Retro POY '75-76 (Voting Complete)

[Manuel Calavera]

Hopefully this isn't too late:

1. Erving
2. Kareem
3. Gilmore
4. Cowens
5. McAdoo

[ronnymac2]

Ahhh...Gotta do this quick.....

Final Rankings:

Julius Erving
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
Artis Gilmore
Dave Cowens
Bob Mcadoo

Bad-ass HM: Pete Maravich

HM: Rick Barry and a lot of others......

[ElGee]

1976 SI Articles:

McGinnis pre-season: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/ ... /index.htm

Previews:
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/ ... /index.htm
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/ ... /index.htm
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/ ... /index.htm
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/ ... /index.htm
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/ ... /index.htm

Kareem's early season impact: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/ ... /index.htm

Fascinating article on merger prospects: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/ ... /index.htm

Feature on Warriors success: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/ ... /index.htm

*Bill Sharman thought no one wcould win on raod bc of LA's horrid road record. People were obsessed with a home-court dominance theme this year.

Feature on Bob McAdoo: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/ ... /index.htm

The Nuggets dominance: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/ ... /index.htm

Nets-Spurs: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/ ... /index.htm

Mac v McGinnis: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/ ... /index.htm

As the ABA's largest crowd ever, 18,821, settles in, Hubie Brown buries the hatchet. "This crowd, this arena and this game," he says, "will be a tribute to our league and to basketball."
One man makes it so. David Thompson comes to play. The Denver rookie has been frustrated so far in the series. After one Nugget defeat he sobbed shamelessly.
Now with his team behind, Thompson soars and dives and banks for 10 second-quarter points and a 57-56 Denver half-time lead.
In the third quarter the Nuggets are behind again when that inevitable magic moment arrives. Thompson floats above the lane. Artis Gilmore goes up in front of him. At the ceiling Gilmore cleanly blocks while Wil Jones bangs Thompson from the side. But somehow David pulls back the ball, double-pumps, hangs some more and lofts it over everybody for the score. It is a slap-five-and-stomp-your-brains-out play. It is the beginning of a 17-6 Denver spurt in which he scores 11 points.
The Nuggets' lead is 10, then 16 while Thompson is hitting eight straight baskets from all over. At the end of Denver's 133-110 victory, Nugget Bobby Jones has five blocks, Ralph Simpson 14 assists and Dan Issel 24 points and 12 rebounds in outplaying his old teammate Gilmore. But dynamite David Thompson, who says, "Once I get going, it's hard to stop," contributes 40 points, 10 rebounds, five assists.
"Fantastic, simply amazing," Gilmore sighs. "This kid is in a category of his own.

Dr. J and ABA Finals: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/ ... /index.htm

Warriors-Suns (Good thing Rick Barry doesn't his spell his name L-E-B-R-O-N: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/ ... /index.htm

Roundups:
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/ ... /index.htm
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/ ... /index.htm
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/ ... /index.htm
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/ ... /index.htm

[Doctor MJ]

Moving deadline back to tomorrow night due to some changes in my schedule.

[drza]

1. Dr. J
2. Kareem
3. Cowens
4. Gilmore
5. Mcadoo

This is the project that just keeps on giving, as far as delivering difficult to judge situations that you have to think about. Trying to gauge the differences/strengths/weaknesses across the NBA and ABA is an almost impossible exercise without making a lot of logic leaps and assumptions. Dr. MJ did a great job, I think, of stating Dr. J's case in a way that seems to bridge the NBA/ABA chasm. I could see the case for Kareem, but it's hard to ask for more than Dr. J did that year so that should get him his first POY award.

Kareem is a given at this point. I did think the raised point about the Walton-Kareem vs Erving/Kareem competitions were well raised and don't have a definite answer either way. Erving did have a much better statistical case against Kareem than Walton did, and he didn't have the injury issues, but at the best-of-the-best levels I've found that stats don't always do an adequate job of getting everything across anyway without more context such as direct viewing and more detailed advanced stats...and even then it's difficult. In the end, for both of these comparisons I've been forced to kind of go with the stats and what I've read as a default when I wouldn't be at all surprised if my views would be different had I lived through those times and/or had access and time to watch extensive video.

Cowens, McAdoo and Gilmore seemed like the logical choices to round out the top-5, though they could have gone in just about any order.

[Sedale Threatt]

I was pretty confident taking Kareem over Walton, but this one I'm not so sure. Feels more like I'm throwing a dart at the board for two legends at the peak of their game. I'm probably too much of a stat guy, so it's really hard to pick against the Doctor.

At the same time, Kareem might have been even better than he was in '77 -- 28 points, 17 rebounds, 5 assists, 4 blocks and 1.5 steals while sweeping the advanced metrics. Yeah, it was his fault the Lakers didn't make the playoffs. What a slug.

It was an easier decision in '77 as there was the head-to-head matchup, which Kareem won in my mind, as well as probably the best individual series performance of his career in the previous round. When the competition is this tight, little tie-breakers like that come in handy. Here, there are none.

