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... considering a) of the people we have voted for here, only Wilt (once), Oscar (twice), Iverson (twice), and Kareem (twice) failed to make the playoffs in injury-free seasons during their prime, and b) could you imagine a scenario where Lebron or Jordan fail to make the playoffs in their mid-20s??

Yes. In addition to those mentioned, Kevin Garnett, at the height of his powers and right after reaching the WCF, failed for 3 years to make the playoffs. He had bad teammates in a strong conference.

In 1987, age 23, Jordan was robbed of the MVP in his 37 ppg season. His 16.9 WS not only led the league, they were more than Magic (the MVP) or Bird would ever get in a year.
The Bulls made the playoffs as the 8 seed at 40-42.

In 2008, LeBron was 23 and led the league with 30 ppg. The Cavs were the 4 seed in the East with 45 wins and an SRS of -0.53
Out West, the Blazers had SRS of -0.52 and were 10th in the standings. The 8 seed Nuggets were 4.2 ppg better than the Cavs.

As for Kareem, his '75 Bucks missed the playoffs with a +0.25 SRS; over in the East, the Knicks got in with -0.91
The '76 Lakers missed on an even bigger fluke. They were 40-42, their SRS was 3rd best in the West; but they were 4th in the Pacific Division. The Pistons were 2nd in the Midwest, so got in at 36-46.
They don't do it like that any more.

Strangest of all that season, the Bucks won the Midwest with a 38-44 record -- same record as the year before, when they had finished last.

The Iverson voter still perplexes me. I don't think I could fully buy any logical argument that places him among this crowd.

Personally, looks like my votes meshed with the 3 others who have voted so far, largely. Real tough omission for me was Stockton, who just was so dominant at counting stats,.. however, I feel as though there was extreme score keeping bias (given his main 2 stats, assists and steals, are highly subjective) and although he was still basically all star quality as a 40 yr old, his raw peak just wasn't that impressive.

Lack of Utah success can pretty much be attributed to Jordan. The 97-98 team was likely the greatest to never ring; they'd be favorites in most years. They just happened to run into the greatest team of all time.

Stockton also was arguably never the best player on his team, as his and Malone's careers were so coincident.
But if you think his assist numbers were jacked up, I beg to differ. His home and away numbers were less biased than most, relative to Jazz' FG.
It still could be, I suppose, that scorekeepers around the league were all happy to give him more assists; that just seems a tad unusual.

Magic's assists were jacked up; Nash's were not. I have these numbers somewhere.

Yeah, Iverson. One motivation to do these rankings is to scrape off all the hype. After Iverson won MVP, he met the de-facto by-far-most valuable player in the Finals. I wondered what all the Iverson boosters thought at the time.

Which brings us around to why so many great players of the Jordan era, then the Shaq era, did not win titles. It was pitiful watching MVP's meet these guys in the playoffs and get demolished by the real m-v-p.

Mike G wrote:

jbrocato23 wrote: There is an added difficulty in evaluating pre-1970s players using individual stats because the information we have is so limited.

Agreed. I've seen Russell ranked out of the top 20 by some 'advanced stats', so I have felt OK with him ~ top 10 by my numbers.

But that same limited information makes us guess as to what his personal impact is on a team. The Celtics weren't like other teams. The '69 version was a shadow of their early '60s juggernaut.

In a given year, OReb% and TO% may vary by 20% among teams. Turnover differential -- I don't know how to search for this -- would have an even greater range.
The early-60s Celts were so dominant, even with their subpar FG%, that it's possible or likely they stretched those limits by quite a bit. Russell may have been the great O-Rebounder of his day, but the TO disparity might have been as great or greater an advantage, and mostly others' doing.

Whether one assigns to other Celtics more offensive or defensive credit, they were apparently highly skilled, relative to their contemporaries: They got all-league and all-star berths. Ball handling is a pretty basic skill through which to gain an advantage.

