Bill Russell. Overrated?

[midnightpulp]

This thread is mainly for history2b and Daddyofalltrolls to go at it, but anyone else with an opinion is obviously encouraged to contribute.

[Giuseppe]

He's a product of the 'Celtics machinery. Like the Kennedy clan type malarkey.

In a vacuum as the '60's were Russell was the goods. He's rated proper & righteous.

[Koolaid_Man]

This thread is mainly for history2b and Daddyofalltrolls to go at it, but anyone else with an opinion is obviously encouraged to contribute.


no more so than Timmy...Midget...no more so than Timmy... Midge my main man...:toast

[midnightpulp]

now if only I were a white girl

Hi, Koolaid_Man

[Daddy_Of_All_Trolls]

Be back with an explanation soon. :)

[Rummpd]

Russell won and won and won - how can he be over-rated - the bigger the game the better he played.

[Killakobe81]

I would say he is a bit ...but rings matter most. I never saw him play so I am far from an expert. But i have looked at some stats that makes me think he is bit overrated. But he is the ultimate winner ...and you can NEVER take that away from him. Yes i value ring but i would take MJ's or Kareem's 6 over his 8. But you have to get at least 5 to be over Bill ...maybe I would take duncan and his 4 too ...

I know i was kidding 3 of those against the Lakers I have wiped from memory banks ...

[Gutter92]

I would say he is a bit ...but rings matter most. I never saw him play so I am far from an expert. But i have looked at some stats that makes me think he is bit overrated. But he is the ultimate winner ...and you can NEVER take that away from him. Yes i value ring but i would take MJ's or Kareem's 6 over his 8. But you have to get at least 5 to be over Bill ...maybe I would take duncan and his 4 too ...


Russell has 11 championships, not 8.

[Killakobe81]

Russell has 11 championships, not 8.

see above ...there are 3 that Im puttingthe phil asterisk on ...LOL

[Gutter92]

see above ...there are 3 that Im puttingthe phil asterisk on ...LOL

understandable, most people put an asterisk on Kobe's 1st 3 too :toast

[Killakobe81]

understandable, most people put an asterisk on Kobe's 1st 3 too :toast

LOL too funny :toast... but i was kidding anyway. I never saw russell play admitted that but i hear he wa sa fierce competitor ...

[Sec24Row7]

He's greatly overrated as a talent.

As a winner he cannot be overrated.

[Daddy_Of_All_Trolls]

The first question to ask yourself is, did you see Bill Russell play? If you did, you have to be at least 50 years old to remember him, and older than that to have appreciated him because he retired in 1969. At age 60, I am one of the few people on this board that can speak about Bill from first hand experience.

The next question to banter about is who are the top 10 players of all time? Here at Spurs talk, I noticed a lot of top 10 lists in the Kobe sticky recently. What I saw was a mass duplication of players, with varying order. So, I made a thread calling for a top 20, I was curious how members rated players who were once top 10 but have fallen out.

Let's see your top 20 all time NBA players http://www.spurstalk.com/forums/showthread.php?t=163282

The only credible list to rank players was made in 1996, the top 50 players at 50 years, and it doesn’t place them in any order. It desperately needs to be updated to add more players for the 15 seasons since, NBA 65 best players at 65 years.

http://www.nba.com/history/players/50greatest.html

The people who selected the top 50 saw, played against, or coached most every player on the list and all have fine reputations. See above link for who voted. I can’t quote each one directly what they thought of Russell, but I can give the general consensus of how every news media, including some on that list ranked a top 10 all time back around 1970. A list might look like this:
1) Chamberlain
2) Robertson
3) Baylor
4) West
5) Pettet
6) Cousy
7) Greer
8) Mikan
9) Russell
10) Bellamy

Why would Russell be so low back then? The primary reason is that offense was valued as most important and Russell didn’t score much and shot poorly. Why was offense so important? Scoring points brings fans, and the NBA struggled financially for years. The league used to have a territorial draft pick in force. This meant an NBA team could use its first round pick to select a local college star, thus helping ticket sales at the gate. Boston acquired Tommy Heinsohn from Holy Cross, and the Royals chose Oscar Robertson from Cincinatti this way. There are many other examples.

Philadelphia Chamberlain backed me up about Russell not being valued so high during his playing days in my top 20 thread. PC was around back then. Boston didn’t consider him their best player, they preferred Cousy or Havlicek, both white players. Russell has an unfortunate history of racial discrimination in Boston. See this link for more on that:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Russell

Olive branches have been extended to Bill ever since, and among them has been a prevalence to rank him higher all time than he should be.

Now we all know the Boston Celtics and UCLA Bruins built dynasties based on defense, and it took awhile for their competitors to figure this out and end dynasties in both venues, at least for awhile. As a direct result, Bill Russell’s stock as an all time great rose after he left the game. However, how high should he rise? I’ll discuss this.

In the beginning, the GOAT was Mikan, 5 rings and most dominant player ever. Now he’s on no one’s top 10. Let’s look at the ring totals of players many consider top 10, (as noted also here at SpursTalk), sorted by ring order and by entrance into the league:

Russell 11 rings
Abdul Jabbar 6 rings
Jordan 6 rings
Magic 5 rings
Bryant 5 rings
Shaq 4 rings
Duncan 4 rings
Bird 3 rings
Chamberlain 2 rings
Hakeem 2 rings

The ring argument to rank greatness is a recent one, and I will prove this. Supporters and detractors of Kobe, Shaq, and Tim use it to boost or devalue all of them. What does history say about rings for greatness? In 1969 it was Russell 11, and Mikan 5. Cousy with 6 was rated higher than Russell and Mikan. Chamberlain had 1 ring at the time and he was considered the best player ever. By 1985 Kareem got his 4th ring, Magic his 3rd, and Larry Bird his 2nd. 3 years later the totals stopped at 6, 5, and 3 for those three. In the 1990’s Jordan matched Kareem and passed first Bird and then Magic. More on MJ soon. In the last decade we have seen Tim, Shaq and Kobe join the party, thus the comparisons to Kareem, Wilt, Magic, Bird, and even Jordan began. Clearly, this last decade has added to the rings for greatness debate that MJ fueled. Since Russell has 11 rings, he is what newer fans use as a barometer. They see those 11 rings and say wow!

Not to take away anything from Jordan, but players most consider he surpassed, he couldn’t beat except Magic, and that was in Earvin’s final real year. Jordan couldn’t ever get by Bird’s Celtics, or the Bad Boy Pistons at first. Dr. J. had already declined and was soon out after MJ came aboard. To some degree, Shaq, Tim, and Kobe were too young to face him when it counted most. Again, not to take away anything from MJ, but a lot of the reasons why people pick him as the GOAT is because that’s what the media was calling him. The media didn’t talk about a GOAT much back in the early days, that wasn’t in vogue, and as noted, the league was struggling financially. It may have gone broke if not for Larry Bird and Magic Johnson coming into the league and renewing the Celtics Lakers rivalry. Those two set the stage for the NBA we enjoy today. Is MJ the real GOAT? Myself, I value big men more and would tend to pick Wilt or Kareem ahead of him, but he is the consensus GOAT, and a kit of that has to do with what we are told to believe. Same situation with Bill Russell.

Allow me to do a couple of hypotheticals. Duncan is likely a top 10 player of all time. Let’s place him in the Russell era, how would he compare to Wilt and Russell? Let’s forget about rings. He would be just as great a rebounder, shot blocker, and big man defender as either of those two players. Tim wouldn’t score as much Wilt did, but he would score a lot more than Russell did, and be Wilt’s main rival. Other than Wilt’s fallaway bankshot, he never shot from mid range as Tim did, and Duncan’s bank shot is more pure of a shot, and deadlier. Clearly Duncan is a better player than Bill Russell from this comparison alone. It also solidifies Tim as a legit top 10 player. Is Tim top 5? It’s arguable versus Bird, but clearly Russell is not top 5. Most people have a top 5 of MJ, Wilt, Kareem, Magic, and Bird. If Russell is added, he usually takes Wilt’s place. Now, one more substitution that was suggested by Jamstone. Ben Wallace for Bill Russell. Here you have a defensive oriented big man who can’t shoot. Essentially, you have the same player. Is Ben Wallace even top 50 all time? Clearly, as noted in my top 20 thread above, Russell doesn’t even belong in a top 20 list.

Ok, I can hear the critics now. “But Bill Russell, like Tim was the leader of his team and he won 11 rings!” Yes, this is true. How easy was it for Russell to win those rings? First, the league had 8 teams back then, and no free agency. If you got your hands on a player, he was yours. Boston was miles ahead of the league and drafted better players. Also, Boston usually won the east and had a bye until the Eastern finals. With home court advantage they won their first 8 titles as overwhelming favorites. No team since has dominated the NBA by as much as a margin as Russell’s Celtics, and for as long. The single most impressive thing about Russell’s career was the last 3 rings he won. Boston didn’t have homecourt against Wilt’s Sixers but beat him 2 of 3 seasons, then cleaned up the finals with HCA. Bill’s last season in 1969, Boston won all 3 series as road underdogs, something the 2010 Celtics were trying to duplicate, maybe you remember the comparison. The reason Boston won those last 3 titles was due to championship experience. That I the main reason you can’t yet write off the San Antonio Spurs.

Perhaps the single most important reason Bill Russell is overrated is who his teammates were. Spurs fans should pay particular attention to this, and I’ll explain why soon. During his career in Boston, Bill played with 4 players on the NBA top 50 all time (Sam Jones, Bill Sharman, Bob Cousy, and John Havlicek). In addition, he had 4 other hall of famers on his teams! (Tommy Heinsohn, KC Jones, Frank Ramsey, and Bailey Howell). No superstar in the Russell era enjoyed stacked and deep teams as Russell had year in and year out. No team since can say this either! Spurs fans are quick to take Kobe down because he had Shaq, or Gasol. So to be consistent, Spurs fans should definitely knock Bill down several pegs. Clearly Bill drops below Hakeem and Shaq as well. The higher a Spurs fan ranks Russell, the higher he should place Kobe as a result of the ring argument.

Now, let’s examine a game played in Russell’s days. Your basic NBA lineups featured a 6’9” center, a forward at 6’4” and 6’5, and guards at 6’0” and 6”2”. If you had any player taller, it was a huge advantage. Example, in 1972 late, the Suns acquired Charlie Scott a 6’6” high scoring guard from the ABA who immediately enjoyed a tremendous height advantage and was difficult to match up with. Back to the old days. Boston used a pressing defense and shooters weren’t accurate then and Eussell easily got the rebounds and ignited the fast break, run by Cousy and Sharman. Quick scores, little of the 24 second clock used up and scores and stats were usually high. Russell did make players better, but that was as player coach, primarily. It was also something taught to everyone today as fundamentals, but they were still figuring them out back then. Boston picked up Lakers castoff Don Nelson, who had no idea how to rebound. Bill taught him how to box his man out so he (Russell) could get the rebound. Nelson didn’t have to get any rebounds, he would just give an uncredited assist to Bill! Boston was a team ahead of their time, and Bill learned a lot while playing there.

Looking forward to your comments.

[midnightpulp]

The first question to ask yourself is, did you see Bill Russell play? If you did, you have to be at least 50 years old to remember him, and older than that to have appreciated him because he retired in 1969. At age 60, I am one of the few people on this board that can speak about Bill from first hand experience.

The next question to banter about is who are the top 10 players of all time? Here at Spurs talk, I noticed a lot of top 10 lists in the Kobe sticky recently. What I saw was a mass duplication of players, with varying order. So, I made a thread calling for a top 20, I was curious how members rated players who were once top 10 but have fallen out.

Let's see your top 20 all time NBA playershttp://www.spurstalk.com/forums/showthread.php?t=163282

The only credible list to rank players was made in 1996, the top 50 players at 50 years, and it doesn’t place them in any order. It desperately needs to be updated to add more players for the 15 seasons since, NBA 65 best players at 65 years.

http://www.nba.com/history/players/50greatest.html

The people who selected the top 50 saw, played against, or coached most every player on the list and all have fine reputations. See above link for who voted. I can’t quote each one directly what they thought of Russell, but I can give the general consensus of how every news media, including some on that list ranked a top 10 all time back around 1970. A list might look like this:
1) Chamberlain
2) Robertson
3) Baylor
4) West
5) Pettet
6) Cousy
7) Greer
8) Mikan
9) Russell
10) Bellamy

Why would Russell be so low back then? The primary reason is that offense was valued as most important and Russell didn’t score much and shot poorly. Why was offense so important? Scoring points brings fans, and the NBA struggled financially for years. The league used to have a territorial draft pick in force. This meant an NBA team could use its first round pick to select a local college star, thus helping ticket sales at the gate. Boston acquired Tommy Heinsohn from Holy Cross, and the Royals chose Oscar Robertson from Cincinatti this way. There are many other examples.

Philadelphia Chamberlain backed me up about Russell not being valued so high during his playing days in my top 20 thread. PC was around back then. Boston didn’t consider him their best player, they preferred Cousy or Havlicek, both white players. Russell has an unfortunate history of racial discrimination in Boston. See this link for more on that:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Russell

Olive branches have been extended to Bill ever since, and among them has been a prevalence to rank him higher all time than he should be.

Now we all know the Boston Celtics and UCLA Bruins built dynasties based on defense, and it took awhile for their competitors to figure this out and end dynasties in both venues, at least for awhile. As a direct result, Bill Russell’s stock as an all time great rose after he left the game. However, how high should he rise? I’ll discuss this.

In the beginning, the GOAT was Mikan, 5 rings and most dominant player ever. Now he’s on no one’s top 10. Let’s look at the ring totals of players many consider top 10, (as noted also here at SpursTalk), sorted by ring order and by entrance into the league:

Russell 11 rings
Abdul Jabbar 6 rings
Jordan 6 rings
Magic 5 rings
Bryant 5 rings
Shaq 4 rings
Duncan 4 rings
Bird 3 rings
Chamberlain 2 rings
Hakeem 2 rings

The ring argument to rank greatness is a recent one, and I will prove this. Supporters and detractors of Kobe, Shaq, and Tim use it to boost or devalue all of them. What does history say about rings for greatness? In 1969 it was Russell 11, and Mikan 5. Cousy with 6 was rated higher than Russell and Mikan. Chamberlain had 1 ring at the time and he was considered the best player ever. By 1985 Kareem got his 4th ring, Magic his 3rd, and Larry Bird his 2nd. 3 years later the totals stopped at 6, 5, and 3 for those three. In the 1990’s Jordan matched Kareem and passed first Bird and then Magic. More on MJ soon. In the last decade we have seen Tim, Shaq and Kobe join the party, thus the comparisons to Kareem, Wilt, Magic, Bird, and even Jordan began. Clearly, this last decade has added to the rings for greatness debate that MJ fueled. Since Russell has 11 rings, he is what newer fans use as a barometer. They see those 11 rings and say wow!

Not to take away anything from Jordan, but players most consider he surpassed, he couldn’t beat except Magic, and that was in Earvin’s final real year. Jordan couldn’t ever get by Bird’s Celtics, or the Bad Boy Pistons at first. Dr. J. had already declined and was soon out after MJ came aboard. To some degree, Shaq, Tim, and Kobe were too young to face him when it counted most. Again, not to take away anything from MJ, but a lot of the reasons why people pick him as the GOAT is because that’s what the media was calling him. The media didn’t talk about a GOAT much back in the early days, that wasn’t in vogue, and as noted, the league was struggling financially. It may have gone broke if not for Larry Bird and Magic Johnson coming into the league and renewing the Celtics Lakers rivalry. Those two set the stage for the NBA we enjoy today. Is MJ the real GOAT? Myself, I value big men more and would tend to pick Wilt or Kareem ahead of him, but he is the consensus GOAT, and a kit of that has to do with what we are told to believe. Same situation with Bill Russell.

Allow me to do a couple of hypotheticals. Duncan is likely a top 10 player of all time. Let’s place him in the Russell era, how would he compare to Wilt and Russell? Let’s forget about rings. He would be just as great a rebounder, shot blocker, and big man defender as either of those two players. Tim wouldn’t score as much Wilt did, but he would score a lot more than Russell did, and be Wilt’s main rival. Other than Wilt’s fallaway bankshot, he never shot from mid range as Tim did, and Duncan’s bank shot is more pure of a shot, and deadlier. Clearly Duncan is a better player than Bill Russell from this comparison alone. It also solidifies Tim as a legit top 10 player. Is Tim top 5? It’s arguable versus Bird, but clearly Russell is not top 5. Most people have a top 5 of MJ, Wilt, Kareem, Magic, and Bird. If Russell is added, he usually takes Wilt’s place. Now, one more substitution that was suggested by Jamstone. Ben Wallace for Bill Russell. Here you have a defensive oriented big man who can’t shoot. Essentially, you have the same player. Is Ben Wallace even top 50 all time? Clearly, as noted in my top 20 thread above, Russell doesn’t even belong in a top 20 list.

Ok, I can hear the critics now. “But Bill Russell, like Tim was the leader of his team and he won 11 rings!” Yes, this is true. How easy was it for Russell to win those rings? First, the league had 8 teams back then, and no free agency. If you got your hands on a player, he was yours. Boston was miles ahead of the league and drafted better players. Also, Boston usually won the east and had a bye until the Eastern finals. With home court advantage they won their first 8 titles as overwhelming favorites. No team since has dominated the NBA by as much as a margin as Russell’s Celtics, and for as long. The single most impressive thing about Russell’s career was the last 3 rings he won. Boston didn’t have homecourt against Wilt’s Sixers but beat him 2 of 3 seasons, then cleaned up the finals with HCA. Bill’s last season in 1969, Boston won all 3 series as road underdogs, something the 2010 Celtics were trying to duplicate, maybe you remember the comparison. The reason Boston won those last 3 titles was due to championship experience. That I the main reason you can’t yet write off the San Antonio Spurs.

Perhaps the single most important reason Bill Russell is overrated is who his teammates were. Spurs fans should pay particular attention to this, and I’ll explain why soon. During his career in Boston, Bill played with 4 players on the NBA top 50 all time (Sam Jones, Bill Sharman, Bob Cousy, and John Havlicek). In addition, he had 4 other hall of famers on his teams! (Tommy Heinsohn, KC Jones, Frank Ramsey, and Bailey Howell). No superstar in the Russell era enjoyed stacked and deep teams as Russell had year in and year out. No team since can say this either! Spurs fans are quick to take Kobe down because he had Shaq, or Gasol. So to be consistent, Spurs fans should definitely knock Bill down several pegs. Clearly Bill drops below Hakeem and Shaq as well. The higher a Spurs fan ranks Russell, the higher he should place Kobe as a result of the ring argument.

Now, let’s examine a game played in Russell’s days. Your basic NBA lineups featured a 6’9” center, a forward at 6’4” and 6’5, and guards at 6’0” and 6”2”. If you had any player taller, it was a huge advantage. Example, in 1972 late, the Suns acquired Charlie Scott a 6’6” high scoring guard from the ABA who immediately enjoyed a tremendous height advantage and was difficult to match up with. Back to the old days. Boston used a pressing defense and shooters weren’t accurate then and Eussell easily got the rebounds and ignited the fast break, run by Cousy and Sharman. Quick scores, little of the 24 second clock used up and scores and stats were usually high. Russell did make players better, but that was as player coach, primarily. It was also something taught to everyone today as fundamentals, but they were still figuring them out back then. Boston picked up Lakers castoff Don Nelson, who had no idea how to rebound. Bill taught him how to box his man out so he (Russell) could get the rebound. Nelson didn’t have to get any rebounds, he would just give an uncredited assist to Bill! Boston was a team ahead of their time, and Bill learned a lot while playing there.

Looking forward to your comments.

Wow. Great stuff.

I'm a Russell supporter, I do believe he's top 5-10 all-time, but I can't really fashion a legitimate argument since I wasn't alive back then to see him play. I merely place him there out of reputation, what I've read about him, and his influence on the game.

[Daddy_Of_All_Trolls]

Wow. Great stuff.

I'm a Russell supporter, I do believe he's top 5-10 all-time, but I can't really fashion a legitimate argument since I wasn't alive back then to see him play. I merely place him there out of reputation, what I've read about him, and his influence on the game.

Thanks. Not certain if history2b is going to post at all, but I am willing to discuss this with anyone.

[Koolaid_Man]

Daddy_Of_All_Trolls

In the beginning, the GOAT was Mikan, 5 rings and most dominant player ever. Now he’s on no one’s top 10. Let’s look at the ring totals of players many consider top 10, (as noted also here at SpursTalk), sorted by ring order and by entrance into the league:

Russell 11 rings
Abdul Jabbar 6 rings
Jordan 6 rings
Magic 5 rings
Bryant 5 rings
Shaq 4 rings
Duncan 4 rings
Bird 3 rings
Chamberlain 2 rings
Hakeem 2 rings


First off you may not want to hear it but No white man should ever be in the ranks of the greatest players with all the black talent to hit the league. There was a ton of suppression going on back then... Mikan, Cousy, Havelick, etc were merely products of the great white hype era...I have no doubts that Bill more so than Wilt held back his game in the face of death threats etc.

Bird was different he had some nigga in him...( and so did Bill Laimbeer)



Not to take away anything from Jordan, but players most consider he surpassed, he couldn’t beat except Magic, and that was in Earvin’s final real year. Jordan couldn’t ever get by Bird’s Celtics, or the Bad Boy Pistons at first. Dr. J. had already declined and was soon out after MJ came aboard. To some degree, Shaq, Tim, and Kobe were too young to face him when it counted most. Again, not to take away anything from MJ, but a lot of the reasons why people pick him as the GOAT is because that’s what the media was calling him. The media didn’t talk about a GOAT much back in the early days, that wasn’t in vogue, and as noted, the league was struggling financially. It may have gone broke if not for Larry Bird and Magic Johnson coming into the league and renewing the Celtics Lakers rivalry. Those two set the stage for the NBA we enjoy today. Is MJ the real GOAT? Myself, I value big men more and would tend to pick Wilt or Kareem ahead of him, but he is the consensus GOAT, and a kit of that has to do with what we are told to believe. Same situation with Bill Russell.


I think the crucial element you're missing in your hypothesis is the revolution factor. MJ is considered the consensus GOAT "now" because he revolutionized the game. No one in the history of the sport revolutionized it like MJ did. What do I mean by revolutionized? I mean created the blueprints for modern day fade-aways, sick dunks, win -at-all costs mentality and a global brand....no one had the same impact prior to MJ...No had the where-with-all or the financial opportunity to create a global brand like MJ did. MJ benefited from an ever expanding and growing world economy in conjucntion with globalization ( technology bringing us closer together) and the dot.com era of the 90's... the nigga was literally in the right place at the right time. So while well intentioned there's a whole other stratosphere that you're missing.

You value big men...but by and large they have it easy...all they really have to do is park their ass in the paint and wait for the ball to be dumped to them...Most big men don't face presses / pressure..sure they can get doubled but they don't have to work to bring the ball up and setup their teammates...So while they're both important I value the back court more. Big men naturally have the FG% inflated because of the dunk...It takes much more creativity and skill to play wing or in the backcourt. In the last 20 yrs minus Shaq and Kobe (co-equals ) big man lead teams have won a total of 6 titles ( 2 Houston and 4 Spurs) whereas guard / forward led teams have won a total of 11 ( Bulls 6, Pistons 1, Heat 1, Boston 1, Lakers 2)



Allow me to do a couple of hypotheticals. Duncan is likely a top 10 player of all time. Let’s place him in the Russell era, how would he compare to Wilt and Russell? Let’s forget about rings. He would be just as great a rebounder, shot blocker, and big man defender as either of those two players. Tim wouldn’t score as much Wilt did, but he would score a lot more than Russell did, and be Wilt’s main rival. Other than Wilt’s fallaway bankshot, he never shot from mid range as Tim did, and Duncan’s bank shot is more pure of a shot, and deadlier. Clearly Duncan is a better player than Bill Russell from this comparison alone. It also solidifies Tim as a legit top 10 player. Is Tim top 5? It’s arguable versus Bird, but clearly Russell is not top 5. Most people have a top 5 of MJ, Wilt, Kareem, Magic, and Bird. If Russell is added, he usually takes Wilt’s place. Now, one more substitution that was suggested by Jamstone. Ben Wallace for Bill Russell. Here you have a defensive oriented big man who can’t shoot. Essentially, you have the same player. Is Ben Wallace even top 50 all time? Clearly, as noted in my top 20 thread above, Russell doesn’t even belong in a top 20 list.

I'm ok with devaluing Russell's rings...but to make the case that Russell is not top 10 and Duncan is or even top 5 is laughable...:lol Tim Duncan may be top 15 -20 nothing more nothing less...You do have to look at the complete package...including player impact from a global perspective...Despite his titles Timmy has not added to the game's innovation and revolution. He's not added fans to the bottom line across the broader spectrum. He's liked by the media because he has a house niggaz mentality he's a maid servant so to speak and they eat that shit up..He's not a global icon nor revolutionary...


The reason Boston won those last 3 titles was due to championship experience. That I the main reason you can’t yet write off the San Antonio Spurs.

But the question is who was their competition enroute to those titles...let me extrapolate...Has the Spurs championship experience gotten them anywhere since 07. The Spurs may be experienced but guess what...you need to factor who's standing in front of them......is there a more experienced team in front of them...fucking aye...:toast FACT: Kobe has played in more title games than Duncan and Phil has coached in more title games than Pop..

You carry some good knowledge of the game but I see elements of you trying to appease or appear fair and balanced to a wanting, hopeful, and prayerful Spur fanbase...:lol

Midget Night is in fucking love...but I wanna see you make that midget dance...I will pay prime $$$ to see dat shit...:lol

[rascalpascal09]

Why is Midget starting threads?

sup nigga how you been? you alrite?

holla at the mistress for me, america eating my lunch, etc.

[badfish22]

writing books tbh

[Koolaid_Man]

Why is Midget starting threads?


Napoleon Syndrome...midget needs to be seen....:lol

[midnightpulp]

Napoleon Syndrome...midget needs to be seen....:lol

Let's review your latest effort.

....

Shitty smack.

Grade: F

[Koolaid_Man]

Let's review your latest effort.

....

Shitty smack.

Grade: F

You shouldn't let Kool get your panties all soaked...you a mad man 2nite midget...running from thread to thread...:lol

[midnightpulp]

Despite his titles Timmy has not added to the game's innovation and revolution. He's not added fans to the bottom line across the broader spectrum. He's liked by the media because he has a house niggaz mentality he's a maid servant so to speak and they eat that shit up..He's not a global icon nor revolutionary...





:lmao

Manu Ginobili > Tim Duncan because he has more global appeal!

Were you born this stupid, or did pops take a 2x4 to your head at some point when you were growing up?

[midnightpulp]

Hey, Midget, the big Laker OG dedicates this song to you, son.

1NvgLkuEtkA

That's cool. Did you play it on your date:

http://i109.photobucket.com/albums/n76/rickosports/Oddballs/5366.jpg

[midnightpulp]

You midgets gave good ol Laker Newman a ton of shit over that classic. What's wrong with you short people.:lol

What's wrong with you Pakis letting a soldier rape your camel while you play the cuckold?

[lakaluva's camel]

You midgets gave good ol Laker Newman a ton of shit over that classic. What's wrong with you short people.:lol

:makeout:makeout:makeout

[midnightpulp]

:makeout:makeout:makeout

Hi, Lakaluva's camel.

I cannot believe he let that soldier do that you. I hope you denied him access to your hump for a long, long time.

