hand, Russell's leadership can't be questioned. And he infused the team with a sense of confidence that as long as they had him, they weren't going to lose. Kareem wasn't that kind of player. And it was noted that if Kareem was as intense as Russell, he never could have lasted 20 seasons and would've burned out a long time before.

Both Wilt and Russell were better defenders than Kareem. Russell was first team All Defense at 35 the first year it was instituted, which was the last season of his career. Kareem was Second Team All-Defense in '69-70 behind Willis Reed (Wilt played only 12 games), Second Team All-Defense behind Nate Thurmond in ’70-71, didn’t make either the First or Second All-Defense Teams in ’71-72 and ’72-73 (Wilt and Thurmond were First and Second Team), was First Team All-Defense in ’73-74 and ’74-75, Second Team All-Defense behind Dave Cowens in ’75-76, Second Team All-Defense behind Bill Walton in ’76-77 and ’77-78, First Team All-Defense from ’78-79 to ’80-81, and appeared for the final time on the All Defensive Teams in ’83-84, when he was Second Team behind Tree Rollins. Wilt beat Kareem 2-1 for All Defensive First Team selection in his last two seasons of his career, and head-to-head was able to play Russell to Kareem's Wilt, doing the same things Russell used to do against him to allow his team to win.

In 1972, against scoring champion league MVP Kareem, who averaged 34.8 points (the eighth highest single-season scoring average in NBA history at the time, and the third-highest non-Wilt scoring average) on 57.4 percent shooting—the second-highest 30 ppg FG% in NBA history, and by far the highest with that amount of points, Wilt made Kareem take 37 shots to score 33 points in a 108-105 Game 3 win in the Western Conference Finals, held Kareem to 13/33 FG, blocked four of his shots, and out-rebounded him 26-16 in a 115-90 Game 5 win, and held Kareem to 2/8 FG in the last 10 minutes of Game 6 to enable the Lakers to win 104-100 and move on to the NBA Finals.

“In the N.B.A.’s western division title series with Milwaukee, he decisively outplayed basketball’s newest giant superstar, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, eleven years his junior.”
-- May 22, 1972

And this was an end-of-his-career Wilt against a young, MVP-of-the-league Kareem. So both defensive accolades when they were both contemporaries and head-to-head play show Wilt as the better defender. Russell was better. And Nate Thurmond was better, beating Kareem for First Team All-Defense for three straight years (Thurmond played only 43 games in '69-70 when Kareem was Second Team behind Willis Reed, and missed 20 games in 1973-74 when Kareem was First Team over Thurmond, and Thurmond would only play three more seasons in the league), and players who played during that time say only Russell was better defensively.

Wilt and Russell were better rebounders than Kareem. The only players who ever averaged more rebounds than Wilt or Russell in a season in their primes were each other. It wasn't until Russell's final three seasons in the league when Nate Thurmond ('66-67, '68-69) and Jerry Lucas ('67-68) became the first players other than Wilt to average more rebounds in a season than him, and Wilt. And no one other than Russell ever averaged more rebounds in a season than Wilt. While one of the knocks on Kareem was that he wasn't as good of a rebounder as he should have been at 7-2.

“Though [7 feet 2 inches] tall, Abdul-Jabbar is not a good rebounder. Because of his size, he has done adequately in the statistics, but he could do more.”

