tsherkin wrote:Bob Cousy wasn't a good scorer in his own time; I struggle to imagine him being a better one today. He was bad at finishing shots by the standards of his own era, let alone this one. He did not age well into the 60s, not even as well as some of his peers. He was relatively small.
The game was different in his time, so there's something to be said about emphasis placed and all that stuff. He did some stuff in the 50s that we didn't see a lot until other electric players like Magic and what-not; dude definitely knew how to leverage the no-look and the behind-the-back pass, for example. He did the wrap-around-while-dribbling-into-a-pass thing, too, and he could bomb one hell of an outlet pass. He had a handle that would scale well if he were allowed to dribble like guys even from the 70s, let alone now, I suspect. So with that said, he'd probably find a way to be an impact player on offense with some contemporary training.
His playmaking was generally where his value was seen, so now we're talking more about the offensive equivalent of a Ricky Rubio or Rajon Rondo, presuming that he adapted well. Cousy is a guy who I think was very important to basketball, but ported forward? I think he would struggle a lot in today's game as a scoring threat. Not so much in other aspects, though. Teams today definitely wouldn't want to use him in the same volume-scoring role as Boston did in the 50s. Not without major changes in his scoring toolset, anyway.
He played a lot more in the post and using that lefty hook than would make sense in today's game... and he had the league's premiere shot blocker on his own squad; he'd struggle more in a league where that was the norm, finishing inside. But they also teach shooting differently in today's game, as well as differences in how to use screens. Given his competent (if unremarkable) FT shooting, it's hard not to envision him as a 34%+ 3pt shooter with appropriate training time if he'd been born in the modern era. It's tough to project, because his scoring game was so archaic by today's standards and the game so different. He didn't have a modern scoring game at all.
But his vision was pretty excellent and his technical passing game stands up today just fine, so that's a nice foundation.
Tyus Jones isn't good. But he's a decent enough perimeter shooter and he's actually pretty solid from 3, and has been markedly better from the corners these past couple of seasons. So I don't know. If Cousy could be a league-average scorer, then of course his playmaking would elevate him easily over someone like Jones in terms of overall value, that's for sure.
you typed all that, with such certainty, yet are dead wrong. He was quite literally one of the best scorers in the league until the Celtics added Hall of Famers Heinsohn and Russell in 1956, he aged, and a bunch of great and younger players came into the league like Wilt, Pettit, West, Oscar and Bellamy. Basically a top 10 scorer for a decade. Not bad for "wasn't a good scorer in his time"
Cousy points scored per season
9th (rookie)
3rd
3rd
2nd
3rd
7th
8th
16th
9th
12th
17th
27th
