Most Overrated Athlete?

[hardlyyardley]

He lived off of John Stockton

[Who]

He lived off of John Stockton

I was listening to an interview by Anthony Mason the other day and he was talking about defending Karl Malone and how it was two completely different tasks to defend Malone when Stockton was in the game vs when Stockton was out of the game. 

Mason said it was no problem defending Malone without Stockton in there but very difficult with Stockton feeding him the ball. Stockton would get Karl the ball at the exact right time at the exact right place for an easier attack. It made it very hard to deny Karl. But when those passes weren't timed & placed to perfecion, Karl was much easier to contain. He was a comfortable defensive matchup.

He said they never worried about Karl when Stockton was out of the game. Only when Stockton was in the game. That was how much of a difference Stockton made to the Knicks defensive coverage of Malone.

[Roy H.]

He lived off of John Stockton

I was listening to an interview by Anthony Mason the other day and he was talking about defending Karl Malone and how it was two completely different tasks to defend Malone when Stockton was in the game vs when Stockton was out of the game. 

Mason said it was no problem defending Malone without Stockton in there but very difficult with Stockton feeding him the ball. Stockton would get Karl the ball at the exact right time at the exact right place for an easier attack. It made it very hard to deny Karl. But when those passes weren't timed & placed to perfecion, Karl was much easier to contain. He was a comfortable defensive matchup.

He said they never worried about Karl when Stockton was out of the game. Only when Stockton was in the game. That was how much of a difference Stockton made to the Knicks defensive coverage of Malone.

I wonder when Mason considered Stockton to be out of his prime, because as late as 2001 Malone was putting up 30 points double-doubles against Mace.

Stockton was a remarkably durable player.  Malone only played 22 games without him from 1989 until 1997.  Malone averaged 25.1 points, 10.6 rebounds and 3.6 assists on 52.4% FG% in those games.  His overall averages those years were 27.7 points, 10.9 rebounds, 3.5 assists on 53.2% FG%.  So, not much of a difference.

[kraidstar]

Wilt Chamberlain. It's completely laughable that modern day lists of the greatest basketball players in history put him above Russell. The folks watching basketball in the 1960s certainly didn't see it that way. The problem is that, these days it's a very individualistic era, and there is too much emphasis on individual play and not on how a player helps his team succeed. Hence the obsession with Chamberlain.

You mean the folks that voted Wilt as the 1st Team All NBA Center for 7 of the first 9 years in the 60's with Russell only getting the nod in 63 and 65.

I knew you'd come in to save the day

I have no issue if someone says Bill was better than Wilt, but when you spout off nonsense about how the players were viewed at the time, I will correct that.  The media of the time period, thought Wilt was better than Bill basically the entire time they overlapped in their careers.  To me, that says more than anything we can argue about now.

I don't particularly trust the media's evaluation of players. Look at the way they have elevated Kobe.

Sure, but the bold is what I was responding to.  That just isn't a true statement.  The folks watching in the 60's (and watching more than the normal fan) consistently voted Wilt ahead of Bill.  That is the exact opposite of that bolded statement.

Fair enough. I do think that matters to a degree. I also think a retrospective look at their achievements/ stats as part of a team/organization is important.

Tim Duncan comes to mind as Russell-like figure whose team contributions outweigh his stats and contemporary accolades.

IMO the two most important abilities in the game are defending the rim and being able to score against the very toughest defenses in key moments. There are tons of stats that track offense, but not many for D.

Both are essential to win championships, but there is more bias for the guys who put up numbers, which inherently skew towards offense.

The thing about Wilt is, he was an excellent defender as well.  The guys that have pieced together blocks from that era, have all said Wilt was a better and more prolific shot blocker than Bill.  It was estimated in his prime Wilt averaged around 8 blocks a game, while Bill was more in the 6 block a game range.  Bill was quite simply blessed to be drafted to the Celtics, which was a stable organization, with an excellent coach/gm, and several legit HOFers.  It took Wilt a long time to find that (perhaps some of that self inflicted) and I do think that contributed a great deal to their overall team success.

