The later teams were more legitimately stacked, but were facing opposing teams that were also much more stacked (late era Wilt played with Greer/Cunningham/Walker or West/Baylor for example). Their best player, Havlicek, was a terrific defender but again, ever for his day he was a below average shooter. He didn't develop his on the ball game until the team needed him to carry it and just wasn't a great shooter for the catch and shoot, work without the ball style he focused on in the 60s. KC Jones was another great defender but had virtually no offensive impact -- less than Chris Duhon; same for Satch Sanders. The real offensive threats were Sam Jones and Bailey Howell, both very good offensive players -- again, but with poor defensive reps (particularly Howell).

Those teams won because of Russell and most of those reps were made by playing with Russell. Outside of him, Havlicek is a legit top 50 player, possibly top 25, but mainly for his defense and early 70s heroics. Jones and Howell are probably not top 100 players without the rings; Sharman a bit higher if you look at era differential. And Cousy, while undoubtably a guy that changed the game of basketball, did so in a Pete Maravich way -- without Russell, he's not a guy you count on for winning, just for highlights. So, yeah, the teammates are overrated, Russell isn't.

https://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=tc2seC-qi36vDqnIMcmNdvQ&hl=en#gid=0

sorry for the chaos... these are team adv stats copied from B-R. team DWS is on the right (colums U and V). I did 57 first because I forgot 56 could be useful too so like I said, sorry for the chaos.

nevertheless results are extremely impressive considering all-time defenders:

KAJ:

Code:
year combined DWS
70 20.7
71 23.7
72 28.8
73 33.3
74 30.6
75 19.4
76 19.1
77 21.8
78 20.0
79 22.7
80 23.6
Hakeem

Code:
year combined DWS
84 19.1
85 24.0
86 19.5
87 26.8
88 25.9
89 27.6
90 31.7
91 29.6
92 20.4
93 27.1
94 31.8
Thurmond:

Code:
year combined DWS
64 37.3
65 25.0
66 22.2
67 29.7
68 28.7
69 28.7
70 24.5
71 17.3
72 29.7
73 29.0
74 18.7
75 29.6
Eaton:

Code:
year combined DWS
82 9.3
83 19.8
84 19.9
85 30.9
86 26.6
87 30.8
88 31.5
89 34.9
90 26.6
91 26.8
92 26.5
Wilt

Code:
year combined DWS
60 31.3
61 23.8
62 22.1
63 17.1
64 37.3
66 28.5
67 22.5
68 33.6
69 19.5
71 17.2
72 31.3
73 30.0
and let's take Russell now, for comparison:

Code:
year combined DWS
56 14.0
57 32.0
58 32,5
59 34,3
60 35,9
61 45,2
62 45,7
63 46,8
64 55,7
65 50,1
66 41,2
67 33,7
68 33,5
69 40,6
70 22,2
Russell didn't play in 56 and 70.

the advantage Russell has is just too overwhelming to describe it. Celtics were winning ~40 games a year because of their defense alone. their offense pretty much sucked though. they were winning about 15 games with their offense.

you have to wonder about how much Cousy/Sharman/Heinsohn meant to these teams if they were winning solely because of their defense and were horrifically bad on offense. 64 season is the greatest individual season in league history, perhaps. Celtics have a ridiculous 55.7 DWS (an estimated DRtg of -14, compared to Celtics 08 at -8) while being absolutely retarded on offense (6.8 OWS is the lowest I've seen so far... of any team)... and they still won.

I read the Book of Basketball too, Neil, and found a lot of the conclusions, while entertaining, felt predetermined - like he knew exactly what he wanted to prove and executed his research to verify his opinions.

Of course, that happens all the time. Unfortunately, many people use statistics like a drunk uses a lamppost: for support rather than illumination.

In this particular case, I think the Wilt fans have another leg to stand on in this argument which Simmons glossed over. Red Aurbach was the coach of the day. The game as we know it was still being formed, and all the equalization that has gone among in terms of scouting, play-books, and player development was not there yet. In an era when the game had not developed yet to where team offenses were good at scoring against team defenses, he came up with the plan to get more attempts. Sure he drafted well, but his early offense strategy was a big deal. Did Wilt have a coach like that? You can qualify the argument by quoting Red when he said he didn't believe he could get Wilt to play his style, but that doesn't change the fact that the Chamberlain did not have the stylistic advantage that Russell had.

Q1. If you divide the career stats of Russell's individual teammates between:

A. When they played with Russell's teams;

B. When they played on teams without Russell;

Is there a significant disparity to be found? If there is ... What do you think might account for this distinction?

[i.e. other than the advanced age of those ones who played with Russell's teams early in their career and then moved on at a later point, once they'd begun to decline physically]

Q2. Might the supposed superiority of Russell's teammates properly be attributed to the fact that they each had the opportunity to play with the greatest single basketball player in the history of the game ... rather than the other way around?

[i.e. perceived as, "Russell was only better than Chamberlain because HE had the opportunity to play with a series of superior teammates compared to Chamberlain's inferior supporting cast."]

----------------------------------

IMO, when using the classical assessment of individual greatness ...

i.e. Can he beat YOURS with HIS, and, then, take YOURS and beat HIS, in return?

if Mr. Chamberlain's teammates had been fortunate enough to play the bulk of their careers alongside of Mr. Russell, instead of alongside of Mr. Chamberlain, then, they might well be considered today, as superior individual players in their own right, in comparison to the teammates on the dynastic Boston Celtics who were fortunate enough to have the opportunity to play the bulk of their careers alongside the Great Man, himself.

Point 1. Keeping the proper score for both teams is a fundamental component to the game of basketball.

Point 2. The objective of the game is to score more points than the opposition team.

Point 3. Winning games and championships, therefore, is a fundamental component of the game.

Point 4. Mr. Bill Russell is very simply The Greatest basketball player Of All-Time.

Point 5. Mr. Russell's teammates were blessed with the opportunity to play alongside of someone with his personal attributes, as a player and a person ... and, vice versa.

Cheers

Question: were the Celtics above average or below average on offense throughout Russell's career. The fact is that the available data strongly suggests that the Cs were only average at best. At best! Though we don't have TO and OR data to confirm the point, we can calculate TS%, and this confirms what is actually readily apparent by looking at the FG(A) and FT(A) data. This might be shocking to some, but the Celtics' offensive prowess was an illusion. They only scored more points because of their faster pace and were at best average in terms of efficiency. (And, to be clear, this conclusion about Russell's "supporting cast" cannot be overturned by separating out his offensive contributions.)

And how does this inform the question at hand? Well, the true fact of the matter is that the Celtics were only great because of defense. Period. Now, perhaps the story can be modified to say that Bill Russell won a lot because he had teammates who were great on defense, but if that is the story, there is no point to the Wilt vs. Russell question to begin with. For if the Celtics defense is not attributable to Russell, what positive contribution is he left with?

And sure, he had great supporting casts, but most winners do. The Bulls won 55 games after Jordan's first retirement, but I'm pretty sure no one would be willing to argue that his success was defined by his teammates (as important as they were).