First you have to define "greatest player". That's at the heart of all these debates.
Best stats - Wilt Chamberlain.
Best career winning percentage & most titles - Bill Russell
Most points - Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
Highest career scoring average - Michael Jordan
Larry and Magic saved the NBA, but I couldn't select either of them over any of the players named above.
Best versus the players of his era - Chamberlain? Mikan?
Best pound-for-pound - Isiah Thomas? Iverson?
And what category do we put Maravich in?
And it's always tough to discount your personal biases toward the players you've seen play.
From my days watching him on WGN every other night, when it seemed like he could do anything he wanted, to last night, when I was getting angry at him for sitting out the fourth quarter, MJ was the only guy that I watched all the time, whether he was on defense or offense, whether he had the ball or not. I'd never take my eyes off him. I couldn't say that about any of the other greats I've seen play in my 31 years. So I'd pick Jordan.
I'll take Russell as a close second--it's a team sport; the object is to win. There are a lot of things that you have to do to win that don't show up in the stat sheet. Russell did them all, and did them all as well as anyone from what I've seen and read.
Oh, and Oscar Robertson's career assist average was 9.5 per game, and 7.5 rebounds. But he did have one SEASON in which he averaged a triple double, and he averaged a cumulative triple double over his first six seasons.
