70sFan wrote:freethedevil wrote:"I said past" not "at" And i was specifcally referring _pace_.
Then you are wrong, because:
- 1960 Celtics finished at 64.5 wins pace (
65.4 wins pace with Russell - he missed one game),
- 1962 Celtics finished at 61.5 wins pace, so below 63, but with they were at
64.7 wins pace with Russell.
- 1965 Celtics finished at 63.6 wins pace (
64.1 wins pace with Russell - he missed two games).
You are wrong, because Celtics played above 63 wins pace with Russell in three different seasons. How can you argue that?
What the hell are you talking about?
Ah, fair enough I was looking at expected w-l on the assumption they adjusted for 82.
Very well, let me ammend my previous statement, russell was never able to lead a 65 win team in the regular season. Reminder, 3/4ths of title teams in the last 15 years played 65 win basketball.
And this is the regular seqason, not the postseason where the russell celtics have several seasons where they regressed by more than any other team in history by a **** landslide. You really need to be special to get taken to 7 by three -srs teams with a team that without played like the 19-20 bucks played without giannis before you came.
No it is not harder. That's a random thing you've pulled out of thin air. Just as there are less "weak" teams to beat up, there are less "strong teams" to lose to or not beat up by an impressive margin.
This is just an opinion that is not backed up with any facts.
[b]you are the one arguing for a special curve not me, the burden of proof on you[/b]
1950s: 3
1960s: 7
1970s: 9
1980s: 15
1990s: 21
2000s: 15
2010s: 16
wait, you're telling me that there were less 60 win teams in a smaller league than there were in a bigger one? Gee I wonder why.You can see how big of an effect expansion really had in the 1990s, but it's clear that 60 wins teams are more common in bigger league than in smaller one. It's mathematical fact that bigger outliers are more likely in bigger populations.
no ****, alas, this is meaningless for russell because russell did not have to worry about increasing thetotal number of 60 wins in the league, all he had to do was increase his own team's and you've presented like zero proof that was substantially harder in the 60's. Going by your own fancy list the number of 60 win teams in th 60's is actually perfectly on pace with what we wuld expect if induvdiual lift was easier/harder
Beyond, that....None of this should even matter. [b]ERA REALITVITYdoes not give a **** about era-specifc difficulty.
You dont lower the celtics for a limited talent pool, dont be trying to use "well it was harder to lift teams in the 60's" as an excuse.[/b]
Bill Russell's best teams never had to face the 09 celtics, the 09 magic, and the 09 lakers in one season, all teams that could easily be argued for against ANY team bill russell played the entireity of his career.
No team faced 2009 Celtics, 2009 Magic and 2009 Lakers all in 2009 season, so what's your point?
:/ what? Did regular season scheduling not happen or...Russell faced 55 wins Sixers, 54 wins Knicks and 55 wins Lakers in 1969 playoffs.
He faced 62 wins Sixers and 52 wins Lakers in 1968 (healthy Lakers were much better than that).
He faced 50 wins Warriors and 55 wins Lakers in 1962 (in much smaller league).
He faced 54 wins Warriors and 50 wins Hawks in 1960 (in much smaller league).
The idea that Russell faced no competition is ridiculous.
over 13 years on a team good enough for him to make title runs virtually every year he ran into...
three teams on par with the 89 cavsThere's absolutely zero reason to judge russell's team results on some sort of special curve. Realitive to era means realtive to era, not lets put everyone in the 60's higher just because.
It's not "just because" and if you don't understand that, then I suggest to take a few lessons from statistics.
I understand stastics fine, you're just not applying our shared knowledge well. Outliers can help AND hurt your srs, all-time greatness.
I also seem to understand how to make logically consistent arguments better. You're a champion of era relaitviity, none of this should matter.Why is bill russell's peak "not close"? to Lebron's? Why is kareem's lower? The better questions is why either is close at all. Lebron went from a 40 win rs and then, even if we just cherrypick, his series against a magic team as good as ANYONE russell faced during the 60's firing on all cyllinders turning everything up.
2009 Magic certainly weren't on 1968 Sixers level.
Okay sure, they were a bit better than the magic. Mybe more like...checks notes...the 89 cavs. Incredible. And again, if ou're going to go re dhot from three, then that can very easily make up a +1 srs difference lmao. A variable that didn't exist in russell's time.He erased 3-4 dunks/layups a game, created 10 OC a game, scored about a smuch as jordan did against the 89 knicks, and did all of that with unrivalled effiency and turnover economy while holding all his perimiter matchups multiple points below their rs aerage whle they were red-hot elsewhere.
We don't have enough footage to make such detailed description of each of Russell's series, but he had a lot of amazing series in his career.
