RealGM 2020 Top 100 Project: #4 (Bill Russell)

Post #1 » by **trex_8063** » Tue Oct 20, 2020 5:11 pm

2020 List
1. LeBron James
2. Michael Jordan
3. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
4. ???

Spoiler:

This thread will be open ~48 hours, unless there are extenuating circumstances (such as an ultra-close vote with low turnout initially). Anticipate this thread concluding around 1-2pm EST on Thursday.

Arenas of competition to be considered are the NBA/ABA/BAA, and the NBL (back as far as '47); highschool, college, and international play are excluded (except perhaps as a "tie-breaker" consideration).

Odinn21 · Post #2 » by **Odinn21** » Tue Oct 20, 2020 5:20 pm

4. Bill Russell

Spoiler:

5. Tim Duncan
If that's OK with you trex_8063, I'm going to link your awesome post about Duncan from the previous thread.
viewtopic.php?p=85792371#p85792371

6. Wilt Chamberlain
#5 for me was a battle between Duncan and Chamberlain. Duncan's intangibles and postseason rise made me go with him, but Chamberlain also had it all. Peak, prime, longevity. His average prime level is just superior to Duncan's. Heck, maybe even superior to Russell and Abdul-Jabbar as well.

---

I see a certain drop off after these 6 names (3 already in and 3 voted for). Shaquille O'Neal, Hakeem Olajuwon, Larry Bird, Magic Johnson, these names are behind in at least one major category, probably two. For example Bird had the quality, but not the longevity. Similarly for Magic. Their overall career value is certainly lesser. Let's see how will things turn out.

drza · Post #3 » by **drza** » Tue Oct 20, 2020 5:39 pm

(Repost from the end of #3, since that thread closed immediately after I posted. Since Kareem is in, take this post as a comp that helps show how well I think Duncan and Garnett compare to a player already voted in).

Doctor MJ wrote:
Odinn21 wrote:I'll be very blunt about few Garnett votes; those make no sense at all. His peak isn't top 5 level. His prime isn't top 5 level. His longevity and overall career value aren't top 5 level. His resume isn't there. All there is glorified +/- numbers. Even as great he was, his playoff play also doesn't stack up against the competition for the top 5. Saying he is one of the top 5 players the league has ever seen is a overcorrection for him being in a bad team for majority of his prime.

Garnett over Abdul-Jabbar and Chamberlain is ridiculous. Garnett is better than Abdul-Jabbar because Abdul-Jabbar has no reliable +/- and wowyr data while Garnett is the king of regular season +/- data? Gotta love that process.

So others have already said things in more detail but I feel I should say:

I consider Garnett's first superstar level impact season to be his 3rd season and his last to be his 17th season. That's 15 years.
Very few players can match that kind of longevity.

Still mining my old blog and finding information that fits in this thread https://hoopslab.rotowire.com/post/162535870741/kareem-vs-duncan-peak-impact-and-functional.

From that link I'll post a brief blurb comparing Kareem to Duncan in a similar WOWY way to that Kareem to Walton comp from the RPoY project, followed by a per-100 boxscore stats comp of Kareem vs Duncan and KG on a longevity front. And yes, I'm aware that not everyone loves either WOWY or per-100 comps, but they're information. Food for thought.

Kareem vs Duncan (and Walton), WOWY near peaks

I mentioned the genesis of ElGee’s WOWY work from the RPoY project, but of course he went on to develop it in much more detail across NBA history. As such, I can reference that work and find single-year WOWY runs, across multiple seasons during their peak years, for each of Kareem, Walton and Duncan. Let’s take a look:

Kareem 1975 (16 games missed): SRS in 2.6, SRS out -4.5

Kareem 1978 (20 games missed): SRS in 3.4, SRS out -1.7

Duncan 2004 (10 games missed): SRS in, 8.5; SRS out, 5.3

Duncan 2005 (12 games missed): SRS in, 9.3; SRS out, -1

Walton 1977 (16 games missed): SRS in, 7.8; SRS out, -2.6

Walton 1978 (10 games missed): SRS in, 9.4; SRS out, +1

(Note: I'm aware that the players involved missed more games than noted here, (e.g. Walton missed 24 games in 1978, not 10). I believe it's because Ben tried to use samples that corrected for other players potentially being out as well. Not positive, but I believe that's the case).

Looking at the raw data for these runs, two seasons each, right around each of their peaks…both Walton and Duncan seemed to be having larger impacts on their team’s fortunes at their peaks than Kareem did. At least, by this one estimate. Blackmill is one of the first to point out that the samples may be too small for significance, so make of this what you will.

But also keep in mind that this is now three different comparisons (to Walton, to Duncan, and to Russell in my previous post) where the available data that we have at least suggests that Kareem's impact, while great, isn't as big as some of his GOAT-peers.

Late career Kareem vs Duncan (and Garnett): functional longevity
Kareem (years 13 - 18): 30.6 pts/100 (61% TS), 10.4 reb, 1.1 stl, 2.7 blk, 4.1 ast, 3.7 TO (33 mpg)

Duncan (years 13 - 18): 27.3 pts/100 (55% TS), 16.6 reb, 1.2 stl, 3.3 blk, 4.9 ast, 3.2 TO (29 mpg)

Garnett (years 13 - 18): 26.8 pts/100 (56% TS), 14.2 reb, 2.0 stl, 1.7 blk, 4.6 ast, 2.8 TO (31 mpg)

I put these boxscore per 100 numbers up to have something quantitative, but obviously it doesn’t tell the whole story. It does give some support to my following statements, though:

1) Kareem was still clearly the best scorer of this group. More volume on much better efficiency

2) Duncan and Garnett were far better defenders. The rebounding numbers help show this, but I don’t really think it’s a controversial statement. Duncan and Garnett were inner-circle, best in the NBA level defenders during this period. Kareem wasn’t

3) If my premise from their primes holds merit…that despite Kareem’s dominant scoring with strong defense and strong passing, Duncan’s dominant defense with strong scoring and strong passing was of more impact (likely due to dominant defense tending to be higher impact than dominant scoring for bigs), then in their later years when these tendencies were even stronger…wouldn’t that suggest that Duncan’s impact difference was even larger than it was in their primes?

And this is year’s 13 - 18…by years 19 and 20, Kareem had clearly dipped further. Duncan also dipped for year 19, his last. And Garnett did as well, when he went to Brooklyn. So, I’d argue that year 18 is a reasonable end point for each of their functional longevity. And really…to that point, I’d argue that BOTH Duncan and Garnett were at least as effective as Kareem out to that mark...and really, more so with their defensive dominance.

limbo · Post #4 » by **limbo** » Tue Oct 20, 2020 6:35 pm

So i guess my question here is (for Russell enthusiasts), why should i take Russell over someone like Duncan, KG and maybe even Hakeem?

Usually, i'd get two answers here.

