Felton vs. Norman (The Chamberlain\Russell Thread)

[QUOTE=WillC]I've been reading this thread for the last hour and it saddens me how many people overlook Russell's talent and ability.

Sure, he didn't put up gaudy scoring numbers like Wilt Chamberlain.

Sure, he wasn't a 7 foot giant like Kareem or Shaq.

But the aim of basketball is to win games (and championships), and nobody did that better than Russell.

He's a winner, a leader, an inspiration, an enforcer, a legend.

He's the best center ever.[/QUOTE]

Excellent post. I have grown to admire Russell in the last few years, and I have no problem with those that claim him as the G.O.A.T.

My problem has been with those that disparage Chamberlain's career. Those that claim he was a "stats-padding" "loser" who "choked" in his biggest games, and whose career was considered a "failure."

[QUOTE=jlauber]Excellent post. I have grown to admire Russell in the last few years, and I have no problem with those that claim him as the G.O.A.T.

My problem has been with those that disparage Chamberlain's career. Those that claim he was a "stats-padding" "loser" who "choked" in his biggest games, and whose career was considered a "failure."[/QUOTE]

Oh, I'm not saying that. Please, let me make it clear, I think Wilt Chamberlain is one of the greatest players ever.

Just not as good as Bill Russell.

Bill Simmons uses twenty-seven pages to explain why Russell is greater than Wilt in his Book of Basketball. I can't copy paste that all, but here is a summary:

You cannot defend that Wilt is better with these arguments:

[B]1. Russell had a better supporting cast:
[/B]Only half true: If you look close enough at the rosters, you'll see that between 1960 and 1969, five times does Russell have a better cast, four times does Wilt have a better cast and one time it's a tie. Also: Russell's teammates were elected to 26 all-star games, Wilt's teammates elected to 24.
[B]
2. Russell was not a very good offensive player[/B]
Bill Simmons uses 500 words to write how Russell's passing has been neglected, quoting Hondo and describing how important Russell was for the fast break.

[B]3. Wilt has better stats[/B]
[U]Head to head games:[/U]
Wilt: 28.7 ppg, 28.7 rpg / Russ: 14.5 ppg, 23.7 rpg
[U]Win/Loss:[/U]
Russell:: 84-58
[U]Playoffs:[/U]
Wilt: 22.5 ppg, 24.5 rpg, 4.2 apg / Russ: 16.2 ppg, 24.9 rpg, 4.7 apg
[U]Record for conference finals and NBA finals:
[/U]Wilt: 48-44, Russ: 90-53
[U]Record in game 7:[/U]
Wilt: 4-5, Russ: 10-0
[U]Record in elimination games for his team:[/U]
Wilt 10-11, Russ: 16-2
Championships:
Wilt: 2, Russ: 11

[B]4. Wilt was a great guy:[/B]
Simmons uses a thousand words to describe how few teams wanted Chamberlain. In 1965, nine out of eleven Lakers players voted no to the idea of Wilt being traded to him, for example

[B]5. A couple of plays different and Wilt would have won as many titles[/B]
Simmons writes 2000 words on how Wilt had no clutch and cared more about his own stats than winning. Rick Barry and Bill Bradley are quoted, saying how much Wilt is a loser, not a winner. There's also a list of six games where Wilt could have beaten Russell for the title, but instead got owned.

[B]6. People from that era are split on who's greater.[/B]
Simmons writes quotes from these guys, all clearly choosing Russell: Butch van Breda Kolff, Jerry West, Jerry Lucas, Jack Kiser and Bill Russell. On top of that, even Wilt admits to not caring as much about winning than Russell.

The chapter ends with this paragraph:
"...I'd rather have the bathroom puker on my team, the most beloved teammate of his era, the guy who didn't care about statistics, the guy who always seemed to end up on victorious teams in close games, the guy who finished his career as the greatest winner in sports, the guy who was singularly obsessed with making his teammates better and doing whatever it took to prevail. I'd rather have Bill Russell. And so would anyone else in their right mind. The defense rests."

Which folder is this one in jlauber...please refrain from replying, we already have all read it in this very thread.

[quote]In the 61-62 season, Wilt shattered a multitude of records. ESPN recently ran an "expert" poll which labeled that season as the greatest season in professional team sport's history.[/quote]

[I][B]Jon Teitel:[/B] In the 1962 Eastern Division Finals you had a two-point loss to the eventual champion Celtics in Game 7 after a game-winning shot by Hall of Famer Sam Jones. Do you think you should have won that series, and where does that Celtics team rank among the best you have ever seen (Bob Cousy and Bill Russell called it the greatest Celtics team of all-time)?

