"Rare Video Of Bill Russell Leaping Over A Defender In College"

Here.

In case someone ever wants to argue with you about who the greatest athlete in team sports was: Bill Russell's team played for a championship 16 times. Bill Russell's team won 14 times. One of the other two times he was injured and didn't play.

There is no discussion. There is no debate. 

UPDATE: "Bill Russell Remains One of Most Influential Athletes in History, More Than NBA’s Greatest Winner".

“Forget the stories of magic leprechauns in the rafters of Boston Garden and how the cramped visitors’ dressing room and psychological games created some sort of Celtics’ mystique,” Oscar Robertson observed. “No matter how good the players surrounding him were, no matter how competitive his coach was, Bill Russell was the Celtics’ mystique.”

“He was the greatest,” admired Knicks center Willis Reed, who would get anxious before All-Star games about letting down his East teammate. Russell’s teammates never wanted to let him down — not even in All-Star games.

“Bill’s the most valuable player in the history of the game,” legendary Sixers coach Alex Hannum said. “He’s proved the unheralded parts of the game, defense and rebounding, really are as important as shooting and playmaking.”

Comments

[Joe R.]

Clueless: The comment under the article suggesting that it might be Wilt, and not Russell, in the video.

[Bernie]

I respectfully disagree Craig . If you want to pursue this privately, send me an e-mail.

However (@ Joe R), it is Russell in the video. Russell was left-handed, Chamberlain was right-handed.

One obvious flaw with Russell was he couldn't shoot. As was said of Dennis Rodman, Russell couldn't score twenty points in an empty gym.

He was the missing piece for the Celtics, that's why they won all those championships. Basketball is a team sport. If you want to judge the players individually, you have to measure them individually. Every year in that stretch the Celtics had a better team than the Seventy-Sixers. Except for one year (67 or 68) when the Seventy-Sixers had practically an all-star team and ran roughshod over the whole league.

Using one-on-one as the criteria, if I sat back and started thinking of players that were better than Bill Russell there are so many that I would lose count.

[TheBigHenry]

MJ. Nuff said.

[Bernie]

@Big Henry - Are you aware of Bill Simmons, a popular sportswriter who wrote a book a couple of years ago purporting to enumerate the fifty best basketball players of all time? Even he admits that Jordan was No. 1

But he ranks Russell, despite the fact that by his own admission he's too young to have ever seen Russell play, as No. 2. Ridiculous.