Greatest Basketball Players of All Time
 

http://tinyurl.com/v73d

New book, apparently Bill James type stuff.

1. Shaq
2. Wilt
3. MJ
4. Bill Russell
5. Kareem
6. Bird
7. Magic(no way. He owned Bird & played all five spots. Champ as rookie. No worse than 3rd)
8. Oscar
10.Bob Cousy
12. Jerry West
13. Elgin Baylor
15. Dr. J

Wonder who 9, 11, & 14 are. Moses Malone & Karl Malone prolly two of them(John Stockton is 27, BTW). Hondo, James Worthy, one of the ol' Knicks?

My fave clip from article: Russell was 10-0 in Game 7's. I'm not a Celtic fan, but that's it, along w/the 11 rings & doing it under the circumstances he did(most racist city in America, etc.). Christ, Auerbach says Bird was better & Russell didn't crack the top five of a greatest Boston athletes newspaper poll a few years ago.

Russell's clearly the best team sport athlete of all time.

Wilt vs. Bill Russell
 

Wilt Chamberlain was so dominant that the officials had to allow other players to do things to him that he was not allowed to do to them.

Bill Russell had better supporting casts and better coaching. He does have the rings.

If they had allowed Wilt to grab and hack the way they allowed Russell and other players to play against him his team would have gone the equivalent of 76-6 and swept all of their playoff series. He was that damn good.

The NBA lost all of its integrity because of this and has never regained it.

Ragnar

Re: Greatest Basketball Players of All Time
 

I vote for Spudd Webb and Cat Johnson.

Re: Greatest Basketball Players of All Time
 

I would go with :

Wilt
Shaq
MJ
Magic
Kareem
Karl Malone
Oscar
Bird
Russell
Jerry West
Elgin Baylor
Dr. J

Re: Greatest Basketball Players of All Time
 

Any list without Jordan at #1 has zero credibility.

Re: Greatest Basketball Players of All Time
 

I always favored Louie Dampier, myself.

Re: Greatest Basketball Players of All Time
 

michel jordan- i want credibility
lou alcindor - you youngsters wont know him
wilt the stilt-should be #1
jerry west
elgin baylor

and the rest are tied

Re: Greatest Basketball Players of All Time
 

"Russell's clearly the best team sport athlete of all time."

I don't get it. Russell played with a helluva lot of HOFers. He was a good player on a very good team.

Yogi Berra joined the Yankees i 1947. They won the Championship in 1947, 1949, 1950, 1951, 1952, 1953, 1956, 1958, 1961, and 1962. And they won the AL pennant in 1955, 1957, 1960, 1963 and, with Berra as manager, in 1964. They had one bad year in 1959. The other two times they didn't make the World Series, they won 94 games (1948) and 103 games (1954). Fourteen pennants in sixteen years from 1949 to 1964. Stengel said the secret to his success was never playing a big game without "my man," meaning Berra.

Was Yogi the greatest team player in baseball history?

My personal ranking:

1) Wilt
2) MJ
3) Magic
4) Big O
5) Kareem
6) Dr. J
7) Bird
8) Baylor
9) Russell
10) West

Re: Greatest Basketball Players of All Time
 

I love, and do mean LOVE, to argue.

But I won't ever argue with somebody who says that MJ was the best MARKETED basketball player of alltime. That's a no brainer if there ever was one.

But to call him the best...there's so much to argue about. All arguments would start with the definition of "best".

And there isn't a single definition of "best" I can dream up where MJ would meet the criteria.

Rings? Russell.
Making others better? Magic, Bird, Oscar
Scoring? Dunno my BBall history enough, but I'm thinking Lew Alcindor and Wilt.
Domination? Wilt and Shaq.
Heck, even slam dunk contests, he and 'Nique are tied when it doesn't come to homecourt advantage, and 'Nique leads when you erase the big-man bias.

Of course (this should be painfully obvious), I'm not saying he wasn't great. He was nothing short of great. And by anybody's definition of "best", he's gonna crack the top 4.

But today, so many fans are spoonfed by the media, and because he was/is easily the best marketed BBall player, so many people ASSUME that he's the best player. Great at the game, and greater for the game, but not the greatest ever.

Josh

Re: Greatest Basketball Players of All Time
 

I'm going to say Mark Price. He could do what one of your so called bests (Shaq) could not. make free throws.


-AA