Wilt was a god. He also played pro-volleyball and ran marathons after retiring. I'm always amazed he's often left off the list of the greatest modern athletes. Let alone that people call Jordan the greatest athlete in NBA history because he tried to play baseball for a couple years. (During his gambling suspension amirite.)
hova- wrote:But on on the other hand I ask myself how to measure the influence of a guy on a Championship calibre team like for example the Celtics right now. None of these guys' numbers really amaze you. Still they will have another shot at the title.
Actually it would be funny if there were not only player-debates but team-debates which means that everybody would talk about "the 2010 Lakers are better than the Showtime Lakers of 1985. I guess it would be way easier to justify the result of team comparisons than these player debates.
There are team debates. We've had a select few here, but you'll find them more often elsewhere.
Re: The Celtics (both Finals teams really) there are two ways to build a contender.
One, get a player who is better than everyone at his position by a significant margin. You know, Mikan, Wilt, Kareem, Jordan or Shaq. (Bird and Magic had a small stretch as the same.) As you can see this doesn't happen that often, so you usually need to...
Two, get a bunch of really good players so that you're above average at least four positions and you're bringing guys who would start on most teams off the bench. You know, every championship team but the 2000-2002 Lakers.
(Or if you're the 1990s Bulls you get to have both.)
Now, if you get a bunch of guys who are all above average but no truly spectacular guy you can contend but it's rare to win. Say if 15 was league average (and 30 was Jordan/Shaq/Kareem/Wilt/etc.) and you had a bunch of 16-18 guys and maybe one 19-20 guy, you're probably not going to win. See: The 1999-2001 Blazers, 1998-2000 Pacers, etc. You'll contend, but it'll be difficult to win a title. But what you can do is sacrifice some of that first group and instead have a bunch of 12-16 guys and two or three 20-25 guys. And if you can have at least one guy who is top three at his position you're good to go.
Both of our Finals teams fit that mold. The Celtics have Rondo who is a top-three point guard (especially since Chris Paul was missing for most of this year) and have KG, Pierce and Allen who are all 18-20 guys but one of them can often be another 20+ guy on any given game. Pierce and Allen had some in the Orlando series, KG had some against Cleveland, etc. And then they go deep with a couple of those 12-16 range guys in Sheed, Shelden Williams, Finley, Nate Robinson, Tony Allen, etc. And some of those guys are guys who can put up a 16-20 range game as Nate Robinson and Sheed did in select games in the Orlando series.
Lakers are similarly built on this model except they peak higher and their depth is less. Gasol and Kobe are top-three at best, top-five at worst, at their positions, both of them 22-23 range players who have been at 25 in the playoffs. Bynum when healthy is another 18-20 range guy, while Odom is a 16-18 range guy who can peak at times in the 20s. Then they have Fisher, Farmar, Artest, Vujacic, Brown, etc. who are 11-14 range players generally. (Fisher only so in the playoffs, Artest of course can move into higher tier when he isn't screwing up endlessly on offense.)
You can look at every title team and see that same basic build.
Various Spurs teams: Duncan, then Robinson or Ginobili, plus Parker, and then depth.
2006 Heat: Wade and Shaq, then depth.
2004 Pistons: Depth, with Ben Wallace and Billups being all-star quality players and Rip and Sheed just a notch below them. (In other words they had four 17-20 guys instead of just one so they could get away with not having any clear 20-25+ guys.)
1994-95 Rockets: Hakeem then plus Drexler, then depth.
1989-90 Pistons: The only modern team that's really won with the mid-quality depth, but Thomas at times could step up into that star tier, and they were playing in a valley on the NBA's talent level. (Indeed, the only time you can get away with this is when the talent level drops. You can find teams during the ABA and otherwise dark days of the 1970s that won this way. And when the talent level hadn't yet rebounded at the turn of the decade it allowed teams like the Blazers and Pacers to have legitimate shots at the title.)
1980s Celtics and 1980s Lakers: Bird/Parish/McHale plus depth. Magic, Kareem early on, Worthy was on the next tier but often had stretches of stepping up, plus depth.
1983 Sixers: Moses Malone (was probably the best center at the time), Dr. J was still in the 20-25 range, plus depth.
It's just that the first model lets you contend way easier. If you've got that dominant player, got another All-Star, you can put out a lottery team around them and still be a contender and win titles. The Lakers did this for a few years recently. When they lost that dominant player, even though they beefed up the surrounding talent slightly they weren't much of a threat to anyone until Bynum developed and they brought in Gasol.
That would kick ass for Dallas, but not for any other team. 
They would have to scrap the "big three" and just go with the "enormous three".