Mt. Basketball Rushmore: which four players would you pick?
LeBron James is certain that he’s going to be on basketball’s hypothetical Mt. Rushmore someday. Who’s there now – Jordan, Bird, Magic, and who else?
King James wants to see his face carved in granite. Hard to blame him for being confident.
“I’m going to be one of the top four that’s ever played this game, for sure,” LeBron James said in an interview that will air on NBA TV on Monday. “And if they don’t want me to have one of those top four spots, they’d better find another spot on that mountain. Somebody’s gotta get bumped, but that’s not for me to decide. That’s for the architects.”
His picks for the four best so far: Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, Larry Bird and Mr. Triple-Double, Oscar Robertson. That’s a worthy group, and when all is said and done he may very well have earned the right to be there himself.
This, of course, got me to thinking about who I’d chisel into that sacred mountainside. Damn, this is a tough question. Most modern fans like to argue that Jordan is the greatest player ever. I do not necessarily buy this, although I’d have him in my top four.
Magic and Bird? No-brainers. Not only were they iconic talents on the court, their rivalry rejuvenated a stagnant league and had they not come along when they did it’s hard to imagine that the NBA would be the marketing juggernaut it is today, no matter what anybody says about the business acumen of David Stern.
So that leaves one spot. Oscar was the prototype for the big guard and he freakin’ averaged a triple-double one year. Some have criticized him for being selfish and perhaps not having an all-around game, and I’m not going down that road. I might ultimately not agree with you, but I can damned sure respect the pick.
Still, anytime the subject of greatest players ever comes up, it’s not more than a few seconds before somebody starts counting rings. MJ had six. Bron has two and you wouldn’t bet against him to run the count up a bit before he retires. Magic had five, Larry three. Listen to anybody – titles matter. A lot.
I couldn’t agree more. So I’ll be casting my fourth vote for the guy with 11, Bill Russell.
I’m going to be stunned if nobody disagrees with me.
lullaby pit 
Jordan, Russell, O, Steve Francis.
Heh.
No, Jordan, Russell, O, Magic. But it occurs, four is a shit limit to the game because the pool of the deserving is exponentially more vast than picking presidents. There have only been 44 presidents and MOST of them full-on sucked. You could make a strong case for FDR going up there but that’s about it from the balance once you figure in actual economic outcomes and war crimes and whatnot. As to hoop guys, even when posed with picking the creme de la creme, even once you have cut your faves, you have to winnow out Jerry West, Bob Cousy, Elgin Baylor, Bird, Chamberlain, Mikan, Julius Motherfucking Erving, Abdul-Jabbar, even Kobe (hork). Bad game. Me no like.
If it was easy anybody could do it. I mean, all the names you mention for sure. Except Kobe. He belongs on the mountain more than I do, but not by as much as most people imagine.
To embellish the sucking, to even consider any of that also-ran list, you’d basically have to do it by cutting O. Which is almost unfathomable, but he only has one ring. Erving did as much if not more to modernize the game, to veritably DEFINE the game as the canvas of artistry it became, and he’s got 3, plus the guy defined honorable sportsmanship and class, but, personally, I still couldn’t give it to him over O.
Two of the Dr.’s titles were ABA, though. You probably don’t get full credit for those. Still, the point is valid. Erving was the dawn of the modern game.
No. Look guys, Bird was a great player, but not that great.
Wilt dominated like no one has ever dominated before or since, and is one of the few historical figures that might well dominate today.
Abdul Jabbar should also be ahead of Bird.
There it is. Bird wasn’t that great, huh? Jebus. Not only is he one of the three greatest ever simply for what he could do as an individual, he also made every teammate he ever had better when he walked in the gym. When Bird joined your team, you didn’t just add an epic talent, all of a sudden all your other players were better than they used to be. Same with Magic. Not true of Jordan by any stretch, so if you’re going to attack one of those big three you need to look at the guy in Chicago.
Wilt was amazing, no doubt. But for comparison standards you can probably slash every number he put up by two-third. First, he only had to play against one real center and that was Russell. And Russell won damned near every time. Second, the way the game was played – might as well have had a five second shot clock. LOTS of shots, lots of points, lots of rebounds to be had, no defense (except for Russell).