[lakaluva's camel]

Hi, Lakaluva's camel.

I cannot believe he let that soldier do that you. I hope you denied him access to your hump for a long, long time.

:depressed

I tried but master and some old man from Phoenix gave me the chloroform rag when I wasn't expecting it. I hate that thing:(

[midnightpulp]

:depressed

I tried but master and some old man from Phoenix gave me the chloroform rag when I wasn't expecting it. I hate that thing:(

Poor thing. Someone should call animal rights.

[lakaluva's camel]

I'm just hoping the Celtics don't win the title this year. Master always plows harder when they lose :depressed

[midnightpulp]

I'm just hoping the Celtics don't win the title this year. Master always plows harder when they lose :depressed

Hope the best for you, buddy.

[Daddy_Of_All_Trolls]

Koolaid, thanks for your reply, I'll answer tomorrow, too tired now.

[Koolaid_Man]

:lmao

Manu Ginobili > Tim Duncan because he has more global appeal!

Were you born this stupid, or did pops take a 2x4 to your head at some point when you were growing up?


:lol you have pretty shitty reasoning skills but I will help you out...we're talking bout Duncan and Russell here and the overall impact of Timmy's contribution that would encourage some to put him in the top 10 all-time. You can bring Manu in if you like but then you devalue Duncan as the clear cut #1 option in the Spurs offense...so Mr. Midget or in this case mental midget...which do you choose... :lol

I won't lean on you too much seeing as you can't really hold your own against me and I won't align you with D..of all trolls just yet..seeing how I can perceive you looking for a friend or someone to bail or help you out against the Laker fan Midget massacre...

I would have thought you'd look to your fellow rabbid Spur fanbase for support but since they can't debate or reason very well....I see you trying to ride your Daddy_of_all Trolls coat tails...

I really expected more from you Midget...this is a new era for midgets..the 21at century...we have a black president whose name is Hussein for crying out loud....Midget's have made all kinds of progresses too...be your own short man...:rollin

[midnightpulp]

:lol you have pretty shitty reasoning skills but I will help you out...we're talking bout Duncan and Russell here and the overall impact of Timmy's contribution that would encourage some to put him in the top 10 all-time. You can bring Manu in if you like but then you devalue Duncan as the clear cut #1 option in the Spurs offense...so Mr. Midget or in this case mental midget...which do you choose... :lol



AIDS, you stated in the following poorly worded, logically incoherent quote that two of the reasons Tim Duncan should be denied top 10 all-time great status is because he "failed to add fans to the bottom line," and that "he's not a global icon."


I'm ok with devaluing Russell's rings...but to make the case that Russell is not top 10 and Duncan is or even top 5 is laughable... Tim Duncan may be top 15 -20 nothing more nothing less...You do have to look at the complete package...including player impact from a global perspective...Despite his titles Timmy has not added to the game's innovation and revolution. He's not added fans to the bottom line across the broader spectrum. He's liked by the media because he has a house niggaz mentality he's a maid servant so to speak and they eat that shit up..He's not a global icon nor revolutionary...

Manu Ginobili has done the former and is the latter, so following your logic, which only a retard would find sound, Manu Ginobili should be considered a greater player than Tim Duncan? Further strengthening Manu's argument is that his game is relatively "innovative," compared to Tim Duncan's clockwork fundamental game.

Allen Iverson was also a far more popular player than Tim Duncan, his merchandise one of the top sellers of the decade. He also had "global appeal." Because Iverson was a marketing phenomenon, should he be considered the greater player, or at the very least, have a greater status than a player like John Stockton?

Look, when you're comparing players, or attempting to determine where they belong among the all-time greats, you go by what they did on the court. As much as you would like to believe, extra points aren't awarded for aesthetics, nor are championships won with marketing impact.

AIDS, I suggest you keep to the things you know best, like sucking Kobe's cock and dissing Lebron with stupid youtube videos, and stay on the sidelines when the adults are talking basketball.

http://www.dragoniade.com:8081/albums/ArtByLysozyme/Dragoniade_n_Kool_Aid_Man_Lz.jpg

[Giuseppe]

Midget, gettin' his morning hard-on.

[midnightpulp]

Midget, gettin' his morning hard-on.

Just wrecking AIDS like I always do. Nothing more, nothing less.

[Giuseppe]

I think he got yer goat & yer too prideful to own up.

[pauls931]

My team sucks, but it's nice to see there's still someone else to put the overinflated lakers in their place.

[midnightpulp]

I think he got yer goat & yer too prideful to own up.

Got my goat, how exactly?

With a retarded argument that didn't make one bit of logical sense?

[midnightpulp]

Oh, I get you why you like Koolaid_Man so much. He baits the little ones for ya.

http://oi55.tinypic.com/10gfwp4.jpg

[JamStone]

A topic that has been discussed on this board but mostly only in tangental comments. It's an interesting topic though. And I do think there are different ways of looking at Bill Russell and his success as a player. Overrated as a winner? No, certainly not. I don't think it can be overstated how one player as the leader of a team led that team as the main component to 11 championships in 13 years. You cannot overrate Bill Russell as a champion or a winner, regardless of his teammates, the era, or his competition. That's as impressive as it gets in terms of championship success.

Overrated as a player, I would definitely be more amenable to agreeing with. But I will say that with qualifiers. I do think time has served Bill Russell's legacy very well. More so than overrating him, time allows people to forget his weaknesses offensively. Never shot 50% from the field for a season. Only shot over 45% four times in 13 seasons. Never averaged 20 PPG despite often playing well over 40 MPG in most of those seasons. Career 56% free throw shooter. Those types of offensive stats would be hugely critical of a player in today's NBA. Faults and weaknesses that are masked by the number of his championships. So, I would agree to an extent that he is overrated now as a player. And when it comes down to the greatness of individual players, I don't believe in the "rings are the only thing that counts" argument. I agree with the opinion that Wilt was easily the superior player.

I do disagree with a few things against Russell though. When it comes to him having the best teammates compared to other star players in his time, that's most likely true. But there's the chicken and the egg argument to be made. Did Bill Russell have all that success because he had the best teammates. Or were Bill Russell's teammates regarded to be so great because of all the championships those teams won. Just as an example, look at KC Jones career statistics. On any other team that doesn't win multiple championships, is KC Jones a hall of famer? Is he even remembered as a player at all? My point is that perhaps some of Bill Russell's teammates were regarded so highly because of the team success and/or because Russell made them better players. I will concede that part of it has to go to Red Auerbach, who I believe was probably a better talent evaluator/GM than he was a coach. Auerbach's value as head coach can be mitigated by the fact that the Bill Russell Celtics won two more titles with Russell as head coach. Auerbach's greatness, in my opinion, was tied more into his ability to acquire great players in the draft as opposed to him outcoaching opposing teams.

Lastly, while I do agree that Russell is overrated, I don't think it's to the extent that Daddy of Trolls believes he is. I've seen the argument that Russell wasn't regarded as one of the top players by his peers when he played. Now I'm not old enough to verify or discredit that, but I will say this about how he was viewed at the time he was playing. He won 5 League MVPs, despite all his flaws on offense. He won his first in the second year of his NBA career. He won one the same season Wilt averaged 50/25 and Oscar averaged a triple double. Perhaps as an individual talent, he wasn't regarded as one of the best players in the league, but he certainly was appreciated as a winner by at least those who voted for MVP.

Overrated in terms of individual talent, but I don't believe as much as Daddy Trolls says he is.

[Giuseppe]

Oh, I get you why you like Koolaid_Man so much. He baits the little ones for ya.

http://oi55.tinypic.com/10gfwp4.jpg

Midget, gettin' his denial on.

[midnightpulp]

Midget, gettin' his denial on.

http://oi52.tinypic.com/30ikhs9.jpg

[Giuseppe]

Lashin' out at me ain't gonna grant ya any relief, Midget.

[Ashy Larry]

for his era, no ..... I think people would try to compare him to today's player and wonder how he would fair in this day and age. He would be an undersized center with limited offensive game. A modern day Ben Wallace.

[midnightpulp]

Lashin' out at me ain't gonna grant ya any relief, Midget.

How many trick or treaters did you capture last night in those nets and beartraps you surrounded the house with?

[Giuseppe]

I just enjoyed Kool's catch/you.

tee, hee.

[midnightpulp]

I just enjoyed Kool's catch/you.

tee, hee.

You and Katie-girl's first date?

http://2whoa.com/images/chloroform.jpg

[Giuseppe]

Draggin' the old lady into it ain't gonna grant ya relief as well, Midget.

[midnightpulp]

Draggin' the old lady into it ain't gonna grant ya relief as well, Midget.

Sidin' with AIDS ain't gonna make DoK materialize at the Chuckbox.

Har, har, har...

[Giuseppe]

Chief Midget, boltin' the reservation.

[midnightpulp]

Chief Midget, boltin' the reservation.

Chief Culburn, wishin' for an erect tee-pee.

[HeatBurn305]

'ol Cubby waiting on that Duncan fella at the chuckbox;::::Hubby in the car with the chloroform rag.

Gosh I tell ya that suit was hot that day, he's out and he's stayin out

http://leatheroaks.org/Rubber/KeithsPage/IMG_2225a.jpg

[Giuseppe]

Good morning, Altered.

[Daddy_Of_All_Trolls]

Koolaid. I never give you any trouble because you never give me any. I know many people here give you shit for what you post, but I don't. In fact, I sometimes see excellent posts from you that are well thought out. If you were to focus your attention to posting this way, and less on the cliche bantering you get caught up in, you might find it a refreshing change. Speaking of change, I can't change you, and I'm not trying, but if I can help you be a better poster, then maybe I am like Bill Russell who made his teammates better.


First off you may not want to hear it but No white man should ever be in the ranks of the greatest players with all the black talent to hit the league. There was a ton of suppression going on back then... Mikan, Cousy, Havelick, etc were merely products of the great white hype era...I have no doubts that Bill more so than Wilt held back his game in the face of death threats etc.

Bird was different he had some nigga in him...( and so did Bill Laimbeer)
There is plenty of truth to this post. Keep in mind, professional sports in Russell's day wasn't that far removed from Jackie Robinson's entrance into baseball. You can still argue Bill Russell was top 10 all time when he retired, but both white and black men were above him then that many don't place there now.





I think the crucial element you're missing in your hypothesis is the revolution factor. MJ is considered the consensus GOAT "now" because he revolutionized the game. No one in the history of the sport revolutionized it like MJ did. What do I mean by revolutionized? I mean created the blueprints for modern day fade-aways, sick dunks, win -at-all costs mentality and a global brand....no one had the same impact prior to MJ...No had the where-with-all or the financial opportunity to create a global brand like MJ did. MJ benefited from an ever expanding and growing world economy in conjucntion with globalization ( technology bringing us closer together) and the dot.com era of the 90's... the nigga was literally in the right place at the right time. So while well intentioned there's a whole other stratosphere that you're missing.
As far as reasons why MJ should or shouldn't be the GOAT, I wasn't trying to go there. What I was trying to point out is how MJ's 6 rings helped shape top 10 lists. Example, suppose MJ came into the league with Bird and Magic. Lakers had number 1 pick and planned on drafting Johnson. Celtics actually picked Bird in 1978 because he was eligible then, having redshirted one season in college. Bulls had #2 pick and would have picked MJ instead of David Greenwood. Chances are Jordan doesn't win until 1991 as he did, and he runs out of gas soon, so maybe he ends with 3 titles. If somehow you put MJ on the Rockets instead, again, maybe he wins 3 titles and probably Magic and Bird win 1-2 fewer. Although he is still the great player he was, he probably doesn't become GOAT and gets bunched with Bird and Magic behind Kareem and Wilt. Conversely, if he doesn't take 2 seasons off, and the Bulls owner keeps the team together after the 1999 lockout, MJ may have won 9 in a row. Bottom line is, he won 6 rings and passed the totals of Bird and Magic. MJ ruled the 90's as Bird and Magic the 80's and Tim, Shaq, and Kobe the last decade. I am not not trying to rank these players from the 80's to date. What I am trying to point out is MJ capitalized on the popularity of the NBA that was set by those that came before him and media hype helped convince us he was the GOAT. This factor, among others, had a boomerang effect on Bill Russell, and his stock rose further as a direct result of what MJ accomplished.


You value big men...but by and large they have it easy...all they really have to do is park their ass in the paint and wait for the ball to be dumped to them...Most big men don't face presses / pressure..sure they can get doubled but they don't have to work to bring the ball up and setup their teammates...So while they're both important I value the back court more. Big men naturally have the FG% inflated because of the dunk...It takes much more creativity and skill to play wing or in the backcourt. In the last 20 yrs minus Shaq and Kobe (co-equals ) big man lead teams have won a total of 6 titles ( 2 Houston and 4 Spurs) whereas guard / forward led teams have won a total of 11 ( Bulls 6, Pistons 1, Heat 1, Boston 1, Lakers 2)

Well, who is going to guard a big man? Another big man, of course. No one could stop Kareem and Wilt in their primes, you could only hope to slow them down and beat them with the rest of your team. Smaller players could be dealt with in other, and often easier ways. Many examples, no need to go there. So, if you were to take basketball as a one on one game, and just use top centers of all time, Russell is not going to do very well. He simply must take some kind of a hit on his legacy for this reason. We all know basketball is a team game, and Bill had to rely on his teammates to help him win. My point is, he had better help than anyone. See my reply to come to Jamstone, shortly.



I'm ok with devaluing Russell's rings...but to make the case that Russell is not top 10 and Duncan is or even top 5 is laughable...:lol Tim Duncan may be top 15 -20 nothing more nothing less...You do have to look at the complete package...including player impact from a global perspective...Despite his titles Timmy has not added to the game's innovation and revolution. He's not added fans to the bottom line across the broader spectrum. He's liked by the media because he has a house niggaz mentality he's a maid servant so to speak and they eat that shit up..He's not a global icon nor revolutionary...
Here's my answer to this. Anyone can have an opinion, and it's most interesting for me to see when one ranks the best players of all time. My thread about a top 20 is linked above. Please post your top 20 in that thread, bring it back. I believe it is a very interesting thread with excellent basketball discussion. No one should criticize you for who you put on your top 20, because it's your opinion.



But the question is who was their competition enroute to those titles...let me extrapolate...Has the Spurs championship experience gotten them anywhere since 07. The Spurs may be experienced but guess what...you need to factor who's standing in front of them......is there a more experienced team in front of them...fucking aye...:toast FACT: Kobe has played in more title games than Duncan and Phil has coached in more title games than Pop..
Well, I have answered history2b twice about this. Both the 1966-69 Celtics, who had taken a step back, and the 1984 Celtics did not enter those seasons as favorite, yet won more titles with championship experience. It's a fact that it is something that exists. Spurs still have it. The odds are tough, but it can't be entirely ignored.


You carry some good knowledge of the game but I see elements of you trying to appease or appear fair and balanced to a wanting, hopeful, and prayerful Spur fanbase...:lol
My loyalties lie like this.
1) Basketball fan
2) T-Wolves fan
3) Western conference fan
4) Lakers fan
5) Every other west team tied equally

I don't dislike any player in the east, west, or any team. My only gripe now was how LeBron left the Cavs, and I'm over that.


Midget Night is in fucking love...but I wanna see you make that midget dance...I will pay prime $$$ to see dat shit...:lol

Midnight and I tangled once before, I forgot what about. He was once on my bitch list, but I took him out. He's actually quite intelligent about the game, and that I respect. Yes, he goes out of his way to bash the Lakers, but really, no team or player is immune. It's all in fun. See my first paragraph above.

[Giuseppe]

Midnight and I tangled once before, I forgot what about.

Probably tangled in the sheets fighting over who's bottom was in the wet spot.

[midnightpulp]

tangled in the sheets .

With that dead pecker of yours, tanglin' in the sheets is something you can no longer do.

har, har, har...

[Giuseppe]

Daddy & Midget sittin' in a tree, k.i.s.s.i.n.g. first comes love then comes marriage then comes Heaty in a baby carriage.

[Bieber Fever]

Probably tangled in the sheets fighting over who's bottom was in the wet spot.

u wrote mii and u wud do dat too on my facebook da otha dai. wut does it mean showty?

[midnightpulp]

Luva & Culburn sittin' in a tree, k.i.s.s.i.n.g. first comes love then comes marriage then comes KoolAIDS in a baby carriage.

Special day for you and Luva, I bet.

[Giuseppe]

I still got it!!!

[midnightpulp]

I still got it!!!

Uh, uh. You were on the receiving end of that injection of baby batter.

[Daddy_Of_All_Trolls]

Overrated in terms of individual talent, but I don't believe as much as Daddy Trolls says he is.

I want to respond in depth to the rest of your post, but don't have time at the moment. Chances are Jamstone is 100% correct here. By me taking a stand to drop Bill Russell out of the top 20, with all the evidence I have, I at least make a convincing case that Bill Russell is not top 5 all time, and no one should put him there IMO. Whether you, or anyone, make Bill top 10 or not, is up to you, it's your opinion. Leaving Bill Russell off a top 10 clears room for another deserving player. My top 20 list, linked in my initial post, kept him off at first, but i added him back on in my last post, where I clarified my top 20. However, without more posts in that thread, it's dead and needs more input to keep that discussion alive. that's up to anyone reading this thread, I have already invited Koolaid to give us his top 20.

[Daddy_Of_All_Trolls]

Daddy & Midget sittin' in a tree, k.i.s.s.i.n.g. first comes love then comes marriage then comes Heaty in a baby carriage.

LOL

Bottom line is, you, like Koolaid don't bother me at all. I joined to get in arguments, and own people who give me shit. Now, I find the place is at least worth hanging around because good discussions do occur here. There is one going on, once you get past the trivialities. That's ok, that's what you guys do and I have no problem with it. Carry on.

[Giuseppe]

Daddy you're ok. It's Midget who needs an enema.

[midnightpulp]

Daddy you're ok. It's Midget who needs an enema.

I smell Goat!

[Giuseppe]

Every fox smells it's own hole.

[midnightpulp]

Every fox smells it's own hole.

Then I smell fox.

But when I take appreciation of your scent, I smell Goat!

[Giuseppe]

:rolleyes

[history2b]

Breaking down Bill Russell based on a random poll taken in 1970 and consensus among other Spurs fans on Spurstalk? Lol. Putting Duncan hypothetically in the 1960s and claiming Ben Wallace is essentially "the same player??" I really can't think of a dumber assessment. Some people who just don't know the game are just ignorant but to think you know and pontificate this nonsense is just delusional and stupid. Much worse imo.

Phila_Chamberlain makes several good points about Bill although I don't agree with how underwhelmed he appears to be with the impact made. Changing the game is not something that I look back on lightly. It's bigger than posting gaudy regular season stats and breaking statistical records.

As it is Russell won 5 regular season MVP awards and one could assume 10 or 11 Finals MVP awards which wouldn't really bode well for the whole "everyone thought Hondo or Cousy was better" argument.

And Red Auerbach? He didn't coach the last 2 Celtic teams Russell won with, the last of which not only was Bill the head coach, he also defeated his biggest rival, Chamberlain, who had joined forces with 2 players better than Bill (according to Troll).

Amazing to think that 3 individual players far superior to the overrated Bill Russell would still manage to lose to him for the nth time, without Auerbach on their home floor.

Even more amazing that doing what it takes to win the game is undervalued to number worshipping stat boys.

[BUMP]

Breaking down Bill Russell based on a random poll taken in 1970 and consensus among other Spurs fans on Spurstalk? Lol. Putting Duncan hypothetically in the 1960s and claiming Ben Wallace is essentially "the same player??" I really can't think of a dumber assessment. Some people who just don't know the game are just ignorant but to think you know and pontificate this nonsense is just delusional and stupid. Much worse imo.

Phila_Chamberlain makes several good points about Bill although I don't agree with how underwhelmed he appears to be with the impact made. Changing the game is not something that I look back on lightly. It's bigger than posting gaudy regular season stats and breaking statistical records.

As it is Russell won 5 regular season MVP awards and one could assume 10 or 11 Finals MVP awards which wouldn't really bode well for the whole "everyone thought Hondo or Cousy was better" argument.

And Red Auerbach? He didn't coach the last 2 Celtic teams Russell won with, the last of which not only was Bill the head coach, he also defeated his biggest rival, Chamberlain, who had joined forces with 2 players better than Bill (according to Troll).

Amazing to think that 3 individual players far superior to the overrated Bill Russell would still manage to lose to him for the nth time, without Auerbach on their home floor.

Even more amazing that doing what it takes to win the game is undervalued to number worshipping stat boys.

tbh, imho you should go start a thread

[TDMVPDPOY]

the old debate i keep on seeing with players from the 50s-60s compared to the later is if they had access to proper nutrient and gym facilities...nothing has change in weights and shit...so whats the problem besides the workout plan?

[history2b]

the old debate i keep on seeing with players from the 50s-60s compared to the later is if they had access to proper nutrient and gym facilities...nothing has change in weights and shit...so whats the problem besides the workout plan?

The fact that the game evolved along the way???

Maybe just that miniscule teeny weeny detail?

[Giuseppe]

I've enjoyed the way NBA game has evolved.

I abhor the same evolution in the NFL & MLB.

[Jose Canseco]

the old debate i keep on seeing with players from the 50s-60s compared to the later is if they had access to proper nutrient and gym facilities...nothing has change in weights and shit...so whats the problem besides the workout plan?

It's not that "weightlifting" by itself has changed that much. It's more to the fact that few NBA players weightlifted back in the 50s and 60s at all. In today's NBA, every player lifts weights at least a little bit, and a large percentage of players lift daily, especially in the off-season and do so to get considerably bigger and stronger. You add different diet and nutrition regimens, including weight gainer, along with the evolution of strength and conditioning to include stuff like yoga and pilates and other uncoventional techniques to improve flexibility, agility, and other aspects of athleticism, and you have a pretty significant difference in overall athleticism in the league.

Now take all of those into consideration and then realize that almost all NBA players today make the type of money that allows them to work out like that year round instead of having to take on different jobs in the off-season to supplement their income, where back then even if some of the players didn't have to get another job, they weren't likely working on their game in the off season.

[midnightpulp]

Breaking down Bill Russell based on a random poll taken in 1970 and consensus among other Spurs fans on Spurstalk? Lol. Putting Duncan hypothetically in the 1960s and claiming Ben Wallace is essentially "the same player??" I really can't think of a dumber assessment. Some people who just don't know the game are just ignorant but to think you know and pontificate this nonsense is just delusional and stupid. Much worse imo.

Phila_Chamberlain makes several good points about Bill although I don't agree with how underwhelmed he appears to be with the impact made. Changing the game is not something that I look back on lightly. It's bigger than posting gaudy regular season stats and breaking statistical records.

As it is Russell won 5 regular season MVP awards and one could assume 10 or 11 Finals MVP awards which wouldn't really bode well for the whole "everyone thought Hondo or Cousy was better" argument.

And Red Auerbach? He didn't coach the last 2 Celtic teams Russell won with, the last of which not only was Bill the head coach, he also defeated his biggest rival, Chamberlain, who had joined forces with 2 players better than Bill (according to Troll).

Amazing to think that 3 individual players far superior to the overrated Bill Russell would still manage to lose to him for the nth time, without Auerbach on their home floor.

Even more amazing that doing what it takes to win the game is undervalued to number worshipping stat boys.

That's your great counterargument? :lmao

And I'm on your side in this debate, but that shit was weak.

[z0sa]

Great thread. I have little else to say, for the obvious reasons, but seeing those more learned (or experienced, in DOAT's case) debate this classic argument's many facets is great stuff.

:tu

[Daddy_Of_All_Trolls]

A topic that has been discussed on this board but mostly only in tangental comments. It's an interesting topic though. And I do think there are different ways of looking at Bill Russell and his success as a player. Overrated as a winner? No, certainly not. I don't think it can be overstated how one player as the leader of a team led that team as the main component to 11 championships in 13 years. You cannot overrate Bill Russell as a champion or a winner, regardless of his teammates, the era, or his competition. That's as impressive as it gets in terms of championship success.

Overrated as a player, I would definitely be more amenable to agreeing with. But I will say that with qualifiers. I do think time has served Bill Russell's legacy very well. More so than overrating him, time allows people to forget his weaknesses offensively. Never shot 50% from the field for a season. Only shot over 45% four times in 13 seasons. Never averaged 20 PPG despite often playing well over 40 MPG in most of those seasons. Career 56% free throw shooter. Those types of offensive stats would be hugely critical of a player in today's NBA. Faults and weaknesses that are masked by the number of his championships. So, I would agree to an extent that he is overrated now as a player. And when it comes down to the greatness of individual players, I don't believe in the "rings are the only thing that counts" argument. I agree with the opinion that Wilt was easily the superior player.

I do disagree with a few things against Russell though. When it comes to him having the best teammates compared to other star players in his time, that's most likely true. But there's the chicken and the egg argument to be made. Did Bill Russell have all that success because he had the best teammates. Or were Bill Russell's teammates regarded to be so great because of all the championships those teams won. Just as an example, look at KC Jones career statistics. On any other team that doesn't win multiple championships, is KC Jones a hall of famer? Is he even remembered as a player at all? My point is that perhaps some of Bill Russell's teammates were regarded so highly because of the team success and/or because Russell made them better players. I will concede that part of it has to go to Red Auerbach, who I believe was probably a better talent evaluator/GM than he was a coach. Auerbach's value as head coach can be mitigated by the fact that the Bill Russell Celtics won two more titles with Russell as head coach. Auerbach's greatness, in my opinion, was tied more into his ability to acquire great players in the draft as opposed to him outcoaching opposing teams.

Lastly, while I do agree that Russell is overrated, I don't think it's to the extent that Daddy of Trolls believes he is. I've seen the argument that Russell wasn't regarded as one of the top players by his peers when he played. Now I'm not old enough to verify or discredit that, but I will say this about how he was viewed at the time he was playing. He won 5 League MVPs, despite all his flaws on offense. He won his first in the second year of his NBA career. He won one the same season Wilt averaged 50/25 and Oscar averaged a triple double. Perhaps as an individual talent, he wasn't regarded as one of the best players in the league, but he certainly was appreciated as a winner by at least those who voted for MVP.

Overrated in terms of individual talent, but I don't believe as much as Daddy Trolls says he is.

Let’s go back to the beginning. Take the NBA top 50 at 50 years list. At the time it was made, 49 players were living. Equivalent lists from MLB or the NFL would find a large percentage of deceased players. The 1946 start date for the NBA itself proves basketball, at least played at its top levels, is not only new, its history since shows it is an evolving sport. Baseball and Football today are arguably much as they always were, with tweaks along the way, and those sports aren’t the topic of discussion.

George Mikan actually won 6 professional titles in 7 seasons. His 1948 NBL Lakers title isn’t recognized by the NBA because the NBL merged into the BAA, which was later renamed the NBA. A side note is the NBL had better players and better teams. So let’s not hold that against Mikan. His 6 titles in 7 years is close to equivalent to Russell’s 11 and 13, and Jordan’s 6 in 8.

Mikan was the first player to revolutionize the game. He may have had an advantage over his opponents greater than that enjoyed by Wilt Chamberlain; comparing physical statures of players at the time tells you this. Why isn’t he top 10 today? There was no MVP award in his playing days, but he easily could have won 7 of them, 5 at the very least. That alone puts him on par with Bill Russell. I see two problems with Mikan being top 10. He shot 40% from the field and the key was three feet wide. He should have shot 60% and scored more. Whatever, everyone shot poorly in those days. Set shots, not jump shots were the norm.

