...and Wilt was arguably the single most dominant player in NBA history.
yet Russell dominated him year after year after year after year after year after year...
Russell won in high school, won in college, and has the most NBA rings ever. There is no argument, Bill is without doubt the most dominant basketball player of all time.
Bill didn't dominate Wilt at all. In fact, Wilt won the head to head virtually every time they met. The Celtics on the other hand is a different story.
One of the reasons Bill Russell is so great is BECAUSE he had to go through Wilt so many times to win it all.
And he did.
9 times out of 10 through the 60s when each was at their athletic peak.
Wilt didn't get his second ring until Bill retired. Russell absolutely dominated him, head to head. Sure maybe Wilt could score, but Bill was the complete player, getting the most of his teammates, blocking shots and playing for the W.
You are saying Russell dominated Wilt constantly.
He didn't.
Russel's TEAM dominated Wilt's TEAM.
You are falling in to the exact same trap - confusing team achievements/performance with individual achievements/performance.
This list isn't ranking the greatest teams in history, it's ranking the greatest players in history.
You can NEVER use team success to gauge how good a player was, because it is completely illogical. Let me explain why.
What would have happened if the two players switched teams, Wilt was the one on those Celtics teams. Would Russell still have won all those titles, or would Wilt have won them?
If you say Russell would have won them, then how do you know this?
Answer is, you don't. There is no possible way for you to say what the result would have been. You would be attempting to say what happens in a reality that never existed - your answer would be based on nothing hypothetical, conjecture and subjective opinion.
This is why you cannot say that Russell was better than Wilt based on the TEAM's results. Because you aren't comparing the teams, you're comparing the players.
It's the same reason why you cannot say Tim Duncan was a better player than Kevin Garnett because he has more rings. Again - you're comparing team success, not player success.
The only way you can compare one player to another is their INDIVIDUAL achievements.
Wilt averaged 30 points (54% FG, 51% FT), 23 rebounds and 5 assists for his career and was a 15 time All-Star. He still holds a record for the highest scoring average (50.4 PPG) and rebound average (27.2 RPG) in history. When a guy is averaging 50.4 PPG and 25.7 RPG in a single season, kinda hard to argue that is anything but absolute dominance.
Kareem averaged 25 points (56% FG, 72% FT), 11 rebounds, 4 assists, 1 steal and 2.7 blocks over his career and was a 19 time All-Star. He is the all time NBA leader in points scored.
Bill Russell averaged 15 points (44% FG, 56% FT), 22.5 rebounds and 4 assists over his career and was a 12 time All-Star.
Now looking at these guys for their personal achievements alone, it's perfectly understandable why somebody might rank Kareem and Wilt over Russell. I'm not saying it's
right, I'm just saying that it's a fair call to make.
These guys are probably the three greatest centers who have ever played the game, so all three of them were completely dominant - it's not like we're ranking Brendan Haywood over Hakeem Olajuwon here.
Arguing who was the best individual player out of Kareem/Wilt/Russell is like arguing who was the best out of Robinson/Olajuwon/Shaq. Those guys were pretty much equally dominant, so how can you possibly separate them without resorting to subjective arguments and personal bias?