This guy is so completely forgotten as an NBA legend, he's easily a top 5 player all-time....He played PG at 6'5" 210, he was strong as hell, great passer, good shooter, great rebounder, awesome fundamentals, he did it all. The legends love Robertson but fans seem to have forgotten his greatness. Just how good was Robertson? "He is so great-he scares me," Celtics Coach Red Auerbach once said. Former teammate Jerry Lucas told the Indianapolis Star: "He obviously was unbelievable, way ahead of his time. There is no more complete player than Oscar."
No way he was top 5 all time. I'll go into it in more detail later but his peak stats adjusted for pace are 21-7-7; he just played in a fast paced (and far easier) era. Are you telling me he was better than Jordan, Bird, Magic, Wilt, or Kareem (to name a few)? Let alone "easily". If Lebron played in the sixties you'd probably see him averaging 40-20-10 so stats from back then are clearly deceptive. Oscar is comparable to Allen Iverson (not in style, but in where he stacks up all time); a guy who racked up great stats but was known as a malcontent and not a winner. He couldn't ever come close to winning a championship as the number one guy, that immediately takes him out of the top 5 all time discussion in my opinion. Great player (definitely top 10 or 15), don't get me wrong, but you're seriously overrating him if you think he's top five all time. Before you answer this post, think which of the five players I named earlier (Jordan, Bird, Magic, Wilt, or Kareem) you'd put him above. I don't think he's forgotten at all, he was picked in the top six of both all era mock drafts I believe.
He didn't win titles? The Celtics were dominating back then, nobody had a chance to win titles when Robertson was playing outside of a couple stacked teams. He's teams were never talented enough to win titles....just because he didn't play on stacked Lakers/Celtics teams he's ranked lower than those players?
He was amazing and he's underrated because he's never mentioned among regular fans. You hear about those guys you mentioned and then players from a decade ago, but no one talks about Oscar Robertson. Averaging a triple double is amazing. As a ROOKIE he was averaging 30.5 points, 10.1 rebounds and 9.7 assists, but you're right about him not doing much in the playoffs. Very KG-like after reading a little bit so I don't think I'd put him over Magic because Magic was also a great all-around player and even though he had better supporting casts in his career he did win a lot more and did take over at center when Kareem went down with an injury. I'd put Robertson as the 2nd best point guard and he is a borderline top 5 player(5-6). As a top 10 player though he really isn't talked about much at all. The average fan probably doesn't know who he is or who he played for.
Did nothing in the playoff's? Only averaged 30/9/10 his first 5 playoff appearances. His teams were solid but not good enough to advance....the guy did all he could....he was hardly a 'loser' or anything like that....he just played in an area with the 76ers/Celtics/Lakers being better than everyone.
As I've said before, I'd like you to tell me which of these five players he's better than:Jordan, Magic, Kareem, Wilt, BirdThen we can have a discussion
yet another topic about the BIG O being under-rated!What I find funniest is that it was created by the biggest complainer about repeated threads!
I wouldn't say he was that forgotten.Also, I hate it when people say 'this player would have averaged this in the 60s' and stuff like that. Sports change over time, people get more athletic with better training and more money and time. You can't compare people like that. You have to look at what they did in their time and how it compared to their peers.Look at somebody like Carl Lewis in Athletics. He is one of, if not thee, greatest 100m runners of all time. Yet there are many people now who have a lot more runs under 10seconds. Would you tell me Leroy Burrell was a greater runner than Lewis because he ran faster? I think not, Lewis dominated in his time and thats why he is considered at the top.
I completely agreethis was 1 of the first topics I made when I joined the siteI think the guy is so unappreciated and he nearly AVERAGED A TRIPLE DOUBLE over his entire career
1) MJ2) Wilt3) Bird4) Magic5) KareemI dunno - he's definetley forgotten all the time, but it's hard to make a place for him in the top 5.
