RealGM NBA Top 100 list -- #1

[therealbig3]

ElGee made this post a while ago: viewtopic.php?f=344&t=1048645&start=0

I think that's where Bill Russell's argument comes from. Especially from 61-65, but as pointed out by ElGee, Russell basically played GOAT defense his entire career, so his longevity is pretty insane.

If we average the 61-65 stretch, Russell's Celtics were a -9.5 defense over 5 years. Incredible.

Now, Tim Duncan is a guy that routinely gets compared to Russell's Celtics, and he's really the one defensive anchor who enjoyed great defensive teammates and a great defensive coach his entire career, just like Russell. So let's look at his team's DRating throughout his career:

98: -5.6
99: -7.2
00: -5.5
01: -5.0
02: -4.8
03: -3.9
04: -8.8
05: -7.3
06: -6.6
07: -6.6
08: -5.7
09: -4.0
10: -3.1
11: -1.7
12: -1.4
13: -4.3
14: -4.3

Well then, let's average out Duncan's best 5-year stretch: 04-08. Over that time period, the Spurs were a -7.0 defense over 5 years. Fantastic, but still significantly behind Russell's Celtics (-9.5). But again, it's no secret that the Spurs play in a much better offensive era. It's very possible that Russell's Celtics would have dropped to a -7.0 defense during their heyday as well.

I think you're thinking on this is off -- improved offensive era is accounted for in the raw number. Introducing the 3-point shot should create more range in the numbers (top offensive/defensive teams), not less.

PS The 04 Pistons played 45 games with Rasheed Wallace. They had a -10.9 DRtg in those games. I see no reason why a team in the 3-point era can't be ~10 pts better than league average.

I understand that the raw number takes into account the era's league average, but I don't think it would be as easy for a defense to deviate from league average if offensive strategy had improved, especially if the 3pt shot was present.

As for why I can't see a team in the 3pt era have a -10 defense the way Russell's Celtics did...IDK if it can't be done...but it's never ACTUALLY been done, so it's hard for me to just assume that Russell would anchor one year after year when it's clearly been impossible for ANYONE else to do so in the last 35 years. As you said, the 04 Pistons did it for 45 games...not for a whole season. They had pretty much the same core of players for the full 2005 season, and they managed a -4.9 defense over the whole season.

The top 5 defenses since the introduction of the 3pt line (and I'm ignoring 99 and 12, since those were not full seasons):

-8.8 (04 Spurs)
-8.6 (08 Celtics)
-8.3 (93 Knicks)
-8.1 (94 Knicks)
-7.5 (04 Pistons)

There hasn't been a defense that's even hit -9 in the last 35 years, let alone -10. And even if we assume that Russell was just that much better than Garnett or Duncan or Ewing or Wallace (the guys that anchored these defenses) to the point that he could take a defense that they made -8 and make it -10, even in the modern era...now the discussion becomes his offense. Is he within 2 points of Duncan or Garnett on offense? I really don't think so. Russell wasn't that impressive offensively even by the standards of his own era.

And one more point I'm curious about...I understand we don't have a lot of individual impact numbers for Bill Russell, but a really common counter-argument to "Tim Duncan anchored so many fantastic defenses!" is "Look at his teammates and his coach, he clearly had more help than someone like Kevin Garnett or Hakeem Olajuwon, it's not fair to prop him up over them based on team defensive ratings"...but we feel alright giving Bill Russell all the credit for the Celtics' defensive dominance, despite playing for Red Auerbach, and despite playing with many notable defenders on his team?

I've yet to hear someone give Russell credit for all the defense. The challenge is to ballpark how much of that defense he was responsible for, and it looks like a whole heck of a lot. I would say comfortably that with a decent defensive big, the 60's Celtics would be above average defensively. Satch Sanders alone was an excellent defensive forward, along with KC and even Hondo.

Again, is this not a similar situation to a lot of defensive greats...KG and Duncan have been part of teams that were pretty solid defensively without them, but they were the ones that pushed them into historic territory. Considering the context of their respective eras, I don't really see Russell's Celtics as that much more impressive defensively than some of the teams that Duncan and Garnett have anchored.

Now, I understand that Russell gives you 13 years of basically the same level of play, where he's the greatest defensive player the league has ever seen...but Duncan and Garnett are giving you 10 year primes, a bunch of seasons that aren't quite their prime years but are still valuable, and I believe that those two were just better players during their primes than Russell was. That's why I would take them all-time over Russell at this very moment.

[Moonbeam]

My pick for #1 is Michael Jordan. He had the ultimate combination of awe-inspiring statistics, legendary performances and incredible team success. While Bill Russell's 11 titles are unmatched as a total, from a probability perspective taking into account number of teams, MJ winning 6 titles was a bigger achievement.

As mentioned in another thread, I developed a ranking system based on a weighted average of the highest 8 season win shares per game, with the season with highest WSPG having the highest weight, the second highest WSPG having the second highest weight, etc. I have a similar system for the playoffs, but win shares are weighted based on team success, with a minimum weight of 1/3 for players on winless playoff teams to 1 for players on championship teams. I then combine the regular season and playoff totals to come up with the final ranking. Of course, there are a lot of other details like how to weigh ABA seasons or early seasons for which win shares are calculated based on rather crude approximations, plus how to count seasons in which players missed a lot of games, how to weigh regular season vs. playoffs, etc., but I'm pretty happy with it. So in each vote I'll post the ranking based on this system of my chosen player.

Michael Jordan formula rank: 1

[therealbig3]

Vote: Kareem-Abdul-Jabbar

KAJ is the GOAT because of his combination of peak performance and GOAT longevity against the greatest competition any player has ever faced. Also the different teammates, pecking orders, systems, coaches, and mini-eras he dominated or contributed to his team's success.


So Mr. Alcindor comes in wrecking the league. GOAT rookie, on par with prime Jerry West himself coming off an epic Finals MVP win. He murders the 1970 league MVP peak Willis Reed in the playoffs, but the Knicks are a machine with Debusschere and Frazier and beat MIL.

71, he gets prime Oscar and they win a title together. One of the most impressive 2-year stretches in history was the 1971-1972 Bucks. Expansion era I know, but they did what they were supposed to do. 60+ wins, ridiculous SRS, only losing in '72 to another GOAT team candidate.

A Wilt Chamberlain whose efforts are mainly focused on defense does a good job slowing 3rd-year KAJ in 1972 in the playoffs. That said, he didn't outplay KAJ. His offensive responsibility was far greater than WIlt's especially since Oscar Robertson was hurt in that series. KAJ was forced to shoulder an insane amount of offense, taking like 33 shots per game. You're percentages will fall when you need to shoot that much against an elite defender. KAJ still outscored Wilt 202-67 on the series. He had 37 points, 25 rebounds, and 8 assists in the closeout game 6 and shot 16-36 from the field. Wilt is hailed as a hero for slowing KAJ down, but they weren't in equal circumstances. KAJ could not have done more to help his team win save morph into a player who would be the guaranteed GOAT by all.

Nate Thurmond, the GOAT low post man defender, slowed KAJ in 1973 (Oscar is really in decline now). This is the last time Jabbar is really neutralized in any sense.

1974 is basically LBJ in 2009. He was clearly a champion. Probably his best year ever defensively and averaged 32 PPG and 5 APG in the playoffs on 55 percent shooting. MIL had the best SRS in the league and went 7 vs. Boston. KAJ torched an amazing defensive frontcourt of Dave Cowens and Paul Silas.

He moves to LA, and for the next 5 seasons, he essentially either has poor talent around him or incredibly mismatched talent (CoughDantleyCough). I'll quote TrueLAfan from the '79 RPOY thread here:

This is another strange year, and, again, I think I'm going to be going against the grain in some of these choices. But I was watching, and I've got my reasons...although I'm curious to hear what others have to say that isn't necessarily statistically related.

1. Kareem. Suffered from voter fatigue, and a misapprehension about his team. The Lakers were a good team. On paper. This is exactly what Adrian Dantley did for the Lakers in 1978 and 1979.

--Kept Jamaal Wilkes from playing at his natural position of SF.
--Held onto the ball too long, and didn't pass out (especially to perimeter players).
--Often set up in the low post, forcing Kareem to change his game.
--Absolutely, positively, did not play D. Uh-uh.

All of this meant that the Lakers were...troubled, shall we say. Kareem was his usual self in many ways; 24 points and 13 boards a game (from now on, Kareem is going to be a great rebounder). He averaged over 5 assists a game and a hair under 4 blocks. I blame Dantley for 80% of the team's underperforming; he was a team wrecker. (The lousy bench, poor D other than Kareem, and lack of quality at SG...that hurt too.) The Lakers had zero chemistry (and they'd had plenty in, say, 1977). Jerry West (the coach at the time) had this to say. “This team has averaged 48 wins over the past three seasons, and I'll tell you what. I don't care if he's at the top of his game, past it or underneath it—without Kareem we don't beat anybody. This team just doesn't complement him at all.” (They still made it to the conference semis in two of those years, losing to eventual champs both times.)

Big laffs for me...Sports Illustrated referring to Don Ford as a “defensive” player. Don Ford couldn't guard my grandmother, and she can't go left.

Again, a chunk of the problem with the Lakers rebounding this year can be traced to … Adrian Dantley. By playing at SF, he pushed Wilkes to PF. Right there, that took away Kareem’s advantages in rebounding. At a Reb % of 17.6, Kareem grabbed about 100-125 more rebounds that an “average” C with a Reb Rate of 16.0. But with Wilkes at PF combined with Don Ford—one of the worst starters I’ve ever seen—the Lakers got 1219 rebounds out of their starting SF and PF positions … a combined Reb % of 21.3. That’s bad. You should get about 23 to 23.5% of rebounds from those positions. That meant the Lakers gave back Kareem’s extra rebounds. And most of the rest of the team—Lou Hudson (who I loved, but was shot by 1979), Ron Boone, Norm Nixon—were really bad rebounders. When West points out that the Lakers didn’t compliment Kareem well, he’s right. Kareem's scoring took a hit because his usage dropped so much...14% to be exact. That's more than his socring drop, even adjusted per minute. Why did Kareem's usage drop? Because the team had added a player who took as many shots per mintue as Cap, held the ball too long, and caused a disruption to the offense that was much more obvious when you were watching than it is in the box scores (although when you know about it, the statistical evidence is there too.) Put it this way...who do you think should be leading the team in usage? The five time MVP with the best halfcourt move in the history of basketball, or the second year player who forced a starter to play out of position? Guess which player led the Lakers in usage?

I should add this...maybe Kareem should have said something publically. I have the feeling, based on what West said at the time and since, that it was brought up to and known by coaching and management. The problems with the team (and Dantley, in particualr) were not a mystery. But should Kareem have put his foot down? Would that have helped the situation? Would it have helped the team? It’s hard to say. It was a different time, and players operated differently with the media in terms of asserting power and having their reputations established. I have the feeling that if Elvin Hayes had had a microphone in his face as often as, say, Allen Iverson has/had, he’d have a very different legacy. But, all in all, I can’t fault Kareem for this. I think he’s naturally taciturn, and I think West didn’t want to play up the mistake in picking up Dantley. But, for me, that doesn’t affect Kareem’s value. And I think it should be noted that when Dantley got his wish and went to a team that allowed him free rein on offense, he never got his team to as many wins as the Lakers did in a season of disruption where there was great parity in the league.

