Bill Russell's scoring role compared to Magic Johnson's

[LAZERUSS]

So what you're saying is Russell's teams were more stacked than Wilt's and that's why he has 11 rings and Wilt has 2?

Clearly. The real question would have been, would Wilt have held a 9-1 edge over Russell in their ten years in the league together, had they swapped rosters in that decade?

[DatAsh]

But the real question would have been...could Russell have carried lessor rosters on the offensive end?

Why would he need to though? The Celtics won 3 championships as the worst offense in the league and 3-4 more as the second or third worst offense in the league. The Celtics were always mediocre to terrible on offense, they won in spite of their offense, not because of it.

[LAZERUSS]

Why would he need to though? The Celtics won 3 championships as the worst offense in the league and 3-4 more as the second or third worst offense in the league. The Celtics were always mediocre to terrible on offense, they won in spite of their offense, not because of it.

BUT, he played with SEVERAL players who had MULTIPLE 20+ ppg seasons. Clearly, he had capable scorers behind him. Sam Jones was putting up seasons of 26 ppg and playoff runs of 29 ppg. Havlicek had two seasons AFTER Russell in which he averaged 27 and 29 ppg.

Furthermore, Russell was also playing alongside three of the best DEFENSIVE players of his era (KS Jones, Satch Sanders, and John Havlicek.) My god, take a look at the DWS's leaders each year in the decade of the 60's. Including Russell, Boston was routinely having 5-6 players in the top-10 in that category.

[LAZERUSS]

How good were Russell's teammates?

In Russell's own words...

http://www.celtic-nation.com/intervi...ones_page1.htm

[QUOTE]

[DJ Leon Smith]

Russell is diminished by some for not being a dominant scorer. However, this is never brought up vis-a-vis Magic, who led his team in scoring only three times and only once during the Lakers title years. Let's compare their respective roles in terms of scoring.

Magic Johnson

1980

Magic's scoring rank: 3rd
Top scorers: KAJ 25, Wilkes 20, Magic 18, Nixon 18

1981

Magic's scoring rank: 3rd
Top scorers: KAJ 26, Wilkes 23, Magic 22, Nixon 17

1982

Magic's scoring rank: 3rd
Top scorers: KAJ 24, Wilkes 21, Magic 19, Nixon 18, Kupchak 14

1983

Magic's scoring rank: 3rd
Top scorers: KAJ 22, Wilkes 20, Magic 17, Nixon 15, McAdoo 15, Worthy 13

1984

Magic's scoring rank: 2nd
Top scorers: KAJ 22, Magic 18, Wilkes 17, Worthy 15, McAdoo 13

1985

Magic's scoring rank: 2nd
Top scorers: KAJ 22, Magic 18, Worthy 18, Scott 16

1986

Magic's scoring rank: 3rd
Top scorers: KAJ 23, Worthy 20, Magic 19, Scott 15

1987

Magic's scoring rank: 1st
Top scorers: Magic 24, Worthy 19, KAJ 18, Scott 17

1988

Magic's scoring rank: 3rd
Top scorers: Scott 22, Worthy 20, Magic 20, KAJ 15

1989

Magic's scoring rank: 1st
Top scorers: Magic 23, Worthy 21, Scott 20

1990

Magic's scoring rank: 1st
Top scorers: Magic 22, Worthy 21, Scott 16

1991

Magic's scoring rank: 2nd
Top scorers: Worthy 21, Magic 19, Scott 15, Perkins 14

KAJ was the #1 option from 1980-1986 and Magic was part of the supporting scorer group. The Lakers used a balanced attack where several people contributed to scoring. KAJ was the go-to guy in the clutch as well.

Bill Russell

1957

Russell's scoring rank: 4th
Top scorers: Sharman 21, Cousy 21, Heinsohn 16, Russell 15

1958

Russell's scoring rank: 4th
Top scorers: Sharman 22, Cousy 18, Heinsohn 17, Russell 17, Ramsey 17

1959

Russell's scoring rank: 4th
Top scorers: Sharman 20, Cousy 20, Heinsohn 19, Russell 17, Ramsey 15

1960

Russell's scoring rank: 4th
Top scorers: Heinsohn 22, Cousy 19, Sharman 19, Russell 18, Ramsey 15

1961

Russell's scoring rank: 3rd
Top scorers: Heinsohn 21, Cousy 18, Russell 17, Sharman 16, Ramsey 15, S. Jones 15

1962

Russell's scoring rank: 2nd
Top scorers: Heinsohn 22, Russell 19, S. Jones 18, Cousy 16, Ramsey 15

1963

Russell's scoring rank: 3rd
Top scorers: S. Jones 20, Heinsohn 19, Russell 17, Havelick 14

1964

Russell's scoring rank: 4th
Top scorers: Havelick 20, S. Jones 19, Heinsohn 17, Russell 15

