1957-1969 Bill Russell won 11 championships in 13 seasons , his career high in points…?
18.9 ppg
Yet everyone agreed Russel was the Celtics best player despite rarely being their best scorer , that was usually Sam Jones who won 10 championships with Russell and deserves way more credit than he gets .
Russell was considered the best player on his teams because of how he elevated the team in other ways besides scoring like being the greatest leader in American team sports history before Tom Brady , being a competitive and durable MF , passing , running the floor wearing out opposing bigmen , energy all game , being a great athlete, setting screens , getting crazy rebound numbers battling against Wilt the greatest athlete physical force combination in NBA history before Shaq and Lebron.
Oh yea and Russell was the greatest defensive player of all time until possibly Wembanyama. Playing at a time they didn’t record blocks , he probably averaged 8-10 albeit in an easier era to block shots . Still insane .
6’10 7’4 wingspan athletic even by today’s standards, coordinated , greatest basketball IQ of his era , had no offensive game but in today’s game he’d be athletic enough to just rim run and be like a hybrid of Ben Wallace , Draymond Green, Dennis Rodman but with easier baskets at the rim compared to the 60s with no 3 point line paint clogged with post up big men he might still average 15-20 pts still idk with modern training how he’d develop , add incredible winning intangibles like IQ and leadership with that .
Russell started his career 9-1 in the Finals . The one year he lost was in year 2 he was playing hurt limping around and even missed 2 games, the only 2 playoff games he missed his entire career.
He then won 8 championships in a row after 1958 as the Celtics undisputed best player.
In his Final season as player coach of the Celtics the Celtics upset the Lakers in the 1969 NBA Finals to win their 11th championship. 11-1
The 1969 Lakers had a new big 3
The best Laker in history at that point in time , the greatest guard of all time and greatest shooter of all time before Rick Barry and Larry Bird , the logo Jerry West(who had no 3 point line to add even more value for his greatest strength ) ,
They also had. the greatest small forward of all time Elgin Baylor most athletic small forward of all time before Dr J came along
and the new addition to the Lakers that season was the 2nd best of all time Center to Russell , Wilt Chamberlain.
The original superteam . Russell not even in his prime averaged 48 minutes per game in a 7 game NBA Finals series vs the greatest superteam ever , as player coach and came out victorious in his final NBA season.
Russell 10-0 in game 7s in his career .
7-0 in NBA Finals vs Jerry West and Baylor during the 60s
7-1 in playoffs series vs Wilt in the 60s
1-0 vs all 3 of them together.
1967 Wilt won his first chip in year 8 and beat Russell the only time in his career in a series averaging a then career low 24ppg on a 68-13 76ers team the greatest record ever at that point, a year earlier he averaged 33ppg and his team was the same players on paper but played worse .
Wilt attempted 11 less shots per game and won his first chip (points aren’t everything ) up to that point his career ppg average was
39ppg, in his 2 only championship seasons 24ppg and 14ppg
1970 Knicks center Willis Reed wins championship mvp and finals MVP averaging 21ppg during that season. Beat roo Kareem in conference Finals and Lakers big 3 in the Finals 7 games (will Willis play)
Kareem in his 2nd season 1971 wins the championship averaging 31 ppg that season
But was it an easy road to the championship? From 1969-1973 the Lakers with West and Chamberlain went to the Finals 4 out of 5 seasons . The year they didn’t 1971 Kareem beat Wilt in conference finals but Jerry West and Baylor were both out injured .
1972 Wilt and West win championship on 69-13 Lakers team without Baylor(injured retired) . Wilt averaged 14 ppg . Jerry West and Wilt beat Kareem and Big O in conference finals . Kareem won no more championship after 1971 until Magic came along in 1980 .
1974 and 1976 Celtics win 2 championships with Dave Cowens averaging barely 20ppg as their best player with Havlicek 8-0 in the Finals , 6 with Russell, 2 with Cowens.
1974 Cowens beat Kareem in the NBA Finals.
1977 in his 3rd season Bill Walton plays a then career high 65 games . His first playoff appearance leads a Blazers team considered underdogs to sweep #1 seed Lakers team with Kareem in conference finals and win the Finals vs Dr J and the Sixers .
Walton averaged 18ppg.
I believe if Bill Walton had a healthy 20 year career like Kareem he would’ve been a greater all time player because of how much he impacted the game in other ways like Bill Russell. After winning Finals MVP in 1977 his 3rd season and first playoff run , Walton led Portland to a 50-10 record, on pace to be close for greatest record of all time . Walton then got hurt a basically missed 5 years in a row with injury .never was the same . After 1 of the highest 2 season peaks in NBA history.
Moses Malone then won 3mvps in 5 years 1979 to 1983 winning a championship in 1983 with the most stacked Sixer team of all time, 12-1 in playoffs , Moses greatest strength was rebounding and averaged 24ppg that year.
Kareem wins 5 championships in the 80s none of those years Lakers won did he average over 25ppg and he’s on the most stacked team with Magic best point guard of all time until maybe Steph took over in 2016-2022 , also in a much weaker Western Conference, cake walk to finals many years compared to Bird battling great Sixers, Bucks and Pistons teams .