[B]Tom Meschery:[/B] Yes, we should have won. During a timeout in those last seconds Tom Gola asked McGuire if he could guard Sam, but McGuire kept Guy Rodgers on him even though Guy was not a good defender: voila! If we would have won, we would have slaughtered the Lakers in the Finals. The Celtics were much better the following year with the addition of John Havlicek.[/I]

[quote=jlauber]Robert Cherry made the comment that it was not Wilt's fault for that game seven debacle against Boston in 1969. BUT, had Wilt put up a normal game in game six, the Lakers would have won the title that year. [/quote][B]Wilt: Just Like Any Other 7-Foot Black Millionaire who Lives Next Door[/B] - Wilt Chamberlain

[I]His answer was something like, "I can handle him." Well, I've always thought you "handled" horses; you work with human beings. But "handle" is exactly the way van Breda Kolff looked at it. He was an ex-Marine, and he had this compulsion to prove he was the boss.





In the third quarter alone, the Lakers missed 15 straight shots, and the Celtics jumped into a 17-point lead. Then we started to rally. With five minutes left in the game, we cut their lead to nine points. I had 18 points and 27 rebounds, but when I came down with number 27, I banged my knee into something hard. It hurt bad, like when you bang your crazy-bone against a wall as hard as you can. I had to be helped from the floor. Frank O'Neill, the Laker trainer, sprayed some local anesthetic on it

[URL="http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1082021/index.htm"]Sports Illustrated - January 27, 1969[/URL]


[I]Moreover, there is discontent, which was not altogether unexpected. The Lakers, for so long one of the most comfortable, relaxed teams in sport, have become critical of one another and confused. General Manager Fred Schaus had to call a secret meeting to urge the players to keep their disagreements to themselves. That was in December, when a controversy between Chamberlain and Coach Butch van Breda Kolff first raged publicly over where Wilt was to line up: low post or high post

[QUOTE=PHILA][QUOTE]In the 61-62 season, Wilt shattered a multitude of records. ESPN recently ran an "expert" poll which labeled that season as the greatest season in professional team sport's history. [/QUOTE]

[I][B]Jon Teitel:[/B] In the 1962 Eastern Division Finals you had a two-point loss to the eventual champion Celtics in Game 7 after a game-winning shot by Hall of Famer Sam Jones. Do you think you should have won that series, and where does that Celtics team rank among the best you have ever seen (Bob Cousy and Bill Russell called it the greatest Celtics team of all-time)?

[B]Tom Meschery:[/B] Yes, we should have won. During a timeout in those last seconds Tom Gola asked McGuire if he could guard Sam, but McGuire kept Guy Rodgers on him even though Guy was not a good defender: voila! If we would have won, we would have slaughtered the Lakers in the Finals. The Celtics were much better the following year with the addition of John Havlicek.[/I][/QUOTE]

[I]The Warriors had appeared to be the stronger team throughout the game. Twice in the third quarter they had 9-point leads, and two of the Celtics

[QUOTE=G.O.A.T]Which folder is this one in jlauber...please refrain from replying, we already have all read it in this very thread.[/QUOTE]

Huh????

Are you referring to RobertDeMeijer's quotes from Bill Simmons? And yes, I have trashed ALL of Simmons take here several times. I won't bother "copying-and-pasting" my replies to each of those "myths" again. They are probably located somewhere in this thread.

[QUOTE]1. Russell had a better supporting cast:
Only half true: If you look close enough at the rosters, you'll see that between 1960 and 1969, five times does Russell have a better cast, four times does Wilt have a better cast and one time it's a tie. Also: Russell's teammates were elected to 26 all-star games, Wilt's teammates elected to 24.[/QUOTE]

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).

[QUOTE]3. Wilt has better stats
Head to head games:
Wilt: 28.7 ppg, 28.7 rpg / Russ: 14.5 ppg, 23.7 rpg
Win/Loss:
Russell:: 84-58
Playoffs:
Wilt: 22.5 ppg, 24.5 rpg, 4.2 apg / Russ: 16.2 ppg, 24.9 rpg, 4.7 apg
Record for conference finals and NBA finals:
Wilt: 48-44, Russ: 90-53
Record in game 7:
Wilt: 4-5, Russ: 10-0
Record in elimination games for his team:
Wilt 10-11, Russ: 16-2
Championships:
Wilt: 2, Russ: 11[/QUOTE]

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.

[QUOTE]4. Wilt was a great guy:
Simmons uses a thousand words to describe how few teams wanted Chamberlain. In 1965, nine out of eleven Lakers players voted no to the idea of Wilt being traded to him, for example[/QUOTE]

Wait. I thought from a previous thread that Wilt's unpopularity did [B]not[/B] 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?

