There were 14 teams when Russell ended his career and won his last two titles, same as there were when Kareem started out a few months later at 22

Kareem is a notorious hater, he didn’t start saying anything remotely good about Bron until people started calling him out about it

Quickly, what do you have to do to reach the nba finals?

i think that’s a stronger caveat than anything tbh. there were quite simply fewer teams among which championships could possibly be distributed, on top of far fewer external factors forcing parity compared to today (even prior to the second apron)

Wow, this is a great analogy I haven’t seen before. Definitely going to use this.

Honestly newton was one of the most intelligent human beings to ever live and he definitely knew more about optics and calculus and probably about 1000 others things in the 1600’s than I do now lol

What’s your definition of peak basketball? Overdribbling, traveling, and jacking threes?

It’s possible to acknowledge the past and discuss how good they were within their time, and how those players helped grow the game to make it what it is now, while also acknowledging that they would get smoked if they played a modern team

ok but flip side of the coin, can you really say that jesse owens is a greater sprinter than everyone that has surpassed him?

sure the modern nba doesn’t exist without every single generation before it, but that doesn’t mean you can anoint the first nba player as the goat.

Right on. It’s like saying George Washington or Abe Lincoln don’t belong on the real Mt Rushmore because they didn’t do the same things that modern presidents do. Washington only signed 150 bills in 8 years and Bill Clinton signed over 1,700. Washington’s productivity doesn’t touch Clinton’s.

What do you think the argument I’m making is exactly?

typed a whole lot of nothing. what’s if’s and hypotheticals are irrelevant when the fact still stands.

This is why goat and Mt Rushmore arguments are kind of pointless since it’s difficult to compare different eras.

My argument is that there were 20 less teams. No shit a championship was easier

Yeah but I do think pioneer status and all time great status are slightly different. If we’re basing this purely on pioneer status, then Mikan and Russell are both in the Rushmore.

If we’re basing it purely on all time great status, I kind of think it goes Jordan, LeBron, Kareem and then maybe Bird / Magic

If that was the argument he made, sure that’d be bullshit, but it wasn’t lol

He didn’t say they sucked, it’s just fair to think basketball is played at a higher level now

I disagree. While athletes may be faster now, the basis of running as a sport hasn’t changed in a meaningful way — go fast in a straight line. Basketball has changed, football has changed, baseball has changed. The strategies, the rules, the playing surface, that’s all changed. I don’t think it’s fair to athletes from either the pioneer era or the modern era to be compared to one another; I think we can have a Mount Rushmore of old guys and a Mount Rushmore of modern guys but shouldn’t try to do a Mount Rushmore of NBA players across history. There are too many to compare, and the game is too different.

nay cause running has been around forever.

Imagine crowning the very first caveman who learned how to run on the mount rushmore because he was 3x faster than all the other cavemen. His mile time? 11 minutes.

Not really how caveman and running works but you get the idea.

Running has a bit legitimacy because its not some new sport.

I called the era he played in not peak basketball.

I also don’t think he personally is the peak of basketball though and I don’t even think that’s controversial. He’s an all time great but he wasn’t nearly as good on offense as he was on defense.

Bob Pettit outplayed Russell in most of their finals matchups, even if Russell had the better team. Nobody is putting Pettit near the top 30 all time.

Russell is an all time great based on accolades and influence, but Kareem is 100% right that he is overrated as a player.

No it’s like saying that you think planes today are better because they’re better.

Neil and Buzz clear those frauds

The fact that he could coach the team to a championship to me puts the era in worse light.

What!? Comparing Russell to gobert is kinda silly, the only similarities to their game is getting lots of blocks and rebounds.

Russell was exponentially more athletic, and had a really well rounded- albeit primitive, it was the bball Stone Age- floor game for the era. He could lead the break, initiate out of the post, and defend across positions before that was really a thing. Russell was like if an emotionally stable draymond green got put into the body of Big Ben Wallace.

A reliable scoring Gobert would be a superstar.

In a weak ass league tho FOH

For that fact replace kareem also with Ben Simmons

* Offseason Ben Simmons

Throw the whole damn list out.

NBA Mount Rushmore:

-Bronny

-Ben Simmons

-Thanasis

-Scalabrine

Hilarious

Aaron Wiggins for saving basketball

D’Angelo Russell obv

Tho I get your point that the term is used wrongly, thats not what people mean when they say Mount Rushmore

they should really only include players who were around at the start of the league and during it’s early growth.

