July 2020 UCONN recruiting thread | Page 13 | The Boneyard

July 2020 UCONN recruiting thread

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CocoHusky said:
It would seem that Bill disagrees with you. Sports illustrated says clearly you don't have a subscription and don't know what you are talking about. They have consistently had Wilt ranked ahead of Bill in every ranking they ever did.
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Clearly you are ill informed - their First team 50 year special had Bill starting at center, Wilt on the 2nd team. And of course Bill is going to praise Wilt big time. And once again, stats never tell the full story, but you can't seem to grasp that.
 
Scud49 said:
Clearly you are ill informed - their First team 50 year special had Bill starting at center, Wilt on the 2nd team. And of course Bill is going to praise Wilt big time. And once again, stats never tell the full story, but you can't seem to grasp that.
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" I ask for your indulgence here. On almost every all time team I’ve ever been asked to select, I choose Big Russ as the center, figuring that, with other immortals around (Jordan, Bird, Robertson, Baylor, Magic et al), he wouldn’t have to score, and his gifted defense would be most valuable. But we’re talking about players here, and I simply don’t believe that, despite his 11 rings, he is as good a player as the two centers listed above him. I know he would disagree forcefully, and I respect that.

Jack McCallum

www.si.com

SI's 50 greatest players in NBA history

Michael Jordan. LeBron James. Stephen Curry. Who else? On the 20–year anniversary of the 50 Greatest Players in NBA history, SI.com's Jack McCallum revises his list.
www.si.com www.si.com
 
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Scud49 said:
Oh boy, another "Wilt had higher numbers so was better than Bill Russell" person. Amazing,
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How can Russell be the best player with such paltry statistics? His teams only won championships. Probably Coco thinks someone with better statistics is the better player than Breanna Stewart. Forget the fact her teams winning 4 NCAA championships which they never win without her. See the video below. Start at the 3:15 mark. Russell tells you why he was the best and why his teams won 11 NBA championships. In case there is any doubt, I agree with you.
 
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DT is my female GOAT and she has fewer Championships than Stewie.
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CocoHusky said:
" I ask for your indulgence here. On almost every all time team I’ve ever been asked to select, I choose Big Russ as the center, figuring that, with other immortals around (Jordan, Bird, Robertson, Baylor, Magic et al), he wouldn’t have to score, and his gifted defense would be most valuable. But we’re talking about players here, and I simply don’t believe that, despite his 11 rings, he is as good a player as the two centers listed above him. I know he would disagree forcefully, and I respect that.
Jack McCallum
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Wow, how about that, you find one guy who falls into the Wilt column. Wonderful, there are others too. Wilt was a fabulous offensive threat, probably the best the game has ever seen. But that ain't the be all, end all when it comes to winning basketball. Keep quoting your stats, last time I checked stats alone don't win all those big championship games - it helps to have lots of other attributes, and Bill Russell had plenty of those.
 
Scud49 said:
Wow, how about that, you find one guy who falls into the Wilt column. Wonderful, there are others too. Wilt was a fabulous offensive threat, probably the best the game has ever seen. But that ain't the be all, end all when it comes to winning basketball. Keep quoting your stats, last time I checked stats alone don't win all those big championship games - it helps to have lots of other attributes, and Bill Russell had plenty of those.
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You stated that my post was ill informed. What I did was find not a guy but THE GUY that did the SI all time team which you quoted. You also said I failed to grasp something. Hopefully you can grasp this. Ranking an all time team is different than ranking players. Jack explains it pretty well in that one paragraph. Feel free to disagree with him but the guy I found was also your guy and it looks like he has come around to my way of thinking. Smart guy that Jack.
 
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CocoHusky said:
You stated that my post was ill informed. What I did was find not a guy but THE GUY that did the SI all time team which you quoted. You also said I failed to grasp something. Hopefully you can grasp this. Ranking an all time team is different than ranking players. Jack explains it pretty well in that one paragraph. Feel free to disagree with him but the guy I found was also your guy and it looks like he has come around to my way of thinking. Smart guy that Jack.
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Yep, you got that right - ranking all time players is a helluva lot different than putting together an all time starting five. Clearly, Russ wins out in a landslide. Versatility was one of the linchpins of Russ's abilities. For instance, I saw Red insert a Wayne Embry type player at center and swing Russ out to forward to cool off someone on the opposing team that was hot. It worked like a charm. Russ had the quickness and leaping ability to stay with anyone. Just his presence would alter shots if he didn't outright block them. Could Wilt do all that...? No, not to the degree Bill did. And many times you would see Russ block a shot but still control the ball, then whip it out to one of the guards and poof- another fast break in progress. And of course, Russ was blazing fast and was off and down the court like a bullet himself. A lot of times Wilt would block a shot by bashing it out of bounds.....not so good, the opposing team just gets it back to try again. Hmmmmm....one of those other non quantifiable aspects of the game that does affect the outcome. Now imagine if they kept stats on blocked shots back in those days......Tommy Heinsohn once estimated it was at least 10 per game, and he probably altered at least that many per game. Well, we'll never know what that was, but its rather easy to envision who's at the top of that list.
 