Nevermind that the man obliterated one of the GOAT defensive frontcourts in Bill Walton/Mo Lucas in the '77 WCF with literally **** players around him, while Coach Ramsay's Blazers were a Spurs-like machine.

We get to 1980, where his GOAT-esque season and playoffs is overshadowed by arguably the GOAT performance on the last game of the season by his teammate, Earvin Johnson. KAJ would have been REG SEA MVP and Finals MVP if the voters weren't idiots. KAJ was definitely the lead dog on that team.

1981...outrebounds Moses Malone in a 3-game series. Outplays Moses Malone. He's still arguably the best player in the league.

1982...This is, in my opinion, his most impressive year so far. His team is oozing with talent, so the man tempers his scoring to allow LA to have five (5!) players average 16.7 PPG in the playoffs. That's insane balance. KAJ protects the basket as LA plays an amazing trap D and runs over the league over the last half the season and through the playoffs.

1983...One of the best. Moses Malone dominates him on the glass in the NBA Finals, but KAJ's offensive output is amazing. Moses can't guard KAJ, but KAJ can guard Moses on his initial drives and postups. Moses' offensive rebounding hurts LA though.

1985...man wins Finals MVP 14 years after he won his first. That's a record. Does it against Bird/Parish/McHale. The man would have had at least 5 Finals MVPs if Oscar wasn't hurt in 1972, Richie Powers wasn't a douchebag in 1974, and voters weren't incompetent in 1980. Just my opinion.

The man continued to compete at a high level against some of the best frontcourt players ever. Was still contributing to title teams in his later years. Always a devastating scorer. Could hit free throws. Really no weakness.

Competition: The man faced Wilt Chamberlain, Nate Thurmond, Willis Reed, Dave Cowens (with Paul Silas), Bill Walton (with Mo Lucas), Wes Unseld (with Elvin Hayes), Artis Gilmore, Bob Lanier, Moses Malone, Robert Parish (with Bird/McHale/Walton), Akeem Olajuwon (with Ralph Sampson), Patrick Ewing, Bill Laimbeer (with Mahorn/Rodman), and Jack Sikma.

The only truly all-time great centers he never faced were George Mikan, Bill Russell, Shaq, David Robinson, Dwight Howard and Alonzo Mourning. He faced everybody else, pretty much all in their primes. Worst thing you could say was Kareem was outrebounded by peak Moses Malone in 1983 and stifled by GOAT man defender Nate Thurmond in 1973.

He whipped everybody else's ass. Kicked ass for 20 years. Contributed to winning teams no matter what. He was on great teams. He was on terrible teams. Nobody did more for his team in my opinion.

You have to own the record for the most "GOAT"s in a post after this...

But seriously, great post.

[LeChosen One]

I always wondered how people can think that a big man/center can be the GOAT.. How can a player who hangs around the rim, and does most of his damage primarily due to size, be better than a perimeter player who handles the ball more, gets people involved, crosses people over, does up and unders, slams on people, hits fade-aways, no look passes etc.

[therealbig3]

Here's how I've got the voting, just to make sure it's accurate (only counting the votes from the list penbeast0 made in the other thread):

Michael Jordan: 22 (Basketballefan, JordansBulls, SactoKingsFan, GC Pantalones, Baller2014, Dr Positivity, PCProductions, therealbig3, Quotatious, kayess, batmana, trex_8063, Jaivl, DannyNoonan1221, Owly, Mutnt, DHodgkins, An Unbiased Fan, O_6, rich316, DQuinn1575, Moonbeam)

Bill Russell: 9 (penbeast0, Texas Chuck, Warspite, Dr Spaceman, ardee, fpliii, Doctor MJ, drza, magicmerl)

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar: 2 (Greatness, ronnymac2)


Last vote counted: Moonbeam, post #262

[ardee]

Here's how I've got the voting, just to make sure it's accurate (only counting the votes from the list penbeast0 made in the other thread):

Michael Jordan: 22 (Basketballefan, JordansBulls, SactoKingsFan, GC Pantalones, Baller2014, Dr Positivity, PCProductions, therealbig3, Quotatious, kayess, batmana, trex_8063, Jaivl, DannyNoonan1221, Owly, Mutnt, DHodgkins, An Unbiased Fan, O_6, rich316, DQuinn1575, Moonbeam)

Bill Russell: 9 (penbeast0, Texas Chuck, Warspite, Dr Spaceman, ardee, fpliii, Doctor MJ, drza, magicmerl)

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar: 2 (Greatness, ronnymac2)


Last vote counted: Moonbeam, post #262

I'm impressed we got 9 Russell votes. On any other board this would have been a walkover for Jordan.

[Narigo]

Vote: Kareem Abdul Jabbar

Due to a great post by Ronnymac, I going to vote for Kareem. Jordan may have the better prime but Kareem has everything. He has a great prime, peak and longevity

[MacGill]

Vote: Bill Russell

Probably will continue to look back on this but for right now I am at peace with it. The more I am involved with this board, the more my perspective around GOAT criteria continues to evolve.

I too am ok with MJ taking top spot here but I will be up front that with where I am going, I am not as high with KAJ as most are here. If I was pulling for Russell as GOAT over MJ, than that is who I'll be concentrating on at #2. I have a lot of questions regarding the impact of KAJ's offense and defense but have lightened my stance around his longevity as this is impressive. It isn't just around the raw stats and pace at the time to me.