1965

Russell's scoring rank: 3rd
Top scorers: S. Jones 26, Havelick 18, Russell 14, Heinsohn 14

1966

Russell's scoring rank: 4th
Top scorers: S. Jones 24, Havelick 19, Sigfried 14, Russell 13, Sanders 13

1967

Russell's scoring rank: 5th
Top scorers: S. Jones 22, Havelick 21, Howell 20, Sigfried 14, Russell 13

1968

Russell's scoring rank: 4th
Top scorers: S. Jones 21, Havelick 21, Howell 20, Russell 13

1969

Russell's scoring rank: 7th (10 ppg)
Top scorers: Havelick 22, Howell 20, S. Jones 16, Sigfried 14

Recap


Magic's scoring rankings: 3, 3, 3, 3, 2, 2, 3, 1, 3, 1, 1, 2
Russell's scoring rankings: 4, 4, 4, 4, 3, 2, 3, 4, 3, 4, 5, 4, 7

Conclusion

As you can see, both were supporting scorers for most of their careers. By "supporting scorer" I mean someone who was not the leading scorer but was still a significant scorer. This was done in the context of balanced offenses where the scoring was spread out. These weren't teams where there was one 28-30 ppg scorer, a second 20-22 ppg type and everyone else lagged behind. In pretty much every season the Celtics' leading scorer was in the low 20's while Russell would be in the mid to high teens. Russell was not a significant contributor in his final years, but he was right in the mix for most of his career. As to Magic, he led his team in scoring only three times--and only once did they win the title in those years. When the Lakers won rings Magic was 3rd, 3rd, 2nd, 1st, and 3rd in scoring, suggesting the offense worked best when he focused on being a distributor and downplayed a scoring role.

Both players made their most significant contributions to the team's success outside of scoring, namely defense and rebounding in Russell's case and playmaking in Magic's. Yet only one of these two is penalized for not being a great scorer. Magic even gets credit for rings as a "first option" when he was 3, 3, 2, and 3 in scoring. KAJ was the #1 scoring option in 1980, 1982, and 1985 and in 1988 it was Scott. I can understand someone holding Russell's scoring against him, but in order to be consistent you have to do the same with Magic.

What do you attribute the double standard to? I think it largely is due to a bias against the 60's in general and Russell in particular. Russell is a giant wrench into the thinking of many fans because of the obsession with "rings as the man." However, if one is serious about "rings as the man" being the ultimate metric of greatness then logically Russell is the clear GOAT. So to avoid that incongruity he is diminished, either by downplaying his role on those teams or not counting his rings due to the era (which itself is open to debate--in Wilt/Russell's era every starter was a good player so they didn't get nights playing scrubs).

How does Scottie Pippen's ***** taste? Is it more salty or sweet?

[Roundball_Rock]

Because the points Magic didnt score were made up by his assist.

How about the points generated by Russell's dominant rebounding?

Great thread. For anyone being up FG%, just check out the league averages for FG% during the 80s and then for the 60s.

Exactly. Also keep in mind the league was tougher in many ways back then. Imagine if the NBA contracted to 10 leagues. You would be facing good players every night. In the current NBA you face average players most of the time and weak starter. You couldn't pad your stats playing scrubs.

ut the real question would have been...could Russell have carried lessor rosters on the offensive end?

No, and that is a fair point.

Whether I agree with everything he posts, or not, he at least puts in the research and well constructed arguments. That is all I ask in any of these discussions.

To be clear, this is a pro-Russell thread--not an anti-Magic thread.

[GODbe]

Exactly. Also keep in mind the league was tougher in many ways back then. Imagine if the NBA contracted to 10 leagues. You would be facing good players every night. In the current NBA you face average players most of the time and weak starter. You couldn't pad your stats playing scrubs.

[Hey Yo]

Clearly. The real question would have been, would Wilt have held a 9-1 edge over Russell in their ten years in the league together, had they swapped rosters in that decade?

Or could Magic sustain his success on a team if he had to be the no.1 scoring option his entire career?

He was never really on a team that wasn't loaded with scorer's.

[DatAsh]

BUT, he played with SEVERAL players who had MULTIPLE 20+ ppg seasons. Clearly, he had capable scorers behind him. Sam Jones was putting up seasons of 26 ppg and playoff runs of 29 ppg. Havlicek had two seasons AFTER Russell in which he averaged 27 and 29 ppg.

What's with all these meaningless stats? That's all you seem to ever do is throw out box score stats. Ppg != offense. If Russell's team's were always loaded with so much offensive talent, then why were they consistently one of the worst - if not the worst - offenses in the league. Was Russell so bad of an offensive player that he he took a great offensive team and made them terrible? Is that your argument?

