Holy ****

http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/ncaab-the-dagger/case-hadn-t-heard-bill-russell-pretty-good-004150534--ncaab.html

BEAST MODE.

He would do fine in today's game.

Great athlete, great competitor, great defender, but seriously overrated by many. Russell was a career 40% FG as a center!

Sorry, but if you aren't a guy your team can go to in the clutch, you're not among the greatest players of all time.

Cool highlight though!

Impressive athleticism. Doesn't really show much though. Not knocking what he's accomplished, but it's hard to make assumptions like that based off of one clip.

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Great athlete, great competitor, great defender, but seriously overrated by many. Russell was a career 40% FG as a center!

Sorry, but if you aren't a guy your team can go to in the clutch, you're not among the greatest players of all time.

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First, Russell was a career 44% shooter, not 40%. Second, that was a different era. The NBA season FG% leaders were routinely in the mid 40s to low 50s for the majority of Russell's career. It wasn't until the last 3 years of his career that NBA shooting percentages really shot up.

Context of the era is important, but my point still stands that Russell was not a "go to" offensive player.

Great player for sure, but when people say they would take him over Wilt it's comical.

They didn't dunk then like they do now. That lowers your fg%. If you can dunk, you do.

They didn't dunk then like they do now. That lowers your fg%. If you can dunk, you do.

I was talking about this with a few guys in the office today, and none of us could really agree on why the FG%s were so much lower when Russell played.

We looked it up and there's not much agreement on the internet, either. But there was a lot of commentary that the quality of the places these guys were playing (poorly lit, cold, hot, damp, warped floors) and the quality of the balls (sometimes lopsided, not standard) affected the shooting quite a bit.

Russell was greatness, mainly for his D and rebounding.

But Wilt was the Man. He had the O too.

I was a Kareem fan. His sky hook was always money. Except when he played against Wilt. Check out the 2 min mark of this. Nobody could block Kareem's sky hook...except Wilt that is.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8xr3i9jpiTE

I believe the average number of possessions per team per 48 minutes was around 125 in 1962. That number is now around 90. With an extra 35 possessions per game per team and horrific shooting percentages, it appears as though teams were just jacking up bad shots as quickly as possible. That explains why the scoring, rebounds, and assists were so ridiculous during that time. Elgin Baylor averaged 38 ppg despite shooting 42% from the floor. Wilt was jacking up 39 shots and 17 free throws per game (compared to Kobe's 20 shots and 7 free throws).

[This message has been edited by Seven Costanza (edited 2/27/2013 1:18p).]

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I was a Kareem fan.

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Count me in the Kareem camp as well. He is my choice for GOAT at center and if you consider college careers in addition to NBA he might me the GOAT period.

He was a pretty good actor too.

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Wilt was throwing down 39 shots

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FIFY

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Wilt was throwing down 39 shots

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Wilt was performing 39 money shots. FIFY

^
Jerry West called BS on Wilt's claims in his recent autobiography. Said Wilt was as socially awkward as they come.

In the multiple threads that have been done on our great players or greatest starting 5, I generally put Kareem as the center because of how great his career was, and to me, longevity is a critical factor when evaluating greatest of all time.

Assuming he started the day he turned 17, that would be one woman a day until he was 44.

Like most male texags posters, I don't think I would want to cut down to just one woman a day.

3,367 points scored (44.2 ppg) in 3 seasons at LSU, still an all-time record

Had he played in the 3 pt era, it's been calculated based on shot charts from actual games that he would've averaged 57 points a game.

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Assuming he started the day he turned 17, that would be one woman a day until he was 44.

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It's quite a bit more than that. His claim was 20,000 women. Assuming he started at 15 and stopped at 55(when the claim was made), that's 40 years, so 500 women per year, or 1.36 women per day, or 1 new woman every 17.5 hours for 40 consecutive years.

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Had he played in the 3 pt era, it's been calculated based on shot charts from actual games that he would've averaged 57 points a game.

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Not applicable. They would have guarded the three with vigor had they been available.

So 57 would be more like 45 (which is still amazing) as they wouldn't have given him those shots if they were worth more.

Say

It goes both ways..... Guarding that far out (which they did anyway) would have opened up the middle which was probably the best part of his game....
Also, he would have taken more shots out there and LSU would have set up more plays to get him open.

His last year in the NBA was the 1st year with the 3.. He shot 67%.

IMO... He would have averaged closer to 60 than 50.