What does history say about Mikan? Well, we know he is top 50 all time. There are two other lists the NBA compiled to list its greatest players. In 1980 they created a 35th anniversary team and included active players, so it’s an official but unranked top 10 list with one more added to make 11:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NBA_35th_Anniversary_Team
Position Name
C Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
F Elgin Baylor
C Wilt Chamberlain
G Bob Cousy
F Julius Erving
G/F John Havlicek
C George Mikan
F Bob Pettit
G Oscar Robertson
C Bill Russell
G Jerry West

Before this, in 1971, the NBA issued a silver anniversary team, but no active players were allowed. Both Mikan and Russell were included:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NBA_25th_Anniversary_Team

There were 25 names, and a top 10 was given.
NBA 25th Anniversary Team
List of 25th Anniversary Team players, sorted by position and vote received.
F Bob Pettit
F Dolph Schayes
F Paul Arizin
F Joe Fulks
C Bill Russell
C George Mikan
G Bob Cousy
G Bill Sharman
G Bob Davies
G Sam Jones

Now, that’s a pretty weak top 10 and predates the sample list I gave in my initial post. Compare the 3 lists, great players come along, old greats drop off. For what it’s worth, Russell was the only unanimous selection, but look at what his “competition” was.

So, once again I ask, why is Mikan no longer top 10 or even top 20? It largely has to do with the evolution of basketball. More talented players came along, and they did more frequently.

Now we can move along from Mikan to Bill Russell and I can better address his post. I can make it short. I agree a large portion of the Celtics success under Russell is due to Red Auerbach. Remember, we have a new sport and Red figured it out years ahead of everyone. Red was shrewd enough to draft Larry Bird in 1978, before his breakout season with the Indiana State Sycamores where he went undefeated until the NCAA finals classic against Magic Johnson’s Michigan State Spartans. Larry was eligible for the draft because he had redshirted on season in college. Soon, the rest of the league caught up to Red, but not yet. After the Len Bias draft and death debacle in 1986, Red seemed to lose all his advantages when he became President and Chairman of the Celtics. He even passed on drafting Tony Parker, and chose Joe Forte of UNC against the wishes of his GM, that’ s common knowledge. There was a link someone posted along with a story of how KC Jones hounded the hell out of Oscar Robertson in the playoffs one season and threw him off his game. Remember, Red taught defense in an era when most coaches didn’t preach it much at all. Many all time greats received poor coaching. So, Red should receive more credit for getting the most of his players than Bill. Bill Russell was simply the next step in basketball evolution. Although he is superior to Mikan in many ways, there were plenty of players yet to appear that brought new and more valuable talents to basketball. Mikan takes a hit because of basketball evolution, and Russell should as well. Clearly, Russell is not top 5 all time, he is borderline top 10 at best. I will get to an MVP discussion when I address history2b.

[JamStone]

Wilt Chamberlain is the main reason why Bill Russell is still so highly regarded while Mikan is not. If you keep all of Bill Russell's stats and accomplishments the same but take Wilt Chamberlain out of that era of basketball, Russell would not be nearly as regarded as he is. But because Wilt Chamberlain is regarded as one of the top 2 or 3 best individual talents the league has ever seen, Bill Russell having the success he did with Wilt dominating the game as an individual player juices Russell's legacy through the roof. By comparison, Mikan's competition is regarded as even worse than Russell's and Russell's competition is often regarded as "a bunch of 6'5 white guys." Probably Mikan's biggest individual competition was Dolph Schayes. A HOFer in his own right, but pales by comparison extremely next to the likes of Wilt Chamberlain. Bill Russell winning all those titles and all those League MVPs in an era where Wilt just blew away everyone statistically is the main reason.

The other difference is that George Mikan for all intents and purposes played 6 seasons. His last season he only played 20 MPG in 37 games with underwhelming stats on a 33-39 Lakers team. When you look at all time greats, most play around 12-13 seasons, at least 10. Off the top of my head, Bill Walton might be the only other exception, and he's not regarded as a top 20 player by most either. Mikan's lack of longevity hurts his legacy.

But I still say Wilt Chamberlain playing in Bill Russell's era is by far the main reason.

[Daddy_Of_All_Trolls]

history2b: Reread my very first paragraph in my opening discussion, I’ll repeat it here in bold:
The first question to ask yourself is, did you see Bill Russell play? If you did, you have to be at least 50 years old to remember him, and older than that to have appreciated him because he retired in 1969. At age 60, I am one of the few people on this board that can speak about Bill from first hand experience.

I think it’s safe to say you didn’t see Russell play. I also find it ironic that you, a Lakers fan, is defending Bill Russell of the hated Celtics. I also noted I would turn your own words against you. I did that already in my trivia thread, and now I am going to do the same thing here by exposing your hypocrisy and lack of logic and debating skills.




Breaking down Bill Russell based on a random poll taken in 1970
There was no internet back in 1970. If ranking greatest players came up in any discussion it was on radio talk shows, broadcast during games, in the paper, or perhaps at the local barbershop. Sometimes the people giving opinions were of great authority, and sometimes it was an every day Joe like you or me. I lived during that time, and whatever I heard, the top 10 lists pretty much developed in the order I gave. Jamstone believes this to be true, and I mentioned Philadelphia Chamberlain, who also lived during the Russell era backs me up as well. Reread my initial post, you will see where to find it. Russell wasn’t highly rated 40 years ago. Many players were valued higher, and I told you why.



and consensus among other Spurs fans on Spurstalk? Lol.
Did you look where I said to look for those top 10s? Did you read what else I said about them? They back you up, most have Bill Russell on a top 10.



Putting Duncan hypothetically in the 1960s and claiming Ben Wallace is essentially "the same player??" I really can't think of a dumber assessment. Some people who just don't know the game are just ignorant but to think you know and pontificate this nonsense is just delusional and stupid. Much worse imo.
Dumb, really? How so? What I did is no different than what many sports analysts do. Let’s look at it this way. When you compare players of different generations, you are always going to run into difficulties when you match them up. So, you do the best you can. Could Robert Horry replace Elgin Baylor? Not likely. Ben Wallace could replace Bill Russell. Tim Duncan would have feasted had he played in the 60’s anyone can see that. Robert Horry wouldn’t have. See, where your argument falls apart is, you give no proof at all why I can’t make such a comparison of players into different generations, you simply state it as if it’s fact. Your ending sentence seems to confirm you believe it to be fact, because now you call my methods worse, in your opinion. No one tells sports analysts they can’t compare players of different generations by imagining how they would perform in a different era, and you can’t tell me that either. You are probably too ignorant to see that it is you who are in fact delusional.


Phila_Chamberlain makes several good points about Bill although I don't agree with how underwhelmed he appears to be with the impact made. Changing the game is not something that I look back on lightly. It's bigger than posting gaudy regular season stats and breaking statistical records.
Since changing the game is not something you take lightly, you have to give Mikan a ton of credit. Cousy, Chamberlain, Robertson, Abdul Jabbar, Magic, Bird, Jordan, and so on as well. We don’t know your top 5 other than Russell is in it. What is your top 5? Your claim Russell is in it, I have offered evidence he doesn’t belong there. Also, you have to consider Russell started changing the game over 50 years ago, when the NBA was in its infancy. Certainly basketball has changed so much since then. If Russell was truly a top 5 player, wouldn’t his teams clean up the NBA today? Do you really believe that? Or because it’s playing players of one generation against another not possible in hypotheticals because it is dumb and stupid as you say. If that’s the case, isn’t putting Russell in a top 5 dumb and stupid in itself? That’s what you’re doing, comparing players of different generations, and you can’t wiggle out of the fact that is what you do when you rank Russell in the top 5. Don’t be a hypocrite. Accept the hypothetical s of Duncan playing in the 60’s or Ben Wallace taking Russell’s place.




As it is Russell won 5 regular season MVP awards and one could assume 10 or 11 Finals MVP awards which wouldn't really bode well for the whole "everyone thought Hondo or Cousy was better" argument.
As pointed out to Jamstone, Mikan received no MVPs. Since you hypothesize about Russell winning 10 or 11 MVPs, that allows me to say Mikan may have received up to 7 and at least 5. Also, since you are allowed to hypothesize about Russell getting 10 or 11 finals MVP’s you must accept all my hypotheticals. Feel free to construct any you wish.

Let’s talk about MVP awards, here’s a definition:

http://en.mimi.hu/basketball/most_valuable_player.html

MVP (Most Valuable Player) - An award in the NBA meant to recognize the player who most contributed to the team’s success in either regular season or the “Finals'

Let’s talk about regular season MVPs first. Here’s the list:

http://www.basketball-reference.com/awards/mvp.html

You can click the (V) option in any season to see the votes. Interesting to note is Bill Russell is the man who put Boston over the hump. Cousy and Sharman could get the Celtics to the ECF. But no farther. L:ook at the votes in Russell’s rookie season, Cousy by a landslide, and Russell well back in the pack. Russell also won it in years Boston had the best record in the NBA. Many times Wilt was well back in the voting, and often when his teams sucked; see his time in San Francisco for example, even though Wilt was putting up monster stats. Wilt started winning the MVP when his Sixers started getting the best record. Oscar Robertson got into in a year his Royals went 55-25, coming second in the east. Oscar always put up great stats and he was ahead of a third place Russell by a large margin. Jerry West never won a regular season mVP but he came second many seasons and held his own in others. Now you claim you hate stats, but MVPs are a stat that you brought up, and it’s only fair to look closer at them.

MVP’s are done by writers anyway, and there has always been an east coast bias. Most people that vote will favor an eastern player. As population demographics continue to shift west, and south, this bias will eventually disappear and new ones will arise. Let’s look at baseball for a moment, as a comparson of favoritism and bias. I posted this before. Nolan Ryan is arguably one of the greatest pitchers of all time. He never won the Cy Young award. His main flaw was the number of walks he gave, but he is the all time strikeout king career, and single season, and matches that with no hitters. In 1973 he set a record for strikeouts at 383, remarkable also because it was the first year of the designated hitter. Nolan had no pitchers to face for the easy KO’s, and still manged two no hitters that year. The Cy Young award went to Jim Palmer, a deserving recipient and multiple winner. The logic of the voters was that the award should go to a pitcher who not only did well, but helped his team finish high in the standings. Ryan’s Angels sucked. This flew in total contrast to the NL Cy Young award winner the season before. Steve Carlton of the Phillies finishsed about 27-9, and his team only won about 20 more times outside of Carlton games.

As far as finals MVPs go, yes they are worth something. It is the ultimate stage. However, it is also common for a better playoff performance to occur earlier to a player whose team loses. Think Michael Jordan and what he did to the Celtics in losing causes back in the 80s. There is also evidence that some series other Boston players did better than Russell in the finals. Elgin Baylor had some monster finals, and if Jerry West could win a finals MVP in a losing effort, Elgin could have as well. So, fnals MVP’s are nice, but you have to get there to win one. Oscar Robertson played in but two finals, and none until Russell left. Of course the ring argument for greatness is recent, as I have proved, so the finals MVP award doesn’t carry as much weight as you think it does,




And Red Auerbach? He didn't coach the last 2 Celtic teams Russell won with, the last of which not only was Bill the head coach, he also defeated his biggest rival, Chamberlain, who had joined forces with 2 players better than Bill (according to Troll).
Auerbach has been discussed, as well as those Celtics teams. Matter of fact, funny how you now tout those underdog Celtics and they are proof that teams with NBA championship experience are in the running to win a title as long as their cores are intact! Remember that? That’s when I refuted your ‘Fact” the Spurs are done. You have been given two examples now, and got owned on both.



Amazing to think that 3 individual players far superior to the overrated Bill Russell would still manage to lose to him for the nth time, without Auerbach on their home floor.
Blame Jack Kent Cooke for that loss. He hung the balloons up and had an agenda of what the postgame celebrations would be after the Lakers won the game. Russell got ahold of it and his team stepped up. Blame also the coach for not allowing Wilt back in.



Even more amazing that doing what it takes to win the game is undervalued to number worshipping stat boys.

Well, as proven above, you are a stat boy. You count MVPs and that’s a stat. Hypocrisy is not allowed, all stats are acceptable in this debate.

You have met your match. Bring more, I love this.

[Daddy_Of_All_Trolls]

Wilt Chamberlain is the main reason why Bill Russell is still so highly regarded while Mikan is not. If you keep all of Bill Russell's stats and accomplishments the same but take Wilt Chamberlain out of that era of basketball, Russell would not be nearly as regarded as he is. But because Wilt Chamberlain is regarded as one of the top 2 or 3 best individual talents the league has ever seen, Bill Russell having the success he did with Wilt dominating the game as an individual player juices Russell's legacy through the roof. By comparison, Mikan's competition is regarded as even worse than Russell's and Russell's competition is often regarded as "a bunch of 6'5 white guys." Probably Mikan's biggest individual competition was Dolph Schayes. A HOFer in his own right, but pales by comparison extremely next to the likes of Wilt Chamberlain. Bill Russell winning all those titles and all those League MVPs in an era where Wilt just blew away everyone statistically is the main reason.

The other difference is that George Mikan for all intents and purposes played 6 seasons. His last season he only played 20 MPG in 37 games with underwhelming stats on a 33-39 Lakers team. When you look at all time greats, most play around 12-13 seasons, at least 10. Off the top of my head, Bill Walton might be the only other exception, and he's not regarded as a top 20 player by most either. Mikan's lack of longevity hurts his legacy.

But I still say Wilt Chamberlain playing in Bill Russell's era is by far the main reason.

Spot on!
Chamberlain helps Russell.
Jordan passing Magic and Bird in rings helps Russell!
Tim, Shaq, and Kobe collecting rings helps Russell!

[Daddy_Of_All_Trolls]

Great thread. I have little else to say, for the obvious reasons, but seeing those more learned (or experienced, in DOAT's case) debate this classic argument's many facets is great stuff.

:tu

Thanks. However, according to history2b, I know nothing about basketball. I am not keeping track of the votes on that issue. However I am trying to get ambchang over to this thread and my top 20 thread as well to participate. Anything to end that silly thread he keeps bumping back up every few days after it died.

[Koolaid_Man]

Daddy_Of_All_Trolls; Koolaid. I never give you any trouble because you never give me any. I know many people here give you shit for what you post, but I don't. In fact, I sometimes see excellent posts from you that are well thought out. If you were to focus your attention to posting this way, and less on the cliche bantering you get caught up in, you might find it a refreshing change. Speaking of change, I can't change you, and I'm not trying, but if I can help you be a better poster, then maybe I am like Bill Russell who made his teammates better.


Listen up and listen carefully...I don't take your words as any diss...I'm very good at reading between the lines...it's all good but Kool ain't interested in no so called civil discourse...We are at WAR and Kool is a general in this battle. "Refreshing" and "better poster" shit is for the weak. I'm not mild...I'm not here to soothe any weak consciences...and if it seems that I am from time to time just chalk it up as the "Art of War" if you know what I mean...and if anyone wants to go to war with Kool I suggest they count their ones first... of course this doesn't apply to Kori she's my happy medium and I know she only does it because Timvp whispering in her ear at night...:lol


I consider my self above it all really...Like a Master watching his students...I like watching a good debate :lol so keep bringing the goods...Like I said before you have good arguments..you have some passion...but you need to chill with all this muthafucking letter writing..Is it really necessary to write a fucking novel everytime you post...ok your a history buff...but knowing history doesn't mean as much unless you were a scribe back then...because anyone can look that shit up...

just fyi I have no beef with you if you a legit Lakers fan.....I have no problem with Laker fan disagreements...such as between you and History2b...but I see you mention that 'bitch list' as sort of like a salvo shot for me to marinate on... if you ever think about adding King Kool to your "bitch" list be careful with dat shit homie...Once Kool is on dat ass posting get's a little less fun...there ain't no turning back...

[midnightpulp]

Listen up and listen carefully...I don't take your words as any diss...I'm very good at reading between the lines...it's all good but Kool ain't interested in no so called civil discourse...We are at WAR and Kool is a general in this battle. "Refreshing" and "better poster" shit is for the weak. I'm not mild...I'm not here to soothe any weak consciences...and if it seems that I am from time to time just chalk it up as the "Art of War" if you know what I mean...and if anyone wants to go to war with Kool I suggest they count their ones first... of course this doesn't apply to Kori she's my happy medium and I know she only does it because Timvp whispering in her ear at night...:lol


I consider my self above it all really...Like a Master watching his students...I like watching a good debate :lol so keep bringing the goods...Like I said before you have good arguments..you have some passion...but you need to chill with all this muthafucking letter writing..Is it really necessary to write a fucking novel everytime you post...ok your a history buff...but knowing history doesn't mean as much unless you were a scribe back then...because anyone can look that shit up...

just fyi I have no beef with you if you a legit Lakers fan.....I have no problem with Laker fan disagreements...such as between you and History2b...but I see you mention that 'bitch list' as sort of like a salvo shot for me to marinate on... if you ever think about adding King Kool to your "bitch" list be careful with dat shit homie...Once Kool is on dat ass posting get's a little less fun...there ain't no turning back...

"Master watching his students?" :lmao

I would create a "bitch list," add your dumbass to it, and you wouldn't do shit, except maybe overuse the ellipsis and post a retarded youtube video.

You're a simpleton, bro. Nothing more.

[Daddy_Of_All_Trolls]

Listen up and listen carefully...I don't take your words as any diss...I'm very good at reading between the lines...it's all good but Kool ain't interested in no so called civil discourse...We are at WAR and Kool is a general in this battle. "Refreshing" and "better poster" shit is for the weak. I'm not mild...I'm not here to soothe any weak consciences...and if it seems that I am from time to time just chalk it up as the "Art of War" if you know what I mean...and if anyone wants to go to war with Kool I suggest they count their ones first... of course this doesn't apply to Kori she's my happy medium and I know she only does it because Timvp whispering in her ear at night...:lol


I consider my self above it all really...Like a Master watching his students...I like watching a good debate :lol so keep bringing the goods...Like I said before you have good arguments..you have some passion...but you need to chill with all this muthafucking letter writing..Is it really necessary to write a fucking novel everytime you post...ok your a history buff...but knowing history doesn't mean as much unless you were a scribe back then...because anyone can look that shit up...

just fyi I have no beef with you if you a legit Lakers fan.....I have no problem with Laker fan disagreements...such as between you and History2b...but I see you mention that 'bitch list' as sort of like a salvo shot for me to marinate on... if you ever think about adding King Kool to your "bitch" list be careful with dat shit homie...Once Kool is on dat ass posting get's a little less fun...there ain't no turning back...

Haha, thanks. As I said, I am not trying to change you. You have your mission here and have it defined. That's totally cool to me. Since we have no beef and I don't expect one, I doubt you'll ever be considered for my bitch list. As far as me writing letters, I try to be specific when I can. If that takes a lot of words, then it does. Besides, sometimes greater detail is needed to tell the whole story.

I was reading excerpts from Ben Franklin's autobiography recently. He had a love for reading at an early age and did whatever he could to acquire more books, including spending what little money he had. He took a job as an apprentice printer at age 12 so he could be in position to acquire more books to read. Soon he began engaging other people in debates by exchanging letters. He would take the opposite point of view even if he didn't believe it, simply to practice and hone his writing skills. His father critiqued his penmanship and he got better at it. The rest is history. So, reading (long threads) and replying (with thought out posts) helps everyone. That's what our society is about, right? Staying educated and remaining leaders of the free world.

[midnightpulp]

:lol you have pretty shitty reasoning skills but I will help you out...we're talking bout Duncan and Russell here and the overall impact of Timmy's contribution that would encourage some to put him in the top 10 all-time. You can bring Manu in if you like but then you devalue Duncan as the clear cut #1 option in the Spurs offense...so Mr. Midget or in this case mental midget...which do you choose... :lol



AIDS, you stated in the following poorly worded, logically incoherent quote that two of the reasons Tim Duncan should be denied top 10 all-time great status is because he "failed to add fans to the bottom line," and that "he's not a global icon."


I'm ok with devaluing Russell's rings...but to make the case that Russell is not top 10 and Duncan is or even top 5 is laughable... Tim Duncan may be top 15 -20 nothing more nothing less...You do have to look at the complete package...including player impact from a global perspective...Despite his titles Timmy has not added to the game's innovation and revolution. He's not added fans to the bottom line across the broader spectrum. He's liked by the media because he has a house niggaz mentality he's a maid servant so to speak and they eat that shit up..He's not a global icon nor revolutionary...

Manu Ginobili has done the former and is the latter, so following your logic, which only a retard would find sound, Manu Ginobili should be considered a greater player than Tim Duncan? Further strengthening Manu's argument is that his game is relatively "innovative," compared to Tim Duncan's clockwork fundamental game.

Allen Iverson was also a far more popular player than Tim Duncan, his merchandise one of the top sellers of the decade. He also had "global appeal." Because Iverson was a marketing phenomenon, should he be considered the greater player, or at the very least, have a greater status than a player like John Stockton?

Look, when you're comparing players, or attempting to determine where they belong among the all-time greats, you go by what they did on the court. As much as you would like to believe, extra points aren't awarded for aesthetics, nor are championships won with marketing impact.

AIDS, I suggest you keep to the things you know best, like sucking Kobe's cock and dissing Lebron with stupid youtube videos, and stay on the sidelines when the adults are talking basketball.

http://www.dragoniade.com:8081/albums/ArtByLysozyme/Dragoniade_n_Kool_Aid_Man_Lz.jpg

[Koolaid_Man]

Haha, thanks. As I said, I am not trying to change you. You have your mission here and have it defined. That's totally cool to me. Since we have no beef and I don't expect one, I doubt you'll ever be considered for my bitch list. As far as me writing letters, I try to be specific when I can. If that takes a lot of words, then it does. Besides, sometimes greater detail is needed to tell the whole story.

I was reading excerpts from Ben Franklin's autobiography recently. He had a love for reading at an early age and did whatever he could to acquire more books, including spending what little money he had. He took a job as an apprentice printer at age 12 so he could be in position to acquire more books to read. Soon he began engaging other people in debates by exchanging letters. He would take the opposite point of view even if he didn't believe it, simply to practice and hone his writing skills. His father critiqued his penmanship and he got better at it. The rest is history. So, reading (long threads) and replying (with thought out posts) helps everyone. That's what our society is about, right? Staying educated and remaining leaders of the free world.


D_of_All_Trolls...you may not realize it...but you have Mid *aka* Midget attached to your balls like a sea urchin attached to the bottom of a ship...:lol

He's following you around he wants a friend...watch your back homie...watch your back..this midget is in awe and fascinated with tall men.

[midnightpulp]

D_of_All_Trolls...you may not realize it...but you have Mid *aka* Midget attached to your balls like a sea urchin attached to the bottom of a ship...:lol

He's following you around he wants a friend...watch your back homie...watch your back..this midget is in awe and fascinated with tall men.

Let's review

....

Major points off for stating an incorrect fact that sea urchins attach themselves to ships. They typically reside at the bottom of the ocean floor. Barnacle would've worked better.

Grade: F

[Koolaid_Man]

Let's review

....

Major points off for stating an incorrect fact that sea urchins attach themselves to ships. They typically reside at the bottom of the ocean floor. Barnacle would've worked better.

Grade: F


well then barnacle bitch...:lol albeit a midget one...

[midnightpulp]

well then barnacle bitch...:lol albeit a midget one...

Let's review.

.....

Weak comeback.

Grade: F

[Koolaid_Man]

you really want me to show to the board how you got your ass curb stomped...

Mid brings out some flowers and that's all she wrote...this fight is epic and deserve its own special place in ST History...

mRnIXnBcAAo

[midnightpulp]

you really want me to show to the board how you got your ass curb stomped...




Start a thread. Let's see who the board decides is the winner here.

Oh, wait...

[Koolaid_Man]

Start a thread. Let's see who the board decides is the winner here.

Oh, wait...


Midget...don't tell me you resorting to " I can't start a thread smack"...you reaching bra you need some new material...Kool has you right where he wants you and he's done it all without starting a single thread...:lol

I think you hurt over the fact that Luva, Cully, 21 Blessings, and now Daddy of all Trolls show me respect...you can't reconcile that with my Hell Raising Venom...:lol you were expecting an epic showdown between Kool and your Daddy_of_All_Trolls but it didn't happen...now your midget ass is spinning outta control...:lmao

Don't worry son it's a Laker thang...I wouldn't expect you to understand...and FYI this message is more for those midget spur followers who think you're clever than it is you...:toast

we'll talk later my soon to be divorced neighbor is calling...she wanna talk bout her PC problems...:lol

[history2b]

history2b: Reread my very first paragraph in my opening discussion, I’ll repeat it here in bold:
The first question to ask yourself is, did you see Bill Russell play? If you did, you have to be at least 50 years old to remember him, and older than that to have appreciated him because he retired in 1969. At age 60, I am one of the few people on this board that can speak about Bill from first hand experience.

I think it’s safe to say you didn’t see Russell play. I also find it ironic that you, a Lakers fan, is defending Bill Russell of the hated Celtics. I also noted I would turn your own words against you. I did that already in my trivia thread, and now I am going to do the same thing here by exposing your hypocrisy and lack of logic and debating skills.


I've met some delusional schmucks with a false sense of ego but this one takes the cake so far. Never met a dude who thought more highly of himself despite saying absolutely nothing. And I don't believe that you are 60 years old, there is no way. For the sake of humanity I couldn't believe an old bag who's lived through the civil rights movement, Vietnam and the fall of the wall of Berlin could be this, well, retarded. Acting like a 13 teen year old douche on the internet? I call bullshit.

Regardless I do have to point out that there is nothing hypocritical about speaking honestly about the game of basketball. I put the game before my own team and I won't lie about a rival team or player just to be a homer. I know! GASP! I actually do that, something that is a big no no on Spurstalk. You've exposed me as a non-homer!




There was no internet back in 1970. If ranking greatest players came up in any discussion it was on radio talk shows, broadcast during games, in the paper, or perhaps at the local barbershop. Sometimes the people giving opinions were of great authority, and sometimes it was an every day Joe like you or me. I lived during that time, and whatever I heard, the top 10 lists pretty much developed in the order I gave. Jamstone believes this to be true, and I mentioned Philadelphia Chamberlain, who also lived during the Russell era backs me up as well. Reread my initial post, you will see where to find it. Russell wasn’t highly rated 40 years ago. Many players were valued higher, and I told you why.

Did you look where I said to look for those top 10s? Did you read what else I said about them? They back you up, most have Bill Russell on a top 10.

Irrelevant citation. No one cares about a random poll you think you remember from 40 years ago. The NBA was in its infancy, can't expect anyone to have had the foresight to understand who would be valued most when it was all said and done. By the 80's Russell was regularly discussed as the greatest player of his generation along with Chamberlain.

I know most top 10 lists back me up. Doesn't concern me regardless. I believe Russell's impact speaks for itself. A dominant defensive presence in the middle that commands the paint is the blueprint for championship basketball still now as it was developed by Russell's Celtics in the 60's.

It's actually pretty simple; I think defense is paramount and I think Russell embodied the pinnacle of defensive dominance. I don't only consider him top 10, I have him at the top period. No one player has successfully impacted the game with ability as much imo.