1. Russell was a better defender than Duncan.

- Well, not necessarily. We can postulate Russell had more individual defensive impact in his own era than Duncan, but, imo, for this to be relevant in cross-era comparisons, we'd need to be convinced Russell would be able to replicate a similar defensive impact in the 00's, which i'm not sure he would, due to the evolution and improvement of the league/talent making it impossible for a single player to impact the game defensively to that extent, and especially that consistently on a per-season basis. I know people like to imagine Russell combines KG's horizontal defensive game, with Duncan's IQ/positioning, with Mark Eaton's shot-blocking ability or something, and maybe he does to an extent, but we've had so many insane athletes come into the league since Russell, that had unprecedented combinations of physical/mental defensive attributes, such as Olajuwon, Ewing, Robinson, Mutombo, Garnett, Duncan, Wallace, you could put Dwight, Gobert and Draymond there as well, and none of them could do what Russell did consistently... Like, Duncan was leading a -7.0 defense on aggregate from 2004 to 2008... How much better do people realistically think Russell could do in his shoes? Russell had only got over -8.0 four times in his career as is, and he did with way less offensive responsibilities than Duncan and a strategy that was perhaps more geared towards maximizing defense... So if he had zero minimal offensive responsibilities i could maybe see him improving it by 1.0 or 1.5 maximum points, but again, that's with him providing way less value on offense, and even posing as a bigger liability on offense in the modern era...

2. You don't want to build your offense around Duncan anyway.

- Which is true. Ideally, you wouldn't want to do that, but a.) a lot of the time, you don't have that choice, and you have to roll with what you have available; and a guy like Duncan comes in REALLY handy on offense in that scenario. And b.) Duncan still brings a lot more value on offense than Russell even if you're not building around either. Duncan would be great in a 2nd/3rd option role where he's only tasked with giving you 15-20 ppg off his finishing ability. People talk about Russell being Bam Adebayo in the current era on offense, but that comparison is mostly agility/mobility based. If you actually look at the comparison from a skill-based POV, Duncan is actually closer to Adebayo in terms of his ability to finish at the rim, put the ball on the floor, pass and even shoot a jump shot outside the paint... Duncan did all those things super awkwardly, but the results were better than what Russell managed, even if he might have looked more fluid doing it...

Maybe in an outlier scenario where we have a team as offensively talented as the Warriors were with Durant... Maybe on that team, i would look to have Bill Russell over Tim Duncan, as a large part of Duncan's offensive skillset kind of becomes redundant when you have guys like Curry, Klay, Durant, Iggy, Draymond on your roster... so you might as well go for the guy you think would bring more value defensively... And even then you would have to be sure of Russell's defensive impact being greater than Duncan's outside of the vacuum that he played in, which is not a given by any stretch of the imagination. But this is an outlier scenario that rarely comes to fruition in real life. Most of the time, you will find that a guy like Duncan's offensive skillset comes in very handy when you're trying to compete for a title with a random team.

70sFan · Post #5 » by **70sFan** » Tue Oct 20, 2020 6:52 pm

Firstly, I want to say that you made some very interesting points and I'm starting to consider Duncan into top 4 again (have him 5th now). I'll try to reply to two of your points below.

limbo wrote:we've had so many insane athletes come into the league since Russell, that had unprecedented combinations of physical/mental defensive attributes, such as Olajuwon, Ewing, Robinson, Mutombo, Garnett, Duncan, Wallace, you could put Dwight, Gobert and Draymond there as well, and none of them could do what Russell did consistently...

Well, counter argument to that are Wilt, Reed and Thurmond (all that had unprecedented combinations of physical/mental defensive attributes) all played in Russell era and they didn't approach his level.

Russell had only got over -8.0 four times in his career as is, and he did with way less offensive responsibilities than Duncan and a strategy that was perhaps more geared towards maximizing defense...

For tenth time I beg you to consider that smaller league allowed to lesser variance from average. -8.0 in 1960s doesn't mean the same as -8.0 in 2003. It's mathematical fact that the bigger population is, the lesser weight each value carries.

DQuinn1575 · Post #6 » by **DQuinn1575** » Tue Oct 20, 2020 6:53 pm

limbo wrote:
Maybe in an outlier scenario where we have a team as offensively talented as the Warriors were with Durant... Maybe on that team, i would look to have Bill Russell over Tim Duncan, as a large part of Duncan's offensive skillset kind of becomes redundant when you have guys like Curry, Klay, Durant, Iggy, Draymond on your roster... so you might as well go for the guy you think would bring more value defensively... And even then you would have to be sure of Russell's defensive impact being greater than Duncan's outside of the vacuum that he played in, which is not a given by any stretch of the imagination. But this is an outlier scenario that rarely comes to fruition in real life. Most of the time, you will find that a guy like Duncan's offensive skillset comes in very handy when you're trying to compete for a title with a random team.

Russell didnt play for a random team; unlike Jordan, LeBron, Kareem he joined a pretty good team, one that might have won the first title without him. But then they kept on winning and winning. So they won 4 out of 5 or whatever - as good as streak as anyone. So does Cousy make Top 25 players of all-time on our list? But then Cousy retires, and guess what? They keep on winning, 7 out of 9? And Havlicek started as a sub on the streak, so does Sam Jones go Top 25? If the team wins 11 out of 13, my thought is that you 1 of 2 things:

1. Sam Jones, Havlicek, Cousy, and Russell are all Top 25-30 players - 4 guys of Pippen/Wade/Nash level-ish

2. Jones, Havlicek, Cousy are Top 50 players, and Russell is Top 5.

Most of the opinion is 2, not 1. Russell's talented teammates werent that much ahead of WIlt, Duncan, Magic, whoever, to win 11 out of 13.

Wilt's stats and dominance speak for themselves. To quote is records here would be silly, as I'm sure virtually everyone here has seen them. If this was baseball and we didn't value championships as much, Wilt would be #1.
. But we do, and Russell beat him 11-2, or 9-1 if you only count when they both played. So, Russell wins.

So, for the first time, this look is making me change my thinking, I'm taking Tim Duncan as next. I'll do some more looking before Spot 6, but right now I think his longevity gives him the spot over Bird, Magic, Shaq

My Vote:

1. Russell
2. Wilt
3. Duncan

Post #7 » by **trex_8063** » Tue Oct 20, 2020 7:15 pm

(repeating from last thread, with some added tidbits about Russell)

The Curious Case of Timothy Duncan

Spoiler: I think Duncan is underrated; grossly so in the mainstream, but even a tiny bit here on RealGM. I’ll get to the evidence or arguments pursuant to that. But first---although this might seem backwards---I’m going to start with the reasons WHY [imo] people tend to under-credit him…..

1.

His game doesn’t really contain the moments of flashy brilliance (a la Magic or Bird [or Nash or Ginobili]), nor the jaw-dropping aerial acrobatics of someone like Jordan (or Kobe, or Vinsanity). I mean, his primary nickname was “The Big Fundamental”. Check your thesaurus; you wanna know a synonym for fundamental?: basic.

And basic isn’t sexy. It doesn’t sell. Sometimes it even flies so far under the radar that people don’t even recognize the value of it.
But when done consistently, and very very well [and by an understated NBA-level athlete], “basic” is really damn effective.

Doesn’t hurt that he did this while also being nearly 7-feet tall, too. Which brings me to the 2nd reason why he’s undercredited…..