Mike, it's not exactly clear to me why you aren't fully engaging the argument. The fact is that team possessions can be estimated with sufficient precision to subsequently address many of the questions that are on the table, regarding the role of Bill Russell in the Celtics' success.

Again, to estimate possessions, the only piece that is missing from the formula is TO minus OR. This difference is necessarily a very small fraction of total possessions, and we know the remaining terms "exactly". In 1973-74, the first NBA year where these data are shown, as stated, the NBA average of the ratio of (TO - OR)/Possessions is 0.05 with a range of about 0.025 (IIRC). So, for my fake data (related above) I chose 1.03, on the (rational) belief that, if nothing else, a Bill Russell team was pulling down (proportionately) more offensive rebounds than the average team.

Might this ratio have been significantly lower, implying an offense that was more efficient and a defense less so, thereby suggesting (at the macro level) that there was more to the Celtics' success than just Russell, the defensive specialist? Yes, it is possible, but wildly implausible. You have to go all the way to the 1981-82 season, for example, to find the first team (Houston) where TO equals OR.

But even then, to diminish the centrality of Bill Russell, the argument would then have to be that it wasn't more ORs that lowered the ratio because that would obviously largely redound to the offensive credit of Russell, changing the story a bit but not the conclusion. Instead the just so story would have to be that across the entire dynasty, with different ball-handlers throughout, the Celtics were simply amazingly consistent at not turning the ball over (and furthermore such that none of the credit for this could be attributed to Russell). As such, and only as such, can you tell the story that maybe a bit of the Celtics' superiority owed to offense that couldn't be also credited to Russell. And such a story is wildly implausible. (And as if to corroborate, those 1981-82 Rockets, they led the league that year in offensive rebounds.)

And finally a few comments on the claim that it was the early 1960s Celtics teams that were the juggernaut years of the dynasty. This is to a certain extent true, but basically misleading when it comes to the issue of appraising the central role of Bill Russell in the team's success. Per my assumptions (and cherry-picking the end years to make the early 1960s look the best possible), this is what I calculate as the average "ORtg - DRtg" for the three "phases" of the dynasty. For the early years, 1957-59: +4.5. For the glorious, middle six, 1960-1965: +5.9. And finally for the end of the era, 1966-69: +4.6.

Two things leap out from these numbers. First, as noted, the middle years were the best. But second, there wasn't much difference between the three phases at all. And more generally, the Celtics, though having achieved a dynasty that will never be repeated, weren't historically dominant in terms of this most conventional measure. (But that is opening up a can of worms I am not intending to open.)

The larger point, for the question at hand, is that looking at this average net rating obscures the absolutely central role that defense (i.e. Russell) played in generating the team's success. I mentioned previously how it was the life cycle of Celtics/Russell defense that tracked/defined the Celtics success, and here are the numbers that illustrate it. DRtg compared to the NBA average, 1957 to 1969: 3.1, 3.5, 4.0, 4.3, 6.3, 6.9, 7.1, 9.6, 8.0, 5.3, 3.1, 2.7, and the anomalous 5.0 in the final year. Perhaps a bit clearer than the truth, but probably not much.

Agreed that he dominated the league's guards for a decade.

perhaps you should reread the above:

- at 6-5 shot better overall (55.8% ScFG%) than anyone in the league - not just better than all guards but better than all players.

i.e. he shot higher/better than every C, PF, SF, SG, and PG, despite being just 6-5 in height. he dominated everyone in the league - scoring, shooting, passing...

But he never reached the Finals, much less won there, in that first decade in the league.

so what? michael jordan did not win a finals until he was 28 years of age. up and through the age of 27 was he not a great player, one of the very best of all-time, simply because he hadn't reached the finals? up and through the age of 27 what guard in league history was better than michael jordan?...

lebron james did not win a title until his 9th season in the league. robertson did so in his 11th season. both did it on teams that they did not spend the majority of their careers with. what's the difference? was james not a great player in cleveland?...

