Quote:
|
Originally Posted by BadBaronRudigor
Not a problem with that ranking . . . Oscar deserves to be somewhere in the 7-10 mix 9 or 10 if you give a premium to interior defense. Couple of points, (1) Russell is NOT smaller than Pippen, measuring differences mean about 1-2 inches . . . if you look at tapes of the 50 greatest ceremonies and see Russell standing next to Hakeem, Russell is actually a hair taller! (2) Dennis Johnson didn't lead a team with no stars to a championship, if anything, Jack Sikma led a team with two second tier stars of about equal impact, DJ and Gus Williams. If was a balanced team with 3 stars in their primes but no top 20 all-time greats.
One more thing. PER underrates players from before they started counting blocks and steals. If you count them, Wilt, Russell, and Oscar probably move up the PER charts a bit.
|
I believe I said size regarding Pippen. Russell is 6'9" 210 on basketball-reference.com. Pippen was a legit 6'8" (talked in interviews about listing himself as 6'7" for reverse psychology) and also was 225, so you add the weight and if Pippen wasn't bigger, he wasn't much smaller either. Pippen actually looks taller side-by-side than Horace Grant.
Dennis Johnson won Finals MVP on a team that, unlike the Spurs (before you bring them and Parker up as a counter) did not have a top 50 player... and I personally never thought much of Sikma and Johnson. HOWEVER, I think it's fairly obvious that that point may have been one of the least central points of the article.
PER was accounted and actually ADDRESSED in the article regarding Russell... Russell was not docked for not having a high PER, but his offensive numbers were never very good anyway, so even with blocks, it's not like he would have won it... Wilt's was high anyway, and even if he had ranked #1, it would not have overcome the disparity in other areas.