In 1969-70, Abdul-Jabbar was third in the league in rebounding (14.5 rpg), behind the 6'9" Elvin Hayes (16.9) and 6'7" Wes Unseld (16.7). In 1970-71 he was fourth (16.0 rpg) behind Wilt Chamberlain (18.2 rpg), Unseld (16.9), and Hayes (16.6). In ’71-72, he was third (16.6 rpg) behind Chamberlain (19.2) and Unseld (17.6). In ’72-73, he was fourth in the league (16.1 rpg) behind Chamberlain (18.6 rpg), the 6'11" Nate Thurmond (17.1 rpg), and the 6'9" Dave Cowens (16.2 rpg). In ’73-74 he finished fourth (14.5 rpg) behind Hayes (18.1 rpg), Cowens (15.7 rpg), and the 6'9" Bob McAdoo (15.1 rpg). In ’74-75 he finished fifth (14.0 rpg) behind Unseld (14.8 rpg), Cowens (14.7 rpg), 6'10" Sam Lacey (14.2 rpg) and McAdoo (14.1 rpg). In ’75-76 he led the league with 16.9 rpg. In ’76-77 he finished second (13.3 rpg), to Bill Walton (14.4 rpg). In ’77-78 he finished seventh (12.9 rpg) behind 6'7" Truck Robinson (15.7 rpg), 6'10" Moses Malone (15.0 rpg), Cowens (14.0 rpg), Hayes (13.3), 6'11" Swen Nater (13.2), and the 7'2" Artis Gilmore (13.1 rpg). In ’78-79 he finished third behind Malone (17.6 rpg) and the 7' Rich Kelley (12.8 rpg). In ’79-80 he finished eighth behind Nater (15.0 rpg), Malone (14.5 rpg), Unseld (13.3 rpg), the 6'11" Caldwell Jones (11.9 rpg), 6'11" Jack Sikma (11.07 rpg), Hayes (11.06 rpg), and 7' Robert Parish (10.9 rpg). In ’80-81 he finished seventh (10.26 rpg) behind Malone (14.8 rpg), Nater (12.4 rpg), 6'8" Larry Smith (12.1 rpg), 6'9" Larry Bird (10.9 rpg), Sikma (10.4 rpg), and 6'7" Kenny Carr (10.3 rpg). In 1981-82 he dipped to 8.7 rebounds per game, and never grabbed double-figure rebounds again. From 1975-76 on, Abdul-Jabbar steadily declined in rebounding, going from leading the league with 16.9 at 28, to 13.3, 12.9, 12.8, 10.8, 10.3, 8.7, 7.5, and 7.3.

Kareem dipped under double-digit rebounds at 34, at which same age Russell averaged 19.3, third in the league behind Chamberlain and Thurmond, and Wilt averaged 18.2, first in the league. Wilt and Russell were much better rebounders than Kareem.

Russell averaged 4.3 assists a game for his career. Kareem equalled or surpassed Russell's career average seven times. After Cousy retired, Russell looked at the team to see what needed to be done to adjust without Cousy. He knew that K.C. Jones wasn't the playmaker that Cousy was, and since their offense was centered around passing, the best thing for the team would be for him to pass more to make sure the offense kept its flow. The first year after Cousy's retirement, Russell passed for a career-high in assists, and averaged 5.0 assists for his career post-Cousy after averaging 3.1 before Cousy retired. “Our offense revolved around his passing ability and his awareness of the total picture," John Havlicek said. "He knew where everybody on both teams was better than any big man I’ve ever seen." He was also one of the greatest outlet passers in the history of the game (nod to Wes Unseld and Bill Walton). Wilt averaged 4.4 and as we all know, led the league in assists.

Of course Kareem dwarfs Russell at the offensive end, which is the only real advantage Kareem has over Russell. For most people that's probably enough though, though Wilt did as well, yet Russell was voted the G.O.A.T. in 1980. Wilt was the most dominant offensive force ever. But if offense is you're main thing you're interested in, it's interesting comparing them. Kareem wasn't as dominant a scorer as Wilt was, but was more efficient in his highest-scoring years than Wilt was in his. He has the two highest field-goal percentages for a player in a season with a 30 ppg scoring average in NBA history, and three of the top seven, and is one of only four men in NBA history to average 30 points a game in a season with a .600+ true shooting percentage. He's a vastly superior free-throw shooter than Chamberlain (and Russell too); in Game 6 of the 1988 NBA Finals against the Detroit Pistons, at the age of 41, Abdul-Jabbar was fouled by Bill Laimbeer with 14 seconds left and the Lakers down by one, stepped to the line and hit both free throws to give the Lakers a 103-102 win, tying the series at three games apiece and sending it to Game 7. While Chamberlain's woes at the free-throw line are well-documented.