Oscar's exact contemporary Jerry West eclipsed him at the end. He also enjoyed more regular playoff success. This was partly just due to being in the west -- away from the Celtics, until the Finals.

west played the first 10 years of his career (60-61 to 69-70) along side elgin baylor, considered in the mid-60s as one of the top 5 players in league history, a player all-nba 1st team 10 seasons, and a player who in their first 8 years together actually outscored west per game, 28.4 to 27.7 pts/g. when that 10 year stretch was up, baylor was the nba's 2nd all-time leading scorer (next to chamberlain)...

robertson never played alongside a player the caliber of baylor until he went to the bucks at the age of 31, and that bucks team then wins the title - that first year - with the (at the time) 2nd best regular season record in league history...

To the person who didn't vote for Shaq or Olajuwon and the two people who didn't vote for Duncan: please explain.

...that there was more to the Celtics' success than just Russell, the defensive specialist? Yes, it is possible, but wildly implausible.

Honestly, I can't follow much of the logic there.
Let's look at who played minutes in the height of the Celts' dynasty, 1960 thru 1965: This is everyone who played 1500 minutes in the 6 years. They're pretty clearly divided (with Naulls somewhere else) between Defensive players and Others. These 'others' may or may not have been above average on defense, but they also did more than their share on offense.

Russell played about 42% of those "Defensive" minutes.
If he was really responsible for all the Celts' defensive advantages, why did those non-scorers play so much alongside him?

he shot higher/better than every C, PF, SF, SG, and PG, despite being just 6-5 in height. he dominated everyone in the league - scoring, shooting, passing...

I wasn't aware that "dominated" was defined by shooting and passing.
Here are annual MVP votes from the Oscar Robertson Era:Oscar was consistent, to be sure. I count 11 players who in one or more seasons were voted as more "most valuable".

west played the first 10 years of his career (60-61 to 69-70) along side elgin baylor, considered in the mid-60s as one of the top 5 players in league history,...

robertson never played alongside a player the caliber of baylor until he went to the bucks at the age of 31,

Well, I was referring also to individual playoff success, insofar as how their stats translated from their regular seasons.
Baylor and West were like the Malone and Stockton of their time, in that they seldom had any teammate that you could call above average; and they never could win a title.

Oscar, from 1961 thru 1969, was in 39 playoff games for Cincinnati.
In that time, his avg PER was 25.3 in RS and 24.1 in PO
His WS/48 is shown as .227 for RS and .197 in PO.
These are both rather normal declines from RS to PO.

West, in the same interval, had his avg PER go from 22.6 in RS to 24.2 in PO.
His WS/48 was .213 in RS and .229 in PO
These were and remain some of the best-ever po/rs, over so many playoff games and minutes.

Looking for 9 players to fill out the top 15, twice that many have received one or more votes.
For full disclosure, I'm displaying my rankings for these players.Oscar looks like the most "overrated" according to MG. I am the only one of six who hasn't voted for him. He played huge minutes in a hugely stat-inflated time. When inflation hit and pickings were easy, he was pretty much spent.

My highest ranked players with no votes:
Nowitzki 19
Pippen 20
Ewing 23
Wade 24
Stockton 25

I can't see how anyone thinks Duncan or Malone is not top 15. A couple of players who could hardly have done more.
Well, they didn't lead 2001 Philly to the Finals.

Mike, for some reason I am now strangely optimistic that we can reach a common understanding, if not agreement. How I am approaching this matter is from the most general +/- perspective: seeing how the Celtics performed over time, both offensively and defensively, both before and after the Russell tenure, and trying to draw the most reasonable inferences from the information at hand, both statistical and "anecdotal" (e.g. Russell was understood to be a great defensive player, but on offense, not so much.)

If you do this, the clear picture you get is as has been described:

(1) Coincident with Russell's arrival and departure, the Celtics took a discrete and large step up and down in defensive performance.
(2) Team defensive performance approximates the typical arc of a player aging curve.
(3) Team offensive performance throughout the dynasty was strictly mediocre and showed no obvious correlation with the passage of time.
(4) Bill Russell was the only constant of the era.