Straight up, I won't be completely trying to advocate against him with every pro post made, as I am interested to learn more information which I know will be shared in this thread (and it's counter-productive) but want my position to be known ahead of time. I have Magic, Shaq, Hakeem and Duncan over him currently. From an all-time great perspective to me, KAJ only has the GOAT longevity and that's all I see. No GOAT running peak, rebounder, defense or offense. His individual accolades came in an era where there was an nba split and there were really no true 2 way rivals at position. To me, the 70's were the weakest years in nba history. Then, most of his team success came after his prime while the GOAT PG rejuvenated his career. Again, he is certainly an ATG and a top 10 player of all-time, this is without question but I can't wrap my head around him this high even against popular opinion.

[DQuinn1575]

Bill Russell - I started watching basketball shortly after Russell retired, so I don't have any first hand knowledge of his play.
The issues I have with Russell are:

1. Russell joined the Celtics mid-year in 1956-57. The team was 16-8 when he joined, and finished 44-28. That means the team had a better
winning percentage without him. It also meant he joined the best team in the league. So although 11 of 13 is a fantastic
achievement, Jordan did not have that opportunity. The team was averaging 105.2 ppg and giving up 100.6. After Russell
showed up it was 105.7 and 100.0 - so the defense didn't change that drastically, and didn't change much the following
year when he was there the full season.

I think that this is a great thing to bring up, and it is indeed a question mark. I don't like dismissing it, but I think you want to be careful how much confidence you have in basically a quarter of a season.

This was a team that had never been the best before, and went through a seismic shift toward defense this year as they started their dynasty. I think it's fine to say it was a good supporting cast, but it seems pretty crazy to me to look at that sample and say "So that was a team that would win 2 for every one they lose from here on out!"
."

It's actually a 1/3 of a season, and it's the only sample we have for when Russell didn't play.
The Celtics the year before Russell joined were the 2nd best team in the league, and besides adding Bill, they also added the rookie of the year.

When they won, they won with defense, and no one who ever watched them questioned whether Russell was absolutely necessary in making that defense work. ."

Agreed

[
Did you just attempt to use the mere fact of Russell's GOAT defense to prove he couldn't be GOAT overall? ."

Sort of, and this is where I struggle with math - If he is 0 offense and 8 defense = 8 I can be okay with him being GOAT. If he is -2 offense and 10 defense = 8, then I have an issue with someone being below average in offense being the GOAT. I would have the same issues going the other way with Jordan - He is one of the very best on offense, but also very good on defense. Now, mathematically it works, and it worked for the Celtics so maybe it
is my problem

You really can't compare SRSes across eras like this.
.

Okay, but Russell was never on a dominant single season team. The win totals weren't super, they frequently went to game 7. Jordan's teams were head and shoulders above the league.
You can go by wins, point margins, SRS, number of game 7s, etc. - any measure would say the best Celtics teams were not as dominant as the Bulls.

There's also the matter that you just combined different eras. I mean I might as well talk about how lucky Jordan was to play with Horace Grant and Dennis Rodman ever year. And when you think about it, which is better Pippen & Rodman, or any of those two player combinations? .

He was lucky they got Rodman when they needed rebounding. It was a tremendous addition. He was also lucky that he got Pippen. Who would have thought the Central Arkansas manager would become a great player?
The only point is Russell was lucky on Day 1, and that allowed him to go 11 for 13. The only other great player who had that chance was probably Magic Johnson.

I said it before and I'll say it again: People get Jordan's supporting cast wrong. They think that because there wasn't another volume scorer it was a weak cast. On the contrary, Jordan would have made any player like that worse. He had the perfect supporting casts for what he needed..

Agreed - I didn't say his cast was weak - it was a great complement of players for Jordan. You don't make a 30 win team into a 72 win team.

Did Russell? Well, given there was complete turnover in the roster and Russell had to make a massive shift in how he played offense in order to continue winning titles, it's absurd to say that both before and after the turnover was perfect...

Not perfect of course, but circumstances helped him. The league had 4 other superstars - Baylor,Wilt, West, Oscar. The year before they entered the league, their teams' SRS were -5.78,-2.29,-4.14,-5.92, an average of -4.53.
Russell came him at .72 - a 5 point advantage on those guys.

And from 1961-1968 who got the best player to enter the league? Boston

4.I could list many examples where Jordan saved the day for the Bulls. I can't list any of Russell's. Havlicek stole the ball,
Sam Jones and Don Nelson made clutch shots. Big stars make big plays - Magic's junior junior sky hook, Bird's steal, Kareem's hook against
Boston. I know Russell was the star, but what did he do to win?

All you talked about there was offense while asking about a player that you've made clear you already know is a defense oriented player.
?

I said Bird stole the ball - I could have added Havlicek stole the ball, or someone's great block against somebody.
The only clutch play I know about with Russell was his bad pass in the NBA finals.

The Celtics won with defense.
Russell helped them win by making their defense good.
And they all lived happily ever after with more rings than fingers. ."

Agreed - that's why I am considering him for #1 of all-time - A year ago I would have taken Wilt over Russell.

5. In 1970 Russell retired. The year before the Celtics won 48 games. The next year the two expansion teams added Jabbar and Dandridge, and Connie Hawkins and 2nd overall pick Neal Walk. They increased by 52 wins. which took away about4 wins per team. That would give the Celtics 44 wins. They lost Sam Jones, one of the top 50 or so players of all-time PLUS Russell, and only dropped 10 more games.

You just used SRS in an inapprpriate way...and now when it's time to use it you forget? C'mon.

