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I was going to leave the Bill Russell thing alone, but since you opened it up ShoogarBear:
15 points per game, 22 rebounds per game, 5 assists per game...for his CAREER. Also, take notice of how the Celtics did in the 1970s without him.
Ahh, whottt's back in form . . .
Then I guessActually, after looking how low Garnett ranks on that list I am more convinced than ever that it is accurate and a good way to measure players.
-PJ Brown, Tree Rollins > Julius Erving
-Peja Stojakovic > Moses Malone
-Cedric Maxwell > Kevin Garnett
-Dennis Rodman > Kevin McHale
and too many other absurdities to mention
# of Celtic champiohships before Bill Russell arrived: 0So in your next argument you'll be arguing Bill Russell as the greatest of all time because he won 10 or 11....
the Boston Celtics did...and they kept on winning after he left...and they kept on winning after Bill Russell left.
# of Celtic championships in 13 years that Russell played: 11
# of Celtic championships in Russell's last two years: 2
# of playoff games played by Celtics in first two years without Russell: 0
Not only that but the ONLY player who was there for both Russell's first two and last two championships was . . . Bill Russell.
You don't get very far in any of these arguments criticizing Bill Russell.
Last edited by ShoogarBear; 08-06-2005 at 06:09 PM.
I was going to leave the Bill Russell thing alone, but since you opened it up ShoogarBear:
15 points per game, 22 rebounds per game, 5 assists per game...for his CAREER. Also, take notice of how the Celtics did in the 1970s without him.
I try not to compare statistics, because the game are so much different.
There are a lot more rebounds when teams are averaging 110 shots per game each as opposed to 85.
I'll never say that Russell would be even close to a dominant player in today's NBA. But he revolutionized the center position more than any player other than Mikan.
Last edited by ShoogarBear; 08-06-2005 at 06:48 PM.
I agree with this entire point. What matters is how a player performed in his own era, otherwise you're left with a debate that's nothing more than speculation. What isn't speculatory are the statistics, and to dismiss stats like Russell's or Cousy's is just plain ignorant - particularly dismissal to the point of saying a player "sucks."
Considering EVERYONE who has read this thread, and responded to it, Disagrees with Whotshisname, I'll just leave it at that.
btw, since i've only been watching the spurs for about 15 years, I'm sure in 5 years i'll have a different perspective on the Spurs and basketball in general, and will surely bring more "knowledge" as well. However, there is little danger of my changing my mind in this instance since your perspective lacks, well, sense.
peace.
Tough to argue, but I would put Hakeem at 4, and DRob or Moses Malone at 5. The first 3 are interchangable. Hakeem is the only superstar other than Tim Duncan to win a championship with a very weak supporting cast (Duncan in 03, Hakeem in 94), and his moves down low was plain unstoppable.
Of course, you can make an argument that 94 and 95 were not as compe ive as it is now, but this is subjective.
Absolutely and totally false. An incredible oversight on your part. Go back and check it again.The Celtics pretty much crumbled in the 1970s after Russell left. They didn't win another championship, let alone compete for one again until 1981. Nice try though.
So are you saying you'd take Cousy over Shaq, Hakeem or Drob?Of course Cousy didn't win a championship on his own, but 18 points per game and 7 assists per game is a pretty big help. But yeah, winning an MVP and 10 First Team All-NBA nominations "sucks goat ass."
Be my guest.
I bet you also think the fatman could step into todays MLB and slug 715 homers while batting 344% for a career...after spending the first 5 years of his career as a pitcher...
And um...Santa doesn't exist either.
So do you think it was that they were better defenders back in that era? Or just not as good of offensive players? Cousy being a career 37% FG shooter?Guess what? It doesn't matter how he'd play in this era. He played in the 1950s and 1960s, and he was awesome in that period. End of story. Who is to say any of our NBA greats of today would be good against the players of 2060? If not, who cares? They're great now, that's all that matters.
Cousy played on great teams...what you fail to see is that the big teams had a lot more clout to horde the best players back in those days...it was not an even playing field.
The Celtic's success wasn't due to any one great player...it was due to a whole load of them.
Russell was probably the main key...but seeing as we just saw a role player by the name of Horry pull Duncan's ass out of the fire in game 5 of the finals...
I don't get how you guys don't see this...
A player can make the maximum contrubitions...but if his team is not good enough...he will not win a championship.
