Celtics greatest all-around players

[Somebody]

Went back and looked at some stats for Russell.

Consider this line from 1961-62 -- 18.9 ppg, 23.6 rpg, and 4.5 apg. In the playoffs he bumped that up to 22.4 ppg, 26.4 rpg, 5 apg. There was no DPOY awarded back then, but he would have won it.

Impossible to compare lines across eras, but that is incredible.

Too bad the rebounds don't translate.  Take them away and his numbers are ok.

You can do that to any player. Take Bird's points away and he's only OK.

And don't forget that Russell was also the best defensive player of his era, and excelled at the things that aren't easily measured.

EDIT: I looked at rebounding numbers and now I see what you mean. Last year, the number of rebounds per team per game was about 4/7 what it was in 1962.  If we adjust Russell’s rebounds by about that amount (and also knock off a point because there was more scoring in that era) you get roughly 18 ppg, 13.6 rpg. Hardly shabby, but not as eye-popping as 23.6 rebounds/game.

yeah I've long argued that Rodman was by far the greatest rebounder ever. BY FAR.  It frankly isn't even really a discussion for me. That said many of the arguments in favor of Rodman can also be used for Wilt's scoring and Oscar's passing.  All 3 just dominated the league in those categories like no one else.

My only issue with that is that Wilt and Oscar filled a stat sheet. Rodman was a beast rebounder, but at times made absolutely zero effort to do anything else on the court. How many rebounds would Wilt have gotten (or Russell, or KG, or Bird), if they abandoned everything else on offense but rebounding?

Rodman was also maybe the best defender of his era. He wasn't much for shooting and passing for sure, but he was a high-effort guy pretty consistently til he started melting down late in his career.

A certain Nigerian big man scoffs at that. And that's only talking big men

You mean the most overrated center of all time in Hakeem "in convo for GOAT C" Olajuwon? Rodman was definitely a better defender than Hakeem, he could defend the interior at an elite level and also guard the periemeter as well as anyone could.

Haha, wow. Not going to dignify that one

Meh, Rodman was a special rebounder and clearly an elite defender, so it’s not thattttt crazy.

As for the claim that Hakeem was overrated, I think he was. Most consider him the second-best player of the 90’s after Jordan. Yet most advanced stats say David Robinson was better. So maybe it’s more that David Robinson was (criminally) underrated, but history is kinder to Hakeem and I’m not entirely sure why.

Hakeem started younger and finished older yet stilk finished the same or better than Robinson in every major statistical category.  Hakeem led multiple teams to the Finals and was clearly the best player on every single one of them. Hakeem has the extra DPOY.  More all star games, more all league teams, more MVP shares, etc.  Hakeem was absolutely better than Robinson

Starting younger and finishing older means more time to pad stats so yeah he's obviously "as good as or better in every statistical category", ntm having more time to stack up on the accolades. And yeah "leading" a pretty good team to the finals when the best team of the decade had its leader go off to play baseball and every other team was diluted by expansion drafts.

per game, not totals.  starting younger and finishing older diminishes your per game totals, thus making it more impressive.

Hakeem led the Rockets to the Finals in the 80's as well as the 2 wins in the 90's (mind you neither Robinson nor Hakeem played in the Bulls East so they didn't have to go through Jordan to make the Finals in any of those seasons). 

And Hakeem's Rockets were the only team that played the 6 title winning Bulls teams even.  There is a pretty good chance that the Rockets beat the Bulls, if the Bulls even made it those 2 seasons (that first team was burnt out and aging, no guarantee they would have continued to win at that level - the 2nd 3 peat only had Jordan and Pippen from the first 3 peat).

I disagree with starting younger diminishing your in game totals, especially in the 80s. Players usually start in the NBA at the ages of 21 or 22 back then, so it wasn't a bunch of teenagers versus grown men (or at least not as severe as nowadays, where you see 19 year old kids match up against full grown men), allowing rookies to be stars right off the bat. Moreover the Admiral started at a very late age of 25, depriving him of the much needed experience you could pick up in your developmental years if you started out as a young adult in your early 20s, so one could argue that his prime stats were a bit deflated due to him needing to adjust on the fly, which imo evens out the disadvantages of Hakeem still playing when he was at an older age. And Hakeem had Ralph Sampson playing with him, who imo was 1B to his 1A. I certainly don't agree that he was the leader when a frontcourt player of similar caliber at the time was playing with him. I'll agree with you that the Bulls were slowing down a bit and would've likely lost to the Rockets though.
Edit: apologies for the broken English.

[Big333223]

fwiw, basketball-reference doesn't have TRB% data for the NBA until 1971, so Russell was retired and Wilt was over the hill. But since 1971 six of the top ten TRB% seasons are owned by Dennis Rodman, including the top spot.

The only other player with multiple seasons in the top ten is Andre Drummond (#5 and #10).