Retro POY '77-78 (Voting Complete)

[Doctor MJ]

In this thread we'll discuss and vote on the top 5 best player seasons of '77-78.

Trying something new now. Schedule will be Mon-Fri, and Thu-Mon. Typically this will be morning to morning.

Some things to start us off:

Season Summary http://www.basketball-reference.com/lea ... _1978.html
Playoff Summary http://www.basketball-reference.com/pla ... _1978.html
Award Voting http://www.basketball-reference.com/awa ... _1978.html
Final Box Score http://webuns.chez-alice.fr/finals/1978.htm

Topics
Most chaotic year ever
Consensus 2 best players, miss a lot of time, lose immediately in playoffs
Champ gets no MVP votes, Finalist gets only 1

[Dr Positivity]

Sad to do this since he was on his way to a Shaq '00 like "easiest #1 ever", but Walton's not making my list. I need my players to be available for the title or else their contribution is limited to seeding and HCA and early playoff victory, which doesn't mean all that much.

[semi-sentient]

Ugh. What an awful year. These are the players I'm considering as of now:

Regular Season

Code: Select all

Player          GP  MIN   PTS   TS%   REB   AST   STL  BLK  TOV
===============================================================
Bill Walton     58  33.3  18.6  .554  13.2  5.0   1.0  2.5  3.6
George Gervin   82  34.8  27.2  .594   5.1  3.7   1.7  1.3  3.7
David Thompson  80  37.8  27.2  .578   4.9  4.5   1.2  1.2  3.1
Kareem Abdul-J  62  36.5  25.8  .589  12.9  4.3   1.7  3.0  3.4
Walter Davis    81  32.0  24.2  .577   6.0  3.4   1.4  0.2  3.5
Julius Erving   74  32.8  20.6  .555   6.5  3.8   1.8  1.3  3.2

Post Season

Code: Select all

Player          GP  MIN   PTS   TS%   REB   AST   STL  BLK  TOV
===============================================================
Bill Walton      2  24.5  13.5  .640  11.0  2.0   1.5  1.5  3.0
George Gervin    6  37.8  33.2  .597   5.7  3.2   1.0  2.7  3.2
David Thompson  13  37.0  25.2  .503   4.1  4.0   0.7  1.6  3.0
Kareem Abdul-J   3  44.7  27.0  .526  13.7  3.7   0.7  4.0  4.7
Walter Davis     2  33.0  25.0  .531   8.5  4.0   1.5  0.0  3.0
Julius Erving   10  35.8  21.8  .533   9.7  4.0   1.5  1.8  3.5

Awards Recognition / Misc

Code: Select all

Player          MVP     All-NBA   All-Defense    Team Record
============================================================
Bill Walton     1       1st         1st          58-24
George Gervin   2       1st         ---          52-30
David Thompson  3       1st         ---          48-34
Kareem Abdul-J  4       2nd         2nd          45-37
Walter Davis    5       2nd         ---          49-33
Julius Erving   10      1st         ---          55-27

And how in the world did Wes Unseld win the Finals MVP over Elvin Hayes? It'll be interesting to hear what went down there.

[JordansBulls]

1. Bill Walton - 1st Team All NBA and 1st Team All Defense

* - Only played 2 games in the playoffs as he got injured.

2. George Gervin - 2nd in MVP voting, 3rd in Win Shares PER 48 Minutes in the playoffs, 1st in Playoff PER, 1st in Playoff PPG. 4th in Win Shares on the season and 4th in Win Shares PER 48 Minutes on the season. 1st Team All NBA

3. David Thompson - 3rd in MVP Voting, 1st in Win Shares, 3rd in Win Shares PER 48 Minutes, 1st Team All NBA

4. Kareem - 4th in MVP voting, 1st in PER, 3rd in Win Shares, 1st in Win Shares PER 48 Minutes
Only won 45 games this year. 2nd team All NBA


5. Elvin Hayes - Won NBA Title and carried worst team ever record wise to NBA Title and should have gotten Finals MVP.


http://webuns.chez-alice.fr/finals/1978.htm# - Still don't know how the hell Wes Unseld got Finals MVP. WTF

[Dr Positivity]

Washington's Finals MVP was Dennis Johnson

[JordansBulls]

Washington's Finals MVP was Dennis Johnson

http://www.basketball-reference.com/playoffs/

Wes Unseld my friend.

[shawngoat23]

Washington's Finals MVP was Dennis Johnson

http://www.basketball-reference.com/playoffs/

Wes Unseld my friend.

http://webuns.chez-alice.fr/finals/1978.htm

Game 7.

He meant what he said.

