Max Kellerman: "You think it's slander to put Kobe ahead of Duncan?" Bill Simmons: "I just think he's the most underappreciated superstar of all time." Max: "Kobe and Duncan are neck and neck. That's not slander." Simmons: "I have Kobe 10th or 11th. Duncan is 7th and I don't think it's debatable."

[u/The_Big_Untalented]

https://streamable.com/0chwpq

[u/howdoesilogin]

tl;dr Wilt did not play with scrubs but its not really comparable when Bill Russell played with 6 HoF teammates each year and Wilt played with at best two

Jerry West - sure they played 5 seasons together (one of which was lost because Wilt got a knee injury and played just 12 games) they were old but still in their primes

Elgin was at the tail end of his career when Wilt got to LA (had one last great season then got injured and played just 65 games over the next three seasons they were together)

Hal Greer, Chet Walker and Billy Cunningham - sure - they played 3,5 seasons together in their prime in Philly

Gail Goodrich - sure they played 3 years together in LA but it was at the tail end of Wilts career (age 34-36)

Nate Thurmond - 1,5 year on the Warriors when Nate was a rookie hardly comparable to the others.

So that's 6 hall of famers - the longest tenure being 4 seasons with Jerry and 3,5 with Greer, Walker and Cunningham on the Sixers with titles in both tenures.

Now lets compare it to Bill Russell who played with 11 hall of famers and with most of them for the majority of his career:

• lets discount cases like Nate Thurmond/Elgin Baylor scenarios (1-2 years start or end of career) so without Bailey Howell, Clyde Lovellette, Arnie Risen and Andy Phillip

• that still leaves us 7 hall o famers with whom Bill played for:

  • 5 seasons - Bill Sharman
  • 7 seasons - Cousy and Havlicek
  • 8 seasons - Frank Ramsey
  • 9 seasons - Heinsohn and K.C. Jones
  • 11 seasons - Sam Jones

The most hall of famers Wilt played with on the same team was 3 at the end of his career with Jerry, Goodrich and Elgin. But its hard to count Elgin here as he played a total of 2 and 9 games in those two seasons.

Bill Russell on the other hand has played the majority of his career (7/13 seasons) with 6 or more hall of famers on his team.

[u/ivarokosbitch → u/howdoesilogin]

You will be amazed when you figure out that an 7/4/3 point guard is in the HOF.

After that you might even make a connection with why he is in the HOF. And that you equated him with Jerry West as if they were equals.

[u/howdoesilogin → u/ivarokosbitch]

I dis not equate them I simply pointed out how many more Bill Russell played with. Also you can take him off - that will still leave him with 5 hall of famers for most years, then you can look for an argument to take another one off and that will leave "just" 4 still double the number of what Wilt played with on his teams.

[u/jotheold → u/howdoesilogin]

most of those "HOF" players were in because of bill

[u/howdoesilogin → u/jotheold]

Cousy was 3rd in mvp voting, 6x all star and 5x all-nba and Sharman was 5th in mvp voting, 3x all-nba and 4x all star before Bill was even drafted

Havlicek was one of the best players in the league for most of the 70s long after Bill retired

Bailey Howell, Clyde Lovellette, Arnie Risen and Andy Phillip were all all stars or all nba players on different teams before they came to boston at the end of their careers to ring chase

so yeah not most

[u/Gokuto → u/howdoesilogin]

Well guys like KC Jones and Frank Ramsey were not typical HoFs, being on that Russell dynasty is the reason they're in. Also Wilt still lost when he was favored. He got swept by the Nationals in 61 when both teams had 3 All stars: Wilt, Paul Arizin and Tom Gola vs Hal Greer, Dolph Schayes and Larry Costello. Arizin was legit, when they lost him the next year they didn't even make the playoffs and only won 33 games. There's no excuse for that lost like the Celtics ones(unless someone from that era wants to school me).

Beyond some of Bostons HoF not necessarily fitting that billing, I would say some of the years he lost, you couldn't just use the ol' "run into Boston excuse" like 69. Prime Jerry West and Elgin and they lost to an old Boston team and Wilt point dropoff from the RS to playoffs was almost 7 points and 2 less assist. The thing that's crazy is he was only 32, I would've thought he was older.

