THE GREAT DEBATE: The #2 Greatest Player of All-Time

[G.O.A.T]

Great list; I agree with most of it.

I see that you changed your first team in 67' from Russell to Wilt. What made you decide to make that switch? I've read a few quotes going both ways, but statistically I just don't see the argument for Wilt that year.

The Celtics were the best defensive team in the league (1 of 10) and the 76ers were just middle of the pack(5 of 10), and it's not like Wilt was surrounded with scrubs that year like in years prior.

Hal Greer was pretty damn good, and from what I've read a great defender with his overall speed and athleticism.

While I do agree with your conclusions, I don't give any credence to the defensive team stats you mentioned. To me they are 100% bull[COLOR="Black"]s[/COLOR]hit and even if they weren't I find them useless.

Long before anyone contrived or considered those stats people knew the Celtics defense was one of the greatest of all-time. Why do we need numbers to tell us something we already know? But if I look at where some of the other all-time great defenses rank when held up against the same or similar metrics, I see how misleading they are. The 76ers were better defensively than the Celtics in 1967. Even Russell said so. If the stats don't back that up, that just means the made up formula is wrong.

I'm glad that people like you are smart enough to understand the numbers in a way that you can explain them to so many people, but I'm not wasting my time because in 25 years, there will be a whole new set of made up stats that people put more stock in. Meanwhile I'll just keep listening to the people who played, coached and followed the game. Right or wrong, this is by my measure, the best way to judge players/teams rather you seen them play a good amount of games or not.

As for why I changed my decision in 1967 it came down to reading more about the season and understanding how injured and wore down Russell was and how focused and consistent Wilt was.

Here's the article that tipped the scales in Wilt's favor for me: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vau...9750/index.htm

Perhaps the reason for the Sixers not showing as a great defensive team is how much they scored. I think they were under 100 once all year (Boston did the honors of course). Also they caused a lot of turnovers. My guess is they had the most combined blocks and steals of any team all-time. There are multiple box scores that have Wilt and Luke combining to block "more than two dozen" shots. They basically played like the Celtics because they could since Wilt was content to impersonate Russell on the defensive end and pick his spots better on the offense end. Passing to help the team, not just his stats.

[DatAsh]

While I do agree with your conclusions, I don't give any credence to the defensive team stats you mentioned. To me they are 100% bull[COLOR="Black"]s[/COLOR]hit and even if they weren't I find them useless.

Long before anyone contrived or considered those stats people knew the Celtics defense was one of the greatest of all-time. Why do we need numbers to tell us something we already know? But if I look at where some of the other all-time great defenses rank when held up against the same or similar metrics, I see how misleading they are. The 76ers were better defensively than the Celtics in 1967. Even Russell said so. If the stats don't back that up, that just means the made up formula is wrong.

I'm glad that people like you are smart enough to understand the numbers in a way that you can explain them to so many people, but I'm not wasting my time because in 25 years, there will be a whole new set of made up stats that people put more stock in. Meanwhile I'll just keep listening to the people who played, coached and followed the game. Right or wrong, this is by my measure, the best way to judge players/teams rather you seen them play a good amount of games or not.

As for why I changed my decision in 1967 it came down to reading more about the season and understanding how injured and wore down Russell was and how focused and consistent Wilt was.

Here's the article that tipped the scales in Wilt's favor for me: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vau...9750/index.htm

Perhaps the reason for the Sixers not showing as a great defensive team is how much they scored. I think they were under 100 once all year (Boston did the honors of course). Also they caused a lot of turnovers. My guess is they had the most combined blocks and steals of any team all-time. There are multiple box scores that have Wilt and Luke combining to block "more than two dozen" shots. They basically played like the Celtics because they could since Wilt was content to impersonate Russell on the defensive end and pick his spots better on the offense end. Passing to help the team, not just his stats.

Ahh, yeah I've read that article before. It's a telling article and I generally agree with the premise - that Philly was in a different overall class that year - but I'm still not seeing the evidence for them being the better defensive team.

Maybe I hang my hat too much on statistics, but it's hard not to when I see time and time again that most advanced statistics tend to support common beliefs. Coming from another perspective, I can completely understand not having much faith in advanced statistics; I know there's a lot of people that feel that way, but I wouldn't really call defensive rating a "made up stat". Technically it is made up, but that's like saying points per 36 min is made up.

Defensive rating is just points allowed per 100 possessions, that's it. It's the go to defensive stat for measuring team defense and there's really no better way to go about measuring defensive strength and I don't see that changing in the next 25 years.