The Celtics in '68-69 were an old team getting through the regular season who still posted an SRS that was elite for the era they played in. The following year they were a below average team. That's a big fall off by any reason able analysis.

Re: "They lost a top 50 all-time player in Sam Jones!". Are you even trying to be hones there? Sam Jones isn't in Top 50 contention because of what he did in '68-69. I mean hell, Sam was an offensive player and the team did fine offensively after he was gone. The team fell off because of...what was it Russell did again?...defense.."

Most of the decline was due to Russell - the only points are (1) Jones was their top scorer per minute, and (2) the league shifted heavily because the two bottom feeders improved greatly. Each of those 2 are probably worth a point, so give Russell 4 points of 6.

The team improved by about 6 SRS in his rookie year and fell off by about 6 SRS when he left. Jordan wishes hecould say the same..

Russell's team improved by about 4 his rookie year, and that was with adding Heinsohn. They really don't show much improvement after he joined the team 1/3 of the way into it. They also only show about a 1 SRS point improvement when he plays the full season the next year.

Great situation, so 11 titles. Yes, because in "great situations" 11 titles is the norm in basketball.

Look, if things had been worse, Russell would have won less. The 11 rings do have some luck involved, but when one guy's team accomplishments are so far, far, FAR beyond everyone else, trying to nitpick it to explain it all is just absurd. If you had been an analyst at the time, you wouldn't have predicted anything like this based on the team context he was arriving in. ..

Gosh no, his accomplishments are incredible. I tried a thread to say how many would they win without Russell, and the answer was probably about 3.

viewtopic.php?f=64&t=1329007

Re: "He did not make any known game winning plays." Man, just listen to yourself. There isn't anyone from that time period who wouldn't laugh at your for talking like this. It blows my mind how you can be old enough to remember the '70s, but not imagine how it would sound if a younger person talked about the '70s saying "I didn't watch ball in the '70s, but I'm sure I would have heard about it if X ever did anything useful to help his team at the end of one of the 1000 games he played in."

It would help me if someone could tell me about a game winning play Russell made. Jordan, and to a lesser extent Jabbar, hold a card over Russell with game winning plays. For the Celtics it's

Selvy missed an open shot
Havlicek stole the ball
Sam Jones's shot
Don Nelson's shot
Wilt not being put in the 4th quarter


Russell came into the league with 4 other superstars, and was on a far better (5 points a game) then the others.
Then he got to play with the best new player to enter the league (Havlicek).

We can only evaluate on what actually happened, and have no ability to say what would have happened.
You can't play what-ifs, so I can't say what would have happened if Baylor or Oscar were switched with Russell.

The two questions I wind up with are:

1.) How much of the Celtic success was due to Russell?
2.) How much of my vote is determined by career titles won versus peak performance?

I think 1.) is: enough so that he gets credit for more career titles then anyone.

[90sAllDecade]

Wanted to save this spot as I'll have more time to elaborate later.

For now my pick is Jordan for now based on combined two way impact, prime, peak and improvement in the playoffs over his career. I also analyze skill, weaknesses, mental toughness, team support, competition, rules etc. and he's the GOAT imo.

I don't value team based accolades unless I do a team/competition analysis, nor do I really value winshares or PER due to flaws or resume accolades because the other all time greats weren't all in competition for those same accolades with similar team makeup or competition.

[DQuinn1575]

Here's how I've got the voting, just to make sure it's accurate (only counting the votes from the list penbeast0 made in the other thread):

Michael Jordan: 22 (Basketballefan, JordansBulls, SactoKingsFan, GC Pantalones, Baller2014, Dr Positivity, PCProductions, therealbig3, Quotatious, kayess, batmana, trex_8063, Jaivl, DannyNoonan1221, Owly, Mutnt, DHodgkins, An Unbiased Fan, O_6, rich316, DQuinn1575, Moonbeam)

Bill Russell: 9 (penbeast0, Texas Chuck, Warspite, Dr Spaceman, ardee, fpliii, Doctor MJ, drza, magicmerl)

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar: 2 (Greatness, ronnymac2)


Last vote counted: Moonbeam, post #262

I'm impressed we got 9 Russell votes. On any other board this would have been a walkover for Jordan.

fwiw, my MJ vote is not set in stone. Is there an official time we are cutting off?
My biggest question is my own: How much do you evaluate by career championships contributed versus prime versus peak? Any strong commentary may have me switching, again fwiw.

Thanks

[rico381]

There are three players I'm considering for this spot: Russell, Jordan, and Kareem. Others have made very good and lengthy arguments in favor of each guy, so I won't re-hash the whole case for each in depth. However, there are a few things that give me pause, and questions I'd like to answer before committing to a vote.

Kareem: For me, the question is: how high did he peak? He comes out on top of the career standings in Win Shares and probably just about any other comparable statistic, but considering the superlinear relationship from wins/points added to expected championships added, I'm not sure whether he'd still rank at the top in terms of championships. If he had peak impact comparable to Jordan or Russell in his best few seasons, but then he added in an extra decade of still-valuable all-NBA caliber seasons, that could be enough to put him over the top for me. If not, though, then the difference between a +10 player and a +8 (or whatever numbers you want to use) is big enough that even the extra years of solid play couldn't do enough to make up the difference.