2. He’s so bloody tall!
Both casual fans and media tend to not identify with the bigs.

In the 90s when the mythology of Jordan and his indisputable GOATness was being established, in casual discussions about who was 2nd-greatest [‘cause you didn’t dare question who was THE greatest], it almost invariably revolved around two candidates: Magic and Bird. Kareem would occasionally be name-dropped (though usually as more of a dark horse candidate). Wilt would RARELY be mentioned; and Russell was mentioned not at all.

What do these latter three individuals have in common? They were all bigs.

I think it’s partly because we can maybe fantasize about ourselves dominating a game like the smaller guys, doing things like dribbling, shooting from the outside, and passing, etc.

Most of us can’t imagine controlling a game with the [decidedly less sexy] acts of changing [or just deterring] shots at the rim, securing rebounds, or being a threat in the post.

99.9% of us are nowhere near big enough to even imagine what that’s like. So we don’t identify with the guys for whom that’s their bread and butter.

And perhaps there’s some more subtle subconscious bias against bigs, ingrained in us from media.
Certainly in literature, folklore, and tv/movies, “giants” are almost invariably portrayed in an evil or at least unflattering way: the giant in Jack and the Beanstalk (bad guy); ogres in multiple sources; the giants in Game of Thrones are portrayed as ugly, brutish, and possibly of lower intelligence; the Lenny character in Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men [who has been parodied in Looney Tunes] is a pitifully simple-minded oaf who doesn’t understand his own strength---->the “big and dumb” motif has been repeated in many shows/movies, actually. Etc etc…..

Whatever the reason(s), many don’t wish to sympathize with the NBA’s great big men.

If two players are of basically equal dominance on the court, but one is 6’6” and the other is 7’1”.......the mainstream will almost unanimously crown the shorter guy as the “greater” player.
I’ve even had discussions with posters here who have explicitly stated they don’t much credit guys who seem to rely on their size and/or only seem to come to some degree of dominance thru being so bloody huge.
They say it’s “harder” for a guy to dominate the game when he doesn’t have that advantage of basically being a giant.
They say they’re more impressed with a player who can achieve dominance thru something other than that kind of outlier height (though they never seem to want to walk all the way down this path of reasoning to proclaiming someone like Muggsy Bogues one of the most remarkable/best players ever; there’s apparently an arbitrary stop-point of non-tallness).

I could just as arbitrarily say I’m more impressed with the [tall] player being able to achieve that same level of dominance while being so much slower. It’s no different.

3. Too Stoic

Duncan doesn’t have the emotional expressions of joy (a la Magic). He doesn’t have a boyish or playful exuberance (a la Shaq). He doesn’t engage in shows of machismo or “look how fierce I am” outbursts (a la KG, maybe Jimmy Butler, or even Lebron [flexes his muscles]). He doesn’t have the flashes of almost psychotic competitiveness, the “you think you’re better than me?” answer to challenges that weren’t even uttered, but which [even imagined] provided Jordan’s drive.

No, Duncan was probably more often accused of having the stoicism of a robot. That left many a casual observer feeling, well…..bored by him.

They couldn’t [or at least didn’t want to] identify with a guy who went about his job as one of the world’s greatest basketball players with the same professional reserve you’d expect of someone punching the clock before sitting down in their cubical office space.

4. Small Market
He played his entire career in one of the smallest markets in the NBA. For that reason alone, he’d already have less spotlight on him than most similar-tiered superstars.

5. Not a “scorer”
I mean, he did score [and a lot]. But that wasn’t really his calling card (especially late in his career), and he would happily sacrifice primacy if it was for the betterment of the team. But when you’re not averaging something close to 30 ppg, the casual fan [for some reason--->namely poor understanding of what actually produces impact in basketball, imo] can easily dismiss you as not REALLY one of the greatest in the game.

All of these reasons sort of compound on each other to make him a somewhat under-credited individual.
But at this point (damn near TL;DR already) I suppose I should get on to some points that illustrate that he is underrated at all….

So How Good Was He?
He was awfully damn good at the game of basketball. Hopefully we all watched him play, so I’ll try to provide the evidence by way of:
*looking at media-awarded accolades (fwiw)
**providing the statistical backing,
***and then backing it up with some tangible measures of impact.
And I do so looking at both peak and full career (with some snippets of prime).

In terms of media accolades:
*He was a 2-time MVP, and is 9th all-time in MVP award shares.
**He’s tied for 2nd all-time (only Lebron has bested him) in All-NBA selections.
***He’s tied for 4th all-time in All-NBA 1st Team selections.
****He’s tied for 5th all-time in All-Star selections
*****He's tied for 3rd *all-time in FMVP's (*though safe to assume Russell would have edged him there)
******He’s #1 all-time in total All-Defensive selections (with 15 [8 1st Team nods])

So he’s looking pretty substantial there.

Let’s now take a look at his likely peak season [‘03]; and to put it into perspective, I’m going to compare it to the peak season of another big, a big many hold in extremely high esteem: Hakeem Olajuwon.

‘03 Duncan (rs, per 100 poss): 31.6 pts @ +4.5% rTS, 17.5 reb, 5.3 ast, 0.9 stl, 4.0 blk, 4.2 tov, 3.9 pf.
‘94 Hakeem (rs, per 100 poss): 33.7 pts @ +3.7% rTS, 14.7 reb, 4.4 ast, 2.0 stl, 4.6 blk, 4.2 tov, 4.5 pf.

‘03 Duncan (playoffs, per 100 poss): 30.6 pts @ +5.8% rTS, 19.1 reb, 6.6 ast, 0.8 stl, 4.1 blk, 3.9 tov, 4.0 pf.
‘94 Hakeem (playoffs, per 100 poss): 35.9 pts @ +4.0% rTS, 13.7 reb, 5.3 ast, 2.2 stl, 5.0 blk, 4.5 tov, 4.4 pf.

Overall, he sort of looks comparable [statistically] in both rs and playoffs. Both players led their teams to a title with relatively underwhelming [for a title team] supporting casts (Hakeem arguably a little more so).
The ‘03 Spurs were the better team in terms of record, net rating (both rs and playoffs, if I’m not mistaken), and SRS.
Duncan was #1 in the league in NPI RAPM and 4th in PI RAPM [according to J.E.’s numbers, though one other source had him as #1 in PI RAPM, too]; that’s for the whole year (rs and playoff combined). Hakeem was 3rd in the league in rs-only APM (distantly behind #1 David Robinson).

I’d previously (last thread) mentioned looking at players’ CAREER cumulative production/efficiency above replacement level as measured by PER and WS/48 (defining “replacement level” as PER 13.5 and WS/48 of .078 for rs, 12.5 and .064 for playoffs), using a modifier in the equation such that an average PER [15.0] carries the same value as an average WS/48 [.100], and weight playoff minutes 3.25x as meaningful as rs minutes.

If using raw PER and WS/48, and with no weighting for strength of era, Duncan comes out 5th all-time, even ahead of other longevity giants who also played [mostly] for good teams; guys like Karl Malone, Kobe Bryant, Shaquille O’Neal, and Dirk Nowitizki…..all trail Duncan in this (only LBJ, KAJ, MJ, and Wilt come out ahead).

