70sFan wrote:freethedevil wrote:1965, +7 srs, taken to 7 y the, -.25 srs, hawks.
Celtics didn't face Hawks in 1965 playoffs.
[b]sorry, my bad, the -.25 sixers, SOOO much better.
No, lets recap, I said "it was not harder for russell induvdiaully to lift his team" then it would be for an average 90's superstar. That the --Volume-- of 60 win teams increased proportionally to the # of teams in the league supports my claim, not yours.
But lifting your team can't be measured by added wins. It's very crude approximation that needs a lot of additional work behind it.
It can be measured, and until you provide a better alternative, that it is 'crude' is meaningless when the best counter-evidence you can offer is that "omg its not perfect", a bunch of granular **** which you make ___zero attempt_ to tie to holistic impact, and this bizarre attempt to redefine the word "realtive" so that it stops meaning what players did against their opponents to "what players did against their opponents on this special curve I'm making so that 60's teams look better than they were"Also - the number of 60+wins teams clearly shows that there is correlation between the number of teams and the outlier RS results. If you take away Russell's Celtics teams, then we had total of two seasons in the 1960s with 60+wins pace.
If i take out the top 1/8th or 1/13th of the teams in the modern league, the xact same thing happens. All you're pointg out here is less teams played. Again, irrelavant as an excuse for russell's inability to lead atg teams especially since, you say we should judge players --relative to era--, not --relative to my era adjusted difficulty curve--.Cleary better than you apparently.
Then you certainly didn't show that here.
less posturing more arguing 70'sThat's longetvity, not relative dominance. The bulls were relative yto era dominant, the celtics were a yram that alternated between the 13 heat and the 18 cavs who won 11 titles because it turns out when most of your opponets are, realtive to the era, not even +4, you dont need very much to elevate a team who, without their best player, is already .500 past them.
Celtics were by far the best team in the league in 9 of 13 Russell years, some by ridiculous margin.
they were not "by far" the best team in the league when they were being taken to 6 and 7 games in the playoffs. That's not how being the best works. If i split up the 90's league pool by 3 I cna easily form combinations where various teams posted similar dominance. This is a complete and utter red herring when discussing russell's relative to era lift. For half of these titles there was only one team in the league russell could realistically win with, he happened to be on that team, thay does not suddenly make him a jordan level player. It doesn't even make him a robinson+ player. That russell won titles and that he was not approaching peak jordan(let alone peak lebron)"s lift for the vast majority of his career are not mutually exclusive concepts.You want to talk about era relativity? Celtics won 62 games in 1965.
WHo did they win those games against? Oh right, the compeition. That's era relativity. ANything else is breaking era realtivity and if you wnna play this "well there werne't as many contenders in a smaller league", then its fair game to lower everyone in the 60's because the talent pool was comaprative garbage to our current one. Either you accept era relatitvity or russell played against milkmen. I'm fine with nuking era relativity, but if u do so, everything is on the table.it defaltes your record just as much as beating up on bad outliers would, therefore nuking your claim that srs was "easier" to rack up in later eras for inudviudal teams.
Stats don't back it up, good teams usually are a bit better than 50-50 against other good teams but they blow out average and below average teams. In the 1960s, teams played a lot more games against other good teams and there were less weak ones.
They come directly from playoing the competition of your era, so yes actually, they are, by definition, relative to era numbers. It would seem my understanding of stastistics surpasses your understandning of the word ---relative---. "There weren't as many 60 win teams" is specfically comparing eras and is hence not era-relative.
See how this works?
No, to make a relative term
are these measures derived form the copetition of the era? Yes? Then its relative to era., you'd have to look at how big of probability of given event was in given era and adjust for inflation/deflation. Raw team success is just team success,
A player's chapmionship equity is NOT "what impact on odds they had on the team they played on", it is impact on odds on a random team, a direct product of how much _lift_ a player provides. This is why you track lift, because a player's ability to transalte their play into wins is what may transalte over to a random team, not what their team collectively did. What you still seem to not be getting here is that a smaller league doesn't just mean, there's"less teams that can dethrone you", what it means is "there's less teams" you can realsitically win a title with. When russell was being taken to 7 and 6 by teams that were avergage in his own league, the only reason he had any shot of a title those years is because he was on a team, that was nearly as good as his opponents. On a random team those odds plummet. It is compeltely meaningless to say "they wouldn't have won those titles without russell." Because russel won several titles in posrseasons wher ehe wasn't even able to lift his teams like 17 westbrook. If russell was actually consistently an atg level player, then that would have showed up with consistent playoff teams, alas ,his teams repeatedly got taken to 7 by teams only marginally better(If at all) to russell's supporitng cast. Simply being the straw on the camel's back is not near enough to suggest a player deserves parity with those who are elevating their team by 20-40 wins.It's like saying that raw TS% is relative stat because it's against given era competition, but rTS% isn't. Your argument is stupid.
no your equivalency is stupid. TS has zero to do with who or what you're playing against. SRS comes from who you're playing against. TS is analous to who many points a team scores. RTS is anaglous to point differential.