Dumb, really? How so? What I did is no different than what many sports analysts do. Let’s look at it this way. When you compare players of different generations, you are always going to run into difficulties when you match them up. So, you do the best you can. Could Robert Horry replace Elgin Baylor? Not likely. Ben Wallace could replace Bill Russell. Tim Duncan would have feasted had he played in the 60’s anyone can see that. Robert Horry wouldn’t have. See, where your argument falls apart is, you give no proof at all why I can’t make such a comparison of players into different generations, you simply state it as if it’s fact. Your ending sentence seems to confirm you believe it to be fact, because now you call my methods worse, in your opinion. No one tells sports analysts they can’t compare players of different generations by imagining how they would perform in a different era, and you can’t tell me that either. You are probably too ignorant to see that it is you who are in fact delusional.

Lol, my God you are an imbecile. "Hey let's just plug and pop players from now into the past." Doesn't work that way, never will and it is completely irrelevant. All of today's players have evolved physically and mentally having learned from what has been established by the game's pioneers. Can we just put Lebron in the past hypothetically and justify that he's the greatest player of all time? Pathetic and moronic. Anyone who respects the game, understands importance of how the path was paved by the past greats would never do this. That is the point. People who know the game know this. Fan boys who want to play pretend sports analyst on message boards do not.


Since changing the game is not something you take lightly, you have to give Mikan a ton of credit. Cousy, Chamberlain, Robertson, Abdul Jabbar, Magic, Bird, Jordan, and so on as well. We don’t know your top 5 other than Russell is in it. What is your top 5? Your claim Russell is in it, I have offered evidence he doesn’t belong there. Also, you have to consider Russell started changing the game over 50 years ago, when the NBA was in its infancy. Certainly basketball has changed so much since then. If Russell was truly a top 5 player, wouldn’t his teams clean up the NBA today? Do you really believe that? Or because it’s playing players of one generation against another not possible in hypotheticals because it is dumb and stupid as you say. If that’s the case, isn’t putting Russell in a top 5 dumb and stupid in itself? That’s what you’re doing, comparing players of different generations, and you can’t wiggle out of the fact that is what you do when you rank Russell in the top 5. Don’t be a hypocrite. Accept the hypothetical s of Duncan playing in the 60’s or Ben Wallace taking Russell’s place.

I do give Mikan, Cousy et al all a lot of credit for changing the game in their respective ways.

Nope, won't accept Duncan in the 60s or Ben Wallace in Russell's place because it is irrelevant and actually just down right retarded. It's always about what you do in your own era that matters not the scores of hypotheticals fanboys draw up on the internet. [See Lebron not the greastest player ever reference from earlier]


As pointed out to Jamstone, Mikan received no MVPs. Since you hypothesize about Russell winning 10 or 11 MVPs, that allows me to say Mikan may have received up to 7 and at least 5. Also, since you are allowed to hypothesize about Russell getting 10 or 11 finals MVP’s you must accept all my hypotheticals. Feel free to construct any you wish.

Let’s talk about MVP awards, here’s a definition:

http://en.mimi.hu/basketball/most_valuable_player.html

MVP (Most Valuable Player) - An award in the NBA meant to recognize the player who most contributed to the team’s success in either regular season or the “Finals'

Let’s talk about regular season MVPs first. Here’s the list:

http://www.basketball-reference.com/awards/mvp.html

You can click the (V) option in any season to see the votes. Interesting to note is Bill Russell is the man who put Boston over the hump. Cousy and Sharman could get the Celtics to the ECF. But no farther. L:ook at the votes in Russell’s rookie season, Cousy by a landslide, and Russell well back in the pack. Russell also won it in years Boston had the best record in the NBA. Many times Wilt was well back in the voting, and often when his teams sucked; see his time in San Francisco for example, even though Wilt was putting up monster stats. Wilt started winning the MVP when his Sixers started getting the best record. Oscar Robertson got into in a year his Royals went 55-25, coming second in the east. Oscar always put up great stats and he was ahead of a third place Russell by a large margin. Jerry West never won a regular season mVP but he came second many seasons and held his own in others. Now you claim you hate stats, but MVPs are a stat that you brought up, and it’s only fair to look closer at them.

Wrong. The MVP award, is an award, not a statistic. In game statistics are a separate entity even a moron should understand this. Perhaps we're dealing with even less.

The Bill Russell award, aka the Finals MVP was appropriately named after the player who hypothetically earned the award 10 times. Logic dictates this. Throw in 5 regular season MVP awards and you have the man with the most individual hardware MVP awards in history. So much for it being all about Cousy and Hondo.


MVP’s are done by writers anyway, and there has always been an east coast bias. Most people that vote will favor an eastern player. As population demographics continue to shift west, and south, this bias will eventually disappear and new ones will arise. Let’s look at baseball for a moment, as a comparson of favoritism and bias. I posted this before. Nolan Ryan is arguably one of the greatest pitchers of all time. He never won the Cy Young award. His main flaw was the number of walks he gave, but he is the all time strikeout king career, and single season, and matches that with no hitters. In 1973 he set a record for strikeouts at 383, remarkable also because it was the first year of the designated hitter. Nolan had no pitchers to face for the easy KO’s, and still manged two no hitters that year. The Cy Young award went to Jim Palmer, a deserving recipient and multiple winner. The logic of the voters was that the award should go to a pitcher who not only did well, but helped his team finish high in the standings. Ryan’s Angels sucked. This flew in total contrast to the NL Cy Young award winner the season before. Steve Carlton of the Phillies finishsed about 27-9, and his team only won about 20 more times outside of Carlton games.

I agree bias exists. Can't prove who, how or when so it doesn't matter. Doesn't concern me as the results speak for themselves. 11 championships in 13 seasons, anchoring the most dominant defense respective of its era in history, with the Finals MVP award named after him. I'd say it's safe to assume "east coast bias" didn't factor in especially when you consider the turbulent racist period Bill dominated.


As far as finals MVPs go, yes they are worth something. It is the ultimate stage. However, it is also common for a better playoff performance to occur earlier to a player whose team loses. Think Michael Jordan and what he did to the Celtics in losing causes back in the 80s. There is also evidence that some series other Boston players did better than Russell in the finals. Elgin Baylor had some monster finals, and if Jerry West could win a finals MVP in a losing effort, Elgin could have as well. So, fnals MVP’s are nice, but you have to get there to win one. Oscar Robertson played in but two finals, and none until Russell left. Of course the ring argument for greatness is recent, as I have proved, so the finals MVP award doesn’t carry as much weight as you think it does,

1) you didn't "prove" that the random poll you remember in 1970 ever took place. Where is the poll? Who administered the poll? Who voted? How can this be verified? Oh you can't? Then that doesn't constitute "proof." Look up the word in a dictionary.

2) Let's just say that your poll did take place for the sake of argument. And? You referenced 1 poll from 1970 as proof that the "ring argument" is recent. What if another poll taken in 1975 or 1980 revealed something different? Is that too "recent?" Anything pre-1990 could hardly be characterized as "recent."

Regardless, some players do perform better than others in various rounds of the playoffs. It happens all the time. Rajon Rondo had a great 2nd round this past post season. Perhaps he should be recognized as last years best player.


Auerbach has been discussed, as well as those Celtics teams. Matter of fact, funny how you now tout those underdog Celtics and they are proof that teams with NBA championship experience are in the running to win a title as long as their cores are intact! Remember that? That’s when I refuted your ‘Fact” the Spurs are done. You have been given two examples now, and got owned on both.

That's because the 60's Celtics have nothing in common with the Spurs. Nothing. They won 8 straight ships. The Spurs never repeated once. Moreover I didn't offer my statement as "proof that teams with championship experience are in the running to win" again. I specifically pointed out a historical fact that 3 players whom you said were "better" than Bill still couldn't beat him, even though he was on his last legs and they were all in their primes.

The Spurs are trash. The 60s Celtics didn't get bounced out early in consecutive years by crap teams. Nope. They just won over and over again. Wear that idiotic homer cap proud.


Blame Jack Kent Cooke for that loss. He hung the balloons up and had an agenda of what the postgame celebrations would be after the Lakers won the game. Russell got ahold of it and his team stepped up. Blame also the coach for not allowing Wilt back in.

Cop out. The game still has to be played. Players still have to compete and in the end all that matters is the result. This isn't a debate it's an embarrassment to Spurs fans everywhere. I demand better.


Well, as proven above, you are a stat boy. You count MVPs and that’s a stat. Hypocrisy is not allowed, all stats are acceptable in this debate.

You have met your match. Bring more, I love this.

You "proved" that my citation of an award is a stat. Hilarious. Perhaps one of your friends can help you out in understanding the difference so that you won't continue to make a jackass out of yourself in order to have a "comeback" to everything that is said.

As it stands I would be happy to converse with Phila_Chamberlain on the matter further as he has demonstrated a reasonable level of intelligence not the unbecoming belligerence of Douche bag of all Trolls.

[Albert Haynesworth]

I've met some delusional schmucks with a false sense of ego but this one takes the cake so far. Never met a dude who thought more highly of himself despite saying absolutely nothing. And I don't believe that you are 60 years old, there is no way. For the sake of humanity I couldn't believe an old bag who's lived through the civil rights movement, Vietnam and the fall of the wall of Berlin could be this, well, retarded. Acting like a 13 teen year old douche on the internet? I call bullshit.

Regardless I do have to point out that there is nothing hypocritical about speaking honestly about the game of basketball. I put the game before my own team and I won't lie about a rival team or player just to be a homer. I know! GASP! I actually do that, something that is a big no no on Spurstalk. You've exposed me as a non-homer!





Irrelevant citation. No one cares about a random poll you think you remember from 40 years ago. The NBA was in its infancy, can't expect anyone to have had the foresight to understand who would be valued most when it was all said and done. By the 80's Russell was regularly discussed as the greatest player of his generation along with Chamberlain.

I know most top 10 lists back me up. Doesn't concern me regardless. I believe Russell's impact speaks for itself. A dominant defensive presence in the middle that commands the paint is the blueprint for championship basketball still now as it was developed by Russell's Celtics in the 60's.

It's actually pretty simple; I think defense is paramount and I think Russell embodied the pinnacle of defensive dominance. I don't only consider him top 10, I have him at the top period. No one player has successfully impacted the game with ability as much imo.



Lol, my God you are an imbecile. "Hey let's just plug and pop players from now into the past." Doesn't work that way, never will and it is completely irrelevant. All of today's players have evolved physically and mentally having learned from what has been established by the game's pioneers. Can we just put Lebron in the past hypothetically and justify that he's the greatest player of all time? Pathetic and moronic. Anyone who respects the game, understands importance of how the path was paved by the past greats would never do this. That is the point. People who know the game know this. Fan boys who want to play pretend sports analyst on message boards do not.



I do give Mikan, Cousy et al all a lot of credit for changing the game in their respective ways.

Nope, won't accept Duncan in the 60s or Ben Wallace in Russell's place because it is irrelevant and actually just down right retarded. It's always about what you do in your own era that matters not the scores of hypotheticals fanboys draw up on the internet. [See Lebron not the greastest player ever reference from earlier]



Wrong. The MVP award, is an award, not a statistic. In game statistics are a separate entity even a moron should understand this. Perhaps we're dealing with even less.

The Bill Russell award, aka the Finals MVP was appropriately named after the player who hypothetically earned the award 10 times. Logic dictates this. Throw in 5 regular season MVP awards and you have the man with the most individual hardware MVP awards in history. So much for it being all about Cousy and Hondo.



I agree bias exists. Can't prove who, how or when so it doesn't matter. Doesn't concern me as the results speak for themselves. 11 championships in 13 seasons, anchoring the most dominant defense respective of its era in history, with the Finals MVP award named after him. I'd say it's safe to assume "east coast bias" didn't factor in especially when you consider the turbulent racist period Bill dominated.



1) you didn't "prove" that the random poll you remember in 1970 ever took place. Where is the poll? Who administered the poll? Who voted? How can this be verified? Oh you can't? Then that doesn't constitute "proof." Look up the word in a dictionary.

2) Let's just say that your poll did take place for the sake of argument. And? You referenced 1 poll from 1970 as proof that the "ring argument" is recent. What if another poll taken in 1975 or 1980 revealed something different? Is that too "recent?" Anything pre-1990 could hardly be characterized as "recent."

Regardless, some players do perform better than others in various rounds of the playoffs. It happens all the time. Rajon Rondo had a great 2nd round this past post season. Perhaps he should be recognized as last years best player.



That's because the 60's Celtics have nothing in common with the Spurs. Nothing. They won 8 straight ships. The Spurs never repeated once. Moreover I didn't offer my statement as "proof that teams with championship experience are in the running to win" again. I specifically pointed out a historical fact that 3 players whom you said were "better" than Bill still couldn't beat him, even though he was on his last legs and they were all in their primes.

The Spurs are trash. The 60s Celtics didn't get bounced out early in consecutive years by crap teams. Nope. They just won over and over again. Wear that idiotic homer cap proud.



Cop out. The game still has to be played. Players still have to compete and in the end all that matters is the result. This isn't a debate it's an embarrassment to Spurs fans everywhere. I demand better.



You "proved" that my citation of an award is a stat. Hilarious. Perhaps one of your friends can help you out in understanding the difference so that you won't continue to make a jackass out of yourself in order to have a "comeback" to everything that is said.

As it stands I would be happy to converse with Phila_Chamberlain on the matter further as he has demonstrated a reasonable level of intelligence not the unbecoming belligerence of Douche bag of all Trolls.

I've met some delusional schmucks with a false sense of ego but this one takes the cake so far. Never met a dude who thought more highly of himself despite saying absolutely nothing. And I don't believe that you are 60 years old, there is no way. For the sake of humanity I couldn't believe an old bag who's lived through the civil rights movement, Vietnam and the fall of the wall of Berlin could be this, well, retarded. Acting like a 13 teen year old douche on the internet? I call bullshit.

Regardless I do have to point out that there is nothing hypocritical about speaking honestly about the game of basketball. I put the game before my own team and I won't lie about a rival team or player just to be a homer. I know! GASP! I actually do that, something that is a big no no on Spurstalk. You've exposed me as a non-homer!





Irrelevant citation. No one cares about a random poll you think you remember from 40 years ago. The NBA was in its infancy, can't expect anyone to have had the foresight to understand who would be valued most when it was all said and done. By the 80's Russell was regularly discussed as the greatest player of his generation along with Chamberlain.

I know most top 10 lists back me up. Doesn't concern me regardless. I believe Russell's impact speaks for itself. A dominant defensive presence in the middle that commands the paint is the blueprint for championship basketball still now as it was developed by Russell's Celtics in the 60's.

It's actually pretty simple; I think defense is paramount and I think Russell embodied the pinnacle of defensive dominance. I don't only consider him top 10, I have him at the top period. No one player has successfully impacted the game with ability as much imo.



Lol, my God you are an imbecile. "Hey let's just plug and pop players from now into the past." Doesn't work that way, never will and it is completely irrelevant. All of today's players have evolved physically and mentally having learned from what has been established by the game's pioneers. Can we just put Lebron in the past hypothetically and justify that he's the greatest player of all time? Pathetic and moronic. Anyone who respects the game, understands importance of how the path was paved by the past greats would never do this. That is the point. People who know the game know this. Fan boys who want to play pretend sports analyst on message boards do not.



I do give Mikan, Cousy et al all a lot of credit for changing the game in their respective ways.

Nope, won't accept Duncan in the 60s or Ben Wallace in Russell's place because it is irrelevant and actually just down right retarded. It's always about what you do in your own era that matters not the scores of hypotheticals fanboys draw up on the internet. [See Lebron not the greastest player ever reference from earlier]



Wrong. The MVP award, is an award, not a statistic. In game statistics are a separate entity even a moron should understand this. Perhaps we're dealing with even less.

The Bill Russell award, aka the Finals MVP was appropriately named after the player who hypothetically earned the award 10 times. Logic dictates this. Throw in 5 regular season MVP awards and you have the man with the most individual hardware MVP awards in history. So much for it being all about Cousy and Hondo.



I agree bias exists. Can't prove who, how or when so it doesn't matter. Doesn't concern me as the results speak for themselves. 11 championships in 13 seasons, anchoring the most dominant defense respective of its era in history, with the Finals MVP award named after him. I'd say it's safe to assume "east coast bias" didn't factor in especially when you consider the turbulent racist period Bill dominated.



1) you didn't "prove" that the random poll you remember in 1970 ever took place. Where is the poll? Who administered the poll? Who voted? How can this be verified? Oh you can't? Then that doesn't constitute "proof." Look up the word in a dictionary.

2) Let's just say that your poll did take place for the sake of argument. And? You referenced 1 poll from 1970 as proof that the "ring argument" is recent. What if another poll taken in 1975 or 1980 revealed something different? Is that too "recent?" Anything pre-1990 could hardly be characterized as "recent."

Regardless, some players do perform better than others in various rounds of the playoffs. It happens all the time. Rajon Rondo had a great 2nd round this past post season. Perhaps he should be recognized as last years best player.



That's because the 60's Celtics have nothing in common with the Spurs. Nothing. They won 8 straight ships. The Spurs never repeated once. Moreover I didn't offer my statement as "proof that teams with championship experience are in the running to win" again. I specifically pointed out a historical fact that 3 players whom you said were "better" than Bill still couldn't beat him, even though he was on his last legs and they were all in their primes.

The Spurs are trash. The 60s Celtics didn't get bounced out early in consecutive years by crap teams. Nope. They just won over and over again. Wear that idiotic homer cap proud.



Cop out. The game still has to be played. Players still have to compete and in the end all that matters is the result. This isn't a debate it's an embarrassment to Spurs fans everywhere. I demand better.



You "proved" that my citation of an award is a stat. Hilarious. Perhaps one of your friends can help you out in understanding the difference so that you won't continue to make a jackass out of yourself in order to have a "comeback" to everything that is said.

As it stands I would be happy to converse with Phila_Chamberlain on the matter further as he has demonstrated a reasonable level of intelligence not the unbecoming belligerence of Douche bag of all Trolls.

I've met some delusional schmucks with a false sense of ego but this one takes the cake so far. Never met a dude who thought more highly of himself despite saying absolutely nothing. And I don't believe that you are 60 years old, there is no way. For the sake of humanity I couldn't believe an old bag who's lived through the civil rights movement, Vietnam and the fall of the wall of Berlin could be this, well, retarded. Acting like a 13 teen year old douche on the internet? I call bullshit.

Regardless I do have to point out that there is nothing hypocritical about speaking honestly about the game of basketball. I put the game before my own team and I won't lie about a rival team or player just to be a homer. I know! GASP! I actually do that, something that is a big no no on Spurstalk. You've exposed me as a non-homer!





Irrelevant citation. No one cares about a random poll you think you remember from 40 years ago. The NBA was in its infancy, can't expect anyone to have had the foresight to understand who would be valued most when it was all said and done. By the 80's Russell was regularly discussed as the greatest player of his generation along with Chamberlain.

I know most top 10 lists back me up. Doesn't concern me regardless. I believe Russell's impact speaks for itself. A dominant defensive presence in the middle that commands the paint is the blueprint for championship basketball still now as it was developed by Russell's Celtics in the 60's.

It's actually pretty simple; I think defense is paramount and I think Russell embodied the pinnacle of defensive dominance. I don't only consider him top 10, I have him at the top period. No one player has successfully impacted the game with ability as much imo.



Lol, my God you are an imbecile. "Hey let's just plug and pop players from now into the past." Doesn't work that way, never will and it is completely irrelevant. All of today's players have evolved physically and mentally having learned from what has been established by the game's pioneers. Can we just put Lebron in the past hypothetically and justify that he's the greatest player of all time? Pathetic and moronic. Anyone who respects the game, understands importance of how the path was paved by the past greats would never do this. That is the point. People who know the game know this. Fan boys who want to play pretend sports analyst on message boards do not.



I do give Mikan, Cousy et al all a lot of credit for changing the game in their respective ways.

Nope, won't accept Duncan in the 60s or Ben Wallace in Russell's place because it is irrelevant and actually just down right retarded. It's always about what you do in your own era that matters not the scores of hypotheticals fanboys draw up on the internet. [See Lebron not the greastest player ever reference from earlier]



Wrong. The MVP award, is an award, not a statistic. In game statistics are a separate entity even a moron should understand this. Perhaps we're dealing with even less.

The Bill Russell award, aka the Finals MVP was appropriately named after the player who hypothetically earned the award 10 times. Logic dictates this. Throw in 5 regular season MVP awards and you have the man with the most individual hardware MVP awards in history. So much for it being all about Cousy and Hondo.



I agree bias exists. Can't prove who, how or when so it doesn't matter. Doesn't concern me as the results speak for themselves. 11 championships in 13 seasons, anchoring the most dominant defense respective of its era in history, with the Finals MVP award named after him. I'd say it's safe to assume "east coast bias" didn't factor in especially when you consider the turbulent racist period Bill dominated.



1) you didn't "prove" that the random poll you remember in 1970 ever took place. Where is the poll? Who administered the poll? Who voted? How can this be verified? Oh you can't? Then that doesn't constitute "proof." Look up the word in a dictionary.

2) Let's just say that your poll did take place for the sake of argument. And? You referenced 1 poll from 1970 as proof that the "ring argument" is recent. What if another poll taken in 1975 or 1980 revealed something different? Is that too "recent?" Anything pre-1990 could hardly be characterized as "recent."

Regardless, some players do perform better than others in various rounds of the playoffs. It happens all the time. Rajon Rondo had a great 2nd round this past post season. Perhaps he should be recognized as last years best player.



That's because the 60's Celtics have nothing in common with the Spurs. Nothing. They won 8 straight ships. The Spurs never repeated once. Moreover I didn't offer my statement as "proof that teams with championship experience are in the running to win" again. I specifically pointed out a historical fact that 3 players whom you said were "better" than Bill still couldn't beat him, even though he was on his last legs and they were all in their primes.

The Spurs are trash. The 60s Celtics didn't get bounced out early in consecutive years by crap teams. Nope. They just won over and over again. Wear that idiotic homer cap proud.



Cop out. The game still has to be played. Players still have to compete and in the end all that matters is the result. This isn't a debate it's an embarrassment to Spurs fans everywhere. I demand better.



You "proved" that my citation of an award is a stat. Hilarious. Perhaps one of your friends can help you out in understanding the difference so that you won't continue to make a jackass out of yourself in order to have a "comeback" to everything that is said.

As it stands I would be happy to converse with Phila_Chamberlain on the matter further as he has demonstrated a reasonable level of intelligence not the unbecoming belligerence of Douche bag of all Trolls.

I've met some delusional schmucks with a false sense of ego but this one takes the cake so far. Never met a dude who thought more highly of himself despite saying absolutely nothing. And I don't believe that you are 60 years old, there is no way. For the sake of humanity I couldn't believe an old bag who's lived through the civil rights movement, Vietnam and the fall of the wall of Berlin could be this, well, retarded. Acting like a 13 teen year old douche on the internet? I call bullshit.

Regardless I do have to point out that there is nothing hypocritical about speaking honestly about the game of basketball. I put the game before my own team and I won't lie about a rival team or player just to be a homer. I know! GASP! I actually do that, something that is a big no no on Spurstalk. You've exposed me as a non-homer!





Irrelevant citation. No one cares about a random poll you think you remember from 40 years ago. The NBA was in its infancy, can't expect anyone to have had the foresight to understand who would be valued most when it was all said and done. By the 80's Russell was regularly discussed as the greatest player of his generation along with Chamberlain.

I know most top 10 lists back me up. Doesn't concern me regardless. I believe Russell's impact speaks for itself. A dominant defensive presence in the middle that commands the paint is the blueprint for championship basketball still now as it was developed by Russell's Celtics in the 60's.

It's actually pretty simple; I think defense is paramount and I think Russell embodied the pinnacle of defensive dominance. I don't only consider him top 10, I have him at the top period. No one player has successfully impacted the game with ability as much imo.



Lol, my God you are an imbecile. "Hey let's just plug and pop players from now into the past." Doesn't work that way, never will and it is completely irrelevant. All of today's players have evolved physically and mentally having learned from what has been established by the game's pioneers. Can we just put Lebron in the past hypothetically and justify that he's the greatest player of all time? Pathetic and moronic. Anyone who respects the game, understands importance of how the path was paved by the past greats would never do this. That is the point. People who know the game know this. Fan boys who want to play pretend sports analyst on message boards do not.



I do give Mikan, Cousy et al all a lot of credit for changing the game in their respective ways.

Nope, won't accept Duncan in the 60s or Ben Wallace in Russell's place because it is irrelevant and actually just down right retarded. It's always about what you do in your own era that matters not the scores of hypotheticals fanboys draw up on the internet. [See Lebron not the greastest player ever reference from earlier]



Wrong. The MVP award, is an award, not a statistic. In game statistics are a separate entity even a moron should understand this. Perhaps we're dealing with even less.

The Bill Russell award, aka the Finals MVP was appropriately named after the player who hypothetically earned the award 10 times. Logic dictates this. Throw in 5 regular season MVP awards and you have the man with the most individual hardware MVP awards in history. So much for it being all about Cousy and Hondo.



I agree bias exists. Can't prove who, how or when so it doesn't matter. Doesn't concern me as the results speak for themselves. 11 championships in 13 seasons, anchoring the most dominant defense respective of its era in history, with the Finals MVP award named after him. I'd say it's safe to assume "east coast bias" didn't factor in especially when you consider the turbulent racist period Bill dominated.



1) you didn't "prove" that the random poll you remember in 1970 ever took place. Where is the poll? Who administered the poll? Who voted? How can this be verified? Oh you can't? Then that doesn't constitute "proof." Look up the word in a dictionary.

2) Let's just say that your poll did take place for the sake of argument. And? You referenced 1 poll from 1970 as proof that the "ring argument" is recent. What if another poll taken in 1975 or 1980 revealed something different? Is that too "recent?" Anything pre-1990 could hardly be characterized as "recent."

Regardless, some players do perform better than others in various rounds of the playoffs. It happens all the time. Rajon Rondo had a great 2nd round this past post season. Perhaps he should be recognized as last years best player.



That's because the 60's Celtics have nothing in common with the Spurs. Nothing. They won 8 straight ships. The Spurs never repeated once. Moreover I didn't offer my statement as "proof that teams with championship experience are in the running to win" again. I specifically pointed out a historical fact that 3 players whom you said were "better" than Bill still couldn't beat him, even though he was on his last legs and they were all in their primes.

The Spurs are trash. The 60s Celtics didn't get bounced out early in consecutive years by crap teams. Nope. They just won over and over again. Wear that idiotic homer cap proud.



Cop out. The game still has to be played. Players still have to compete and in the end all that matters is the result. This isn't a debate it's an embarrassment to Spurs fans everywhere. I demand better.



You "proved" that my citation of an award is a stat. Hilarious. Perhaps one of your friends can help you out in understanding the difference so that you won't continue to make a jackass out of yourself in order to have a "comeback" to everything that is said.

As it stands I would be happy to converse with Phila_Chamberlain on the matter further as he has demonstrated a reasonable level of intelligence not the unbecoming belligerence of Douche bag of all Trolls.

I've met some delusional schmucks with a false sense of ego but this one takes the cake so far. Never met a dude who thought more highly of himself despite saying absolutely nothing. And I don't believe that you are 60 years old, there is no way. For the sake of humanity I couldn't believe an old bag who's lived through the civil rights movement, Vietnam and the fall of the wall of Berlin could be this, well, retarded. Acting like a 13 teen year old douche on the internet? I call bullshit.

Regardless I do have to point out that there is nothing hypocritical about speaking honestly about the game of basketball. I put the game before my own team and I won't lie about a rival team or player just to be a homer. I know! GASP! I actually do that, something that is a big no no on Spurstalk. You've exposed me as a non-homer!