If you want to be that specific about what a “Mount Rushmore” should include based on the actual Mount Rushmore, then you should refer to the actual reasoning behind who was included. It’s not about who was around during the “early growth.” It’s four Presidents “chosen to represent the nation’s foundation (Washington), expansion (Jefferson), development (Roosevelt), and preservation (Lincoln).”

It doesn’t matter how good of a president we have in the next 50 years, they could not make it on Mount Rushmore because that is already established.

Right…but there is no actual NBA Mount Rushmore, so it hasn’t already been established. Lol.

Edit: Also, why are we even discussing this quote from 2014? Lol.

Okay but then Roosevelt shouldn’t be on Mt. Rushmore then

love this exercise. I’m going with Russell, Kareem, Jerry West, and Wilt Chamberlain. I waffled between Oscar Robertson and West but West is the logo, feels like he’s already on the mt rushmore for that alone

Mt Rushmore construction began in 1927; Teddy Roosevelt served up until 1909. So they definitely included modern candidates.

There is no already-created NBA Mount Rushmore…… all players are valid choices. If you want to be that pedantic, Mount Rushmore kicked off in the 1920s to carve out presidents from year 0 of the nations foundation through year ~90 or so. NBA is only 80 years old today

Cousy, Russell, Wilt, Pettit it is then.

Yeah I’ve always hated the Mount Rushmore of “insert sport here” because it has nothing to do with what Mount Rushmore is

I’ll go even further, the conversation shouldn’t exist because Mount Rushmore shouldn’t exist. White people defaced an important Native mountain

They’re already carved in stone

This argument doesn’t make sense though. I don’t know how the sculptor chose the presidents he sculpted but I imagine all presidents up to the start of the sculpt, ~1927, were fair game. So every player up to now, when we would be beginning our hypothetical Mt. Rushmore, is fair game. It makes even less sense when you realize Teddy Roosevelt was only out of office for 16ish years when Mt. Rushmore started, so it’s not like Mt. Rushmore wasn’t somewhat contemporary. It had a modern president for its day.

Never thought of it this way, but I’m going to in the future

Only in terms of the popularity they brought to the game (which is substantial). Neither come close in terms of accomplishments or sheer dominance over the league.

Isn’t the point of the game to win as a team?

wilt over lebron if that’s your thinking

Correct. Here’s an old comment forum talking about that 03 Slam ranking when it released and no one bats an eye at Kareem at 7th and Oscar at 3rd.

https://www.bigsoccer.com/threads/slam-magazines-top-75-nba-players-of-all-time.38461/

I think Oscar’s fall in these rankings can be partly attributed to Westbrook averaging a triple double tbh. People saw how a smaller guard could do it in a faster pace of play so that feat became far less deified.

Conversely, the increased prevalence of ring culture, stat/accolade counting, and overall goat discourse over time has elevated Kareem’s standing amongst the fan base, largely because of how much his resume shares similarities with the consensus 1A and 1B. Jordan and LeBron. And the context of his more prominent career asterisks are now mostly forgotten (his prime coming in arguably the weakest era of the nba, multiple lack luster showings in the post season pre show time, never winning a media vote MVP, etc)

I remember these and have even posted about this - good call.

That said, I think a big part of it was that weight the triple double used to hold. Seeing Westbrook do it in the fashion he did seemed to kinda leave the casual fan asking themselves ‘is THIS what it looked like when Oscar was doing it?!’ - and of course it was a different circumstance, with Cincinatti being an unserious franchise and free agency not being a thing yet (& again credit to Oscar for that one); they knew they could sell tickets just by him being there, and that was enough for them.

Going further I think what Jokic is doing now has kinda blown it all out of the water. No one is impressed with the triple double to the degree they were 20yrs ago. And it’s a bummer for Oscar, because from what I’ve seen of old videos - and I’ve seen a LOT - he really was THAT good

It’s wild that one notorious homer just shits on one of his teams most infamous rivals and everyone just starts parroting him.

Dude used to be a good writer, but even back in the day you had to take everything even tangentially related to the Celtics with a heaping fucking spoonful of salt.

TIL about Oscar

Listen I love Oscar, but let’s not act like Russell wasn’t also the first Black head coach in any major sport.

Besides that, beating the monster that was Wilt so many times while being the greatest winner in American team sports history for SURE helped the sport. I think it’s fair to say that him and Wilt saved the NBA in the 60s the same way Magic/ Bird took it to the next level.

Not that Big O didn’t also play a part, but let’s give respect where it’s due

Hopefully your response doesn’t get buried but this is very insightful. Charles Barkley is constantly thanking Magic and Bird for their contributions to the NBA as well

Fair enough. Of course the free agency King would pick Oscar.