Furthermore, Russell was also playing alongside three of the best DEFENSIVE players of his era (KS Jones, Satch Sanders, and John Havlicek.)

If you mean they were among the best backcourt defenders, then I agree. Jones and Sanders were having no where near the defensive impact that guys like Russell, Chamberlain, and Thurmond were having though.

My god, take a look at the DWS's leaders each year in the decade of the 60's. Including Russell, Boston was routinely having 5-6 players in the top-10 in that category.

It's hard to imagine a more meaningless stat than individual DWS from the 1960s. For the sake of respecting the rest of your argument, I'll just pretend I didn't read that.

[stanlove1111]

BUT, he played with SEVERAL players who had MULTIPLE 20+ ppg seasons. Clearly, he had capable scorers behind him. Sam Jones was putting up seasons of 26 ppg and playoff runs of 29 ppg. Havlicek had two seasons AFTER Russell in which he averaged 27 and 29 ppg.
.

This is another example of Laz not even understand basketball. Yeah no crap Russell's teammates put up more scoring then Wilt's much of the time..Russell's game was all about uplifting his teammates game, Wilt's for much of his career just the opposite,,

I think this guy used to be on a basketball site 10 years ago sprewing the same nonsense..He used to compare the scoring of Russell's teammates to Wilt's to prove Russell easily had the better teammates..DUH..

Is that you OLDFOGEY..Thats the name he used to go by..

[LAZERUSS]

This is another example of Laz not even understand basketball. Yeah no crap Russell's teammates put up more scoring then Wilt's much of the time..Russell's game was all about uplifting his teammates game, Wilt's for much of his career just the opposite,,

I think this guy used to be on a basketball site 10 years ago sprewing the same nonsense..He used to compare the scoring of Russell's teammates to Wilt's to prove Russell easily had the better teammates..DUH..

Is that you OLDFOGEY..Thats the name he used to go by..

Give me the list of scorers that Chamberlain played with in his '63 and '64 seasons. And keep in mind that Thurmond was a rookie in '64, playing part-time, out of position, and was really ineffective in doing so. And Willie Naulls was washed up by then, as well, and in fact, played worse with Russell the very next year.

Now, with the exceptions of Thurmond and Naulls, go ahead and explain why the rest of the roster never amounted to s**t withOUT Chamberlain. Where were these "scorers" that would match Russell's rosters? Give me their scoring numbers in the years in which they didn't play with Wilt. How any of them had 20+ ppg seasons?

Furthermore, the REALITY was, players like Greer, Goodrich, and even Gola, all had the best seasons of their careers, WITH Wilt. And West's numbers, particularly in his post-seasons, were nearly identical, with and withOUT Wilt. Arizin's ppg, and playing alongside Wilt in the last three years of his career, had a marginal drop-off. How about an already declining Baylor? The year before Wilt arrived, he averaged 26.0 ppg on a .443 FG%. With Wilt the very next year? 24.8 ppg on a .447 FG%.

An explosive Wilt hardly impacted the best players on his team. And the remainder of those rosters were basically unaffected, as well. And some, again, like Goodrich and Greer, flourished with Wilt.

[fpliii]

I don't think it's fair to put Magic at/near Russell's level as a player overall, but I do think Magic was the superior scorer.

That being said, I think it's silly to dock Russell for his efficiency numbers. No, he was not a gifted scorer, but the Celtics' offensive style belie his (and his teammates') scoring ability, by design:

Disagree strongly that Russell's scoring is a big issue, a lot of the inefficiency was by design, since that's how the offenses ran. The Celtics focussed on quantity over quality in shots (since they forced an inordinate number of turnovers with their pressure defense, of which Russ was the lynchpin), see these two quotes:

Tom Heinsohn: We had a very simple objective at the start of every game: We were going to take more shots than the other team, as many more as we could. So the less time we wasted bringing the ball upcourt, the more shots we’d get, and the easier those shots would probably be because the defense would be caught unprepared.

We were trained to play at a pace other teams didn’t like, to extend ourselves 100 percent every minute we were out there. Other coaches preferred to slow the pace so that their players would still be strong at the end of the game if they had to go the full forty-eight minutes. Red’s approach was just the opposite: Turn the contest into a physical test of wills!

Even if other teams were able to match us shot for shot, they weren’t getting as many good shots as the game wore on because they were being forced to think quicker, shoot quicker, and make decisions quicker, invariably leading to more turnovers than they were accustomed to committing.

We didn’t waste a lot of time looking for the perfect shots, the way other teams did. Our idea was to overwhelm the opposition by the number of shots we took; the emphasis was clearly on quantity.

The mathematics of that approach were obvious. If we took 100 shots and made only 40 percent, we’d still have as many points as a team that took 80 shots and made 50 percent. The meant if the other team was trying to limit its number of shots by playing a slower game, it was going to have to shoot a much higher percentage than we did in order to beat us.