Blocks don't equal good defense. Hassan Whiteside was the NBA's block champion just 3 seasons ago.

Fun fact: KG, Tim Duncan, and Marc Gasol each never led the league in blocks, yet I'd have those 3 as the best defensive anchors of the last 20 years, with Bam Adebayo as the current best (though a healthy Timelord could be better).

But guys like Theo Ratliff have (twice). And Andrei Kirilenko, Bogut, Ibaka (twice).

Blocks don't take into account team defense, leadership, clutch play. Russell had those in spades. Wilt did not.

Wilt was the best raw talent in NBA history,  yet he defeated the Russell Celtics only once. Wilt's scoring numbers dropped precipitously in the playoffs (from career 30.1 to 22.5), and the C's in particular were able to make him seem mortal. In the 1969 Finals - Russell's last year - the C's held him to 11.7 ppg.

In the first half of his career Wilt was his team's primary option on offense. The second half of his career he became more focused on defense and passing, and he won two titles as a result. It's not shocking that team ball was more effective and harder to defend than stat-pleasing iso-ball.

One could argue coaching hurt Wilt's career - but Russell was a coach by his own merits and won two titles as such. One could also argue that Russell had better teammates. And, while this is true, the gulf is not nearly as large as some say - Wilt did play with 21 all-stars over his 13-year career, while Russell played with 29 in 13 years. Wilt had 10 HOF teammates, while Russell had 14.

So it's not like Wilt played with a bunch of stiffs.

And, when push cane to shove, Russell won when it counted. 10-0 in game 7s. (Wilt was 4-5). This cannot be overstated. In series where two teams were fairly evenly matched, Russell willed his club to win every single time. This alone is a remarkable achievement.

In the end Russell was Tom Brady and Wilt was Peyton Manning or Aaron Rodgers. Manning and Rodgers might have had more pure talent,  but their lesser leadership and weakness in clutch games hurt their title counts and their legacies.

[Moranis]

Wilt Chamberlain. It's completely laughable that modern day lists of the greatest basketball players in history put him above Russell. The folks watching basketball in the 1960s certainly didn't see it that way. The problem is that, these days it's a very individualistic era, and there is too much emphasis on individual play and not on how a player helps his team succeed. Hence the obsession with Chamberlain.

You mean the folks that voted Wilt as the 1st Team All NBA Center for 7 of the first 9 years in the 60's with Russell only getting the nod in 63 and 65.

I knew you'd come in to save the day

I have no issue if someone says Bill was better than Wilt, but when you spout off nonsense about how the players were viewed at the time, I will correct that.  The media of the time period, thought Wilt was better than Bill basically the entire time they overlapped in their careers.  To me, that says more than anything we can argue about now.

I don't particularly trust the media's evaluation of players. Look at the way they have elevated Kobe.

Sure, but the bold is what I was responding to.  That just isn't a true statement.  The folks watching in the 60's (and watching more than the normal fan) consistently voted Wilt ahead of Bill.  That is the exact opposite of that bolded statement.

Fair enough. I do think that matters to a degree. I also think a retrospective look at their achievements/ stats as part of a team/organization is important.

Tim Duncan comes to mind as Russell-like figure whose team contributions outweigh his stats and contemporary accolades.

IMO the two most important abilities in the game are defending the rim and being able to score against the very toughest defenses in key moments. There are tons of stats that track offense, but not many for D.

Both are essential to win championships, but there is more bias for the guys who put up numbers, which inherently skew towards offense.

The thing about Wilt is, he was an excellent defender as well.  The guys that have pieced together blocks from that era, have all said Wilt was a better and more prolific shot blocker than Bill.  It was estimated in his prime Wilt averaged around 8 blocks a game, while Bill was more in the 6 block a game range.  Bill was quite simply blessed to be drafted to the Celtics, which was a stable organization, with an excellent coach/gm, and several legit HOFers.  It took Wilt a long time to find that (perhaps some of that self inflicted) and I do think that contributed a great deal to their overall team success.

