WingsFan95
Registered User
You're right. Being the best player on a team that won 11 rings during his 13 year career and beating Wilt 7 out of 8 times in the playoffs when they guarded each other doesn't matter.
By what margin was Russell the best on his team exactly though? He was the better defensive player, but his offense was consistently 3-5th. His win share lead the team in 10 seasons but that includes some years of 11.3, 11.7, 12.3, 12.9, 13, etc.
He just wasn't as valuable to his teams as Wilt. Arguably ever.
I mentioned Sam Jones earlier. He had win shares of 12.8, 10 and two seasons of 9.6. Several other players had win shares of 7+ during Russell's tenure.
The 63-64 Warriors I mentioned earlier, improving 17 wins from the previous year, here's the win share of that team:
Chamberlain: 25
Meschery: 7.5
Attles: 5.3
Rodgers: 4.0
Hightower : 4.0
The margin of talent between Chamberlain's teams (especially before L.A.) and Russell's is quite significant. In a sport like Basketball, the better TEAM often wins over the one with the better star. Still, often the margins of defeat were small and that's a testament to Wilt basically carrying his teams to contend against a team of all-stars.
Yes, Russell was arguably the best player on a stacked team, while Wilt was the best player on a marginal team. What needs to be understood is the percentages. Those percentages are often cited off win share and team performance. To put it more simply:
Contributions of Team A
Player #1: 28%
Player #2: 22%
Player #3: 19%
Player #4: 18%
Player #5: 13%
Contributions of Team B
Player #1: 55%
Player #2: 18%
Player #3: 11%
Player #4: 8%
Player #5: 8%
Now consider that Team B wins almost as much as Team A. Who is the better #1 player?