The best player I ever saw play was Magic Johnson. Better than Jordan. Slightly better than Bird. I never saw Wilt play but if I believe he is probably the best of all time just based on all the rules the were put in place to try and allow the rest of the league a chance to compete with him. Besides its hard to argue with his averages and his 100 pt game. Kareem was great but I always thought Moses Malone was better and usually out played him in head to head contests. Kareem was still in his prime when Mo won 3 MVP's.
While I agree the elder Jordan got the benefit of calls, look at the play of the younger Jordan. From the moment he came into the league, he was unstoppable and dunking on anything and everything.
It's a two man contest between Wilt and MJ. Back in the day, I said MJ was the greatest ever before he won his first championship. Upon reflection, it must be Wilt. He changed the way the NBA game was played more than anyone in history. Russell was a great player, but he benefited from playing with the greatest franchise of any era. He had a great coach and great players surrounding him. dharocks, I agree with you on MJ's first retirement. He didn't fool many people then. Most have forgotten by now though, which is exactly what he wanted.
Jordan. Nobody had a greater will to win and basically forced his teammates to win. I like the story about how in Bulls scrimmage they were palying to 21 and Jordan's team was up something like 16 to 2. The coach made Jordan switch teams which POd him no end. He brought the team he was now on back to win the game. The guy simply refused to lose. I read somewhere that Dream team scrimmages whichever team he was on won.
I used to think in the modern era of basketball there were only 2 people that should be mentioned as "the greatest". That was Magic and Jordan. I watched both play in their prime (thank you Lord). Magic's greatest greatness : he could've played any of the positions on the court and become an All-Star - I honestly believe this. However, he can't play all of them at the same time, so that is moot. Magic offensively was every bit the threat that Jordan was if you take into consideration how Magic saw the floor and ran an offense. However... Jordan was head and shoulders above Magic when it came to defense. In the modern era, Jordan was the most complete player - period. Offensively, defensively, basketball IQ, personality, intimidation, heart, will, etc. He was complete and had no weaknesses. The only player anywhere near as offensively and defensively complete as Jordan in the modern era was Hakeem. I'd still take Jordan over Magic. I think the prime Jordan could harrass the hell out of the prime Magic. The prime Magic didn't have a chance of containing the prime Jordan. Jordan wins.
He also punched Steve Kerr for beating him in a 3pt contest I believe ...something along those lines...
Just so people know... Elgin Baylor averaged 27.4ppg, 13.5rpg, and 4.3apg over his career. He was a dominant player in his era. In 61-62 he averaged 38-18-4. He never won a title, but he was a legitimately great player, and without a doubt one of the greatest.
I will have the wrath of every Celtic/Bill Russell fan on me when I say that in any discussion of the greatest basketball player of all time, Bill Russell should not be in the top 5. Everyone's top 5 should include : Wilt, Jordan, Magic, The Big O. Go ahead and pick your fifth - these 4 should be on everyone's list I'd take Larry Bird over Bill Russell for five... I'd take a young in-his-prime Shaq over Bill Russell for five... I'd take an in-his-prime Hakeem over Bill Russell for five... I may even take a young Kareem over Bill Russell for five...
Bill Russell will forever be dissed because he didn't care about anything but winning, didn't care about scoring, didn't care about fame, all he cared about was winning. 11 championships in 13 season's prove that. I think all the guys you have in your top 4 have as many championships COMBINED as Bill Russell does. EDIT: Jordan and Magic have as many combined. OOPS! Still, your top four have only three or four more championships COMBINED.
Bill sure didn't care about scoring... his career 44% FG shooting and 56% FT shooting showed that. I wouldn't want him caring about scoring, either. lol. As for Bill's 11 rings : Robert Horry has more rings than Hakeem, so he must be a better player, right? And of course, nobody else was on that team - it was just Bill against 5 players every night, right?