If instead of raw PER and WS/48, I use scaled PER and WS/48 (to account for era-to-era, or even year-to-year differences in how common it is to deviate so far from the mean), and still no accounting for era…...Duncan remains at 5th all-time.

If I use my own intricate [though basically subjective] rating of years/eras, Duncan moves into 4th all-time (whether using raw or scaled figures).

If using a BPM model, well, he’s 6th *all-time (*or since 1973) in rs VORP, and 3rd *all-time in playoff VORP.

So he’s got the statistical chops of a top 5(ish) player, at least if you put any emphasis [at all] in a “total career value” type model.

And it’s not empty statistical value.
Duncan’s peak full-season [rs and playoff combined] PI RAPM is exceeded only by Lebron in the data-ball era.
Duncan’s best 10-years combined PI RAPM is 4th (behind only Lebron, Garnett, and Shaq).

Then there is, of course, the less granular team-based indicators of impact…..

*In 19 years, the Spurs NEVER failed to win 50+ games (that is: their win% was > .600 every single year for nearly two decades). Their cumulative win% during Duncan’s tenure was .710 (that is: they won 58 or so games ON AVERAGE).

**In 19 years, they never failed to achieve an SRS above +3 (the single worst was +3.30); they only had two seasons out of 19 in which they failed to achieve an SRS above +5 (which, historically, is roughly contender level). The 19-year average SRS for the Duncan Spurs was +6.55!!

***They not only made the playoffs in all 19 seasons, they only four times failed to get PAST the 1st round (and one of those was when, due to the brutally competitive WC and the way the seedings rolled out, they had to face a top 3-4 Clippers team in the 1st round [lost in 7 games]).

****They made it as far as the conference finals NINE times (again, in this brutal Western Conference). They went to the finals SIX times, winning five of those (and came about as close as you can possibly come in that one loss).

*****The AVERAGE Spurs defense during his tenure was -5.1 rDRTG. I just want to point out that that is, for instance, better than ANY defense Hakeem Olajuwon ever anchored. EVER! The 19-year average of a Tim Duncan-led defense was better than the peak [-4.9 rDRTG] Hakeem-led defense. Seriously think about that.

"The Pop Factor"
“But Tim always had Popovich [the real architect of Spurs success].”

We’ve heard this refrain before, haven’t we? It wasn’t Tim, it was Pop who single-handedly drew miracles out of mediocrity. It was Pop’s system that engineered the defensive dynasty that AVERAGED a -5.1 rDRTG over 19 years (peaking at an historic Russell Celtic-level -8.8 rDRTG [this AFTER Robinson retired, too]).

Well, Pop’s still there; but look how quickly the dynasty crumbled once Tim was gone. They had another fantastic year immediately after his retirement, although Tim had a hand in that [more on that to follow].
But just one year separated from his departure and two things happened that NEVER happened in his 19 years: they won fewer than 50 games and had an SRS < 3. They also lost in the 1st round (which had occurred only four times in 19 Duncan years). This would repeat itself the following year.
They’ve had a BELOW AVERAGE defense for two years in a row.
And this season they had an actual losing record, negative SRS, and missed the playoffs entirely.

They still have 4-time All-Star [most recently two years ago] DeMar DeRozan, who was also All-NBA 2nd Team two years ago, and is still in his prime. They still have LaMarcus Aldridge, who although getting on in years has aged fantastically well, and was an All-Star as recently as last year, and All-NBA 2nd Team two years ago.
They had a couple decent limited-minute veteran role players in Patty Mills and Rudy Gay. They have a few promising [though definitely not star quality] young players in guys like Derrick White, Dejonte Murray, and Jakob Poetl.

We’re not asking for a contender with this cast, but maybe just a playoff team?? If Pop is the true architect of prior Spurs success, surely he could manage that with this cast, right?

I don’t mean this to sound so disparaging of Gregg Popovich. I absolutely do think he’s on the short-list of greatest coaches ever. But something is missing…..

Tim’s Leadership

Sure, it was a give and take; but you might say Tim gave more than he took in their relationship. As great a coach as Popovich was and is, that dynastic winning culture just doesn’t work without Tim.
Especially about 4-5 years ago, you had multiple franchises trying to emulate the Spurs culture……..but [to quote ThaRegul8r] “try as they might to replicate the Spurs' recipe, all of them are forced to concede at a certain juncture that they're missing one essential ingredient: They don't have Tim Duncan.”

You don’t have to take it from me [or from ThaRegul8r]. You can take it from Pop himself.

When being interviewed wrt the winning culture that “he creates”, Pop responded:

Gregg Popovich wrote:Before you start handing out applause and credit to anyone else in this organization for anything that's been accomplished, remember it all starts with and goes through Timmy.

Spurs general manager R.C.Buford is on record saying:

R.C. Buford wrote:Tim's contributed to our success in so many ways for so long. I know people continue to point it out, and it needs to be pointed out, the support and what he's allowed us to do, but this is nothing new.

And….

R.C. Buford wrote:The truth is we all work for Timmy.

Says Sean Elliott (played four seasons with Tim, winning one title):

Sean Elliott wrote:We all see it R.C.’s way. We’re not dumb. We all know we wouldn’t have any rings without Timmy. Everybody understands that. We all feel like we’re working for Timmy.

If there’s a “Pop System/Factor” at play, it’s Tim’s presence that allows it to flourish. To again paraphrase statements made by ThaRegul8r in the past: Tim let himself be coached, which set the example for everyone else, thus empowering Gregg Popovich.
The system and the partnership worked so well because Popovich could coach Tim Duncan. This sounds pretty basic [and I suppose it is]. But in an era where superstars constantly flex their power, and coaches live in fear of getting on the wrong side of the superstar (and potentially being fired as a result), they tend to only yell at the lesser players, and allow the superstar to get away with anything.

Popovich didn’t have to worry about the usual BS. He had security [and authority] provided him by Tim Duncan. Pop would openly yell at Duncan in practice, and Tim would quietly accept it without complaint, would communicate respectfully and ultimately always defer to Pop’s judgment.

And the franchise player sets the tone for everyone else.

When your main guy at the top is nearly devoid of an ego, you will field a roster of players devoid of egos. Teams take on the personalities of their best player.

The Spurs were able to craft a coveted locker-room environment, where no one whined about minutes or shots or lack of spotlight because their star player embodied it.

But again, you don’t have to take it from me….

Gregg Popovich wrote:There's not an ounce of MTV in him. His approach is totally unique in today's world. […] He couldn't care less about himself.

Bruce Bowen wrote:Even in a day and age of promoting the individual, he didn’t allow anything about himself to take away from the good of the group.

R.C. Buford wrote:In terms of humility, he’s a different animal in today’s world. I’m not sure the systems that are in place now allow someone to grow up that untainted. In that way, you may never see another like him.

Leadership Beyond the Practice/Locker-room/Media Persona
“But Duncan always had excellent supporting casts.”

We’ve heard this refrain, too, no?