And still, I can't pick against him. I'm going to acknowledge my bias here -- not necessarily as a Lakers fan, but a basketball fan in general who thinks Kareem was unfairly blamed for failing to lift crappy and/or depleted teams beyond their capabilities. It's hard to say he wasn't appreciated considering the awards he won. But the Jerry West quote I keep harping on about sums it up for him: "It was never enough."

I know stats don't tell the entire story, but just look at those numbers and tell me that he's in any way, shape or form to blame for L.A. sucking. So...

1. Kareem.

2. Erving. Like Walton last year, would have been a clear-cut choice in any other year. Unreal production, great individual and team success. Just don't think he was as good as Kareem.

3. McAdoo. He had some great years during this span, and he's going to get pretty much overlooked because a handful of his peers were even better.

4. Cowens. Down to him and Gilmore, and I like Cowens. Sort of like Bill Walton lite, with more breadth to his game than Artis. More skill, more impact.

5. Gilmore. Not the biggest fan, but it's just impossible for me to ignore a dominant center.

[lorak]

1. Dr J
2. KAJ
3. McAdoo
4. Barry
5. Cowens

[ElGee]

ABA vs. NBA Comparison

After reading about how the ABA dominated the NBA (31-17) in the preseason, I compared the 1976 ABA All-Stars (+the top 3 Nuggets) with the 1976 NBA All-Stars to see how each group played in 1977 when merged. Some players were excluded due to not missing too much time the following year (Silas, Barnes, McAdoo, Archibald) and some due to obvious aging (Bing and Havlicek). That left 14 ABA players and 21 NBA players.

The 13 ABA players averaged (unweighted) -0.4 pts/75 possessions in 1977 in the NBA. They also averaged -0.8 reb/75. The average relative TS% was nearly idential (dropped 0.1%) and the Ast/75 was identical.

ABA All-Star PLAYER PERFORMANCE 1976 to 1977

Code: Select all

            Pts/75   Ast/75   Reb/75   Rel TS%
Difference  -0.4     0.0      -0.8     -0.1%


Two players (Buse and Jones) made All-Defensive 1st team in 1977 in the NBA, Taylor All-Defensive 2nd team. Jones was an all-star, Erving, Gervin and Thompson All-NBA performers.

Well, how does that compare to the change from the NBA All-Stars?

NBA All-Star PLAYER PERFORMANCE 1976 to 1977

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            Pts/75   Ast/75   Reb/75   Rel TS%
Difference  -0.3     0.1      -0.3     0.1%


Collins, Cowens, Van Lier and Tomjanovich went on the make the 77 All-Star team. Van Lier the All-D team. Kareem, White, McGinnis (a former ABAer) and Elvin Hayes made All-NBA.

Side by Side:

DIFFERENCE IN ALL-STAR PERFORMANCE FROM 1976 to 1977

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       Pts/75   Ast/75   Reb/75    Rel TS%   All-NBA
ABA     -0.4    0.0      -0.8     -0.1%      3/13
NBA     -0.3    0.1      -0.3      0.1%      4/21


The other 3 All-NBA players in 1977 were Walton, Maravich and Westphal.

One possible explanation for the change in rebounding numbers is height. For players playing at least 10 mpg, the average listed height in the ABA in 1976 was 6-5.8. The NBA average height at the time was over 6-7.

[ElGee]

My 1976 POY Ballot:

1. Julius Erving
2. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
3. Bob McAdoo
4. David Thompson
5. Rick Barry

This year was an exercise in confusion. My goal was to make sense of the differences in the leagues and evaluate the "best player" based on the leagues being merged. This becomes fuzzy because the ABA uses a 3-point line and the NBA doesn't, although from what I've seen the spacing isn't radically different and the 3-point line isn't used too frequently in the ABA (about 6x less than today on average).

Given that Kareem and Doctor J are clearly the two best players, my question was how each would play if the leagues were combined? Doctor J obviously struggled at times early in his NBA career, although I think a fair amount of that was McGinnis' presence/scheme. The deciding factor for me was Erving's undeniable greatness in the postseason, in which he averaged ~35 ppg on nearly +10% relative efficiency. He had 45 points in G1 of the Finals including the buzzer-beater. He had 48-14-8 in G2. These are freakishly dominant numbers. Sure enough, he has similar games against the Blazers in the 77 Finals, so despite a large statistical change I think Doc's skill-set is just fine for the combined league, and it's fair to say he had the best season in 1976.

Sedale makes an interesting point about Erving 76 relative to Walton 77. But I don't think Kareem 76 is as good as Kareem 77. Thus, by the narrowest of margins, Dr. J gets the nod.

Bob McAdoo is comfortably third. Nothing more to say about him that hasn't already been said.

Not far behind McAdoo are a group of players. My finalists were Cowens, Gilmore, Barry and Thompson. I can see any two of those players cracking the list, but here is my thinking:

David Thompson trailed only Cap, Walton (not in play), Erving and Hayes (would be my No. 8) in 1977. Thompson exploded onto the scene in 76 and had, arguably, a better year than he did in 77. He had bigs games against the NBA in the exhibitions. He played well all year. He earned an MVP vote as a rookie (one of 4 ABA players with Doc, Silas and B. Jones). He then stepped it up in the playoffs against the two best defenses in the ABA, highlighted by the 40-10-5 explosion in SI and a valiant 42 point performance in G6 of the ABA FInals.

