The 50 greatest players in NBA history, ranked by win shares
By Cal Durrett
Greatest NBA Player #11: Oscar Robertson-189.21
Oscar Robertson is widely regarded as one of the best all-around point guards in NBA history. In fact, “Mr. Triple-Double” was the first player to average, well, a triple-double over an entire season, decades before Russell Westbrook. That was just one of his many impressive feats.
Despite playing in the 1960s, when the game was at its fastest and field goal percentages were at their lowest, Robertson proved to be a surprisingly accurate scorer for the time. He averaged at least 30 points per game not once but seven times en route to a career average of 25.7 points on 48.5% shooting.
Ironically, however, he never won a scoring title, thanks largely to Chamberlain, though he did lead the league in assists six times. His high level of scoring and playmaking carried the Cincinnati Royals offense for years, resulting in a large amount of offensive win shares. Later in his career, he was paired with a young Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and the two stars turned the Milwaukee Bucks into one of the most dominant teams in NBA history.
From 1970–1974, the Bucks won their first championship in 1970, went back to the Western Conference Finals (you read that right) in 1971, and won nearly 78% of their regular season games. That incredible stretch solidified Robertson as one of the NBA’s all-time greats, and he is recognized as being the 11th best all-time in terms of win shares.