![]() | This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 1 | Archive 2 |
This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 1 September 2020 and 18 December 2020. Further details are available
on the course page. Student editor(s):
Noahhb11.
Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT ( talk) 15:43, 16 January 2022 (UTC)
I just find this a bit hard to believe... I have looked through tons of articles from The Sporting News discussing Russell, and they have not much other than praise for the difference maker he was.-- Hoopsknowledge 01:54, 10 July 2007 (UTC)
Bill Russell (basketball) → Bill Russell – Rationale: Although there are many people known as "William Russell," and a few known as "Bill Russell," the basketball player is by far the best known person known as "Bill Russell." john k 19:02, 5 April 2006 (UTC)
I really wish someone had bothered to post about this at "Bill Russell" before making the move. -- Infrogmation
"...he never failed to grab at least 20 rebounds per game in any of his 13 post-season campaigns." It sounds like he did this every single game, rather than averaging 20. It's possible, I suppose, but highly unlikely. Clarityfiend 18:55, 5 June 2006 (UTC)
From my understanding of frontcourt players in the fifties and sixties, I am not sure if Bill Russell was that undersized. While he was on the thin side (about 220 lbs), his height (between 6-9 and 6-10) seems to be average for centers around the time he played. Wes Unseld and Willis Reed are typical examples of centers during his time. In fact, it is not that uncommon today to see players around Russell's height playing center in the NBA. Alonzo Mourning and Ben Wallace (who is probably shorter)are such examples. Dinobrya 12 June 2006.
I conducted a large sampling of the fives who were playing during Russell's time and discovered the darndest thing. I found far more players who were 6'8 and 6'9 than I did 7 footers. In fact 6'9 was the mode {the most common height I saw). Secondly, Russell did not seem to be that much of a bean pole when compared to the vast majority of his comtemporaries. Bill Russell seemed to be undersized only in rare instances--such as his matchups with Chamberlain. 215-230 seemed to be very common for a NBA center. He was not outsized on a nightly basis. [ [1]] Dinobrya 12 November 2006 2006
I notice that 83rd United States Congress has a link here. As this article makes no mention of his career in the US Congress in the 1950s, I assume we have at least one more Bill Russell that needs disambiguating. -- Infrogmation 00:12, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
Can we get an info box in here and maybe a PD image? I'll try, but i'd appreciate help with either of these. Daniel_123 ► 14:02, 4 September 2006 (UTC)
I just rewrote a major part of the article, inserting much much more hard data, weeding out trivia, and some copyediting. I also had to delete two YouTube links according to WP:EL. I intend to make Bill Russell a good article as of WP:WIAGA and WP:BIO. — Onomatopoeia 08:15, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
M3tal H3ad 09:51, 31 December 2006 (UTC)
Apparently we need an article on a congressman of the same name. "William F. Russell", a redirect to here, is linked to refering to a member of the US Congress, while this article on the basketball player neglects to say he ever served in congress nor disambiguates anyone with a similar name who has. -- Infrogmation 03:13, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
I tried to make it end on a more positive note as it seemed to have kind of a downer ending. Even though Russell went through a lot of completely ridiculous shit, he overcame it and his story is generally considered a positive one overall. If you feel differently please don't hesitate to comment. Quadzilla99 14:38, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
in the para about the "flea market of racism", should most valuable player be Most Valuable Player? Chensiyuan 01:38, 10 February 2007 (UTC)
Another minor point: "Russell was the centerpiece of the Celtics dynasty that won two NBA Championships during Russell's thirteen-year career." Isn't it eleven championships? User: TheCharlottesvilleJellyman —Preceding unsigned comment added by TheCharlottesvilleJellyman ( talk • contribs) 18:52, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
although we know who is who, should the caption tell us who is who? Chensiyuan 03:50, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
I noticed that the section on the Olympics comes before the discussion of the 1956 Draft. Do others agree that these two sections should be swapped so that they follow chronologically? Zagalejo 07:01, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
Actually maybe it's the title that's annoying me a "Legacy" section that incoludes a long recounting of his awards is unintuitive. Renaming would help perhaps, it's now Accomplishments and legacy. Quadzilla99 18:40, 1 March 2007 (UTC)
Bill Russell is now a featured article. Good work everybody and congratulations. Quadzilla99 09:51, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
What specific date are we aiming for? March 12, 2008? Because Mini Moke already has March 12 of this year locked up.
Considering the discussions at the Michael Jordan FAC, I don't think it would hurt to run this article though a Featured Article Review. If the article is as good as its supposed to be, then we should have nothing to worry about. However, if people outside the NBA project still think it needs work, then we might as well give them a chance to speak now, so that we don't have to deal with a lot of complaining when the article has hit the front page. Zagalejo 19:35, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
I've worked on the references for an hour an half. I'm summarizing the problems here so that Project members can incorporate these changes into future articles.
