Looking at Bill Russell's teammates help in the Finals.

[coastalmarker99]

1957 vs. Hawks

TS%, PTS, TRB, AST

44.0%, 101.8, 46.7, 19.3 Russell's teammates


44.8%, 79.9, 42.6, 18.3 Pettit's teammates

Russ received more help in 3 of 4 categories, plus one virtually tied.

So Russ received more help from his teammates in the 1957 Finals than Pettit did.





1958 vs. Hawks:

Russell missed to 2 of 6 games, so stats just from the 4 that Russell played in

TS%, PTS, TRB, AST
47.6%, 99.3, 46.5, 20.5 Russ's teammates

46.1%, 76.5, 39.8, 19.0 Pettit's teammates

Russell received more help from his teammates in all 4 categories.



1959:

TS%, PTS, TRB, AST

46.7%, 112.5, 44.3, 23.2 Russ's mates

44.6%, 88.7, 55.2, 16.1 Baylor's mates (inc. Mikkelsen)

42.1%, 90.5, 54.7, 17.6 Mikkelsen's (inc. Baylor)

Baylor was the best Laker, but Mikkelsen was C.

Either way, Russell's teammates were better in 3 of 4 categories.


1960 vs. Hawks:

TS%, PTS, TRB, AST
44.6%, 96.4, 39.1, 17.6 Russell's teammates

46.0%, 79.6, 42.7, 21.1 Pettit's teammates

Pettit's mates (led by Hagan) gave Pettit more help in 3 of 4 categories than Russell's mates did.

First Finals (of 4) that Russell received less help from teammates.



1961 vs. Hawks:

TS%, PTS, TRB, AST
47.8%, 103.4, 45.0, 21.6 Russell's teammates

41.8%, 80.2, 44.4, 18.4 Pettit's teammates

Russell received more help from his supporting cast in all 4 categories, including big leads in TS% & PTS.


1962 vs. Lakers:

TS%, PTS, TRB, AST
46.8%, 94.8, 34.6, 21.4 Russ's mates

48.0%, 73.0, 40.1, 15.6 Baylor's mates

Russ's mates > in PTS & AST.
Baylor's mates > in TS% & TRB.

Close, leaning towards Russell's teammates because they had bigger leads in PTS & AST



1963 vs. Lakers:

TS%, PTS, TRB, AST

44.2%, 91.3, 35.5, 18.2 Russ's mates

49.4%, 79.4, 40.5, 13.4 Baylor's mates

Very close. Each set of teammates has a big advantage in 2 categories.

I'm judging it as a tie.


1964 vs. Warriors:

TS%, PTS, TRB, AST
46.5%, 94.0, 35.4, 18.8 Russ' mates

41.7%, 72.0, 34.2, 15.2 Wilt's mates

Russell teammates > Wilt's teammates in all 4 categories, including big advantages in TS%, PTS, and AST.

Russell got way more help from his supporting cast than Wilt did.



1965 vs. Lakers is difficult bc Baylor was hurt and missed the series.

So the comparison of the two leading players is between two players with very different skill sets: Russell and Jerry West.

So the Russ vs Gene Wiley (Lakers' C) might be better, even though Wiley was no West


1965 vs. Lakers:

TS%, PTS, TRB, AST
45.5%, 105.6, 38.2, 18.8 Russ's mates

49.4%, 77.0, 52.6, 16.4 West's mates (inc. Wiley)

49.7%, 103.2, 40.4, 17.8 Wiley's Mates (inc. West)


I'll call it a tie:

Russell's vs. West's split 2 categories each.

Russell's mates were close to Wiley's.




1966 vs. Lakers:

TS%, PTS, TRB, AST
48.7%, 94.5, 37.1, 17.3 Russ's mates

51.4%, 89.6, 37.9, 18.7 Baylor's mates

Close stats. But Baylor's mates gave him more help than Russ's did in 3 of 4 categories, so Baylor got more help.




1968 vs. Lakers:

TS%, PTS, TRB, AST
52.2%, 98.7, 33.7, 16.5 Russ's mates

50.4%, 88.3, 44.3, 18.4 Baylor's mates

Each set of mates leads in 2 categories.
Calling this a tie.


