Russell is Top 10, and while you could argue him as the best pre-merger, I wouldn’t put him as the best including post-merger.

Stats are compilations and have value. Teams are what these guys play on. Individual stats are meaningless because you don't play a team game alone. The fifties and sixties Celtics are the epitome of teams. Russell played his role and carried the team to glory. Auerbach transformed professional sports. Moneyball replaced it.
Olajuwon, Pippen and the like were carriers; team mates.
Second fiddles are the most important. Auerbach had a team of them.

Yes, they play on teams, but you can't say individual stats are meaningless, imply that LeBron's scoring record or Michael's 30.1 points per game don't matter, because they do. Winning matters, but winning alone doesn't comprise the GOAT debate, otherwise Robert Horry would be rated greater than Michael and LeBron, or Sam Jones would be rated as better than both of them, too. You might not play on a team alone, but if you keep posting these numbers year in and year out, different eras, teams, players, for a long period of time, keep winning those awards and dominating, absolutely, they matter.

Olajuwon was no Pippen, Olajuwon would be on my list of Top 10 players of all time.

If you want to factor in stats, please do. If you want to factor in winning, please do. It wouldn't be right to completely dismiss one or the other.

I have to agree that GOAT honors go to Bill Russell. He helped pave the way for both Michael Jordan and LeBron James. Even way back in 1984, a fella named Sam Bowie was drafted ahead of Michael Jordan. If not for Sam’s injuries, maybe Sam would be the GOAT?
Go Big Blue!

11 championships in 13 years and 2 NCAA Championships with the San Francisco Dons and an Olympic Gold. 14 championships in 15 years.

Eight in a row, 11 rings, very impressive, the ultimate winner. It also came in could historically be seen as a weaker era in which there were far fewer teams.


Russell deserves his flowers, no questions asked, I just see him having been passed by others through the years.

the low pay, in the 70's. These guys were great. The argument that fewer teams meant less quality is defined by the difficulties expansion teams had in putting quality on the field. Casey Stengel once asked of the Mets, I paraphrase, "Can anyone on this team play baseball?"

He managed them in their early existence and they were World Champions before the decade was over. But 1961 was the first time baseball had expanded from 16 teams. Do you think, then, that Jean Beliveau, as great as he was, was greater than Gretzky or Lemieux just because he won more? Henri Richard was greater than both?

There were nine teams in the league when the Celtics won their eighth straight championship in 1966, and while that will always be incredibly impressive, don't negate the things Michael and LeBron have done in eras with more teams.

I saw Tom Sanders hold Elgin Baylor to 20 points. I saw Bob Gibson lower the mound. Gretzky earned his moniker but he never got leveled crossing the blue line.
As an aside, the Mets are in New York, not Pittsburg.
Every generation has its heroes/idols.
I heard that Joe Louis would have kept Ali from dancing. My grandfather told me Ty Cobb was the greatest player despite Ruth's stats. He watched them in Fenway when Ruth was still in Boston.
The point is who carries the team. Belliveau did. Richard was the virtuoso to Belliveau's second fiddle.
Sports has always been a business.
The Celtics were the last vestige of a team. There are examples, today, I'm sure. I stopped watching around 85 or 86 because the rules had been modified for the draw, not the game.
Today's athletes have greater physical attributes than ever before. They are a wonder to watch. I just don't watch them because they are not the game.

Nostalgia is a powerful thing. This was what you heard about Joe Louis, and surely people have said things about modern boxers that they couldn’t hold Ali, etc.

Of course, sports are a business, and while winning is a factor into who the greatest was, I don’t know of anybody that uses winning alone to determine someone’s greatness without measuring individual stats. Beliveau was undoubtedly one of hockey’s absolute greatest, but the only argument one could truly make to place him above the Gretzkys, the Howes, Lemieux’s would be if they placed such a premium on winning, combined with sentimental value.

Someone’s always going to be better than you, more talented than you, no matter who you are. I’ll always appreciate the names from my childhood, some who will forever have their place on history, but it doesn’t mean they’ll never be surpassed.

Jack Nicklaus, Rod Laver, Muhammed Ali. But you chose to pick an individual in a team sport. I say the greatest made the team such. Bill Russell. Hands down. Jordan, Le Bron, Magic, Wilt all had it over him.
Russell was the man who made teamwork the aspiration for a successful society.