Blocks don't equal good defense. Hassan Whiteside was the NBA's block champion just 3 seasons ago.

Fun fact: KG, Tim Duncan, and Marc Gasol each never led the league in blocks, yet I'd have those 3 as the best defensive anchors of the last 20 years, with Bam Adebayo as the current best (though a healthy Timelord could be better).

But guys like Theo Ratliff have (twice). And Andrei Kirilenko, Bogut, Ibaka (twice).

Blocks don't take into account team defense, leadership, clutch play. Russell had those in spades. Wilt did not.

Wilt was the best raw talent in NBA history,  yet he defeated the Russell Celtics only once. Wilt's scoring numbers dropped precipitously in the playoffs (from career 30.1 to 22.5), and the C's in particular were able to make him seem mortal. In the 1969 Finals - Russell's last year - the C's held him to 11.7 ppg.

In the first half of his career Wilt was his team's primary option on offense. The second half of his career he became more focused on defense and passing, and he won two titles as a result. It's not shocking that team ball was more effective and harder to defend than stat-pleasing iso-ball.

One could argue coaching hurt Wilt's career - but Russell was a coach by his own merits and won two titles as such. One could also argue that Russell had better teammates. And, while this is true, the gulf is not nearly as large as some say - Wilt did play with 21 all-stars over his 13-year career, while Russell played with 29 in 13 years. Wilt had 10 HOF teammates, while Russell had 14.

So it's not like Wilt played with a bunch of stiffs.

And, when push cane to shove, Russell won when it counted. 10-0 in game 7s. (Wilt was 4-5). This cannot be overstated. In series where two teams were fairly evenly matched, Russell willed his club to win every single time. This alone is a remarkable achievement.

In the end Russell was Tom Brady and Wilt was Peyton Manning or Aaron Rodgers. Manning and Rodgers might have had more pure talent,  but their lesser leadership and weakness in clutch games hurt their title counts and their legacies.

I responded to your actual statement about defending the rim not defense in general, but Wilt's defense in general was also excellent.  Wilt wasn't the overall defender that Bill was, but Wilt was a still an excellent defender and he is the best shot blocker in the sport's history. 

I just disagree with your assessment that the Celtics and Warriors were evenly matched, they were not.  The Celtics were 7 HOFers deep, the Warriors had 4(and Arizin, Gola, and Rodgers were not the same class of player that Cousy or Sam Jones were, and then you had Heinsohn, Ramsey, Sharman, KC Jones on top of that).  Take that 62 series that went 7, Meschery (not a HOFer) and a rookie was the Warriors 2nd best player during that series (though Arizin was during the regular season).  In basically ever single game, Wilt had better stats across the board than Bill, but the Celtics won because Cousy, Jones, and Heinsohn were the 3rd, 4th, and 5th best players in that series.  Gola only played 4 games that series as well.

It wasn't until the Sixers in 66, when Wilt was joined by Cunningham that he finally had a running mate at least on par with what Bill had in Boston.  66 was Cunningham's rookie year, by Cunningham's 2nd year in 67 the Sixers were the greatest team in the sports history to that point (they had Greer and Walker as well).  Cunningham got hurt and didn't play in the 68 playoffs and they lost to Boston.

[Walker Wiggle]

This is an awesome thread, thank you. I think the eagerness of people here to pump up Wilt (or, for that matter, Karl Malone) are proving my original point: modern day fans care a lot about flashy stats and relatively empty regular season achievements, and not the question: Was this a winning player?

Why do I believe that Russell's value in the eyes of fans has faded, and Wilt's brightened, as time has passed? Because, on the 35th anniversary of the NBA in 1980, Bill Russell was voted as the greatest player in the history of the league. Wilt was selected as the 2nd string center.