Irrelevant citation. No one cares about a random poll you think you remember from 40 years ago. The NBA was in its infancy, can't expect anyone to have had the foresight to understand who would be valued most when it was all said and done. By the 80's Russell was regularly discussed as the greatest player of his generation along with Chamberlain.

I know most top 10 lists back me up. Doesn't concern me regardless. I believe Russell's impact speaks for itself. A dominant defensive presence in the middle that commands the paint is the blueprint for championship basketball still now as it was developed by Russell's Celtics in the 60's.

It's actually pretty simple; I think defense is paramount and I think Russell embodied the pinnacle of defensive dominance. I don't only consider him top 10, I have him at the top period. No one player has successfully impacted the game with ability as much imo.



Lol, my God you are an imbecile. "Hey let's just plug and pop players from now into the past." Doesn't work that way, never will and it is completely irrelevant. All of today's players have evolved physically and mentally having learned from what has been established by the game's pioneers. Can we just put Lebron in the past hypothetically and justify that he's the greatest player of all time? Pathetic and moronic. Anyone who respects the game, understands importance of how the path was paved by the past greats would never do this. That is the point. People who know the game know this. Fan boys who want to play pretend sports analyst on message boards do not.



I do give Mikan, Cousy et al all a lot of credit for changing the game in their respective ways.

Nope, won't accept Duncan in the 60s or Ben Wallace in Russell's place because it is irrelevant and actually just down right retarded. It's always about what you do in your own era that matters not the scores of hypotheticals fanboys draw up on the internet. [See Lebron not the greastest player ever reference from earlier]



Wrong. The MVP award, is an award, not a statistic. In game statistics are a separate entity even a moron should understand this. Perhaps we're dealing with even less.

The Bill Russell award, aka the Finals MVP was appropriately named after the player who hypothetically earned the award 10 times. Logic dictates this. Throw in 5 regular season MVP awards and you have the man with the most individual hardware MVP awards in history. So much for it being all about Cousy and Hondo.



I agree bias exists. Can't prove who, how or when so it doesn't matter. Doesn't concern me as the results speak for themselves. 11 championships in 13 seasons, anchoring the most dominant defense respective of its era in history, with the Finals MVP award named after him. I'd say it's safe to assume "east coast bias" didn't factor in especially when you consider the turbulent racist period Bill dominated.



1) you didn't "prove" that the random poll you remember in 1970 ever took place. Where is the poll? Who administered the poll? Who voted? How can this be verified? Oh you can't? Then that doesn't constitute "proof." Look up the word in a dictionary.

2) Let's just say that your poll did take place for the sake of argument. And? You referenced 1 poll from 1970 as proof that the "ring argument" is recent. What if another poll taken in 1975 or 1980 revealed something different? Is that too "recent?" Anything pre-1990 could hardly be characterized as "recent."

Regardless, some players do perform better than others in various rounds of the playoffs. It happens all the time. Rajon Rondo had a great 2nd round this past post season. Perhaps he should be recognized as last years best player.



That's because the 60's Celtics have nothing in common with the Spurs. Nothing. They won 8 straight ships. The Spurs never repeated once. Moreover I didn't offer my statement as "proof that teams with championship experience are in the running to win" again. I specifically pointed out a historical fact that 3 players whom you said were "better" than Bill still couldn't beat him, even though he was on his last legs and they were all in their primes.

The Spurs are trash. The 60s Celtics didn't get bounced out early in consecutive years by crap teams. Nope. They just won over and over again. Wear that idiotic homer cap proud.



Cop out. The game still has to be played. Players still have to compete and in the end all that matters is the result. This isn't a debate it's an embarrassment to Spurs fans everywhere. I demand better.



You "proved" that my citation of an award is a stat. Hilarious. Perhaps one of your friends can help you out in understanding the difference so that you won't continue to make a jackass out of yourself in order to have a "comeback" to everything that is said.

As it stands I would be happy to converse with Phila_Chamberlain on the matter further as he has demonstrated a reasonable level of intelligence not the unbecoming belligerence of Douche bag of all Trolls.

I've met some delusional schmucks with a false sense of ego but this one takes the cake so far. Never met a dude who thought more highly of himself despite saying absolutely nothing. And I don't believe that you are 60 years old, there is no way. For the sake of humanity I couldn't believe an old bag who's lived through the civil rights movement, Vietnam and the fall of the wall of Berlin could be this, well, retarded. Acting like a 13 teen year old douche on the internet? I call bullshit.

Regardless I do have to point out that there is nothing hypocritical about speaking honestly about the game of basketball. I put the game before my own team and I won't lie about a rival team or player just to be a homer. I know! GASP! I actually do that, something that is a big no no on Spurstalk. You've exposed me as a non-homer!





Irrelevant citation. No one cares about a random poll you think you remember from 40 years ago. The NBA was in its infancy, can't expect anyone to have had the foresight to understand who would be valued most when it was all said and done. By the 80's Russell was regularly discussed as the greatest player of his generation along with Chamberlain.

I know most top 10 lists back me up. Doesn't concern me regardless. I believe Russell's impact speaks for itself. A dominant defensive presence in the middle that commands the paint is the blueprint for championship basketball still now as it was developed by Russell's Celtics in the 60's.

It's actually pretty simple; I think defense is paramount and I think Russell embodied the pinnacle of defensive dominance. I don't only consider him top 10, I have him at the top period. No one player has successfully impacted the game with ability as much imo.



Lol, my God you are an imbecile. "Hey let's just plug and pop players from now into the past." Doesn't work that way, never will and it is completely irrelevant. All of today's players have evolved physically and mentally having learned from what has been established by the game's pioneers. Can we just put Lebron in the past hypothetically and justify that he's the greatest player of all time? Pathetic and moronic. Anyone who respects the game, understands importance of how the path was paved by the past greats would never do this. That is the point. People who know the game know this. Fan boys who want to play pretend sports analyst on message boards do not.



I do give Mikan, Cousy et al all a lot of credit for changing the game in their respective ways.

Nope, won't accept Duncan in the 60s or Ben Wallace in Russell's place because it is irrelevant and actually just down right retarded. It's always about what you do in your own era that matters not the scores of hypotheticals fanboys draw up on the internet. [See Lebron not the greastest player ever reference from earlier]



Wrong. The MVP award, is an award, not a statistic. In game statistics are a separate entity even a moron should understand this. Perhaps we're dealing with even less.

The Bill Russell award, aka the Finals MVP was appropriately named after the player who hypothetically earned the award 10 times. Logic dictates this. Throw in 5 regular season MVP awards and you have the man with the most individual hardware MVP awards in history. So much for it being all about Cousy and Hondo.



I agree bias exists. Can't prove who, how or when so it doesn't matter. Doesn't concern me as the results speak for themselves. 11 championships in 13 seasons, anchoring the most dominant defense respective of its era in history, with the Finals MVP award named after him. I'd say it's safe to assume "east coast bias" didn't factor in especially when you consider the turbulent racist period Bill dominated.



1) you didn't "prove" that the random poll you remember in 1970 ever took place. Where is the poll? Who administered the poll? Who voted? How can this be verified? Oh you can't? Then that doesn't constitute "proof." Look up the word in a dictionary.

2) Let's just say that your poll did take place for the sake of argument. And? You referenced 1 poll from 1970 as proof that the "ring argument" is recent. What if another poll taken in 1975 or 1980 revealed something different? Is that too "recent?" Anything pre-1990 could hardly be characterized as "recent."

Regardless, some players do perform better than others in various rounds of the playoffs. It happens all the time. Rajon Rondo had a great 2nd round this past post season. Perhaps he should be recognized as last years best player.



That's because the 60's Celtics have nothing in common with the Spurs. Nothing. They won 8 straight ships. The Spurs never repeated once. Moreover I didn't offer my statement as "proof that teams with championship experience are in the running to win" again. I specifically pointed out a historical fact that 3 players whom you said were "better" than Bill still couldn't beat him, even though he was on his last legs and they were all in their primes.

The Spurs are trash. The 60s Celtics didn't get bounced out early in consecutive years by crap teams. Nope. They just won over and over again. Wear that idiotic homer cap proud.



Cop out. The game still has to be played. Players still have to compete and in the end all that matters is the result. This isn't a debate it's an embarrassment to Spurs fans everywhere. I demand better.



You "proved" that my citation of an award is a stat. Hilarious. Perhaps one of your friends can help you out in understanding the difference so that you won't continue to make a jackass out of yourself in order to have a "comeback" to everything that is said.

As it stands I would be happy to converse with Phila_Chamberlain on the matter further as he has demonstrated a reasonable level of intelligence not the unbecoming belligerence of Douche bag of all Trolls.

I've met some delusional schmucks with a false sense of ego but this one takes the cake so far. Never met a dude who thought more highly of himself despite saying absolutely nothing. And I don't believe that you are 60 years old, there is no way. For the sake of humanity I couldn't believe an old bag who's lived through the civil rights movement, Vietnam and the fall of the wall of Berlin could be this, well, retarded. Acting like a 13 teen year old douche on the internet? I call bullshit.

Regardless I do have to point out that there is nothing hypocritical about speaking honestly about the game of basketball. I put the game before my own team and I won't lie about a rival team or player just to be a homer. I know! GASP! I actually do that, something that is a big no no on Spurstalk. You've exposed me as a non-homer!





Irrelevant citation. No one cares about a random poll you think you remember from 40 years ago. The NBA was in its infancy, can't expect anyone to have had the foresight to understand who would be valued most when it was all said and done. By the 80's Russell was regularly discussed as the greatest player of his generation along with Chamberlain.

I know most top 10 lists back me up. Doesn't concern me regardless. I believe Russell's impact speaks for itself. A dominant defensive presence in the middle that commands the paint is the blueprint for championship basketball still now as it was developed by Russell's Celtics in the 60's.

It's actually pretty simple; I think defense is paramount and I think Russell embodied the pinnacle of defensive dominance. I don't only consider him top 10, I have him at the top period. No one player has successfully impacted the game with ability as much imo.



Lol, my God you are an imbecile. "Hey let's just plug and pop players from now into the past." Doesn't work that way, never will and it is completely irrelevant. All of today's players have evolved physically and mentally having learned from what has been established by the game's pioneers. Can we just put Lebron in the past hypothetically and justify that he's the greatest player of all time? Pathetic and moronic. Anyone who respects the game, understands importance of how the path was paved by the past greats would never do this. That is the point. People who know the game know this. Fan boys who want to play pretend sports analyst on message boards do not.



I do give Mikan, Cousy et al all a lot of credit for changing the game in their respective ways.

Nope, won't accept Duncan in the 60s or Ben Wallace in Russell's place because it is irrelevant and actually just down right retarded. It's always about what you do in your own era that matters not the scores of hypotheticals fanboys draw up on the internet. [See Lebron not the greastest player ever reference from earlier]



Wrong. The MVP award, is an award, not a statistic. In game statistics are a separate entity even a moron should understand this. Perhaps we're dealing with even less.

The Bill Russell award, aka the Finals MVP was appropriately named after the player who hypothetically earned the award 10 times. Logic dictates this. Throw in 5 regular season MVP awards and you have the man with the most individual hardware MVP awards in history. So much for it being all about Cousy and Hondo.



I agree bias exists. Can't prove who, how or when so it doesn't matter. Doesn't concern me as the results speak for themselves. 11 championships in 13 seasons, anchoring the most dominant defense respective of its era in history, with the Finals MVP award named after him. I'd say it's safe to assume "east coast bias" didn't factor in especially when you consider the turbulent racist period Bill dominated.



1) you didn't "prove" that the random poll you remember in 1970 ever took place. Where is the poll? Who administered the poll? Who voted? How can this be verified? Oh you can't? Then that doesn't constitute "proof." Look up the word in a dictionary.

2) Let's just say that your poll did take place for the sake of argument. And? You referenced 1 poll from 1970 as proof that the "ring argument" is recent. What if another poll taken in 1975 or 1980 revealed something different? Is that too "recent?" Anything pre-1990 could hardly be characterized as "recent."

Regardless, some players do perform better than others in various rounds of the playoffs. It happens all the time. Rajon Rondo had a great 2nd round this past post season. Perhaps he should be recognized as last years best player.



That's because the 60's Celtics have nothing in common with the Spurs. Nothing. They won 8 straight ships. The Spurs never repeated once. Moreover I didn't offer my statement as "proof that teams with championship experience are in the running to win" again. I specifically pointed out a historical fact that 3 players whom you said were "better" than Bill still couldn't beat him, even though he was on his last legs and they were all in their primes.

The Spurs are trash. The 60s Celtics didn't get bounced out early in consecutive years by crap teams. Nope. They just won over and over again. Wear that idiotic homer cap proud.



Cop out. The game still has to be played. Players still have to compete and in the end all that matters is the result. This isn't a debate it's an embarrassment to Spurs fans everywhere. I demand better.



You "proved" that my citation of an award is a stat. Hilarious. Perhaps one of your friends can help you out in understanding the difference so that you won't continue to make a jackass out of yourself in order to have a "comeback" to everything that is said.

As it stands I would be happy to converse with Phila_Chamberlain on the matter further as he has demonstrated a reasonable level of intelligence not the unbecoming belligerence of Douche bag of all Trolls.

I've met some delusional schmucks with a false sense of ego but this one takes the cake so far. Never met a dude who thought more highly of himself despite saying absolutely nothing. And I don't believe that you are 60 years old, there is no way. For the sake of humanity I couldn't believe an old bag who's lived through the civil rights movement, Vietnam and the fall of the wall of Berlin could be this, well, retarded. Acting like a 13 teen year old douche on the internet? I call bullshit.

Regardless I do have to point out that there is nothing hypocritical about speaking honestly about the game of basketball. I put the game before my own team and I won't lie about a rival team or player just to be a homer. I know! GASP! I actually do that, something that is a big no no on Spurstalk. You've exposed me as a non-homer!





Irrelevant citation. No one cares about a random poll you think you remember from 40 years ago. The NBA was in its infancy, can't expect anyone to have had the foresight to understand who would be valued most when it was all said and done. By the 80's Russell was regularly discussed as the greatest player of his generation along with Chamberlain.

I know most top 10 lists back me up. Doesn't concern me regardless. I believe Russell's impact speaks for itself. A dominant defensive presence in the middle that commands the paint is the blueprint for championship basketball still now as it was developed by Russell's Celtics in the 60's.

It's actually pretty simple; I think defense is paramount and I think Russell embodied the pinnacle of defensive dominance. I don't only consider him top 10, I have him at the top period. No one player has successfully impacted the game with ability as much imo.



Lol, my God you are an imbecile. "Hey let's just plug and pop players from now into the past." Doesn't work that way, never will and it is completely irrelevant. All of today's players have evolved physically and mentally having learned from what has been established by the game's pioneers. Can we just put Lebron in the past hypothetically and justify that he's the greatest player of all time? Pathetic and moronic. Anyone who respects the game, understands importance of how the path was paved by the past greats would never do this. That is the point. People who know the game know this. Fan boys who want to play pretend sports analyst on message boards do not.



I do give Mikan, Cousy et al all a lot of credit for changing the game in their respective ways.

Nope, won't accept Duncan in the 60s or Ben Wallace in Russell's place because it is irrelevant and actually just down right retarded. It's always about what you do in your own era that matters not the scores of hypotheticals fanboys draw up on the internet. [See Lebron not the greastest player ever reference from earlier]



Wrong. The MVP award, is an award, not a statistic. In game statistics are a separate entity even a moron should understand this. Perhaps we're dealing with even less.

The Bill Russell award, aka the Finals MVP was appropriately named after the player who hypothetically earned the award 10 times. Logic dictates this. Throw in 5 regular season MVP awards and you have the man with the most individual hardware MVP awards in history. So much for it being all about Cousy and Hondo.



I agree bias exists. Can't prove who, how or when so it doesn't matter. Doesn't concern me as the results speak for themselves. 11 championships in 13 seasons, anchoring the most dominant defense respective of its era in history, with the Finals MVP award named after him. I'd say it's safe to assume "east coast bias" didn't factor in especially when you consider the turbulent racist period Bill dominated.



1) you didn't "prove" that the random poll you remember in 1970 ever took place. Where is the poll? Who administered the poll? Who voted? How can this be verified? Oh you can't? Then that doesn't constitute "proof." Look up the word in a dictionary.

2) Let's just say that your poll did take place for the sake of argument. And? You referenced 1 poll from 1970 as proof that the "ring argument" is recent. What if another poll taken in 1975 or 1980 revealed something different? Is that too "recent?" Anything pre-1990 could hardly be characterized as "recent."

Regardless, some players do perform better than others in various rounds of the playoffs. It happens all the time. Rajon Rondo had a great 2nd round this past post season. Perhaps he should be recognized as last years best player.



That's because the 60's Celtics have nothing in common with the Spurs. Nothing. They won 8 straight ships. The Spurs never repeated once. Moreover I didn't offer my statement as "proof that teams with championship experience are in the running to win" again. I specifically pointed out a historical fact that 3 players whom you said were "better" than Bill still couldn't beat him, even though he was on his last legs and they were all in their primes.

The Spurs are trash. The 60s Celtics didn't get bounced out early in consecutive years by crap teams. Nope. They just won over and over again. Wear that idiotic homer cap proud.



Cop out. The game still has to be played. Players still have to compete and in the end all that matters is the result. This isn't a debate it's an embarrassment to Spurs fans everywhere. I demand better.



You "proved" that my citation of an award is a stat. Hilarious. Perhaps one of your friends can help you out in understanding the difference so that you won't continue to make a jackass out of yourself in order to have a "comeback" to everything that is said.

As it stands I would be happy to converse with Phila_Chamberlain on the matter further as he has demonstrated a reasonable level of intelligence not the unbecoming belligerence of Douche bag of all Trolls.

I've met some delusional schmucks with a false sense of ego but this one takes the cake so far. Never met a dude who thought more highly of himself despite saying absolutely nothing. And I don't believe that you are 60 years old, there is no way. For the sake of humanity I couldn't believe an old bag who's lived through the civil rights movement, Vietnam and the fall of the wall of Berlin could be this, well, retarded. Acting like a 13 teen year old douche on the internet? I call bullshit.

Regardless I do have to point out that there is nothing hypocritical about speaking honestly about the game of basketball. I put the game before my own team and I won't lie about a rival team or player just to be a homer. I know! GASP! I actually do that, something that is a big no no on Spurstalk. You've exposed me as a non-homer!





Irrelevant citation. No one cares about a random poll you think you remember from 40 years ago. The NBA was in its infancy, can't expect anyone to have had the foresight to understand who would be valued most when it was all said and done. By the 80's Russell was regularly discussed as the greatest player of his generation along with Chamberlain.

I know most top 10 lists back me up. Doesn't concern me regardless. I believe Russell's impact speaks for itself. A dominant defensive presence in the middle that commands the paint is the blueprint for championship basketball still now as it was developed by Russell's Celtics in the 60's.

It's actually pretty simple; I think defense is paramount and I think Russell embodied the pinnacle of defensive dominance. I don't only consider him top 10, I have him at the top period. No one player has successfully impacted the game with ability as much imo.



Lol, my God you are an imbecile. "Hey let's just plug and pop players from now into the past." Doesn't work that way, never will and it is completely irrelevant. All of today's players have evolved physically and mentally having learned from what has been established by the game's pioneers. Can we just put Lebron in the past hypothetically and justify that he's the greatest player of all time? Pathetic and moronic. Anyone who respects the game, understands importance of how the path was paved by the past greats would never do this. That is the point. People who know the game know this. Fan boys who want to play pretend sports analyst on message boards do not.



I do give Mikan, Cousy et al all a lot of credit for changing the game in their respective ways.

Nope, won't accept Duncan in the 60s or Ben Wallace in Russell's place because it is irrelevant and actually just down right retarded. It's always about what you do in your own era that matters not the scores of hypotheticals fanboys draw up on the internet. [See Lebron not the greastest player ever reference from earlier]



Wrong. The MVP award, is an award, not a statistic. In game statistics are a separate entity even a moron should understand this. Perhaps we're dealing with even less.

The Bill Russell award, aka the Finals MVP was appropriately named after the player who hypothetically earned the award 10 times. Logic dictates this. Throw in 5 regular season MVP awards and you have the man with the most individual hardware MVP awards in history. So much for it being all about Cousy and Hondo.



I agree bias exists. Can't prove who, how or when so it doesn't matter. Doesn't concern me as the results speak for themselves. 11 championships in 13 seasons, anchoring the most dominant defense respective of its era in history, with the Finals MVP award named after him. I'd say it's safe to assume "east coast bias" didn't factor in especially when you consider the turbulent racist period Bill dominated.



1) you didn't "prove" that the random poll you remember in 1970 ever took place. Where is the poll? Who administered the poll? Who voted? How can this be verified? Oh you can't? Then that doesn't constitute "proof." Look up the word in a dictionary.

2) Let's just say that your poll did take place for the sake of argument. And? You referenced 1 poll from 1970 as proof that the "ring argument" is recent. What if another poll taken in 1975 or 1980 revealed something different? Is that too "recent?" Anything pre-1990 could hardly be characterized as "recent."

Regardless, some players do perform better than others in various rounds of the playoffs. It happens all the time. Rajon Rondo had a great 2nd round this past post season. Perhaps he should be recognized as last years best player.



That's because the 60's Celtics have nothing in common with the Spurs. Nothing. They won 8 straight ships. The Spurs never repeated once. Moreover I didn't offer my statement as "proof that teams with championship experience are in the running to win" again. I specifically pointed out a historical fact that 3 players whom you said were "better" than Bill still couldn't beat him, even though he was on his last legs and they were all in their primes.

The Spurs are trash. The 60s Celtics didn't get bounced out early in consecutive years by crap teams. Nope. They just won over and over again. Wear that idiotic homer cap proud.



Cop out. The game still has to be played. Players still have to compete and in the end all that matters is the result. This isn't a debate it's an embarrassment to Spurs fans everywhere. I demand better.



You "proved" that my citation of an award is a stat. Hilarious. Perhaps one of your friends can help you out in understanding the difference so that you won't continue to make a jackass out of yourself in order to have a "comeback" to everything that is said.

As it stands I would be happy to converse with Phila_Chamberlain on the matter further as he has demonstrated a reasonable level of intelligence not the unbecoming belligerence of Douche bag of all Trolls.

I've met some delusional schmucks with a false sense of ego but this one takes the cake so far. Never met a dude who thought more highly of himself despite saying absolutely nothing. And I don't believe that you are 60 years old, there is no way. For the sake of humanity I couldn't believe an old bag who's lived through the civil rights movement, Vietnam and the fall of the wall of Berlin could be this, well, retarded. Acting like a 13 teen year old douche on the internet? I call bullshit.

Regardless I do have to point out that there is nothing hypocritical about speaking honestly about the game of basketball. I put the game before my own team and I won't lie about a rival team or player just to be a homer. I know! GASP! I actually do that, something that is a big no no on Spurstalk. You've exposed me as a non-homer!





Irrelevant citation. No one cares about a random poll you think you remember from 40 years ago. The NBA was in its infancy, can't expect anyone to have had the foresight to understand who would be valued most when it was all said and done. By the 80's Russell was regularly discussed as the greatest player of his generation along with Chamberlain.

I know most top 10 lists back me up. Doesn't concern me regardless. I believe Russell's impact speaks for itself. A dominant defensive presence in the middle that commands the paint is the blueprint for championship basketball still now as it was developed by Russell's Celtics in the 60's.

It's actually pretty simple; I think defense is paramount and I think Russell embodied the pinnacle of defensive dominance. I don't only consider him top 10, I have him at the top period. No one player has successfully impacted the game with ability as much imo.



Lol, my God you are an imbecile. "Hey let's just plug and pop players from now into the past." Doesn't work that way, never will and it is completely irrelevant. All of today's players have evolved physically and mentally having learned from what has been established by the game's pioneers. Can we just put Lebron in the past hypothetically and justify that he's the greatest player of all time? Pathetic and moronic. Anyone who respects the game, understands importance of how the path was paved by the past greats would never do this. That is the point. People who know the game know this. Fan boys who want to play pretend sports analyst on message boards do not.



I do give Mikan, Cousy et al all a lot of credit for changing the game in their respective ways.

Nope, won't accept Duncan in the 60s or Ben Wallace in Russell's place because it is irrelevant and actually just down right retarded. It's always about what you do in your own era that matters not the scores of hypotheticals fanboys draw up on the internet. [See Lebron not the greastest player ever reference from earlier]



Wrong. The MVP award, is an award, not a statistic. In game statistics are a separate entity even a moron should understand this. Perhaps we're dealing with even less.

The Bill Russell award, aka the Finals MVP was appropriately named after the player who hypothetically earned the award 10 times. Logic dictates this. Throw in 5 regular season MVP awards and you have the man with the most individual hardware MVP awards in history. So much for it being all about Cousy and Hondo.



I agree bias exists. Can't prove who, how or when so it doesn't matter. Doesn't concern me as the results speak for themselves. 11 championships in 13 seasons, anchoring the most dominant defense respective of its era in history, with the Finals MVP award named after him. I'd say it's safe to assume "east coast bias" didn't factor in especially when you consider the turbulent racist period Bill dominated.



1) you didn't "prove" that the random poll you remember in 1970 ever took place. Where is the poll? Who administered the poll? Who voted? How can this be verified? Oh you can't? Then that doesn't constitute "proof." Look up the word in a dictionary.

2) Let's just say that your poll did take place for the sake of argument. And? You referenced 1 poll from 1970 as proof that the "ring argument" is recent. What if another poll taken in 1975 or 1980 revealed something different? Is that too "recent?" Anything pre-1990 could hardly be characterized as "recent."

Regardless, some players do perform better than others in various rounds of the playoffs. It happens all the time. Rajon Rondo had a great 2nd round this past post season. Perhaps he should be recognized as last years best player.



That's because the 60's Celtics have nothing in common with the Spurs. Nothing. They won 8 straight ships. The Spurs never repeated once. Moreover I didn't offer my statement as "proof that teams with championship experience are in the running to win" again. I specifically pointed out a historical fact that 3 players whom you said were "better" than Bill still couldn't beat him, even though he was on his last legs and they were all in their primes.

The Spurs are trash. The 60s Celtics didn't get bounced out early in consecutive years by crap teams. Nope. They just won over and over again. Wear that idiotic homer cap proud.



Cop out. The game still has to be played. Players still have to compete and in the end all that matters is the result. This isn't a debate it's an embarrassment to Spurs fans everywhere. I demand better.



You "proved" that my citation of an award is a stat. Hilarious. Perhaps one of your friends can help you out in understanding the difference so that you won't continue to make a jackass out of yourself in order to have a "comeback" to everything that is said.

As it stands I would be happy to converse with Phila_Chamberlain on the matter further as he has demonstrated a reasonable level of intelligence not the unbecoming belligerence of Douche bag of all Trolls.

I've met some delusional schmucks with a false sense of ego but this one takes the cake so far. Never met a dude who thought more highly of himself despite saying absolutely nothing. And I don't believe that you are 60 years old, there is no way. For the sake of humanity I couldn't believe an old bag who's lived through the civil rights movement, Vietnam and the fall of the wall of Berlin could be this, well, retarded. Acting like a 13 teen year old douche on the internet? I call bullshit.

Regardless I do have to point out that there is nothing hypocritical about speaking honestly about the game of basketball. I put the game before my own team and I won't lie about a rival team or player just to be a homer. I know! GASP! I actually do that, something that is a big no no on Spurstalk. You've exposed me as a non-homer!