Congrats on the FA; it should be ready for prime-time with a bit more tweaking. SandyGeorgia ( Talk) 02:40, 10 March 2007 (UTC)
Removed the line "even while in Boston". Boston has a reputation for extreme racism -- I've heard it called the most racist city in America --, especially in the 20th century, and even did it not, there's nothing to support this lines inclusion in the article. Czrisher 22:04, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
Some undoubtedly well intentioned anon went through and re-wrote practically the entire article adding a lot of redundant wording, and generally unecessary words. See here: [2] This is generally how FA's fall below standard. One or two examples, Here's before in one example:
In one particular instance, Russell's father was denied service at a gasoline station until the staff had taken care of all the white customers. When his father attempted to leave and find a different station, the attendant stuck a shotgun in his face, threatening to kill him unless he stayed and waited his turn.
and after:
To illustrate this view, in one particular instance, Russell's father was denied service at a gasoline station until the staff had finished providing for all of the white customers. When his father realized the service station attendant's racist practice, he attempted to leave and find a different station, but the attendant stuck a shotgun in his face and threatened to kill him unless he stayed and waited for service.
"To illustrate this view" is unnecessary extra wording, it's already obvious in the previous wording that you're giving an example.
"When his father realized the service station attendant's racist practice" extra redundant wording that adds nothing, it's already clearly obvious he left the station in the earlier version because of the racism. Also the last half of the sentence has similar superfluous wording. In general a ton of redundancies were added and some meanings were altered, which made sentences now incorrect. In general an absolute ton of unnecessary and redundant wording was added. I decided to just blank revert them after trying to keep some, there were just too many problems. Quadzilla99 12:44, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
Source #2 ( nndb) is not a reliable source apparently, see the talk page of the article on the source. This shouldn't be a big problem we just have to find reliable sources for the info sourced by the site. This shouldn't be too hard given the info appears to be basic high school/college career info. Quadzilla99 06:14, 31 March 2007 (UTC)
Just saw the Miami Vice episode "The Fix" on TV and found nothing about it here. [4]
Did Russell win the Finals MVP for his championship teams? It should be mentioned somewhere if he didn't. I used the find function, typing in Finals MVP and got no results, and then I typed in MVP and looked for a mention of the finals in relation to his MVP and didn't see anything. Maybe I missed it, but would someone like to edit that piece of valuable info? 129.120.244.97 05:12, 16 November 2007 (UTC)
It doesn't seem like there's much of an MVP controversy any more. There was one before last season, and until mid-way of last season people knew what you were talking about when you said MVP controversy, but once the Mavs took over the league and Dirk ran away with the MVP award, it seems like any commentary on Nash's MVP awards are irrelevent and old and dated. Any thoughts? Billybobjoe786 ( talk) 23:26, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
In the second paragraph of "Personal life", many sentences are reproduced verbatim from the sources cited. Examples:
Xeriphas1994 23:13, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
In the section about the 1969 Finals, it talks about Chamberlain's injury in Game 7 of the Finals, and how he was not allowed back in the game. the source on that fact - source 22 - doesn't mention anything about Chamberlain's injury, but http://www.nba.com/encyclopedia/finals/1969_finals.html does. I don't know how to change or add sources; somebody else wanna switch the sources? Billybobjoe786 08:01, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
Done -- as to how to add sources, well just copy the template and change the parameters accordingly.
Chensiyuan
08:12, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
I don't think you did it right. The part about the 1969 NBA Finals still cites source 22, although it shouldn't: it should be the one I listed above. Source 22 is correctly used in other parts of the article though. I'll learn how to change it later if no one else does it by then. Billybobjoe786 ( talk) 06:53, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
We really need an image for Bill Russell - I'm surprised it doesn't have one. - Milk's Favorite Cookie 01:38, 20 March 2008 (UTC)
I notice that the conversions from imperial scale to metric are performed by the conversion tool down to the first decimal only, which begets flawed conversions, such as Russell being listed as 2.1 m rather than 2.08 m, and Chamberlain being described as 2.2 m instead of 2.16. I corrected the article, but this conversion tool ought to be improved. Mrbluesky ( talk) 16:51, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
I just worked some clumps from the "The Rivalry" book into the article, which gives a very thorough warts-and-all report of Russell's career and personality. — Onomatopoeia ( talk) 17:04, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
...but not first "in any major American professional sports league." He was preceded by the first African-American coach in Major League Baseball: John Jordan "Buck" O'Neil ( Chicago Cubs). See List of African-American firsts. -- Tenebrae ( talk) 04:14, 7 July 2008 (UTC)
This article has been vandalized, someone please restore it to its previous version. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Darthraul ( talk • contribs) 02:47, 16 February 2009 (UTC)
Is anyone aware of what Bill Russell's basketball accomplishments were at McClymonds High School? Considering that he was a champion at the college, pro and Olympic levels, I was curious to see if he was ever involved in any state championships at the high school level. I have checked McClymonds web page, but I think the site is down. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Chezwick74 ( talk • contribs) 18:15, 27 February 2009 (UTC)
Russell stated in his quote to Lebron on All-Star weekend, 2014: "Thank you for leaving me off of your Mt. Rushmore. I'm glad you did. Basketball is a team game. It's not for individual honors. I won back to back state championships in HS, back to back NCAA championships in college; I won an NBA championship my first year in the league, an NBA championship my last year, 9 inbetween... and THAT, Mr. James, is etched in stone." As a direct quote, it confirms that he did win 2 state championships in high school. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kl462 ( talk • contribs) 04:48, 17 February 2014 (UTC)