But Duncan is one of the few players for whom it doesn’t carry a ton of weight. That’s not to say that he didn’t have mostly good casts [he did]. But in his case, he facilitated their formation.

Remember the 2014 Spurs team? This team that seemed somehow greater than the sum of its parts? Let’s recall a few of those “parts”; in particular: Boris Diaw, Danny Green, and Patty Mills.

These guys combined for 28.4 ppg @ >59% TS, 9.6 rpg, 6.1 apg [3.4 topg] in the rs, and similar overall production in the playoffs, as well as comprising one of their most key defensive role players [Green], and a guy who provided them a ton of versatility on offense in particular and crucial “matching up” cog [Diaw].
Specifically in the 2014 Finals, this trio combined for 25.6 ppg @ 60.8% TS, 12.0 rpg, 8.6 apg [and only 3.0 topg]. Diaw in particular led the team in assists and was 2nd in rebounds during the series. A 2014 article was lauding the contributions of “role players” on that team, and described Diaw in particular as “a vital piece to the team’s success” and a “secret weapon”.

Well, backtrack to 2012, it is documented that Duncan voluntarily took a pay-cut to enable the Spurs to sign Diaw, Green, and Mills to the contracts they were asking for.

Although the wheels have pretty well fallen off the success bus now, the Spurs did have an excellent year in ‘17, just after Tim’s retirement.
But it seems Tim had a hand in that too: he voluntarily took a pay cut in ‘15 (and I think ‘14 as well) to allow the Spurs the cap space to acquire his replacement LaMarcus Aldridge, as well as re-signing Kawhi Leonard.
In essence, he was sacrificing for a team he would not even be part of; just looking out for the future after he was gone.

He supposedly took “team friendly” contracts at other points along the way. And indeed we can see that in his 19 playing years he earned more than $53M less than Shaquille O’Neal did [in 19 years], nearly $90M less than Kobe Bryant did [in 20 years], and $105M less than Kevin Garnett did [in 21 years, also mostly for a small market team].

Where most superstars are making demands or asking the franchise “what can you do for me?”----be it for greed, prestige, or petty competition [like “so and so over there is making $X, so I want $X+1”]: even Bill Russell is guilty of the latter [when Wilt got his then-historic $100,000 contract, Russell negotiated a contract for $100,001, just to make a point]----Tim was asking, “What do you need from me? You need me to take less? Fine, let’s do what we gotta do to put us in a position to win.”

So you can’t make much use of the "good supporting casts" as a detracting point for Tim Duncan, because he’s partly responsible for obtaining those casts.

Tim Duncan is quite simply the single-greatest team leader in the history of the game, imo. The impact he had OFF the court on his own success, and that of his team, is potentially so substantial that if someone were to rank him as the GOAT, I’d not argue them. I may not agree, but I’d at least acknowledge “I get it”.

When I look at a player whose statistical, impact, and accomplishment profile looks rather easily top 8 (and arguably top 5 [VERY likely from a total career value standpoint]), and then add on consideration of his extraordinary leadership resume [I mean, it doesn't sell shoes, but I still think it's pretty relevant in a discussion of basketball greatness], it makes him a LOCK on my "Mount Rushmore".

1st choice: Tim Duncan
2nd Choice: Bill Russell
3rd Choice: Wilt Chamberlain

I go Russell over Wilt for his superior portability, and because [as TrueLAfan put it simply] he won and he won and he won. I don't think he was a good offensive player, but the defenses he anchored are a phenomenal record of his impact. A 13-year AVERAGE of -6.9 rDRTG.
For comparison, the best defense EVER anchored by Wilt was -6.0 (that was with a rookie Nate Thurmond, as well as the scrappy defensive PG Al Attles). The best he managed in Philadelphia was -5.6; the best in LA (with Jerry West co-starring) was -5.3.

Not that Russell didn't have help, but he appears a clear cut above anyone defensively; and his low usage to some degree facilitates the quality players to be placed around him (he doesn't overlap with offensive players). And his team-oriented motivation helped steer the ship, imo.

Post #8 » by **penbeast0** » Tue Oct 20, 2020 7:17 pm

DQuinn1575 wrote:
limbo wrote:
Maybe in an outlier scenario where we have a team as offensively talented as the Warriors were with Durant... Maybe on that team, i would look to have Bill Russell over Tim Duncan, as a large part of Duncan's offensive skillset kind of becomes redundant when you have guys like Curry, Klay, Durant, Iggy, Draymond on your roster... so you might as well go for the guy you think would bring more value defensively... And even then you would have to be sure of Russell's defensive impact being greater than Duncan's outside of the vacuum that he played in, which is not a given by any stretch of the imagination. But this is an outlier scenario that rarely comes to fruition in real life. Most of the time, you will find that a guy like Duncan's offensive skillset comes in very handy when you're trying to compete for a title with a random team.

Russell didnt play for a random team; unlike Jordan, LeBron, Kareem he joined a pretty good team, one that might have won the first title without him. But then they kept on winning and winning. So they won 4 out of 5 or whatever - as good as streak as anyone. So does Cousy make Top 25 players of all-time on our list? But then Cousy retires, and guess what? They keep on winning, 7 out of 9? And Havlicek started as a sub on the streak, so does Sam Jones go Top 25? If the team wins 11 out of 13, my thought is that you 1 of 2 things:

1. Sam Jones, Havlicek, Cousy, and Russell are all Top 25-30 players - 4 guys of Pippen/Wade/Nash level-ish

2. Jones, Havlicek, Cousy are Top 50 players, and Russell is Top 5.

Most of the opinion is 2, not 1. Russell's talented teammates werent that much ahead of WIlt, Duncan, Magic, whoever, to win 11 out of 13.

Wilt's stats and dominance speak for themselves. To quote is records here would be silly, as I'm sure virtually everyone here has seen them. If this was baseball and we didn't value championships as much, Wilt would be #1.
. But we do, and Russell beat him 11-2, or 9-1 if you only count when they both played. So, Russell wins.

So, for the first time, this look is making me change my thinking, I'm taking Tim Duncan as next. I'll do some more looking before Spot 6, but right now I think his longevity gives him the spot over Bird, Magic, Shaq

My Vote:

1. Russell
2. Wilt
3. Duncan

Also remember that while Cousy is a deserving top 50 candidate and may go higher; the great majority of his value comes pre-Russell. He was a major disaster shooting way too much and way too poorly in the playoffs almost every year of the Russell era and as a regular season star, Russell's rookie year was his last hurrah. If you only look at the Russell years, the only player other than Russell who has a strong case for top 50 is Sam Jones, with Havlicek as the second best player but his inefficiency hurt his candidacy (he looks a lot better in the 70s, possibly because he was a rare player that actually improved in his 30s over his 20s and because of primacy/role, or possibly because the 70s were a weaker era than the 60s). Sharman had a couple of good year, Bailey Howell had a couple but neither played at an All-Pro level with Russell for even a 5 year stretch (out of the 13 rings). Ramsey and Don Nelson were good subs with Ramsey having some nice playoffs early on (to make up for Cousy), KC Jones and Satch Sanders were defensive specialists, the rest of the players were nothing special. Russell had deep teams but not all that strong at the top where most players in the top 10 had guys stronger than a Sam Jones or even a late 70s Havlicek with them (Hakeem is the exception here).