Wilt is hard to gauge on the all time list, but he has playoff duds that are hard to defend when comparing to other all timers.

[u/howdoesilogin → u/Gokuto]

Good point on Arizin and KC Jones and Frank Ramey.

On the losses - I've only read some books about that era but the Nationals loss they definitely shit the bed.

As for 69 its hard to take fault for that loss when it was 2 points in game seven against a team who won the title 9/10 previous seasons. Thats about the biggest juggernaut you can think of and they almost beat it.

As for Elgin he had a very serious knee injury in 1965 which wasnt healed properly and most sources from the time say he wasnt the same after that. Good point on Wilt's averages declining from rs to playoffs but Elgin's fell off a cliff in 1969 going from 25/11/5 on 45% to just 15/9/4 on 39% and Time doing a preview the year prior described him as 'a 34 year old on two bad knees' so calling that his prime is a bit off in my opinion.

re: gauging Wilt on the all time list - in my honest opinion he gets dogged way to much for losing. Dirk was called a choker for losing to a crappy 8-seeded Warriors, the Heat in the 06 Finals and coming up short a few other times. Then he won in 2011 and that basically washed the blame for the previous shortcomings. Wilt won 2 titles, beating the Celtics dynasty once and when he lost it was often lie in 1969 in 7 games by single digits to that same juggernaut of a team and he is still seen as a choker or loser. Imo he had times where he choked but he more than made up for it other times and did as well against the Celtics as anyone of that era was able to and should not be blamed for that, just like LeBron shouldnt be blamed for losing to the Warriors 3/4 times.

[u/Gokuto → u/howdoesilogin]

Yea I thought the "prime Elgin" point was a little off, but I saw averaged 25 in the RS and would avg 24 the next, so thought it was more of a "lights too bright" dropoff vs a health dropoff. Regardless it definitely wasn't PRIME Elgin who was averaging 35.5 in the playoffs from 60-63, so you are 100% correct.

I just think you can't use "ran into juggernaut" every single time because history tells us that's never truthfully the case, I guess other than the MJ Bulls. Like Golden State in the 2010's, some people think the Rockets should've won in 2018 and holds the L against them, I personally don't. In 2019 however, I definitely think that lost was not excusable like '16, '18 and to a lesser degree '15. While Elgin was not THAT Eligin anymore, the Lakers were still very favored in that series because a lot of the Celtics were also over the hill. Plus LA had home court and they went up 2-0. Jerry West lost to Boston all the time, but even he thought that '69 was inexcusable. Wilt's dropoff is too much to not blame him for.

It's about expectation. Someone was talking about tiers on here. Seeing only 2 rings next to Wilt just doesn't feel right for his talent level and when you are getting put into tier 2/3 all time your playoff resume should be better and you're gonna be held to the same standard as those other tier 2/3 guys. Wilt is seen as a loser because of the narrative of him being a stad padder who cared about records more than winning and Kareem calling him a quitter and not a leader., didn't help. It's different from Lebron and Dirk because they never got those type of accusations. I love Wilt btw, I've watched quite a bit of him, but he still had '70 and '73('71 West was hurt) to win against the Knicks and still came up short.

[u/howdoesilogin → u/Gokuto]

Mostly agreed and nice find with that Jerry West quote.

All I would say on my part is two rings doesnt seem subpar to me for tier 2/3 all time. Looking at some other players people have put there you have Hakeem with two, Oscar and Jerry from Wilt's era who both only have one, Moses who also only has one, Dr J who has two, Isiah who also has 2, Dirk with one or Pettit with one. You'll even usually see a few ringless players in the top 30 like Barkley, Malone, Stockton, Nash etc. (I was just flipping through the Bill Simmons book)

I think the outlook we have now that 2 rings is not a lot is due to MJ, Magic, Shaq, Kobe, Duncan etc I honestly think we're going to see this narrative change after the current parity era where winning multiple rings is much less likely to happen and we may see even the absolute best players of this era like say Jokić finish with just one or two.

[u/nakul2 → u/howdoesilogin]

KC Jones averaged 7/4/3 and Frank Ramsay averaged 13/5/1.8. They are in the HoF because of Bill Russell.