If you take some of the stats from the early '70s at face value, Kareem looks like he's got a solid case. His 71-73 seasons rank first, second, and fourth all-time in WS/48. The more I look, though, the less convinced I am that it's really a peak on par with the greatest players ever. Those statistics are based on a very limited box score, with only points, rebounds, assists, fouls, and shot attempts counted. The NBA was weakened by expansion and by the early ABA poaching some of its great players. In the same way that the SRS of the best teams from that era isn't directly comparable with the SRS of teams from different eras, Win Shares get skewed when the competition gets weakened so drastically. Furthermore, in 72 and 73, he was really underwhelming in the playoffs. He played great defenders, yes, but his efficiency totally tanked. When compared to the very best peaks/primes like Jordan, who has several 30 PER/.300 WS/48 seasons where he carried the same production with him into the playoffs, often all the way through the finals, it's hard to find that Kareem's best really matches up. There's lots of value to being at that next level down for a long time, an all-NBA or even MVP caliber player who just doesn't quite reach the a-season-for-the-ages level, but I don't think I can put him #1. I am interested in looking farther into just how good he was at his peak, though.

Russell: My big concern is his offensive impact. I've seen the numbers about how, despite the reputations of some of Russell's teammates as offensive stars, the Celtics won as an all-time great defensive team with an average-to-poor offense most years. What concerns me is that the discussion then becomes solely about how much value Russell provided on the defensive side of the ball, without any concern for the offensive side. Looking at the Rel_ORTG and Rel_DRTG provided on basketball-reference, we see the Celtics go from a +0.7 SRS team in '56 (+1.9 O/ +1.4 D) to a +4.8 SRS team in '57 (-0.4 O/ -4.9 D). If you just look at the defensive side of the ball, there's a 6.3-point shift there. That's certainly the way it appears in posts like this: http://elgee35.wordpress.com/2010/12/31 ... ve-impact/ (which, despite my minor criticism here, is truly excellent work). Looking at the total package, though, it's a 4-point shift that we're looking at, because the offense dropped off by two points the year Russell came in (after being at least 1.9 points above average each of the six years before), and stays below average every year of Russell's career. There are a few possibilities here that I can see, but all of them are concerning in some way:

1) Russell is genuinely below-average as an offensive player. This seems harsh, and very well may be. Until shown otherwise, though, I feel there's real cause for concern here. The post showing Russell's rank in shooting efficiency and usage among centers has already been quoted a couple times, and Russell comes out pretty close to dead last in both regards every year. Center is probably the most important position in the early NBA offensively as well as defensively; he's your tallest player, and takes up the most valuable real estate under the hoop. With the lack of a three-point line and the difficulty in driving, the deck is stacked against guards in many ways. When your center doesn't score with volume or efficiency, that might explain some of the mystery of why teams supposedly loaded with offensive talent did not perform as such.

2) The team makes intentional stylistic tradeoffs that sacrifice offense for defense. This possibility further shows the importance of not trying to separate offensive and defense numbers, but rather looking at the margin between them. Whether it was playing lazy offense to preserve energy for defense, choosing tactical spacing to guard transition opportunities (or not gambling for one's own opportunities), playing more defensive specialists rather than offensive, or something even more subtle, it's not as simple as "add Russell and improve your defense by 10 points"; it's more like "add Russell and give up two points of offense to improve your defense by 10 points".

3) Our estimate of Boston's pace is wrong. We don't have actual numbers for offensive/defensive rebound splits, or for turnovers. Either of those could lead to our guesses being off by a possession or two a game. If it turns out the average Celtics game had one fewer possession than we guessed, the offense moves up by about a point and the defense moves down by about a point. This falls under the general subclass of (2), I would think, and we should adjust our conclusions similarly.

4) The offensive inefficiency was the result of an intentional tactical choice, but the defensive gains could've been had without it. This would be claiming that the Celtics ran a really bad offense simply because they didn't know any better. Considering the Heinsohn quote earlier in this thread, this may not be quite as unbelievable as it sounds. He doesn't reveal any understanding of how possessions work in basketball, or the fundamental tradeoff where after you take a shot, the other team gets the ball to shoot. He talks about how they'll take 20 more shots than their opponent, and yet never mentions rebounding or turnovers, seeming to think that merely rushing to take your shots quickly will make that happen. Maybe it'll reduce your turnover rate, but for the most part, it doesn't make much sense. If this is true, then Russell's defensive impact is intact, but it's a major blow to his (and Red's) claim to basketball genius. He's clearly an absolute savant in some ways, but if the Celtics didn't need to run such an inefficient offense to help out their defense, and yet continued doing so, either Russell failed to see the problem or wasn't influential enough to change the team's approach. Since Auerbach was coach for years before and the Celtics did manage some efficient offenses, though, this possibility looks very unlikely to me.

5) It's all due to some reason totally separate from Russell. I don't know what this reason would be, but that's also possible. Maybe some other personnel change accounts for the offensive drop. Whatever it is, the burden of proof is on the Russell supporters, since 1-3 seems far more likely.

A few times in this thread, I've seen Russell supporters argue that Boston was an average-to-poor offensive team throughout Russell's prime, and then use this as a point to Russell's credit. While yes, it does make their defense more impressive, we can't just ignore their struggles, either. Right now, the evidence I'm seeing indicates that Russell was a below-average individual offensive performer on a below-average team offense. I saw at least one poster estimate that Russell was a +10 on defense, while the best offensive players were +9/9.5. The problem is that we're then left comparing Russell's offense, which looks like it was at best average in his own time (and possibly well below) to Jordan's defense, where he's on the shortlist to be the best perimeter defender ever. That makes me think Jordan's total impact would be higher than Russell's, unless you'd take issue with the numbers used and would place an even larger gap there. If you think Russell's defense is several points more valuable than the offensive GOAT's offense, then sure, but that sounds like it's stretching the case a bit far. I am definitely looking forward to hearing input on this issue from Russell supporters, though.