This special curve you're using to inflate the value of everyone who played inthe 60's would be the equivalent of ditching rTS, and replacing it with
RrTS where we now adjust for how many players managed to reach +4rts in given season. Its focusing on the 'ease' of an era as opposed to what is actually achieved in said era you think russell's playoff lift is remotely comparable to lebron in 09, then make the case against lebron in 09. if you think its comparable to lebron in 15, 17, 20, 16, then make the case.
Hell you're wlecome to make the case for 2018 where not only was lebron clearly providing more lift, he also did it on a team more impressive than two of your supposed atg russell seasons.
Failure to do so serves as an implicit concession of what's obvious beyond your baseless weighting of versatily vs dominance:
Lebron was clearly the more valuable\ player, realtive to era.
Again, this isn't very difficult
Fine - let's look at 1964 Russell.
1964 Celtics finished with 6.93 SRS (+2.5 above second Royals) and 60 wins pace. In two games Russell missed Celtics were 1-1. Cetlics finished with -4.5 offense and
-10.8 defense - by far the best of all-time.
I do love how you said my 30 game sample for lebron, ot th emulti-season sample predating russell were all useless but this 2 game sample is meaningful.
But you know what, I'll give you this sample. 1-1 to 60 win gets you, checks notes, 20 wins which is,
looks at half of lebron's prime seasons
nowhere near as much lift as peak lebron. The cavs played 35 win basketball(over a much larger sample mind you) with kyrie and kevin love from 15-17, withotu those two they were beatign on a 67 win team befote said team pulled out the deathlineup, something that took them from 67 wins, to a record breaking 73 wins on a 70 win srs.
Maybee we should use 2016, where the hurt version of the warriors sitll beat a team that played 65 win basketball at full strength(okc) and who had just beated a 70 win srs spurs, and then proceeded to --lose-- to lebron's cavs with the aid of their second best player missing one game. And a couple minor injuries for a game to their worst starters. For context, the 68 and 69 lakers who russell cemented his legacy against were vastly more shorthanded teams.
So to recap, we haev 40 win lift on the early cavs, 25-30 win on the second stint cavs, and the best you can do for me from what you call russell's prime is a 2 game sample showcasing 20 win lift?
You cherrypkcing defense is meaningless, lest you think its ridiculous to not have nash on the same level as micheal jordan. What matters is the overall end, not whether the defensive rating o r the offensive rating under lineups built to optimize a player who couldn't do jack on one end of the floor happen to acheive on that one end of the floo
Actually forget lebron, lets do a peak I'm sure you consider comparable to lebron or jordan's, 15 curry. Given that 15 curry lite dhis team by 25 wins from 15-17 on a team more dominant than russell's celtics. When has russell ever proved he's as good as 15 curry?
And just so we're clear, useful sample sizes do not support your framing of things. The pre-russell celtics were a .500 team, russell was taken to 7 en route to titles by 4 different .500 teams in the playoffs. That does not happen if you're an unflinchingly mvp level player trhoughout your prime.
Celtics had only one player who shot above league average in terms of efficiency in that season - Sam Jones with 101 TS+. They had only two players with above average FG% - Sam Jones and Bill Russell himself. Outside of Jones, every single Celtics player finished with negative TS Add in RS. This is all-time bad supporting cast offensively. In comparison - 2009 Cavs had 7 players above league average in terms of scoring efficiency.
then clearly they made up in some other way the 09 cavs did not, becuase again, no matter how you try to **** on this supporitng cast, they were perfectly capable of staying near or above water without russell.
Also, has it occured to you, that maybe the effiency of these casts had something to do with one of them playing next to Lebron James, and the other cast playing next to bill russell?
Indeed, russell's teammate effiency dropped a bit upon his arrival.
It would appear the 40 win player who can anchor a defense be by far the best scorer in the league AND created the most offense for his teammates _just happened_ to play with players who shot better than russell's.
I'm completely clueless as to how that's possible 
Not only that, but this team had no playmaker on offense either - KC Jones was bad offensive player, Sam Jones played mostly off-ball and Havlicek wasn't close to his prime. Despite that, Celtics finished head and shoulders above the league in regular season.
russell playmking so hard, ther'es like zero gap in their scoring effiency before he joins and after. This team that did perfectly fine without him for several seasons clearly needed russell to not be the timberwolves.Let's move into playoffs. Celtics faced 55 wins team Royals (2nd best in the league)
being the second best team in an 8 teague doesn't mean you're good. You can keep listing your rankings, and I will keep ignoring them like the red herrings they are. in the first round. They blew them away in 5 games by a margin of 8.4 points per game. None of the losses were competitive. Royals were the best offense in the league and they posted 93.2 ppg compared to 114.7 ppg in RS which is
- 21.5 in terms of raw difference. We don't have pace adjusted ratings for this series, but we'll move into this later.
