I think Bill Russell is the greatest basketball player who ever lived. He was the ultimate winner who cared only about winning not his personal statistics. The only stat he cared about was World Championships. Below is a link to a recent Bill Simmons column in his ESPN Grantland section. Its kind of a column on both Russell and Kobe but the part I love is about Russ.
http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/8724362/the-kobe-question
slicethelife 
that column blew me away. some people pile on simmons etc, but sometimes he just hits it out off the park. the stuff with russell was amazing. what can i do to make up for my teammates shortcomings? WOW. the this that was nuts to me was the story about his wife buying that tape off ebay and Russell knew everything about that game. just a random college game from no where.
that reminds me of the Ted Wlliams story- how he could remember the pitches a pitcher would throw to him in what order on an at bat years after the fact.. To me Russell is the ultimate team guy.. if you could get a team of guys thinking like Russell..wow..