I'm not saying Wilt wasn't dominant. He was unimpeachably unstoppable. But basketball is about winning alongside 4 other players, and seen in that context, Wilt simply did not do that the same way as Russell did. You know that the Lakers coach refused to put Wilt back into the game in game 7 of the 1969 finals, right? Can you imagine Auerbach or Phil Jackson ever having a similar thought about Russell or Jordan in a game 7? This should tell you something.

On Karl Malone, it's the same deal. He was a dominant regular season player, and a 2x MVP. But when he finally met up with Jordan's Bulls in the finals, there was no question who the better player was. The Bulls were not "a better team". Jordan was an absolutely ruthless competitor and an elite winner, and Malone was not, a fact that was clear to anyone with eyeballs.

[Roy H.]

This is an awesome thread, thank you. I think the eagerness of people here to pump up Wilt (or, for that matter, Karl Malone) are proving my original point: modern day fans care a lot about flashy stats and relatively empty regular season achievements, and not the question: Was this a winning player?

Why do I believe that Russell's value in the eyes of fans has faded, and Wilt's brightened, as time has passed? Because, on the 35th anniversary of the NBA in 1980, Bill Russell was voted as the greatest player in the history of the league. Wilt was selected as the 2nd string center.

I'm not saying Wilt wasn't dominant. He was unimpeachably unstoppable. But basketball is about winning alongside 4 other players, and seen in that context, Wilt simply did not do that the same way as Russell did. You know that the Lakers coach refused to put Wilt back into the game in game 7 of the 1969 finals, right? Can you imagine Auerbach or Phil Jackson ever having a similar thought about Russell or Jordan in a game 7? This should tell you something.

On Karl Malone, it's the same deal. He was a dominant regular season player, and a 2x MVP. But when he finally met up with Jordan's Bulls in the finals, there was no question who the better player was. The Bulls were not "a better team". Jordan was an absolutely ruthless competitor and an elite winner, and Malone was not, a fact that was clear to anyone with eyeballs.

Malone wasn't as good as Jordan, so that means he's not a winning player?

[Somebody]

Wilt Chamberlain. It's completely laughable that modern day lists of the greatest basketball players in history put him above Russell. The folks watching basketball in the 1960s certainly didn't see it that way. The problem is that, these days it's a very individualistic era, and there is too much emphasis on individual play and not on how a player helps his team succeed. Hence the obsession with Chamberlain.

You mean the folks that voted Wilt as the 1st Team All NBA Center for 7 of the first 9 years in the 60's with Russell only getting the nod in 63 and 65.

I knew you'd come in to save the day

I have no issue if someone says Bill was better than Wilt, but when you spout off nonsense about how the players were viewed at the time, I will correct that.  The media of the time period, thought Wilt was better than Bill basically the entire time they overlapped in their careers.  To me, that says more than anything we can argue about now.

I don't particularly trust the media's evaluation of players. Look at the way they have elevated Kobe.

Sure, but the bold is what I was responding to.  That just isn't a true statement.  The folks watching in the 60's (and watching more than the normal fan) consistently voted Wilt ahead of Bill.  That is the exact opposite of that bolded statement.

Fair enough. I do think that matters to a degree. I also think a retrospective look at their achievements/ stats as part of a team/organization is important.

Tim Duncan comes to mind as Russell-like figure whose team contributions outweigh his stats and contemporary accolades.

IMO the two most important abilities in the game are defending the rim and being able to score against the very toughest defenses in key moments. There are tons of stats that track offense, but not many for D.

Both are essential to win championships, but there is more bias for the guys who put up numbers, which inherently skew towards offense.

The thing about Wilt is, he was an excellent defender as well.  The guys that have pieced together blocks from that era, have all said Wilt was a better and more prolific shot blocker than Bill.  It was estimated in his prime Wilt averaged around 8 blocks a game, while Bill was more in the 6 block a game range.  Bill was quite simply blessed to be drafted to the Celtics, which was a stable organization, with an excellent coach/gm, and several legit HOFers.  It took Wilt a long time to find that (perhaps some of that self inflicted) and I do think that contributed a great deal to their overall team success.