All that said, I am morally offended by any game that requires me to leave either he or Russell (or Jabbar) off. I feel your pain there.
Well, look, I don’t think the argument is Bird isn’t GREAT, but, again, we’re FORCED to exclude greatness by the parameters. All of that you say is true about Bird as a player and competitor, probably where he gets the cut from me when weighed against the other GREAT GREAT players is the Ty Cobb factor, which is, he was an asshole. This is more lore than hard history, mind you, it comes more from tales told out of school, but there are a lot of them. Now, you can say the same about Jordan, of course, but my understanding is he wasn’t so infuriatingly overt or abrasive or Ty Cobb-ish about it.
Also, by 1991, while still qualifying that Jordan is a dick, I would argue he was in fact making his teammates profoundly better and that is exactly why they started winning titles. ’91, Game 6, 4th quarter, Jordan to Paxson four times for clutch cash money. This was a different player than Jordan ’87.
As to Chamberlain, while his stats can be adjusted for inflation, I totally grant you, let’s not diss the entirety of the field back then. There were very good centers playing who get short-shrifted by history simply because they weren’t Russell or Chamberlain, Nate Thurmond, Wayne Embry, Reed, Walt Freakin Bellamy, even Jerry Lucas (though undersized) in his prime, none of whom were a picnic to either guard or be guarded by. I’m not saying they were Shaq, just that it wasn’t a cakewalk for the two Rushmorian candidates, the same way the ABA WAS AN ACTUAL LEAGUE STOCKED WITH INCREDIBLY TALENTED DUDES WHOSE RINGS COUNT. 😉
Anyway, I would never deny the GREATNESS of Bird, just you’re MAKING me choose, damn you, and he’s just not O.
There’s inevitably going to be some apples and oranges with these kinds of discussions. Different positions, different eras, etc. So I always look for the uber-criterion – what factor spans all places and cases?
For me, it’s this: I’m starting a new franchise. Who would I build around? It goes without saying that the player has to be dominant at his position. But for me, there’s NO substitution for “made his teammates better.” Yeah, Paxson and Kerr hit the occasional wide-open shot after Jordan had gunned without conscience for the entire season. He made people better in the way that a player with those skills sort of automatically does – he draws so much attention that it “passively” creates opportunity. Jordan was sort of like this. Kobe is the all-time god of it. But I’m looking for a guy whose game actively engages in the process, who works to make the team better through chemistry.
I just described Magic and I just described Bird and I just described Russell. Jordan not as much, Oscar not as much. Had he not had injury issues the center we might be talking about instead of the lot of them would be Walton. Scorer, passer, defender, team-first guy.
And Matt – I ain’t hating on the ABA. I grew up in NC and loved my Carolina Cougars.
Bird was a terrific player and one of the best shooters ever. Story goes at a recent Pacer’s practice, he was walking by, someone made a wisecrack, he picked up a ball and hit a half dozen consecutive shots from way, way outside the three point line. Supposedly, everyone on the court was absolutely stunned. Fifty something raining them in from another zip code. As you know, I’m outrageously offended when people put Bird into the “for a white guy” bucket and compare Jimmer to him (or Adam or Keith or whomever.) However, he was limited in quickness ahd his stats were also exaggerated by his time. You could score if Nique were guarding you. In Lebron’s defense, he’s putting up his nums against zones.
Jabbar is handicapped, I think, by having an ugly game. He looked like a praying mantis out there.
However, as a general principle, when they have to change the rules to stop you, you’re pretty good.
And Russell’s one year triple–NCAA’s, Olympics, and NBA, will likely never be matched.
Still, at one time Chamberlain was reckoned to be not just the best basketball player but the best athlete and some even argued the best human on the planet as measured by strength, speed and intelligence. He was an anomaly of the species. Not sure he was a good human, but he might have been the best one.
RUSSELL JORDAN JABBAR MAGIC
Jabbar over Bird and Wilt?