I'm not 100% ready to commit to a vote, but as this post indicates (and I've talked myself into), I'm leaning towards Jordan here. I feel like he's got the fewest question marks, and is a contender for best offensive player ever and for best perimeter defender ever. Maybe he's not exactly #1 in both areas, but he's so close as to offer a better complete package than anyone else. It's much easier to feel confident in our ability to accurately measure what he provided when his contributions were in the modern era, with full box scores, endless video evidence, and even bits and pieces of RAPM, and mostly on the offensive end of the floor, largely from his own shooting, backed up with strong and lengthy playoff runs every year. Everything points toward our data being most trustworthy about him (among contenders here), and the results he achieved both on an individual and a team scale are unmatched.

[ThaRegul8r]

Re: "He did not make any known game winning plays." Man, just listen to yourself. There isn't anyone from that time period who wouldn't laugh at your for talking like this. It blows my mind how you can be old enough to remember the '70s, but not imagine how it would sound if a younger person talked about the '70s saying "I didn't watch ball in the '70s, but I'm sure I would have heard about it if X ever did anything useful to help his team at the end of one of the 1000 games he played in."

It would help me if someone could tell me about a game winning play Russell made. Jordan, and to a lesser extent Jabbar, hold a card over Russell with game winning plays. For the Celtics it's

Selvy missed an open shot
Havlicek stole the ball
Sam Jones's shot
Don Nelson's shot
Wilt not being put in the 4th quarter

Despite not wanting to respond, statements made in ignorance, repeatedly, just grate at me.

Here's "a game-winning play Russell made."

Game 5 of the 1968 NBA Finals against the Los Angeles Lakers:

Boston won Game 5 120-117 in overtime to take a 3-2 lead. John Havlicek scored 31, four in overtime, Don Nelson scored 26—five in overtime, and grabbed 12 rebounds. Boston blew a 14-point fourth-quarter lead. In overtime, Boston trailed 115-113 with less than two minutes remaining when Larry Siegfried grabbed a rebound for a layup to tie the game at 115. Nelson took a rebound and scored to put Boston up 117-115. West nailed a jumper to tie the score at 117 with 56 seconds left, but Havlicek hit a jumper with 38 seconds left. “The Lakers’ Elgin Baylor appeared to get loose for a bucket that would have tied the game. But suddenly Boston player-coach Bill Russell came out of nowhere to block the shot and that was it […]” (Toledo Blade, May 1, 1968). Don Nelson recovered the loose ball, was fouled and “missed the first of two clutch free throws before making the final one to clinch the decision” (Toledo Blade, May 1, 1968). “I was guarding Mel Counts and I came off him to block that shot,” Russell said. “Actually, it was a very bad thing to do, but I thought I’d be sneaky, and it worked this time anyway” (Toledo Blade, May 1, 1968). Russell had 22 (6-9 FT) points and 25 rebounds

Game-saving/winning block, blocked to a teammate, Lakers were subsequently forced to foul, game over.

There's a big difference between:

"He did not make any known game winning plays."

and

"I don't know of any game-winning plays he made."

Not being aware of something doesn't mean it didn't happen.

[penbeast0]

I don't believe Russell was a good offensive player, probably below league average from 61 on (above it 57-60). I think your #2 is more the argument in favor of Russell. That he isn't a key offensive factor (good passing and enough scoring to force you to defend him keeps him from being too negative) but that his defensive impact is so great that the D-O for Russell is greater than the O+D factor for Kareem or Michael.

I think you are missing one of the key questions about Michael too -- did his early play help his team to the same extent as his later play under Phil Jackson and he was just limited by bad teammates or did his hero ball tendencies limit his team's success to some degree until Jackson convinced him to share a bit. You see both argued here.

[ardee]

Here's how I've got the voting, just to make sure it's accurate (only counting the votes from the list penbeast0 made in the other thread):

Michael Jordan: 22 (Basketballefan, JordansBulls, SactoKingsFan, GC Pantalones, Baller2014, Dr Positivity, PCProductions, therealbig3, Quotatious, kayess, batmana, trex_8063, Jaivl, DannyNoonan1221, Owly, Mutnt, DHodgkins, An Unbiased Fan, O_6, rich316, DQuinn1575, Moonbeam)

Bill Russell: 9 (penbeast0, Texas Chuck, Warspite, Dr Spaceman, ardee, fpliii, Doctor MJ, drza, magicmerl)

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar: 2 (Greatness, ronnymac2)


Last vote counted: Moonbeam, post #262

I'm impressed we got 9 Russell votes. On any other board this would have been a walkover for Jordan.

fwiw, my MJ vote is not set in stone. Is there an official time we are cutting off?
My biggest question is my own: How much do you evaluate by career championships contributed versus prime versus peak? Any strong commentary may have me switching, again fwiw.

Thanks

I personally believe the whole prime/peak thing is a little overrated. It's fun to discuss the best peak, but when you're evaluating players for their entire careers, you should look at the sum of value provided over every year of their careers.

For example, someone like Barkley peaked a good bit higher than Karl Malone (at least in my opinion). But Malone was a high-level contributor for longer, and the sum of the value he provides over his entire career is greater, even if Chuck's AVERAGE season was better. Then there's someone like Hakeem: fewer good years than Karl, but his good years were so good that the total value was greater, and obviously so is the average value of each season.

Which is why I like Russ here. Jordan peaked higher, no question about that in my mind, but Russell provided steady impact for 13 straight years. Jordan was up and down because of his retirements. He brings ('85, '87-'93, '96-'98) 11 full years to the table, and though his AVERAGE season was better than Russ's, I might be inclined to take Russell's total career value over his.

Again, not set in stone for me, might still change my vote.

