Better peak - Leonard vs Russell

[70sFan]

Inspired by the other thread - who had better peak? Bill Russell or Kawhi Leonard?

[liamliam1234]

Man, come on, Russell was ranked 8th in the peaks projects, and it does not look likely that Kawhi will even make the top 25. I know you want to dunk on the world's biggest Kawhi stan, but this one is so unnecessary.

[Sublime187]

Bill Russell no doubt.

[Amares]

I guess we should not be inspired by trolls. Kawhi is at most top 5 player in the league at the moment, his peak is nothing special next to all-time greats, let alone Russell level.

[LKN]

Clearly HBK hasn't voted yet

[CumberlandPosey]

blasphemic thread.

[thebigbird]

I have to go with Kawhi here. How many people have scored 600 points on 62% TS in a playoffs?

[DatAsh]

Russell by quite a bit.

I try my best to put numbers to player's offense and defense to help me compare, otherwise I think I tend to overrate offense and scoring. Currently, I have

Kawhi: +4.5-5.5 off, +0.5-1.5 def
Russell: +0-1 off, +9.0-10 def

[LKN]

I have to go with Kawhi here. How many people have scored 600 points on 62% TS in a playoffs?

Your font is wrong

[AdagioPace]

two categories of people will vote here:

1)those who consider Bill Russell an ante-litteram Tyson Chandler will vote for Kawhi
2)reasonable people with a head on their shoulders will vote for Russell

[Clyde Frazier]

Great championship run by kawhi, but relatively speaking the best ability is availability.

[HBK_Kliq_33]

Russell isn't massively better than Leonard at any thing unless you want to try the health argument.

Scoring - Leonard is massively better
Passing - Russell is slightly better
Defense - Russell is slightly better

Leonard led his team in rebounds and is an elite rebounder for his position.

Overall, Leonard is better.

Leonard is a 2 time defensive player of the year and was the catalyst for one of the greatest defensive playoff runs ever in 2019. At the end of the day, Leonard is much better on defense than Russell is on offense.

[DatAsh]

Russell isn't massively better than Leonard at any thing unless you want to try the health argument.

Scoring - Leonard is massively better
Passing - Russell is slightly better
Defense - Russell is slightly better

Leonard led his team in rebounds and is an elite rebounder for his position.

Overall, Leonard is better.

Leonard is a 2 time defensive player of the year and was the catalyst for one of the greatest defensive playoff runs ever in 2019. At the end of the day, Leonard is much better on defense than Russell is on offense.

Russell is definitely "massively" better on defense. The defensive gap is bigger than the offensive gap.

[E-Balla]

Russell isn't massively better than Leonard at any thing unless you want to try the health argument.

Scoring - Leonard is massively better
Passing - Russell is slightly better
Defense - Russell is slightly better

Leonard led his team in rebounds and is an elite rebounder for his position.

Overall, Leonard is better.

Leonard is a 2 time defensive player of the year and was the catalyst for one of the greatest defensive playoff runs ever in 2019. At the end of the day, Leonard is much better on defense than Russell is on offense.

Come on this is a joke at this point, right?

[Odinn21]

Russell isn't massively better than Leonard at any thing unless you want to try the health argument.

Scoring - Leonard is massively better
Passing - Russell is slightly better
Defense - Russell is slightly better

Leonard led his team in rebounds and is an elite rebounder for his position.

Overall, Leonard is better.

Leonard is a 2 time defensive player of the year and was the catalyst for one of the greatest defensive playoff runs ever in 2019. At the end of the day, Leonard is much better on defense than Russell is on offense.

Come on this is a joke at this point, right?

At this point he is the joke.
I wonder why you, sane people, trying to talk some sense to someone who simply refuses to get.

[LKN]

Russell isn't massively better than Leonard at any thing unless you want to try the health argument.

Scoring - Leonard is massively better
Passing - Russell is slightly better
Defense - Russell is slightly better

Leonard led his team in rebounds and is an elite rebounder for his position.

