Wilt & Kareem were monsters
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L2U4JSrpO78

Russell also had at least 3 other HOF players and as many as 6 HOF players on every one of his Title teams. Not saying he wasn't great but its not like he was doing it by himself. They never had to adjust for salary caps or FA either and as the richest team in the league could buy whatever players they wanted for the most part. You really only had a couple of teams that had even a remote chance of playing for the championship back then out of an 8 team league, the playoffs had 6 teams with the Celtics typically getting a bye out of the first round so they just had to win a Conference Final and the NBA Final.

Doesn't mean that 11 rings wasn't impressive, it certainly was. It just isn't remotely the same as winning 11 today.

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Not going to read this thread because this exact thread happens every year.

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Poor sport.

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Not going to read this thread because this exact thread happens every year.

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this

I still think that players should be rated as Pre-3 Point Line and Post 3-point line.

Kareem is the one all-time great that had incredible years on either side of it. Dr. J did too, but his were mainly ABA before.

Three-point line introduced for the 79-80 season, a couple years after the ABA joined the NBA. That was also Magic and Bird's rookie season. Seems like a good cut off point as the game was so different before and after. I don' think many of the old timers' games would have translated into the modern game. A few guys like Wilt, Pistol Pete and Russell probably would have (but remember that Russell was also only like 6'9 210lbs. He's going to get pushed around a lot by modern centers.

I don't believe that 210. Maybe very early in his career, but he looked like a pretty solid 240-250 by mid-career, which is about the same size as Serge Ibaka. Ibaka's not the defender and all-around player Russell was, but he's plenty big enough to defend most posts. Even Duncan is listed at 6'11 250.

[This message has been edited by Ulrich (edited 6/17/2014 2:25p).]

Even in his later years, Russell wasn't all that built. Cut? Sure. But not that big or bulky. I believe this shot was from his last season.

He looks about the size of Ibaka to me. In any case, modern nutrition and workout regimens would have put a few pounds on him pretty easily.

Training regimens that changed over time make it hard to compare guys separated by a significant number of years. Just because someone is slighter in build from 30-40 years ago shouldn't put them at a disadvantage. I think that it is a safe assumption that if they grew up under today's training systems they'd be a lot bigger and stronger. While you can't change height, if you put 30-40 more pounds on Russell it could drastically change things.

Edit...Ulrich beat me to it....

[This message has been edited by Texas A&M (edited 6/17/2014 3:20p).]

But bulking up may take away some of their quickness, too. Even putting 30-40 lbs of muscle on him, I have a tough time seeing him man up Dwight or Shaq.

The one that is scary is to think about what Wilt would have been like in a modern S&C program. I've heard that he dabbled in weightlifting, but more to show off than seriously working out.

[This message has been edited by Ulrich (edited 6/17/2014 3:31p).]

Yeah, the people that saw him said he was pretty much the greatest athlete ever. He had like a 7'8 wingspan and I think he went on to play pro volleyball after retiring from the NBA.

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2) Yes, you had a shorter road to the finals back then, but you were also likely to have to beat a more loaded team at some point. In his last year in the league the Celtics beat a Lakers team with Jerry West, Elgin Baylor, and Wilt. Many teams had multiple hall of famers. Is the Spurs having to beat Portland really an argument as to why Duncan is a better player? We measure them based on what they do against the best teams. Nobody gives a crap about the Bobcats. In fact you can argue that nowadays the Superstars scoring numbers are inflated because the talent in the league is diluted with 32 teams.

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can't tell if serious

I don't get the 8 team argument. If you took the top 100 players in the league and formed 8 teams, it would be much tougher to stand out. There would be no scrubs on the bench.

Also, I'm a Spurs fan, but Pop is the only reason Duncan is even in this discussion. Sure Duncan would have been good enough to make a few all star games, but he doesn't win 5 rings without Pop.

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I don't get the 8 team argument. If you took the top 100 players in the league and formed 8 teams, it would be much tougher to stand out. There would be no scrubs on the bench.

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Only they didn't just take 30 teams and draft them evenly onto 8 teams. The teams weren't evenly distributed. And most of the teams other than Boston were well under-funded. Boston had multiple all-time greats. Other teams really didn't.

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I don't get the 8 team argument. If you took the top 100 players in the league and formed 8 teams, it would be much tougher to stand out. There would be no scrubs on the bench.

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You're assuming there was a similar quantity of talent available at the time, too. What you had was a handful of teams, some of whom spent a lot of money to lock up multiple HOFers, and the rest were semi-pro where guys had to have jobs in the offseason to make ends meet. There wasn't a huge basketball culture and being an NBA star was not something most American males dreamed about at some point in their lives.

Y'all remember this?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SGa9ezemB3o

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Dream > kareem...Dream did things that Kareem wish he could have done on the court..To argue otherwise is foolish.

Plus Kareem played with All Stars on his team in LA

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Saying Hakeem had a better career than Kareem is absolutely the dumbest sports statement I have ever heard or seen.

(Never mind).

[This message has been edited by SA Ag (edited 6/21/2014 9:11a).]

Nice article about Tim.
https://medium.com/the-cauldron/the-best-player-since-jordan-3da47f9ca3e1