Michael Jordan, Wilt Chamberlain, Magic Johnson, Larry Bird, and Bill Russell are just a few names that come up when people discuss the best to ever play the game of basketball.

Recent players to enter the conversation are Hakeem Olajuwon, Shaquille O'Neal, Tim Duncan, Charles Barkley, and Karl Malone. Then, of course, there is Kobe Bryant—the contemporary player in his prime who's being sized up on the all-time list.

Bryant's burgeoning successor, LeBron James, is now working on a legacy of his own and is a championship away from cementing his place in the discussion, as people today marvel at his versatility. His ability to score, rebound, and create for his teammates has many saying that we've never seen a player so versatile.

I big to differ.

We've seen it from a name that rarely comes up on an all-time great list: Oscar Robertson.

Versatility

When it comes to versatlity, the first name that often comes to mind is Magic Johnson.   In today's game everyone marvels at the versatility of LeBron James.

You want versatility? Oscar Robertson not only averaged a triple-double for an entire season, he nearly averaged a triple-double in four total seasons.

In fact, in his 10 years in Cincinnati, he averaged 29.3 points, 10.2 assists, and 8.5 rebounds per game while shooting 48.9 percent from the field.

How can a player with numbers like that be so overlooked? Well, for starters, he played for the Cincinnati Royals. To say the very least, that's a small-market team.

That's not only poor for getting exposure, but it's poor for attracting players to sign to the team, which is more than important for building a legit championship contender.

It's no coincidence that the players considered the greatest of all time almost all played for big-market teams, and almost all of those guys with multiple championships played in those major markets.

Championship Stumbling Block

Speaking of championships, that gets into one of the biggest reasons why "The Big O" is so underrated. He never won a ring in Cincinnati.

But the implications for punishing him for that is suggesting that it was his fault. Let's take a closer look at the seasons that Robertson had individually and what happened to his team via the postseason.

Career on Cincinnati Royals (10 Seasons)

1960—No postseason (30.5/10.1/9.7 on 47% shooting in regular season)
1961—Lost vs. Pistons (averaged 28.8/11/11 on 52% in postseason)
1962—Lost vs. Celtics (averaged 31.8/13/9 on 47% in postseason)
1963—Lost vs. Celtics (averaged 29.3/8.9/8.4 on 45% in postseason)
1964—Lost vs. 76ers (averaged 28/4.8/12 on 43% in postseason)
1965—Lost vs. Celtics (averaged 31.8/7.6/7.8 on 41% in postseason)
1966—Lost vs. 76ers (averaged 24.8/4.0/11.3 on 52% in postseason)
1967—No postseason (averaged 29.2/6/9.7 on 50% in regular season)
1968—No postseason (averaged 24.7/6.4/9.8 on 49% shooting in regular season)
1969—No postseason (averaged 25.3/6.1/8.1 on 51% shooting in regular season)

For starters, in the 1960 season, Robertson virtually averaged a triple-double but his team was not even good enough to qualify for the playoffs. Same for the stellar numbers he had in the 1968 and 1969 seasons.

Now how about the six times he took his team to the postseason?

His playoff averages in Cincinnati were 29.7 points, 9.3 rebounds, 9.4 assists per game while shooting 46 percent from the floor.

So it doesn't look like his level of play exactly dipped in the postseason. What's more telling than those eye-popping numbers is the eye-popping list of teams his squad ran into during those postseason trips.

If you noticed, for five of the six trips to the postseason, his team ran into one of two teams.

Either the Boston Celtics or the Philadelphia 76ers.

The same Boston team that is the epitome of the word "dynasty" in regard to sports, winning a whopping 11 championships in 13 years and making the NBA Finals in 12 of those seasons.    

Then there is the Philadelphia 76ers, the one team to put an end to the eight-year streak of championships by Boston. 

The same Philadelphia 76ers team that held the best record in NBA history before the 1996 Chicago Bulls broke that mark.     

It was a loaded Philadelphia 76ers team, by far the best team Wilt Chamberlain ever played for, and, if it stayed intact, perhaps could have been a dynasty its own right.

Now this isn't to say that Robertson didn't have a supporting cast. But he ran into a couple of the most dominant teams of all time while, again, putting up numbers across the board in an effort to carry his team. Certainly a valiant effort.

But as we can see, there's certainly no rationale to punish Robertson along those lines.

Winning a championship is all about having a cast—something The Big O didn't really have until he went to Milwaukee, which was in the twilight of his career.

But He Played So Long Ago...

Outside of the misconceptions about Robertson's lack of success in the postseason is the misconception that we often see with regard to evaluating players who played at any time before the advent of color television.  

The notion that their game wouldn't translate into today's game. That's called chronological snobbery. It's fallacious logic.

Michael Jordan came into the NBA in 1984. That was over 25 years ago.

When we suggest Robertson, who played in the 1960s, wouldn't be good in the 1990s/2000s, we essentially imply that a 1980s version of Michael Jordan couldn't play in the NBA four or five years from now.

That includes the 1987-88 version of Jordan who:

• Won League MVP
• Won Defensive Player of the Year
• Won the Slam Dunk Contest
• Won All-Star Game MVP
  
• Scored 35 points per game with 5.5 rebounds, 5.9 assists, 3.2 steals, and 1.6 blocks per game, all while shooting a whopping 53 percent from the field

So using the rationale used against Robertson, we can establish that Jordan
would not be that elite player he was back then in this decade and especially beyond.

It's obviously a preposterous suggestion, but that's essentially what we suggest with chronological snobbery. Perhaps it only sticks out as absurd when it includes the player regarded by most as the greatest of all time. However, given the media hype machine that revolves around being prisoner of the moment, perhaps there will be people making those assertions.

Conclusion

It's just as foolish to suggest that the game and talent of Oscar Robertson wouldn't translate to the modern-day NBA as it is to say that a player who played in the 80s or 90s wouldn't make the same translation.

People can point out the league having better athletes today, but it can also just as easily be pointed out that advantages that actually benefit guards since Robertson's day. For example, the three-pointer, which opens up even more room to dish to teammates as well as score, or the hand check rule, which makes it even easier for players on the perimeter to get to the lane.

Am I saying Robertson is the greatest of all time? Not at all. But he deserves to be in the conversation of the all-time greats.

At the very least, The Big O should be more than just an answer to a trivia question.