Similarities Between Kareem And Bill Russell: One Of The Best Centers In The NBA

“Kareem was my source of motivation. Everything I did was to try to beat this guy. I lived to play against him, and I played my best ball against him. No matter what I threw at him, though, it seemed like he’d score 50 against me,” said by Bill Walton who is a retired basketball player who played with Kareem (Pinto, 2016). In the 60s and the 70s, the basketball gained huge popularity, and many famous players were being spotlighted. Among many famous players, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Bill Russell were very influential players. They both were the best centers in their era, and it is very hard to pick who is better. Some people believe that Bill was better than Kareem. However, even though Bill Russell was one of the best centers in the 60s, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar was a better basketball player

According to the Unofficial 2015 NBA Player Census, about 74.4 percent of the basketball players in the NBA are African Americans (Robbins, 2010). This data shows that African Americans are more talented at basketball than the other races. However, before 1950s, the existence of color barrier made hard for black people to join the basketball league. On October 1950, since the first African American basketball player Earl Lloyd joined the NBA, the number of African American players in the NBA has increased. (Martinez, 2015) Also, in the 1960s, basketball finally gained huge popularity in America, so more people had a dream to be a basketball player (Rich, 2009). Thus, people competed more with each other to enter the NBA. As the popularity and the number of African American players increased, more skilled players were played in the 70s and 80s than in the 60s. Accordingly, Kareem had to overcome more hardships to be spotlighted than Bill since he played against more skilled opponents than Bill. Therefore, Kareem was better than Bill since he played in an era that had more skilled