Blocks don't equal good defense. Hassan Whiteside was the NBA's block champion just 3 seasons ago.

Fun fact: KG, Tim Duncan, and Marc Gasol each never led the league in blocks, yet I'd have those 3 as the best defensive anchors of the last 20 years, with Bam Adebayo as the current best (though a healthy Timelord could be better).

But guys like Theo Ratliff have (twice). And Andrei Kirilenko, Bogut, Ibaka (twice).

Blocks don't take into account team defense, leadership, clutch play. Russell had those in spades. Wilt did not.

Wilt was the best raw talent in NBA history,  yet he defeated the Russell Celtics only once. Wilt's scoring numbers dropped precipitously in the playoffs (from career 30.1 to 22.5), and the C's in particular were able to make him seem mortal. In the 1969 Finals - Russell's last year - the C's held him to 11.7 ppg.

In the first half of his career Wilt was his team's primary option on offense. The second half of his career he became more focused on defense and passing, and he won two titles as a result. It's not shocking that team ball was more effective and harder to defend than stat-pleasing iso-ball.

One could argue coaching hurt Wilt's career - but Russell was a coach by his own merits and won two titles as such. One could also argue that Russell had better teammates. And, while this is true, the gulf is not nearly as large as some say - Wilt did play with 21 all-stars over his 13-year career, while Russell played with 29 in 13 years. Wilt had 10 HOF teammates, while Russell had 14.

So it's not like Wilt played with a bunch of stiffs.

And, when push cane to shove, Russell won when it counted. 10-0 in game 7s. (Wilt was 4-5). This cannot be overstated. In series where two teams were fairly evenly matched, Russell willed his club to win every single time. This alone is a remarkable achievement.

In the end Russell was Tom Brady and Wilt was Peyton Manning or Aaron Rodgers. Manning and Rodgers might have had more pure talent,  but their lesser leadership and weakness in clutch games hurt their title counts and their legacies.

I responded to your actual statement about defending the rim not defense in general, but Wilt's defense in general was also excellent.  Wilt wasn't the overall defender that Bill was, but Wilt was a still an excellent defender and he is the best shot blocker in the sport's history. 

I just disagree with your assessment that the Celtics and Warriors were evenly matched, they were not.  The Celtics were 7 HOFers deep, the Warriors had 4(and Arizin, Gola, and Rodgers were not the same class of player that Cousy or Sam Jones were, and then you had Heinsohn, Ramsey, Sharman, KC Jones on top of that).  Take that 62 series that went 7, Meschery (not a HOFer) and a rookie was the Warriors 2nd best player during that series (though Arizin was during the regular season).  In basically ever single game, Wilt had better stats across the board than Bill, but the Celtics won because Cousy, Jones, and Heinsohn were the 3rd, 4th, and 5th best players in that series.  Gola only played 4 games that series as well.

It wasn't until the Sixers in 66, when Wilt was joined by Cunningham that he finally had a running mate at least on par with what Bill had in Boston.  66 was Cunningham's rookie year, by Cunningham's 2nd year in 67 the Sixers were the greatest team in the sports history to that point (they had Greer and Walker as well).  Cunningham got hurt and didn't play in the 68 playoffs and they lost to Boston.

6 HoF teammates when multiple players in that group would've never even come close to the hall without Russell - KC Jones was a terrible offensive player who got playing time because he was a good defender in the mould of say Patrick Beverley (but with an inaccurate set shot instead of a decently reliable jumpshot), Heinsohn was an average defender who had severe shot selection issues (he only had one season in his career where he shot above league average efficiency) while Ramsey was quite similar (doesn't seem to be a great defender, shot chucking combined with the mystique of his role as the sixth man of those Celtics teams overstated his offensive impact). As influential as they have been for our club as coaches and human beings, they were not moving heaven and earth for us as players - they were major beneficiaries of winning bias.