Unlike Wilt, Kareem was able to win a title as the league's leading scorer. No one had done it since George Mikan, and no one did it again until Jordan, then Shaq. Wilt's problem was that he was too dominant, and had to curtail his scoring for the team to win. He overwhelmed the rest of the team. Kareem was able to score his points within the context of the team without taking anything away from everyone else. Kareem was also clutch offensively ("For years and years, the Lakers picked up their paychecks regularly because Kareem dropped that shot in right hand or left hand, whenever the game was on the line. That’s why everyone calls those crucial seconds ‘money time.’ We had plenty of other offensive weapons, but that was the one that came out of the holster when we got into a make-or-break situation."), had tremendous NBA Finals series (1971, 1974, 1980, 1985), and Kareem's skyhook to win Game 6 of the 1974 Finals to force Game 7 is one of the most memorable shots in NBA postseason history. Bill Walton has always said Kareem was the best player he ever played against, "better than Magic, better than Larry, better than Michael," and he was on the court when Jordan scored 63 against the Celtics which inspired the "God disguised as Michael Jordan" quote.

As I said, Kareem's one of the few who has a legitimate case for #1, and he's one of my all-time favorite players, but Russell was a better leader, more driven (“He always rose to the challenge. He had the most intense concentration of anybody who ever played the game,” -- Earl Strom), better rebounder, defender, one of the greatest outlet passers ever and passing hub of the Celtics' halfcourt offense after Cousy retired, and Wilt did everything better than Kareem when he wanted to do it (except shoot free throws), and was able to make things very difficult for a young Kareem while in the latter stage of his career head-to-head, and was one of the few capable of successfully blocking the skyhook. There are times when I think he has a really compelling case, then I think I can't put him over Russell or Wilt. One of these days I'll finish writing the case for Kareem as the greatest basketball player of all time and then present the case against it to have all the arguments from the pro and the con side all laid out.

[JordansBulls]

--Bill Russell was the arguably the greatest defensive player of all time and unquestionably the greatest winner in the history of American team sports. I really don't understand why he's #6 on some people's lists. Does his lack of scoring matter that much? How about the way that no one started the offense like he did with his defensive rebounding and quick outlet passing (probably the best ever)?

Because in many people's minds, scoring > everything else. To many people it's the most important part of the game, and defensive gets overlooked/undervalued—if defense is taken into account, it still ranks below offense in most people's minds. I commented not too long ago about how when people talk about and define clutch, you notice it's always about making the last-second shot/hitting big shots, while no one ever brings up clutch defensive plays that also win games/championships. Even though Russell always did whatever was needed by the team to win games/championships, including scoring when the situation called for it, a fact which many people seem to be unaware of. It's all about doing what your team needs to win. And Russell did that better than anyone ever, which is borne out by his unprecedented winning—which also includes a (then-)record winning streak at USF (until surpassed by UCLA), and the largest margin of victory in Olympic history which is still a record to this day. All that winning was not a coincidence. He did not "luck" into it, obviously the man knew how to win.

Why is Russell #6 and Wilt #1??

Russell was asked to defend and rebound and made clutch plays. Wilt was asked to defend, rebound, pass, run the offense and be the greatest scorer in the history of the game. Wilt did what Russell did and did it better he just didnt have the same results (because he didnt have the same teams) Both Russell and Wilt did what there teams needed to win but Wilt always had to do more and most of the time he did more it just wasnt enough.

So how could he be #1 when he averaged 11.7 ppg in the finals and then another year after winning the title he blew a 3-1 series lead with HC Advantage and got swept another year by a team below .500?

[KNICKS1970]

--Bill Russell was the arguably the greatest defensive player of all time and unquestionably the greatest winner in the history of American team sports. I really don't understand why he's #6 on some people's lists. Does his lack of scoring matter that much? How about the way that no one started the offense like he did with his defensive rebounding and quick outlet passing (probably the best ever)?

