Bush4Ever wrote:thedangerouskitchen wrote:
And what...? The double-standard is obvious... and Wilt saw it too. Only when it comes to Russell is Defense all-important.
Why does that upset you?
It is a strawman because no one says defense is the thing that is
all-important. If Russell played the same defense, but didn't have the same performance on dimensions of rebounding, leadership/intangibles, or even offense to some extent, he wouldn't have the same ranking and place in the game.
It is false equivalence because Wilt at that time was not equivalent to Russell defensively during the years where Russell made his name. Hence the false equivalence.
I'm not sure if you are drunk, trolling because you are frustrated with your life, or just trying to protect Jordan from the only guy who is probably a serious challenge to his all-time number one ranking.
The COMIBINATION of attributes to OVERALL performance is what is being evaluated.
Like I've said a million times on here, if a player literally did nothing but block shots, but he blocked 50 shots a game, he would unquestionably be the greatest player in history. Top-level OVERALL performance can be composed in a variety of ways. You can even see that in the top 10, where you have:
1. Well-rounded offensive players with legendary intangibles, and somewhat shaky defense (Magic, Bird).
2. Monster statistical players who are elite at both sides, but lacking a bit in terms of intangibles (Wilt, Lebron).
3. Two-way guards who lead with scoring and (often) strong defense, but might not be the passers or rebounders of other superstars, and while having many strong mental points, some weaker ones as well (Jordan, Kobe).
And so on...top level individual performance is USUALLY accomplished by leading with scoring, because offense is much easier to influence with a single person than defense, which requires more of a team effort. But the overall performance is what counts. If you want to say Russell's overall performance (taking everything in account: offense, defense, rebounding, intangibles) was beneath Jordan's (taking everything into account), that's fine, but that is an entirely different argument than the one on the table.
