Doctor MJ wrote:
I'd be interested to here you specific point on that. Personally, I believe I've got him down as deserving 1 less MVP than he actually got, when comparing MVPs across eras, because I have Erving ahead of him in '75-76.
When I've more time; I forget, do you have MSN?
I'm sure TrueLA's POV on this matter would be helpful. I think that Erving was good in '76, but he was good in the ABA, not the NBA.
75-76 was his last season in the ABA, when he had a scoring title at over 29 ppg.
That's a legit viewpoint.
Thinking on my own thoughts here, I realize I'm trying to put myself in the place of people at the time. This of course makes it more than a little foolish to argue with TrueLA, but I have a hard time believing that Kareem's team success in the 80s didn't re-cast perception of Kareem from earlier times, rightly or wrongly.
There's a reason he won 6 MVPs in 11 years.
As far as team impact, remember that on the non-crappy Bucks, an expansion franchise with but a single season behind it before he was drafted, this was Kareem's playoff resume:
Rookie: Division Finals (smoked the Sixers, lost to the eventual-champion Knicks)
Year 2: Title
Year 3: Conference Finals (smoked the Warriors, lost to the eventual-champion Lakers)
Year 4: Lost to the Warriors in the opening round (Oscar notably declining but still good)
Year 5: Lost in the Finals (went 8-1 in the first two rounds, then took the Celtics to 7 games)
You want team impact? When he had help, Kareem was dominant both individually and in terms of team success. When he went to the Lakers, as TrueLA outlined, he didn't have the help to really compete with anyone.
He missed the playoffs, made the WCFs, bounced out of the first round, and lost in the semis before Magic was drafted. That's pretty damned impressive.
Consider Kareem's playoff performances over those three seasons as a Laker in the pre-Magic era:
31.4 ppg, 15.3 rpg, 4.3 apg, 3.8 bpg on 58.2% FG in 44 mpg.
And that's his three-year AVERAGE.
Oh yeah, and 8.7 FTA/g (not a hallmark of Kareem's game, but he ramped it up in the playoffs).
There is no way to logically explain a player who is so well-known for his defense and passing game (as well as his uber-efficient and yet prolific offense in tandem with his rebounding) to post empty stats and not influence his team. As True said, he just had some epic-fail teammates and the Lakers STILL had some notable success.
Lew Alcindor was a stone-cold monster, but he just didn't have the teammates to do anything. It's the reason a guy like Shaq didn't make the WCFs every year as a Laker.
For example, prior to Kobe Bryant's emergence, the Lakers with Shaq made it farther than they did without him exactly once. That's right, prior to the first title season, the Lakers with Shaq made it to the WCFs once and to the second round two other times. The Lakers WITHOUT Shaq won 48 and 53 games in the two seasons prior to his signing, and made the first round one year and the second round the next. His arrival brought some notably superior regular-season success and one deeper playoff run, but it wasn't until the team was well-balanced (and they had a better coach) that they started to succeed at a higher level (which, in their case, means winning 3 titles in a row).
In Kareem's case, he hit the league and had a pretty fine second and third man, the former of which degenerated noticeably until Lew left the team for L.A.... to find superior culture (in his estimation) and a considerably worse team. The Lakers prior to Lew's arrival had missed the playoffs and won only 30 games. Kareem made them 10 wins better and took them from getting beaten by about 4 points a game (strength-of-schedule adjusted) to winning by about 0.2 points per game, a rather SIGNIFICANT change in team fortunes. He also measurably improved their ORTG and DRTG (3 and 2 points per 100 possessions, respectively). There would be a trend of improvement on the offensive end all the way up to around an ORTG of 106 before Magic took them to 109 (as a freaking TEAM!!!!).
You want team impact? Kareem WAS the Lakers until Magic arrived, he made them moderately respectable instead of godawful. The Lakers were ass-last in the league in DRTG the year before Kareem's arrival, and 3rd-worst on offense. They would be 6th (out of 18) on offense with Kareem, and 13th defensively. The latter, as true noted, is impressive; Kareem was a humongous defensive beast and they only moved up 5 spots defensively because of how awful the rest of the team was. His impact offensively was massive, a 10-spot shift (they were 16th before). There's your team impact.
The major offseason moves besides Kareem's addition were... the DEPARTURE of Elmore Smith (a guy who was 11/11/2 and 3 bpg with the Lakers the year before Kareem got there and who was 16/11/1 and 3 for the Bucks after the trade... and they lost Brian Winters in that trade, too (2-time All-Star, jersey retired by the Bucks, 19 ppg, 5 apg type player when he was at his peak, nasty shooter).
Connie Hawkins departed, too, to play his last season as a Hawk. 8/6/3 player for them as an injury-riddled 33 year-old.
Biggest addition? Cornell Warner, from the Bucks. He was a nice 7/9 player. Yup, that was definitely some serious off-season maneuvering.
Lew was a monster; he dominated the 5-spot and yet the front office didn't really do anything significant for him until they fell into Magic before the lottery rules were introduced in '85.
The Lakers won 53 games in Lew's second year, then 45 and 47 games. You'll notice a trend; their ORTG went from 16th (before), to 6th, to 5th, to 3rd, then blipped down to 5th.
But they were a top-5 offensive team with Kareem and they were 16th of 18 without him. They were 18th (before), then 13th, 10th, 11th and 10th in the league defensively.
Their SRS went from -2.94 to +0.17, to 2.65, to 2.59, to 2.95, as the Lakers grew in ability under Kareem, and under Jerry West's coaching.
Adrian Dantley arrived in 77-78. They also tabbed Norm Nixon and Jamaal Wilkes. They lost in the first round to the Sonics, who lost in 7 to the Bullets and then won the title the year after. Kermit Washington, the team's second-best rebounder, played 25 games.
They lost to the Sonics the year after (the eventual champions) after beating the Nuggets.
Dantley, Nixon and Wilkes represented help in those last two years, and the Lakers were pretty good. They had some trouble integrating Dantley (another post scorer) and he played 56 games (I think he was acquired mid-season), so he didn't really have the ability to impact the whole season. He was not, however, as spectacularly efficient as he was elsewhere (his TS% was actually around or slightly under league-average, IIRC). So it wasn't really "Adrian Dantley," if you follow. The name carries weight, but the player was traded something like 3 times in 4 seasons, and Dantley is the only ROY to ever be traded after his rookie season as far as I recall. Wilkes was good, but not epic-good, and likewise with Nixon.
Are there further questions about Kareem's ability to impact his team, though? He did a lot with comparatively little (almost nothing in his first two seasons as a Laker). He had a coaching change and a significant trade for the '78 season and some significant competition in-conference. The Suns and Kings were quick to replace the Blazers and Nuggets as the Lakers' biggest competition aside from the Sonics (though the Nuggets matched L.A.'s win total in '79) in 1979.