Sharman, Cousy, Havlicek and Jones were certainly very good players, but they peaked at different times: Sharman fell off as soon as the 60s arrived while Cousy retired after Havlicek's rookie season, meaning that Russell was never really playing with more than 2-3 All-Star level teammates at once. This was actually the norm for teams back then, check out Wilt's notable teammates from his rookie season to '65:

'60 and '61 - Paul Arizin (volume scorer who was actually efficient), Tom Gola (two-way combo guard) and Guy Rodgers (KC Jones but with actual PG chops instead of looking worse than old Russell on offence). I'm not sure how this was notably worse than Russell's casts in these years: Arizin is arguably the best offensive player out of the lot while players like Gola and Rodgers are immensely valuable from being able to provide value on both ends of the floor unlike some of the one-way specialists the Celtics had.

'62 - down years for the aforementioned three (Arizin even retired after this season) and the brilliance of Wilt carried them to the finals, but it wasn't like Russell was just matching Wilt's team achievements with a better supporting cast: the '62 Celtics were over 8 points better than the rest of the league and almost 6 ahead of Wilt's Warriors thanks to Russell peaking around this period of time.

'63 - Gola and Rodgers have strong bounceback years (Meschery was a bizarre selection - his defence was certainly nice, but his offence was not good at all), but the Warriors have a mediocre season despite the support not being terrible (it was certainly worse than that of the teams that finished above the Warriors, but you would expect someone who's supposed to be the best player in the league to somewhat narrow that gap).

'64 - Rodgers continues chugging along, Meschery finally looks like a decent player on offence and Nate Thurmond turns into one of the best big men in the league after Russell and Wilt (he took Hightower's place in the starting lineup as the season progressed and had the third most MPG in the playoffs on the team). The result? A finals berth where they were utterly outclassed by Bill Russell's Celtics, who still outclassed them by two and a half points in regular season point differential and beat them convincingly in a finals matchup on the back of a defence that was over ten points better than league average (their offence was more than 4 points worse than league average, so much for those 6 HoFs ).

Now we get to the fun part in '66, '67 and '68 when Wilt got on an absolutely loaded team in the form of future ABA MVP Billy Cunningham, Sam Jones' rival in Hal Greer and the oft-underrated Chet Walker who would lead darkhorse title contenders in Chicago later on. The results? Russell bested him in '66, lost in '67 and had mixed results in '68 (the Celtics had a worse RS finish, but compensated for that with a strong +2.7 net rating in a bloodbath of a playoff run - the Lakers inflated theirs by beating up on a 29 win team in the second round and a middling Warriors team in the WCF).

This isn't to say that Bill Russell was leaps and bounds better than Wilt Chamberlain - I personally think that Wilt's '67 campaign from Alex Hannum's coaching bested any year Russell had with a combination of strong offence and all-time great defence. But to say that Wilt was the better player by far is simply wrong when Russell had a much more stable career by being a peerless defender year after year while Wilt struggled to balance his scoring with playmaking early on and ended up going too far in the opposite direction as he aged.

[Moranis]

Who said Wilt was by far better?

[Somebody]

This is an awesome thread, thank you. I think the eagerness of people here to pump up Wilt (or, for that matter, Karl Malone) are proving my original point: modern day fans care a lot about flashy stats and relatively empty regular season achievements, and not the question: Was this a winning player?

Why do I believe that Russell's value in the eyes of fans has faded, and Wilt's brightened, as time has passed? Because, on the 35th anniversary of the NBA in 1980, Bill Russell was voted as the greatest player in the history of the league. Wilt was selected as the 2nd string center.

