ESPN disrespected Bill Russell the most

[Mr Feeny]

Like I said, the GOAT list, at least to me, is about the entire body of work. That's different from peak or "what C was most complete?" If you look at Russell's game on both ends and compare him to other GOAT C, I can see him being ranked anywhere from 5-10. But on the GOAT list, you can argue no C touches him when you consider his rings. And it's not like he was a Horry type role player. He was the best player for 8-9 of those championships. He provided exactly what was needed for his teams to win. But like I told Bankii, if you are dead set on degrading Russell somewhat because he wasn't a dominant offensive force, I can see that point.

This is what has me confused. I'm not sure I'm fully grasping your mindset. We may be approaching things from a different vantage point. I do see your point though. And like I said, I certainly don't have a problem with Russell ranked 3rd all time

[FKAri]

All trolling and stanning aside let's face the fact the both Kobe and Lebron would be lucky to be in the top 10 all time....

I think they're both pretty lucky.

[ClipperRevival]

Also, Russell won 2 NCAA championships and a Gold medal. The guy was just a winner. Whatever he brought to the table, it helped his teams beat everyone else. Heck, from 1955 through 1969 (15 seasons), his teams won 13 titles (2 NCAA and 11 NBA). All this winning isn't just coincidence. Russell had "it".

[ClipperRevival]

And just think about the fact that he faced game 7 elimination 10 times and was 10-0. And what makes this most impressive was that these occurred in 9 different seasons. Meaning if he goes 5-5 in those 10 games, he has 5 less rings, just like that. And the fact that he elevated his game to 19 ppg and 29 rpg shows you exactly what type of clutch player he was. If Russell didn't actually do all this and I said what I said, most people would say I'm full of sh*t because it sounds too good to be true.

[TheBigVeto]

I don't see many people talking about how badly they disrespected him, 7th? are you kidding me? just further proves it was a troll listing.

This.
He should be #1

[Carbine]

I'm mildly disappointed KBlaze has not posted in this thread yet.

You could pretty much /thread with his post on Russell.

I'll save KBlaze the effort:

Bill Russell is 2.reasonable what ifs and not breaking his ankle in the finals from having won every championship he possibly could have from age 16 to 35.



Even without what ifs he won back-to-back state titles, back to back NCAA titles with 55 wins in a row, and 11 of 13 championships in the NBA with an Olympic gold medal by the widest margin of victory ever outside of the first dream team. Two the Championships he won... he coached the team to. The players not the media voted him the MVP five times. He literally played all five positions. At one point he was like 4th in the NBA in assists and first or second in rebounds while scoring as well and blocking shots at an unheard of rate.


His whole career and to this day people at like he won because his team was ridiculous and his college team had never made a tournament before him and only made 1-2 deep runs in the 60 years since he left and the Celtics missed the playoffs back to back seasons when he retired and lost in the finals when he broke his ankle mid series. And that team had three all NBA First Teamers before he got there and never even made the finals. People said it was Red...then he coached them to two titles himself. Red never even made the finals in 16 years of coaching pre Russell despite having the best record in the league several times.


Bill Russell practically created victory. I bet he would have found a way to win the gold in the high jump had they let him compete in both that and basketball at the Olympics. He was ranked number 2 in America and was high jumping six nine and change going over the bar forward doing track in his spare time.


If we are going to give him the what if treatment his career only takes a couple to be completely unblemished from middle school to retirement.

ussell won everything he competed for. Everything.

Not like he was the only one playing. I cant call it an era thing while other all time greats were losing. Elgin Baylor lost 3 game 7s to Russell by a total of like 7 points. Thats not Elgin being in a different era. Its Russell not letting his team lose. He had a 30/40 game 7....a 25/30 something game 7 where he outscored Baylor....who he covered much of the first half and held to 1-9 shooting.

Guys just kept coming up short vs Russell.

Hes dropping 25/28/14 triple doubles. He was the worst Ft shooter in the NBA and he shot 70+% in game 7s. One game they tried what we now call Hack a Shaq....game 7 for the title...he goes 14/17 from the line. A 55% shooter....he sinks 14/17 to win the title by 2 points. 3 years later he was perfect from the line in game 7...another 2 point win for the title.

He had finals winning blocks. Finals game winning baskets. A finals game winning putback dunk. Set a still standing finals record for shooting percentage(70%) in a season he only shot 43%. To closeout the 63 finals...he had only 12 points...but 24 rebounds 9 assists...and he blocked 8 shots 5 of them Jerry West jumpers in a 3 point win.

Bill Russell refused to lose.

Plenty of others were in the same league. But he would do whatever it took not to lose.

[ClipperRevival]

This is why I respect him more than Wilt. Wilt had all the physical advantages but was a mental midget when compared to Russell. I respect guys who are willing to dig down deep and push harder than the other guy and don't respect guys who probably left something on the court because they didn't push as hard. Underachievers get no love in my book.

[Carbine]

This is why I respect him more than Wilt. Wilt had all the physical advantages but was a mental midget when compared to Russell. I respect guys who are willing to dig down deep and push harder than the other guy and don't respect guys who probably left something on the court because they didn't push as hard. Underachievers get no love in my book.

Exactly.

Even if ESPN was just trying to get click bait with this list, they should have been more respectful to the great Bill Russell.

[Asukal]

This is why I respect him more than Wilt. Wilt had all the physical advantages but was a mental midget when compared to Russell. I respect guys who are willing to dig down deep and push harder than the other guy and don't respect guys who probably left something on the court because they didn't push as hard. Underachievers get no love in my book.

Russell deserves the number 2 spot, he's the Einstein of winning. When you look at his body of work compared to a guy like say KAJ, there is really not much debate here. Russell has the FMVP award named after him, KAJ needed Magic to carry him to 5 titles winning only 1 FMVP along the way. If we are to downplay Kobe for being Shaq's sidekick for 3 titles, we should also downplay KAJ winning only 2 FMVPs his whole career. Wilt? He's just a stat padding loser, zero arguments whatsoever.

[feyki]

Who cares espn ? . Russell is goat and i know that .