[QUOTE]5. A couple of plays different and Wilt would have won as many titles
Simmons writes 2000 words on how Wilt had no clutch and cared more about his own stats than winning. Rick Barry and Bill Bradley are quoted, saying how much Wilt is a loser, not a winner. There's also a list of six games where Wilt could have beaten Russell for the title, but instead got owned.[/QUOTE]

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".

[QUOTE]6. People from that era are split on who's greater.
Simmons writes quotes from these guys, all clearly choosing Russell: Butch van Breda Kolff, Jerry West, Jerry Lucas, Jack Kiser and Bill Russell. On top of that, even Wilt admits to not caring as much about winning than Russell.[/QUOTE]

Simmons doesn't care to [B]compare [/B]Wilt to Russell. Simmons wants to [B]show[/B] 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.

[QUOTE=Psileas]Simmons was the one who quoted that if Wilt's clutch moments existed, we'd know about them, right?[/QUOTE]

Which was an unfair statement.

[QUOTE=Psileas]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").[/QUOTE]

That's because the ever-referenced "most people" know nothing about Wilt and Russell other than they're "the guy who averaged 50 points a game for a season and scored 100 in a game" and "the guy who won 11 rings." It means that "the majority of people" are ignorant, which a preponderance of evidence has already told us.

[QUOTE]3. Wilt has better stats
Head to head games:
Wilt: 28.7 ppg, 28.7 rpg / Russ: 14.5 ppg, 23.7 rpg
Win/Loss:
Russell:: 84-58
Playoffs:
[B]Wilt: 22.5 ppg, 24.5 rpg, 4.2 apg / Russ: 16.2 ppg, 24.9 rpg, 4.7 apg[/B]
Record for conference finals and NBA finals:
Wilt: 48-44, Russ: 90-53
Record in game 7:
Wilt: 4-5, Russ: 10-0
Record in elimination games for his team:
Wilt 10-11, Russ: 16-2
Championships:
Wilt: 2, Russ: 11 [/QUOTE]

I could go on for hours about how far off Simmons was in his take on the Russell-Wilt debates (and I have BTW)...but I highlighted the above for a reason.

Why does Simmons' use their CAREER post-season numbers, and not their post-season numbers when the two were in the league together for ten seasons?

Of course, without looking them up (I am too tired), then Chamberlain's numbers would look more like 28 ppg, and 26 rpg. Thanks to ShaqAttack, we KNOW that in his post-seasons from '60 to '68, Chamberlain averaged 29.3 ppg, 26.6 rpg, 4.8 apg, and shot .518 from the floor (again.... in league's that shot anywhere from .410 to .446.) And, unfortiunately for Wilt, his teammates were so awful in the 62-63 season, that his TEAM didn't make the playoffs that year...in a season in which Wilt averaged 44.8 ppg, 24.3 rpg, and shot .528. The natural assumption being...that Wilt would have ADDED another 2-3 ppg, or more to his post-season averages.

[QUOTE=WillC][QUOTE=jlauber]Excellent post. I have grown to admire Russell in the last few years, and I have no problem with those that claim him as the G.O.A.T.

My problem has been with those that disparage Chamberlain's career. Those that claim he was a "stats-padding" "loser" who "choked" in his biggest games, and whose career was considered a "failure."[/QUOTE]

Oh, I'm not saying that. Please, let me make it clear, I think Wilt Chamberlain is one of the greatest players ever.

Just not as good as Bill Russell.[/QUOTE]

It irritates me that so many people posit false dichotomies. If someone should say they happen to rank one player above another, then that somehow means the other player is a "bum."

:rolleyes:

It's like they're incapable of anything more than simplistic thinking.

[QUOTE=ThaRegul8r][QUOTE=PHILA][QUOTE]In the 61-62 season, Wilt shattered a multitude of records. ESPN recently ran an "expert" poll which labeled that season as the greatest season in professional team sport's history. [/QUOTE]

[I][B]Jon Teitel:[/B] In the 1962 Eastern Division Finals you had a two-point loss to the eventual champion Celtics in Game 7 after a game-winning shot by Hall of Famer Sam Jones. Do you think you should have won that series, and where does that Celtics team rank among the best you have ever seen (Bob Cousy and Bill Russell called it the greatest Celtics team of all-time)?

[B]Tom Meschery:[/B] Yes, we should have won. During a timeout in those last seconds Tom Gola asked McGuire if he could guard Sam, but McGuire kept Guy Rodgers on him even though Guy was not a good defender: voila! If we would have won, we would have slaughtered the Lakers in the Finals. The Celtics were much better the following year with the addition of John Havlicek.[/I][/QUOTE]

[I]The Warriors had appeared to be the stronger team throughout the game. Twice in the third quarter they had 9-point leads, and two of the Celtics

Duplicate Delete please