The Athletic is doing a countdown of the top 75 players all time.
Top 10:
10. Kobe
9. Duncan
8. Shaq
7. Bird
6. Wilt
5. Magic
4. Kareem
3. Russell
2. Lebron (just listed today)
1. Jordan (will announce tomorrow)
Seems about right to me. Not sure who else I'd put in there. Oscar? Hakeem? Durant? Thing about Kobe is that he was pretty inefficient, but his usage was so high we get a little blinded by his numbers. I think Durant should be considered top 10 when his career is finished.
anti-Celtic bias as well as recency bias at its finest.
1. Russell --> 11 titles in 13 years. enough said though I will add that his detractors that point to lower scoring stats for him ignore the fact that he didn't need to score more and did all the dirty work to win titles. those that detract from him saying he had better teammates ignore that his ability to do the dirty work and drive the team to victory enabled his teammates to look better than they were.
2. Wilt --> greatest individual player ever
3. Bird --> did stuff that no one did on the court nor has done since he retired. end of career could have gone better but he was magnificent in his prime
4. Jordan --> less titles than Russell, not the scorer/rebounder/passer that Wilt was, could not do what Bird did on the court. won 6 titles in a watered down NBA in the 90's. NBA really ramped up the star treatment by officials for him primarily after Bird and Magic retired.
5. Magic --> 5 titles on a stacked team. Epitome of a PG that could run an offense and take over a game to carry his team to a win.
(I go back and forth on Jordan and Magic between 4 and 5)
6. Kareem --> incredible scorer, passer, rebounder and defender.
7. Oscar --> averaged a triple double before it was even a thing in a tougher time to do it. incredibly under appreciated talent
8. Shaq --> pains me to put him this high because he really benefitted from the Jordan treatment. Lots of foot shuffling and offensive fouls that went uncalled or called against the defender. lessens his standing in my eyes
9. Lebron --> greatest player of his generation. unbelievable endurance in his career. even with 4 titles, he underachieved in my eyes. thrived thanks to being given the star treatment to the Nth degree. Lessens his standing for the same reason it lessens Shaq's.
10. Olajuwon --> this is the really tough pick for me. between Hakeem, Duncan and West. Duncan has more titles but Hakeem got to 3 finals, including one in the 80's breaking up the run the Lakers had of championship appearances, and 2 where he dragged 2 underwhelming rosters to the title in back-to-back years between the Bulls title runs in the weak 90's. due to the inferior talent on his title teams and his incredible talent, I give him a slight edge over Duncan's stable if unspectacular talents (not saying Duncan wasn't incredibly talented but 'spectacular' isn't an adjective used with Duncan)
not sure I'd put Kobe in top 20-25 either. just another inefficient gunner that had the luxury of playing with Shaq to get 3 titles and with Pau Gasol to get 2 more. Kobe wasn't the most impactful player on any of the title teams.
I know people on this site will kill me for this but, I find your opinion that Jordan's 6 titles are discounted because he was in a watered down league, but Russell's titles aren't tainted in any way.
The first 9 titles Bill Russell won was in an 8 or 9 team league.
Jordan's 6 titles were in a 27+ league team.
It's a lot easier to dominate a tiny league where player movement is next to non-existent as well as "regional" draft picks that dedicate players from a region to a specific team, than it is to win in a 27+ team league that has unrestricted free agency and salary cap restrictions.
For that reason, I always consider Jordan's 6 titles on the same par as Russell's 11.