Because in many people's minds, scoring > everything else. To many people it's the most important part of the game, and defensive gets overlooked/undervalued—if defense is taken into account, it still ranks below offense in most people's minds. I commented not too long ago about how when people talk about and define clutch, you notice it's always about making the last-second shot/hitting big shots, while no one ever brings up clutch defensive plays that also win games/championships. Even though Russell always did whatever was needed by the team to win games/championships, including scoring when the situation called for it, a fact which many people seem to be unaware of. It's all about doing what your team needs to win. And Russell did that better than anyone ever, which is borne out by his unprecedented winning—which also includes a (then-)record winning streak at USF (until surpassed by UCLA), and the largest margin of victory in Olympic history which is still a record to this day. All that winning was not a coincidence. He did not "luck" into it, obviously the man knew how to win.

Why is Russell #6 and Wilt #1??

Russell was asked to defend and rebound and made clutch plays. Wilt was asked to defend, rebound, pass, run the offense and be the greatest scorer in the history of the game. Wilt did what Russell did and did it better he just didnt have the same results (because he didnt have the same teams) Both Russell and Wilt did what there teams needed to win but Wilt always had to do more and most of the time he did more it just wasnt enough.

Here's the thing, Wilt was never asked to run the offense and pass in the first part of his career. Early in his career, especially on those Frank McGuire teams, his role was primarily to score. He was never really asked to all those things at the same time. The talent gap between Russell's teams and Wilt's teams are a little overblown, because people look in the record book and think "Wow, look at all of those Hall of Famers!", not realizing that most of those guys were role players who got into the Hall of Fame because they were role players who happened to play on the greatest dynasty ever.

Wilt played on teams with lots of talent, and the problem was for a lot of his career they were reduced to virtual towel boys who's only job was to feed Wilt the ball. In fact, the years he won championships was when he actually listened to his coaches (an fact that never gets brought up: Wilt feuded with virtually every coach he played with, and it's a big reason why he got traded twice. He got along with McGuire who basically told him he could do whatever he wanted). The year's he won a championship, he was asked to get his teammates more involved.

To me, Wilt is a hard guy to judge. In a way, I feel like the people making his case for the GOAT hurt his case in my view, because there's a bit too much "apologist" arguments used (like the afformentioned "Wilt didn't have the teams that Russell did" argument). However, I do think that Wilt was a better player than Russell, and like I said in previous posts, when two players play in the same era, the "resume" argument should take a backseat somewhat and you do have to ask "these guys played against each other, who was the better player?" He did prove he could do all those things that Russell did, but better. It's no surprise that when he did play like Russell, he was part of two of the greatest teams ever. But obviously, he did relapse into selfishness and played for himself, which hurts him in the GOAT argument in my view. All the complaints that people make about Kobe, couldn't they apply to Wilt for most of his careers as well?

[Point forward]

In those Bill-vs-Wilt arguments, I think that Bill DID have the better team and the better coach, but I always have the impression that Wilt rarely gave his 100% effort. Before 1967, he was known as a coach killer (Johnston, Schayes, Feerick) and held his distance from the rest of the team. Sure, he had his share of bad luck, but IMHO you also have to earn good luck with 100% dedication... something Wilt had trouble doing.

[ThaRegul8r]

Here's the thing, Wilt was never asked to run the offense and pass in the first part of his career. Early in his career, especially on those Frank McGuire teams, his role was primarily to score. He was never really asked to all those things at the same time.

Exactly. He always rebounded, but everything else came at different points in his career. He never did all that at the same time.

The talent gap between Russell's teams and Wilt's teams are a little overblown, because people look in the record book and think "Wow, look at all of those Hall of Famers!", not realizing that most of those guys were role players who got into the Hall of Fame because they were role players who happened to play on the greatest dynasty ever.

Yes. Something both I and other posters have addressed before in the past. As you said, people just look and see how many teammates are in the Hall and immediately dismiss Russell as the greatest beneficiary of teammates in NBA history without looking any further.

In those Bill-vs-Wilt arguments, I think that Bill DID have the better team and the better coach, but I always have the impression that Wilt rarely gave his 100% effort.