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'>No way he was top 5 all time. I'll go into it in more detail later but his peak stats adjusted for pace are 21-7-7; he just played in a fast paced (and far easier) era. Are you telling me he was better than Jordan, Bird, Magic, Wilt, or Kareem (to name a few)? Let alone "easily". If Lebron played in the sixties you'd probably see him averaging 40-20-10 so stats from back then are clearly deceptive.</div>Seriously, if you didn't see the game back then, then don't act like an expert. It was different, but for damn sure, not easier. LBJ wouldn't average 40-20-10, are you kidding? Defenders would knock his overrated-ass to the floor about 70 times a game, he wouldn't have his trainers to make him all better, he wouldn't have gatorade to replenish his thirst(he'd have salt tablets and water and have to take it like a man), and he wouldn't have today's amazing athletic gear that makes playing 82 games feel like a walk in the park. What Robertson did was very great. You can't blame a player for playing in a different era, in the end, the league was pretty much the same then as it is now. Only, the culture has changed, and players are soft one-dimensional pussies nowadays too.When are you guys going to wake up? There are only TWO eras in basketball: The era before the shot-clock, and the era after the shot-clock. All the other differences are little ones that happen every decade of basketball, the NBA tends to go in cycles: the 80's were like the early 60's, the 90's were like from 1965-1973 and so on. You can adjust for pace all you want, but those stats aren't going to tell you how he'd adapt to todays game or how he'd fair against todays players or how todays soft-ass rules would work in his favor or how todays equipment would make it more comfortable for him to play or how players today are so pampered that he'd not even have to try in todays league. That's the problem with those stats, that's why you can't rely on them.You guys should take into acount, all those things that players back then had to deal with before you judge them. The NBA isn't Wine, it does not get better as time goes by.
Milgod and Bryant make a good point and I agree. Even though the players are bigger and more athletic it seems right now, they have a lot of things going for them.
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (tHe_pEsTiLeNcE @ Apr 23 2007, 11:16 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'>As I've said before, I'd like you to tell me which of these five players he's better than:Jordan, Magic, Kareem, Wilt, BirdThen we can have a discussion</div>
And Michael Bryant, obviously we stand on the shoulders of giants, I'm talking about if Lebron in his current shape was sent back to the 1960s. He'd be a center and a top five rebounder in the league at his size and athleticism, but would also be the best dribbler in the league. He'd be a center who could burn the fastest point guards.
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'>And Michael Bryant, obviously we stand on the shoulders of giants, I'm talking about if Lebron in his current shape was sent back to the 1960s. He'd be a center and a top five rebounder in the league at his size and athleticism, but would also be the best dribbler in the league. He'd be a center who could burn the fastest point guards.</div>I doubt that, he'd be undersized. A power forward? yes, but not center. Players today lack the toughness that was mandetory of players in the past. The game was brutal, it was hockey without the ice-skates. You think Steve Nash and Leandro Barbosa would be able to waltz into the lane and get their pretty reverse lay-ups in 1960? No way, players back then would knock them down and send them a message. And if they got in there again, somebody was going to get hurt. Those are the things you can't take into acount with math. Let's face it, the NBA was dirty back then. Players back then made $30,000 a year, there were almost no guaranteed contracts, so players busted their asses. Not like today were league minimum is $400,000 a year. You have to remember that. Players are too nice these days.
I'm sorry, I'm just not going to trust one guy's groggy memory over all logic, reason, statistics, analysis, analysts, and what I've seen with my own two eyes in the handful of classic games I've seen. This is where our argument ends.And BCB, stop dodging me
it's funny how people always say "if today's player X played then he'd average insane numbers.. yadda yadda yadda" but no one says "If wilt, oscar, jerry, Bill, cousy had the training and early exposure and opportunities that today's player's have had, imagine who great they'd be today!"no one takes into account how these guys didn't have the training facilities, coaching at an earlier age, information about nutrition, private jets, 4 star hotels on the road, immaculate custom built locker rooms etc etc that today's player has. Today players gotta focus on basketball and that's it. Sure they have more media to deal with, but you tell me Wilt wouldn't soak all of that up?bottom line, it's a different era, and we can't travel through time.you can't randomly state how player X would do 30-40 years ago. It was completely different back then.
