He had the superior team around him. Wilt averaged something like 38 and 22 against the Celts in those years. Plus Wilt could do it all. Mr. Russell just happened to be a basketball genius surrounded by multiple HOFers
The Celtics cratered without Russell. From Ben Taylor:
Boston was a 35-win team (-1.9 SRS) in 28 games he missed from 1958-69, and for the other 915 games of his career they played at a 59-win pace (6.4 SRS). This is a tiny piece of evidence – the years are spread out, teams change, and so on — but it echoes the same story as Russell’s other value signals.
For instance, when his teammates missed time, Boston rarely missed a beat. In 1958,
Bob Cousy sat for seven games and the Celtics played far
better without him. In ’59 and ’60,
Sharman, Cousy and
Tom Heinsohn missed a few games each, and the machine kept on ticking. In ’61, Sharman missed 18 games and the Celtics were (again) better without him. In ’62, Cousy missed five and, yes, the Celtics were better without him (portending his retirement years).
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But Russell missed four games in 1962 and Boston’s differential fell by 22 points. Four games is infinitesimally small, but all of these stories point in the same direction. It was only when Russell was hampered by injury (in the 1958 Finals) that the Celtics fell short of a title — the single time a Russell team failed to win in a 12-year span dating back to college.
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This trend would hold throughout most of Russell’s career. In ’66,
Sam Jones missed eight games and Boston’s performance didn’t budge. Jones missed 11 more contests in ’69 and the team was about 2 points worse without him. All told, as the roster cycled around Russell, his impact seemed to remain. A more
detailed calculation of his game-level value has Russell at the top of the impact-heap in his era, while
similar studies have him behind only Jerry West and Oscar Robertson (who both had the fortune of playing on dominant teams during the most
watered-down years in NBA history).
At the height of their dynasty, the Celtics were comically dominant. From 1962-65, their average margin-of-victory (MOV) was over 8 points per game. During the same time span, only two other teams even eclipsed 4 points per game – the ’64 Royals and the ’64 Warriors. And all of Boston’s separation was created by its historic defense, anchored by Russell.
Boston platooned different players around Russell while he anchored the greatest defensive dynasty in NBA history. At its height (1960-1966), Russell played 43 to 45 minutes per game while only Sam Jones topped 35 per game (once, in 1965). During the 1963 season, no other Celtic played over 31 minutes per contest. To put Boston’s defensive dominance into perspective, let’s zoom out and revisit the above graph, but this time using all defensive seasons since 1955:
