Biased, but educated. Okay, what about the Admiral. He has as many rings as Dream and he is a HOF'er. Should I say he is better? What about Parish. He is going to the hall, and he has more rings than Dream. So does Shaq. Your entire argument is based on rings (even though you don't want to include the impact of his HOF teammates) and defense (even though Dream was a great defender and much better than Russell offensively).
It's plausible. But I'd be only guessing. As you would be. But if Russell was on another team and in the league. Russell would have given Wilt fits. And those 11 rings might not have come as easily as you think. See, it wasn't the Celtics supporting HOFers that automatically gave them the rings. It was the TEAM + Russell that galvanized their success. Oh, and they actually had to work for it too! Remember, with all the Celtics HOFers (as seen today, not then), how many rings would the Celtics won without Russell with Wilt in the league? With all their "talent" they most likley wouldn't be able to get over that hump. Not with out some creative trades. Why? Because the other teams in the league were stacked too. It's just that the addition of Russell gave them that edge.
Is Russell and the Admiral the same person? You are an absolutist (all or nothing). You can't see the fine points. Plus, you like to era-hop and then speculate instead of accepting history for what it is. You also like to say a lot of "what ifs." My "entire argument?" But I just said about about passing skill, basketball intellect, rebounding, and incorporating ones game into the Celtics system. How can that be "based on rings" alone?
and the real problem is this, you keep trying to show how well russell did when basically given the absolute perfect team for him to have been on. put hakeem and russell on even teams and hakeem wins b/c he had offense and he had defense. and the put them on equal teams across all spectrums great offensive teams who need D. poor offense, great at D. love to fastbreak. completely lacking talent. having HOF talent everywhere. put them on all these teams and who is going to come out with the better overall record. there can be no doubt it would be hakeem b/c he could bring offense and defense and fit in anywhere whereas russell would need a team to have the O prepackaged. and where the hell is heyp.
Well you can't really make that assumption, considering that the majority of the HOF players came after Russell was already there. Once again, Russell and Sharmin came to the team in the same year, so how can you just say it was Russell who got the HOF players over the hump? The only significant HOF player there at pre Russell was Cousy, and when the Celtics finally won it was because he got a HOF C and a HOF SG. The next year they got Sam Jones. The year after that they got KC Jones. Additional HOF players kept coming in. Once again, you are giving to much credit to Russell and ignoring the impact of his HOF teammates. The Celtics did not win 11 titles because Russell was better than everyone else (it's arguable whether he was even better than Wilt at that time). They won because they had the best "team", a team full of more HOF players than any other team at that time. That's the difference between Russell and Hakeem, Shaq, Jordan, Bird, MJ, etc. When the other players teams won titles, it was because those players were the leagues best. That is not the case with Russell. And before you say the other teams were stacked as well, please provide some proof of another team at that time with 3-4 HOF players on it (including one on the bench).
well we know andymoon was born in 70 so he didn't. when were you DavidS? i'm gonna need to hear at least about '50 so you could be old enough to actually know what you were seeing of russell. so now we need to know how old DavidS is. oh, and about talent being diluted with 8 teams instead of 30, you do realized the amount of talent has increased as well right? for one, the nba is now a bigtime league and bball a big time sport, which it really wasn't back then. blacks now dominate the nba and yet had not really taken up the game at that time, so we were missing out on a huge segment of current bball talent. the population has gotten bigger. europeans are now here in significant numbers. and we even have people from latin america and someone from china who might dominate one day. we have more than made up for expansion through all of those factors.
Well, that's the sad part. Because Hakeem never got a chance to prove it, their can be only a lot speculation, that will never be put into the record books. So, in order to quantify ones argument for that speculation, one has to go back into history and try and discredit past *greats* accomplishments. It's the classic, criticize others to bring yourself up. Sorry, but history is in the books no matter how much you wish to rewrite it.
