Lets talk about 60s basketball

[lorak]

I watched and stat tracked 1963 finals game 6. Here are my observations. I hope we would discuss some points, especially no. 4:

1. Pace of this game was 115 possessions. Celtics ortg 97.4, Lakers 94.8. Tournovers: BOS 19 (team high Russell with 4), LAL 14 (Selvy and West - each 3). Offensive fouls were called pretty often - 8 times.

2. Russell had 8 blocks and was very impressive as shot blocker. And as narrative says, most of these blocks were very soft, to his teammates - only once Lakers rebounded ball after Russell's block. Besides he not only blocked shots in the paint, but also midrange jumpers. What's interesting, he blocked 5 West's shots - including 3 jumpers.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zod87fjoyv0&[/youtube]

3. Definitely the best defender in the game, but sometimes made mistakes, especially away from the basket (he left his man open few times and usually played under the screens) but also in the paint as he was outrebounded 5 times and Lakers got offensive rebounds. But anyway he was still dominate on defensive glass and collected 21 DRB (+5 ORB, so total 26 - two more than official box score says) or 21.7 TRB% (36.2 DRB%, 8.1 ORB%). Second best Celtics player, Heinsohn, had 8 TRB (6 DRB). Overall LA players shot 8/20 FG, 3/4 FT and committed 2 tournovers vs Russell. That's 0.76 points per play (Celtics had 0.82, Lakers 0,83).

4. Official box score says West had 13/24 FGA, but that's not true. In fact he had 13/30, so pretty big difference and another reason (after Frazier's 19 assists) not to trust 60s and early 70s stats. I guess home score keepers are the reason of that -home assists bias is common even today, so no wonder even more stuff like that happened during 60s. But it makes me wonder what West's efficiency really was if that was common that they don't count some of his missed shots, when he played in LA?

Here's proof:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OGEmYunLwJ8&[/youtube]

5. West scored 0.78 points per play (so below game average) and was really awful outside of at rim area. He made 8 of 12 shots at rim (and was blowing by defenders rather easily), 3 of 6 uncontested jumpers and 2 of 12 contested jumpers (most of his jumpers were from distance +3meters). So he was really awful from midrange and did most of his damage after penetrations - it's consistent with what his career stats tell us, as he was high FT drawing player, so it's pretty obvious he attacked the basket a lot.

6. Surpassingly often West was defended by Cousy, who was slow and can't jump, but West didn't take advantage of that. He made 3/9 FGA vs Cousy and total 0,67 ppp. The most efficient he was vs Havlicek (3/5FG, 0,88 ppp) and S. Jones (4/6 FG, 1,0 ppp).

7. Going by plays types (Synergy like) West had 41 plays total and most of them were isolations - 25. But he was really inefficient when playing iso ball with only 0.76 ppp. He was also really bad in transition (7 plays, 0,57 ppp), because he liked to take midrange jumpers in transition.

8. Celtics were much more offensively balanced team. Attempted only 19 shots (and made 7 of them) after isolations (Lakers 17/41 - with total 98 FG!) and were using several different types of plays, mostly based on screens (overall they had 101 FGA and more than 10 FGA in 6 different type of plays; Lakers only 3 different plays with at least 10 FGA). They were also deadly in transition making 18 shots with 22 attempts (Lakers 11/19). Barnett, West and Baylor - all of them were street ball like players. Not much team ball on Lakers side. Celtics on the other hand were something like today's Spurs - ball movement and teamwork.

9. Overall defense 1on1 wasn't that bad, even on perimeter. But transition D and defense on screens was awful (usually under screen or no communication after switches).

10. Heinsohn had pretty good jumper, but his shot selection was awful.

11. Sanders was great defensively (what is obvious - most of the game he was defending Baylor and Elgin had 1/8 FG vs Sanders) but also offensively. His shot was surprisingly good and he made 5 of 8 jumpers.