We weren’t worried about percentages. People look back at those Celtics today and say, “Hey, Cousy shot only 38 percent,” but that’s a misunderstanding of the way we played.

The constant battle was to find ways to upbeat the tempo and to never allow the other team to slow us down; more important, to never allow them time to catch their breath or to think. […] With Cousy and Russell perfecting what they knew at opposite ends of the floor, allowing us to become more and more assertive all the time, we were simply too much for most teams to withstand. We were the marines, baby! Charge! That was us: the leathernecks of the NBA, charging up Pork Chop Hill every night.
— Tommy Heinsohn and Joe Fitzgerald, Give ’em the Hook (Prentice Hall, 1988), pp. 81-82

John Havlicek: The Celtics have never won by field goal percentage. On at least one occasion they had the worst team shooting percentage in the league. But they took the most shots and they also accomplished their main objective, which was to win the championship. The Celtics have been blessed with a succession of great rebounders, from Bill Russell to Dave Cowens and Paul Silas, who have enabled them to have possession of the ball more than other teams. The rule of thumb for me, and for every other Celtic, has been, ‘If you’ve got the shot, take it. Otherwise you’re no good to us.’ This is not to say that your better shooters shouldn’t get the ball in key situations. It means that, as Red says, you can’t let them insult you. There is nothing wrong with a so-so shooter taking an open shot when there are good offensive rebounders positioned underneath the basket.
— John Havlicek and Bob Ryan, Hondo: Celtic Man in Motion (Prentice-Hall, 1977), p. 91

Here are Russell's and his teammates FG% by season relative to league average:



Columns 1 and 2 correspond to Russell, columns 3 and 4 correspond to his teammates, season by season. From the numbers, it seems like this was an equal opportunity offense for the most part, Russell doesn't seem too far removed from his teammates in terms of relative FG%.

I don't know if he's the GOAT, but IMO the clear cut best four players ever are Russell, MJ, Wilt, and Kareem, with the first two being the only players with a legitimate case.

[Roundball_Rock]

I don't know if he's the GOAT, but IMO the clear cut best four players ever are Russell, MJ, Wilt, and Kareem, with the first two being the only players with a legitimate case

Wilt and Kareem don't have legitimate cases for GOAT, in your view?

[LAZERUSS]

What's with all these meaningless stats? That's all you seem to ever do is throw out box score stats. Ppg != offense. If Russell's team's were always loaded with so much offensive talent,[COLOR="DarkSlateGray"] then why were they consistently one of the worst - if not the worst[/COLOR] - offenses in the league. Was Russell so bad of an offensive player that he he took a great offensive team and made them terrible? Is that your argument?



If you mean they were among the best backcourt defenders, then I agree. Jones and Sanders were having no where near the defensive impact that guys like Russell, Chamberlain, and Thurmond were having though.



It's hard to imagine a more meaningless stat than individual DWS from the 1960s. For the sake of respecting the rest of your argument, I'll just pretend I didn't read that.

First of all, Russell's Celtics were always near the top of the league in SCORING. To say thy were one of the worst offensive teams in the league is a little ridiculous, don't you think?

And, there is solid evidence throughout Russell's career, but certainly in the first few years, that Bostons' offense was as good, if not better, withOUT him. True, their defense suffered, but that would be expected when they seldom had a capable backup for him.

Without taking the time to look up the numbers, I suspect that their overall production in his rookie year was even better withOUT him. They went 16-8 without Russell, and 28-20 with him. Furthermore, that team had a capable backup center in Arnie Risen.

Interesting too, in his '57-58 Finals, the series was tied 1-1, when he went down with an injured ankle in game three. They lost game three by a 111-108 margin, but they outscored the Hawks without Russell in that game. They won game four easily, and again withOUT Russell. They then lost game five, again, withOUT Russell, 102-100. And Russell gave it a go in game six, but had to come out in the first half. Boston lost that clinching game six by a 110-109 margin, but again, they outscored the Hawks without Russell in the game.


And how about the two games that Russell missed in his 58-59 season? They won both of them, and by margins of 130-105, and get this... 173-139!

Boston lost a game in his absence in 60-61, 137-134.

And they went 0-4 in his absence in 61-62, but they averaged 119 ppg in those losses, and yes, their defense suffered. But then, when two of the games were against Wilt, you can see why.

And they would go 8-9 in the games that he would miss over the course of the rest of his career. And again, their offense was no worse with, or without him, in those games.

[fpliii]

Wilt and Kareem don't have legitimate cases for GOAT, in your view?

More so than any other player, yes, but I think MJ's and Russell's are much stronger.

Maybe I shouldn't have said "legitimate", but I don't think they have very good cases. They have weaker cases than Mike/Russ, and I don't think any other player than those four has a case at all.