Is it 6-9 or 6-10? NBA.com says 6-10 but basketball-reference says 6-9. Dabomb87 ( talk) 14:39, 26 July 2009 (UTC)
{{
cite book}}
: |pages=
has extra text (
help); Check |isbn=
value: checksum (
help)I've protected the page for a week or until you guys sort this out. From the above it sounds like at least some of you may be close to a resolution. Let me know when you have a consensus and I will unprotect sooner.-- Slp1 ( talk) 15:02, 27 July 2009 (UTC)
In the "Racist abuse, controversy and reconciliation" section, the following sentence appears: "This cemented the general opinion that Russell (who was the highest paid Celtic) was egotistical, paranoid and hypocritical, and even the FBI described Russell in his file as 'an arrogant Negro who won't sign autographs for white children.'" This seems to imply that the FBI was some sort of objective observer. However, J. Edgar Hoover's FBI was anything but. This was, after all, the organization that looked for dirt on people whose politics Hoover disagreed with, including M.L. King. Giving any credence to the opinion of the FBI would be inappropriate, especially considering that the organization had no rational justification for focusing on a basketball player. I'm not sure how to rewrite that sentence. Simply removing the word "even" would be a start, but I'm not sure the remaining sentence would work. If the FBI's opinion should be included (and it probably should, in IMHO), it might be better to include it in the context of harassment of Russell.-- HughGRex ( talk) 10:50, 13 January 2010 (UTC)
I see no mention of his hosting SNL in 1979. For somebody with little or no sense of humor, this was a remarkable act. I recall he did pretty well hosting. There was a skit parodying the show "White Shadow" that had Bill coaching an all-white team. Ok, you had to be there. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bigmac31 ( talk • contribs) 19:03, 7 June 2010 (UTC)
Bill Russell is currently up for nomination as a future Today's Featured Article on the Main Page.-- Chimino ( talk) 05:58, 18 March 2013 (UTC)
I've just switched "an American retired professional basketball player" to "a retired American professional basketball player" in the lead. To me, the former sounds ungrammatical. A few minutes' searching turned up Adjective#Adjective order, which I think agrees with "retired American" rather than the inverse. I would place "retired" in the "age" category, which is number four, and "American" in the "origin" category, which is number six. — Mr. Stradivarius ♪ talk ♪ 23:42, 12 February 2014 (UTC)
The first new page I looked at today, Page 19, didn't say "retired American" at all, but page 29 had 6 good examples: "retired American workers", "Retired American Bishop", "retired American admiral", "retired American butcher", "retired American general", and "retired American football players".
Even if I use your 1/8 figure, "retired American" is a slight favorite, even before accounting for "American retired" false positives.
Does "retired" describe a person's age? Indirectly,
so what did the author mean?
The point is that "American retired" sounds almost as strange as "old little lady" instead of "little old lady".
If I grant each of your "American football" arguments, it doesn't reverse the overall result.
The real issue is "I'm uncomfortable relying on these searches for this purpose." I'm similarly uncomfortable relying on less quantifiable, indefinitely debatable assertions.
What did the author mean? He was drawing some broad distinctions that were never intended to cover every situation.
I don't think he was thinking of "retired" in category 8 (few nouns, not counting direct objects like "the baby", can come after "rocking" other than "chair", and even a rocking skyscraper wasn't intended for rocking like a rocking chair is),
so category 4 comes as close as anything. And if that stretches the definition of age too far, then "retired" is "adjectives subject to objective measure (e.g., wealthy, large, round)" because there is usually no debate over whether someone is really retired or not.
I prefer "former American professional basketball player" to "American former ...".
I don't believe the snowball theory because most such articles omit the word "retired" altogether.
Also, it's perfectly normal for us to have different intuitions about how grammar works in situations like these. Various factors could be at play: regional variation (I am at a disadvantage here, being from the UK), age variation, and variation based on social status are all possible. Having different intuitions doesn't make either of us wrong (after accounting for WP:ENGVAR), it just means that we are witnessing language variation at work.
As to finding a definitive "most common" answer, probably the best way would be to find someone who has access to a corpus of American English, and ask them nicely to do a search for "retired American noun" and "American retired noun" to see which is more common. But such people are not so easily found, and if we asked them to resolve every linguistic dispute on Wikipedia they would be very busy! So we might be forced to settle for Google Ngram and prescriptive rules for now. Also, I suspect asking other editors to give their intuitions on the subject would provide a decent informal sample if we managed to find enough people.
By the way, I do consider "retired" to be modifying "basketball player" in "retired American professional basketball player", at least indirectly. I would say "professional" is modifying "basketball player", "American" is modifying "professional basketball player", and "retired" is modifying "American professional basketball player". Also, I don't think we would be implying that Russell would be any more or less of a professional basketball player depending on the order we choose for "American" and "retired".
Anyway, this post has become far too long, so I'll stop now. :) — Mr. Stradivarius ♪ talk ♪ 10:12, 13 February 2014 (UTC)
It's true that "retired" doesn't fit in with the age category as well as more common words like "old" and "young". These rules are descriptive, after all, and have been distilled down by observing how language works in practice. It isn't always easy, or possible, to use the rules prescriptively. As The Oxford Dictionary of English Grammar (p. 11) says, "It has proved difficult to formulate comprehensive and satisfactory rules as to the ordering".
