In his four best seasons with the Red Sox' Dick Radatz (6'6" - 230 pounds) appeared in 270 games....out of a possible 648.
He pitched 540 innings
He struck out 608 batters (1964 -struck out 181 batters MLB record)
He saved 98 of those games
He didn't pitch in "every other game" but close enough.
The concept of an "iron man" is sports in long gone.
Ripken played in 2632 consecutive games.
Jim Marshal played at defensive end for 282 straight games for the Browns and the Vikings.
In times gone by players of this "type" were highly valued.
Lebron has played in 43 games this season but, in the past has been highly durable.
Russell - career
Regular season 963
Playoffs 165
13 seasons - that is an average of 86.7 games a year
They didn't have the medical technology in the past. Guys played through pain as they were afraid they'd lose their $18,000 a year "job" playing basketball/football/baseball if they took a game off.
It was a different world...it was not "better", just different.
I mean all those guys you listed are extreme outliers...
I know the average NBA career is pegged at 4 and a half years by the conventional wisdom, but you
could go through the archives and figure out whether the "iron men" of the nostalgia-sprayed past actually wound up playing for longer than their modern day contemporaries.
This is what I could find on a quick google, but it's about 10 years old at this point (analysis through the '10-'11 season)
https://weaksideawareness.wordpress.com/2011/11/22/average-nba-career-length-for-players-details/And it would appear, indeed, that the average NBA career would be trending upward.
You could probably have a fun afternoon with Python figuring out whether players are playing more minutes/games by era*, as well.
*You'd have to control for expansion teams, changes to the CBA, and so on, of course.