[Mean_Streets]

1. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar - Missed around 20 games this year for punching Kent Benson, but he came back strong and averaged 26/13/4 on 55FG% & 3 BPG. #1 in PER. The numbers speak for themselves. It's a shame Kareem didn't player for a better team during his 70's Lakers years.

2. Bill Walton - Walton won MVP this year despite only playing 58 games, but prime Walton never seemed like a better player than Kareem to me. Walton just played for a better team & had more media hype because of his personality, if Walton played more than 58 games this year I might put him @ #1, but he didn't. Prime Walton is one of my favorite players, but he simply wasn't better than Kareem.

3. George Gervin - Averaged 27 PPG on 54FG%. 2nd in MVP voting. All-NBA First Team.

4. David Thompson - 27/5/5 on 52FG%. 3rd in MVP voting. All-NBA First Team. Team reached WCF.

5. Bob McAdoo - Not the best defensive player, but averaged 27/13/4 on 52FG%. Team reached ECSF.

[TrueLAfan]

This, for me, is a fun year to look at. I was old enough to be paying attention to basketball and to know (kind of) what was going on terms of intangibles and value beyond statistics. There were a lot of injuries to major players; at least 3 or 4 players that played less than 65 games would have gotten more support and higher ranking if they had played more. And the championship teams had weird years. So my initial thoughts, before I vote, are:

George Gervin. There are a couple of players that I’ve never thought that highly of and that I’ve consistently voted highly for. Gervin is one of them. The Spurs were completely unbalanced this year—lousy rebounding, lousy low post scoring and passing. And defense? Philly Dog Mike Gale was good; Paultz and Olberding were adequate. And that’s it. The Spurs had the 3rd best record in the league, and lost to the eventual champs in a hard fought six game series where Gervin played his ass off.

David Thompson. Played well in the playoffs, but not as well as in the RS. I remember that DJ really did a good job on Thompson; that sort of established DJs’ reputation as a defender. And Denver was good…but they weren’t that good without Thompson. Dan Issel and Bobby Jones, of course, were top level. But look at the rest of that lineup. Damn! Well, I guess Brian Taylor was good in his 1200 minutes. So you know what? The skywalker is in the mix

Bill Walton. The obvious question. He missed so much of the season…how much do you take that into account? Well, you have to give it some weight. This is not a guy missing 15 games, or a guy that plays 2500 minutes. Bill Walton played less than 2000 minutes. He missed almost all of the playoffs. But when he played…wow. When Walton went down in February, the Blazers were 50 and 10. They had a reasonable shot to match or surpass the (then) league record of 69 wins. They went 8 and 14 the rest of the way without Walton.

Here’s how great Bill Walton was in 1978. I think that an MVP level player is worth 15-20 wins to his team. Walton was worth that much in 1978 even though he only played 58 games. Without Walton, I think the Blazers would have been lucky to be .500. Maybe they would made it to that level; maybe they wouldn’t. It’s a good spot for the over under. And that means that Bill Walton was worth 20 wins over a replacement level player. So he’s up near the very top.

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Well, Kareem missed games this year. The Lakers were 8-12 in the games he missed, and 37-25 when he played. And it took Kareem a while to get untracked. The Lakers were 19-24, and Kareem was “only” averaging 24.5 points and 11.6 rebounds. He got it into grear in the last 39 games to the tune of 26.6 points and 13.7 rebounds a game. The Lakers weren’t a .500 team without Kareem; they were more like a .400 or .350 team. Even thought he only played 62 games, Kareem was responsible for around 15-20 wins. So he’s in the mix.

I think the top 4 are really clear cut this year. And I think I might change this right now—but here’s my breakdown now.

1. Gervin. I can’t believe I’m doing this, but I’ve got Gervin at #1. Wasn’t as valuable as Walton or Kareem when he was on the court—but played more than 1000 minutes more than Walton, for God’s sake. And since he was a stud in the postseason, I’ve got him here for now.
2. Walton. Again, I kind of can’t believe I’ve got him over Kareem. But the bottom line is that I think Bill Walton got more wins for his team than any of the other players—and maybe more than Gervin. I’m struggling with the concept of putting a guy that played less than 2000 minutes at #1. I had KG at #4 in 2008, and I knocked him down a spot or so for playing around 2200 minutes. But I think Bill Walton in 1978 was (markedly, measurably) better than KG in 2008..so he’;d be a little higher.
3. Kareem. Not quite as good as Walton when he’s on the court. But very, very close to it, especially in the last 40 games…and played almost 20% more than Walton. And in the playoffs, where he went against the biggest, best frontcourt in the league, he managed 27.0 and 13.7. Maybe he should go higher. For now, he’s at #3.
4. Thompson. He was great, and he really helped his team. He also played a lot of minutes. But his team wasn’t that good, and he faltered a bit in the playoffs. Still…Thompson played over 50% more minutes than Bill Walton. That’s a lot. But even with the extra minutes, did he get his team more wins this season? I’m thinking no, for right now.
5. Walter Davis. It’s between the greyhound and Paul Westphal for me here, and since Westphal didn’t even pretend to play defense,. I’ll go with Davis. A beautiful player to watch. The Suns were a blast in the late 70s and early 80s. Fun team.

