uberhikari wrote:70sFan wrote:uberhikari wrote:
1. Calling counting stats from less than a season's worth of games "GOAT-worthy" is a monumental hyperbole.
2. Being the best defender in the era with the least amount offensive sophistication in the entire history of the NBA doesn't move the needle all that much for me.
Well, that's more than nothing. I didn't say that I judge Russell on a few games available on YT, but footage helps to understand his body of work and he looks really impressive for any era.
If you have such a low opinion of 1960s, don't rate West or Wilt. They weren't really better in the same era than Russell, at least not clearly better. Besides, you vastly underrate late 1960s basketball.
In terms of offensive sophistication, NBA wasn't that much different in 1965 than in 1985. You can watch games from 1965 and besides higher pace, offenses are very similar. We had teams using triangle offense (1966-68 Sixers), using movement offense (1968 Lakers), P&R heavy offense (Royals), off-ball movement and spacing offense (1969 Knicks) and many, many other ways to run offense. I don’t want to say that basketball was as sophisticated as in 2000s, but some people vastly underestimate variety of ways basketball was played during Russell career.
Also, offensive gameplans weren't the same in 1959 and 1969. Russell dominated defensively for his whole career at unmatched level. Even players like Wilt, Thurmond or Hayes couldn't reach that, if that doesn't impress you then nobody would.
1. I can rate West and Wilt because our ability to gauge offensive impact is way better than our ability to gauge defensive impact. Russell was surrounded by an assortment of good/great defenders on the perimeter. How can I attritube all of Boston's defense to just Russell?
2. The difference in sophistication in NBA offense from 2005 to 2015 is larger than the difference in sophistication of NBA offense from 1946-2005. That might sound like hyperbole, but go and watch some playoff games from the mid-90s and compare it to now. It's almost like a different sport.
3. It's not that I'm not impressed by Russell. But as Carl Sagan used to say, "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence." If you want me to believe that Bill Russell's defensive impact was comparable to Michael Jordan's offensive impact, I'm going to need very good evidence in order to believe this. As far as I can tell, no such evidence exists.
I'm not a Bill Russell skeptic; I'm a Bill Russell agnostic. Claims about Russell may very well be true, we simply don't have the tools to evaluate their veracity.
You have some strong evidences in Russell's defensive impact though. In his last season, Celtics were by far the best defensive team in the league. The year after they lost 2 players - Bill Russell and washed up Sam Jones. They went from all-time great defensive team to below average one. Unless you think that Sam Jones in his last season had big defensive impact, it's clear that Russell defense was huge for Celtics.
The argument with perimeter defenders also doesn't look correct, because early in Russell career Celtics didn't really have great defenders. Boston was bad defensive team in 1956. They lost Ed (weak defender by most accounts) and added Russell and Heinsohn, Ramsey started to play. It's not as easy situation as in 1969, but Heinsohn wasn't good defender based on everything I've seen and read about him, actually the only good defensive teammates early in Russell career was Loscutoff in limited minutes.
Russell teams always dominated on defensive side on the court in unmatched manner and the only link between all these teams was Russell. Even after Red retired, they were dominant on defense. Celtics team from 1957 was nothing like Celtics team from 1967, only Russell is the link. You can argue that it's not because of Russell but more because of coaching, team culture and strong defensive pieces but Celtics never became the same after his retirement. Actually, no team ever came close to this level of dominance on one end of the floor. We had Duncan/Pop dynasty in San Antonio, Riley Knicks and 2000s Pistons but no team ever reached Russell's Celtics level. And this level dropped to below average after his retirement.
No player can make team GOAT-level alone on either end. Of course Russell had some great defenders around him. Sometimes he didn't though, results were always amazing. Magic is one of the best offensive players of all-time, but he didn't make the Lakers great alone. Curry wouldn't make Warriors great without Green, Klay and Iggy. I think that Russell proved his defensive impact more than Magic/Curry, because he always succeeded. We don't know how good would Curry make your team with completely different roster, we know that with Russell.