From these facts, Occam's razor sez to me that, yup, it really was "all" Bill Russell. Now, by this I absolutely do not mean that there weren't other great players on the Celtics during their run. For relatively recent years, where the empirical record is fullest, it is clear that no NBA team has ever won a championship without more than one well above average player. So it was likely with the Russell-led Celtics.

What I am stating, however, is that it is very likely that Bill Russell's +/- profile fully "explains" the Celtics' performance in each and every year of the dynasty. Specifically, I am supposing that his overall "true" +/- (were it known) would be approximately equal to or larger than the overall Celtics ORtg - DRtg. And second, that this would also be true for the defensive component in each and every year.

Do we agree?

But responding to your specific points, you raise the issue of why the Celtics would dedicate so many player minutes to apparent non-scorers if these players weren't also providing value on defense. And my answer is now as expected. I am not saying that in a +/- world that other players on the Celtics weren't positive contributors. To the contrary, and a pretty good guess could be made as to who those were. Similarly, I am not saying that there weren't positive contributors on offense. In assembling a team you do the best with the talent pool that is available.

What I am saying is that whatever the other positive contributions on defense, when summed with the negative ones of other teammates, they were incidental to team defensive success (i.e. Russell's contribution was sufficient). And I am also saying that on offense, the positive contributions, summing with the negative ones (what quite probably included those of Bill Russell), averaged a bit less than zero over the dynasty.

And nothing I write should be considered that controversial. To make the matter less abstract, let's consider the NBA champion most akin to the Celtics dynasty in its prime, as previously alluded to, the 2004 Detroit Pistons. There you had the defensive anchor, a specialist, whose +/- contributions fully "explain" the team's success. Using Jeremias' numbers, Ben Wallace's contributions, prorating for minutes played (what approximates possession weights), were -0.8 on offense and +7.6 on defense, essentially equalling the team difference from the NBA averages of -0.9 and +7.5.

But on that team as well were several good to great defensive players. Rasheed Wallace, who should be in the HoF one day on the merits but probably won't, came in at the end (hence limited minutes) and brought 0.6, Elden Campbell and Mehmet Okur also didn't play major minutes but their contributions were positive (0.5 and 0.4). However, these defensive contributions were cancelled out by the greater minutes played by the likes of Richard Hamilton (-1.3), Corliss Williamson (-0.6) and Chauncey Billups (-0.5). (And I am not stipulating that these particular contributions are "exact".)

But this is not to pick on Chauncey. He too is HoF worthy, and almost surely will be a first ballot inductee. If not for him and his +2.4 on offense, Detroit would have been in big trouble. Still, on net, Detroit's offense was mediocre, just as was the Celtics, averaged over Russell's 13 years.

So, I hope my argument is now clear. The Celtics dynasty was the Russell dynasty. And on the same terms the 2004 Pistons is owed to (accounted for by) Ben Wallace alone.

jbrocato23 wrote:To the person who didn't vote for Shaq or Olajuwon and the two people who didn't vote for Duncan: please explain.

Not picking Oscar is far worse. 3 for 6 on West is out there as well. Only 1 vote for Baylor and for Moses is strange too.
I have Duncan as my 16 so just missing, Hakeem at 20 and Shaq at 27.
I understand people seeing things differently, but if they didn't see those guys it is hard to understand how great they were.
A computer spitting out numbers isn't going to explain Elgin Baylor. At forward only Bird was better for me. Julius was close to Elgin and now LeBron is making it real interesting.
Pettit is right there behind that group. I get others not picking Havlicek or Barry, but Elgin doesn't make sense to me. He was amazing just as LeBron is now.
My two cents.

Mike G wrote: I can't see how anyone thinks Duncan or Malone is not top 15. A couple of players who could hardly have done more.
Well, they didn't lead 2001 Philly to the Finals.

