...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?
Again, we are talking about ranking the greatest players in history, not the ones who led the best teams. Being the best player on the most dominant team does not necessarily mean that you are the most dominant player, period. The 2nd and 3rd most dominant players on your team might be FAR more dominant than the 2nd and 3rd most dominant players on the other team, and that may be what makes your team so much more dominant.
You are completely ignoring the most important part of this debate.
As an INDIVIDUAL, Russell had more impact on his TEAM'S defense than any other player in NBA history.
How can you ignore the half of the game that is where Russell made his name?
No, I am not ignoring Russell's defensive impact on his team.
The fact that I'm putting Russell (who was a FAR inferior offensively) in the discussion as being on the same level as Wilt/Kareem is almost entirely
because of his dominance as a defensive player. If he wasn't as dominant as he was defensively, he wouldn't even be in the discussion.
That said, a few points:
1) You say Russell had more impact on his teams defense then any other player in history. That is your opinion. Hearsay. Conjecture. There have been many elite defensive players in the NBA over it's 60 or 70 (or so) year history. You have absolutely nothing concrete or objective to back that up. I'm not saying that it isn't true (in fact I'm sure it it probably is true), I'm just saying it isn't a proven fact, but an opinion. You have the right to yours, just as others have the right to disagree.
2) Defense is only one part of the game. Who has the right to determine as a
fact that Russel's defensive impact was more impressive than Wilt's or Kareem's offensive impact? You might argue that Russell was twice as dominant defensively as Wilt and Kareem were. The next guy might argue that Wilt and Kareem were twice as dominant offensively as Russell was. How do you determine which of those takes precedence?
Anyway, I think you are misinterpreting the point I'm trying to make here. I'm not trying to argue that Russell isn't the best of those three guys. All I'm saying is that all three of those guys were similarly great/dominant and that realistic arguments can be made for all three - you can put them in any order, and it wouldn't be unreasonable.
Nobody can declare, as an undisputed fact, that Russell was better player than Wilt. Or that he was better than Kareem. Nobody can make those arguments without bringing up championships, which is not a fair argument (because it's a team achievement, not individual).
It's like arguing that the Ford Focus ST is a better car than the Renault Megane Trophy because Ford as a company sold FAR more cars than Renault did. That's just an irrational argument, because the success of a brand doesn't tell you anything about how good one specific model is.
In fact it's worse, because at least you can get sales figures of the Focus vs Ford as a company, and calculate how much it contributed (ditto with Renault). You can't do that with Wilt/Russell/Jabbar.
Hell even then, it still won't tell you which is a better car - just tells you which was more popular / sold more. There is no way to really factually say which car is better - they are both good at different things, so it's ultimately always going to be an opinion and a personal preference (as with this argument here).