We are wasting our time. I think you are out to lunch. Believe what you will.
I think you’re a hypocrite. No biggie.
I'm intellectually consistent. I've made my arguments which you clearly have not reflected on.
You are just repeating the same baloney with absolutely no data to support it.
There’s literally no data to support “magically teleport player A to modern times and he’d be [fill in the blank]”. It’s a hypothetical on my side and your side, genius. By that logic literally ANY player from the past could be molded into a serviceable player with “ToDaY’s NuTriTioN aNd TeChNoLoGy”. I knew me shitting on Russell would rile you Bush and Rob up though.
Good take and exposure by LNS. Russel's legacy will always be tied to being a below average offensive player that benefitted from having a team that was unreasonably stacked relative to the weak competition he was playing against. He just isn't very good, I also love the Wallace and Russel shots, Wallace would catch the ball down low and push Russell out of the way for an easy two all night. Embarrassing mismatch of strength and athleticism.
I'm intellectually consistent. I've made my arguments which you clearly have not reflected on.
You are just repeating the same baloney with absolutely no data to support it.
There’s literally no data to support “magically teleport player A to modern times and he’d be [fill in the blank]”. It’s a hypothetical on my side and your side, genius. By that logic literally ANY player from the past could be molded into a serviceable player with “ToDaY’s NuTriTioN aNd TeChNoLoGy”. I knew me shitting on Russell would rile you Bush and Rob up though.
EVERYONE has a blind spot for someone, Grizz.
Well then, you believe in completely dismissing prior eras as essentially irrelevant in greatness debates. If that's what you believe, fine.
I "try" to adjust, although obviously that is fraught with error. But I don't see another way to do it.
Relative to his peers, Russell was by far the best defender in the game. It's not close. And even offensively, relative to era, he was well above average in all major categories. Do we just pretend that him, Baylor, Cousy, Wilt, Sharman, West and so on would have the same game?
He'd be 6'11" by today's measurements, and probably filling out some to 230-240 or so.
I don't think he'd be far and away the best defensive player since modern analytics/insights have largely caught up to what were profound insights in the 60s, but I could absolutely see him being at or very close to the top in rebounds, blocks, and defensive impact, and assuming he keeps his "essence"....intangibles.
Transferring defense/rebounding/IQ and leadership is a little bit different than translating elements like scoring, since they are predicated a little bit more on athletic ability vs. pure skill/technique. And while average athletic ability has definitely improved, we are talking about a 99th percentile level guy being mapped into the modern game.
Obviously, he wouldn't keep his pace of winning in today's NBA, but that's basically impossible.
This entire discussion is why "versus peers" should be the standard for evaluating greatness in players. Otherwise, it becomes this weird push-pull of disrespecting the old school (by holding them to unrealistic modern standards) vs. disrespecting the new school (by pretending they aren't better in a vacuum).
"He wasn't that great...he wasn't advanced to the level of 60 years beyond when he played". And? Who the hell is lol?
Let's just respect all the schools (except the 85-93, 96-98 periods) and be cool.
I'm intellectually consistent. I've made my arguments which you clearly have not reflected on.
You are just repeating the same baloney with absolutely no data to support it.
There’s literally no data to support “magically teleport player A to modern times and he’d be [fill in the blank]”. It’s a hypothetical on my side and your side, genius. By that logic literally ANY player from the past could be molded into a serviceable player with “ToDaY’s NuTriTioN aNd TeChNoLoGy”. I knew me shitting on Russell would rile you Bush and Rob up though.
EVERYONE has a blind spot for someone, Grizz.
Well then, you believe in completely dismissing prior eras as essentially irrelevant in greatness debates. If that's what you believe, fine.
I "try" to adjust, although obviously that is fraught with error. But I don't see another way to do it.
Relative to his peers, Russell was by far the best defender in the game. It's not close. And even offensively, relative to era, he was well above average in all major categories. Do we just pretend that him, Baylor, Cousy, Wilt, Sharman, West and so on would have the same game?
They’d be average. The game has evolved in the 50-60 years since those guys last played. Maybe Wilt would still be decent… he was dropping 30ppg 25rpg on the best defender in the league back then.
_Vcsgrizzfan_ wrote: ↑Wed Jun 26, 2024 3:42 pm
The stupidity of this board is mind blowing sometimes. LNS top pf the list here.
From ChatGPT:
Bill Russell, known for his exceptional defense, faced many great centers during his career. While Russell often had the upper hand, some centers had notable success against him:
Wilt Chamberlain: Chamberlain is perhaps the most famous rival of Russell. Despite Russell's team often getting the better of Chamberlain's, Wilt had impressive individual performances against him. Chamberlain's scoring, rebounding, and physical dominance made their matchups legendary.
Nate Thurmond: Another formidable opponent, Thurmond was known for his strong defense and rebounding ability. While not as dominant as Chamberlain, Thurmond still had some good games against Russell.
Walt Bellamy: Bellamy was a prolific scorer and rebounder. He had several high-scoring games against Russell, showcasing his offensive skills.
These centers managed to have some success against Russell, although his Celtics teams were often dominant overall.
