Might get flamed for this but Bill Russell is not top 5

[cltcfn2924]

All I can say is stupid insignificant post by someone too young.

[KG215]

Yes. Sam Jones was a winner too (10 rings), Havlicek (8 rings), Bob Cousy (6 rings), etc...

Russell was the unquestioned leader, heart and soul, and best player on those teams. Yes, Havlicek, Cousy, etc. were great players, but those were Russell's teams. He won 11 rings. I swear, some of you are too enamored with stats. It's not that he just won a lot of rings, it's that he won ELEVEN rings as the alpha dog.

[Kblaze8855]

Simple fact is, it's an absolute joke how stacked that Celtics team was compared to the rest of the league.

Tell me...how did that work out the season before he got there and the season after he retired?

They had 3 all NBA first teamers and never even made the finals and traded one of them for Bill and won right off the bat.

They won back to back titles at the end of his career as heavy underdogs and missed the playoffs the next year without him.

They were stacked relative to todays teams with 2 stars considered a talented lineup. By 60 standards? A lot of teams had crazy talent so it wasnt as big a difference as its made out to be.

They were playing teams with 5 all stars 4 of them now in the HOF. Teams like the knicks with 7 all stars and 6 hall of famers.

Even the teams that get mocked for being weak in comparison to the celtics were stacked back then. Wilt came in ona team with Paul Arizin who already led a team to a title and was coming off his top scoring season, 5 time all star tom gola in his prime, and Guy Rodgers who was a 4 time all star and near hall of famers who broke half of Cousys assist records and has been called as good as cousy by a coach at the time. Wilt pretty much came in with that eras equal of Wade, Bosh, and current Rubio or someone similar...and its called a laughably weak supporting cast because everyone major then had more.

Bob Pettit had 4 hall fo famers in his starting lineup including a 7 time all star, a 6 time all star, and a 7 time all star/3 time all nba first teamer who was actually the guy traded for Russell.

West and Baylor played together at times with 2 additional all stars.

Russells last game was played against a team with 3 of the 6 or 7 best players ever to that point.

Almost all teams were stacked. And his wasnt always the most stacked.

They just won anyway.

[Psileas]

Historically, people are used to calling Russell the GOAT winner while calling Jordan the GOAT player. The question is whether being the GOAT player is really more important than the GOAT winner title. Russell's teammates have lots of titles too, but they don't enter into discussions for "GOAT winner". Neither does Robert Horry or any role player that wins multiple titles.
GOAT winner means you have to lead your team there. You have to be a GOAT player candidate already.

For most, "GOAT player" has to be a combination of individual dominance and winning. A good general case for Russell as the GOAT player is that he was definitely more dominant than his closest rivals in the "winning" sector (Sam Jones, Havlicek) and won more to way more than any of the few players who could claim they could dominate a game more (Wilt, Jordan, Kareem, Magic, Bird, Shaq).

[StateOfMind12]

Anyone that has a clue about Bill Russell will tell you that he is at the very least top 5. I could make a long post about how and why Russell is top 3-5 but I'm just going to drop a few points here instead.

People say all the time that Bill Russell played with a bunch of HOFers and that is the only reason why he won rings. The truth is that those HOFers were lucky to play with Russell and not the other way around. Most of the HOFers that Russell played with wouldn't even be HOFers if it weren't for Russell and all the rings Russell won them. Russell may have played with more HOFers than Wilt but Wilt's teams were probably more talented.

Russell is the biggest winner of all the big team sports. Nobody has more championships than Russell does in basketball or in any sport. Russell won everywhere, in high school, in the Olympics, in college, in the NBA, etc. He did it all everywhere.

Russell is the greatest defensive player of all-time and it isn't even close. The Celtics were always #1 in defensive rating and it was simply because of Russell.

There is a reason why the Celtics were going no where before Russell arrived and the Celtics went back to no where as soon as Russell retired. His impact was magnificent and it wasn't something you could measure using stats. It is why I say the people that say Russell isn't top 5 is clueless about him because they are just using stats to support their case about Russell not being top 5.

Russell was a much better offensive player than the stats show as well. The 44-45% FG% range that he averaged for most of his career looks like trash now but back then it was considered efficient and Russell was top 5-7 in the league in FG% for many seasons in most of his career. Russell didn't score a lot of points though because he wasn't asked to but he could though. Russell dropped a 30/40 game in Game 7 of the 1962 NBA Finals and his scoring numbers always increased in the post-season.

That's all I have to say so take it for what is it worth.

[josh99]

You can't compare historical players to modern players. The game has changed too much, coaching has improved, training techniques improved, technology improved, its more popular so people are starting to play younger..etc its unfair on the greats because they didn't have the things that modern players have access to. Thus you have to compare them in their own era.

[Kiddlovesnets]

Hes not top 5... MJ, Wilt, Magic, Kareem and Bird all better.

[nycelt84]

It's not Russell's fault regarding which era he played in. Fact is he was a winner. But we also have to give Red Auerbach credit. He was a great coach on that Celtics team.

Russell also won 2 titles while coaching himself.

[Owl]

Tell me...how did that work out the season before he got there and the season after he retired?

They had 3 all NBA first teamers and never even made the finals and traded one of them for Bill and won right off the bat.

They won back to back titles at the end of his career as heavy underdogs and missed the playoffs the next year without him.

They were stacked relative to todays teams with 2 stars considered a talented lineup. By 60 standards? A lot of teams had crazy talent so it wasnt as big a difference as its made out to be.

They were playing teams with 5 all stars 4 of them now in the HOF. Teams like the knicks with 7 all stars and 6 hall of famers.