[ThaRegul8r]

how in the world did Wes Unseld win the Finals MVP over Elvin Hayes? It'll be interesting to hear what went down there.

5. Elvin Hayes - Won NBA Title and carried worst team ever record wise to NBA Title and should have gotten Finals MVP.


http://webuns.chez-alice.fr/finals/1978.htm# - Still don't know how the hell Wes Unseld got Finals MVP. WTF

When you look at the numbers:

Wes Unseld: 9.0 points, 11.0 rebounds, 3.9 assists, 52% FG, 7 turnovers, 39.1 mpg
Elvin Hayes: 20.7 points, 11.9 rebounds, 1.4 assists, 2 blocks, 48.0 FG%, 39.4 mpg

You wonder how Hayes didn't win. But I said before that Hayes was a bad teammate, and that played a factor, similar to Rick Barry not winning MVP in 1975.

Bob Ryan said, "he is one of the worst human beings that ever lived. I'm pleased to know that in 1978 Washington won that game with him on the bench. He fouled out and they put Kupchak in."

Phil Chenier said, "Unseld was our inspirational leader. His outlet passing and rebounding--he was always dependable. He would go for 40 or 46 minutes, setting picks, and doing all the little things you need done. He was the established leader of that team. He reinforced that leadership with his style of play and mannerisms on the court--and by age, too.""

Mitch Kupchak, said, "Unseld was the consummate team basketball player; his only objective was to win. Statistics were never ever important to him. You can't begin to imagine what he did to make his teajmmates better--set picks, made outlet passes, guarded the bigger center. He was the MVP of that series."

Hayes was a bad teammate, and people had nothing but good things to say about Unseld. Human nature being what it is, that matters. Additionally, there's the fact that Unseld was the career-long Bullet who had been there for 10 years, including when they were in Baltimore, and who turned the team around by 21 games his rookie year--which was a record at the time, and winning MVP. So once they finally won a championship, Finals MVP went to the long-time Bullet over Hayes, who'd only been there four years.

In 1987, Basketball statistical analyst Dave Heeren wrote,

Remember the Elvin Hayes incident? During the 1978 playoffs, the Championship series between Washington and Seattle reached the seventh game. Rick Barry, whose Golden State team had not qualified for the playoffs that year, was announcing that game and doing his usual candid job. He pointed out that one of the referees had a short temper and that he was especially apt to make hasty foul calls against Hayes, whom he did not like because Hayes did a lot of complaining about his calls.

Hayes, who had been the series' outstanding player to that point, picked up his fourth foul during the third quarter and argued before going to the bench. The same official whistled him for his fifth and sixth fouls in quick succession after he reentered the game early in the fourth quarter. Replays showed that Hayes had not committed either of the fouls. On one of them there had been no physical contact at all.

But Hayes was out of the game, and a vindictive referee could have deprived Washington of a league championship becaus the Bullets were ahead by 8 or 10 points when Hayes went out. Paced by Bob Dandridge, the Bullets did hold on to win. But Hayes was deprived of an award he wanted and deserved. Since he had not played during the closing minutes of the championship game, the championship series MVP trophy was given to Wes Unseld. Unseld, then in the twilight of his career, had produced little offense for the Bullets and had been victimized by Seattle center Marvin Webster for 30 points, or a basket more or less, in the final game.

Unseld played 45 minutes in the final game, and had 15 points, a team-high 9 rebounds and 6 assists. Hayes played 30 minutes, and had 12 points, 8 rebounds, 1 assist, 2 blocks. Since Hayes was on the bench when Washington won, that was also a factor in MVP going to Unseld. So there you go.

Some people have compared Unseld to Russell as far as intangibles he brought to the game and doing things to help his team win that didn't show up in the stat sheet. Only... while Russell is the one player in NBA history of whom it's most true that his contribution can't be quantified, you still had some things that showed up in the box score. The fact that only Chamberlain rebounded on his level showed on in the stat sheet. And Russell had some huge games when the team needed it, which showed up in the boxscore along with his usual non-statistical contribution.

