Bill Russell's Mt. Rushmore response

[steve B]

That's an excellent point.

My comment wasn't a knock against the other excellent players, just a recognition that aside from Kareem they weren't quite the players the top stars were. And I obviously had it wrong with the Lakers. It was more Kareem supported by Johnson, even if it didn't seem that way at the time.

When I looked at the teams stats that was one thing that stood out. Most of the great players had at least one other great player alongside them and often with a lot of career overlap. Parrish was the only one I found with enough time before and after Bird to make any comparison. Kareem of course was fantastic for a long time.

I guess the question is how good would the groups of players been individually? The Kareem/Johnson pair is interesting, When Kareem retired Johnsons assists dropped, but his scoring went up. And Kareem was very consistent, almost no difference with or without Johnson.
Bird/McHale have so much overlap they pretty much can't be separated.
Jordan/Pippen also have a lot of overlap.

Lebron did have a few guys around him who could have been that supporting player, but none of them really became consistent.

I may have to rethink some things. I'm not sure if Lebron is better than I thought because he's been great without consistent support, or if he's what I think, because he hasn't made that support consistent. He's certainly been great in Miami with a couple great players around him.
And maybe I need to rethink just how good some of the guys I thought of more as a supporting cast really were.

I'd still call it premature to put him in the top 5 all time. That's a pretty crowded space.

Steve B