Post #9 » by **penbeast0** » Tue Oct 20, 2020 7:28 pm

Clearly as I have Russell as GOAT, I have him #1 here. Russell's GOAT status makes Wilt a strong #2 choice (remember that, as I said last thread, Wilt's playoff series resume against anyone other than the Celtics shows a higher playoff series win % even than Michael Jordan).

The #6 slot is where the competition gets tough. I used to have Shaq here, I think he peaked higher than Tim Duncan or Magic Johnson, but his late career was weak for a player of his talent and might drop him a slot or two. Bird rightly gets mentioned with Magic but his playoff dropoff was higher and his defense was even worse for much of his career (This is mainly eye test rather than stats and his back gets some blame but he was not an All-Defense type even when he got mentions). Duncan and Garnett were similar in that they were contemporaries with powerful impact but I have Duncan a bit more reliable, consistent, and although his situation was better, he took full advantage of it. Hakeem is another strong choice although I think his offense gets overrated here, he wasn't that efficient and was not a good passer for the first half of his career, I have everyone else a little lower. I also think Mikan has to be considered here despite his era but the era differential is too great to have him over someone like Shaq.

So, right now I have it as Duncan, Shaq, Magic, Hakeem, Bird filling out my top 10 but I am open to changing this vote.

1. Bill Russell
2. Wilt Chamberlain
3. Tim Duncan

LA Bird · Post #10 » by **LA Bird** » Tue Oct 20, 2020 7:31 pm

trex_8063 wrote:Both casual fans and media tend to not identify with the bigs.

I agree. Mainstream GOAT debates always resolve around perimeter guys and it's obvious why when you consider how much more popular they are than bigs.

Top jersey sales (2003)
1. Kobe Bryant
2. Allen Iverson
3. Tracy McGrady
4. Michael Jordan
5. Paul Pierce
6. Jason Kidd
7. Shaquille O'Neal
8. Latrell Sprewell
9. Dirk Nowitzki
10. Michael Finley
11. Lamar Odom
12. Kevin Garnett
13. Allan Houston
14. Jalen Rose
15. Tim Duncan <---

Look at some of those names ahead of peak Duncan and prime Garnett/Dirk. Even Shaq, who does a ton of things off the court and was coming off of a 3 peat, was only 7th. If fans aren't buying big man jerseys, they definitely aren't going to rank them highly in all time lists.

Post #11 » by **penbeast0** » Tue Oct 20, 2020 7:34 pm

LA Bird wrote:.... If fans aren't buying big man jerseys, they definitely aren't going to rank them highly in all time lists.

Not sure that's necessarily true. It's who they identify with. I have the Chris Bosh jersey from the Superfriends era, not LeBron or Wade. I don't rank him close to either but I was more that kind of big goof (while my brother has DWade and my nephew has LeBron).

Post #12 » by **Doctor MJ** » Tue Oct 20, 2020 7:35 pm

limbo wrote:So i guess my question here is (for Russell enthusiasts), why should i take Russell over someone like Duncan, KG and maybe even Hakeem?

Usually, i'd get two answers here.

1. Russell was a better defender than Duncan.

- Well, not necessarily. We can postulate Russell had more individual defensive impact in his own era than Duncan, but, imo, for this to be relevant in cross-era comparisons, we'd need to be convinced Russell would be able to replicate a similar defensive impact in the 00's, which i'm not sure he would, due to the evolution and improvement of the league/talent making it impossible for a single player to impact the game defensively to that extent, and especially that consistently on a per-season basis. I know people like to imagine Russell combines KG's horizontal defensive game, with Duncan's IQ/positioning, with Mark Eaton's shot-blocking ability or something, and maybe he does to an extent, but we've had so many insane athletes come into the league since Russell, that had unprecedented combinations of physical/mental defensive attributes, such as Olajuwon, Ewing, Robinson, Mutombo, Garnett, Duncan, Wallace, you could put Dwight, Gobert and Draymond there as well, and none of them could do what Russell did consistently... Like, Duncan was leading a -7.0 defense on aggregate from 2004 to 2008... How much better do people realistically think Russell could do in his shoes? Russell had only got over -8.0 four times in his career as is, and he did with way less offensive responsibilities than Duncan and a strategy that was perhaps more geared towards maximizing defense... So if he had zero minimal offensive responsibilities i could maybe see him improving it by 1.0 or 1.5 maximum points, but again, that's with him providing way less value on offense, and even posing as a bigger liability on offense in the modern era....

I'll start out by saying that I don't in any way consider Duncan a smarter player than Garnett and I'm not sure where this notion came from.

Garnett was ALWAYS a natural BBIQ guy to a degree that was shocking given that he struggled with things like the SAT. Work outs from his draft year tell stories of a kid who did bad in drills against cones but the moment he was matched up in a team basketball setting he was vastly more intelligent out there than guys who were college vets. He just had an instinctive feel for what to do out there, which has everything to do with how he was able to have superstar impact as a 3rd year player while Kobe would likely have still been less valuable to the Lakers than Eddie Jones if they hadn't traded Jones away.

Add into that the fact that Garnett defines the modern basketball middle linebacker - aka, the defensive quarterback. No one was better at reading the defense and not just committing to a right action himself but telling his teammates what to do out there. It's this ability that made the '07-08 Celtics revolutionize defense in the NBA.

On top of that, I really think we've seen in basically all eras that guys with the mobility to have strong horizontal defensive impact as bigs ARE the gold standard for defense so long as they have the requisite intelligence to make it all work. That's guys like Russell, Hakeem, and KG. (You could also make a case for Walton who was incredibly light on his feet for his mass.)

So this notion of "Would Russell really be able to be like Duncan today?" doesn't work for me. Duncan never was the gold standard. He was always less mobile than you'd want from a defensive big.

Doesn't mean he wasn't excellent or wasn't a DPOY-level guy because I think he was, but Duncan was always a guy fighting that uphill battle because his body wasn't ideal for big man team defense.

And to get back to Russell: I generally see him more instinctive than any defender in history along with his extreme lanky quickness. When I think of the ideal defender in basically any era where goaltending is illegal, I think of someone like Russell. (Without goaltending, the game would eventually devolve into a battle of behemoths likely breaking each others fingers on the rim.)

limbo wrote:2. You don't want to build your offense around Duncan anyway.

- Which is true. Ideally, you wouldn't want to do that, but a.) a lot of the time, you don't have that choice, and you have to roll with what you have available; and a guy like Duncan comes in REALLY handy on offense in that scenario. And b.) Duncan still brings a lot more value on offense than Russell even if you're not building around either. Duncan would be great in a 2nd/3rd option role where he's only tasked with giving you 15-20 ppg off his finishing ability. People talk about Russell being Bam Adebayo in the current era on offense, but that comparison is mostly agility/mobility based. If you actually look at the comparison from a skill-based POV, Duncan is actually closer to Adebayo in terms of his ability to finish at the rim, put the ball on the floor, pass and even shoot a jump shot outside the paint... Duncan did all those things super awkwardly, but the results were better than what Russell managed, even if he might have looked more fluid doing it...