Think about Derek Fisher and .04. Even with all those HOF'ers...if not for that shot LA probably doesn't beat us in that series...if Horry makes the shot in 03 we probably don't win that series...I don't care how ing good Duncan might be.
Um...obviously they weren't as good without Jordan...Last thing - Jordan's teams continued to win after he left? Hmmm, is that why in 1994 they couldn't get to the Conference Finals,
But they won 57 games the last year of the first 3 peat..then he left and they won 55 games...
I think it's pretty obvious that if Scottie Pippen had left and Jordan had stayed the result would have been similar.
Um...they lost more than just Jordan...surely you realize this?or from 1999 to 2004, the Bulls were a complete joke?
Last edited by whottt; 08-06-2005 at 10:34 PM.
Hey far be it from me to piss on the latest meeting of the flat earth society...but you're still wrong, no matter how many disagree with me.
While I don't agree that Cousy "sucked goat ass" Whottt is right, no player can win a le by himself. IMO also, Russell had more to do with those Celtic les than Cousy and IMO, Russell is arugably the best ever but not solely because of the les. If it was just on les, Robert Horry is the same as MJ.
not to help whott or anything but the Celtics did kind of win the championship in 74 and 76 while reaching the ECF in 72,73,75.
it helps when you have havlicek cowens and jo jo white you know.
Of course it takes good teams to win championships, and one player alone can't do it.
Of course taking one of the key parts of a championship team off of it probably prevent it from being a champion.
However, we CAN say that certain pieces are relatively more important than others.
We can also say that championships, along with wins during the regular season, prove which team was best that year. Now, the classic example is Wilt. Until he learned to dominate alittle less and help his teammates become better, he didn't win. His most dominant years are not the years he went all the way.
Furthermore,
there are teams that put you close enough to catch the ring, but then special players put their teams on their back and take it home, and I think those types of players deserve a special place in history. Hakeem did it in the playoffs. So did Shaq and Kobe. So did Duncan.
Its hard for me to put David ahead of Hakeem, for example, when I saw Hakeem drop something like 45 on him 3 games in a row on the way to showing him the regular season MVP was not the playoffs MVP. Of course, if Hakeem had much inferior regular season accolades and numbers, it would not be a fair comparison. But in fact they are similar in the points, rebounds and blocks that they had over their careers. Davids were better, but Hakeem was a better PEAK PERFORMER.
Like it or not, a big part of a player's legacy is taking it to that next level, and some great players don't do that when it really counts. David, for the most part, just didn't.
I didnt' watch Russell, but from what I understand he was an INCREDIBLE defender. I do understand that the game has changed significantly (its not that players have fogotten how to rebound, or are greatly inferior rebounders to the best players of the past, its that there are 30 less shots per game to rebound...). However, you also have to judge players against their contemporaries, and the closest players to Russell and Wilt in rebounding are 6 away!! That would be like the best players today rebounding about 13, and then Duncan walking in and averaging 19....It would be evident he was something special.
Hey, popularity isn't everything. Sometimes most of the people ARE wrong. And it is actually very difficult to parse out one player's impact on the game vs. another on their own team, much less players on a completely different team. But to try to put David in the Top 5 of centers, I believe, is not justified in terms of team success. He was never the best player on a championship team, as all of the other guys ahead of him (on the HOF monitor list) were.
If you want to look at peak season efficiency and stuff like that, Garnett should be in the same ballpark as David then. And you hate him, so reconcile that reality my friend.
I'm more interested in the fact that guys like Terry Porter and Reggie Miller don't meet the 135 generalized cut off point for scores.
No one EVER said one player wins a championship, that's a no-brainer. But to say the best point guard of an era "sucks goat ass" because he's not a Shaq is boneheaded, period. I never suggested Cousy was better than Shaq etc., I was defending the fact he was a great player in his era. whottt, before you go on tirades, check your facts. The Celts didn't compete once Russell left. If you think they did, you're just plain wrong.
As I already said: The Celtics won the championship in Russell's last two years.
The first two years after he left, they didn't even make the playoffs.
They had to completely rebuild with Cowens, White, and Silas to become the playoff teams of the 70s. The team that Russell left wasn't without him.
Ahem:
Shoogar...I think Willie Naulls was the key...
When Naulls retired in 1966 the Celtics couldn't buy a championship...