Also, it's perfectly normal for us to have different intuitions about how grammar works in situations like these. Various factors could be at play: regional variation (I am at a disadvantage here, being from the UK), age variation, and variation based on social status are all possible. Having different intuitions doesn't make either of us wrong (after accounting for WP:ENGVAR), it just means that we are witnessing language variation at work.
As to finding a definitive "most common" answer, probably the best way would be to find someone who has access to a corpus of American English, and ask them nicely to do a search for "retired American noun" and "American retired noun" to see which is more common. But such people are not so easily found, and if we asked them to resolve every linguistic dispute on Wikipedia they would be very busy!
By the way, I do consider "retired" to be modifying "basketball player" in "retired American professional basketball player", at least indirectly. I would say "professional" is modifying "basketball player", "American" is modifying "professional basketball player", and "retired" is modifying "American professional basketball player".
Also, I don't think we would be implying that Russell would be any more or less of a professional basketball player depending on the order we choose for "American" and "retired".
You know, I think we actually have one too many adjectives in that phrase anyway. How about something like "a retired professional basketball player from West Monroe, Louisiana"? And yes, I think "retired" is better than "former" as well. — Mr. Stradivarius ♪ talk ♪ 12:03, 14 February 2014 (UTC)
William Felton "Bill" Russell (born February 12, 1934) is a retired professional basketball player from the U.S. city of West Monroe, Louisiana. Russell played center for the Boston Celtics of the National Basketball Association (NBA) from 1956 to 1969.
William Felton "Bill" Russell (born February 12, 1934) is a retired professional basketball player from the United States. Russell played center for the Boston Celtics of the National Basketball Association (NBA) from 1956 to 1969.
The comment(s) below were originally left at Talk:Bill Russell/Comments, and are posted here for posterity. Following several discussions in past years, these subpages are now deprecated. The comments may be irrelevant or outdated; if so, please feel free to remove this section.
|
Last edited at 15:31, 9 February 2007 (UTC). Substituted at 09:39, 29 April 2016 (UTC)
Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just modified 2 external links on Bill Russell. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.
This message was posted before February 2018.
After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than
regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors
have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the
RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{
source check}}
(last update: 5 June 2024).
Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot ( Report bug) 14:14, 9 May 2017 (UTC)
Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just modified 3 external links on Bill Russell. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.
This message was posted before February 2018.
After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than
regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors
have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the
RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{
source check}}
(last update: 5 June 2024).
Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot ( Report bug) 00:10, 20 May 2017 (UTC)
Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just modified 3 external links on Bill Russell. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
{{
dead link}}
tag to
http://www.nba.com/2009/allstar2009/02/16/top10.20090215/index.html{{
dead link}}
tag to
http://www.billrusselllegacy.org/news.htmlWhen you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.
This message was posted before February 2018.
After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than
regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors
have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the
RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{
source check}}
(last update: 5 June 2024).
Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot ( Report bug) 09:19, 20 July 2017 (UTC)
The organization of this article seems odd to me. The table of contents contains 18 sections, not including subsections. The current TOC is as follows:
1 Early years 1.1 Family and personal life 1.2 Initial exposure to basketball 2 College years 2.1 Basketball 2.2 Track and field 2.3 Plans for a professional basketball career after college 3 1956 NBA draft 4 1956 Olympics 5 Professional career 5.1 1956–59 5.2 1959–66 5.3 1966–69 5.4 NBA career statistics 5.4.1 Regular season 5.4.2 Playoffs 6 Post-playing career 7 Head coaching record 8 Accomplishments and legacy 8.1 Statue 9 Personal life 10 Earnings 11 Personality 11.1 As a competitor 11.2 Off the court 12 Russell–Chamberlain relations 13 Racist abuse, controversy, and relationship with Boston fans 14 See also 15 Selected publications 16 References 17 Further reading 18 External links
I would propose to change it to the following:
1 Early years 1.1 Family and personal life 1.2 Initial exposure to basketball 2 College years 2.1 Basketball 2.2 Track and field 2.3 Plans for a professional basketball career 3 1956 Olympics 4 Professional basketball career 4.1 1956 NBA draft 4.2 1956–59 4.3 1959–66 4.4 1966–69 4.5 Personality 4.5.1 As a competitor 4.5.2 Off the court 4.6 Relationship with Wilt Chamberlain 4.7 Earnings 5 Post-playing career 6 Experience with racism 7 Accomplishments and legacy 7.1 Statue 8 Personal life 9 NBA career statistics 9.1 Regular season 9.2 Playoffs 10 NBA head coaching record 11 Selected publications by Russell 12 References 13 Further reading and external links
Thoughts? SunCrow ( talk) 03:12, 16 November 2019 (UTC)
The text: "Red Auerbach offered the Ice Capades if they didn’t draft Russell number one. Rochester got their ice show." was inserted by an editor with almost no other edits on Feb 2018 [9] before the John Taylor reference. At the very least, it should not be before the Taylor citation. But also it is not supported by the Taylor book, in fact Taylor is very skeptical of it: footnote, p.68. Adpete ( talk) 02:10, 13 October 2020 (UTC)
![]() | This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 1 | Archive 2 |
This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 1 September 2020 and 18 December 2020. Further details are available
on the course page. Student editor(s):
Noahhb11.
Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT ( talk) 15:43, 16 January 2022 (UTC)
I just find this a bit hard to believe... I have looked through tons of articles from The Sporting News discussing Russell, and they have not much other than praise for the difference maker he was.-- Hoopsknowledge 01:54, 10 July 2007 (UTC)
Bill Russell (basketball) → Bill Russell – Rationale: Although there are many people known as "William Russell," and a few known as "Bill Russell," the basketball player is by far the best known person known as "Bill Russell." john k 19:02, 5 April 2006 (UTC)
I really wish someone had bothered to post about this at "Bill Russell" before making the move. -- Infrogmation
"...he never failed to grab at least 20 rebounds per game in any of his 13 post-season campaigns." It sounds like he did this every single game, rather than averaging 20. It's possible, I suppose, but highly unlikely. Clarityfiend 18:55, 5 June 2006 (UTC)
From my understanding of frontcourt players in the fifties and sixties, I am not sure if Bill Russell was that undersized. While he was on the thin side (about 220 lbs), his height (between 6-9 and 6-10) seems to be average for centers around the time he played. Wes Unseld and Willis Reed are typical examples of centers during his time. In fact, it is not that uncommon today to see players around Russell's height playing center in the NBA. Alonzo Mourning and Ben Wallace (who is probably shorter)are such examples. Dinobrya 12 June 2006.
I conducted a large sampling of the fives who were playing during Russell's time and discovered the darndest thing. I found far more players who were 6'8 and 6'9 than I did 7 footers. In fact 6'9 was the mode {the most common height I saw). Secondly, Russell did not seem to be that much of a bean pole when compared to the vast majority of his comtemporaries. Bill Russell seemed to be undersized only in rare instances--such as his matchups with Chamberlain. 215-230 seemed to be very common for a NBA center. He was not outsized on a nightly basis. [ [1]] Dinobrya 12 November 2006 2006
I notice that 83rd United States Congress has a link here. As this article makes no mention of his career in the US Congress in the 1950s, I assume we have at least one more Bill Russell that needs disambiguating. -- Infrogmation 00:12, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
Can we get an info box in here and maybe a PD image? I'll try, but i'd appreciate help with either of these. Daniel_123 ► 14:02, 4 September 2006 (UTC)
I just rewrote a major part of the article, inserting much much more hard data, weeding out trivia, and some copyediting. I also had to delete two YouTube links according to WP:EL. I intend to make Bill Russell a good article as of WP:WIAGA and WP:BIO. — Onomatopoeia 08:15, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
M3tal H3ad 09:51, 31 December 2006 (UTC)
Apparently we need an article on a congressman of the same name. "William F. Russell", a redirect to here, is linked to refering to a member of the US Congress, while this article on the basketball player neglects to say he ever served in congress nor disambiguates anyone with a similar name who has. -- Infrogmation 03:13, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
I tried to make it end on a more positive note as it seemed to have kind of a downer ending. Even though Russell went through a lot of completely ridiculous shit, he overcame it and his story is generally considered a positive one overall. If you feel differently please don't hesitate to comment. Quadzilla99 14:38, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
in the para about the "flea market of racism", should most valuable player be Most Valuable Player? Chensiyuan 01:38, 10 February 2007 (UTC)
Another minor point: "Russell was the centerpiece of the Celtics dynasty that won two NBA Championships during Russell's thirteen-year career." Isn't it eleven championships? User: TheCharlottesvilleJellyman —Preceding unsigned comment added by TheCharlottesvilleJellyman ( talk • contribs) 18:52, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
although we know who is who, should the caption tell us who is who? Chensiyuan 03:50, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
I noticed that the section on the Olympics comes before the discussion of the 1956 Draft. Do others agree that these two sections should be swapped so that they follow chronologically? Zagalejo 07:01, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
Actually maybe it's the title that's annoying me a "Legacy" section that incoludes a long recounting of his awards is unintuitive. Renaming would help perhaps, it's now Accomplishments and legacy. Quadzilla99 18:40, 1 March 2007 (UTC)
Bill Russell is now a featured article. Good work everybody and congratulations. Quadzilla99 09:51, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
What specific date are we aiming for? March 12, 2008? Because Mini Moke already has March 12 of this year locked up.
Considering the discussions at the Michael Jordan FAC, I don't think it would hurt to run this article though a Featured Article Review. If the article is as good as its supposed to be, then we should have nothing to worry about. However, if people outside the NBA project still think it needs work, then we might as well give them a chance to speak now, so that we don't have to deal with a lot of complaining when the article has hit the front page. Zagalejo 19:35, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
I've worked on the references for an hour an half. I'm summarizing the problems here so that Project members can incorporate these changes into future articles.