I agree with that to a point... One, while it is true that black athlete has offered some talent on athletic ability alone and the europeans have brought in new talent (not true 10 years ago). After a while that all evens out; helps the 30 teams improve to almost the level, but not quite of the 8 teams. We are not there yet. The other factor is that there are only 450 jobs in the NBA. Why aren't more Garnetts being born? What about Duncans? Or Shaqs? Or Yaos? Well, that's because the best of the best are true diamonds in the rough. And that wont ever change. There is a finite amount of naturally gifted players. I'm talking about the ones that stand out from the crowd. And when you have 8 teams, it's much more easier to fill those squads with the best of the best, rather than a one or two elite players, and the rest role players. I think it would be fair to say that a lot of the role players of yesteryear would be starters on bad teams today.
Yes. This is true. Teams give longevity to winning. That's the key. But remember. The Lakers had Magic, Worthy and Jabbar. Three HOFers. The Celtics (80's) had Bird, Mchale and Parish. Three HOFers. But because of that depth, I still wont discredit Bird or Magic's contributions. They were the catalyst of their teams.
Here's a little info on Wilt vs. Russell: 55 Rebounds vs Bill Russell? Yes! On Nov 24th, 1960, Wilt Chamberlain had the most rebounds in a single game, 55, but lost to a Bill Russell led Boston Celtics team 132-129. Russell scored 18 points, 19rebounds and 5 assists. Chamberlain totals were 34 points, 55 rebounds and 4 assists. Again though, a Celtics victory happened which was typically the result when these 2 played eachother. Take that Russ. Did you know, between the years 1961-63, Wilt scored 50 or more points on the Boston Celtics 6 times? With one of those being a 62 point outing. Head-to-Head numbers: PLAYER G PTS PPG REB RPG WINS Chamberlain 142 4,077 28.7 4,072 28.7 57 Russell 142 2,060 14.5 3,373 23.7 85
Yes, that's two teams with 3 HOF players, meaning you can assume that each team had the same amount of talent. You can throw the Philly sixers in there as well (Cheeks, DR J and Malone). If you notice, none of those squads ripped off 11 straight titles because there were other teams in the league that were just as stacked. Once again, please provide just 1 example of a team just as stacked as the celtics during Russell's 11 titles? Let's look at these 11 titles: 1956-57 (title 1) Cousy and Sharman are both first team all-nba, with Cousy as MVP. Heinsohn is rookie of the yr. I notice that no other team has two first team all-nba players. 1958-59 (title 2) Cousy, Sharman and Russell are all first team all-nba. 1959-60 (title 3) Cousy first team again, Sharman and Russell second team. 1960-61 (title 4) Cousy first team again, Heinsohn and Russell second team. 1961-62 (title 5) Heinsohn, Cousy & Russell all second team. Lakers did have Baylor and West (but no Wilt). 1962-63 (title 6) Not sure who was where because the history page lists the 61-62 winners. 1963-64 (title 7) Heinsohn, Havlicek & Russell all second team. 1964-65 (title 8) Russell first team, Sam Jones second team. 1965-66 (title 9) Jones, Havlicek & Russell all second team. 1967-68 (title 10) Havlicek & Russell all second team. You might have an argument this year since Robertson and Jerry Lucas were both all-first team for Cincinatti. However, think of all the other stars on the Celtics. 1968-69 (title 11) Only Havelcik on the second team. Now that's 11 titles, and in 9 of them the Celtics had more first or second team all-nba players than anyone else. That's not even counting all the other HOF players on the squad that didn't make the first/second teams (like K.J. Jones). You were right...history does not lie. THE CELTICS WERE STACKED!!!!
This is what I find humorous about people that glorify Russell's "team play". I'm thinkin' if you're a team player, you're going to learn how to shoot FG's and FT's. I mean seriously, Russell was horrific from the line and from the floor. Then the pro-Russell boys will jump to "but he was a great defender and the stopper they needed for Wilt". In head-to-head matchups Wilt went off for 28-30 pts per game on "God's gift to defense". Wilt also went off for about 25 rebs per game on "God's gift to team play". Russell was a good player and a good defensive player, but it's a crock when people that never saw the guy play claim he shut Wilt down. His Celtics were quite possibly the best team ever assembled (not in my opinion, but I can go along with it), but he isn't the greatest player to play the game, nor is he in the top 5. Hakeem doesn't make my top 5 either. Here's an odd stat... Russell was about Eddie Griffin's size.