Maybe in an outlier scenario where we have a team as offensively talented as the Warriors were with Durant... Maybe on that team, i would look to have Bill Russell over Tim Duncan, as a large part of Duncan's offensive skillset kind of becomes redundant when you have guys like Curry, Klay, Durant, Iggy, Draymond on your roster... so you might as well go for the guy you think would bring more value defensively... And even then you would have to be sure of Russell's defensive impact being greater than Duncan's outside of the vacuum that he played in, which is not a given by any stretch of the imagination. But this is an outlier scenario that rarely comes to fruition in real life. Most of the time, you will find that a guy like Duncan's offensive skillset comes in very handy when you're trying to compete for a title with a random team.

I think it's important not to evaluate all of this through a lens where alpha-ness ends up always as the deciding factor precisely because it's so easy to do so.

It's fine to say: "I recognize you wouldn't always be relying on these guys as scoring alphas, but sometimes you might, and Duncan has the edge there."

But you also have to say: "If you're trying to build a champion you probably aren't having these guys as your scoring alphas, and so how good are these players at the other roles you'd have them play such as passing, off-ball motion, rebounding, etc?"

And you have to also say that along with saying "Of course defense is really what matters mostly for these guys...".

What all that amounts to to me is that it's one thing if Jordan vs Kobe comes down in the end to who you think the better scorer is, because for both players that is their primary value add, but it's a bit of a red flag when debates about other types of players still end up with a large focus on scoring.

I'm not saying you're making your decision here primarily based on alpha scoring, but I think it's telling that when you talked about offense you gravitated toward a scoring focus, because I think that's natural for all of us. There's this sense of "but he proved he could volume score his way to a championship" like it puts him in a separate tier that I think we have to reject.

Duncan defended his way to championships. Period. He also volume scored in them, but the main reason he won was defense, and quite frankly once Ginobili & Parker got settled, Duncan was only the 3rd best offensive player on his team even though the offense still focused on having him score.

I'll finish with this:

I could see someone saying "Okay, you've convinced me Garnett > Duncan but I still think Duncan > Russell because of the offensive gap." Not saying that's likely from our typical starting points, but I could see that reasoning. Russell's weak scoring game is a thing here.

My preference for Russell is based really on the fact that I don't think he was slightly more impressive as a defender. I think he was a lot better. I don't see Duncan having that same type of impact Russell did. He just lacks the mobility.

Could the offense still give Duncan the edge? Perhaps, but as I've alluded to, I think people got the wrong idea of Duncan because he won titles while volume scoring. I think in a league with smarter offensive strategy, Duncan's role ends up looking a lot more like Russell's, and I'm inclined to give the nod to the guy whose better at what these guys are actually outlier-effective at.

Post #13 » by **trex_8063** » Tue Oct 20, 2020 7:39 pm

penbeast0 wrote:
LA Bird wrote:.... If fans aren't buying big man jerseys, they definitely aren't going to rank them highly in all time lists.

Not sure that's necessarily true. It's who they identify with. I have the Chris Bosh jersey from the Superfriends era, not LeBron or Wade. I don't rank him close to either but I was more that kind of big goof (while my brother has DWade and my nephew has LeBron).

You are an exception [as am I]. But we've had someone in this project using branded shoe sales as major distinction between two players, even seeming to imply it's why one could not overtake the other without some major additional career accomplishments.

70sFan · Post #14 » by **70sFan** » Tue Oct 20, 2020 7:41 pm

Parker wasn't better offensive player than Duncan until around 2009.

limbo · Post #15 » by **limbo** » Tue Oct 20, 2020 7:48 pm

70sFan wrote:Well, counter argument to that are Wilt, Reed and Thurmond (all that had unprecedented combinations of physical/mental defensive attributes) all played in Russell era and they didn't approach his level.

I don't think they had the mental faculties combined with the strategic foresight of their respective coaching staff.

You have to remember we're talking about an era where Wilt averaged from 30 to 50 ppg for half a decade and they still couldn't figure out a way to have an above league average offense, despite several different coaches and player turnover... That's the level of sophistication we're dealing with here...

Wilt did lead a -6.0 defense in '64 (and a better defense than Russell in '68), despite being a more prominent feature offensively than Russell... So we know the problem isn't with Wilt's inability to do it, as he has demonstrated a couple of times he had the potential (also, leading two -5.0 defenses at the ripe age of 35/36 past his athletic prime further cements this notion...)

Now...WHY didn't he do it more often, I don't know. But, I can only speculate it had something to do with Wilt just wanting to play a different brand of basketball, and thinking he could conquer the Celtics by individually outscoring them or something, and he lacked the proper coach/staff around him until 1967 with Philly and 1972 with LA to guide in into that direction. Which is an argument for Russell over Wilt at the end of the day, but i'm not arguing Wilt > Russell here, just trying to figure out some of the underlying reasoning.

As far as Reed and Thurmond go, i don't know enough about their situations. I can only speculate Reed wasn't good enough in the first place and wanted to be more of an offensive star above prioritizing defense anyway. Thurmond wasn't on that level, but he also came into his prime in the late 60's/early 70's, after Russell had done posting his best defensive results, which were from 1960-1966, where i believe the league to have been weaker than the late 60's, despite expansion.

Finally, we can look at George Mikan, who was able to lead some impressive defense just before Russell came into the league. Do you find Mikan to be the pinnacle of defensive ability in NBA history?

For tenth time I beg you to consider that smaller league allowed to lesser variance from average. -8.0 in 1960s doesn't mean the same as -8.0 in 2003. It's mathematical fact that the bigger population is, the lesser weight each value carries.

How does variance influence the final result? A smaller league means you're playing more of the same teams during the year, which can be good or bad, depending on the strength of the league. But since the 60's weren't same bastion of talent, it was generally in favor of the dominant team...The sample size basically consists of two decent teams, two mediocre ones, and 3 garbage ones. That's what Russell was mostly working with from '57 to '67. While someone like Duncan in 2003, he's gonna have more variance and a more even out spread, meaning his numbers are more impressive when achieved in a 30-team league as oppose to an 8-team one.

Jim Naismith · Post #16 » by **Jim Naismith** » Tue Oct 20, 2020 7:57 pm

trex_8063 wrote:In the 90s when the mythology of Jordan and his indisputable GOATness was being established, in discussions about who was 2nd-greatest [‘cause you didn’t dare question who was THE greatest], it invariably revolved around two candidates: Magic and Bird. Kareem would occasionally be name-dropped (though usually as more of a dark horse candidate). Wilt would RARELY be mentioned; and Russell was mentioned not at all.

Citation please?