12. KC Jones awful shooter, but very good playmaker and Cousy was GREAT playmaker.

[Mutnt]

As you noted, plus any visible footage from that era nicely illustrates this too, Russell blocked a lot of jumpers in his playing days in the 60's, which is an interesting fact because if we watch present day basketball, how many instances can you recall of a player driving for a pull-up and getting his jumper blocked? I think this happens once in a couple of games MAYBE, and it's a nice example of the differences in quality (both offensively and defensively) now, and 50 years ago.

Watch how Russell blocks his shots, totally different from elite shot blockers in the modern era of basketball. Today, for someone to block a jump shot, he's usually required to play smothering man defense against his opponent (who we should note, is averagely superior athletically as well as skill wise to his 60's counterpart) to the point where the offensive player gets off-balanced and throws up a bad jumper. Late game or end of shot clock scenarios also generate a huge portion of blocked jump shots. Lastly, another important element of blocking a jumper is coming from the weak side to help, while your teammate is defending his player thus having the element of surprise to your advantage. I think nobody is denying that blocking a jump shot is much harder than blocking layups or in-close attempts. Not only that, it's gradually getting harder to block jumpers with the opposition being more skilled and athletic and therefore being more able to create space for shots as well as avoid any block attempts.

Meanwhile, 50 years ago, Russell blocked jumpers routinely and judging by the video you provided, he didn't even do it in the manner which is mostly done today. He wasn't really pressuring the on-ball player, nor was the player pressured by the time expiring. Bill didn't even need to creep to surprise the offensive player from the blind side. All he did and needed to do was wait for the guard to come off the screen and time his jump shot. He wasn't particularly fast doing it, he didn't need to jump particularly high also. So what gives here? Obviously two narratives come forth, the old school and the new school, so to say. Some will say Russell was just vastly better than anyone in the history of the game in terms of instincts, reflexes and ability to be able to do stuff like that routinely. Others will say that the opposition just wasn't skilled, athletic, smart enough to avoid his defense and was surprised by Russell's unprecedented athleticism at the time.

This brings me to my next point, player and victim - Jerry West. I would like to focus on his game, as you have already touched upon his (erroneous?) statistics. The video nicely portrays his style of play (although he did a lot of backing down in his career which isn't shown but oh well)... The question I'm raising here is, judging by his playing style, do you think he and his numbers would've translate well into the modern era? The type of shot-selection he had was horrid. He was taking jumpers from all over the place and those jumpers weren't really open most of the time. He's playing style reminds me of Kobe, except Kobe uses his superior athleticism, handle, footwork and speed to create space for the jumper, while West just slowly maneuvered (either by barreling or spinning and using his back) his way into a spot on the floor and pulled-up over the defense.

Not to knock what each of the two players did in their own era (where ''factual'' statistics should be analyzed
with a grain of salt and put into the right perspective), but I'd just like to advise people to thread carefully when discussing and comparing the greatness between past players and the players today. It's skewed and difficult enough to accurately determine the impact of a given player back then in his own era, let alone trying to do figure out how they'd do in a TOTALLY different (improved) environment.

I know this is not necessarily the ''How Would 60's Players do Today or Vice-versa topic'', but i just decided to chime on this a lil bit nonetheless, hope it's not wrong.

[Sharifani_San]

West had a lot of balls, he shot it from anywhere and had 0 hesitation when doing so, which is really why he was one of the top two guards of the 60s and early 70s. This game was a below average game shooting wise. Oh, and I don't think all of the statistics were bad back then, it depended on where you play. If you played for the Celtics, and if your name was Bill Russell, you typically had your rebounds inflated. The official warriors/76ers statistician harvey pollack had decided to count Russell's rebounds and noticed that they were consistently overstating them. He went over to them and told them so. Reportedly after that game, Red Auerbach never had friendly relations with him again. Point being, this statistician (who would then be Wilt's statistician) had some respect for correctly counting stats (and still has a statbook that you can buy, here is a link to his 2010 statistical yearbook, not sure if he's updated it since: http://www.nba.com/sixers/media/pollack ... e_2010.pdf . Wilt used to complain to him that he was undercounting his rebounds all the time.