The bolded I simply can't agree with. If it were somewhat close I still probably wouldn't agree, but I could at least chalk it up to a lack of effort on Philly's part in the RS - though I don't think they lacked effort at all that RS. The Celtics were 4 points better on defense though, which is akin to the difference between the the Miami Heat and the Toronto Raptors.

That Philly team was amazing that year because there offense was astronomically good, +6.7 relative to league average, and +4.2 above second place. That's like the very best of Showtime Lakers good.

Long before anyone contrived or considered those stats people knew the Celtics defense was one of the greatest of all-time. Why do we need numbers to tell us something we already know?

There's only so much faith I can put in the human mind when it comes to accurately tracking and discerning differences like this over an 82 game season. Team statistics are useful because they can confirm what we think we know, measure differences between teams that our brain just isn't equipped to measure, and show us bits of our personal beliefs that might be wrong.

But if I look at where some of the other all-time great defenses rank when held up against the same or similar metrics, I see how misleading they are.

What other team's do you feel Drtg inaccurately represents? From my point of view it's almost the complete oppossite - the team's I rate amongst the best ever tend to have the best defensive ratings.

The top ten defenses relative to era(difference)

1. 64' Celtics
2. 65' Celtics
3. 63' Celtics
4. 04' Spurs
5. 62' Celtics
6. 08' Celtics
7. 93' Knicks
8. 64' Celtics
9. 94' Knicks
10. 04' Pistons

That seems like a pretty accurrate list in my opinion. Which of those do you disagree with?

I think Wilt was better defensively in 68' than he was in 67', and the statistics back that up - Philly was the best defensive team in the league that year 0.2 ahead of Boston.

[Owl]

Great case by DatAsh for Russell.

My responses and counterpoints would be

The opening link doesn't work if you just click the hyperlink because you've posted a full stop immediately after it and includes that as part of the URL.

Don't have the math skills (or time) to fully comprehend Nash theory etc (though I grasp the Braess's paradox stuff about individual non-cooperating/non-comunicating self-interested "rational" route optimisers making the system sub-optimal on average). My ideas in the general area are as follows:

Skill curves are more or less an accurate idea. But you can't say take one less shot per game and you'll shoot a higher percentage. Basketball being so organic and random it's difficult to create an optimum offense especially one for against all teams, and still harder to prove whether it was optimal. On the whole though with good teams, you don't get the sense that they pass up good shots. Shot creation is a real skill (though perhaps overvalued by some) especially where you do so at high percentages. An inability to create ones own shot places the burden of creating (for you or themselves) onto other players and means they will face increased defensive attention.

On does defense win championships?
I've always been adamantly in the "no more so than offense" camp. In large part because one teams offense is inevitably another team's defense. These things things don't occur in a vacuum.
As to whether good defensive teams win more often than good offensive teams (and if this is true it would seem to be a marginal difference) this doesn't prove cause and effect only a correlation. I vaguely recall some stuff about whether good defense (more so than offense) is a good indicator of cohesion and good coaching which would itself be the cause of greater success, I had thought it was on basketball-reference but it might just have been this http://espn.go.com/blog/truehoop/pos...-championships

The Russell leap occurs in a year with significant other turnover. As well as replacing Macauley with Russell there was the addition of Heinsohn and the return of Frank Ramsay.

I wouldn't exclude his rookie year from any samples of with/without Russell because

1) I haven't yet seen justification for doing so.
2) It's the largest sample.
3) It's a sample where (despite the loss of Macauley), the team hasn't built a strategy centered around and dependent on Russell. When Russell was gone for short periods, they weren't going to radically change roles for a couple of weeks then change back when Russell came back.

Regarding his departure it was not just him leaving, but also Sam Jones, and a change of coach and a change of focus from winning to developing talent. Plus Bailey Howell falling off a cliff (though it might be argued that that was Russell making his teammates better, though it is at least as plausible that a combination of age and motivation on sub .500 team were the main factor).

I don't doubt Russell as the main factor in Boston's defense, or his claim to be the greatest defensive player of all-time. But I would argue against Russell being briefly replaced by an aging (never a great defender) Lovellette or in some cases shifting Heinsohn to center, representing accurately Russell's value.

