Felton vs. Norman (The Chamberlain\Russell Thread)

[Pointguard]

When looking at the youtube clips '62, 65 and one in the later years, of Celtic playoff games the thing that I noticed was that Sam Jones and Hondo played a role very similiar to Dirk. They hit key shot after key shot in clutch moments. And they were looked for to do such. And that it aparently wasn't Russells' role. While both admit Russ was the man I wonder with todays mentality if a primarily defensive center, great rebounder whose role offensively was decoy and facilitator on a team with guys like Dirk would he be considered the man?

While Russ was indeed a clutch player - moreso the whole game and not like Jordan, a take over player at the end of games, or a deadly feed into the post. He functioned differently.

[RobertdeMeijer]

I always find it a bit strange and hypocritical when Wilt had supposedly this often a better cast than Russell and it's used against him, while Wilt usually was the one who was outplaying his opponent, not his teammates Russell's ones. Not only this, but it's not even used as an argument that the overall Celtics' teams were better equipped, more ready, better coached and more overall clutch than Wilt's teams. It's always a Wilt vs Russell matter, even though both Wilt and Russell clearly played minimal roles in a lot of crucial situations that could have changed the history if they had different endings (see, Sam Jones and Don Nelson in 1969 - at best you can claim that Jones, by his admission, momentarily thought that Russell was still playing (he was on the bench), and you still know that this isn't the most important feature of that play).



I guess that after the first line everything else is supposed to go Russell's way, but I hope the playoff stats are not put there for this reason, other than to claim that Russell increased his productivity in the playoffs, which still doesn't bring them to Wilt's ones' level.
Apart from this, yes, the Celtics were the better team. Nobody argues this.



Wait. I thought from a previous thread that Wilt's unpopularity did not play a role in MVP votings (and millwad was mocking Wilt's unpopularity, calling this another "Wilt myth") and that he was more liked throughout the league than Russell. Let's get to a logical conclusion some day, shall we?



Simmons was the one who quoted that if Wilt's clutch moments existed, we'd know about them, right? Funny, because up to the early 2000's, we "knew" of no clutch moments of Russell, either (only during the last years did we obtain better info on certain plays, like the "Coleman play"). And I bet you, Simmons and 99.99+% of the rest of the world don't have a clue that Wilt had 11 game-winning shots in his career (I mean real game-winners, not the criterion-travesty that 82games.com uses), more than any center ever not called Kareem and Hakeem, including 2 such shots during playoff games, neither of which came during a won championship season (actually, he didn't make any game-winning shot in any of his won championship seasons - as if they needed them, lol).
And there can't be 6 games when Wilt "could have beaten Russell for the title", since his team lost 4 times in Game 7 to the Celtics, let alone 6 games when he "could have beaten Russell for the title, but instead got owned".



Simmons doesn't care to compare Wilt to Russell. Simmons wants to show that Russell was better. Given that Wilt has either been called either the GOAT or at least the best player of his era from people of all eras, I'd say that people even from that era (and I don't mean necessarily players) are split on who's greater.

Good points!

[PTB Fan]

A case can be made for both sides, however i will go with Russell.

He's a team superstar who does everything what a team needs and even more plus he makes everyone around better, is a better leader, defensive player, has the clutch and mental edge etc.

[jlauber]

A case can be made for both sides, however i will go with Russell.

He's a team superstar who does everything what a team needs and even more plus he makes everyone around better, is a better leader, defensive player, has the clutch and mental edge etc.

Of course, I could counter-argue that Chamberlain was the greatest offensive player of all-time, a much more efficient offensive player, a better rebounder, a better passer, had many more HUGE playoff games (even against Russell, himself), and when given a comparable supporting cast was able to easily beat Russell's eight-time defending champions.

I will agree that Russell teammates almost always outplayed Wilt's, but, despite a 7-1 H2H series edge, FOUR of those wins came in game seven's, and by margins of 2, 1, 4, and 2 points. It was not as if Russell and his Celtics were pounding Wilt and his team's in those eight post-season series.