Any basis for this ridiculous Bill Simmons quote?

[Roy Hobbs]

Back in the '60s, Wilt rarely unleashed against Russell because he liked him so much. ... In fact, that was Russell's ploy, to make Wilt like him so he wouldn't annihilate him.

I don't think there's any basis in truth for this.  This implies that 1) Wilt took it easy on certain opponents because he liked them, and 2) Russell was scared.  I'm not buying it.  Wilt put up very good numbers against Russell, and from everything I've read about these two, they both had tremendous respect for one another, but always wanted to win.

It's kind of funny to think of the best defensive player of all-time having to resort to off-the-court tricks to keep another player from "annihilat[ing]" him.  Since Simmons never saw Russell or Wilt play live, I'm not sure where he comes up with this crap.  He repeatedly just makes things up and states them as fact.  That's fine if he's making up trade rumors; it's not okay when he's mischaracterizing the best Celtics player of all time.

[nickagneta]

I think Simmons probably got this info from one of Wilt's 10000 girlfriends. It was pillow talk. Of course we'll never be able to confirm this because Wilt is no longer here.

Or maybe Simmons went to a seance and Wilt's spirit came back from the other side and told Bill this then.

Anyway, in the real world, there's little proof and I seriously doubt he got this from Russell.

[celticmaestro]

Yeah, I don't know what he's talking about.

I respect Bill Simmons as a writer, I think he's immensely talented and I enjoy his stuff, but I take with a pinch of salt what he says because, frankly, a lot of it is BS. (See what I did there?)

[Roy Hobbs]

So, apparently Simmons got this from a NY paper, and repeated it as fact, despite Russell specifically denying it:

Bill Russell:  But in the New York paper, they used to accuse me of pretending I was his friend so he'd take it easy. Some guy said that. So I said, "Let me tell you a couple of things. First of all, I want you to explain to me how getting 55 rebounds on me is taking it easy! I want to find out that one. And second, you're always saying about what I did to Wilt What I did to Wilt? If you win eight straight championships you did that to everybody. You can't just say I beat Wilt. I beat everybody!

http://www.achievement.org/autodoc/page/rus0int-7

Simmons has no credibility.