Is Bill Russell the best defensive big man of all time, or merely a pioneer?

[ThaRegul8r]

[QUOTE=jlip][I]NEW YORK (AP)

[ThaRegul8r]

I'd have to go back and check my notes and the information from the book. It may take a couple of days for me to find those though. I do remember reading that the creators of basketballreference.com used Oliver's book as the source for much of their advanced stats. I'm familiar with Elgee's work and was amazed as to how similar his conclusions were to Oliver's.

If two people are looking at the same thing, then their conclusions should be similar if it is indeed so.

[DatAsh]

Where did the Warriors rank the years they had Thurmond? I see they were #2 and #3 in '67 and '68, but what about the other years? I've read about how good he was as a defender. It's interesting to note that the careers of arguably three of the top five defensive anchors of all-time coincided, and their careers also took place in the 60's. You know...when all the centers were 6'5" white guys.

I have through 70' on file, would have to calculate after that

[CODE]
Year Dfla Place
1963 +2.6 6th
1964 -5.9 2nd <--- Thurmond Joins(Wilt improves)
1965 -1.5 3rd <------------ Wilt leaves midway
1966 -0.6 4th
1967 -3.2 2nd
1968 -2.8 3rd
1969 -2.7 4th
1970 -1.8 2nd
[/CODE]

[TheBigVeto]

All these high scoring swingmen wouldn't even hit double digits if prime Russell is playing and guarding them today.

[ShaqAttack3234]

Russell was THE man who brought dominant shot blocking to basketball, but also the best defensive player in the history of the game by the most reasonable criteria. And that's just looking at the fact that he was the MVP of more championships than any other player, while also being voted league MVP 5 times, and while there were other things that made him great, the biggest part of what made him great was his defense.

[feyki]

Ranking the best defensive centers of all-time: http://basketballjournalist.blogspot...-all-time.html

That is excellent work .

[jongib369]

Haven't seen this post in awhile