Although casual fans give most of the credit for team success to the highest scorers, I came across an anomoly that clearly shows otherwise. Bill Russell (R.I.P) is the greatest winner in basketball and sports in general. His teams won 11 championships in 13 years!!! Ironically, he only averaged 15 ppg. In addition, he was selected as the league MVP in the year that the Oscar Robertson averaged a triple double, Elgin Baylor averaged 38.4 ppg, and Wilt Chamberlain averaged a whopping 50.4 ppg. Russell did average a tremendous 23.4 rpg, along with the championship victory. Were ball possessions more important than scoring for winning? Was STRONG rebounding more valuable to winning.
I decided to do the research and find out. There are only two players in NBA history to average over 30 ppg, as well as 20 rpg. The two players that averaged over 30 ppg both have multiple NBA Championships. Unfortunately, the combined total of the championships (8) by Michael Jordan and Wilt Chamberlain does not equal Bill Russell's (11) solo count.
Furthermore, Bill Russell and Wilt Chamberlain are also the only two players to average over 20 rpg. Therefore, the rebound/championship count advantage is 13 to 8. Also, this inadvertently shows something very telling. For 13 straight years in the NBA the only teams that won a championship were teams with a player averaging 20 rpg on them. That speaks volumes!!!
In all of NBA history only 31 players have averaged 30 ppg on a total of 71 occasions. Sixteen (16) of these players never won a NBA championship. In addition, 9 of the 15 players that did win championships, DID NOT win them when they averaged 30 or more points. For example, Lebron James averaged 30.2 ppg last season, but his team did not even make the playoffs, despite winning it all just two seasons ago.
On the other hand, there have been only 13 seasons that players averaged 20 or more rebounds per game, and EVERY winning team had one. In fact, during the majority of those years it was both of the 20 rpg players battling one another in the NBA finals after winning their respective conference championships.
Today's fans cannot relate because a 20 rebound game is as rare as a 50 point game, or even more so. Be advised, domibant rebounding requires heart, desire, and technique. Today's bigmen rarely demonstrate these qualities. Modern centers prefer to shoot three pointers, and there is very little battling for rebounds.
Not too long ago players like Moses Malone, Dennis Rodman, and Charles Barkley were patroling the offensive and defensive 'paint' areas. All were tremendous rebounders although undersized in their positions. They were also fearless, and they competed in the post season, and NBAFinals. Ironically, none of them averaged anything close to 20 rpg.
Therefore, I must conclude that teams that value winning championships would be best serviced with a STRONG rebounder (20 rpg) than a 30 ppg scorer. Casual fans will argue that teams must score to win. Wiser fans will interject that they cannot score without the ball. Finally, the most wise fans will mention that you only have to win by one point, and teams can easily do this if they can take a whole lot more shots thanks to a STRONG rebounder.
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