Well, Malone was my 15th pick but I couldn't vote for him since voters have chosen Lebron for me. LeBron comes right after him. As for Duncan I really think he's one of the most overrated players in NBA history. He would eventually take a spot in my top 20 but not in my top 15. Whether it's RAPM, WS, ASPM, PER, championships or anything else, whatever. My eyes don't agree with it. His performance is steady more or less through the years but like I said before, I give more credit to players' prime and his peak isn't enough to join into top 15. His prime surpasses Tracy McGrady's only because of T-Mac's playoff performance. So there are my reasons. Any top-15 big-man in his prime would demolish prime Duncan.

And Iverson deserves a spot there since my eyes believe he was the most talented player in NBA history. His size, work ethic etc. limited him, still 2001 Finals alone should be a good reason to include him in the list. BTW, no I'm not a Philly fan. I don't even live in USA.

You should trust your eyes more than you give credit for.

Need To Argue wrote: Not picking Oscar is far worse. 3 for 6 on West is out there as well. Only 1 vote for Baylor and for Moses is strange too.
I have Duncan as my 16 so just missing, Hakeem at 20 and Shaq at 27.
I understand people seeing things differently, but if they didn't see those guys it is hard to understand how great they were.
A computer spitting out numbers isn't going to explain Elgin Baylor. At forward only Bird was better for me. Julius was close to Elgin and now LeBron is making it real interesting.
Pettit is right there behind that group. I get others not picking Havlicek or Barry, but Elgin doesn't make sense to me. He was amazing just as LeBron is now.
My two cents.

Your 60s-70s bias is getting absurd. Shaq at 27? What? Did you see Shaq play from 95-03 (and esp 00-01)?? He was completely unstoppable. And riddle me this: how can you have West and Baylor both ahead of both Shaq and Kobe when West and Baylor played together on the Lakers for 11 seasons (i'm not counting '72 for obvious reasons) and won exactly zero titles when Shaq and Kobe played together on the Lakers for 8 years and won 3?

Look, I love NBA history. I watch as many old games as I can find. I've seen Baylor and West (and Hondo, Barry, etc) play, they were great. But they weren't as good as you're making them out to be. How is it that neither West nor Baylor ever won an MVP (and Baylor only finished 2nd once....Havlicek's best finish was 4th btw)? It just doesn't make sense to me in voting for the best players of all time how you can just brush of players with track records of extreme success who were the obvious primary drivers of that success (Shaq, Duncan, Olajuwon) in favor of players with much much less success AND worse stats.

permaximum wrote: As for Duncan I really think he's one of the most overrated players in NBA history. He would eventually take a spot in my top 20 but not in my top 15. Whether it's RAPM, WS, ASPM, PER, championships or anything else, whatever. My eyes don't agree with it. His performance is steady more or less through the years but like I said before, I give more credit to players' prime and his peak isn't enough to join into top 15.

Any top-15 big-man in his prime would demolish prime Duncan.

You should trust your eyes more than you give credit for.

I'd strongly encourage you to go watch the 2003 playoffs again.

Yeah I remember 2003 playoffs. David Robinson, Tony Parker, Stephen Jackson, Ginobili, Bowen and Steve Kerr's 3s... That prime Duncan deserves a spot but Iverson with Snow, Mckie and Mutombo doesn't deserve a spot? Yeah.... 2001 lakers would have swept that 2003 spurs. Shaq was unstoppable and I don't even talk about Kobe. Shaq is a good example of how a top-15 big at his prime plays like.

LeBron and Duncan are good examples of statistic chart monsters. They definetely belong to greatest players of all time list but they're not on the same level with Jordan, Chamberlain, Magic.

Funny note: RAPM is the best metric in theory and this is what we get. LeBron's RAPM doubles Jordan's... There are a lot of players who have better RAPM values than Jordan's. His highest is 5.5. Lebron's 11.9.