Sanders and K.C. Jones have called the best defensive forward and guard in the league by those covering the league at the time. Havlicek's all-D team appearances speak for themselves. Sharman, who was frequently in the top ten in ts% as a fairly high usage guard,

considered myself to be a better defensive player than offensive

and there are plenty of other sources (pretty much every profile of Sharman will mention his defense and toughness). Those are the very good defenders, I don't know as much about but only the last few years of Cousy seem to be below average.
I

[fpliii]

We're not far off Here'd be my conclusions as of now on the major rotation guys:

Very Good to Elite: Satch Sanders
Good to Very good: Hondo, Jones, Sharman
Average to Above Average: Sam Jones, Seigfried
Below Average: Howell, Ramsey, Nelson
Poor: Cousy, Heinsohn,

Loscutoff was a defensive forward, but he was a 50's defensive forward. A guy like Earl Lloyd or Red Rocha or Sweetwater Clifton to a lesser extent (as Clifton was a center forced to play forward on offense for reasons of racism) that basically means enforcer. He wasn't going to shut anyone down, but he was going to harass the oppositions best scoring forward.

A couple years ago I did a retroactive all-defensive team after scouring the books from the early era (The rivalry, Tall Tales, 24 seconds to shoot etc.) the Si and Sport magazine archives and the Google News archives.

Here's what I came up with: http://www.insidehoops.com/forum/sho...d.php?t=190405

just looked at that link, amazing thread

you mentioned you have a DPOY file...have you thought about DPOYs from 69 to 82?

[ThaRegul8r]

just looked at that link, amazing thread

you mentioned you have a DPOY file...have you thought about DPOYs from 69 to 82?

He already did this, actually.

[DatAsh]

Just wanted to pop in real quick to say that those top 10 numbers I posted an hour ago may be off, I haven't had time to check them, and I won't be at my comuter for awhile, but I'll check them when I get back. The team's should still be mostly correct, but the order may be off.


*Edit - @Owl, I read your post but don't really have time to respond to it at the moment, but I will when I get back. I agree with much of what you said, though I just have a few points of contention.

[crisoner]

Kareem Abdul Jabar

Before I write just look at his stats for his entire basketball career.

[LIST][*]6

[Owl]

just looked at that link, amazing thread

you mentioned you have a DPOY file...have you thought about DPOYs from 69 to 82?

He already did this, actually.

And with a little googling, here it is
http://www.insidehoops.com/forum/sho...d.php?t=190992

[G.O.A.T]

just looked at that link, amazing thread

you mentioned you have a DPOY file...have you thought about DPOYs from 69 to 82?

He already did this, actually.

The Goods

I think it's time to reopen the debates, any interest?

[fpliii]

The Goods

I think it's time to reopen the debates, any interest?

ah well, I've been busy dumping archives from ProQuest recently (my man KG215 should be expecting an e-mail tonight or tomorrow RE: Walton), but I'd love to read the conversation (the retro Finals MVP also needs some work) so I'm all for it

BTW have you considered doing a similar list for the ABA, or do you think it's not worth it?

[G.O.A.T]

ah well, I've been busy dumping archives from ProQuest recently (my man KG215 should be expecting an e-mail tonight or tomorrow RE: Walton), but I'd love to read the conversation (the retro Finals MVP also needs some work) so I'm all for it

BTW have you considered doing a similar list for the ABA, or do you think it's not worth it?

totally worth it, just a lot harder to fins information and video to make determinations from.

If there is enough interest though, like you, I'm game for any type of research and discussion.

Did you get a chance to check out the Russell blocks spreadsheet?

[fpliii]

totally worth it, just a lot harder to fins information and video to make determinations from.

If there is enough interest though, like you, I'm game for any type of research and discussion.

Did you get a chance to check out the Russell blocks spreadsheet?

yes I did, thanks for sharing it with me

ideally we'd like 10+ records per season, but we're in good shape right now...I'll look through the archives and see if I can find anything else to add

nice work

[Freedom Kid7]

Man, I liked to make an argument for Kareem again, but DatAsh made a great argument for Russell .

[WillC]

The winning nomination for the 2nd Greatest Player of All-Time goes to DatAsh's Bill Russell series of well-researched posts.

Summary

Wrapping it all up, Bill Russell was the kind of player who couldn't care less about personal stats; all he cared about was winning. He cared so deeply about winning that he would throw up in the restrooms before games. He was the kind of player that other players wanted to play with, the kind of player that made the players around him better. He was the kind of player that would do anything and everything to win, and it's by no coincidence that winning followed him wherever he went.



It boils down to the fact that he won, and continued to win, despite the situation, regardless of the teammates he was surrounded with, and he did so 11 times in 13 years,