Well said.I'll never say that Russell would be even close to a dominant player in today's NBA. But he revolutionized the center position more than any player other than Mikan.
This is a very good post. There are remarkable similiarities between Garnett and DRob. Both were great athletes who never got beyond the WCF of the playoffs as the #1 options on their teams. Both have been called soft and unclutch. Both have struggled in the playoffs when guys like hakeem, shaq, TD, etc take their games to another level.Of course it takes good teams to win championships, and one player alone can't do it.
Of course taking one of the key parts of a championship team off of it probably prevent it from being a champion.
However, we CAN say that certain pieces are relatively more important than others.
We can also say that championships, along with wins during the regular season, prove which team was best that year. Now, the classic example is Wilt. Until he learned to dominate alittle less and help his teammates become better, he didn't win. His most dominant years are not the years he went all the way.
Furthermore,
there are teams that put you close enough to catch the ring, but then special players put their teams on their back and take it home, and I think those types of players deserve a special place in history. Hakeem did it in the playoffs. So did Shaq and Kobe. So did Duncan.
Its hard for me to put David ahead of Hakeem, for example, when I saw Hakeem drop something like 45 on him 3 games in a row on the way to showing him the regular season MVP was not the playoffs MVP. Of course, if Hakeem had much inferior regular season accolades and numbers, it would not be a fair comparison. But in fact they are similar in the points, rebounds and blocks that they had over their careers. Davids were better, but Hakeem was a better PEAK PERFORMER.
Like it or not, a big part of a player's legacy is taking it to that next level, and some great players don't do that when it really counts. David, for the most part, just didn't.
I didnt' watch Russell, but from what I understand he was an INCREDIBLE defender. I do understand that the game has changed significantly (its not that players have fogotten how to rebound, or are greatly inferior rebounders to the best players of the past, its that there are 30 less shots per game to rebound...). However, you also have to judge players against their contemporaries, and the closest players to Russell and Wilt in rebounding are 6 away!! That would be like the best players today rebounding about 13, and then Duncan walking in and averaging 19....It would be evident he was something special.
Hey, popularity isn't everything. Sometimes most of the people ARE wrong. And it is actually very difficult to parse out one player's impact on the game vs. another on their own team, much less players on a completely different team. But to try to put David in the Top 5 of centers, I believe, is not justified in terms of team success. He was never the best player on a championship team, as all of the other guys ahead of him (on the HOF monitor list) were.
If you want to look at peak season efficiency and stuff like that, Garnett should be in the same ballpark as David then. And you hate him, so reconcile that reality my friend.
Particularly when you look at DRob: Hakeem as KG: TD there are uncanny similarities.
Putting DRob in the top 5 all-time Centers only happens in a Spurs fan forum.
There's no logical way you can argue that he was a better player than Shaq, Hakeem, Wilt, Kareem, Moses, or Russell. He's at best #7 behind those but is surely a top 10 C of all time. Most neutral fans would rate him 7-10.
I would put him #7 behind that group....see, not all Spurs fans are homers like you believe.
Is this some kind of joke? Barkley and Pippen came to Houston when both were five years past their prime. This is absurd as saying "Dave played with Moses Malone" when Malone was in his twilight. Drexler came to Houston on his legs and got carried by Hakeem in the playoffs when hakeem was dropping 35-40 a night on drob and shaq in the conf and nba finals.
Hakeem got to the Finals 3 times as the #1 option, winning twice. Most of those years when u site as houston getting bounced in the first round were when they had lost Sampson and half the team to drug suspensions and were in rebuilding mode. In one of those series, hakeem averaged 39 ppg in the playoffs and they were still bounced, telling you how brutal his supporting cast was.
DRob never ever took the Spurs to the Finals as a #1 option. If Rodman was so bad, why did he win 3 les after his stint with the spurs and 2 les before with DET? He's a HOF lock and dave played with him at his peak. Elliott was a damn good SF, and an all-star caliber player. If the talent was the issue, SA wouldn't have won 60 plus games in 95.
Hakeem took a team with kenny smith and vernon maxell, 2 journeymen, to the Finals and won in 94. NO way would a DRob ever have pulled that off.
DRob's game went down several notches in the playoffs whereas hakeem's elevated and the stats clearly bear this out as did human eyes if you watched the one playoff battle between the 2 when both were at their athletic peaks.