Rick Barry was just behind Thompson in 77, and I think he's right in that same ballpark again. All-around great player - one of the best passing forwards ever and running a good amount of offense. I'd take his 24-7-7 in the playoffs over the two bigs and it's hard for me to leave off someone many people was a top 2-3 player in the world in May 1975.

As for Cowens and Gilmore, I'm not sold. I'm mentally curving Artis' rebounding numbers because of competition, but that's how he gets a couple easy baskets/tips a game from what I can tell. His defensive impact is greater than Cowens, but I don't view it as epic. If I did, I would have him fourth. His offensive game does a little to be desired. More than that, I think there's something wrong with his team posting a 0.5 SRS and the fact that he went to Chicago the next year, his numbers plummeted, and the team's DRtg improved only 1.8 pts/100 (good, but not good enough to place him at No. 4 on defensive merit alone).

With Cowens, I look at the Celtics and see a really good squad, especially a balanced starting 5. He and Silas were rebounding monsters -- +645 rebounding differential! -- but when offensive efficiency starts to dive, rebounding becomes less important. That team posted a 2.2 SRS in a somewhat watered-down NBA (IMO). Cowens does have a nice game in some ways -- solid defender, faceup, hook, garbage man, decent passer -- but he's more of a cog to me than the players ahead of him.

[ronnymac2]

Ahhh...Gotta do this quick.....

Final Rankings:

Julius Erving
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
Artis Gilmore
Dave Cowens
Bob Mcadoo

Bad-ass HM: Pete Maravich

HM: Rick Barry and a lot of others......

Doc....I'm changing this. Sorry. Have had more time to look.


Final Rankings:

Julius Erving
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
Bob Mcadoo
Rick Barry
Dave Cowens

ElGee convinced me that Barry deserved a spot. Or at least, he convinced me I shouldn't be guilty of putting Barry in for no reason, as I actually had him on my original list.

Pistol still gets the bad-ass HM. Gilmore gets a special HM as well.

[tkb]

1. Julius Erving
2. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
3. Bob McAdoo
4. Dave Cowens
5. Artis Gilmore

[ElGee]

Ahhh...Gotta do this quick.....

Final Rankings:

Julius Erving
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
Artis Gilmore
Dave Cowens
Bob Mcadoo

Bad-ass HM: Pete Maravich

HM: Rick Barry and a lot of others......

Doc....I'm changing this. Sorry. Have had more time to look.


Final Rankings:

Julius Erving
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
Bob Mcadoo
Rick Barry
Dave Cowens

ElGee convinced me that Barry deserved a spot. Or at least, he convinced me I shouldn't be guilty of putting Barry in for no reason, as I actually had him on my original list.

Pistol still gets the bad-ass HM. Gilmore gets a special HM as well.

I was actually kind of blown away by the group conformity this season. I believe every other ballot before this page had the same 5 players (would have been an RPOY first). This was especially startling to me given:

(1) the fuzziness of 2 different leagues being in play
(2) we're 35 years in the past
(3) I had 9 players on my radar and shuffled 4 through 7 about 8 times.

Btw, game 6 of the 76 Finals is on youtube. I had seen G5 numerous times but never game 6. The players are exhausted so it's not the greatest watch, but I think those 2 games capture the balance of the Celtics well (Charlie Scott is on point, White plays really well, Hondo is being Hondo and Cowens has a really good game as well). I understand why White was given MVP over Cowens.

[Doctor MJ]

My vote:

1. Julius
2. Kareem
3. Cowens
4. McAdoo
5. Artis

The guy I feel like I'm doing a disservice to: Barry.

[Doctor MJ]

Last call.

[Doctor MJ]

'75-76 Results

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Player               1st 2nd 3rd 4th 5th Pts   POY Shares
1.Julius Erving       15   3   0   0   0 171   0.950
2. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar 3  13   1   1   0 129   0.717
3. Dave Cowens         0   1   6   7   3  61   0.339
4. Bob McAdoo          0   1   8   3   4  60   0.333
5. Artis Gilmore       0   0   3   4   8  35   0.194
6. Rick Barry          0   0   0   2   3   9   0.050
7. David Thompson      0   0   0   1   0   3   0.017


[semi-sentient]

Site updated: www.dolem.com/poy

Kareem still sitting behind Shaq for #6, and Dr J moves up to the #10 spot just behind Kobe.

Code: Select all

1.  Michael Jordan       9.578
2.  Magic Johnson        7.114
3.  Tim Duncan           6.153
4.  Larry Bird           6.147
5.  Shaquille O'Neal     5.910
6.  Kareem Abdul-Jabbar  5.479
7.  Karl Malone          4.649
8.  Hakeem Olajuwon      4.380
9.  Kobe Bryant          4.326
10. Julius Erving        3.816
11. Moses Malone         3.478
12. Kevin Garnett        3.388
13. LeBron James         3.083
14. David Robinson       2.431
15. Dwyane Wade          2.179