Bill Russell
Shaquille O'Neal
Stat by stat
Bars are scaled to the leader in this list.
The verdict
Bill Russell leads 2 of 2 categories. Our all-time ranking places Bill Russell at #4 and Shaquille O'Neal at #9.
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The case for Bill Russell
The greatest winner in the history of North American team sports, and the player who invented modern defense. Russell won 11 championships in 13 seasons, including eight straight from 1959 to 1966, and captured the last two, 1968 and 1969, as a player-coach — having become the first Black head coach in major US professional sports in 1966. His five MVPs trail only Kareem and tie Jordan, and his career averages of 22.5 rebounds against 15.1 points describe a superstar whose dominance ran entirely through defense, rebounding and outlet passing — shot-blocking as a tactical system rather than a highlight. In winner-take-all games, Game 5s and Game 7s combined, his record was a flawless 10–0. He arrived in Boston already a serial winner: back-to-back NCAA titles at San Francisco amid a 55-game winning streak, plus 1956 Olympic gold, meaning he won 13 championships in his final 15 seasons of organized basketball. His head-to-head playoff record against Wilt Chamberlain's teams, 7 series to 1, is the debate's ultimate trump card.
The case for Shaquille O'Neal
The most physically overwhelming player of the modern era, with a three-year peak that belongs in any conversation about the best basketball ever played. From 2000 to 2002, O'Neal won three consecutive Finals MVPs — a feat matched only by Jordan — as the Lakers three-peated, opening with a 2000 Finals against Indiana in which he averaged 38.0 points and 16.7 rebounds. His 2000 MVP was one first-place vote short of unanimous, and that season he led the league at 29.7 points per game while shooting 57.4 percent. He added a fourth ring as the co-star of Miami's 2006 title. The career totals — 28,596 points, 23.7 points and 10.9 rebounds per game, 58.2 percent from the field, the best mark of any 28,000-point scorer — undersell a player whose true effect was strategic: opponents built rosters, defensive schemes and the intentional Hack-a-Shaq foul strategy specifically for him, and the NBA's zone-defense legalization in 2001 was widely understood as a response to his unguardability. Conditioning lapses and 52.7 percent free-throw shooting are the asterisks; the peak is untouchable.