I had the rare chance to pick Red Auerbach's brain at a dinner in 2000. The talk went to the GOAT discussion. He stated that it would be difficult to choose anyone over Jordan for talent. However, he was adamant that if he and any other top coach chose a squad from all the players in history up to that point, and if the choices went back and forth for each pick, he would pick Russell first. If he chose second and the other coach did not choose Russell, he would on the next pick. He then stated that given any other mix of great players, his team with Russell would defeat the other team in a playoff series 9 times out of 10.

He was that certain that Russell was that much more valuable than any other player, including Jordan.

Major props to you for having the chance to hobnob like that with Red Auerbach, a memory I hope you'll never forget.

Respectfully, I wonder how much of this is a generational thing - boomers vs. millennials, etc.

Red coached Russell, would he have said the same thing if he had coached Michael? Coached LeBron? Another person on here who is convinced it's Russell said they played hockey with players who left the Habs in the '70s, which leads me to believe Russell being big in his generation might've swayed that.

And objectively, I'm a millennial born in the early '90s raised a Chicago sports fan, so maybe there's some influence in me picking Mike, just like other millennials and Gen Z'ers might lean towards LeBron. So, my opinion might be slightly skewed, as much as I want it to be otherwise.

I will, say, however, this is somebody who the best players in baseball history all came before he was born, and arguably the three greatest players in history, Ruth, Cobb and Wagner, all played before World War II.

But for basketball, would our GOATs be our GOATs if we didn't grow up with them?

I agree with you, Energized. We are all products of when and where we grew up. As someone who was born in '51, my best quarterback of all time will always be Johnny U, even though I grew up in Boston (hence the Russell leaning!) and have been a Patriots fan since 1960. I'd always choose Unitas over Brady. That's why I developed my concept of favorite players as opposed to GOATs or even the current best. For instance, Williams was a legend I only saw twice at Fenway, so my favorite was Yaz, even though I knew that except for 1967 he was, at best, barely a top 10 current player most of his career. But, don't get me started on Orr and Gretzky! I'll just accept both of their opinions (and Mario) that Howe was the best.

I was born in ‘91 in a Chicago suburb not long after the first championship. It was all Bulls when I was little, but am trying my best to objectively say why I think Michael is the greatest without being shaped by where I was born and raised or who I grew up rooting for.

It’d be a monumental task for anyone to surpass Michael, I’d be foolish to think it couldn’t be done, though.

The hockey players, obviously, are very humble. Gordie was Wayne’s idol and Orr obviously grew up with him.

Maybe some players can’t be surpassed in our hearts, but they absolutely can in our minds.

50's and early 60's. Part of his pay was Celtic tickets. I sat on the floor, as the Celtics rarely sold out. I watched Wilt and Russell battle it out.
The Auerbach Celtics mystique is part of my perspective.
There will always be better talent, but I doubt there will be a better team. Russell deserves to be on the perch for that alone.

I think Bill Russell is a top 10 player of all time, along with Michael, LeBron, Magic, Kareem, Duncan, Bird, Wilt, Hakeem - could debate any between Steph, Kobe and Shaq for that final spot.

That said, if you grew up in the ‘90s, or the 2010s, would you have the same opinion?

Russell was one of the greatest of the great. He may even be top five of all time, don’t think he’s number one.

Sounds like you got to see Bob Cousy play. I’ve only seen him in video clips. I learned about Bob when I made my middle school basketball ball team as a 5’3” sixth grader. I was already fast and good at passing, but he inspired me to work on my ball handling skills and reading the game as a point guard. I had so much fun playing in 6th & 7th grade. But by 8th grade, the other girls were taller, I was still 5’3”, mouth full of braces, and spending more time on the sidelines with an ice pack and a bloody mouth. So I retired.

the street from my grandmother's house. He and Tom Heinson would play with the Holy Cross team, from which they had both graduated, during the summer.
Even better than that, I played summer baseball in Brant Rock, MA at the Water Tower Park and our team played against Camp Millbrook across town. One time visiting, our umpires were the Boston Celtics, who trained there during the summer.
Bill Russell was behind home plate, jim Luscatof was at first, Tom Sanders at second and Tom Heinson at third. We got to meet them all. Memorable.

Russell won multiple titles when he was not even the best all around player on his own team.
Havlichek can make a case that he was the best basketball player in the whole league, while on the Celtics.
Same thing with Kareem. He was still excellent but Magic was the best player on that team, arguably the best in the league.
Until last year, we could never say that about James, and it was never the case with Jordan.
I just can't give GOAT status to a player that wasn't even his own team's best. Even if for only a few years.

Yeah, he played with a lot of Hall of Fame teammates, but I have to wonder how many of them would have made it into the Hall without him playing alongside.

So, I’m going to guess still quite a few.