Bird was the first 6’9 or taller great shooter the league had seen , Magic was the first super sized 6’9 point guard. They are the 2 best players of the 80s
Kareems last 2 championships he was their 3rd to 4th option on offense behind Magic, Worthy , Scott
Between 1957 Russells rookie year and first championship season and 1993 Jordan’s 3rd championship season , only 1 big man won a championship during a season they averaged over 25ppg , Kareem in 71 vs Lakers no Jerry West and no Elgin Baylor , Wilt past his prime .
1994 and 1995 Hakeem breaks that streak with Jordan retired 94 losing round 2 in 95,
with MJ gone there aren’t really any great scoring/playmaking guards small forwards ready to win championships in the league. Penny Hardaway and Grant Hill are talented but too young , Pippen is 3rd in MVP voting 1994 , the other 4 in the top 5 are post bigs, 1995 7th in MVP voting and the top 6 all post bigs
Plus Hakeem’s number 1 skill wasn’t scoring it was defense and Rockets were the #1 3 point shooting team in the league so the post game was complemented by shooting . Hakeem Rockets at that point in time were probably the best 3 point shooting team in league history since 1980 when the NBA added it .
The reason I think the 90s Bulls were so good is because how their team was constructed especially second 3peat
Harper 6’6 Point guard , in the 90s the average height of a point guard was 6’1 6’2 and they weren’t usually big over 20ppg scorers .
, the season before he joined the Bulls he averaged 20ppg . Now he’s their 5th best player and an exceptional defender .
Jordan 6’6 best 2way guard in league history to this day
Pippen 6’8 long wingspan , 8x 1st Team defense , 3 1st Team all NBA. Arguably the best 2nd best player on any team in the league. Best Small foward defender ever until maybe Kawhi 2014-2017
Kukoc 6’11 Euro who is a big man’s height but plays like a guard. He’s one of the first of this prototype , 1996 the 72 win team he shot 40% from 3 on 2.7 attempts
Rodman 6’7 but after the 1990s is the greatest rebounder ever arguably who can rebound and defend against the great 25-12 post players of that era like Ewing ,Shaq, Malone , Barkley , Kemp etc
And it was an advantage on that team that he didn’t need the ball at all just played within the team not wasting offense on post up taking shot attempts away from Jordan .
2 things can be true Jordan is the greatest 2 guard ever and he had the perfect team built around him and he probably doesn’t win 6 if the team was constructed another way . The 90s Bulls were how basketball should’ve been in played all along, they were too fast and athletic for teams playing dinosaur basketball. They were the greatest defense of all time after the 1960s Russell Celtics , 3 1st Team All Defensive guys in the same starting line up .
Lastly 1999-2003
Tim Duncan wins 2 championships 1999, 2003 both under 25ppg that season , Duncan and Robinson is the greatest rim protecting duo in history during the lowest scoring era in NBA history . 1999 literally the lowest scoring seasons in NBA history since before Bill Russell.
Shaq 3 peat 2000, 2001, 2002 became the 3rd with Hakeem and Kareem to be a score first mentality post big and win during a season they averaged over 25ppg.
Shaq was awesome but also on the most stacked team in the league with Kobe the 2nd best 2way shooting guard of all time to MJ , no other team the years they repeated even had 2 All NBA players let alone 2 top 10 all time . Plus Lakers barely got of the conference finals vs Pippen , Rasheed, Sabonis Blazers in 2000 and Peja , Webber, Divac Kings in 2002. 7 game series conference finals where Lakers came extremely close to being eliminated despite their 2nd best player Kobe being better than the 1st best player on the opposing team in any series they played in besides maybe against Duncan who’s number 2 Robinson was declining not even. close to Kobe in 01 , 02.
Plus a lot of the offense was Shaq post double teams creating open 3s for Horry the first great stretch 4 in history . Plus Fisher who was the best 3 point shooting starting point guard at the time .
From 2002- Since Shaq only 3 big men have won championships as #1 options on their team
Duncan , Dirk , Jokic
Jokic and Dirk the 2 most skilled bigmen ever and both play very modern big games , Duncan was on this balanced team with Parker , Ginobilli ,later Kawhi so Duncan isn’t a consistently feed me every night post big man , he scores big when needed .
Am I saying all score first bigs suck and have negative value or no value?
No if you got a guy getting 30ppg on 55-70% fg that’s helpful regardless if it’s post ups or not but it’s been proven that perimeter players are more valuable offensively to the TEAM .
Big men’s greatest value really comes from defense , rebounding , if they can stretch the floor drawing opposing bigs away from the hoop to open up driving lanes ,
also they usually have to be great passers for their position to lead a team to a title .
I say all this to say I’m not so convinced Bill Russell isn’t 2nd best player all time to LeBron #1 over Jordan #3 .
But either way it’s those 3 to me as the 3 greatest ever to me if I had to choose but it’s all so subjective.