Irrelevant citation. No one cares about a random poll you think you remember from 40 years ago. The NBA was in its infancy, can't expect anyone to have had the foresight to understand who would be valued most when it was all said and done. By the 80's Russell was regularly discussed as the greatest player of his generation along with Chamberlain.

I know most top 10 lists back me up. Doesn't concern me regardless. I believe Russell's impact speaks for itself. A dominant defensive presence in the middle that commands the paint is the blueprint for championship basketball still now as it was developed by Russell's Celtics in the 60's.

It's actually pretty simple; I think defense is paramount and I think Russell embodied the pinnacle of defensive dominance. I don't only consider him top 10, I have him at the top period. No one player has successfully impacted the game with ability as much imo.



Lol, my God you are an imbecile. "Hey let's just plug and pop players from now into the past." Doesn't work that way, never will and it is completely irrelevant. All of today's players have evolved physically and mentally having learned from what has been established by the game's pioneers. Can we just put Lebron in the past hypothetically and justify that he's the greatest player of all time? Pathetic and moronic. Anyone who respects the game, understands importance of how the path was paved by the past greats would never do this. That is the point. People who know the game know this. Fan boys who want to play pretend sports analyst on message boards do not.



I do give Mikan, Cousy et al all a lot of credit for changing the game in their respective ways.

Nope, won't accept Duncan in the 60s or Ben Wallace in Russell's place because it is irrelevant and actually just down right retarded. It's always about what you do in your own era that matters not the scores of hypotheticals fanboys draw up on the internet. [See Lebron not the greastest player ever reference from earlier]



Wrong. The MVP award, is an award, not a statistic. In game statistics are a separate entity even a moron should understand this. Perhaps we're dealing with even less.

The Bill Russell award, aka the Finals MVP was appropriately named after the player who hypothetically earned the award 10 times. Logic dictates this. Throw in 5 regular season MVP awards and you have the man with the most individual hardware MVP awards in history. So much for it being all about Cousy and Hondo.



I agree bias exists. Can't prove who, how or when so it doesn't matter. Doesn't concern me as the results speak for themselves. 11 championships in 13 seasons, anchoring the most dominant defense respective of its era in history, with the Finals MVP award named after him. I'd say it's safe to assume "east coast bias" didn't factor in especially when you consider the turbulent racist period Bill dominated.



1) you didn't "prove" that the random poll you remember in 1970 ever took place. Where is the poll? Who administered the poll? Who voted? How can this be verified? Oh you can't? Then that doesn't constitute "proof." Look up the word in a dictionary.

2) Let's just say that your poll did take place for the sake of argument. And? You referenced 1 poll from 1970 as proof that the "ring argument" is recent. What if another poll taken in 1975 or 1980 revealed something different? Is that too "recent?" Anything pre-1990 could hardly be characterized as "recent."

Regardless, some players do perform better than others in various rounds of the playoffs. It happens all the time. Rajon Rondo had a great 2nd round this past post season. Perhaps he should be recognized as last years best player.



That's because the 60's Celtics have nothing in common with the Spurs. Nothing. They won 8 straight ships. The Spurs never repeated once. Moreover I didn't offer my statement as "proof that teams with championship experience are in the running to win" again. I specifically pointed out a historical fact that 3 players whom you said were "better" than Bill still couldn't beat him, even though he was on his last legs and they were all in their primes.

The Spurs are trash. The 60s Celtics didn't get bounced out early in consecutive years by crap teams. Nope. They just won over and over again. Wear that idiotic homer cap proud.



Cop out. The game still has to be played. Players still have to compete and in the end all that matters is the result. This isn't a debate it's an embarrassment to Spurs fans everywhere. I demand better.



You "proved" that my citation of an award is a stat. Hilarious. Perhaps one of your friends can help you out in understanding the difference so that you won't continue to make a jackass out of yourself in order to have a "comeback" to everything that is said.

As it stands I would be happy to converse with Phila_Chamberlain on the matter further as he has demonstrated a reasonable level of intelligence not the unbecoming belligerence of Douche bag of all Trolls.

I've met some delusional schmucks with a false sense of ego but this one takes the cake so far. Never met a dude who thought more highly of himself despite saying absolutely nothing. And I don't believe that you are 60 years old, there is no way. For the sake of humanity I couldn't believe an old bag who's lived through the civil rights movement, Vietnam and the fall of the wall of Berlin could be this, well, retarded. Acting like a 13 teen year old douche on the internet? I call bullshit.

Regardless I do have to point out that there is nothing hypocritical about speaking honestly about the game of basketball. I put the game before my own team and I won't lie about a rival team or player just to be a homer. I know! GASP! I actually do that, something that is a big no no on Spurstalk. You've exposed me as a non-homer!





Irrelevant citation. No one cares about a random poll you think you remember from 40 years ago. The NBA was in its infancy, can't expect anyone to have had the foresight to understand who would be valued most when it was all said and done. By the 80's Russell was regularly discussed as the greatest player of his generation along with Chamberlain.

I know most top 10 lists back me up. Doesn't concern me regardless. I believe Russell's impact speaks for itself. A dominant defensive presence in the middle that commands the paint is the blueprint for championship basketball still now as it was developed by Russell's Celtics in the 60's.

It's actually pretty simple; I think defense is paramount and I think Russell embodied the pinnacle of defensive dominance. I don't only consider him top 10, I have him at the top period. No one player has successfully impacted the game with ability as much imo.



Lol, my God you are an imbecile. "Hey let's just plug and pop players from now into the past." Doesn't work that way, never will and it is completely irrelevant. All of today's players have evolved physically and mentally having learned from what has been established by the game's pioneers. Can we just put Lebron in the past hypothetically and justify that he's the greatest player of all time? Pathetic and moronic. Anyone who respects the game, understands importance of how the path was paved by the past greats would never do this. That is the point. People who know the game know this. Fan boys who want to play pretend sports analyst on message boards do not.



I do give Mikan, Cousy et al all a lot of credit for changing the game in their respective ways.

Nope, won't accept Duncan in the 60s or Ben Wallace in Russell's place because it is irrelevant and actually just down right retarded. It's always about what you do in your own era that matters not the scores of hypotheticals fanboys draw up on the internet. [See Lebron not the greastest player ever reference from earlier]



Wrong. The MVP award, is an award, not a statistic. In game statistics are a separate entity even a moron should understand this. Perhaps we're dealing with even less.

The Bill Russell award, aka the Finals MVP was appropriately named after the player who hypothetically earned the award 10 times. Logic dictates this. Throw in 5 regular season MVP awards and you have the man with the most individual hardware MVP awards in history. So much for it being all about Cousy and Hondo.



I agree bias exists. Can't prove who, how or when so it doesn't matter. Doesn't concern me as the results speak for themselves. 11 championships in 13 seasons, anchoring the most dominant defense respective of its era in history, with the Finals MVP award named after him. I'd say it's safe to assume "east coast bias" didn't factor in especially when you consider the turbulent racist period Bill dominated.



1) you didn't "prove" that the random poll you remember in 1970 ever took place. Where is the poll? Who administered the poll? Who voted? How can this be verified? Oh you can't? Then that doesn't constitute "proof." Look up the word in a dictionary.

2) Let's just say that your poll did take place for the sake of argument. And? You referenced 1 poll from 1970 as proof that the "ring argument" is recent. What if another poll taken in 1975 or 1980 revealed something different? Is that too "recent?" Anything pre-1990 could hardly be characterized as "recent."

Regardless, some players do perform better than others in various rounds of the playoffs. It happens all the time. Rajon Rondo had a great 2nd round this past post season. Perhaps he should be recognized as last years best player.



That's because the 60's Celtics have nothing in common with the Spurs. Nothing. They won 8 straight ships. The Spurs never repeated once. Moreover I didn't offer my statement as "proof that teams with championship experience are in the running to win" again. I specifically pointed out a historical fact that 3 players whom you said were "better" than Bill still couldn't beat him, even though he was on his last legs and they were all in their primes.

The Spurs are trash. The 60s Celtics didn't get bounced out early in consecutive years by crap teams. Nope. They just won over and over again. Wear that idiotic homer cap proud.



Cop out. The game still has to be played. Players still have to compete and in the end all that matters is the result. This isn't a debate it's an embarrassment to Spurs fans everywhere. I demand better.



You "proved" that my citation of an award is a stat. Hilarious. Perhaps one of your friends can help you out in understanding the difference so that you won't continue to make a jackass out of yourself in order to have a "comeback" to everything that is said.

As it stands I would be happy to converse with Phila_Chamberlain on the matter further as he has demonstrated a reasonable level of intelligence not the unbecoming belligerence of Douche bag of all Trolls.

I've met some delusional schmucks with a false sense of ego but this one takes the cake so far. Never met a dude who thought more highly of himself despite saying absolutely nothing. And I don't believe that you are 60 years old, there is no way. For the sake of humanity I couldn't believe an old bag who's lived through the civil rights movement, Vietnam and the fall of the wall of Berlin could be this, well, retarded. Acting like a 13 teen year old douche on the internet? I call bullshit.

Regardless I do have to point out that there is nothing hypocritical about speaking honestly about the game of basketball. I put the game before my own team and I won't lie about a rival team or player just to be a homer. I know! GASP! I actually do that, something that is a big no no on Spurstalk. You've exposed me as a non-homer!





Irrelevant citation. No one cares about a random poll you think you remember from 40 years ago. The NBA was in its infancy, can't expect anyone to have had the foresight to understand who would be valued most when it was all said and done. By the 80's Russell was regularly discussed as the greatest player of his generation along with Chamberlain.

I know most top 10 lists back me up. Doesn't concern me regardless. I believe Russell's impact speaks for itself. A dominant defensive presence in the middle that commands the paint is the blueprint for championship basketball still now as it was developed by Russell's Celtics in the 60's.

It's actually pretty simple; I think defense is paramount and I think Russell embodied the pinnacle of defensive dominance. I don't only consider him top 10, I have him at the top period. No one player has successfully impacted the game with ability as much imo.



Lol, my God you are an imbecile. "Hey let's just plug and pop players from now into the past." Doesn't work that way, never will and it is completely irrelevant. All of today's players have evolved physically and mentally having learned from what has been established by the game's pioneers. Can we just put Lebron in the past hypothetically and justify that he's the greatest player of all time? Pathetic and moronic. Anyone who respects the game, understands importance of how the path was paved by the past greats would never do this. That is the point. People who know the game know this. Fan boys who want to play pretend sports analyst on message boards do not.



I do give Mikan, Cousy et al all a lot of credit for changing the game in their respective ways.

Nope, won't accept Duncan in the 60s or Ben Wallace in Russell's place because it is irrelevant and actually just down right retarded. It's always about what you do in your own era that matters not the scores of hypotheticals fanboys draw up on the internet. [See Lebron not the greastest player ever reference from earlier]



Wrong. The MVP award, is an award, not a statistic. In game statistics are a separate entity even a moron should understand this. Perhaps we're dealing with even less.

The Bill Russell award, aka the Finals MVP was appropriately named after the player who hypothetically earned the award 10 times. Logic dictates this. Throw in 5 regular season MVP awards and you have the man with the most individual hardware MVP awards in history. So much for it being all about Cousy and Hondo.



I agree bias exists. Can't prove who, how or when so it doesn't matter. Doesn't concern me as the results speak for themselves. 11 championships in 13 seasons, anchoring the most dominant defense respective of its era in history, with the Finals MVP award named after him. I'd say it's safe to assume "east coast bias" didn't factor in especially when you consider the turbulent racist period Bill dominated.



1) you didn't "prove" that the random poll you remember in 1970 ever took place. Where is the poll? Who administered the poll? Who voted? How can this be verified? Oh you can't? Then that doesn't constitute "proof." Look up the word in a dictionary.

2) Let's just say that your poll did take place for the sake of argument. And? You referenced 1 poll from 1970 as proof that the "ring argument" is recent. What if another poll taken in 1975 or 1980 revealed something different? Is that too "recent?" Anything pre-1990 could hardly be characterized as "recent."

Regardless, some players do perform better than others in various rounds of the playoffs. It happens all the time. Rajon Rondo had a great 2nd round this past post season. Perhaps he should be recognized as last years best player.



That's because the 60's Celtics have nothing in common with the Spurs. Nothing. They won 8 straight ships. The Spurs never repeated once. Moreover I didn't offer my statement as "proof that teams with championship experience are in the running to win" again. I specifically pointed out a historical fact that 3 players whom you said were "better" than Bill still couldn't beat him, even though he was on his last legs and they were all in their primes.

The Spurs are trash. The 60s Celtics didn't get bounced out early in consecutive years by crap teams. Nope. They just won over and over again. Wear that idiotic homer cap proud.



Cop out. The game still has to be played. Players still have to compete and in the end all that matters is the result. This isn't a debate it's an embarrassment to Spurs fans everywhere. I demand better.



You "proved" that my citation of an award is a stat. Hilarious. Perhaps one of your friends can help you out in understanding the difference so that you won't continue to make a jackass out of yourself in order to have a "comeback" to everything that is said.

As it stands I would be happy to converse with Phila_Chamberlain on the matter further as he has demonstrated a reasonable level of intelligence not the unbecoming belligerence of Douche bag of all Trolls.

[history2b]

:stupid: psycho

[Albert Haynesworth]

tbh, imho, you should start your own thread to add to the discussion

[ohmwrecker]

I've met some delusional schmucks with a false sense of ego but this one takes the cake so far. Never met a dude who thought more highly of himself despite saying absolutely nothing.

Have you peeped in a mirror lately, holmes?

[history2b]

tbh, imho, you should start your own thread to add to the discussion

Don't need to.

Plus that joke is about as old as your mama's snatch.

[Albert Haynesworth]

y u foamin' brah?

[history2b]

Have you peeped in a mirror lately, holmes?

Cherry picking the posts = more weak ass Spurs fan shit

[ohmwrecker]

Cherry picking the posts = more weak ass Spurs fan shit

That was the only part I found ironically interesting. The rest of it was just complete garbage.

[history2b]

That was the only part I found ironically interesting. The rest of it was just complete garbage.


No, you felt empowered to make a smart ass remark because you have nothing to offer the conversation and are satisfied with your status as a troll.

[midnightpulp]

I've met some delusional schmucks with a false sense of ego but this one takes the cake so far. Never met a dude who thought more highly of himself despite saying absolutely nothing. And I don't believe that you are 60 years old, there is no way. For the sake of humanity I couldn't believe an old bag who's lived through the civil rights movement, Vietnam and the fall of the wall of Berlin could be this, well, retarded. Acting like a 13 teen year old douche on the internet? I call bullshit.

Regardless I do have to point out that there is nothing hypocritical about speaking honestly about the game of basketball. I put the game before my own team and I won't lie about a rival team or player just to be a homer. I know! GASP! I actually do that, something that is a big no no on Spurstalk. You've exposed me as a non-homer!





Irrelevant citation. No one cares about a random poll you think you remember from 40 years ago. The NBA was in its infancy, can't expect anyone to have had the foresight to understand who would be valued most when it was all said and done. By the 80's Russell was regularly discussed as the greatest player of his generation along with Chamberlain.

I know most top 10 lists back me up. Doesn't concern me regardless. I believe Russell's impact speaks for itself. A dominant defensive presence in the middle that commands the paint is the blueprint for championship basketball still now as it was developed by Russell's Celtics in the 60's.

It's actually pretty simple; I think defense is paramount and I think Russell embodied the pinnacle of defensive dominance. I don't only consider him top 10, I have him at the top period. No one player has successfully impacted the game with ability as much imo.



Lol, my God you are an imbecile. "Hey let's just plug and pop players from now into the past." Doesn't work that way, never will and it is completely irrelevant. All of today's players have evolved physically and mentally having learned from what has been established by the game's pioneers. Can we just put Lebron in the past hypothetically and justify that he's the greatest player of all time? Pathetic and moronic. Anyone who respects the game, understands importance of how the path was paved by the past greats would never do this. That is the point. People who know the game know this. Fan boys who want to play pretend sports analyst on message boards do not.



I do give Mikan, Cousy et al all a lot of credit for changing the game in their respective ways.

Nope, won't accept Duncan in the 60s or Ben Wallace in Russell's place because it is irrelevant and actually just down right retarded. It's always about what you do in your own era that matters not the scores of hypotheticals fanboys draw up on the internet. [See Lebron not the greastest player ever reference from earlier]



Wrong. The MVP award, is an award, not a statistic. In game statistics are a separate entity even a moron should understand this. Perhaps we're dealing with even less.

The Bill Russell award, aka the Finals MVP was appropriately named after the player who hypothetically earned the award 10 times. Logic dictates this. Throw in 5 regular season MVP awards and you have the man with the most individual hardware MVP awards in history. So much for it being all about Cousy and Hondo.



I agree bias exists. Can't prove who, how or when so it doesn't matter. Doesn't concern me as the results speak for themselves. 11 championships in 13 seasons, anchoring the most dominant defense respective of its era in history, with the Finals MVP award named after him. I'd say it's safe to assume "east coast bias" didn't factor in especially when you consider the turbulent racist period Bill dominated.



1) you didn't "prove" that the random poll you remember in 1970 ever took place. Where is the poll? Who administered the poll? Who voted? How can this be verified? Oh you can't? Then that doesn't constitute "proof." Look up the word in a dictionary.

2) Let's just say that your poll did take place for the sake of argument. And? You referenced 1 poll from 1970 as proof that the "ring argument" is recent. What if another poll taken in 1975 or 1980 revealed something different? Is that too "recent?" Anything pre-1990 could hardly be characterized as "recent."

Regardless, some players do perform better than others in various rounds of the playoffs. It happens all the time. Rajon Rondo had a great 2nd round this past post season. Perhaps he should be recognized as last years best player.



That's because the 60's Celtics have nothing in common with the Spurs. Nothing. They won 8 straight ships. The Spurs never repeated once. Moreover I didn't offer my statement as "proof that teams with championship experience are in the running to win" again. I specifically pointed out a historical fact that 3 players whom you said were "better" than Bill still couldn't beat him, even though he was on his last legs and they were all in their primes.

The Spurs are trash. The 60s Celtics didn't get bounced out early in consecutive years by crap teams. Nope. They just won over and over again. Wear that idiotic homer cap proud.



Cop out. The game still has to be played. Players still have to compete and in the end all that matters is the result. This isn't a debate it's an embarrassment to Spurs fans everywhere. I demand better.



You "proved" that my citation of an award is a stat. Hilarious. Perhaps one of your friends can help you out in understanding the difference so that you won't continue to make a jackass out of yourself in order to have a "comeback" to everything that is said.

As it stands I would be happy to converse with Phila_Chamberlain on the matter further as he has demonstrated a reasonable level of intelligence not the unbecoming belligerence of Douche bag of all Trolls.

There's more cynics than homers on Spurstalk.

DaddyofAllTrolls isn't a Spurs fan.

You made some good points. It appears you can talk basketball when Kobe's penis isn't ramming into your tonsils.

[Daddy_Of_All_Trolls]

There's more cynics than homers on Spurstalk.

DaddyofAllTrolls isn't a Spurs fan.

You made some good points. It appears you can talk basketball when Kobe's penis isn't ramming into your tonsils.

I'll be back to annihilate history2b's post shortly. I don't mind he calls me names. To repeat my loyalties:

1) Basketball fan
2) T-Wolves fan
3) Western conference fan
4) Lakers fan
5) bandwagon fan, whoever is representing the west in the finals. 21 rings, bitch! I have company in this regard, in baseball there are AL and NL fans and they don't care what team wins the world series, as long as it's their league.

I am certainly not hardcore for the Lakers, I appreciate their history. Kobe is nowhere near my favorite Laker, I can take him or leave him. I defend him when he deserves it, such as the rape label, or revisionist historians who claim he forced a trade from Charlotte, (proof is crystal clear it was a pre draft deal). However, when it comes to him throwing tantrums or teammates under the bus, I just ignore that stuff, it's probably all true. Except this Shaq part; he didn't force Shaq out, that was Buss not wanting to pay him and to get value while he could.

As far as the Spurs go, since this is a Spurs board, I'll make my position clear. I appreciate everything they have done since they joined the NBA. Ice Man Gervin was a joy to watch. The Duncan years have been tremendous and both the Lakers and Spurs have made the NBA eat a lot of shit the last 12 seasons. I guess that spawns trolls like history2b now that it's the Lakers turn to have the edge. I guess the feud comes with the rivalry, both teams can smack other teams' fans harder if they so chose.

[ohmwrecker]

No, you felt empowered to make a smart ass remark because you have nothing to offer the conversation and are satisfied with your status as a troll.

In this context? Yes, but that doesn't make my comment less true.

[Daddy_Of_All_Trolls]

I have taken the liberty of numbering your posts. Also, remember this topic is to see who can make the better case and you calling me names won’t score you points.


1) I've met some delusional schmucks with a false sense of ego but this one takes the cake so far. Never met a dude who thought more highly of himself despite saying absolutely nothing. And I don't believe that you are 60 years old, there is no way. For the sake of humanity I couldn't believe an old bag who's lived through the civil rights movement, Vietnam and the fall of the wall of Berlin could be this, well, retarded. Acting like a 13 teen year old douche on the internet? I call bullshit.
Those are some pretty strong fighting words you give, and do nothing to back them up. First you say you don’t believe my age, then you acknowledge I lived through periods of history only a person my age could. I remember the erection of the Berlin Wall, as well as the fall, and I have a piece a friend on Potsdam sent me in 1989. When the wall was built, one magazine, Life, Look, who knows, had a picture of a hand stretched over the wall as if trying to escape, and a wreath mounted next to it. Anyway, before you came here, I was discussing my age. If you look at my trivia tread, the one you criticized so heavily, you will see the questions I asked, and the detailed answers given on the last page could most likely have only been penned by someone who lived through those events. Search those Q’s on the internet, see if I stole them. They are my composition.
Post 1 of yours is refuted.


2) Regardless I do have to point out that there is nothing hypocritical about speaking honestly about the game of basketball. I put the game before my own team and I won't lie about a rival team or player just to be a homer. I know! GASP! I actually do that, something that is a big no no on Spurstalk. You've exposed me as a non-homer!
I tend to call things fairly as well. I am open about not disliking any player, although I did go after LeBron after “The Decision” mainly to get under a few peoples’ skins. I am over that and wish LeBron the best of luck. He wanted to play with Wade and Bosh above all other options, and that’s what he chose to do. I guess you could say I am going after Russell, but in honesty, as I have said before, he is one of my favorite color commentators. The man is a genius with his words and funny as all hell. However, you are a HOMER, and I will prove it throughout this post and summarize it at the end.
Post 2 will be refuted.






3) Irrelevant citation. No one cares about a random poll you think you remember from 40 years ago. The NBA was in its infancy, can't expect anyone to have had the foresight to understand who would be valued most when it was all said and done. By the 80's Russell was regularly discussed as the greatest player of his generation along with Chamberlain.
No one cares? What you mean is you don’t care, and that won’t cut it in a debate. You need proof. It isn’t a random poll, and I do remember many comments and all placed Russell low on the list, I don’t think I remember, I know I remember. I have given many reasons why offense was higher rated in those days by critics than defense. You have done absolutely nothing to challenge those facts. One item I neglected to mention was the impact of the Harlem Globetrotters. They helped sell basketball as a great sport with their showmanship. By the way, their selling point was offense. Yes, by 1980 Russell’s stock had risen and this has all been pointed out as defensive efforts became more valuable. If anything, your post backs me up and my statement Russell wasn’t highly ranked in 1970 because you tell us by 1980 Russell was up there with Wilt. Don’t forget, Philadelphia Chamberlain backs me up about Russell’s rank as well.
Post 3 is refuted


4) I know most top 10 lists back me up. Doesn't concern me regardless. I believe Russell's impact speaks for itself. A dominant defensive presence in the middle that commands the paint is the blueprint for championship basketball still now as it was developed by Russell's Celtics in the 60's.
Ok, well touch on one thing, now, and later. You are giving 100% of the credit to Russell. Red Auerbach devised that defense. The rest of Russell’s teammates combined to make it work, and I have proven Bill had the best and deepest teams. It also may be the blueprint, but the scheme has developed further than what Russell’s Celtics brought.
Post 4 is refuted.


5) It's actually pretty simple; I think defense is paramount and I think Russell embodied the pinnacle of defensive dominance. I don't only consider him top 10, I have him at the top period. No one player has successfully impacted the game with ability as much imo.
So, we know you have Russell at number 1, it doesn’t matter who you have at 2-5, even if you give 2 of those spots to Mikan and cousy for their innovations. It’s your opinion. However, the debate is, who can make the better case, you with Russell as top 5 all time player, or me that he is overrated.
Post 5 is agreed upon.







6) Lol, my God you are an imbecile. "Hey let's just plug and pop players from now into the past." Doesn't work that way, never will and it is completely irrelevant. All of today's players have evolved physically and mentally having learned from what has been established by the game's pioneers. Can we just put Lebron in the past hypothetically and justify that he's the greatest player of all time? Pathetic and moronic. Anyone who respects the game, understands importance of how the path was paved by the past greats would never do this. That is the point. People who know the game know this. Fan boys who want to play pretend sports analyst on message boards do not.
Complete failure up front for the insults, and lack of proof that what you say is fact when it’s clearly your opinion. We aren’t discussing LeBron, it is too early for him to get into GOAT or top 10 discussions. Give him a few years first, then he’ll have his chance.

However, your valuation of past greats who paved the way in sports to determine greatness is shaky if you look deeply. First, if you examine the game of chess, the single largest contributor to the game and how it was played was a New Orleans native named Paul Morphy some 150 years ago. He revolutionized the game by showing rapid development of your pieces put you in a position to win the game. He defeated every leading player in the world with his methods in a brief 2 year period and quit the game. No authority (super grandmaster) in chess considers him anywhere near the greatest player to have ever played, and trust me, these leading authorities construct hypothetical matches of players from different generations all the time! They can analyze a chess game and determine the strengths and weaknesses of any player. They do this because it’s their living, they must prepare for players they expect to meet in tournaments and matches if they are to gain any type of edge, chess is that competitive today! I am not a hockey fan and can only tell you a story, which is quite true, it comes from a friend some 20 years ago. He’s over 80 if he’s still living. He was raised in Montreal and a huge hockey fan. He went on and on one time about all the great players he had seen, naming them. I can’t tell you who he mentioned, or what innovations they brought to hockey, but at his age, you know he saw the best players play. He told me none of them compared in greatness to Wanye Grestzky.If a 30 year old avid hockey fan picked an older player as greatest, I would believe my friend because he witnessed everything. Now, chess and hockey are not basketball, but both sports went through periods of innovation as they developed. Greatest players are most likely found in recent generations, not older ones. I could go on to other sports, but two examples is enough.

Post 6 is refuted.




7) I do give Mikan, Cousy et al all a lot of credit for changing the game in their respective ways.
Post 7 is agreed upon.


8) Nope, won't accept Duncan in the 60s or Ben Wallace in Russell's place because it is irrelevant and actually just down right retarded. It's always about what you do in your own era that matters not the scores of hypotheticals fanboys draw up on the internet. [See Lebron not the greastest player ever reference from earlier]
The simple fact is the hypothetical's I posed ruin your case. I was clear to point out how some players can be placed in older generations and see great success, (Duncan, Wallace) and most can’t (Horry). Sorry, but my hypothetical's stand until you provide clear cut proof no expert basketball fan would use them. I have already proven in chess, hypothetical's are used.