Here are the average points per game for some notable centers in their matchups against Bill Russell during the regular season:
Wilt Chamberlain: Chamberlain averaged approximately 28.7 points per game in 142 regular-season matchups against Russell's Celtics.
Nate Thurmond: Thurmond averaged around 14.1 points per game in 83 regular-season games against Russell.
Walt Bellamy: Bellamy averaged about 18.5 points per game in 85 regular-season games against Russell.
These averages give a sense of their scoring output when facing off against Bill Russell's Celtics. It's important to note that these are averages over multiple games and matchups throughout their careers.
I made a post about this (on this board) many years ago... tried searching/bumping recently but no luck.
Anyway...
In that post I took the PPG averages of all the top Centers Russell faced and compared what they averaged against the league vs. what they averaged against Russell and in every instance (except for 1 or 2 guys) these Centers actually Scored as much OR more head-head vs. Russ than they did overall.
So yeah... if ever there was an overhyped player it's Bill Russell. Titan said it best... he'd be very similar to a prime Joakim Noah if he played today, which is STILL an All Star level talent; however not even remotely close to sniffing GOAT status, as some delusional fans suggest.
"Today's NBA is soft, the Defense is weak, and the rules 'really' favor the Offense."
"Lebron doesn’t guard for a full game and our game plan was to get him to play defense and he left me open all game."
There’s literally no data to support “magically teleport player A to modern times and he’d be [fill in the blank]”. It’s a hypothetical on my side and your side, genius. By that logic literally ANY player from the past could be molded into a serviceable player with “ToDaY’s NuTriTioN aNd TeChNoLoGy”. I knew me shitting on Russell would rile you Bush and Rob up though.
EVERYONE has a blind spot for someone, Grizz.
Well then, you believe in completely dismissing prior eras as essentially irrelevant in greatness debates. If that's what you believe, fine.
I "try" to adjust, although obviously that is fraught with error. But I don't see another way to do it.
Relative to his peers, Russell was by far the best defender in the game. It's not close. And even offensively, relative to era, he was well above average in all major categories. Do we just pretend that him, Baylor, Cousy, Wilt, Sharman, West and so on would have the same game?
They’d be average. The game has evolved in the 50-60 years since those guys last played. Maybe Wilt would still be decent… he was dropping 30ppg 25rpg on the best defender in the league back then.
So Russell beat Wilt like a drum (7-1) in playoffs, including years where Wilt had the better team (1969 is the obvious example), but his game wouldn't evolve and translate, but Wilt's would?
Of course the game has evolved. That's the entire point of evaluating greatness relative to peers. But there seems to be a special category for Russell where he wouldn't evolve while other guys would.
Well then, you believe in completely dismissing prior eras as essentially irrelevant in greatness debates. If that's what you believe, fine.
I "try" to adjust, although obviously that is fraught with error. But I don't see another way to do it.
Relative to his peers, Russell was by far the best defender in the game. It's not close. And even offensively, relative to era, he was well above average in all major categories. Do we just pretend that him, Baylor, Cousy, Wilt, Sharman, West and so on would have the same game?
They’d be average. The game has evolved in the 50-60 years since those guys last played. Maybe Wilt would still be decent… he was dropping 30ppg 25rpg on the best defender in the league back then.
So Russell beat Wilt like a drum (7-1) in playoffs, including years where Wilt had the better team (1969 is the obvious example), but his game wouldn't evolve and translate, but Wilt's would?
Of course the game has evolved. That's the entire point of evaluating greatness relative to peers. But there seems to be a special category for Russell where he wouldn't evolve while other guys would.
Well then, you believe in completely dismissing prior eras as essentially irrelevant in greatness debates. If that's what you believe, fine.
I "try" to adjust, although obviously that is fraught with error. But I don't see another way to do it.
Relative to his peers, Russell was by far the best defender in the game. It's not close. And even offensively, relative to era, he was well above average in all major categories. Do we just pretend that him, Baylor, Cousy, Wilt, Sharman, West and so on would have the same game?
They’d be average. The game has evolved in the 50-60 years since those guys last played. Maybe Wilt would still be decent… he was dropping 30ppg 25rpg on the best defender in the league back then.
So Russell beat Wilt like a drum (7-1) in playoffs, including years where Wilt had the better team (1969 is the obvious example), but his game wouldn't evolve and translate, but Wilt's would?
Of course the game has evolved. That's the entire point of evaluating greatness relative to peers. But there seems to be a special category for Russell where he wouldn't evolve while other guys would.
Dude… the Celtics beat the Lakers. Basketball is a team sport. Celtics were better. And as a result of being stacked Russell was able to focus on technical parts of his game (defense) and because they were stacked his offensive game or whatever took advantage of the talent around him and the opposing teams defense that had to focus on defending said talent.
Put Russell on the Washington Bullets and tell me if he sniffs the playoffs let alone the finals.
I like how the anti-Russell (which is really just pro-Jordan/pro-looking back at life crowd) crowd can only chant appeal to authority statements when claiming today's game is the "worst in history" (per TDK) or that Jordan would be a top-tier player today, but completely reject basic authority-based facts like players playing directly against Russell voting him MVP 5x, sportswriters of 1980 crushingly voting him GOAT, and Jerry West flatly saying Russell was better than Wilt after competing against them both and playing with Wilt.
