Exactly... Look at players such as Mario Ellie or Nate McMillian... The stats book doesn't cover all the things they did to help their team win.
Like I said, incorporate more stats into your argument. You're trying to make comparisons using only ppg. I'll bet that if you include apg, fg/ft/3pfg%, rpg, spg, fta, +/-, season/postseason records, and PER, you'll see that he's not in the same league as Magic, Bird, Jordan, or Kobe. Can you name a player whose impact on the game isn't supported by statistics (including advanced statistics including +/-, clutch shooting, PER, win shares, etc...)?
Wekko, 3 were named earlier... There are no Stats for pure hustle.. and the impact that each player brings to a game... My example look at B. King.. Dude could shoot lights out, but how much did he help his teammates grow. Stats are like an ego thing for the player and the media, but most players who only look out for stats rarely get a championship.. Especially for sports such as Football and basketball which are team driven... Just read my sig.... Stats don't tell the entire story... It's an avg game... When people try to compare Bill Russell to Wilt Chamberline the first thing they look at is the scoring and they automatically assume that Russell was all defense and no offense... In reality that's not true... Russell didn't need to score because it was team first for him. The Celtics needed a defensive player and not a scorer. You have players who alter their game for the need of the team and Stats don't tell you that story.
I'll also use King as an example as well as your earlier comparison to Jordan/Magic/Bird. Compare King's aggregate numbers to Bird/Jordan/Magic. He clearly comes up lacking. Statistics prevail.
Russell shot a career fg% of 44%. Regardless whether or not his team needed him to score, he was a poor scorer.
You can't use team stats like +/- to compare players, unless they are on the same teams. That should be common sense. And Bernard King was a great player, he just wasn't on any great teams. Dominique Wilkens was another one. So was Pete Maravich. A player's "legacy" is defined as much by what he does as what team he is on. Kobe has been very fortunate to have always been on a good team, except for three years when he was in the same situation as many swingmen are for their entire careers... with the same results. Then the NBA decided to giftwrap him another top bigman because the media darlings were suffering (and Kobe was pouting). If you want to credit Kobe for that, be my guest (I guess the pouting and trade threats might have helped, I dunno).
Lebron is a better player than Bird, but his career will be influenced by his teammates. I predict that he'll go the route of Jordan; once he gets a little help it'll be a dynasty run... the guy is that good (how the F did he take the 2007 Cavs to the Finals?) It is also what the NBA is clearly banking on, so that doesn't hurt.
While his teammate Bob Cousy had a career 37.5 FG% and later Celtic great/teammate John Havlicek had a 44% career FG% ...............
I disagree. I think for the sake of his legacy, he cares very much that everyone remembers he was the MAN on this year's championship team.
So you pointing out Russell's 44% equates to Russell being a bad scorer... while me pointing out the players that were the top scorers on those Celtic teams having the same or worse % doesn't account for anything? Havlicek was their best scorer at the time and sometimes he struggled to get to 45%. While I can recognize Russell and Havlicek played different positions, it doesn't mean Russell's 44% is worth less than Hondo's 44%.
I don't think anyone is going to NOT remember Kobe being the #1 guy on this Laker team if they win it all. In fact, if you ask the average/casual NBA fan about who won the Finals MVP when the Pistons won back-to-back most would have guessed Zeke since he was their #1 guy. Hell, if you ask an NBA fan right now who won the Finals MVP when the Spurs won their 4 rings, everyone would say Tim Duncan.
It actually does. Big men take shots closer to the basket. As a result, their FG% is expected to be higher. Additionally, even though Havlicek/Cousy were top scorers, they were also inefficient scorers.
But doesn't this go back T_Man's argument that if Russell were to actually WANT to score, that his stats would have been better? I mean, if Hondo can average 20+ a game on 44% shooting, why can't the possibility of Russell doing the same happen? Like T_Man said, stat's don't tell the WHOLE story. I'm willing to bet that you weren't aware of Havlicek's fg% until I brought it up. If you were to make any kind of argument, I would have started by saying that, unless it was Wilt, no one during that 60s-70s era was all that efficient at shooting the ball. THAT's the point I was trying to make. 44% back then could have been pretty damn good for all we know. Remember, this was an era where big men dunking the ball wasn't the common move to get easy points like how it's been the norm for the past 20-30 years.
Whether he scores 10 points or 100 pts, doing so on 44% shooting as a big man is inefficient. I think we have different ideas as to what a good shooter is. I base my opinions on shooting percentages. You're basing your opinion on total points scored.
No, I'm not. Look up Wilt's FG%. It's downright sick. Now look up the leading FG% during Russell's era: 1956-57 1957-58 1958-59 1959-60 It wasn't until the 2nd half of Russell's career where shooters in the NBA, as a whole, got progressively better. Russell's FG%, as paltry as you think, was actually TOP 5 IN THE LEAGUE. Again, you can look at stats all you want but if you can't incorporate it with the era that it goes with and the players/coaches/environment it was accumulated in, then your stats are meaningless.
But that's the thing we are pointing out wekko, that stats don't tell the entire story... I understand that stats give you a range on how to compare and judge certain things.. But they don't tell the entire story.. As steddinotayto stated Russell was not the leading score because he was team first... Wilt on the other hand was all about Wilt and you can see the difference in who has the most championships. The other fact to consider with stats has to do with Coaching and their systems.. Some players will flourish in one system and suck in another; but stats will not show that.
i think he cares just as much if not more about this. that's actually what i like about him. he wants to do it all. that's what makes him great. otherwise he may as well be robert horry.