Congrats on the FA; it should be ready for prime-time with a bit more tweaking. SandyGeorgia ( Talk) 02:40, 10 March 2007 (UTC)
Removed the line "even while in Boston". Boston has a reputation for extreme racism -- I've heard it called the most racist city in America --, especially in the 20th century, and even did it not, there's nothing to support this lines inclusion in the article. Czrisher 22:04, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
Some undoubtedly well intentioned anon went through and re-wrote practically the entire article adding a lot of redundant wording, and generally unecessary words. See here: [2] This is generally how FA's fall below standard. One or two examples, Here's before in one example:
In one particular instance, Russell's father was denied service at a gasoline station until the staff had taken care of all the white customers. When his father attempted to leave and find a different station, the attendant stuck a shotgun in his face, threatening to kill him unless he stayed and waited his turn.
and after:
To illustrate this view, in one particular instance, Russell's father was denied service at a gasoline station until the staff had finished providing for all of the white customers. When his father realized the service station attendant's racist practice, he attempted to leave and find a different station, but the attendant stuck a shotgun in his face and threatened to kill him unless he stayed and waited for service.
"To illustrate this view" is unnecessary extra wording, it's already obvious in the previous wording that you're giving an example.
"When his father realized the service station attendant's racist practice" extra redundant wording that adds nothing, it's already clearly obvious he left the station in the earlier version because of the racism. Also the last half of the sentence has similar superfluous wording. In general a ton of redundancies were added and some meanings were altered, which made sentences now incorrect. In general an absolute ton of unnecessary and redundant wording was added. I decided to just blank revert them after trying to keep some, there were just too many problems. Quadzilla99 12:44, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
Source #2 ( nndb) is not a reliable source apparently, see the talk page of the article on the source. This shouldn't be a big problem we just have to find reliable sources for the info sourced by the site. This shouldn't be too hard given the info appears to be basic high school/college career info. Quadzilla99 06:14, 31 March 2007 (UTC)
Just saw the Miami Vice episode "The Fix" on TV and found nothing about it here. [4]
Did Russell win the Finals MVP for his championship teams? It should be mentioned somewhere if he didn't. I used the find function, typing in Finals MVP and got no results, and then I typed in MVP and looked for a mention of the finals in relation to his MVP and didn't see anything. Maybe I missed it, but would someone like to edit that piece of valuable info? 129.120.244.97 05:12, 16 November 2007 (UTC)
It doesn't seem like there's much of an MVP controversy any more. There was one before last season, and until mid-way of last season people knew what you were talking about when you said MVP controversy, but once the Mavs took over the league and Dirk ran away with the MVP award, it seems like any commentary on Nash's MVP awards are irrelevent and old and dated. Any thoughts? Billybobjoe786 ( talk) 23:26, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
In the second paragraph of "Personal life", many sentences are reproduced verbatim from the sources cited. Examples:
Xeriphas1994 23:13, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
In the section about the 1969 Finals, it talks about Chamberlain's injury in Game 7 of the Finals, and how he was not allowed back in the game. the source on that fact - source 22 - doesn't mention anything about Chamberlain's injury, but http://www.nba.com/encyclopedia/finals/1969_finals.html does. I don't know how to change or add sources; somebody else wanna switch the sources? Billybobjoe786 08:01, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
Done -- as to how to add sources, well just copy the template and change the parameters accordingly.
Chensiyuan
08:12, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
I don't think you did it right. The part about the 1969 NBA Finals still cites source 22, although it shouldn't: it should be the one I listed above. Source 22 is correctly used in other parts of the article though. I'll learn how to change it later if no one else does it by then. Billybobjoe786 ( talk) 06:53, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
We really need an image for Bill Russell - I'm surprised it doesn't have one. - Milk's Favorite Cookie 01:38, 20 March 2008 (UTC)
I notice that the conversions from imperial scale to metric are performed by the conversion tool down to the first decimal only, which begets flawed conversions, such as Russell being listed as 2.1 m rather than 2.08 m, and Chamberlain being described as 2.2 m instead of 2.16. I corrected the article, but this conversion tool ought to be improved. Mrbluesky ( talk) 16:51, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
I just worked some clumps from the "The Rivalry" book into the article, which gives a very thorough warts-and-all report of Russell's career and personality. — Onomatopoeia ( talk) 17:04, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
...but not first "in any major American professional sports league." He was preceded by the first African-American coach in Major League Baseball: John Jordan "Buck" O'Neil ( Chicago Cubs). See List of African-American firsts. -- Tenebrae ( talk) 04:14, 7 July 2008 (UTC)
This article has been vandalized, someone please restore it to its previous version. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Darthraul ( talk • contribs) 02:47, 16 February 2009 (UTC)
Is anyone aware of what Bill Russell's basketball accomplishments were at McClymonds High School? Considering that he was a champion at the college, pro and Olympic levels, I was curious to see if he was ever involved in any state championships at the high school level. I have checked McClymonds web page, but I think the site is down. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Chezwick74 ( talk • contribs) 18:15, 27 February 2009 (UTC)
Russell stated in his quote to Lebron on All-Star weekend, 2014: "Thank you for leaving me off of your Mt. Rushmore. I'm glad you did. Basketball is a team game. It's not for individual honors. I won back to back state championships in HS, back to back NCAA championships in college; I won an NBA championship my first year in the league, an NBA championship my last year, 9 inbetween... and THAT, Mr. James, is etched in stone." As a direct quote, it confirms that he did win 2 state championships in high school. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kl462 ( talk • contribs) 04:48, 17 February 2014 (UTC)