Scud49 said:
Yep, you got that right - ranking all time players is a helluva lot different than putting together an all time starting five. Clearly, Russ wins out in a landslide. Versatility was one of the linchpins of Russ's abilities. For instance, I saw Red insert a Wayne Embry type player at center and swing Russ out to forward to cool off someone on the opposing team that was hot. It worked like a charm. Russ had the quickness and leaping ability to stay with anyone. Just his presence would alter shots if he didn't outright block them. Could Wilt do all that...? No, not to the degree Bill did. And many times you would see Russ block a shot but still control the ball, then whip it out to one of the guards and poof- another fast break in progress. And of course, Russ was blazing fast and was off and down the court like a bullet himself. A lot of times Wilt would block a shot by bashing it out of bounds.....not so good, the opposing team just gets it back to try again. Hmmmmm....one of those other non quantifiable aspects of the game that does affect the outcome. Now imagine if they kept stats on blocked shots back in those days......Tommy Heinsohn once estimated it was at least 10 per game, and he probably altered at least that many per game. Well, we'll never know what that was, but its rather easy to envision who's at the top of that list.
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Bill was all you said and more. The conversation into which you entered though was about GOAT. I would rank several players (including Wilt) ahead of Bill in a GOAT discussion.
The conversations you seem to want to have is about "all time team or greatest winner". My all time team would include neither Wilt nor Bill. My all time team would be (C: Kareen, PF:Tim Duncan, SF: LBJ, SG: MJ, PG: Magic).
Any conversation about the "greatest winner" in NBA history should start with Bill. Doesn't mean it ends there however.
 
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CocoHusky said:
Bill was all you said and more. The conversation into which you entered though was about GOAT. I would rank several players (including Wilt) ahead of Bill in a GOAT discussion.
The conversations you seem to want to have is about "all time team or greatest winner". My all time team would include neither Wilt nor Bill. My all time team would be (C: Kareen, PF:Tim Duncan, SF: LBJ, SG: MJ, PG: Magic).
Any conversation about the "greatest winner" in NBA history should start with Bill. Doesn't mean it ends there however.
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They were all great players, no question. My point was Bill was 1st team center on SI's all century team (or whatever they called it). This issue came out around 1999, 2000, 2001 somewhere around there. My point was he was the best team orientated player and certainly deserved to be there, and those BB writers all agreed voted him 1st team. One of the forwards was Larry Bird and Magic was one of the guards...don't recall the other two off the top of my head.
 
I enjoyed the discussions between scud and coco and others regarding GOAT. Pity this wasn't moved away to its own thread. But if I were to go with a top 8 GOAT it would be 1-Jordan, 2-Russell, 3-Wilt, 4-Jabbar, 5-LeBron, 6-Magic, 7-Bird, and 8-Duncan.


But I think 2-5 are completely interchangeable. For me, in part, I give the edge to Russell at number 2 behind Jordan but over the others because I want to find the guy that is going to find a way to win. I won't quibble when it comes to a few championships more -- but 11 is outrageous. But I understand also going with Wilt or Jabbar or LeBron too. Stats do matter in some cases. I can't ignore them. Which is why I don’t go 100% with the number of titles either. I just think Russell was able to elevate his teammates and pour everything into winning.

And for women - looking to pro ball only I don't know the order and I am bias ofc and say DT is 1 but I didn't follow WNBA much early on. But here is my guess of top 7 in no order (ofc have to exclude Cheryl Miller).
DT, Maya, Bird, Parker, Catchings Swoopes, and Leslie.
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Now back to this thread and recruiting.

Here are my top 3 for 2021 and for 2022.

1-- Azzi Fudd. There I said it. Yes. I said her name. Yes this is the number 1 player we got to have. No single player is ever unstoppable. Azzi gives UCONN for the future a great scorer and passer teamed up with Paige -- another great scorer and passer. With their passing skills - they can set up other players as well - not only them scoring and being a perfect fit for one another- they can make others better scorers even after CWill, Evina and Liv are gone.

Azzi and Paige allows Anna to pick her spots more driving. Having them allows Edwards and Aubrey and their new recruits more freedom to roam and come up with opportunities to score. And I'm not sure Piath will ever be scorer but she would never need to be with so much firepower.

And Nika as a pg potentially feeding them as scorers is also pretty damn exciting.

2-- Okikiola Iriafen. Would love another athletic tall player with length and good skills.

3-- Lauren Betts. With this size and athleticism to go with great guard play -- would be extremely extremely extremely formidable.

Azzi Fudd would help make the offense run at a such an amazing level. Many games we'll just be in awe how well a basketball team can run an offense. Some games would be unforgettable. This one player exponentially improves UCONN because the combination of her and Paige is as complete as you can imagine from the backcourt. We are so close to watching a style of play rarely ever seen during the regular season college level.
 
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Alydar said:
Posts are down on the board so maybe the mods are being soft for that reason. I think a discussion of the pros and cons of butter vs margarine would be OK in this thread. :rolleyes:
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Taste great, or less filling?
 
hoophuskee said:
Azzi Fudd would help make the offense run at a such an amazing level. Many games we'll just be in awe how well a basketball team can run an offense. Some games would be unforgettable. This one player exponentially improves UCONN because the combination of her and Paige is as complete as you can imagine from the backcourt. We are so close to watching a style of play rarely ever seen during the regular season college level.
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You bring up an interesting infrequently discussed point about Azzi. She is certainly capable of running an offense as a lead/PG. Is that what she wants to do? If so. does that really favor UCONN considering that Paige is of the same ilk and the two would overlap for a minimum of 3 years? Azzi is also capable of being a Maya Moore or DT type player where it will not matter who is designated the PG-the offense will eventually center around her.
 
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