Seriously, I don’t need to use this hypothetical to prove my case that Russell is overrated, but I keep it in for important reasons. As noted, I have a thread calling for people to give top 20s. I hadn’t made a top 10 in years, and set out to do it, and that thread explains how I did it. SpursTalk isn’t the only place I see Duncan, Shaq, and Kobe in top 10 discussions, so I set out to see how I ranked them as well. Since I believe Russell is overrated, I feel it is important to let Spurs fans know this, call it a perk for them allowing a fan of other teams ahead of them to banter here. First, it allows them to move Duncan up, and ahead of where they rank Russell if I prove my case to them. The other reason is it allows them to drop Kobe a bit. This has been explained. My closest attempt at a top 20 has Duncan tied #7-9 and Kobe at # 11. Kobe may drop further, I don’t know, I am not done with it yet. When I work on it depends if it gets more activity, and I have invited people in this thread to bring it back.

Post 8 is refuted





9) Wrong. The MVP award, is an award, not a statistic. In game statistics are a separate entity even a moron should understand this. Perhaps we're dealing with even less.
Insults again, hmmm? You are using MVP’s as a statistic. I know what a basketball statistic is. Number of points, number of rebounds, number of MVP’s, woops, all are used as statistics. You said absolutely nothing about my unstated hypothesis that MVP’s seemed to go to players whose teams did well in the regular season. Oscar got it in a year his team improved from 42-38 to 55-25. Wilt got it when the Sixers came in first in the east, and Bill often got it when the Celtics were top dog in the regular season. All three kept putting out similar numbers year after year, and the award followed the team with the best record. So, it seems the MVP award went to the best player on the best team in that era, with the latter being the prime criteria. Not discrediting Russell’s 5 MVP’s at all, but they are weak in proving him the greatest player, let alone top 5.
Post 9 is refuted


10) The Bill Russell award, aka the Finals MVP was appropriately named after the player who hypothetically earned the award 10 times. Logic dictates this. Throw in 5 regular season MVP awards and you have the man with the most individual hardware MVP awards in history. So much for it being all about Cousy and Hondo.
The Russell award was only so named 2 years ago. The NBA has been throwing bones to Bill for years, he left the Celtics very bitter. See the wiki link in my first post. As noted, Boston fans perception at that time was Cousy and Hondo were better. I said it, Philadelphia Chamberlain confirmed it. One word, Racism.

Post 10) is refuted.



11) I agree bias exists. Can't prove who, how or when so it doesn't matter. Doesn't concern me as the results speak for themselves. 11 championships in 13 seasons, anchoring the most dominant defense respective of its era in history, with the Finals MVP award named after him. I'd say it's safe to assume "east coast bias" didn't factor in especially when you consider the turbulent racist period Bill dominated.
Ok, here you go back to giving all the credit to Russell and not to Auerbach or Bill’s 8 hall of famers, including 4 top 50 players at 50 years. 11 titles in 13 years in an 8 team league, with no free agency. Homecourt advantage throughout in first 8 titles thus overwhelming favorites to win. Midnightpulp and I had one interesting exchange awhile back. He, like I, believes the Lakers are the greatest NBA franchise due to what’s happened beyond the 1 title difference with Boston. However, you place too much emphaisis on those 11 titles. Anyway, I asked mp who was the greatest college football program of all time, and he saw the most is best argument doesn’t hold up. Princeton (28) and Yale (27) have the most, and it isn’t even close, Michigan (22) is next. Those Ivy league schools won those titles in the 1800’s when football was new and they found the first innovations. More proof the first innovators don’t remain the best. I would say those 11 Russell titles are worth less than half in today’s NBA.
Post 11 is refuted.


12) 1) you didn't "prove" that the random poll you remember in 1970 ever took place. Where is the poll? Who administered the poll? Who voted? How can this be verified? Oh you can't? Then that doesn't constitute "proof." Look up the word in a dictionary.

There is no proof, at least as you require, even though I heard it countless times, over many years. You have my word on it, and that of Philadelphia Chamberlain. We are the only two to say this, we are the only two to have posted such that lived through that generation. Also, those posts were made before I even knew who you were or what you thought of Russell, and my poll thread wasn’t the first time I made the claim here that Bill was ranked lower in the old days. So, there is your proof, that case is closed.
Post 12 is refuted


13) 2) Let's just say that your poll did take place for the sake of argument. And? You referenced 1 poll from 1970 as proof that the "ring argument" is recent. What if another poll taken in 1975 or 1980 revealed something different? Is that too "recent?" Anything pre-1990 could hardly be characterized as "recent."
Let me repeat myself on this. Please pay attention. When I recently debated ambchang, I constantly had to repeat myself because he had no clue what we were debating, and I proved he had no reading comprehension! Let’s look at this chronologically, my proof the ring argument is recent.
My sample top 10, 1970, with ring totals:
1) Chamberlain 1 ring
2) Robertson 0 rings
3) Baylor 0 rings
4) West 0 rings
5) Pettet 1 ring
6) Cousy 6 rings
7) Greer 1 ring
8) Mikan 5 rings
9) Russell 11 rings
10) Bellamy 0 rings
Russell, Mikan, and Cousy lead the pack by a landslide. There clearly is no ring argument yet because players with 0 or 1 ring are on the list. Wilt with 1 ring is consensus GOAT. Players 2-5 have 1 ring among them!

Now, look at the top 11 all time from 1980 the NBA issued, linked above in my reply to Jamstone, nd also placed in ring order:
C Bill Russell 11 rings
G/F John Havlicek 8 rings
G Bob Cousy 6 rings
C George Mikan 5 rings
C Kareem Abdul-Jabbar 2 rings
C Wilt Chamberlain 2 rings
F Bob Pettit 1 ring
G Oscar Robertson 1 ring
G Jerry West 1 ring
F Elgin Baylor 0 rings
F Julius Erving 0 rings

A few new players, a few dropped off. Minor changes in ring totals.
By 1988, 3 players added significantly in rings. Kareem, Magic, and Bird. Bird and Magic were now threatening to join top 10. Score among a top 10 most select today:
Russell 11 rings
Kareem 6 rings
Magic 5 rings
Bird 3 rings
Chamberlain 2 rings

Mikan has been removed because no one puts him top 10 today. Clearly, there is no using rings to rank greatness at this time, unless you drop people like Baylor, Erving, and West from a top 10 in favor of Mikan, Cousy, and Havlicek.

As noted, the ring argument began when Jordan tied Kareem and passed Bird and Magic. This also coincides with the spread of the internet. Mostly, those 6 rings were used to proclaim MJ the GOAT, ahead of Wilt. Clearly, MJ was perceived to be below Bird and Magic until he caught and passed them. Hakeem snuck into top 10 about this time, riding Jordan’s coattails. It has been this last decade that the ring for greatness has really multiplied and that is because of Tim, Shaq, and Kobe; all arguably top 10, and the ring argument is used. The internet is in full force.

Post 13 is refuted.




14) Regardless, some players do perform better than others in various rounds of the playoffs. It happens all the time. Rajon Rondo had a great 2nd round this past post season. Perhaps he should be recognized as last years best player.
Post 14 is agreed upon.



15) That's because the 60's Celtics have nothing in common with the Spurs. Nothing. They won 8 straight ships. The Spurs never repeated once. Moreover I didn't offer my statement as "proof that teams with championship experience are in the running to win" again. I specifically pointed out a historical fact that 3 players whom you said were "better" than Bill still couldn't beat him, even though he was on his last legs and they were all in their primes.
The Spurs are trash. The 60s Celtics didn't get bounced out early in consecutive years by crap teams. Nope. They just won over and over again. Wear that idiotic homer cap proud.

Well, you have already been owned on this twice. It doesn’t matter the Spurs never repeated. They are still 3 time champs with a core of Duncan, Parker, and Ginobili. Those Celtics were overwhelming favorites the first of 7 of those 8 in a row. Spurs weren’t as fortunate in the rankings. Also, since they won twice more with that core, they proved they could win with championship experience. Also don’t forget your other ownage, when I compared the Spurs to the 1983 Boston Celtics in my trivia thread. It’s where I delivered on my promise to use your words against you:

http://www.spurstalk.com/forums/showpost.php?p=4710057&postcount=59



If you decide to respond please be sure to talk more about how the team that gets swept out the lowly Phoenix Suns really aren't "done."
The Spurs didn't have home court advantage. In 1983 The Boston Celtics with HCA were swept out of the playoffs by the lowly Milwaukee Bucks. With the Sixers fielding Dr. J., Moses Malone, and Andrew Toney, and soon Charles Barkley, the Boston Celtics were proclaimed by people like you to be done. What happened next? the Celtics made the finals the next 4 seasons and won 2 titles. Why? they had championship experience, just as today's Spurs have.

See, I can and will use your words against you.
Also, you once again give Russell 100% of the credit for defeating Wilt, Elgin, and Jerry. Bill was a better coach than Van Breda Koff, and he had a deeper team, with championship experience.

Post 15 is refuted.



16) Cop out. The game still has to be played. Players still have to compete and in the end all that matters is the result. This isn't a debate it's an embarrassment to Spurs fans everywhere. I demand better.


No, not a cop out. Bill Russell talks about how Cooke’s antics motivated him and his team. Bill Walton does as well. You demand better? Better ownage? I am not the only one here that has cleaned your clock. Remember, the Lakes were in control, they won the first 3 home games and Boston was playing catch up all series. 2-2-1-1-1 foramt.
Post 16 isrefuted.




17) You "proved" that my citation of an award is a stat. Hilarious. Perhaps one of your friends can help you out in understanding the difference so that you won't continue to make a jackass out of yourself in order to have a "comeback" to everything that is said.
I already dealt with this above. If I used Kareem’s offensive stats to declare him GOAT, then I am using his stats, adding up his points to make my point. You are adding up Bill’s MVPs and his titles, and counting them. There is no difference in you adding them up to make a point than me adding up Kareem’s career point total. We are using them as stats.

Post 17 is refuted.



As it stands I would be happy to converse with Phila_Chamberlain on the matter further as he has demonstrated a reasonable level of intelligence not the unbecoming belligerence of Douche bag of all Trolls.
Once again, points off for your attitude, and don’t forget, PC will back me up on Russell being not as highly valued 40+ years ago as he is today.

In summary, you haven’t given us a definitive argument and you have ignored much of what I have said. I have proven the ring argument is recent, and how Russell has been perceived over the years. You have only given your opinion that Russell is number 1 all time when all you have to do is make a case for him being top 5. However, I have challenged your reasoning with plenty of historical facts. The stats you used, titles and MVP’s have been highly challenged, and these include methods of awarding league MVP’s, ease of Celtics playoff schedule, no free agency, better teammates and coaches, and expert opinions.

I said in the beginning I will prove you are a homer. If you haven’t caught on yet, it’s because you give Russell credit for everything, as if he did it himself, and faced the world on his own.

This debate is about over. Virtually everything you have posted has clearly been refuted. You have yet to make a strong case for Bill, and your work is cut out for you because I have attacked your reasoning harder and better than you ever hoped Bill Russell could play basketball.

[Trill Clinton]

I have taken the liberty of numbering your posts. Also, remember this topic is to see who can make the better case and you calling me names won’t score you points.


Those are some pretty strong fighting words you give, and do nothing to back them up. First you say you don’t believe my age, then you acknowledge I lived through periods of history only a person my age could. I remember the erection of the Berlin Wall, as well as the fall, and I have a piece a friend on Potsdam sent me in 1989. When the wall was built, one magazine, Life, Look, who knows, had a picture of a hand stretched over the wall as if trying to escape, and a wreath mounted next to it. Anyway, before you came here, I was discussing my age. If you look at my trivia tread, the one you criticized so heavily, you will see the questions I asked, and the detailed answers given on the last page could most likely have only been penned by someone who lived through those events. Search those Q’s on the internet, see if I stole them. They are my composition.
Post 1 of yours is refuted.

I tend to call things fairly as well. I am open about not disliking any player, although I did go after LeBron after “The Decision” mainly to get under a few peoples’ skins. I am over that and wish LeBron the best of luck. He wanted to play with Wade and Bosh above all other options, and that’s what he chose to do. I guess you could say I am going after Russell, but in honesty, as I have said before, he is one of my favorite color commentators. The man is a genius with his words and funny as all hell. However, you are a HOMER, and I will prove it throughout this post and summarize it at the end.
Post 2 will be refuted.




.
No one cares? What you mean is you don’t care, and that won’t cut it in a debate. You need proof. It isn’t a random poll, and I do remember many comments and all placed Russell low on the list, I don’t think I remember. I have given many reasons why offense was higher rated in those days by critics than defense. You have done absolutely nothing to challenge those facts. One item I neglected to mention was the impact of the Harlem Globetrotters. They helped sell basketball as a great sport with their showmanship. By the way, their selling point was offense. Yes, by 1980 Russell’s stock had risen and this has all been pointed out as defensive efforts became more valuable. If anything, your post backs me up and my statement Russell wasn’t highly ranked in 1970 because you tell us by 1980 Russell was up there with Wilt. Don’t forget, Philadelphia Chamberlain backs me up about Russell’s rank as well.
Post 3 is refuted

Ok, well touch on one thing, now, and later. You are giving 100% of the credit to Russell. Red Auerbach devised that defense. The rest of Russell’s teammates combined to make it work, and I have proven Bill had the best and deepest teams. It also may be the blueprint, but the scheme has developed further than what Russell’s Celtics brought.
Post 4 is refuted.

So, we know you have Russell at number 1, it doesn’t matter who you have at 2-5, even if you give 2 of those spots to Mikan and cousy for their innovations. It’s your opinion. However, the debate is, who can make the better case, you with Russell as top 5 all time player, or me that he is overrated.
Post 5 is agreed upon.






Complete failure up front for the insults, and lack of proof that what you say is fact when it’s clearly your opinion. We aren’t discussing LeBron, it is too early for him to get into GOAT or top 10 discussions. Give him a few years first, then he’ll have his chance.

However, your valuation of past greats who paved the way in sports to determine greatness is shaky if you look deeply. First, if you examine the game of chess, the single largest contributor to the game and how it was played was a New Orleans native named Paul Morphy some 150 years ago. He revolutionized the game by showing rapid development of your pieces put you in a position to win the game. He defeated every leading player in the world with his methods in a brief 2 year period and quit the game. No authority (super grandmaster) in chess considers him anywhere near the greatest player to have ever played, and trust me, these leading authorities construct hypothetical matches of players from different generations all the time! They can analyze a chess game and determine the strengths and weaknesses of any player. They do this because it’s their living, they must prepare for players they expect to meet in tournaments and matches if they are to gain any type of edge, chess is that competitive today! I am not a hockey fan and can only tell you a story, which is quite true, it comes from a friend some 20 years ago. He’s over 80 if he’s still living. He was raised in Montreal and a huge hockey fan. He went on and on one time about all the great players he had seen, naming them. I can’t tell you who he mentioned, or what innovations they brought to hockey, but at his age, you know he saw the best players play. He told me none of them compared in greatness to Wanye Grestzky.If a 30 year old avid hockey fan picked an older player as greatest, I would believe my friend because he witnessed everything. Now, chess and hockey are not basketball, but both sports went through periods of innovation as they developed. Greatest players are most likely found in recent generations, not older ones. I could go on to other sports, but two examples is enough.

Post 6 is refuted.



Post 7 is agreed upon.

The simple fact is the hypothetical's I posed ruin your case. I was clear to point out how some players can be placed in older generations and see great success, (Duncan, Wallace) and most can’t (Horry). Sorry, but my hypothetical's stand until you provide clear cut proof no expert basketball fan would use them. I have already proven in chess, hypothetical's are used.

Seriously, I don’t need to use this hypothetical to prove my case that Russell is overrated, but I keep it in for important reasons. As noted, I have a thread calling for people to give top 20s. I hadn’t made a top 10 in years, and set out to do it, and that thread explains how I did it. SpursTalk isn’t the only place I see Duncan, Shaq, and Kobe in top 10 discussions, so I set out to see how I ranked them as well. Since I believe Russell is overrated, I feel it is important to let Spurs fans know this, call it a perk for them allowing a fan of other teams ahead of them to banter here. First, it allows them to move Duncan up, and ahead of where they rank Russell if I prove my case to them. The other reason is it allows them to drop Kobe a bit. This has been explained. My closest attempt at a top 20 has Duncan tied #7-9 and Kobe at # 11. Kobe may drop further, I don’t know, I am not done with it yet. When I work on it depends if it gets more activity, and I have invited people in this thread to bring it back.

Post 8 is refuted




Insults again, hmmm? You are using MVP’s as a statistic. I know what a basketball statistic is. Number of points, number of rebounds, number of MVP’s, woops, all are used as statistics. You said absolutely nothing about my unstated hypothesis that MVP’s seemed to go to players whose teams did well in the regular season. Oscar got it in a year his team improved from 42-38 to 55-25. Wilt got it when the Sixers came in first in the east, and Bill often got it when the Celtics were top dog in the regular season. All three kept putting out similar numbers year after year, and the award followed the team with the best record. So, it seems the MVP award went to the best player on the best team in that era, with the latter being the prime criteria. Not discrediting Russell’s 5 MVP’s at all, but they are weak in proving him the greatest player, let alone top 5.
Post 9 is refuted

The Russell award was only so named 2 years ago. The NBA has been throwing bones to Bill for years, he left the Celtics very bitter. See the wiki link in my first post. As noted, Boston fans perception at that time was Cousy and Hondo were better. I said it, Philadelphia Chamberlain confirmed it. One word, Racism.

Post 10) is refuted.


Ok, here you go back to giving all the credit to Russell and not to Auerbach or Bill’s 8 hall of famers, including 4 top 50 players at 50 years. 11 titles in 13 years in an 8 team league, with no free agency. Homecourt advantage throughout in first 8 titles thus overwhelming favorites to win. Midnightpulp and I had one interesting exchange awhile back. He, like I, believes the Lakers are the greatest NBA franchise due to what’s happened beyond the 1 title difference with Boston. However, you place too much emphaisis on those 11 titles. Anyway, I asked mp who was the greatest college football program of all time, and he saw the most is best argument doesn’t hold up. Princeton (28) and Yale (27) have the most, and it isn’t even close, Michigan (22) is next. Those Ivy league schools won those titles in the 1800’s when football was new and they found the first innovations. More proof the first innovators don’t remain the best. I would say those 11 Russell titles are worth less than half in today’s NBA.
Post 11 is refuted.


There is no proof, at least as you require, even though I heard it countless times, over many years. You have my word on it, and that of Philadelphia Chamberlain. We are the only two to say this, we are the only two to have posted such that lived through that generation. Also, those posts were made before I even knew who you were or what you thought of Russell, and my poll thread wasn’t the first time I made the claim here that Bill was ranked lower in the old days. So, there is your proof, that case is closed.
Post 12 is refuted

Let me repeat myself on this. Please pay attention. When I recently debated ambchang, I constantly had to repeat myself because he had no clue what we were debating, and I proved he had no reading comprehension! Let’s look at this chronologically, my proof the ring argument is recent.
My sample top 10, 1970, with ring totals:
1) Chamberlain 1 ring
2) Robertson 0 rings
3) Baylor 0 rings
4) West 0 rings
5) Pettet 1 ring
6) Cousy 6 rings
7) Greer 1 ring
8) Mikan 5 rings
9) Russell 11 rings
10) Bellamy 0 rings
Russell, Mikan, and Cousy lead the pack by a landslide. There clearly is no ring argument yet because players with 0 or 1 ring are on the list. Wilt with 1 ring is consensus GOAT. Players 2-5 have 1 ring among them!

Now, look at the top 11 all time from 1980 the NBA issued, linked above in my reply to Jamstone, nd also placed in ring order:
C Bill Russell 11 rings
G/F John Havlicek 8 rings
G Bob Cousy 6 rings
C George Mikan 5 rings
C Kareem Abdul-Jabbar 2 rings
C Wilt Chamberlain 2 rings
F Bob Pettit 1 ring
G Oscar Robertson 1 ring
G Jerry West 1 ring
F Elgin Baylor 0 rings
F Julius Erving 0 rings

A few new players, a few dropped off. Minor changes in ring totals.
By 1988, 3 players added significantly in rings. Kareem, Magic, and Bird. Bird and Magic were now threatening to join top 10. Score among a top 10 most select today:
Russell 11 rings
Kareem 6 rings
Magic 5 rings
Bird 3 rings
Chamberlain 2 rings

Mikan has been removed because no one puts him top 10 today. Clearly, there is no using rings to rank greatness at this time, unless you drop people like Baylor, Erving, and West from a top 10 in favor of Mikan, Cousy, and Havlicek.

As noted, the ring argument began when Jordan tied Kareem and passed Bird and Magic. This also coincides with the spread of the internet. Mostly, those 6 rings were used to proclaim MJ the GOAT, ahead of Wilt. Clearly, MJ was perceived to be below Bird and Magic until he caught and passed them. Hakeem snuck into top 10 about this time, riding Jordan’s coattails. It has been this last decade that the ring for greatness has really multiplied and that is because of Tim, Shaq, and Kobe; all arguably top 10, and the ring argument is used. The internet is in full force.

Post 13 is refuted.



Post 14 is agreed upon.


Well, you have already been owned on this twice. It doesn’t matter the Spurs never repeated. They are still 3 time champs with a core of Duncan, Parker, and Ginobili. Those Celtics were overwhelming favorites the first of 7 of those 8 in a row. Spurs weren’t as fortunate in the rankings. Also, since they won twice more with that core, they proved they could win with championship experience. Also don’t forget your other ownage, when I compared the Spurs to the 1983 Boston Celtics in my trivia thread. It’s where I delivered on my promise to use your words against you:

http://www.spurstalk.com/forums/showpost.php?p=4710057&postcount=59


Also, you once again give Russell 100% of the credit for defeating Wilt, Elgin, and Jerry. Bill was a better coach than Van Breda Koff, and he had a deeper team, with championship experience. To you, your

Post 15 is refuted.


No, not a cop out. Bill Russell talks about how Cooke’s antics motivated him and his team. Bill Walton does as well. You demand better? Better ownage? I am not the only one here that has cleaned your clock. Remember, the Lakes were in control, they won the first 3 home games and Boston was playing catch up all series. 2-2-1-1-1 foramt.
Post 16 isrefuted.



I already dealt with this above. If I used Kareem’s offensive stats to declare him GOAT, then I am using his stats, adding up his points to make my point. You are adding up Bill’s MVPs and his titles, and counting them. There is no difference in you adding them up to make a point than me adding up Kareem’s career point total. We are using them as stats.

Post 17 is refuted.


Once again, points off for your attitude, and don’t forget, PC will back me up on Russell being not as highly valued 40+ years ago as he is today.

In summary, you haven’t given us a definitive argument and you have ignored much of what I have said. I have proven the ring argument is recent, and how Russell has been perceived over the years. You have only given your opinion that Russell is number 1 all time when all you have to do is make a case for him being top 5. However, I have challenged your reasoning with plenty of historical facts. The stats you used, titles and MVP’s have been highly challenged, and these include methods of awarding league MVP’s, ease of Celtics playoff schedule, no free agency, better teammates and coaches, and expert opinions.

I said in the beginning I will prove you are a homer. If you haven’t caught on yet, it’s because you give Russell credit for everything, as if he did it himself, and faced the world on his own.

This debate is about over. Virtually everything you have posted has clearly been refuted. You have yet to make a strong case for Bill, and your work is cut out for you because I have attacked your reasoning harder and better than you ever hoped Bill Russell could play basketball.


damn
inyoiKjVe0I

[dunkman]

During his career, Russell was one of the first big earners in NBA basketball. His rookie contract was worth $24,000, only fractionally smaller than the $25,000 of top earner Bob Cousy.[24] In contrast to other Celtics, who had to work in the offseason to maintain their standard of living (Heinsohn sold insurance, Gene Guarilia was a professional guitar player, Cousy ran a basketball camp, and Auerbach invested in plastics and a Chinese restaurant),[69] Russell never had to work part-time. When Wilt Chamberlain became the first NBA player to earn $100,000 in salary in 1965, Russell went to Auerbach and demanded a $100,001 salary, which he promptly received.[70]

Source:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Russell

It's unclear why would the Celtics give him the second best contract in the NBA as a rookie and a better contract than Wilt Chamberlain and any other player in the NBA, if he wasn't the NBA best player during that time and the Celtics would have won the same with another center.

The Lakers suffered many defeats at the hand of the Russell's Celtics. Haters gonna hate.

[TinTin]

However, your valuation of past greats who paved the way in sports to determine greatness is shaky if you look deeply. First, if you examine the game of chess, the single largest contributor to the game and how it was played was a New Orleans native named Paul Morphy some 150 years ago. He revolutionized the game by showing rapid development of your pieces put you in a position to win the game. He defeated every leading player in the world with his methods in a brief 2 year period and quit the game. No authority (super grandmaster) in chess considers him anywhere near the greatest player to have ever played, and trust me, these leading authorities construct hypothetical matches of players from different generations all the time! They can analyze a chess game and determine the strengths and weaknesses of any player. They do this because it’s their living, they must prepare for players they expect to meet in tournaments and matches if they are to gain any type of edge, chess is that competitive today!


Not to derail this thread but come on man, you can't really label morphy as the single largest contributor. Not all his games were open but he preferred clowning on those who liked close positions.

The analogy is pretty good but I don't think a non-chess person would really understand the impact of it

[Daddy_Of_All_Trolls]

Source:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Russell

It's unclear why would the Celtics give him the second best contract in the NBA as a rookie and a better contract than Wilt Chamberlain and any other player in the NBA, if he wasn't the NBA best player during that time and the Celtics would have won the same with another center.

The Lakers suffered many defeats at the hand of the Russell's Celtics. Haters gonna hate.
Thanks for your reply!

At first glance this appears to boost Russell's value as a player, but actually it doesn't do all that much to validate Bill as a top 5 player, or even top 10. It does place him in the top 5 NBA of that time.

I can't say everything I suspect is true, from the following, I can only draw conclusions based upon the evidence. With Mikan gone, there was no dominant big man in the game. Boston traded their center, Ed McCauley, along with a guy who ended up scoring 20 ppg to get Russell. the NBA active GOAT at the time would be Cousy or Pettit. Russell was a two time NCAA champion, scoring and rebounding at 20/20, and shooting 50%. Red Auerbach had already been established as a geinius, well ahead of his time. He knew what Russell could do for Boston, if he could get him. Chamberlain had yet to play college ball for Kansas. Boston also had Tommy Heinsohn slated as their territorial draft choice and wanted both players. The heist they did is close in comparison to getting Robert Parish and the draft pick that became Kevin McHale from the Warriors for the draft rights to Joe Barry Carrol. It is probably a reasonable guess that Russell was able to demand such a salary based not only on his college play, but the teammates he would join. Cousy, Sharman, Heinsohn. Boston knew they had a future and simply signed on the dotted line to get things going. As far as Russell getting a buck more than Wilt, well, at least the organization was extremely fair to him, it just wasn't the fans or media. Paying a player more than he's worth is common. Ask the New York Knicks, or Lakers Walton and Vujacich. What were Bill's other options? I don't know what his college degree was in or if he got one, but the Harlem Globetrotters were around. Wilt joined them when he left college early. Wilt wasn't eligible for the NBA until his class graduated, those were the rules then.

