He won 4 MVPs.
And the other guy won 5, and was top 3 10 times in an 11 year stretch, top 5 every year of his career. Compared to Wilt being top 3 7 times in his whole career and 3 other top 5
Edit: I misread Russells basketball reference page, there were 2 seasons where he wasn’t top 5 in MVP. One of those he finished 7th and the other didn’t get votes
All of a sudden I’m Wilt’s advocate.
Self inflicted I know.
He literally averaged twice as many points as Russell while also out-rebounding him.
Those numbers also hold up in the head to head matchups.
Russell’s championships (11 straight; good grief) squashed Wilt’s reputation in these type of discussions which is understandable.
(I first went down this rabbit hole when I did one of those grid games and found out the hard way Russell never averaged 20 points in a season)
I think Wilt suffered from an early version of Shaq bias. He was so physically dominant that people thought that if he didn’t win everything every year he was loafing or somehow not as worthy. And he was a cultural lightning rod, which is unlikely to have served him well in the sportswriter’s culture of the day.
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He also suffers from being the original Harden: in a day where players just never moved, two teams decided to ship him out
Yeah, I mean I understand all that. My basketball brain is very different from my baseball brain.
Baseball, give me all the stats, stats decide who the better player is 95% of the time.
Basketball is the opposite, I care about stats to a point but at the end of the day, I don’t care that much about stats. Everybody hates Draymond Green, but despite having terrible stats, he was a great player that effected winning at the highest level. 50 years from now is somebody going to say Demarcus Cousins was 10x the player Green was? Probably. Stats will also tell you that Karl Malone was a better player than Tim Duncan but I’d like to meet anybody who thinks Malone was even close to as good as Duncan. I care far more about what you do to effect winning than I do about how many points you score.
Just my 2 cents. At the end of the day, I wasn’t around to watch either guy play basketball and have only watched some highlights.
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The greatness of the ‘86 Celtics is certainly undeniable. Still doesn’t excuse or forgive the audacity to beat the Rockets.
As for Tim Duncan (not that you asked, HH), don’t know how much noise it made outside of the wine industry or San Antonio, but his financial advisor was a guy named Charles Banks. Banks at one time owned more than a couple of seriously high wineries in California, Screaming Eagle being the most famous. Turns out, he was also embezzling money from his clients. With Duncan, it was something like $17m.
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When folks are agog at what unicorns Wembanyama, Holmgren, and Porzingis are, I always wonder if they have ever heard of Sampson.
I too don’t follow the NBA anymore, really.
The ‘86 Rockets team was damn fun to watch and dispatching the silly Minneapolis, er, LA Lakers in the WCF was indeed fucking solid.
My all time favorite Rockets team is undeniably the ‘94 Clutch City team.
Gritty fuckers.
Miss those mustard and ketchup unis tons.
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If I am remembering the details right, when Duncan was suing Banks, Kevin Garnett testified on behalf of Banks. Come to find out he was also embezzling money from Garnett. And it was like 3 or 4 times the amount he stole from Duncan.
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I emotionally hate the Celtics in general and the 86 team in particular.
Rationally, I can appreciate the greatness of the franchise and that 86 squad.
The Boston fans can all eat a bag of dicks.
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They are Massholes for a reason.
My biggest hinderance to rooting for the Mavericks is their owner, not their proximity. But my hatred of the Celtics, not just for being from Boston but also for beating the Rockets in '86 and '81. And also because Danny Ainge is simultaneously the biggest whimp and the biggest shithook in the world.
I think the Celtics are the better team, so my inclination to pull for the underdog, when I don’t have my team to root for, makes me want to see the Mavs not lose to the Celtics more than I want the Celtics not to lose to the Mavs.
I did like the 60s Celtics with Havlicek, Heinshon, Russell and the Jones boys.
I think Wilt overall was better than Russell but Russell was a better leader and better defender.
I hated their owner a lot more when it was Mark Cuban.
He is still an owner, just no longer the principal owner.
Yeah, I don’t count that.
Except for me, of course.
Of course
You may like the Celtics but you’re not a Boston fan.
Must be the difference between a Celtics fan in Austin and a Celtics fan in Boston.
Is huge. I was in high school in Houston in '81 when the Rockets lost to the Celtics and rooted hard for the Rockets, but liked and respected the Celtics. I was living in Boston in '86 amidst Celtic fans during that second finals matchup and saw Masshole fandom up close - made me really dislike the Celtics. (It’s the sort of fandom OWA tries to keep off the train.)
Still, between Dallas and Boston, I’m rooting for Boston, particularly after last year’s ALCS and WS.
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