Bill Russell on Offense: Filling in Bill Simmons' Blanks

     Since Bill decided to disprove the myth that Bill Russell wasn't a very good offensive player by way of discussing his passing and athleticism, I'll once more step into the role of Simmons' unpaid researcher and help him along. After all, he couldn't have gone into much detail on this, having only 700+ pages to work with.
     In the first place, we can look at Russell’s field-goal percentage as one indicator of his offense. It’s easy to imagine Russell, playing with the sort of high-scoring teammates he had, to be a guy who converted a high percentage of his shots just by hanging out near the rim for lay-ins or dunks from Bob Cousy passes or from gathering missed shots. Well, as it happens, Russell was the one missing quite a few of his shots: true, in his first four seasons, Russell ranked highly in FG% - 5th out of 42 qualifiers on 1957, 4th of 39 in ‘58, 2nd of 50 in ‘59, and 4th of ‘62 in 1960. Then, as the sixties moved along, Russell slipped well down on the FG% leaderboard. After that fourth season, Russell only finished in the top 40% of all qualifiers twice; in three of his final four seasons, he couldn’t crack the top 60%.
     Of course, Russell was undoubtedly putting back many of his own misses and those of his teammates. If they were tracking such things then, we could see that Russell’s true shooting wasn’t as bad as all that.
     At least, not from the field. Move this discussion to the free-throw line and Russell was nearly equally inept as his nemesis, Wilt Chamberlain. Russell was only 5% better than Chamberlain, making 56.1 of his free throws compared to Chamberlain’s 51.1. Granted, Russell was better in the playoffs and Chamberlain worse, but both were bad: 60.3% for Russell, 46.5% for Chamberlain. Russell was an unqualified liability at the end of games, but 1) the Celtics were usually far ahead at the end of games and 2) Russell wasn’t nearly as relied upon to score as was Chamberlain, so he was less likely to see the ball at the end of games.
     To find out where Russell stood as an offensive player during his era, I looked at centers who played in the years 1957-69 and played at least 350 games. Twenty players met those two standards. First, we’ll look at field goal percentage. Russell ranked 7th, and not surprisingly, five of the six players above him began their careers in the sixties. Only four of the thirteen below Russell began their careers in the sixties.
     Next, we’ll just quickly touch on free throw percentage. Eighteen players ranked ahead of Russell, just one below. (Guess who?)
     Russell didn’t shine at points per game, but he didn’t really have to. Nevertheless, his scoring average was a solid 7th. And Russell was indeed an accomplished passer, second on a per-game basis to Wilt Chamberlain.
     My question though, to wrap up discussion of Myth #2: Who the hell was out there saying that Russell wasn’t a very good offensive player? (God, what possessed me to critique this book?)

How to Disprove a Strawman With a Non-Sequitur, by Bill Simmons

“So why doesn’t Russell get credit for his passing?...Russell doesn’t get credit …because it’s easier to regurgitate something than to look it up.”

     I cut a lot out of a rather strangely-written sentence. One of the excised clauses read “…everyone thinks he played with eight Hall of Famers…” Gosh Bill, why do people think that? It was only seven Hall-of-Famers twice, six Hall-of-Famers five times, and five Hall-of-Famers once. Geez! People have such lousy memories. (I promised myself I was done with that supporting cast stuff).
     We’re actually discussing Simmons’ myth-busting of what he calls “Myth #2: Bill Russell wasn’t a very good offensive player”. This is news to me. I didn’t know the idea that Russell was a bad offensive player was running amok out there. But Bill Simmons, to support the idea that Myth #2 was tainting the great legacy of Bill Russell, pulled multiple quotes from multiple books and columns which illustrated this long-held myth just kind of put it out there with one quote from someone with no axe to grind in this debate, John Havlicek. Seriously. It’s astounding. Simmons is centering his case upon overturning six myths about the Chamberlain-Russell debate, and to prove the pervasiveness of this myth Simmons cites one of Russell’s former teammates weighing in on the matter 34 years ago. I’d like to see the existence of this Myth supported with quotes by former players (that played for someone other than Boston), sportwriters (again, not those from the Globe), and such. Otherwise, I might just conclude that Bill went for his phone and fired up the iMakeStuffUp app again.
     The hilarious thing? Well, since we’re dealing with offense here, you might think that we’d be dealing with things like field goal percentage, free throw percentage, points per game…nope. What little offensive discussion there is centers on passing. Now, I haven’t been to Vegas with House or threatened by Isiah Thomas so maybe my expertise can be called into question here, but I kind of thought offense was more than just passing. (And I’m not putting passing down – I love passing more than most people) So what does Bill Simmons have to say about Russell’s offense?

“When you watch Russ on tape, his passing jumps out nearly as much as his defense – not just his knack for finding cutters for layups, but how easily he found streaking guards for easy fast breaks directly off blocks or rebounds.”


“Four things stand out when watching Russell on tape: his passing (superb), his shot blocking (unparalleled), his speed getting down the court (breathtaking), and his unexpected talent for grabbing a rebound, taking off with it, and running the fast break like a point guard (has to be seen to be believed).”

Two – just two – observations by Simmons to counter the Myth #2, that Russell wasn’t a very good offensive player. And what does Simmons’ cite?

1. Russell’s passing to cutters
2. Russell’s outlet passes from rebounds or blocks
3. Russell’s superb passing
4. Russell’s unparalleled shotblocking (?)
5. Russell’s speed (??)
6. Russell’s ball-handling in transition

Something about this list seems wrong. Allow me to illustrate:

1. Passing is an offensive skill. One for one, Simmons.
2. You don’t get credit for mentioning it twice.
3. Yes, we get it. Russell could pass. Move on already.
4. Shotblocking is not really an offensive skill.
5. Speed is much more “athletic ability” than “basketball skill”.
6. That sounds pretty impressive, honestly. But when are you getting around to the rest of Russell’s offense? The shooting, the post moves, the free throws? Anything? Hello?

Driving his point home, Simmons describes Russell as (my comments in red and in parentheses):

"…Dennis Rodman, only if Rodman had Walton’s passing talent (offense!), David Robinson’s athletic ability (not basketball skill, strictly speaking), and Michael Jordan’s maniacal drive (nothing about offense here) , and if Rodman could block shots like Josh Smith unleashed on the WNBA for an entire season. (still waiting to hear about how good Russell’s offense really is)"

What? That’s it? We’re done? That was Simmons’ entire case against a Chamberlain-Russell myth he made up??

Oh, wait – there’s one more sentence. This ought to make it all clear:

“(Would you have enjoyed playing with such a player? I thought so.)”

I am filled, from the crown of my skull to the soles of my feet, with crimson rage right now. My blood vessels are on the verge of bursting. WHAT IN BLUE HELL DOES THE POTENTIAL ENJOYMENT ONE MAY RECEIVE FROM PLAYING WITH BILL RUSSELL HAVE TO DO WITH A NON-EXISTENT MYTH ABOUT RUSSELL BEING NOT VERY GOOD ON OFFENSE? FIRST SIMMONS MAKES UP A MYTH THEN OFFERS NO EVIDENCE OR ANECDOTES TO DEBUNK SAID MYTH?? AAAUUUUUUUUGHHH!
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I guess I’m okay now. But it’s at times like these that I am utterly baffled by the smash success of The Book of Basketball. More evidence for the unfairness of life, I guess.

Since the Grumpy Old Editor was unwilling to do his job for TBOB, I guess I’ll have to do more of Simmons’ research for him in my next post.