Wilt Chamberlain's stats are seriously inflated by the style of plays. But there is one single stat cannot be inflated, that is the dude can average more than 48 minutes a game !!! In an era with the fastest pace!!! I believe he averaged more than 40 min a game in his last year when he is like 35 or 36. Considering D-Rob could average 30 ppg by playing 40 min a game. I think Wilt can average 30 and 15 on a yearly basis in today's game, a stat line which Hakeem Shaq etc never achieved ever. Then you add in that the dude can lead the league in assists..... Wilt is really the best big man of all time. The thing with Jordan is he has shown the will power and the ability to win close games and win titles. Wilt although a great team player wasn't able to do all that and with his crappy free throws he probably won't be able to. So if I start a franchise I'd pick Wilt first but if I wanna win one game I'd go with Jordan.
exactly, all this "he was just a team player", "he didn't care about stats" stuff is ridiculous. the best offensive talents have always scored. always. russell didn't score b/c he couldn't, not b/c he didn't care. i realize fg percentages were lower back then, but the other guy who compared to him size-wise (wilt) had enormous fg percentages over his career and russell's 56% ft shooting (i didn't know it was that low, thanks for giving me more ammo in this argument DoD) makes it clear he couldn't shoot. so if he wasn't capable of dominating smaller guys inside or shooting from the outside, it seems clear he just wasn't that offensively talented. and it's hard to put someone high on the all-time list when they couldn't even carry a team on their backs offensively like all the other greats have. you think a guy who couldn't shoot would've won the title for us in '94? and yes baylor was great, but he cannot be put above hakeem and shaq w/o ever having lead a team to a title.
Where are Robert Horry's FIVE MVPs??? Before Russell that team couldn't even win a playoffs series, he gets there and they win a championship after championship, he leaves and they start sucking again. It's no coincidence that the exact same thing happened to his college. His scoring numbers weren't great, but he was a little undersized so getting his shot wasn't always as easy, he did average about as much as a Rik Smits, and he was unselfish enough to focus on defending and rebounding not caring if he missed some easy baskets on fast breaks.
1. He was a fine college scorer but realized he didn't have to score in the NBA to win, so he didn't, you don't have to believe that. 2. Magic could of averaged a bunch of points if he wanted to too, but he knew that that usually meant he lost the game, just like Russell. Those two were two of the greatest winners of all time because they accepted that. 3. Russell was 6-9, he rarely played against a center that was smaller than him. 4. He carried teams offensively with his DEFENSE and REBOUNDING. Imagine a team now that didn't have to worry about rebounding or about helping out in the paint. All that team would do is run, run, run because they knew they had a guy behind them that would defend, rebound, and make some of the best outlet passes the game has ever seen. It really shouldn't be this hard to support the biggest winner in sports history...
and hakeem couldn't dominate the boards and block shots with the best of them? and shaq wouldn't have torn down rebound after rebound and had tons of blocks? it's not that russell didn't do these things and do them very well, but kareem, shaq, and hakeem could have all been monsters on the glass and been as dominant defensively (well maybe not shaq since he didn't care), but they could also dominate offensively. you know, for those times when you don't have 4 other hall of famers on the court with you to do the scoring. they could do what russell could do, but he couldn't do what they did.
Kareem really should be getting more love. My vote goes for Wilt, though. It remains impossible to get every great NBA player to play against each other in their prime. Since that won't happen, you have to look at how dominant a player was in their era. Nobody was as dominant as Wilt, ever. But I can still see giving some more love to Kareem. He has Russell's winning tradition (college, NBA) with Wilt's dominant statistics - thought clearly not as dominant.
Maybe, maybe not, but he wasn't Ben Wallace on offense either. You know his career high and number of 40 point games were similar to Magic's, so were their records in those high scoring games. Look back on his teams and he was hardly ever below 3rd on his team in scoring, no Ben Wallace out there. Well, look up the heights of the players they played against. You'll see that they weren't these little shrimps everyone makes them out to be. Hakeem was an awesome player defensively and on the boards but he still wasn't close to Russell in those phases of the game. Russell defended and rebounded better than any guy you can name, that's two of three phases in the game that he had locked down. Individual offense wasn't great but how he affected his team's offense was huge. If you look back at stats from players he played with you'd see that plenty of them enjoyed similar statistical careers that weren't on his team, the difference? The rings. Why did they win those rings? Russell. You'd also see that plenty of them had stats that would make you wonder why the heck they belonged in the Hall, I believe only Havlicek, Heinson, Sharmon and Cousy had stats that belonged in the Hall. KC Jones didn't average double figures in anything, not even points, EVER, in his whole career, but I believe he's in the Hall of Fame and if not mistaken that was before his coaching career. He wasn't the only guy who had similar numbers but still made the hall over guys that were better individual basketball players without the rings.