No comparison between the 2 players in terms of all-time rank. DRob is clearly behind hakeem.
LOL. I would put him right at #7 as well. DRob was a great defensive player, had great quickness, a very good midrange jumper, and good overall bball smarts and court sense. There's absolultey no shame in being the 7th best Center in the history of the NBA. And he'd rank higher in a list of just defensive Centers.I would put him #7 behind that group....see, not all Spurs fans are homers like you believe.
One person who really gets underrated in these discussions in Moses Malone. The guy was a beast on the boards and down low and dominated Kareem in their matchups. Was dominant on a really good sixers team and took a weak Houston team to the Finals only to lose to the Celtics. A couple of MVP awards as well.
I don't know if its "several notches" but DRob's scoring went down 3pts (21.1 to 18.1) and his blocks went down half a block(3.0 to 2.5) from his regular season totals to his playoff averages. I think the supporting casts did have something to do with it come playoff time. SA had talent but others usually had more and when the Spurs did have more talent (91 against GS) they would get rattled very easily and could not recover. In 95 though...there was no excuse. The Spurs should have and could have won that series. Hakeem was awesome and was not going to be stopped but the Spurs supporting cast could have done more to their Rocket counterparts. The supporting cast of the Spurs lacked, IMO, the scrappyness and grittiness of the Rockets. The Spurs, I think, believed their own hype and I blame that on Bob Hill. He tried to hard to control Rodman and defense was not his forte....Houston was an outstanding defensive team and out worked the Spurs.
Um Bobby Joe...
So let me get this straight...When the Rockets lost...it was all due to teamates...while when they won...it was all due to Hakeem?
Got it.
Drexler was the same age as Olajuwon...32.
Barkley and Pippen were 33.
Moses Malone was 39.
Kenny Smith was a journeyman?
Not as much of one as Avery Johnson...if you doubt this then take a look at who started and who played back up when they both played for the Rockets(it's an easy year to find, because Hakeem didn't make playoffs that year).
And furthermore...Hakeem didn't win until his 10th year in the NBA...David Robinson had already had a basically a career altering injury by his 7th year in the NBA.
What those Rockets team had...that others didn't, was a talented group of 3 point shooters that set an NBA record for 3 pointers made in a season...which made it an unattractive prospect to double team Hakeem.
While David...had a PG that made exactly 1 playoff 3 pointer in his entire 18 year career.
Furthermore...
Hakeem also had a couple of guys named Robert Horry and Mario Elie...both of whom went on to get more rings than Hakeem...both of whom were reasons for it.
Or to put it another way...
Are you trying to say that you'd take Vinny Del Negro over Clyde Drexler?
Please say that.
And yeah...Rodman was great...he was just wasn't a scoring presence, still, it'd have been nice if he played in every game of that series...instead of being benched for 1 game for disciplinary reasons. It'd have been even nicer if he'd been the one guarding Olajuwon, or at least helping...since Olajuwon wasn't the only one guarding David.
In fact there was no truly threatening scoring presence on those Robinson teams other than Robinson...
Unless you want count Elliott...you remember him...he's the guy who missed the game winning FT's in game 1 of the 95 WCF...while his counterpart...Robert Horry, hit the game winner.
You know that Horry guy don't you? You should...because Fatass and rapist would have about 2 fewer rings without him...and Duncan probably would to.
What those other guys, including Duncan, had...that Robinson never did...was Robert Horry going off for 21 points in the 4th quarter of a playoff game...or hitting last second game winners. Or Derek Fisher shooting 70% from 3 point range...Sam Cassell going off for 30 points, off the bench....That kind of stuff...
What they had, what Kareem also had(in every le that he won)...was a great guard...
That year Hakeem and Drob met?
Hakeem had 2 of them, actually...he had 4 of them....not to mention Robert Horry.
Some day I want a Rocket Fan to explain to me how Hakeem was the one shutting David down when David averaged 16 FT per game in that series.
What Hakeem got...was 1 playoff victory over David...and asshwhupping for bascially the rest of the time they played....
What Shaq got..was a losing record against David...and an even record in the playoffs.
In short...
Robinson has a winning record
Against Hakeem
Against Shaq
Against Ewing
Before Duncan...what he didn't have was a team with large financial resources to put a winner around him...
And anyone that doesn't realize that, has a shallow understanding of the game.
Try watching this past years finals...maybe you'll start to get it.
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