Quote:
|
how can you assess that Chamberlain was somehow less cerebral than Russell?
|
Russell's teams routinely out-performed Chamberlain's in head-to-head matchups, despite Chamberlain's clear physical advantages.
Russell recounts in his biography how he would wine and dine Chamberlain the night before a big game and fill his head with compliments so that he wouldn't be as desperate to prove himself on the floor.
The Celtic captain played all kinds of mind games with Chamberlain and often succeeded. He had to play Chamberlain that way, he writes, because Chamberlain was more gifted in terms of natural ability. Other players tried to defeat Chamberlain mentally as well, including Dolph Schayes whose vastly inferior Syracuse Nationals swept the Warriors in 1960-61.
I strongly recommend you the book, "Second Wind," which was written before Russell's most recent biography. It's pretty hard to finish that book and not come away in awe of Russell's profound knowledge of not only basketball, but history and life itself. Russell studied every aspect of basketball with punctilious detail. I can't think of too many people with a higher basketball IQ.
Now this doesn't mean that Chamberlain was an imbecilic beast who won exclusively with brawn. He was a highly intelligent player who improved his game by making adjustments on the basis of how his teammates performed on a given night. Few people remember how dominant of a defensive player he became in 66-67 when the additions of Greer and Cunningham allowed him to focus less on offense. And Chamberlain always had his way against Willis Reed, who had a similar physical style of play but not the analytical in-game eye of Chamberlain.
While I think Russell was likely the more cerebral of the two overall, by no means does that mean I think Chamberlain was a moron. Both players were very smart, but after reading a fair amount about both, I think Russell wins the mental battle. Chamberlain could be stubborn and hard to deal with; he wasn't well-liked in San Francisco and he was sometimes slow to adapt. Russell was constantly evolving, always working an angle to gain an edge.