I'm not saying Wilt wasn't dominant. He was unimpeachably unstoppable. But basketball is about winning alongside 4 other players, and seen in that context, Wilt simply did not do that the same way as Russell did. You know that the Lakers coach refused to put Wilt back into the game in game 7 of the 1969 finals, right? Can you imagine Auerbach or Phil Jackson ever having a similar thought about Russell or Jordan in a game 7? This should tell you something.

On Karl Malone, it's the same deal. He was a dominant regular season player, and a 2x MVP. But when he finally met up with Jordan's Bulls in the finals, there was no question who the better player was. The Bulls were not "a better team". Jordan was an absolutely ruthless competitor and an elite winner, and Malone was not, a fact that was clear to anyone with eyeballs.

Malone wasn't as good as Jordan, so that means he's not a winning player?

No, both are winning players. Malone just had the 'misfortune' of being stuck with really good casts that weren't quite elite enough to give him an overwhelming chance to win the title unlike Jordan had in his second three-peat, and a few bites at the apple in the years where Jordan wasn't running roughshod over the league can very easily go up in smoke if you aren't lucky (e.g. the Jazz had a real shot at winning a title during that little 2-year stretch in the middle of the 90s, but things can get rough when you bump into a high variance shooting team that plays historically good defence in both of those years).

[Somebody]

Who said Wilt was by far better?

My apologies for misreading your posts then. I do think that public perception then was a bit more mixed than you would like to claim - the 1970 MVP was a Russell facsimile because some people back then felt that playing a team-oriented defensive style brought more value than a volume-scoring heavylifting mode of play. So while the players all felt that the player who put up the gaudy numbers was better, there was a real contingent of basketball 'purists' who believed that Russell's success in varying situations throughout his career was proof of Russell being the superior player.

[ChillyWilly]

JJ Reddick

[Roy H.]

Did I just see Somebody suggest that Tommy Heinsohn wouldn't have been a Hall of Famer without Russell?  Those are fighting words.

[Walker Wiggle]

This is an awesome thread, thank you. I think the eagerness of people here to pump up Wilt (or, for that matter, Karl Malone) are proving my original point: modern day fans care a lot about flashy stats and relatively empty regular season achievements, and not the question: Was this a winning player?

Why do I believe that Russell's value in the eyes of fans has faded, and Wilt's brightened, as time has passed? Because, on the 35th anniversary of the NBA in 1980, Bill Russell was voted as the greatest player in the history of the league. Wilt was selected as the 2nd string center.

I'm not saying Wilt wasn't dominant. He was unimpeachably unstoppable. But basketball is about winning alongside 4 other players, and seen in that context, Wilt simply did not do that the same way as Russell did. You know that the Lakers coach refused to put Wilt back into the game in game 7 of the 1969 finals, right? Can you imagine Auerbach or Phil Jackson ever having a similar thought about Russell or Jordan in a game 7? This should tell you something.

On Karl Malone, it's the same deal. He was a dominant regular season player, and a 2x MVP. But when he finally met up with Jordan's Bulls in the finals, there was no question who the better player was. The Bulls were not "a better team". Jordan was an absolutely ruthless competitor and an elite winner, and Malone was not, a fact that was clear to anyone with eyeballs.

Malone wasn't as good as Jordan, so that means he's not a winning player?

Nope, not what I was saying. Rather, I was trying to say that if you watched those Finals series, you saw that Malone too easily wilted in the spotlight and under the immensity of the moment. He was not able to elevate his game. It was severely juxtaposed against Jordan. But I wouldn’t put Malone in the same category as other all-time greats who truly elevated their teams and rose to meet the moment. I’m sure I’m not the only one on here old enough to have watched those Finals series and can attest to this!

[Who]

Did I just see Somebody suggest that Tommy Heinsohn wouldn't have been a Hall of Famer without Russell?  Those are fighting words.

Yeah, I've wondered about that myself. Ultimately, I decided Heinsohn probably would've been a HoFer without Russell.

KC Jones & Satch Sanders certainly would not have been though.

Not sure about Ramsey.