[JordansBulls]

1. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar - Missed around 20 games this year for punching Kent Benson, but he came back strong and averaged 26/13/4 on 55FG% & 3 BPG. #1 in PER. The numbers speak for themselves. It's a shame Kareem didn't player for a better team during his 70's Lakers years.

2. Bill Walton - Walton won MVP this year despite only playing 58 games, but prime Walton never seemed like a better player than Kareem to me. Walton just played for a better team & had more media hype because of his personality, if Walton played more than 58 games this year I might put him @ #1, but he didn't. Prime Walton is one of my favorite players, but he simply wasn't better than Kareem.

3. George Gervin - Averaged 30 PPG on 54FG%. 2nd in MVP voting. All-NBA First Team.

4. David Thompson - 27/5/5 on 52FG%. 3rd in MVP voting. All-NBA First Team. Team reached WCF.

5. Bob McAdoo - Not the best defensive player, but averaged 27/13/4 on 52FG%. Team reached ECSF.

So Kareem is out in round 1 and wins only 45 games and doesn't make 1st team all nba and misses a bunch of games but yet is the #1 player for the year.

[ElGee]

1. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar - Missed around 20 games this year for punching Kent Benson, but he came back strong and averaged 26/13/4 on 55FG% & 3 BPG. #1 in PER. The numbers speak for themselves. It's a shame Kareem didn't player for a better team during his 70's Lakers years.

2. Bill Walton - Walton won MVP this year despite only playing 58 games, but prime Walton never seemed like a better player than Kareem to me. Walton just played for a better team & had more media hype because of his personality, if Walton played more than 58 games this year I might put him @ #1, but he didn't. Prime Walton is one of my favorite players, but he simply wasn't better than Kareem.

3. George Gervin - Averaged 30 PPG on 54FG%. 2nd in MVP voting. All-NBA First Team.

4. David Thompson - 27/5/5 on 52FG%. 3rd in MVP voting. All-NBA First Team. Team reached WCF.

5. Bob McAdoo - Not the best defensive player, but averaged 27/13/4 on 52FG%. Team reached ECSF.

So Kareem is out in round 1 and wins only 45 games and doesn't make 1st team all nba and misses a bunch of games but yet is the #1 player for the year.

You have Bill Walton first and he couldn't even play for the last 2 months of the season. LeBron James has a bad game and you move him down. Walton can't play and he's No. 1?

Not sure you should be giving other people a hard time when your own criteria are all over the map -- like penalizing Kareem in 1981 for his team losing 2 playoff games when you had never done that to anyone before.

[Mean_Streets]

1. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar - Missed around 20 games this year for punching Kent Benson, but he came back strong and averaged 26/13/4 on 55FG% & 3 BPG. #1 in PER. The numbers speak for themselves. It's a shame Kareem didn't player for a better team during his 70's Lakers years.

2. Bill Walton - Walton won MVP this year despite only playing 58 games, but prime Walton never seemed like a better player than Kareem to me. Walton just played for a better team & had more media hype because of his personality, if Walton played more than 58 games this year I might put him @ #1, but he didn't. Prime Walton is one of my favorite players, but he simply wasn't better than Kareem.

3. George Gervin - Averaged 30 PPG on 54FG%. 2nd in MVP voting. All-NBA First Team.

4. David Thompson - 27/5/5 on 52FG%. 3rd in MVP voting. All-NBA First Team. Team reached WCF.

5. Bob McAdoo - Not the best defensive player, but averaged 27/13/4 on 52FG%. Team reached ECSF.

So Kareem is out in round 1 and wins only 45 games and doesn't make 1st team all nba and misses a bunch of games but yet is the #1 player for the year.

Who do you want me to put at #1? a Bill Walton that only played 58 games & only played 2 of the 6 playoff games for the Blazers? A one-dimensional Geroge Gervin who also lost in the first round? Sorry, the competition here isn't as strong as the 80's so it makes sense to put Kareem at #1.

[JordansBulls]

1. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar - Missed around 20 games this year for punching Kent Benson, but he came back strong and averaged 26/13/4 on 55FG% & 3 BPG. #1 in PER. The numbers speak for themselves. It's a shame Kareem didn't player for a better team during his 70's Lakers years.

2. Bill Walton - Walton won MVP this year despite only playing 58 games, but prime Walton never seemed like a better player than Kareem to me. Walton just played for a better team & had more media hype because of his personality, if Walton played more than 58 games this year I might put him @ #1, but he didn't. Prime Walton is one of my favorite players, but he simply wasn't better than Kareem.

