I just can't rate Russell higher than players that were flat out better than him. His rings are a product of fate smiling on him. He was a seriously limited offensive player, who wasn't awesome in the playoffs.I know I'm late to the party, but you know I can't let this thread go without commenting on your top 15.
My 1-4 is exactly the same as yours for starters. Good job there.
My clear #5 is Russell for all the reasons I've said before. 11 rings, 9-10 finals MVP awards (if they had given out Finals MVPs in that era), 5 regular season MVP awards, and 7-1 vs Wilt head to head in playoff series. If you were writing this article in 1972 with all those head to head victories fresh in your mind, there's no way you'd ever rank Wilt ahead of Russell.
I have Duncan #6, Wilt #7, Bird #8. Thoughts here... You can talk me into Wilt at #6, but how great can Wilt really be if he was traded two times during his prime... once for Connie Dierking, Paul Neumann, Lee Shaffer, and once for Jerry Chambers, Archie Clark, and Darrell Imhoff. If you have heard of even one of those six stiffs, I'll give you Wilt at #6 instead of #7. Duncan with 5 titles in a 30 team league compared to Wilt with 2 titles in a 10 team league, along with being a much better teammate, smarter player, and the polar opposite of Wilt in a guy who cared more about winning than stats.
That covers all 8 tier 1 guys (multiple MVP, multiple titles, and multiple finals MVP awards). So we move to tier 2 guys. #9 Kobe, #10 Shaq, #11 Hakeem. Kobe gets the edge over Shaq on durability (never showed up to camp overweight/out of shape), longevity of greatness and winning 2 titles after the Shaq trade as the best player, where Shaq won 1 title as 2nd best player after the trade. Kobe also has the edge over Shaq in 1st team all NBA selections (9-8) and a huge edge in all-defense selections (12-3 total, 9-0 1st team). Hakeem's two titles are simply not enough to get him ahead of Shaq with 4 or Kobe with 5.
So we have the same 11 guys 1-11, and after that, I'd go Jerry West at 12, Oscar at 13, Moses at 14, and slide in Durant at 15. Without another regular season MVP, I have Durant's ceiling at #9 and without winning at least 5 titles (or at least one title on a team other than this Warriors team), I have his ceiling at #11.
The rest of it is fine IMO.