Is it 6-9 or 6-10? NBA.com says 6-10 but basketball-reference says 6-9. Dabomb87 ( talk) 14:39, 26 July 2009 (UTC)
{{
cite book}}
: |pages=
has extra text (
help); Check |isbn=
value: checksum (
help)I've protected the page for a week or until you guys sort this out. From the above it sounds like at least some of you may be close to a resolution. Let me know when you have a consensus and I will unprotect sooner.-- Slp1 ( talk) 15:02, 27 July 2009 (UTC)
In the "Racist abuse, controversy and reconciliation" section, the following sentence appears: "This cemented the general opinion that Russell (who was the highest paid Celtic) was egotistical, paranoid and hypocritical, and even the FBI described Russell in his file as 'an arrogant Negro who won't sign autographs for white children.'" This seems to imply that the FBI was some sort of objective observer. However, J. Edgar Hoover's FBI was anything but. This was, after all, the organization that looked for dirt on people whose politics Hoover disagreed with, including M.L. King. Giving any credence to the opinion of the FBI would be inappropriate, especially considering that the organization had no rational justification for focusing on a basketball player. I'm not sure how to rewrite that sentence. Simply removing the word "even" would be a start, but I'm not sure the remaining sentence would work. If the FBI's opinion should be included (and it probably should, in IMHO), it might be better to include it in the context of harassment of Russell.-- HughGRex ( talk) 10:50, 13 January 2010 (UTC)
I see no mention of his hosting SNL in 1979. For somebody with little or no sense of humor, this was a remarkable act. I recall he did pretty well hosting. There was a skit parodying the show "White Shadow" that had Bill coaching an all-white team. Ok, you had to be there. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bigmac31 ( talk • contribs) 19:03, 7 June 2010 (UTC)
Bill Russell is currently up for nomination as a future Today's Featured Article on the Main Page.-- Chimino ( talk) 05:58, 18 March 2013 (UTC)
I've just switched "an American retired professional basketball player" to "a retired American professional basketball player" in the lead. To me, the former sounds ungrammatical. A few minutes' searching turned up Adjective#Adjective order, which I think agrees with "retired American" rather than the inverse. I would place "retired" in the "age" category, which is number four, and "American" in the "origin" category, which is number six. — Mr. Stradivarius ♪ talk ♪ 23:42, 12 February 2014 (UTC)
The first new page I looked at today, Page 19, didn't say "retired American" at all, but page 29 had 6 good examples: "retired American workers", "Retired American Bishop", "retired American admiral", "retired American butcher", "retired American general", and "retired American football players".
Even if I use your 1/8 figure, "retired American" is a slight favorite, even before accounting for "American retired" false positives.
Does "retired" describe a person's age? Indirectly,
so what did the author mean?
The point is that "American retired" sounds almost as strange as "old little lady" instead of "little old lady".
If I grant each of your "American football" arguments, it doesn't reverse the overall result.
The real issue is "I'm uncomfortable relying on these searches for this purpose." I'm similarly uncomfortable relying on less quantifiable, indefinitely debatable assertions.
What did the author mean? He was drawing some broad distinctions that were never intended to cover every situation.
I don't think he was thinking of "retired" in category 8 (few nouns, not counting direct objects like "the baby", can come after "rocking" other than "chair", and even a rocking skyscraper wasn't intended for rocking like a rocking chair is),
so category 4 comes as close as anything. And if that stretches the definition of age too far, then "retired" is "adjectives subject to objective measure (e.g., wealthy, large, round)" because there is usually no debate over whether someone is really retired or not.
I prefer "former American professional basketball player" to "American former ...".
I don't believe the snowball theory because most such articles omit the word "retired" altogether.
Also, it's perfectly normal for us to have different intuitions about how grammar works in situations like these. Various factors could be at play: regional variation (I am at a disadvantage here, being from the UK), age variation, and variation based on social status are all possible. Having different intuitions doesn't make either of us wrong (after accounting for WP:ENGVAR), it just means that we are witnessing language variation at work.
As to finding a definitive "most common" answer, probably the best way would be to find someone who has access to a corpus of American English, and ask them nicely to do a search for "retired American noun" and "American retired noun" to see which is more common. But such people are not so easily found, and if we asked them to resolve every linguistic dispute on Wikipedia they would be very busy! So we might be forced to settle for Google Ngram and prescriptive rules for now. Also, I suspect asking other editors to give their intuitions on the subject would provide a decent informal sample if we managed to find enough people.
By the way, I do consider "retired" to be modifying "basketball player" in "retired American professional basketball player", at least indirectly. I would say "professional" is modifying "basketball player", "American" is modifying "professional basketball player", and "retired" is modifying "American professional basketball player". Also, I don't think we would be implying that Russell would be any more or less of a professional basketball player depending on the order we choose for "American" and "retired".
Anyway, this post has become far too long, so I'll stop now. :) — Mr. Stradivarius ♪ talk ♪ 10:12, 13 February 2014 (UTC)
It's true that "retired" doesn't fit in with the age category as well as more common words like "old" and "young". These rules are descriptive, after all, and have been distilled down by observing how language works in practice. It isn't always easy, or possible, to use the rules prescriptively. As The Oxford Dictionary of English Grammar (p. 11) says, "It has proved difficult to formulate comprehensive and satisfactory rules as to the ordering".