The intangibles separate the two, and as I've said before, I'm a big intangibles guy. If you don't put as much on them, then that'll factor in how you evaluate players. Wilt himself readily admitted he didn't have the killer instinct Russell did (or later, a Bird, a Jordan, etc), and that was one of his biggest flaws as many people from that time have related. Wilt showed he could be the focal point of two of the winningest single-season teams ever, but Russell showed he could anchor a dynasty and lead a team to championships year in and year out, while Wilt could never sustain it. So it depends on what you want. Russell was single-mindedly focused on winning championships every year, while after Wilt got his first title there wasn't anything else for him to do after setting so many records, so he set the statistical goal of leading the league in assists, whereas Russell was only concerned with winning titles (though of course it says something about Chamberlain as a player if he could just decide to do something and then actually go out and do it—that's why he, and not Shaq, is the MDE).

"To Bill, winning at basketball was everything. [...] Bill had never been a loser. His high school teams won 49 of 52 games. His college teams won 57 of 58—and two NCAA championships. His Boston teams won 11 NBA championships in 13 years. To Bill, every game—particularly every championship game—was a challenge, a test of his manhood. He took the game so seriously that he threw up in the locker room before almost every game. But I tend to look at basketball as a game, not a life-and-death struggle. I don't need NBA championships to prove that I'm a man. There are too many other beautiful things in life—food, cars, girls, friends, the beach, freedom—to get that emotionally wrapped up in basketball."

Wilt just didn't have the mentality Russell did. It's not a bash of him, he just had a different personality.

A significant part of the Chamberlain mystique is the conviction—held by most of his opponents—that Wilt rarely makes use of all his ability. [...] Chamberlain’s legion of admirers pay scant attention to the curious contradiction in his approach to the game: while Wilt often seems disdainfully unwilling to make constant use of his skill and power, he clearly agonizes over his inability to lead teams to championships and angrily chafes under the “Loser” label the press has assigned him. Bill Russell was revered for winning—and for squeezing the utmost from his potential. The Dipper, on the other hand, attracts a strange admiration for refusing to make a total commitment during most games. That Chamberlain has become fabulously rich and famous, without giving completely of himself to teams, fans, or employers, has a cool ring of ripping off “Whitey.”
(Foul!: The Connie Hawkins Story [New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1972], p. 361)

[RapsGM]

1. Jordan
2. Wilt
3. Abdul Jabbar
4. Bill Russel
5. Magic Johnson
6. Tim Duncan
7. Shaquille Oneal
8. Kobe Bryant
9. Karl Malone
10. Barkley
11. Larry Bird
12. John Stockton
13. Oscar Robertson
14. Hakeem The Dream
15. Julius Erving

[Doctor MJ]

In those Bill-vs-Wilt arguments, I think that Bill DID have the better team and the better coach, but I always have the impression that Wilt rarely gave his 100% effort. Before 1967, he was known as a coach killer (Johnston, Schayes, Feerick) and held his distance from the rest of the team. Sure, he had his share of bad luck, but IMHO you also have to earn good luck with 100% dedication... something Wilt had trouble doing.

Agree. I have Russell ahead of Wilt on my GOAT list because 1) Russell really did have superstar impact great impact so he belongs in the GOAT discussion, 2) While I don't have a problem with anyone thinking Wilt had the better peak, I have a hard time buying that he'd have the fire to lead ANY team to 11 titles.

[tsherkin]

I sort of disagree. I think that Baylor was a better player than Pippen, even though his resume is somewhat lacking. I do think that Pippen is undervalued by a lot of people though. People are forgetting that he was a legitimate superstar, not just one of MJ's towel boys.

I'd take Pippen over Baylor any day, I don't think his scoring is really all that interesting... but I include the caveat that in an era with a less physical frontcourt, that might change. As it stands, I'm inclined to take the 18/7/7 guy who played some of the best defense in NBA history over Baylor in a heartbeat, yes. Baylor was athletic and, in principle, a good shooter and post-up scorer with great athleticism but it is far easier to acquire offense than it is the kind of defense and playmaking Pippen provided out of a wing.