RealGM Top 100 List #3

[penbeast0]

THE WINNER OF SPOT #3 is BILL RUSSELL

[MisterWestside]

So now, let's look at Russell. By the measurement patterns of today he's 6-10 or 6-11, still an exceptional athlete in both the horizontal and vertical directions. At the very least, physically his gifts should closely replicate Garnett's. Stylistically, his horizontal game should also reasonably replicate Garnett's (pick and roll defense, area of help influence). However, Russell also was a demonstrated shot-blocker at least on the order of Mutombo.

He was an exceptional athlete. In his era.
He was a demonstrated shot-blocker at least on the order of Mutombo. In his era. (Blocking the shot of generally less-skilled offensive players, of course.)
He was a horizontal player. In his era.

How are those things relevant? Well...

Obviously I can't definitively state that this would be Russell's defensive impact, but based on my interpretation of the facts I speculate that to be a reasonable expected outcome.

It doesn't matter how you interpret the facts. The facts themselves say that you only know what he did, in his era. He never played in the modern era. Ever. It's also just as reasonable to surmise that wouldn't have nearly the defensive impact today that he did in the '50s-'60s. Just as capable (if not more capable) defensive anchors don't even break +6 today in impact over an entire decade, and you think that Russell would walk right in and achieve +11? Well, that's your rightful opinion. I would like for a player today to actually do that, in reality.

Russell's value today? +5 (pure RAPM scale) defense, +0 offense, decade's-worth of greatness.

Spoiler:

IMHO, of course

[ThaRegul8r]

BTW, that peaks project looks like it was a disaster. We'll have to try that one again, but maybe start out by just decided what was a player's actual peak.

This was a concern I expressed prior to the project, and, sure enough, it materialized as some people didn't even know what a player's peak was.

The problem is that people already know what players they feel should be on a highest peaks list, but they haven't actually thought about what the peak was, and then it's just throwing darts at the wall.

[Doctor MJ]

http://asubstituteforwar.wordpress.com/2011/01/20/chamberlain-theory-the-real-price-of-anarchy-in-basketball/

So for those not familiar with criticisms of Wilt, one thing I'd request you reed is my post above. I'd post the whole thing here but this is easier for me where I am.

Nice writeup. I want to touch on something that I think Owly may be alluding to, but I think is a *major* factor in assessing Wilt--as the #3 player or at any other level.

When we are talking about adjustment that teammates make, or adjustments that players make--Wilt is on an island. He’s so on an island that it’s inconceivable for any other player to do what he did. Imagine Charles Barkley playing for a year or two, then his coach telling him to up his scoring by 20-30%. After a few years of that, another coach tells him to cut his scoring by 35-50%, and become his team’s playmaker and lead the league in assists. A few years after that, another coach tells Charles to cut his scoring by another 50%--so he’s 60-70% below where he started—and be the best defender in the league.

Now imagine if the first change resulted in a team record for wins, the second change resulted in an NBA record for victories and a title, and the third change resulted in an NBA record for victories and a title. I don’t see how any other player in history could have even thought about making such massive, sweeping, individual changes—and had such dramatic success.

So, essentially, even if teams catch on to what you are doing with Wilt—you can come up with a New Wilt and win a title playing that way. How valuable is that? And does that affect the choices to have him play differently?

Thing is I don't think opponents really were "on to" Wilt in the sense that they had adapted and found a way to limit his impact compared to what he'd done previously. wilt simply never had the reliable impact of offensive superstar except in one year where he played essentially as the anti-Wilt compared to previous expectations.

As far as where that leaves him iny GOAT list, well what I want to make damn sure of always is that I'm heading into my analysis with the bottom line in mind. I think there's a tendency to say "yeah it
Was weird strategy that didn't really work but those numbers are so big I'm sure modern coaches would find a way to let him roughly do that and have it work". But I really don't think the evidence tells us this.

1. Wilt got those numbers because if the bad strategy. You can't isolate them as to events. I know not everyone agrees
With me in this but c'mon, only once in history did any teamtry this level of predictable, unbalanced offense, they do so to meh results, and we're to conclude there's a clear way to pull it off without the negative? It's naive.

2. The extreme nature of. hannum's paradigm shift along with the point you made about Wilt needing to be told just what to do is so telling to me. Clearly Hannum's wasn't in love with the IDE of Wilt ceasing to shoot the ball he just saw how damaging the current set up was and and said what needed to be said in irder for Wilt to truly pay attention to his teammates.

The scale of the shift then simply represents how hard it is to get Wily to play in balance. the fact that such a absurd shift basically killed off his volume scoring andn it still much improved the offense tells you how glaring Wilt's myopia on the
Court was.

now, would it be different if Wilt played more like Shaquille? would even Wilts blindness not be enough to stop him if he simply dumbed down his game and accepted his strengths? That's entirely possible.

on a GOAT lust of actual careers though this seems like a crazy thing to credit his for when he explicitly chose not to play that way. As I said before, it's ine thing to give a guy a benefit if the doubt that he'd still be a smart guy in another era, but to rate a guy based in the assumption that in another era he'd actually stop shooting himself in the foot seems to me to be an entirely different criteria. Than a GOAT list. That would be instead a
gOAT potential list where among other thing you're assuming Walton had perfect health.


Sent from my iPhone using RealGM Forums

[ceiling raiser]

...

Just wanted to let you know that I fixed a mistake in calculating the playoff off/def splits. I took into account overtimes when calculating pace, but not when adjusting PPG. Here are the adjusted numbers for Russell's teams:

Very similar to the original for the most part, but some minor differences later on in the dynasty. Apologies for my error.