1969 vs. Lakers:

TS%, PTS, TRB, AST
47.6%, 96.7, 34.3, 14.1 Russ's mates

49.1%, 94.6, 35.7, 18.6 Wilt's mates

3 of 4 categories close.
But overall, Wilt's mates (led by Jerry West) > Russell's teammates.



In Summary: Finals, 1957-1969

Russell received more help from his teammates than the leading opposing player did from his teammates:
1957
1958
1959
1961
1962 (close)
1964

Russell received equal help:
1963
1965
1968

Russ had less help:
1960 (close)
1966 (close)
1969 (close)

Overall: 6-3-3

[Morb]

Thanks. I remember 1964, Bill's team was on another level.

Sent from my Nokia 5.1 Plus using RealGM mobile app

[SNPA]

Hmmmm….could it be Russell supported, enhanced and empowered his teammates and that’s the reason? Or is this another Russell got lucky with having good teammates to minimize Russell thread? If it is I’ll make my standard point, Russell won championships in high school, in college, the Olympics, his first year and this thirteenth (and 9 times in between). That’s a lot of circumstances and teammates for it to all be dumb luck that he got great teammates. It clearly demonstrates that Russell makes others better, not the other way around.

[LewisnotMiller]

Hmmmm….could it be Russell supported, enhanced and empowered his teammates and that’s the reason? Or is this another Russell got lucky with having good teammates to minimize Russell thread? If it is I’ll make my standard point, Russell won championships in high school, in college, the Olympics, his first year and this thirteenth (and 9 times in between). That’s a lot of circumstances and teammates for it to all be dumb luck that he got great teammates. It clearly demonstrates that Russell makes others better, not the other way around.

Listen to the guy talk basketball for half an hour, and it's abundantly clear he had no interest in maximizing his statistical outputs. Purely about winning, to a level that is an outlier.

[SNPA]

Hmmmm….could it be Russell supported, enhanced and empowered his teammates and that’s the reason? Or is this another Russell got lucky with having good teammates to minimize Russell thread? If it is I’ll make my standard point, Russell won championships in high school, in college, the Olympics, his first year and this thirteenth (and 9 times in between). That’s a lot of circumstances and teammates for it to all be dumb luck that he got great teammates. It clearly demonstrates that Russell makes others better, not the other way around.

Listen to the guy talk basketball for half an hour, and it's abundantly clear he had no interest in maximizing his statistical outputs. Purely about winning, to a level that is an outlier.

Agreed. It’s so clearly him it’s obscenely obvious.

https://www.reddit.com/r/nba/comments/l81hr6/comment/gla6jre/

22-0.

People should scroll through the comments and look at the D ratings post. The greatest defensive and winningest player in the history of the game without question. Yeah, his teammates played better, by his design and implementation.

[70sFan]

Well, of course opponents would shoot worse against Celtics than the other way around. They face the best defender ever after all...

[SNPA]

Well, of course opponents would shoot worse against Celtics than the other way around. They face the best defender ever after all...

Weird how that works.

Are you claiming better defense makes it harder for the opponent on offense? We’ll need to see some data.

[penbeast0]

...

Two problems with your methodology that haven't been mentioned:

(1) The Celtics won most of those series PLUS the stars you are comparing him to are all scorers while Russell's impact was made without scoring so the idea of looking at raw points scored by teammates is almost always going to favor the Celtics.

(2) The opposite is true for rebounding. Except when Russell is up against Wilt, he will have a clear board advantage so the rest of his team should be at something of a board disadvantage. This will be mitigated by the Celtics usually winning so they have more points and if Russell didn't depress opposing shooting percentages enough, the Celtics were also almost always one of the least efficient offenses in the league so there are lots of offensive rebounds to be had. Which way this cuts isn't clear, therefore, but it's not exactly an apples to apples comparison either.

. . .

I was interested in the TS% rates; whether Russell could depress opposing TS% so much that the Celtics' inefficient offense became efficient by comparison. That's an interesting number. Also, to a lesser degree the assist rates to see how it differed between the Cousy years and the post-Cousy years.

[penbeast0]

Thanks. I remember 1964, Bill's team was on another level.

Sent from my Nokia 5.1 Plus using RealGM mobile app

If you remember 1964, we have to change your RealGM category from Junior to Senior.