Russell. In today's modern NBA he would have been able to switch onto anyone in the pick-and-roll, guard multiple positions, bang down low, defend the rim, handle the ball, catch lobs at the rim, etc. In other words, the perfect big for 2017. If he'd been born 20 years ago, he'd have been practicing the three point shot since he was little and who knows how that would have developed (they had no 3s in his day). Oh, and add in the fact that he was a vicious competitor and one of the great teammates of all time.
the perfect big that doesn't shoot the ball well from anywhere on the court? I've been one of the few that has consistently argued on this board that you don't need a 3 point shot as a big guy, but the vast majority think I'm crazy on that subject.
See bolded section above for your answer.
But you can't just assume that. Bill never learned how to shoot when he played (career 56% from the line). Why would he have done it today? Way more likely he is a Drummond/Jordan type player or a Ben Wallace before them.
Drummond/Jordan have career FT% below 40% (though Drummond so far this year has finally posted an above 60% rate ... so far). That's fundamentally a whole different tier than shooting 56.1%.
If you are looking for a modern analogy, imagine a Ben Simmons who scored about the same, dished about 60-70% as many assists, but grabbed 3 or 4 times as many rebounds and blocked 5 or 6 times as many shots each game. And was annually the favorite for DPOY.
I.E, if Ben Simmons were
several times better than he is right now, he might be Bill Russell.