Shaq: When they talk about the greatest players of all time, your name is never brought up. It’s always the little man, Kobe, LeBron, Jordan. Does that upset you as much as it upsets me?
Kareem: It upset me a lot, the fact that they don’t recognize Bill Russell. He’s the greatest winner & tactician.

34 comments

  1. Kareem is brought up as the GOAT way more often that Kobe lol. Almost universally ranked higher too. Don’t know why Shaq is acting like it’s still 2011.

  3. Wilt should be up there as well. Only player to ever score 100. Was he fed yeah. Still made the shots. 

  4. As incredible as Kareem was, it’s amazing that Russell doesn’t get more respect when he won 9 titles in the decade directly before Kareem won one (from ages 22-32), especially with how much his teams struggled with him out of the lineup.

    Because he didn’t play like dominant modern players people distort just how dominant Russell was really around the same time that Kareem played. It takes a lot of cognitive dissonance for so many people here to rank Kareem in the top three and Russell outside the top seven or eight

  6. With all due respect to Kobe, I have no idea why he’s brought up in GOAT discussions. I get that people grew up with him, but he’s not even in the top 10.

  7. isnt the universally agreed upon top 3 MJ, lebron, KAJ? some people dont even put them in order. anyone who says kobe is a top 5 player is just biased and i’d argue he doesnt even belong in the top 10. kobe goat talk is just ridiculous

  8. Bill Russell gets brought up though. From the 4-12 range. People made up their minds. Stats matter when considering GOAT debates and Bill Russell is the WORST offensive player in the Top 12 mix.

  10. I’ve talked to people personally that hold Kareem & even Magic as atleast top 5, they’re older tho. My middle school basketball coach even holds Kareem above MJ, he said they only call MJ the GOAT because he was flashy lol

  11. The attempts to put Jokic in the conversation means some of you are going to leave Kareem or Wilt off. Which is insane to me

  13. Back in the 90s and early 2000s Kareem and Russell were brought up all the time, usually along with Magic, whenever anyone discussed if Jordan was the GOAT or not… but I think that pretty much got settled and general consensus sided with Jordan.

    So in 2025 if you’re talking GOAT it’s pretty much just Jordan vs Lebron.

  14. Um

    Kareem absolutely has a goat case

    Kobe is nowhere close

    People under 30 who don’t know history are the only people not giving Kareem his due

  15. russell’s one of the most fascinating if not the most fascinating player to evaluate. he doesn’t look like the modern picture of a GOAT-level player at all. he never puts up the sexy offensive numbers and even on film he doesn’t look anything special as an offensive player. but how do you argue against being the greatest winner in league history, or even big 4 sports history? 8 straight and 11 of 13 in any era is basically impossible to even envision today and his teams always seemed to make the big plays when it mattered most. even in college and high school it was the same thing. his teams just won almost every time. why does it matter if he wasn’t a special offensive player? he and his teams got it done 90% of the time.

    would’ve loved to see russell defend kareem. russell talks about how he plays the players a ton and he just spent a decade managing the premier offensive center in wilt

  17. What is Shaq even talking about? Bill Simmons is the most influential basketball pundit alive. His GOAT pyramid ranks (1) MJ, (2) Lebron, (3) Bill Russell, (4) Kareem. And the really old heads will always say Bill Russell is the greatest.

    The contemporary argument about GOAT is always going to be “is this active player better than MJ?” because MJ is most people’s GOAT. So right now that’s a LeBron-MJ convo. LeBron hasn’t clearly dethroned MJ, so the next all-time great will also get compared with MJ.

  20. Russell became underrated from the MJ GOAT apparatus needing to discredit the more clutch player. People paint the 11 rings as a team being beyond stacked, but he was 10-0 in game 7s (11-0 if you count Bo5 game 5s). You don’t have that many game 7s to begin with if you’re lapping the league like the 2017 Warriors or something.

    I don’t think many people realize that MJ literally has a higher playoff winning percentage than Russell, Bill just won every close series. Ironically he’d probably get more respect nowadays if he lost a couple of his 4-0 record in game 7s against Wilt so that their ring counts were like 9 to 4 instead of 11 to 2.

  21. I always include Bill Russell in my top 5 list. The hard one for me is Tim Duncan vs Kareem.

  23. I hate all these discussions so freaking much. Obviously Kobe should not be anywhere near that conversation, but can we please stop acting like having Kareem or Russell as the third or fourth best player of all time is a huge disrespect to them? We are talking all time. Half a century! Having someone third or fourth on that list is an incredible compliment. These discussions are so dumb and I cannot wait until the season starts again because NBA Reddit is insufferable in the off-season

  24. Anybody that doesn’t acknowledge that Kareem is on the absolute pantheon is a fool who shouldn’t be taken seriously.

  25. Fun fact about Kareem; he always has been and always will be a real one ☝️ 👑

  26. Comparison is the thief of joy. Shaq was the best Shaq and that’s very impressive.

  27. Shaq could learn a lot from Kareem about giving credit to other greats.

  29. The top 3 shown no respect is Bill Russell, Julius Erving and George Mikan. You can’t tell the story of the NBA without them greats. I don’t care how different the league was they were founding fathers. Shout out to Kareem for respecting his elders.

  30. I feel like Kareem should be in the consensus top 3, top five at worse. Personal bias aside.

  33. Okay, I understand that Bill Russell is a great player. But I hate the whole shocked pikachu vibe that his defenders give off when he’s not ranked with the other legends. First off, he averaged 16 pts on subpar field goal. People don’t care about defense, that should be extremely obvious. Second off, he played god damn 60 years ago. Half the people that saw him play are dead.

    It’s insane that people are still on this “these kids don’t know about Bill Russell!” Gee, wonder why the 8 year olds of the modern era don’t idolize a defense-first player from 60 years ago like they do LeBron. Shocking, I know.

  34. Shaq’s projecting. KAJ is brought up in the GOAT conversation all the time.

    Ain’t no “we.”

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