Woodens playing on the big court now...
- Thread starter ScoobaDawg
- Start date
Not that 11 NBA titles in 13 seasons is anything to just toss aside. But it's a lot easier for an NBA team to repeat or form a dynasty than it is for a college team. An NBA player may play for well over a decade (Russell played 13 years). In Wooden's day no college player ever played more than 3 years. He won his 10 titles in 12 years with at least 4 different teams. Russell's titles were won with about 2 different teams. Not to mention that there were only about10 NBA franchises back when Russell won his titles. Lot easier to be the best of 10 teams than to be the best of 100+. Not to mention that the NBA playoffs were all best 3-of-5 or best 4-of-7 series. You stub your toe one night (or even 7 nights) and you could still win an NBA title. Plus, you could win the NBA title without even winning your division in the NBA then (and the Celtics did). In Wooden's day, if you didn't win your conference you either played in the NIT or sat at home.</p>
Did a speech on Wooden my freshman year, an amazing guy. Most interesting thing about his coaching was he never scouted the other team and only worried about what his team was going to do.
.....he also won two NCAA championships in a row when he played for the University of San Francisco. He also won a Gold Medal in the Olympics. Russell's accomplishments are on par with Wooden's.
or even if you've heard a bunch: here's an example of why he was great.
<span> <embed src="http://video.ted.com/assets/player/swf/EmbedPlayer.swf" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" allowScriptAccess="never" flashvars="vu=http://video.ted.com/talks/dynamic/JohnWooden_2001-medium.flv&su=http://images.ted.com/images/ted/tedindex/embed-posters/JohnWooden-2001.embed_thumbnail.jpg&vw=320&vh=240&ap=0&ti=498&introDuration=15330&adDuration=4000&postAdDuration=830&adKeys" height="326" width="334" ></embed> </span>
It's pretty obvious that many coaches out there are more John McGuirk than John Wooden.
<span> <embed src="http://video.ted.com/assets/player/swf/EmbedPlayer.swf" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" allowScriptAccess="never" flashvars="vu=http://video.ted.com/talks/dynamic/JohnWooden_2001-medium.flv&su=http://images.ted.com/images/ted/tedindex/embed-posters/JohnWooden-2001.embed_thumbnail.jpg&vw=320&vh=240&ap=0&ti=498&introDuration=15330&adDuration=4000&postAdDuration=830&adKeys" height="326" width="334" ></embed> </span>
It's pretty obvious that many coaches out there are more John McGuirk than John Wooden.
players were getting paid a lot of money by Sam Gilbert to play for UCLA? Kind of takes the luster off the achievement for me. They went out and bought the best players.