George Washington was just in a different era. Put LBJ back in 1776 dropping napalm on the redcoats, cmon it’s not even a discussion

George Washington loved the children, but not the British children.

Except George Washington had slaves. Russell’s 11 chips is more like, what if Nat Turner had won

won 11 rings against plumbers

like yeah a giant will win 11 rings against bunch of unathletic short white guys

11 chips against guys the average D1 commit highschooler is better than

I personally think its bots. Companies testing social media algos, generating engagement and user responses by reposting varying degrees of older popular posts on bigger subreddits.

yeah like if you took the conference championship from any random year post-merger. they probably win like half of those

The nba today isn’t the nba of the 1960s. Teams weren’t stacked with talent because the NBA wasn’t stacked with talent, it was sparse, which made a player as good as Bill Russell able to dominate with mostly his defensive prowess. The talent pool was far shallower because for African Americans they’d face racism, and the pay was crap compared to the generational wealth guys can make nowadays as a rotation player. Someone uber athletic was more likely to go play for the NFL or MLB, a more established league where you’re compensated better for your talent.

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the NFL pretends football was invented in 1966, i swear

What? Jim Brown is still talked about as the greatest RB ever. Babe Ruth was always talked about as the GOAT until Shohei showed up. Bobby Orr is still one of the consensus NHL greats.

Nah, that’s not true. This generation’s basketball player is especially prone to it.

Baseball, football, soccer—they all hold their vets in high esteem.

Though, basketball is unique in that individuals are often celebrated higher than the team.

That and the rise of the ‘brand’, which means that in order to elevate yourself/brand—or those in your camp-you have to shit on and/or hyper elevate your peers to legitimize

Ok now do babe ruth

yes, the era was different and you’ve given some of the ways.

But there are others. One can’t really just say ‘competition was easier’ like that… it wasn’t that linear

less analytics/less history means worse coaching, fewer accessible plays, etc (motion offense was barely even a thing if at all, and by lebron’s time, it’s antiquated.)

Far fewer teams. Which meant, far fewer players, which means, more parity

no dietitians

Little salary

Comparatively stone-aged physical therapy and health maintenance techniques. Combined with the above two, this means ‘less longevity.’

Surgery for injuries, allowing for recovery? Not really! (even less longevity)

No flagrant fouls / elbows to sensitive areas were semi-legal in the flow of the game

Bill Russell’s final championship came from a 7 game series against Wilt, Jerry West, and Elgin Baylor. They won game 7 by 2 points. By the way, Bill Russell was also his teams coach.

Speaking of game 7, Bill Russell played in 10 of them, Lebron, despite playing a bajillion playoff series, only played 8. Lebron is 6-2, Bill Russell is 10-0.

Yes, players were not as skilled back then. No, Bill Russell was not sleep walking his way to 11 rings. It was hard, he had to be consistently clutch.

Why pick Bill Russell over other great centers? Because none of them dropped 30 points, 40 rebounds, 4 assists, and god knows how many blocks to win game 7 by 3 points against Jerry West.

Without modern medicine and training etc, LeBron would never have been LeBron. It’s hard enough to compare Jordan and LeBron because of the difference in the sport and the science. Comparing todays players to the guys 60 years ago is impossible.

Respect the greats who laid the foundation, the highlights might look silly and unskilled compared to modern players, but without them the next generation couldn’t learn and improve on what they did.

This argument is so tired. He was playing against the best basketball players in the world at the time. All of the competitive energy and training in the entire world of basketball was concentrated in the league he played in. At the end of the day it’s the same as today’s NBA in that regard.

Just because they didn’t understand fitness as well as they do today doesn’t change that. It’s the same thing as saying Jordan somehow wouldn’t be successful today because play styles have changed, while ignoring the fact that the style changed specifically because of adjustments to what was successful before.

It’s also an especially braindead argument to make about a guy who repeatedly shut down fucking Wilt Chamberlain 7 times in playoff series. Oscar Robertson wasn’t a milkman, neither was Jerry West, or Elgin Baylor, or John Havlicek. These are real, serious, dedicated athletes who committed all of their athletic energy and knowledge to basketball of the day.

it’s such an interesting argument

It’s statistically going to get you more championships uf there are less teams. A lack of garbage teams doesnt change that.

It’s wild to think of. But both still know Larry was scary

I thought that too, but it also says he insulted big men nowadays. He says no one today could have competed with the big men of that era