Jordan was overrated?

[gusmahler]

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Russells teammates where def better. However Bills work ethic, outlook on the game, competitiveness and leadership were second to none. This is something I value extremely high as my number one pick.

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First of all, if you think "work ethic, outlook on the game, competitiveness and leadership" are so important, how can you possibly have Russell over Jordan? Was Jordan not competitive enough or did he not work hard enough? He wasn't enough of a leader?

Second, do you think that Wilt lacked competitveness or work ethic? Do you think you can lead the league in rebounding almost every year of your career and not be a competitive person? Do you think you could average 50 points per game if you weren't competitive.

Third, I don't want to harp on statistics too much, because everyone already knows that Wilt blows Russell away for stats. But I thought this was interesting. Wilt led the league in rebounding every full year of his career except two. Those two years were 63-64, where he averaged 36.9 points and 22.3 boards, and 64-65, where he averaged 34.7 points and 22.9 boards. Those two years, Russell had 15.0/24.7 and 14.1/24.1. Is there any GM in the world who would take 14/24 over 35/23? How about Russell's best year: 18/24. That same year, some rookie averaged 38/27.

[Taraz]

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sevenhigh, don't get me wrong- I love what Russell stood for. But he had 4 other HOFers on his team and perhaps the greatest coach of all time. You can't dismiss how much that helps and how much that makes him look like a "winner."

FWIW Wilt had the 4th highest PER of all time at 26.12. Russell was #97 with a PER of 18.87.

Pretty shocking thought: Shareef Abdur Rahim, Stephon Marbury, Cedric Ceballos, Zydrunas Ilgauskas, Zach Randolph, and Terrell Brandon all have better career PERs than Russell.

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Russell's biggest impact was on the defensive end. PER doesn't account for defense, especially since blocks and steals weren't recorded back then.

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Wilt wasn't exactly too shabby on defense. I can't remember what the exact stats are were when Wilt played Russell, but I seem to remember they were pretty lobsided.

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I wasn't arguing that Russell was better than Wilt. I was just saying that PER doesn't really capture Russell's contribution to a basketball team.

[MCS]

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I never hear anyone claim Jordan is underrated. So what does that leave? Does everyone assess his skill completely accurately?

Or is it maybe--just MAYBE--possible that he's not better than Jesus? Maybe he's the best ever, but not completely in a different world? Is there any way that someone could ever possibly be compared with him?

Could he maybe be the best ever AND overrated?

This forum has a high concentration of people who don't think, but just spout off strongly worded proclamations.

Also, people who have opinions like "If you are one of the 14 who said MJ was overrated then you suck at life" are generally bad at arguing. Maybe you guys are exceptions. *shrug*

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I've got Jordan taking it to the house against Jesus 11-2 in a ball game

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No way. Jesus is actually favored!

From Pinnacle:

Jordan +1.5 -108
Jesus -1.5 -108

Jordan +120
Jesus -130

Anyway, I'm in the US so I can't bet it, but I like Jesus big, like for 3 units on both the spread and the moneyline.