Overall, Leonard is better.

Leonard is a 2 time defensive player of the year and was the catalyst for one of the greatest defensive playoff runs ever in 2019. At the end of the day, Leonard is much better on defense than Russell is on offense.

Come on this is a joke at this point, right?

If it's performance art he's clearly very dedicated

[HBK_Kliq_33]

Russell isn't massively better than Leonard at any thing unless you want to try the health argument.

Scoring - Leonard is massively better
Passing - Russell is slightly better
Defense - Russell is slightly better

Leonard led his team in rebounds and is an elite rebounder for his position.

Overall, Leonard is better.

Leonard is a 2 time defensive player of the year and was the catalyst for one of the greatest defensive playoff runs ever in 2019. At the end of the day, Leonard is much better on defense than Russell is on offense.

Come on this is a joke at this point, right?

Leonard has some of the best hands ever, only Jordan is close in their hands. Leonard also has elite athleticism, elite length, elite strength. He shut down Giannis, shut down Butler. In the finals he guarded Draymond and roamed around on defense and averaged over a block a game. Leonard is that guy. He's intimidating and he's goat level when hes locked in on somebody. His teams in 15, 16,17 were all elite defense. Russell is better on defense but Leonard is a stud in his own right.

Russell's scoring ability is what's more questionable.

[70sFan]

Russell isn't massively better than Leonard at any thing unless you want to try the health argument.

Scoring - Leonard is massively better
Passing - Russell is slightly better
Defense - Russell is slightly better

Leonard led his team in rebounds and is an elite rebounder for his position.

Overall, Leonard is better.

Leonard is a 2 time defensive player of the year and was the catalyst for one of the greatest defensive playoff runs ever in 2019. At the end of the day, Leonard is much better on defense than Russell is on offense.

All people laugh at defense comments, but I want to focus on different thing:

You just admited you believe that Russell wasn't massively better REBOUNDER than Kawhi because "Leonard led his team in rebounds and is an elite rebounder for his position". This is even more ridiculous than defensive comparison and honestly I'm surprised that I'm alone that realized that.

Russell is at worst top 10 rebounder ever. Kawhi is not top 10 rebounder ever at his position.

[70sFan]

Russell isn't massively better than Leonard at any thing unless you want to try the health argument.

Scoring - Leonard is massively better
Passing - Russell is slightly better
Defense - Russell is slightly better

Leonard led his team in rebounds and is an elite rebounder for his position.

Overall, Leonard is better.

Leonard is a 2 time defensive player of the year and was the catalyst for one of the greatest defensive playoff runs ever in 2019. At the end of the day, Leonard is much better on defense than Russell is on offense.

Come on this is a joke at this point, right?

Leonard has some of the best hands ever, only Jordan is close in their hands. Leonard also has elite athleticism, elite length, elite strength. He shut down Giannis, shut down Butler. In the finals he guarded Draymond and roamed around on defense and averaged over a block a game. Leonard is that guy. He's intimidating and he's goat level when hes locked in on somebody. His teams in 15, 16,17 were all elite defense. Russell is better on defense but Leonard is a stud in his own right.

Russell's scoring ability is what's more questionable.

Russell had better athleticism, better length, better strength. He shut down Wilt Chamberlain who was far better than Giannis or Jimmy freaking Butler. He also locked down offenses run by Oscar Robertson and Jerry West. He's intimidated to a point that guards didn't want to drive to the paint in a league without three point line and some anecdotes even tell us that some of guards were scared of taking open jumpshots without looking at Russell twice.

Russell lead elite defenses in 13 years of his career and only 5 of his teams were better than Kawhi's best defensive team (2016 Spurs), 8 of them better than 2017 Spurs.

Also, finally, Russell's defense is much more valuable than Kawhi's offense. Not even a question.

[70sFan]

I created this thread because I didn't want to continue that debate in different one. I think that the poll results are more than telling.