[ardee]

You can make your own arguments for whether you want to look at multiple eras at once or pick one as the standard, but you can't just look only at "relative to one era" when you know that era was a weaksauce, broken league. There was nothing standard about the Russell era.

I rate Wilt and Russell toward the end of my top 10, Oscar and Jerry might make my top 20, Baylor would be lucky to make my top 40. You say winning 11/13 titles is the greatest achievement in professional sports. I question the degree to which a lot of Russell's era was a professional league, and I've discussed this at length already. It was not just weak compared to the modern era, it wasn't a pro league. There were a handful of teams, some of them not picking the best players because they were black, some of them wanting to pick local players, relatively no training by pros at a young age, and a lot of people not being interested in basketball because it wasn't a money maker for them. The 2nd best big in Mikan's era chose to be a salesman instead of play pro-ball, and the NBA was still recovering from that sort of thing, as well as the vastly smaller talent pool to draw on because it wasn't a perceived as a pro sport, and because black players only slowly got access to the league. Russell had by far the best team and the best organisation (with ridiculously slanted rules, like no free agency, territorial picks, etc). It's no shock they won repeatedly in their 8 team, whitebread, bush league.

Posts like this one piss me off.

If you have an era bias it's one thing, but terms like that rankle me because they smack of ridiculous exaggeration and academic dishonesty.

Are you just going to ignore fplii's post about the black player percentage? Are you going to ignore the fact that the fact that the Mikan fact you mentioned is irrelevant, as it happened over a decade earlier? Are you going to ignore the fact that fewer teams means deeper teams overall, leading to teams having individual cores like Wilt/Greer/Cunningham, Wilt/Baylor/West or Frazier/DeBusschere/Reed or Barry/Thurmond?

The second half of Russell and Wilt's careers was marked by them playing HOF centers in PRACTICALLY EVERY PLAYOFF SERIES THEY PLAYED. Thurmond, Reed, Bellamy, each other... That is some of the STIFFEST competition you'll ever see, and it was possible because of this 8 team league you seem so critical of

[Jim Naismith]

While Bill Russell's 11 titles are unmatched as a total, from a probability perspective taking into account number of teams, MJ winning 6 titles was a bigger achievement.

Pardon my naive math, but it seems Russell's achievement has a lower probability and thus is bigger:

Russell: 8 teams, 11 championships, so Prob = (1/8)^11 = 1.16415E-10

Jordan: 30 teams, 6 championships, so Prob = (1/30)^6 = 1.37174E-09

[DQuinn1575]

I personally believe the whole prime/peak thing is a little overrated. It's fun to discuss the best peak, but when you're evaluating players for their entire careers, you should look at the sum of value provided over every year of their careers.

Is that the sole criteria here - sum value provided over career? - feel free for anyone to comment- I'm at a combination of peak/prime/career value

[MacGill]

You can make your own arguments for whether you want to look at multiple eras at once or pick one as the standard, but you can't just look only at "relative to one era" when you know that era was a weaksauce, broken league. There was nothing standard about the Russell era.

I rate Wilt and Russell toward the end of my top 10, Oscar and Jerry might make my top 20, Baylor would be lucky to make my top 40. You say winning 11/13 titles is the greatest achievement in professional sports. I question the degree to which a lot of Russell's era was a professional league, and I've discussed this at length already. It was not just weak compared to the modern era, it wasn't a pro league. There were a handful of teams, some of them not picking the best players because they were black, some of them wanting to pick local players, relatively no training by pros at a young age, and a lot of people not being interested in basketball because it wasn't a money maker for them. The 2nd best big in Mikan's era chose to be a salesman instead of play pro-ball, and the NBA was still recovering from that sort of thing, as well as the vastly smaller talent pool to draw on because it wasn't a perceived as a pro sport, and because black players only slowly got access to the league. Russell had by far the best team and the best organisation (with ridiculously slanted rules, like no free agency, territorial picks, etc). It's no shock they won repeatedly in their 8 team, whitebread, bush league.

Posts like this one piss me off.

If you have an era bias it's one thing, but terms like that rankle me because they smack of ridiculous exaggeration and academic dishonesty.

Are you just going to ignore fplii's post about the black player percentage? Are you going to ignore the fact that the fact that the Mikan fact you mentioned is irrelevant, as it happened over a decade earlier? Are you going to ignore the fact that fewer teams means deeper teams overall, leading to teams having individual cores like Wilt/Greer/Cunningham, Wilt/Baylor/West or Frazier/DeBusschere/Reed or Barry/Thurmond?

The second half of Russell and Wilt's careers was marked by them playing HOF centers in PRACTICALLY EVERY PLAYOFF SERIES THEY PLAYED. Thurmond, Reed, Bellamy, each other... That is some of the STIFFEST competition you'll ever see, and it was possible because of this 8 team league you seem so critical of

Ardee, don't let your emotion creep into this project. All viewpoints are allowed to be expressed here and if you callout posters it will just derail/sideline the good conversation. Make your counter debates but remember...it's a voting panel so one vote, post, in a pool of 55 is hardly going to swing the debate here. Too many good posters keeping it real for that to happen man.

[mopper8]

While Bill Russell's 11 titles are unmatched as a total, from a probability perspective taking into account number of teams, MJ winning 6 titles was a bigger achievement.

Pardon my naive math, but it seems Russell's achievement has a lower probability and thus is bigger:

Russell: 8 teams, 11 championships, so Prob = (1/8)^11 = 1.16415E-10

Jordan: 30 teams, 6 championships, so Prob = (1/30)^6 = 1.37174E-09

I don't think those numbers are right, thats the probability of 11 in a row or 6 in a row. 11 out of 13 (or whatever) is going to be different.