Also, it's perfectly normal for us to have different intuitions about how grammar works in situations like these. Various factors could be at play: regional variation (I am at a disadvantage here, being from the UK), age variation, and variation based on social status are all possible. Having different intuitions doesn't make either of us wrong (after accounting for WP:ENGVAR), it just means that we are witnessing language variation at work.
As to finding a definitive "most common" answer, probably the best way would be to find someone who has access to a corpus of American English, and ask them nicely to do a search for "retired American noun" and "American retired noun" to see which is more common. But such people are not so easily found, and if we asked them to resolve every linguistic dispute on Wikipedia they would be very busy!
By the way, I do consider "retired" to be modifying "basketball player" in "retired American professional basketball player", at least indirectly. I would say "professional" is modifying "basketball player", "American" is modifying "professional basketball player", and "retired" is modifying "American professional basketball player".
Also, I don't think we would be implying that Russell would be any more or less of a professional basketball player depending on the order we choose for "American" and "retired".
You know, I think we actually have one too many adjectives in that phrase anyway. How about something like "a retired professional basketball player from West Monroe, Louisiana"? And yes, I think "retired" is better than "former" as well. — Mr. Stradivarius ♪ talk ♪ 12:03, 14 February 2014 (UTC)
William Felton "Bill" Russell (born February 12, 1934) is a retired professional basketball player from the U.S. city of West Monroe, Louisiana. Russell played center for the Boston Celtics of the National Basketball Association (NBA) from 1956 to 1969.
William Felton "Bill" Russell (born February 12, 1934) is a retired professional basketball player from the United States. Russell played center for the Boston Celtics of the National Basketball Association (NBA) from 1956 to 1969.
The comment(s) below were originally left at Talk:Bill Russell/Comments, and are posted here for posterity. Following several discussions in past years, these subpages are now deprecated. The comments may be irrelevant or outdated; if so, please feel free to remove this section.
|
Last edited at 15:31, 9 February 2007 (UTC). Substituted at 09:39, 29 April 2016 (UTC)
Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just modified 2 external links on Bill Russell. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.
This message was posted before February 2018.
After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than
regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors
have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the
RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{
source check}}
(last update: 5 June 2024).
Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot ( Report bug) 14:14, 9 May 2017 (UTC)
Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just modified 3 external links on Bill Russell. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.
This message was posted before February 2018.
After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than
regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors
have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the
RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{
source check}}
(last update: 5 June 2024).
Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot ( Report bug) 00:10, 20 May 2017 (UTC)
Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just modified 3 external links on Bill Russell. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
{{
dead link}}
tag to
http://www.nba.com/2009/allstar2009/02/16/top10.20090215/index.html{{
dead link}}
tag to
http://www.billrusselllegacy.org/news.htmlWhen you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.
This message was posted before February 2018.
After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than
regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors
have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the
RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{
source check}}
(last update: 5 June 2024).
Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot ( Report bug) 09:19, 20 July 2017 (UTC)
The organization of this article seems odd to me. The table of contents contains 18 sections, not including subsections. The current TOC is as follows:
1 Early years 1.1 Family and personal life 1.2 Initial exposure to basketball 2 College years 2.1 Basketball 2.2 Track and field 2.3 Plans for a professional basketball career after college 3 1956 NBA draft 4 1956 Olympics 5 Professional career 5.1 1956–59 5.2 1959–66 5.3 1966–69 5.4 NBA career statistics 5.4.1 Regular season 5.4.2 Playoffs 6 Post-playing career 7 Head coaching record 8 Accomplishments and legacy 8.1 Statue 9 Personal life 10 Earnings 11 Personality 11.1 As a competitor 11.2 Off the court 12 Russell–Chamberlain relations 13 Racist abuse, controversy, and relationship with Boston fans 14 See also 15 Selected publications 16 References 17 Further reading 18 External links
I would propose to change it to the following:
1 Early years 1.1 Family and personal life 1.2 Initial exposure to basketball 2 College years 2.1 Basketball 2.2 Track and field 2.3 Plans for a professional basketball career 3 1956 Olympics 4 Professional basketball career 4.1 1956 NBA draft 4.2 1956–59 4.3 1959–66 4.4 1966–69 4.5 Personality 4.5.1 As a competitor 4.5.2 Off the court 4.6 Relationship with Wilt Chamberlain 4.7 Earnings 5 Post-playing career 6 Experience with racism 7 Accomplishments and legacy 7.1 Statue 8 Personal life 9 NBA career statistics 9.1 Regular season 9.2 Playoffs 10 NBA head coaching record 11 Selected publications by Russell 12 References 13 Further reading and external links
Thoughts? SunCrow ( talk) 03:12, 16 November 2019 (UTC)
The text: "Red Auerbach offered the Ice Capades if they didn’t draft Russell number one. Rochester got their ice show." was inserted by an editor with almost no other edits on Feb 2018 [9] before the John Taylor reference. At the very least, it should not be before the Taylor citation. But also it is not supported by the Taylor book, in fact Taylor is very skeptical of it: footnote, p.68. Adpete ( talk) 02:10, 13 October 2020 (UTC)