None of this *really* matters, but you should at least be consistent in your troll...I mean legit basketball takes lol
Funny how the BWGC wants to "adjust for era" when talking about Bill Russell... wonder why they don't apply that same logic when it comes to Jordan??
Oh wait, that's right... they do. My bad.
According to the BWGC Jordan would average the same OR fewer PPG in today's Era even though it's easier to Score than ever before (due to the rules heavily favoring the Offensive player, while the Defense is soft and weak relative to the mid 80's - 90's).
"Today's NBA is soft, the Defense is weak, and the rules 'really' favor the Offense."
"Lebron doesn’t guard for a full game and our game plan was to get him to play defense and he left me open all game."
Well then, you believe in completely dismissing prior eras as essentially irrelevant in greatness debates. If that's what you believe, fine.
I "try" to adjust, although obviously that is fraught with error. But I don't see another way to do it.
Relative to his peers, Russell was by far the best defender in the game. It's not close. And even offensively, relative to era, he was well above average in all major categories. Do we just pretend that him, Baylor, Cousy, Wilt, Sharman, West and so on would have the same game?
They’d be average. The game has evolved in the 50-60 years since those guys last played. Maybe Wilt would still be decent… he was dropping 30ppg 25rpg on the best defender in the league back then.
So Russell beat Wilt like a drum (7-1) in playoffs,
"Russell" didn't beat Wilt like a drum... Russell AND the 5-6-7 other HIOFERS on Boston's rosters did (compared to Wilt and his 2-3 HOF teammates). Also... Wilt literally beat himself out of at least 2 Championships with his atrocious FT shooting,
Fact.
"Today's NBA is soft, the Defense is weak, and the rules 'really' favor the Offense."
"Lebron doesn’t guard for a full game and our game plan was to get him to play defense and he left me open all game."
Bush4Ever. wrote: ↑Wed Jun 26, 2024 5:36 pm
I like how the anti-Russell (which is really just pro-Jordan/pro-looking back at life crowd) crowd can only chant appeal to authority statements when claiming today's game is the "worst in history" (per TDK)
Stop lying, bush-league... TDK said nothing of the kind.
I merely QUOTED what the NBA Commissioner, the NBA's VP of Ops, and numerous (current) NBA players AND coaches recently said about today's game... ie; the rules heavily favor the Offense, and the Defense is soft and weak RELATIVE TO the 90's.
Your problem is you think you know better than the players, coaches and league itself because you have charts and graphs and made-up stats.
Get a grip.
"Today's NBA is soft, the Defense is weak, and the rules 'really' favor the Offense."
"Lebron doesn’t guard for a full game and our game plan was to get him to play defense and he left me open all game."
I see the pro-Jordan/pro-peak-in-high-school crowd is avoiding the EXPERT testimony from players, coaches/GMs, and sportwriters of the era that Russell was not only better than Wilt, but GOAT up to the 1980 marker.
Typical. You would think they would have avoided the obvious trap. Then again, if they could think, their opinions about Jordan would be much more modest and room-temperature instead of extreme and white hot (because fighting for the honor of a man who would literally view them as human garbage is appealing to them...somehow).
Jerry west only said that shit because he despises the lakers. Everyone and their mama knows wilt towers over Russell in every aspecting the game including defense.
Alex_Murphy wrote: ↑Wed Jun 26, 2024 5:54 pm
Jerry west only said that shit because he despises the lakers. Everyone and their mama knows wilt towers over Russell in every aspecting the game including defense.
Ah, so you know more about the game than both Jerry West AND Isiah Thomas, HOFers (West on multiple fronts).
Gotcha gotcha. I like how that works with the Jordan Jocker crowd: athletes (in a pro sport that is 99 percent based on extreme circumstances of DNA (height/athletic ability) are perfectly infallible in their analysis (even when different athletes contradict each other...both of them are right)....UNTIL it comes in favor of a non-Jordan/boomer/80/90s hero...in which case the situation becomes "more nuanced" and "worthy of taking other things into account" and so forth.
Interesting, Interesting....not at all transparent either.
Bush4Ever. wrote: ↑Wed Jun 26, 2024 5:52 pm
I see the pro-Jordan/pro-peak-in-high-school crowd is avoiding the EXPERT testimony from players, coaches/GMs, and sportwriters of the era that Russell was not only better than Wilt, but GOAT up to the 1980 marker.
Typical. You would think they would have avoided the obvious trap. Then again, if they could think, their opinions about Jordan would be much more modest and room-temperature instead of extreme and white hot (because fighting for the honor of a man who would literally view them as human garbage is appealing to them...somehow).
lmao
You could argue Russell was more Valuable (because he played Defense in an Era where Defense as a whole was as weak as it is today)... but as far as who was the "better" player, it's Wilt all day / every day.
"Today's NBA is soft, the Defense is weak, and the rules 'really' favor the Offense."
"Lebron doesn’t guard for a full game and our game plan was to get him to play defense and he left me open all game."