Well, I said "greatest winner," not player. Oh, and Hakeem and Russell were about the same size too 6'10" (Russell was a tad bit over 6'9"). Hakeem was NOT 7 foot. But it was their long arms, hands and leaping ability that gave them the edge. That's blasphemy! In 1958-59 his .457 mark was second in the league.
And please tell me how many titles would they have won without Russell? Zero, five, eight? What? Could it be, we'll never know?
Just like we don't know how many they would have won without Bill Sharman, who joined the team at the same time as Russell, or Sam Jones, who joined a year later, or KJ Jones, or Heinsohn, or Havelicek, or the other countless HOF players on that team (that all came at the same time or after Russell). What we do know is that Russell won 11 titles on a team with arguably more talent on it than any other team in the league. That is a fact, so spare me the he is better because he won so much argument. What we do know is that Russell had poor offensive numbers, and Hakeem did not. That is a fact. What we do know is Hakeem's numbers make him arguably the best defensive player ever (not his fault that they didn't keep the records back then), so I don't think Russell was that much of a better defender than him. I never saw Russell play, but his offensive numbers show me that Hakeem was much more dominant then him offeisnvely. Dream gets the egde...
Again, with the single stats? Here's you.... "Hakeem better offensive numbers equals better player overall" And...."autotmatically means 11 rings" even though it never happened. By the way, 15 ppg is not "poor." 5 or 8 ppg is poor (even though that's not the whole picture. That's only taking about one stat). "Better?" Again, I'm talking about ranking them in total greatness. You are ranking them in offensive ability. And, to make your case better you try to discredit the 11 rings. Achievements are achievements. You might as well just say, Hakeem was a "better" offensive player. But that's it. But for greatness and legacy, you'll have to re-write history for that. Sorry.
No, but he did have Drexler and Barkley once and wasn't able to make it work all the way to the finals. Dream simply did not have the ability to bring all those great guys together and make them into a team for the ages. Russell had that ability and that is why he is the greatest center to have played in the NBA. BTW, during the 68-69 finals, the one you say was a lock up for the Celts with Havlichek and Jones, the Lakers had Jerry West, Elgin Baylor, and Wilt Chamberlain in the prime of their careers when the other guys were at the waning end of theirs.
The strange thing about that series was that Jerry West felt that his team, was the better team. They had the record for that year and clearly had a stacked team. But the sheer will of Celtics ball club gave them the win. The Cetls weren't "supposed" to win that year. They press were calling them "old and washed up." That's the game in which Russell broke down while being interviewed in the locker room. OH, I remember... Russell noticed that the Lakers had printed papers, and had balloons ready to fall from the rafters. And the arena people were told that "When the Lakers win" they were to pull the trap for the balloons to fall. "When the Lakers win..." was the statement Russell repeated to the boys in the locker room. If there's something that most basketball fans can relate to is the legendary Laker ARROGANCE! Even to this day. Grrrrrr!!!!!
No, because when they met in the prime of their careers, Dream showed everyone who the better player was. We are trying to compare guys from different eras and one of the main things to judge a professional athlete by is titles won. Of course the HOF teammates contributed, but there is one constant through that whole 11 titles out of 13 years run: Bill Russell. Sam Jones, Bill Sharman, Bob Cousey, and John Havlicek were there some years and not there others. The fact remains that when Russell was at Boston they won, and after he left, they stopped winning. Dream was a great defender and was also nearly unstoppable on the offensive end late in his career. Russell was a better defender, a better rebounder, and a better team player (based on his assist numbers which were considerably higher than Dream's). He averaged 6 points per game less than Dream, over 10 boards more per game, nearly 2 assists more, and we can't even compare blocks because they didn't start keeping the stat until Russell showed that it was a significant part of the game. I believe that the reason so many of his Boston teammates are in the Hall of Fame is because of Bill Russell. He made the guys around him better and elevated the level of play of both himself and his teammates, even more so in the playoffs. I am a tried and true, dyed in the wool, one hundred percent Houston Rockets fan, but facts are facts and Bill Russell was better than Dream. You might make a case for Kareem or Wilt over Russell, but I put Dream at number 4 on the center list.