According to ESPN in 1999, this was the list:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SportsCentury

LA Bird · Post #17 » by **LA Bird** » Tue Oct 20, 2020 8:03 pm

Reposting my Russell post in case anybody missed it last time:

Spoiler:

TLDR:
1. There is little evidence of Russell having by far the most in-era impact. Defensive impact? Yes. Overall two way impact? No.
2. Some players have led postseason offenses comparable in dominance to Russell's defenses without the trade-off on the other end of the floor. This means they were overall a more dominant two-way team than the Russell Celtics.
3. Celtics were a below average offense. Russell himself was not a particularly great offensive player and wouldn't be one today.
4. Boston won 11 rings but considering the playoffs format and quality of competition, they weren't any more dominant than teams led by other all time greats.

And some questions for anyone voting Russell over Duncan:

1. Why do you see the gap on defense as being larger than the gap on offense? For instance, drza referenced ElGee's postseason adjusted net ratings in support of Russell in the last round. He pointed out that the defense of the Russell Celtics over his career (-7.7) were the best ever and much stronger than the Duncan Spurs (-5.1). At face value, that is a 2.6 defensive advantage for Russell which is indeed impressive. But basketball is a two way game and on offense, the Duncan Spurs (+3.7) were ahead of the Russell Celtics (-1.4) by an even larger degree. That 5.1 offensive advantage for Duncan is almost twice the advantage Russell's team had on defense. What is the justification for valuing the Celtics's 2.6 defensive advantage more than the Spurs's 5.1 offensive advantage?

2. How do you rank the individual seasons of Duncan and Russell from best to worst? Peak 2003 Duncan has placed 2 spots higher than Russell in each of the peaks project by clear margins in votes and he has another season in 2002 on the same peak level. Duncan also has better longevity, with a 16th season that many posters recently argued to be better than peak Dwight Howard in the All NBA project. The only argument left for Russell to have a better career despite weaker peak and longevity is that he had a much better average 'prime' but is a season like 67 Russell really much better than 06 Duncan? Or 60 Russell vs 05 Duncan?

3. If your argument for Russell is that he anchored the GOAT dynasty, what are your thoughts on the points raised in this article:
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/bill-russells-celtics-were-great-tim-duncans-spurs-have-been-better/
In particular, this graph of the greatest dynasties by cumulative ELO above average which shows the Duncan Spurs performing at a higher level and for a much longer period? Note that the article came out in 2015 so the Duncan Spurs total is closer to 290k at the end of his career.

70sFan · Post #18 » by **70sFan** » Tue Oct 20, 2020 8:15 pm

limbo wrote:I don't think they had the mental faculties combined with the strategic foresight of their respective coaching staff.

Why not?

You have to remember we're talking about an era where Wilt averaged from 30 to 50 ppg for half a decade and they still couldn't figure out a way to have an above league average offense, despite several different coaches and player turnover... That's the level of sophistication we're dealing with here...

Then you should credit for Russell being so far ahead of his times in terms of sophistication, BBIQ and right approach he had. These things don't become obsolete in later eras.

Wilt did lead a -6.0 defense in '64 (and a better defense than Russell in '68), despite being a more prominent feature offensively than Russell... So we know the problem isn't with Wilt's inability to do it, as he has demonstrated a couple of times he had the potential (also, leading two -5.0 defenses at the ripe age of 35/36 past his athletic prime further cements this notion...)

These results are amazing, but they are not on peak Russell level.

Now...WHY didn't he do it more often, I don't know. But, I can only speculate it had something to do with Wilt just wanting to play a different brand of basketball, and thinking he could conquer the Celtics by individually outscoring them or something, and he lacked the proper coach/staff around him until 1967 with Philly and 1972 with LA to guide in into that direction. Which is an argument for Russell over Wilt at the end of the day, but i'm not arguing Wilt > Russell here, just trying to figure out some of the underlying reasoning.

That's fair, although as I said - he never reached true Russell's peak.

As far as Reed and Thurmond go, i don't know enough about their situations. I can only speculate Reed wasn't good enough in the first place and wanted to be more of an offensive star above prioritizing defense anyway.

I don't think that's the case with Reed, he was always more defensive minded player who was known for sacrificing his own numbers for team's benefit. I don't think Reed was any less capable than someone like Howard or Mourning.

Thurmond wasn't on that level, but he also came into his prime in the late 60's/early 70's, after Russell had done posting his best defensive results, which were from 1960-1966, where i believe the league to have been weaker than the late 60's, despite expansion.

Thurmond was on anyone's level. I've seen him shutting down whole Celtics offense in 1976 playoffs when he was old and past many significant injuries. He had all the tools - decent quickness, all-time length (longer than 7'8 wingspan), size, strength, toughness, dedication, defensive IQ (he studied his opponents, famously scouted rookie Kareem in Lakers games to find out his weaknesses). He was a physical freak in a way very few after him were.

Thurmond is the kind of player you could throw into any era and he'd become DPOY candidate year after year. Yet he never approached Russell's impact, even past prime Russell.

Finally, we can look at George Mikan, who was able to lead some impressive defense just before Russell came into the league. Do you find Mikan to be the pinnacle of defensive ability in NBA history?

The last time Mikan led impressive defense was in 1954, which was before shotclock era. I view Mikan was very good basketball player (unlike many posters), but the league and rules were significantly different in 1954.

How does variance influence the final result? A smaller league means you're playing more of the same teams during the year, which can be good or bad, depending on the strength of the league. But since the 60's weren't same bastion of talent, it was generally in favor of the dominant team...The sample size basically consists of two decent teams, two mediocre ones, and 3 garbage ones. That's what Russell was mostly working with from '57 to '67. While someone like Duncan in 2003, he's gonna have more variance and a more even out spread, meaning his numbers are more impressive when achieved in a 30-team league as oppose to an 8-team one.

You don't understand that from mathematical point of view being large outlier in smaller population is more impressive. Let's take a look at the best Duncan and Russell led defensive teams:

2004 Spurs: 94.1 DRtg, -8.8 rDRtg in 30 teams league
League average: 102.9
League average without Spurs team: 103.2
Spurs adjusted rDRtg: -9.1

1964 Celtics: 83.8 DRtg, -10.8 rDRtg in 9 teams league
League average: 94.6
League average without Celtics team: 96.0
Celtics adjusted rDRtg: -12.4

Celtics outlier value had significant weight in league average, much more significant than Duncan's Spurs.

Ambrose · Post #19 » by **Ambrose** » Tue Oct 20, 2020 8:19 pm

I don't think he's arguing the fact that Russell's Celtics skewed the league average more. I think he's arguing that it's simply easier to be a dominant defense in an 8 team league than a 30 team league due to the quality of the rest of the league. I could be wrong.

70sFan · Post #20 » by **70sFan** » Tue Oct 20, 2020 8:28 pm

Ambrose wrote:I don't think he's arguing the fact that Russell's Celtics skewed the league average more. I think he's arguing that it's simply easier to be a dominant defense in an 8 team league than a 30 team league due to the quality of the rest of the league. I could be wrong.

But he didn't answer to my point then. Besides, I don't see any reason to believe that the league was untalented in the early 1960s. I've seen some of the worst teams in the league in action from that era (1962 Knicks, 1960 Royals and Lakers, 1967 Pistons, 1968 Rockets) and none of them looked untalented outside of 1962 Packers (which were terrible, I have to say that but only in one season).