Even the teams that get mocked for being weak in comparison to the celtics were stacked back then. Wilt came in ona team with Paul Arizin who already led a team to a title and was coming off his top scoring season, 5 time all star tom gola in his prime, and Guy Rodgers who was a 4 time all star and near hall of famers who broke half of Cousys assist records and has been called as good as cousy by a coach at the time. Wilt pretty much came in with that eras equal of Wade, Bosh, and current Rubio or someone similar...and its called a laughably weak supporting cast because everyone major then had more.

Bob Pettit had 4 hall fo famers in his starting lineup including a 7 time all star, a 6 time all star, and a 7 time all star/3 time all nba first teamer who was actually the guy traded for Russell.

West and Baylor played together at times with 2 additional all stars.

Russells last game was played against a team with 3 of the 6 or 7 best players ever to that point.

Almost all teams were stacked. And his wasnt always the most stacked.

They just won anyway.

Season before he got there they won .542 %. But were overdue Cliff Hagan.

Without Hagan and McCauley but with Heinsohn and no Russell, through 24 games they were 16-8 .666.
With Russell the rest of the way they were 28-20 or .5833

They weren't heavy underdogs versus Philly minus Cunningham. I'm not convinced they were even underdogs given that injury.
They were one of a number of good teams in '69 based on regular season SRS (A close 2nd to New York but other good teams such a Baltimore and 76ers reasonably close). Certainly going through Sixers and NY was impressive. Lakers were worse than their record, bad chemistry (in terms of complementing one another and locker room) and had a had a W-L record that was high from feasting on a weak conference and a bit of luck (even given the weaker schedule their margin of victory was that of a 52 not 55 win team).

Teams were deeper back then (at least in terms of players with accolades)

But how many teams had excluding their top star (this being Russell), an MVP (sometimes GOAT candidate though history had revised its opinion on that), a top 20 GOAT guy (Havlicek), 2 50 at 50 guys (Sharman, Sam Jones) plus the rest. In any given year they had unmatched depth.

Listing all stars at a time when

"Until 1973, each NBA team had to be represented with at least 1 players, and a maximum of 3 players."

doesn't really mean very much.

Guy Rodgers was not Cousy and you present a very partial impression of him. He was a career .378 % shooter (and despite some overlap played in league with a significantly higher average fg% than Cousy's time in the league). He shot 72% from the line poor for a guard, below the league average, Cousy was over 80%. Cousy got 18.4 points a game, Rodgers 11.4.

Gola was a HOFer based on his college career. As I have illustrated All-Star appearances from that era are very soft. He peaked at 15ppg and was on the downswing almost as soon as Wilt arrived.

Bill Russell is an exceptional player is typically seen as a lock for top 10 GOAT often top 5, occasionally argued as the greatest.

But he usually had the best team by a substantial distance. Only for his last 3 or 4 years is it even remotely arguable that he didn't have the best supporting cast. Even in these cases I don't think there's a team 2-11 I'd rather have than Boston's with the possible exception of Philly's '67 title winning supporting cast.

[L.Kizzle]

Yes. Sam Jones was a winner too (10 rings), Havlicek (8 rings), Bob Cousy (6 rings), etc...

Simple fact is, it's an absolute joke how stacked that Celtics team was compared to the rest of the league. If Miami wins this year, and then Dwight Howard and Deron Williams join the Heat, They'd probably win 5 more. If that were to happen, you're not gonna say Wade's 7 rings and Bosh & LeBron's 6 rings are equal to MJ's 6. It will just be case of an absurdly stacked team winning, as they should. That's the same with Bill Russell. His 11 rings aren't even the equal of Shaq's 3 Laker rings.

Those Celtic championships are the equivalent of the Eastern conference playoffs right now. Miami is head and shoulder above every team in the east. It would be absurd for them to lose the east. 8 teams. Same thing.

Minneapolis Lakers were stacked, as were the Cincinnati Royals and a few other teams.

[cteach111]

you know what's not fair to Russell? The fact that he played a different game compared to today and no one takes that into account.

A common argument used against Russell is that he wouldn't be the same force that he used to be in today's game. I would agree with that. HOWEVER, how would perimeter players fare in a game with no 3 pt line, no defensive 3 seconds, less star calls, more physicality?

The man won ELEVEN rings in DOMINANT DEFENSIVE fashion and you want to exclude him from ur top 5 just cause.

SMH. Read up on the man since you openly claimed you're ignorant on his history.

There are legit facts that prove that Russell's impact on defense was as great as Magic and Jordan's impact on offense. That is why they won 11 friggin rings. ELEVEN rings.

It's so funny how posters feel so confident in judging a player they barely know anything about.

[Pushxx]

Shit...Bill Russell is a top 10 sports player ever.

Top 3 NBA player all time.

All he did is win no matter what.

[StroShow4]

If every great player had a max of only 4 rings

Stopped reading here.

[bwink23]

you know what's not fair to Russell? The fact that he played a different game compared to today and no one takes that into account.

A common argument used against Russell is that he wouldn't be the same force that he used to be in today's game. I would agree with that. HOWEVER, how would perimeter players fare in a game with no 3 pt line, no defensive 3 seconds, less star calls, more physicality?

The man won ELEVEN rings in DOMINANT DEFENSIVE fashion and you want to exclude him from ur top 5 just cause.

SMH. Read up on the man since you openly claimed you're ignorant on his history.

There are legit facts that prove that Russell's impact on defense was as great as Magic and Jordan's impact on offense. That is why they won 11 friggin rings. ELEVEN rings.

It's so funny how posters feel so confident in judging a player they barely know anything about.

11 rings in 13 years while winning it on the DEFENSIVE end, is enough to call him Top 5. He did it in a way no one else has been able to do, and will never do again.

[Kobe 4 The Win]

He was the best player on a team that dominated for over a decade. He won 11 chips. However, there were like 4 teams in the league at that time. lol