3. George Gervin - Averaged 30 PPG on 54FG%. 2nd in MVP voting. All-NBA First Team.

4. David Thompson - 27/5/5 on 52FG%. 3rd in MVP voting. All-NBA First Team. Team reached WCF.

5. Bob McAdoo - Not the best defensive player, but averaged 27/13/4 on 52FG%. Team reached ECSF.

So Kareem is out in round 1 and wins only 45 games and doesn't make 1st team all nba and misses a bunch of games but yet is the #1 player for the year.

You have Bill Walton first and he couldn't even play for the last 2 months of the season. LeBron James has a bad game and you move him down. Walton can't play and he's No. 1?

Not sure you should be giving other people a hard time when your own criteria are all over the map -- like penalizing Kareem in 1981 for his team losing 2 playoff games when you had never done that to anyone before.

Kareem in 1981 lost to a team below .500 in round 1 in one of the greatest upsets ever.

[JordansBulls]

1. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar - Missed around 20 games this year for punching Kent Benson, but he came back strong and averaged 26/13/4 on 55FG% & 3 BPG. #1 in PER. The numbers speak for themselves. It's a shame Kareem didn't player for a better team during his 70's Lakers years.

2. Bill Walton - Walton won MVP this year despite only playing 58 games, but prime Walton never seemed like a better player than Kareem to me. Walton just played for a better team & had more media hype because of his personality, if Walton played more than 58 games this year I might put him @ #1, but he didn't. Prime Walton is one of my favorite players, but he simply wasn't better than Kareem.

3. George Gervin - Averaged 30 PPG on 54FG%. 2nd in MVP voting. All-NBA First Team.

4. David Thompson - 27/5/5 on 52FG%. 3rd in MVP voting. All-NBA First Team. Team reached WCF.

5. Bob McAdoo - Not the best defensive player, but averaged 27/13/4 on 52FG%. Team reached ECSF.

So Kareem is out in round 1 and wins only 45 games and doesn't make 1st team all nba and misses a bunch of games but yet is the #1 player for the year.

Who do you want me to put at #1? a Bill Walton that only played 58 games & only played 2 of the 6 playoff games for the Blazers? A one-dimensional Geroge Gervin who also lost in the first round? Sorry, the competition here isn't as strong as the 80's so it makes sense to put Kareem at #1.

I admit the comp isn't strong, but when you compare, Kareem and Walton basically played the same amount of games. And even in the playoffs they did as well.

[ElGee]

No, the Lakers lost in a mini-series to the Houston Rockets. Maybe Jordan shouldn't be No. 1 in 96 because the Bulls lost to the Raptors? That was at least legitimately a historic upset.

[JordansBulls]

No, the Lakers lost in a mini-series to the Houston Rockets. Maybe Jordan shouldn't be No. 1 in 96 because the Bulls lost to the Raptors? That was at least legitimately a historic upset.

Kareem lost the playoff series when everything actually mattered to a team they were hands down favorite over.
It was a playoff series, not a playoff game.

And both teams knew going into the series, how many games was needed to win.

Also you are the one hijacking the thread by bringing up other years.

[JordansBulls]

Washington's Finals MVP was Dennis Johnson

http://www.basketball-reference.com/playoffs/

Wes Unseld my friend.

http://webuns.chez-alice.fr/finals/1978.htm

Game 7.

He meant what he said.

Oh yeah.
0-14 FG yikes.

[Mean_Streets]

I admit the comp isn't strong, but when you compare, Kareem and Walton basically played the same amount of games. And even in the playoffs they did as well.

The difference is Walton started off great, then fell off due to injury, Kareem started off slow and finished great. Walton had the luxury of playing with a better team & had more media attention, which contributed with Walton winning MVP. When you look at Kareem & Walton, they are pretty even, both are great defenders, both are great rebounders, both are great passers (Walton slightly better), but the thing that separates Kareem & Walton is scoring. Kareem by a good size of margin is a better scorer than Walton, Kareem averaged 26 PPG on 55 FG% & Walton averaged 19 PPG on 52FG%. The fact that Kareem finished the season on a higher note than Walton, & Kareem being the better scorer is the reason why Kareem is my #1.

[Dr Positivity]

Surprised at all the Walton votes. To me a player's value is how close he gets his team to a title. His regular season play's value is how close he gets his team to that goal, meaning it mostly consists of setting up seeding and HCA. Now normally I don't base everything on playoff play because of small sample size where FG% can often come down to luck + the large variable of opponent defense. But when a guy is injured in the playoffs his value in terms of 'how close do they get their team to a title' is minimal. They just get their team a good seed. Walton probably wouldn't make my top 20 this year. The 20th best player healthy gets me closer to a title than an injured Walton in the playoffs