Then they faced 48 wins Warriors team (53 expected wins and 3rd SRS in the league) which was built more in a mold of Celtics - excellent defense but terrible offense. Again - Celtics almost swept them with one odd blowout loss.
.You're telling me that an atg player on a 40 win team was able to take care of a 53 win team. Yes, this absolutely proves russell is comaparable to a 40 win player. Why don't you do that bit where you actually compare it to lebron's best seasons and deonstrate he was comparably valuable. You claimed "russell is as valauble as Lebron and/or Jordan at their peaks. Please prove that now. Reminder 18 Lebron "swept" a better team than either you listed with a dumpsterfire in terms of cast by comparison.Celtics made a quick work of two very strong teams without much help on offense.
If by very strong you mean the 17 celtics, the 18 raptors, the 18 pacers, then yes 'very strong'. 
Reminder, the 20 heat, who the lakers beat, went 8-3 against the bucks and the 55 win celtics who themselves bat a raptors team playing at a 63 win pace. The 2020 Lkaers - lebron(and - ad) played like a 40-45 win team without either of their superstars. If you goal here was to show Bill Russell at his best is within range of Lebron in his 17th season, you did a very good job. If you were trying to argue russell was equal in value to lebron at his best, then no, your attempt at 'proving' russsell's parity with them pretty adequately proves he's not as valuable.(at least not on the court anyway which is what you've been trying to claim) You could say that Boston coasted in RS offensively though and they definitely improved in playoffs, right? Overall, Celtics finished in playoffs with
-2.9 offense and -12.4 defense.
I'm sorry is there a reason you keep trying to paint them sucking as an offense --with russell-- as a good thing for russell? They were absolutely terrible offensively
which somehow has nothing to do with russell..., but their defense reached the level no other team could ever approach
at the apprent cost of a remotely competent offense, gee its almost like cherrypikcing one side of the floor is an awful way of assessing players holsitic impact.. They finished with +6.2 point differential despite facing two of the best opponents available.
they posted a strong differential against the 17 celtics. I am blown away. 30+ Lebron could never....(wait, no he did, with a weaker supporing cast. And since you like cherrypicking one side of the floor, he did it leading an offense BETTER than the 17 warriors. Lmao.So are you going to tell me now that 1964 Celtics were some kind of stacked team?
I dont need to, beating 'good' teams with a .500 supporting cast is something we have seen several players do. nothing you've said constitutes compelling evidence, given what we've actually seen from the players you insist russell is a match for, this is rather pathetic. The celtics would need to be the kg-less timberwolves, for this to be lebron worthy lift. Off course, they weren't, so...They were absolutely terrible offensively
with russell and they had no depth at center position
which should inflate how much they drop off withou thim but, they were ,.500 sooo - they had 35 years old Lovellette for half of the season and he didn't play in playoffs basically. Given what we know about Celtics without Russell, it's unlikely that they would have been good without him on defense.
and again, if you have to ignore that the offense also came with bill russell, you're implictly conceding that the actual lift russell presented wasn't nearly as impressive as you're acting like it is. But sure, he didn't carry his team because he didn't have big OC or BPM right?
Did I say he never carried his team? I said he never came close to matching lebron's carry's jobs which you've done a very bad job rebutting.b]:/ My grammar is just fine compared to yours.[/b]
Well, I'm not native speaker so I'll let others decide.
Did you not see what you just did,
Then tell me how 2013 Heat choked
They did choke, and you're choking right now trying to compare one of lebron's least valauble seasons's to what you consider russell's most valuable implicitly conceding,
for as second time, Lebron is simply a much more valuable player. But you couldn't stop there, no you had to make it worse:
or how 2008 Celtics choked or...
You are, just so we're clear, comparing KG 8 years after what is by far his most valuable season to what is allegedly 'the most impressive' russell season?
Russell is both a rival for lebron and also a rival for kobe, crazy how that works.
basically half of title teams choked.
the vast majority of title teams sweep +1 and +2 and +0 srs teams or demolish them in 5. Russell does have seasons where his title teams behaved like normal title teams, so does Kobe bryant.
But sure, yo
[b]2. Lmao at [/b]u'll be defending 2019 Bucks to death, even though they lost to clearly worse team on paper in 6 games.
