Best Big Men to Ever Play the Game

[rubbrband]

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I can't believe I'm getting sucked into this, but fine....

Where do you rank Bill Russell among all time big men then?

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I would guess somewhere low top 10 and this is heavily weighted on his championships and MVPs. Sad thing is there are no stats for rebounds blocks and steals in his era. No one doubts that he was high in assists and blocks but this doesn't make up for his weak offensive #'s.

[Assani Fisher]

Ugh, I just don't have it in me to debate this. I'll let someone else have a go at it. Maybe I'll chime in later.

[gusmahler]

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btw rubbrband,

Taking account eras into consideration, do you realize that in 1958 Russell was second in the league in FG% with only 45%? Or the year before he was 3rd with 44.2%? Or hte year before that he was 5th with 42.7%?

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Wilt's WORST year was 46.1%. Russell's BEST year was 46.7%.

[rubbrband]

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btw rubbrband,

Taking account eras into consideration, do you realize that in 1958 Russell was second in the league in FG% with only 45%? Or the year before he was 3rd with 44.2%? Or hte year before that he was 5th with 42.7%?

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Wilt played in the same era and put up big numbers.

[gusmahler]

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I can't believe I'm getting sucked into this, but fine....

Where do you rank Bill Russell among all time big men then?

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I would guess somewhere low top 10 and this is heavily weighted on his championships and MVPs. Sad thing is there are no stats for rebounds blocks and steals in his era. No one doubts that he was high in assists and blocks but this doesn't make up for his weak offensive #'s.

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They do have assist stats for his era. He was pretty good. But of the 10 common years that he and Wilt played, Russell was higher in 6 of the years in assists per game.

For rebounds, Russell had a higher RPG 2 of the 10 years.

For FG%, Russell had was higher in one year. (Of the other 9 years, he was never closer than 4.9 percentage points).

Russell was never higher in PPG or PER. In fact, Wilt had twice as many PPG 8 of the 10 years.

IMO, you can't seriously consider Russell even close to Wilt when Wilt was doubling his scoring output almost every year, while exceeding his rebound rate almost every year.

That said, saying Russell sucked compared to Wilt could be like saying Gehrig sucked compared to Ruth. True--but misleading. (IOW, Gehrig was quite clearly a great player, but not as good as his teammate, the greatest of all-time. It's possible that Russell was also great, just paling in comparison to Wilt).

[Mano]

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I can't believe I'm getting sucked into this, but fine....

Where do you rank Bill Russell among all time big men then?

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Put Wilt on those Celtics teams, they win the same # of championships. Maybe more. Put Russell on the Warriors--does the famous "winner" make them into a championship team?

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So rank him behind Wilt. Russell any lower than #3 is not correct. He was the best player on ELEVEN NBA championship teams.

[gusmahler]

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I can't believe I'm getting sucked into this, but fine....

Where do you rank Bill Russell among all time big men then?

[/ QUOTE ]

Put Wilt on those Celtics teams, they win the same # of championships. Maybe more. Put Russell on the Warriors--does the famous "winner" make them into a championship team?

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So rank him behind Wilt. Russell any lower than #3 is not correct. He was the best player on ELEVEN NBA championship teams.

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So you'd put a career 15/23 guy with 0 championships at #3?

(In case my point wasn't clear: I think Russell is possibly overrated because of the championships. In the hypo, I switched Russell and Chamberlain's teams. Boston would still win all those championships, but Russell wouldn't. So is Russell #3 if he never won anything?)

[Assani Fisher]

Trying to rank player we never saw and going by stats is just silly imo. You simply have to go by the wisdom of the people that did see them play- obviously you won't get as good of an analysis of them as you would a modern day player that you personally saw, but its the only thing you can do. I've never heard from a hardcore NBA fan from teh 60s that doesn't think Russell is one of, if not the, best ever. That should tell you something.

[MEbenhoe]

I think right now I'd rank them as:

1. Wilt
2. Kareem
3. Shaq
4. Russell
5. Robinson
6. Hakeem
7. Garnett
8. Duncan
9. Moses
10. Ewing

If I was gonna rank them in groups it would look like

Group 1
Wilt

Group 2
Kareem, Shaq, and Russell

Group 3
Robinson and Hakeem

Group 4
Garnett and Duncan

Group 5
Moses, Ewing, Karl Malone, and Mikan

I fully believe that if he stays healthy Yao will work his way somewhere into groups 3-5. I don't really see any other current NBA big man working their way up to that level.

[Mano]

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I can't believe I'm getting sucked into this, but fine....

Where do you rank Bill Russell among all time big men then?

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Put Wilt on those Celtics teams, they win the same # of championships. Maybe more. Put Russell on the Warriors--does the famous "winner" make them into a championship team?

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So rank him behind Wilt. Russell any lower than #3 is not correct. He was the best player on ELEVEN NBA championship teams.

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So you'd put a career 15/23 guy with 0 championships at #3?

(In case my point wasn't clear: I think Russell is overrated because of the championships. In the hypo, I switched Russell and Chamberlain's teams. Boston would still win all those championships, but Russell wouldn't. So is Russell #3 if he never won anything?)

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Russell played against Wilt in a lot of those championships. Fact is Russell DID win eleven. 23 boards per game is pretty damn impressive, and may merit you top 5, winning 11 championships and 5 MVP's in addition to the boards and defense (just a sick shot blocker, dominated games defensively) gets you into the top 3. You think Boston wins all those championships with Robinson?