Are you counting series where he+a averagish third seed scraped by average or slightly above average teams as "amazing"? Because if so, russell westbrook had "a lot of amazing series" in his career. If not. Then actually russell's collection of "amazing" series is pretty thin, Even if i doubeld it to account for the playoff format. And by thin I mean, about as long a list as Kevin Garnett[b][/b]
In 2015, he was going toe to toe with a team better than anyone russell ever led or faced with tristan thompson and 60 million dollars of cap space on the bench before tye pulled their 73 win trump card.
What makes 2015 Warriors better than 1967 and 1968 Sixers? Your opinion?
You know, how well they did [b]REALTIVE TO ERA against their peers, that thing you keep purpotedly saying should be the way we measure players. I guess you could try to argue "playoff drop off" but...--looks at half of the celtics playoffs-- I wouldn't go that route if I were you.[/b]
When has russell done anything remotely comparable? None of his teams posted regular seasons or playoffs above the 2020 lakers, and he faced one legit contender en route to the title which ranged from being as good as the 2020 thunder(hawks) to being as good as the 89 cavs(a team peak jordan was able to at least challenge on merit with the incredible services of baby grant and pippen).
Again, you forget about 1968 Sixers which were far better than either one you mentioned. Besides, 1969 run alone has two better teams than 1989 Cavs.
no it most certainly does not have two teams as good as the team tha played 63 win basketball when healthy. You could bring up injuries but, --squints at the 68 and 69 finals Russell's that are absolutely pivotal to his case against russell--, nah I dont think you wanna go there.
You could argue --playoff drop off-- but again, --looks at supposed 'prime russell''s rs dominant celtics-- you really dont wanna go there.
There is zero excuse for Russell not to be leading 91 bulls level teams season after season after season and yet he never even approached them once.
1960, 1962, 1964 and 1965 teams were among the best teams ever. [b]none of whomHe was repeatedly taken to game 7's by teams we wouldn't even consider "legit contenders" even if you literally just took their relative to era goodness and translated it to the modern game..
It happens. James quite a few series like that as well:
- 2012 vs Celtics which were 49 wins pace team,
- 2013 vs Pacers which were 49 wins pace team,
- 2018 vs Pacers which were 48 wins pace team.
All of whom are much better than the -srs warriors, the -srs hawks(twice). And it speaks volumes you need to take lebron in 2018 and 2013 when trying to compare him to russell at his supposed best. With countless 6-games series that shouldn't have been that long.
You think he should be rated comparably in terms ofon court lift to lebron or Jordan, then why don't you prove it? Because just about every team he's played on significantly underperformed what you would expect from a player allegedly so good.
1968 and 1969 Celtics exceeded the expectations, so if anything his team got better results than their roster and record suggested.
They exceeded the expectations you would have of a player vastly worse than stephen curry, kevin garnett, tim duncan, magic or larry bird. The "expectations" when you're comparing russell to 40 win players aren't to be able to scrap a title against an even more banged up versio of the 89 cavs.
And remidner this is russell' BEST exampel of lift by far. I grant you, that russell's 69 does qualify as an atg season by any reasonable standard, but having one atg season isn't rmeotely impressive at this level, and the absilutely silly practice of curving all of russell's younger years on the basis of his regular seaosn srs doesn't hold any water if you bother to look what happene din the postseason. You want to argue 69 and 68 russsell were KG level seasons as the playoff lift suggest, be my guest, but then dont go brining up his "Outlier" regular season srs fro his mvp winning years as if his celtics didn't plummet twice as hard as the worst chokes of the robinson spurs. 68 and 69 are quite arguably the only times russell's lift resmebled that of an atg peak which isn't nearly enough if you're trying to argue he's comparable to lebron or jordan or even kareem on the court.
Yeah, 1960-64 period isn't all-time great level. I've heard it all
Oh no, please dont tell me you're brining up when he went
8-5 against the
-> +1 SRS cincinatti Royals
->+2 lakers[/i]
as an all time great season 
I guess you could just ignore the playoffs, but oof, there goes 68, 69 and any imapct based argument for russell's supremacy over wilt.
It also represents an underperformance that makes the 2011 heat losing to the 2011 mavs look like the 2016 cavs beating the 2016 warriors except as opposed to just 1/4 of the playoffs, it represents [b]the entirety of them? Could you imagine if thw 2011 heat's choke to the 2011 mavs x 2 for every single series of the playoffs? That's the supposedly ATG 63 Celtics.
Not only that, you counted
1962 season where Russell+a decent supporting cast were pushed to the brink by the
+1.8 lakers
THe +2.6 sixers
You brought up the 2018 cavs? The 2018 cavs were a more impressive postseason team than the 62 or 64 celtics,
relative to era. Do you think thats becuase of Kevin Love?
So no, listing all those seasons as ATG makes no sense. Much like trying to argue russell was ever comparably valuable to lebron at his apex is utterly baseless. Go dunk on everyone else's resume or ring count if u so please, but lets stop baselessly claiming russell was unprecedented in terms of relative to era lift.