What? The raptors, without a better version of Kevin Durant went 17-4. There is absolute zip to suggest either team you listed is as good as these raps without kawhi, forget adding MVP-level peak in the playoffs.
Lmao at you unironically trying to equate losing by a van vleet hot streak to a 60 win team+Kawhi Leonard to being takent o 7 by +1, +2, +3, and -srs teams.
And lamo at you deciding lift based on their rs with Giannis as oposed to how they played without him.
You were never willing to compare bar to the standard you claimed he was worthy of, and now you've progressively lowere dhim from one of lebron's worst postseasons to over the hill KG and 19 Giannis. Quantible arguments:
-> the celtics were .500 before russell and were legitmately challenged by .500 or slightly above .500 teams for half their titles, including titles under what you're saying is their supposed peak
Celtics didn't win a single playoff series before Russell.
Absolutely meaningless comment. Winning a playoff series would be the equivalent of making the conference final without him. MVP's do not need conference final teams to win titles, let alone players you're allegding must be treated as comparable to Lebron.You are also wrong, because Celtics teams were challenged by .500 teams only 4 times in 13 years:
- 1957 Hawks (Russell was a rookie),
- 1959 Nationals (+3.7 SRS and 45 expected wins, so they weren't truly a .500 team),
- 1963 Royals,
- 1965 Sixers (which got Wilt in the middle of the season and became the best team in the league in next season, so they certainly weren't .500 team).
Fair enough, they were really a +4.1 team. I am in awe.Guess you forgot the
+1.77 Hawks in 1960
-> +2 warriors in 1960
-> The 62 Warriors AND the 62 Lakers (+2 and +1 respectively)
-> The 63 Lakers +2.67
-> The +1 66 Royals
-> The +2.76 66 Lkaers
So basically every playoffs during this strtch where russelll was supposedly a consistent mvp-atg level player.
To his credit the celtics finally faced a legit title level team in the 67 celtics(+8) and....
Got blown to bits. Pretty in-line with a team that usaully was getting challenged by the 18 raptors or the 91 Sixers. I understand why you want to break out this special curve.
-> The amount of 60 wins team in the league has increased proportionally to the amount of teams therefore indiciating it has not been harder for an inudvidual team to reach new heights
Except it's not a linear proportion which you seem to miss all the time.
-> The celtics srs dropped by 4-6 points for half of their postseasons which absoltely blows out the drop offs of say, the robinson spurs.
I don't think we have playoffs SRS for the 1960s, I'd appreciate if you post a source.
I assumed massive drop offs because thwy were regular challenged by mediocre teams despite. This was wrong. It would seem it snot so much they choked int he playoffs, it would seem they just weren't that good in the first place:
they crossed +7, 4 times. Most title teams are +8, a mark they crossed once. Off course their first title level RS team did have a horrific +4 srs drop off, but to the celtics credit, rather than being great and dropping to merely good.. They started off as merely good and then fluctuated between mediocre, and legimately great.
IOW, Bill Russell's prime was not a consistent slog of similarly valuable seasons. Like your typical non- Lebron, Duncan, or Kareem atg, russell had a few seasons where he had atg level lift(that still did not touch lebron). The idea that he was consistently at that level is baseless and the idea that he was ever close to asvaluable as the most valuable lebron years is equally baseless AND heavily contradicted by even your presented eveidence.
-> Lebron's cavs played 18 with basketball without him from 08-10 and 18 win basketball before blowing things up when he left
Sample of 2-5 games is not good to make big conclusions.
35 games buddy, but i'm glad you now care about sample sizes after disregarding multiple full seasons of .500 non-russell celtics play for a 2 game sample.-> Multiple of the lebron teams we consider "not real contenders' were better than celtics title teams based on their mov against the compeititon of the era in the playoffs
Celtics were the best in the league, in the league that was different that it is now. Most LeBron teams were not the best in the league.
Because in a bigger league multiple teams can concievably contend. Again, when assessing induvidual lift, this works --both ways-- because just as russell's lift is likely to transalte to a title if he's on the one team in the league that is good enough for that, there are "less teams" potentially good enough for that.
All these playoff series i lsited above? There is only one team in the league good enough got him to survive those, and that is the team he happened to be drafted on. That there wer eless teams is a red herring when assessing championship dd list on a random team.-> Russell's teams never even came close to the heights of teams like the 91 bulls,yhr 71 bucks or the 17 warriors in the rs or the playoffs, and its rather difficult to justidy that with supporitng cast when the supporitng cast - russell played close to most of the teams russell had to beat for the title.
He did in 1964, despite having much worse supporting cast than Jordan or Curry.
No, he pulled a less impressive version of the 2020 lakers and you can say "he had a much supporting cast" but you have failed to prove it. Russell's cast was .500 without him, you cherrypikcing defense doesn't change that. 