As far as Russell's Celtics beating the Lakers 7 times, it isn't as impressive as it seems. Boston was the clear cut favorite in the first 6 series, and the underdog in the last. Yet somehow the Lakers managed to take them to 7 games 3 times, twice with a nucleus of Baylor and West, backed up by a whole bunch of scrubs. As pointed out, Russell's Celtics were a stacked team, usually had HCA, and had much superior coaching. Until the Lakers got Wilt, they had no counter at the center position. Consider the 2009 series, Celtics and Bulls. Lakers achieved that level of excitement 3 times. to me, this raises the stock of Jerry West and Elgin Baylor, once legitimate top 5 all time players and keeps them no worse than top 20 today. In comparison, the Lakers today get some criticism for having to go 7 with the Rockets in 2009, and the old and tired Celtics of 2010. Boston and their superteams really had trouble putting those Lakers teams away, and deserve criticism as well. This has been done by taking Russell out of the top 10 because he didn't do it all himself, as those 11 rings make people who don't know the full and true history believe.

[Daddy_Of_All_Trolls]

Not to derail this thread but come on man, you can't really label morphy as the single largest contributor. Not all his games were open but he preferred clowning on those who liked close positions.

The analogy is pretty good but I don't think a non-chess person would really understand the impact of it

I like to use Morphy and what he brought because of his brief career. Steinitz brought positional play, Lasker brought longevity after disposing of Steinitz. Capablanca brought accuracy and endgame techinque, Alekhine brought value of preparation and plenty more. He beat Capablanca because he analyzed his games in incredible detail. Alekhine ten spent the rest of his life ducking Capablanca for a rematch, giving "patzers" like Bogoljubov and Euwe a shot. (Euwe upset him in 1935, got slaughtered in the return match 2 years later). Alekhine, and the latter two, all lived under Nazi occupation. Botvinnik was the product of the Soviet approach to education and competition; Find out at a young age what your people excel at and train them accordingly. Those at the top get supported by the state. When your Olympic team wins, it shows the World how great the USSR is, and reminds your citizens of the same. Propaganda, but effective. It does have advantages over countries where the best amateur athletes must hold down a job to survive, thus reducing training time. However, some of those state supported superstars ended up defecting.....That tells a bit more of the flaw in the Soviet system.

Then along came Bobby Fischer who took down the Soviets all by himself 17 years before Reagan bankrupted them in the arms race.

[TinTin]

Alekhine and Capablanca matches were a great study (when I was still into it)

Too bad Fischer went mia after winning the title and beating the Soviets. He contributed no doubt (particularly in najdorf). I heard some country was looking for him and then he had a random match in the 90s vs. someone then went undercover. I forgot

I didn't know the ussr's philosophy behind it. I knew they were churning out great players at a very early age

[Daddy_Of_All_Trolls]

Alekhine and Capablanca matches were a great study (when I was still into it)

Too bad Fischer went mia after winning the title and beating the Soviets. He contributed no doubt (particularly in najdorf). I heard some country was looking for him and then he had a random match in the 90s vs. someone then went undercover. I forgot

I didn't know the ussr's philosophy behind it. I knew they were churning out great players at a very early age

Fischer would be a great member here if he were alive, he'd out smack any of you and be hated worse than any troll.

what happened to Fischer is thus, in a nutshell:

He won in 1972 and made match demands for 1975 with Karpov. FIDE was controlled by the USSR and wouldn't give in. They stripped him of his title and gave Karpov way more concessions for matches than Fischer even dreamed of asking for. So, Bobby withdrew from the world and became a nutcase. He gave Spassky a rematch in 1992, calling it the world championship. He was blocked ffrom coming back to the USA because he violated a "Trading with the enemies act" that was federal law. Seems his match with Spassky was in Yugoslavia, and it was a hot spot then. Maybe you can still find the video of Bobby spitting on the letter the US State Department sent him telling him not to play in Yugoslavia. He lived around the world in various places, such as Japan and the Phillipines. When the 9/11 attacks came, he applauded them and really became anti USA. Of course, he was already extremely anti-Jewish, even though that was his heritage. when his mother and sister passed on he was deprived of a Visa to come to the USA to attend their funerals. He once had a website spouting his hatred and I actually had a letter to him published on it, circa 2002. He died in exile in Iceland, and his heir is a daughter in the Phillipines. Bobby hired a woman to bear his child and inherit his legacy. I believe his niece and nephew have fought to get a piece of his book royalties. He still has unsettled business with the Russians, they re-published his chess books and sold them without paying royalties.

[z0sa]

No, you felt empowered to make a smart ass remark because you have nothing to offer the conversation and are satisfied with your status as a troll.

Are you satisfied with your status as an idiot?

[ambchang]

The people who selected the top 50 saw, played against, or coached most every player on the list and all have fine reputations. See above link for who voted. I can’t quote each one directly what they thought of Russell, but I can give the general consensus of how every news media, including some on that list ranked a top 10 all time back around 1970. A list might look like this:
1) Chamberlain
2) Robertson
3) Baylor
4) West
5) Pettet
6) Cousy
7) Greer
8) Mikan
9) Russell
10) Bellamy

Why would Russell be so low back then? The primary reason is that offense was valued as most important and Russell didn’t score much and shot poorly. Why was offense so important? Scoring points brings fans, and the NBA struggled financially for years. The league used to have a territorial draft pick in force. This meant an NBA team could use its first round pick to select a local college star, thus helping ticket sales at the gate. Boston acquired Tommy Heinsohn from Holy Cross, and the Royals chose Oscar Robertson from Cincinatti this way. There are many other examples.

Philadelphia Chamberlain backed me up about Russell not being valued so high during his playing days in my top 20 thread. PC was around back then. Boston didn’t consider him their best player, they preferred Cousy or Havlicek, both white players. Russell has an unfortunate history of racial discrimination in Boston.

I would like to know who Russell won 5 MVPs, including three in a row, and Cousy only winning one, during Russell's rookie year.

I believe players vote for MVPs back then, and it could be the case where it's a popularity contests amongst players, but for a black man to win 5 MVPs in those days, in a league with many white players, is something that just can't be dismissed.

[Daddy_Of_All_Trolls]

I would like to know who Russell won 5 MVPs, including three in a row, and Cousy only winning one, during Russell's rookie year.

I believe players vote for MVPs back then, and it could be the case where it's a popularity contests amongst players, but for a black man to win 5 MVPs in those days, in a league with many white players, is something that just can't be dismissed.

If you actually read everything about MVP's I posted in this thread, something we all know you may not do, and it's proven you often fail to comprehend what you read, you would notice I attempted to answer this with an unstated hypothesis which I tested a bit. In short, it seems league MVP's went to the best player on the team that had the best regular season record. In other words, best regular season team seems to take priority before a player is selected from that team. One winner was Robertson in a big turnaround year for the Royals. The early winners of this award were usually Russell and Chamberlain and my hypothesis is almost always correct. Russell, Chamberlain, and Robertson seemed to put up similar stats every year and the votes they received seem to correlate with how well their teams did. Wilt had monster stats in San Francisco but fell far back in the votes when te Warriors sucked.I don't know exactly who voted, media or players.

3 of the first 4 winners were white, then no white winner until Cowens in 1973. Walton in 1977, Bird in 1984-86, Nash/Nowitski in 2005-07 are the only other white winers. So, it's primarily a black award. Baseball has some consistency with the Cy young award, see what I said about 1973 AL. Contrast that with what I said about 1972 NL Cy Young.

Let's look at the history of the NBA MVP winners, and see how their teams did.

1956 Pettit. Poor team record but rebound average way ahead of second place Arizin. best record
1957 Cousy. Best team record. Not many more ppg than Rookie Russell.
1958 Russell. Best team record. A reward for being NBA champion?
1959 Pettit. 2nd best team record, by 3 games to Boston. Perhaps a reward for wininng NBA ring in 1958?
1960 Chamberlain. 2nd best team record. MVP and Rookie of the year award.
1961 Russell. Best team record. Petit 2nd, better team record than Wilt who fell to 4th.
1962 Russell. Best team record. Chamberlain 2nd with 3rd best team record. This is the year Wilt averaged 50 ppg.
1963 Russell. Best team record. Baylor 2nd, 2nd best team record. Wilt 7th, his Warriors sucked.
1964 Robertson. 2nd best team record, but improved wins from 42-38 to 55-25. Chamberlain 2nd with 3rd best team record.
1965 Russell. Best team record. Chamberlain 5th as traded midseason, bith his teams sucked.
1966 Chamberlain Best team record, From this point on, Russell hardly had any votes in any year.
1967 Chamberlain. Best Team record. THurmond 2nd, 3rd best team record.
1968 Chamberlain. Best team record. Wikens/Baylor 2nd/3rd with corresponding team records
1969 Unseld. Best record, MVP and Rookie of the Year. 2nd and 3rd, Reed and Cunningham with equal 2nd and 4th best records. Chamberlain, no votes, west no votes, teammate Baylor, a few.
1970 Reed. Best record. 3rd place, Jabbar with 2nd best record, also rookie of the year. West came 2nd, again but with 5th best record. Chamberlain missed most of season.
1971 Jabbar. Best record. Hardly any votes for anyone else.
1972 Jabbar 2nd best record and dominating stats over West and Chamberlain with best record. Together they almost tie Jabbar in forst place votes. Perhaps they canceled each other out.
1973 Cowens. Best record. Jabbar 2nd, 2nd best record Milwaukee had tiebreaks oer Lakers due to a coin flip.
1974 Jabbar. Best record. CLose 2nd, McAdoo with a 42-40 record.
1975 McAdoo 3rd best record. 2nd/3rd Cowens and Hayes, 2nd/3rd best record. Jabbar down to 5th with bad team.
1976 Jabbar. with a bad team, barely edging previous winners Cowens and NcAdoo with good teams.

I won't go any further. A quick glance shows the hypothesis continues to be mostly true. By this time, the voters have radically changed from whoever voted the first years.

Hypothesis conclusion: MVPs are a great award but the recipient needs to be thankful he had the teammates he needed to win a lot of games thus get in position to waltz away with the trophy. If not, another great, and possibly better, player would have received it.

Russell's 5 MVP's are enough to keep him top 20, but definitely not top 5.

[TinTin]

Fischer would be a great member here if he were alive, he'd out smack any of you and be hated worse than any troll.

what happened to Fischer is thus, in a nutshell:

He won in 1972 and made match demands for 1975 with Karpov. FIDE was controlled by the USSR and wouldn't give in. They stripped him of his title and gave Karpov way more concessions for matches than Fischer even dreamed of asking for. So, Bobby withdrew from the world and became a nutcase. He gave Spassky a rematch in 1992, calling it the world championship. He was blocked ffrom coming back to the USA because he violated a "Trading with the enemies act" that was federal law. Seems his match with Spassky was in Yugoslavia, and it was a hot spot then. Maybe you can still find the video of Bobby spitting on the letter the US State Department sent him telling him not to play in Yugoslavia. He lived around the world in various places, such as Japan and the Phillipines. When the 9/11 attacks came, he applauded them and really became anti USA. Of course, he was already extremely anti-Jewish, even though that was his heritage. when his mother and sister passed on he was deprived of a Visa to come to the USA to attend their funerals. He once had a website spouting his hatred and I actually had a letter to him published on it, circa 2002. He died in exile in Iceland, and his heir is a daughter in the Phillipines. Bobby hired a woman to bear his child and inherit his legacy. I believe his niece and nephew have fought to get a piece of his book royalties. He still has unsettled business with the Russians, they re-published his chess books and sold them without paying royalties.


Video wasn't that hard to find
RjbaSVXUq5c

:O Real hardcore that chess and sanction violations would ever come together

Check out these two statements I found by wikipedia


Bobby is playing OK, nothing more. Maybe his strength is 2600 or 2650. It wouldn't be close

This is during is his 1992 match. :O Can you believe this man in his prime or if he had the will to keep playing competitively?


Dear Mr. Osama bin Laden allow me to introduce myself. I am Bobby Fischer, the World Chess Champion. First of all you should know that I share your hatred of the murderous bandit state of "Israel" and its chief backer the Jew-controlled U.S.A. also know [sic] as the "Jewnited States" or "Israel West." We also have something else in common: We are both fugitives from the U.S. "justice" system.

Guessing he was still butthurt after the us revoked his chess membership. All of this looks way too comical to an outside person that playing chess can essentially turn you into a fugitive

Btw. wiki says that he is not the father of that Filipino girl

[Daddy_Of_All_Trolls]

Video wasn't that hard to find
RjbaSVXUq5c

:O Real hardcore that chess and sanction violations would ever come together
Thanks for that. Last time I looked for it, it had been deleted.


Check out these two statements I found by wikipedia



This is during is his 1992 match. :O Can you believe this man in his prime or if he had the will to keep playing competitively?
Well, Fisher and Kasparov had a long standing feud. They are, I suppose, the Chamberlain and Russell of chess, but who is who? Here's the background. Fisher's mother was Jewish. Recently, stories have surfaced his real father wasn't Mr. Fischer, who disappeared and went back to Germany, but a Hungarian named Nemenyi, or something like that. He may have been Jewish as well and Bobby's mother is rumored to have been romantically involved with him. www.chessbase.com has the story. Kasparov was born with the surname Weinstein, and is an Armenian Jew. After his father died, he adopted his mother's surname, Kasparian and later Russianized it to Kasparov.

Fischer had botched a won game against World Champ Botvinnik just before adjournment, which changed a clear win into a slight advantage, in a game from the early 1960s, Chess Olympics I think. The Russian team found a resource overnight that held the draw, and Fischer left the game in tears when it ended. Later, Fischer demonstrated a win after the Soviet resource was played in his book "My 60 memorable games". The key here is the point when he says "White has no resource against the avalanche of checks". Well, a young and unknown Kasparov proved White had a resource and the game was still a draw. Later, when Kasparov was playing Karpov in world championship matches, Fischer claimed he could prove every game and every move was prearranged. Fischer did go on record early 1960's that the Soviets did fix matches, and this was later confirmed after the fall of the USSR.Seems the old candidates tournaments had 8 players who played each other 4 times, 5 of which were Soviets. The Soviets selected who would win and everyone of their countryman would either lose to him, or have a quick draw. Meanwhile, Fischer and the other western players had grueling games every round. A fix of this proportion is equivalent to an NBA team not playing it's starters but a few minutes a game, and the other teams intentionally losing, thus getting playoff HCA for the chosen team. However, a NBA fix here is easy to prove, I don't think Fischer ever followed through proving Kasparov's games were prearranged, and I doubt he could have. He was stretching it, based on his past success in this department.

Fischer as a player hadn't lost it by 1992. Stories I heard were that Bobby traveled the world, often staying with stron grandmasters and none of them could beat him at blitz. If he analyzed their games they had played with them, he utterly amazed them with wonderful new ideas and showed off all in an instant. On story I heard really showed his talent. Someone was driving him to his hotel after a tournament they both played in and complained to Bobby about how badly they had played. Bobby asked to see his score sheet and the driver handed to him. bobby looked at it a few seconds and promptly returned it. The driver was heartbroken and just figured Fischer had no interest in "weak" player like him. then the surprise came. Fischer started telling him every bad move he made, and how he could have done better and why. After dropping Bobby off, the guy pulled out a chess set and verified everything Fischer said was true. To me, that's an amazing story. It would impress an audience of chessplayers and could make a chess genius a shit load of cash.



Guessing he was still butthurt after the us revoked his chess membership. All of this looks way too comical to an outside person that playing chess can essentially turn you into a fugitive
If not a fugitive, at least a nutcase.


Btw. wiki says that he is not the father of that Filipino girl

Thanks, last I heard was they were going to exhume Bobby's body in Iceland and run DNA tests. At least Bobby got laid. In 1972 he said he wanted to marry a virgin. There were rumours he was gay. Supposedly one strong USA chessplayer worked in the X-Rated film business (gay porn) and had seduced Bobby. All heresay.

[Daddy_Of_All_Trolls]

There were also rumors Fischer was playing chess online anonymously, but he denied them. Evidence is compelling it was him, however. Probably you will find stories about it at www.chessbase.com , or search Key Words "Fischer guest ICC", or "Fischer guest Internet Chess Club".

[midnightpulp]

I see that history2b has abandoned this thread.

Not surprised.

[ambchang]

If you actually read everything about MVP's I posted in this thread, something we all know you may not do, and it's proven you often fail to comprehend what you read, you would notice I attempted to answer this with an unstated hypothesis which I tested a bit. In short, it seems league MVP's went to the best player on the team that had the best regular season record. In other words, best regular season team seems to take priority before a player is selected from that team. One winner was Robertson in a big turnaround year for the Royals. The early winners of this award were usually Russell and Chamberlain and my hypothesis is almost always correct. Russell, Chamberlain, and Robertson seemed to put up similar stats every year and the votes they received seem to correlate with how well their teams did. Wilt had monster stats in San Francisco but fell far back in the votes when te Warriors sucked.I don't know exactly who voted, media or players.

3 of the first 4 winners were white, then no white winner until Cowens in 1973. Walton in 1977, Bird in 1984-86, Nash/Nowitski in 2005-07 are the only other white winers. So, it's primarily a black award. Baseball has some consistency with the Cy young award, see what I said about 1973 AL. Contrast that with what I said about 1972 NL Cy Young.

Let's look at the history of the NBA MVP winners, and see how their teams did.

1956 Pettit. Poor team record but rebound average way ahead of second place Arizin. best record
1957 Cousy. Best team record. Not many more ppg than Rookie Russell.
1958 Russell. Best team record. A reward for being NBA champion?
1959 Pettit. 2nd best team record, by 3 games to Boston. Perhaps a reward for wininng NBA ring in 1958?
1960 Chamberlain. 2nd best team record. MVP and Rookie of the year award.
1961 Russell. Best team record. Petit 2nd, better team record than Wilt who fell to 4th.
1962 Russell. Best team record. Chamberlain 2nd with 3rd best team record. This is the year Wilt averaged 50 ppg.
1963 Russell. Best team record. Baylor 2nd, 2nd best team record. Wilt 7th, his Warriors sucked.
1964 Robertson. 2nd best team record, but improved wins from 42-38 to 55-25. Chamberlain 2nd with 3rd best team record.
1965 Russell. Best team record. Chamberlain 5th as traded midseason, bith his teams sucked.
1966 Chamberlain Best team record, From this point on, Russell hardly had any votes in any year.
1967 Chamberlain. Best Team record. THurmond 2nd, 3rd best team record.
1968 Chamberlain. Best team record. Wikens/Baylor 2nd/3rd with corresponding team records
1969 Unseld. Best record, MVP and Rookie of the Year. 2nd and 3rd, Reed and Cunningham with equal 2nd and 4th best records. Chamberlain, no votes, west no votes, teammate Baylor, a few.
1970 Reed. Best record. 3rd place, Jabbar with 2nd best record, also rookie of the year. West came 2nd, again but with 5th best record. Chamberlain missed most of season.
1971 Jabbar. Best record. Hardly any votes for anyone else.
1972 Jabbar 2nd best record and dominating stats over West and Chamberlain with best record. Together they almost tie Jabbar in forst place votes. Perhaps they canceled each other out.
1973 Cowens. Best record. Jabbar 2nd, 2nd best record Milwaukee had tiebreaks oer Lakers due to a coin flip.
1974 Jabbar. Best record. CLose 2nd, McAdoo with a 42-40 record.
1975 McAdoo 3rd best record. 2nd/3rd Cowens and Hayes, 2nd/3rd best record. Jabbar down to 5th with bad team.
1976 Jabbar. with a bad team, barely edging previous winners Cowens and NcAdoo with good teams.

I won't go any further. A quick glance shows the hypothesis continues to be mostly true. By this time, the voters have radically changed from whoever voted the first years.

Hypothesis conclusion: MVPs are a great award but the recipient needs to be thankful he had the teammates he needed to win a lot of games thus get in position to waltz away with the trophy. If not, another great, and possibly better, player would have received it.

Russell's 5 MVP's are enough to keep him top 20, but definitely not top 5.

Interesting how you would talk about reading comprehension when I clearly mentioned how Russell as compared to Cousy.

Russell and Cousy played on the same team, Russell won 5 MVPs, Cousy won 1, and that was during Russell's rookie year. While it is true that Russell won those MVPs after Cousy's prime, Russell's MVPs showed that, the league as a whole, valued Russell over Cousy.

Add on top to that Cousy never earned as much as Russell did, and your assertion that the Celtics valued Cousy more than Russell is shaky, at best.

[Daddy_Of_All_Trolls]

Interesting how you would talk about reading comprehension when I clearly mentioned how Russell as compared to Cousy.

Russell and Cousy played on the same team, Russell won 5 MVPs, Cousy won 1, and that was during Russell's rookie year. While it is true that Russell won those MVPs after Cousy's prime, Russell's MVPs showed that, the league as a whole, valued Russell over Cousy.

Add on top to that Cousy never earned as much as Russell did, and your assertion that the Celtics valued Cousy more than Russell is shaky, at best.

Once again you prove you fail at reading comprehension, must be at least the 4th time now, eh? I never said the Celtics valued Cousy over Russell. I said Cousy was perceived to be greater than Russell. By who? The people who gave opinions of who the greatest all time players were, fans, media, etc. It was people in Boston who perceived Cousy greater than Russell. Who do you think they (fans, media) thought was better, Havlicek? Maybe later, but not right away. I never said the Boston Celtics franchise, or the NBA valued Cousy or any other player greater than Russell.

[Jelloisjigglin]

I don't think winners can ever be overrated.

[Daddy_Of_All_Trolls]

I don't think winners can ever be overrated.

True, but it all depends on where you rank Russell, which you didn't do. I have a top 20 thread linked on my first discussion post this thread you are invited to reply in. So, it depends on where you rank Russell. I have more or less proven he isn't top 5, that's easy enough to see. He's marginal top 10, and I put him near the bottom of the top 20. Remember, although he has 11 rings he also had the best teammates by a landslide and a coach years ahead of the game. Without them, he doesn't win at all.

[jdiggy0424]

i put russell as number 5 of greatest of all time

[Purch]

I saw an interesting stats for people who say Russell couldn't score when in fact he didn't have too it seems.

He has as many 30-point closeout games in the Finals (in 12 games) as Wilt, Kobe, Bird and Kareem combined. (in 27 games)

[midnightpulp]

I see that history2b has abandoned this thread.

Not surprised.

Not surprised, tbh. Guy has a very limited bballIQ, and couldn't come up with a good enough response to counter DaddyofAllTrolls.

[history2b]

Not surprised, tbh. Guy has a very limited bballIQ, and couldn't come up with a good enough response to counter DaddyofAllTrolls.


No I just got bored.

It was bound to be a circular discussion and since every point Troll boy made was predicated on various fallacies, I ignored it with the better interest of my time in mind.

Some people do have that restraint, pulp.

[Rummpd]

Cousy says, "The level of intensity among the big guys is different. You put a bunch of huge guys, seminaked, out there before thousands of people, and you expect them to become killers. But it just isn't in their nature. Kareem [Abdul-Jabbar] probably had the best skills of all big men, and he played till he was 42. If he'd had Russ's instincts, it's hard to imagine how much better he'd have been. But he'd have burned out long before 42."

Sanders: "There's no reason why some centers today couldn't block shots like Russ did. Only no one has the intestinal fortitude. A center blocks one shot now, the other team grabs the ball and scores, and the center stands there pouting, with that I-can't-do-everything look. Russell would block three, four shots in a row—I mean from different players—and then just glower at us."

Russell: "Once I blocked seven shots in a row. When we finally got the ball, I called timeout and said, 'This s—- has got to stop.' " Some years Russell would be so exhausted after the playoffs that, as he describes it, "I'd literally be tired to my bones. I mean, for four, five weeks, my bones would hurt."

Russell believes that Wilt Chamberlain suffered the worst case of big-man syndrome; he was too nice, scared that he might hurt somebody. The year after Russell retired, in the famous seventh game of the NBA Finals at Madison Square Garden, Willis Reed, the New York Knicks center, limped onto the court against the Los Angeles Lakers, inspiring his team and freezing Chamberlain into a benign perplexity. Russell scowls just thinking about it. "If I'm the one playing Willis when he comes out limping," he snarls, "it only would have emphasized my goal to beat them that much worse." Russell would have called Six—his play—again and again, going mercilessly at the cripple, exploiting Reed without remorse. The Celtics would have won. Which was the point. Always.

"To be the best in the world," Russell says, all but licking his lips. "Not last week. Not next year. But right now You are the best. And it's even more satisfying as a team, because that's more difficult. If I play well, that's one thing. But to make others play better...." He grins, savoring the memory. "You understand what I mean?" Bill often says that, invariably when there is no doubt. It has to do with emphasis more than clarity. In fact, I can sort of visualize him saying that after he blocked a shot. You understand what I mean?

Yes.



http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1015865/4/index.htm


Over-rated = B.S. Russell won when it counted over and over


Here includes a blog where among other things he grabbed 40 rebounds and had 30 points in a championship game.

http://entertainment.howstuffworks.com/bill-russell-at.htm

[ambchang]

Once again you prove you fail at reading comprehension, must be at least the 4th time now, eh? I never said the Celtics valued Cousy over Russell. I said Cousy was perceived to be greater than Russell. By who? The people who gave opinions of who the greatest all time players were, fans, media, etc. It was people in Boston who perceived Cousy greater than Russell. Who do you think they (fans, media) thought was better, Havlicek? Maybe later, but not right away. I never said the Boston Celtics franchise, or the NBA valued Cousy or any other player greater than Russell.

So a franchise that one 11 championships, along with league players valued Russell over Cousy, and everybody else in the league, 5 times, would speak to Russell being an overrated player how?

What does the perspective of the media and the fans have to do with Russell being great?

[midnightpulp]

:tu to DOAT for destroying history in this thread.

And the funny this is, I'm on history's side in this argument. Too bad he couldn't craft a decent argument to save his pathetic life.

[Daddy_Of_All_Trolls]

:tu to DOAT for destroying history in this thread.

And the funny this is, I'm on history's side in this argument. Too bad he couldn't craft a decent argument to save his pathetic life.
Heh, thanks, I also shut my other bitch, ambchang, up in this thread. Neither one has any clue what people write, they both fail miserably in reading comprehension.

I don't put much stock in those 11 championships Russell won. It's all been pointed out already. Stacked far and above the rest of the NBA, usually won two playoff series with HCA after getting a first round bye, tradition of giving MVP award to a player on the best regular season team, and so on. The NBA drifted toward parity for some 20 years, no one could repeat; Reed's Knicks, Jabbar's Bucks, Havlicek/Cowens Celtics, Birds's Celtics, and until the end of their run, Magic's Lakers. Any one of those teams would have cleaned up in the 60's NBA, and never lost a title. Once you realize the change in the NBA from then to the 80's, and on to now, you will realize Russell's Celtics themselves are overrated, thus Russell himself is as well.

Did I say this? If you tell me you are dating a girl who is 36-24-36, I'll be happy for you and a bit envious. If you give me the same girl's measurements in metric, I won't know if you are dating a Jessica Alba clone, or one shaped like Oprah Winfrey. Russell was listed as good back then, but not near the top of whatever top 10 people had. Just like former top 10'rs like Baylor, West, Greer, Pettit, and Robertson have fallen out, so did Bill. And he was one of the first to drop out. So say I and other people who don't know the metric system; our line of thinking is based upon what we observed, not what we learned later. If you didn't see Russell play, and ignore what the people of his era said about him, you can't rank him top 10.

[Galileo]

The average Russell team consisted of:

3 top 50 all-time players, including Russell

2 other hall-of-fame players

1 sixth man who made the hall of fame.

Despite this, Tim Duncan has about the same winning percent as Russell throughout his career in both regular season and playoffs.