[KyletheDingbat]

Great post OP.

West impressed me more than I thought he would. Kobe learned a lot from him. My instinct is that if he played today he'd be able to hang, but wouldn't be the dominant force he was. Where he was going for finger rolls Westbrook is throwing down hammer dunks. But he went left a couple times successfully, which I was unsure he could do.

Russell is amazing. The man is a basketball genius. He can still give play by plays from memory of games in the 50's. Any game. Literally the man is a savant. Those who think he wouldn't translate are ill informed. With today's advances he'd be in basketball heaven.

[E-Balla]

Great analysis. Personally I've seen old West games and he was amazing at getting to the rim but from what I usually see he was a great shooter inside the free throw line.

Re: Russell shot blocking:

I personally think he could've jumped higher and had more weak side blocks whenever he felt like it. Difference is that unlike modern players he doesn't bat shots into the stands (which is the most irritating thing ever - great example of this is Javale McGee's completely dumb volleyball spike that the commentators loved yesterday. Portland scored on that possession... He easily could've grabbed it or not actively thrown it 10 rows deep). If Russell didn't care about saving the ball he probably would've had more athletic "throws" where he completely sent the ball. Instead he did the smart thing and timed it perfectly/got a hand up.

From what I've seen of him he was somehow everywhere at once. Contested shots well, rebounded, hit the paint, and the only issue I've seen is screens (and that's only in this game).

[kasino]

Wow I would not be able to tell you advanced stats from watching a game.

[Sharifani_San]

Great post OP.

Russell is amazing. The man is a basketball genius. He can still give play by plays from memory of games in the 50's. Any game. Literally the man is a savant. Those who think he wouldn't translate are ill informed. With today's advances he'd be in basketball heaven.

http://youtu.be/kr1LUK7o-Rc?t=53m18s

you can say what you want about Russell, he was great...but in terms of what he could do on the court from one end to the other, he doesn't even light a match compared to Wilt, look at the video above from the mark I set it to see how he played in college and what people like Russell had to go up against when Wilt first entered a league...as Russell stated a few days ago to Chris Webber, he was a monster.

[Johnlac1]

I just got done watching a clip of the Minneapolis Lakers against some other teams from the NBA playoffs around 1954. At least fifty percent of the shots from both teams were awful shots by today's standards. But by the sixties most of the truly awful kinds of shots had disappeared. I started watching the NBA on tv in the early sixties, and truthfully can't remember a lot of players. I do remember watching Cousy, Russell, Chamberlain, and the others, but I was too young to understand their games. If a guy scored a basket he was a good player to me. Too young to understand the intricacies of the sport.

ABC started broadcasting games in the mid-sixties, and I was better able to discern the various talents of the stars. West and Robertson were clearly the most impressive guards. Baylor and Barry were the best forwards. Russell and Chamberlain were the clear two best centers. But nobody got off their shot as quick as West. It was truly startling. How would that translate today? He'd still be formidable. K.C. Jones was considered with West the best defensive guard in the league and he would still be an excellent defender today. But he couldn't stop West. West would still be plenty impressive physically.

Are there faster, quicker guys than West now? Sure. I'd put him at the Jeremy Lin level athletically except West was probably a little quicker, could jump higher, and got his shot off far quicker and accurately. On defense West used to block the shots of bigger guards like Sam Jones and John Havlicek both fast and several inches taller than West. He'd have to improve his dribbling, but it wasn't near as bad as some people make it out.

[KyletheDingbat]

Great post OP.

Russell is amazing. The man is a basketball genius. He can still give play by plays from memory of games in the 50's. Any game. Literally the man is a savant. Those who think he wouldn't translate are ill informed. With today's advances he'd be in basketball heaven.

http://youtu.be/kr1LUK7o-Rc?t=53m18s

you can say what you want about Russell, he was great...but in terms of what he could do on the court from one end to the other, he doesn't even light a match compared to Wilt, look at the video above from the mark I set it to see how he played in college and what people like Russell had to go up against when Wilt first entered a league...as Russell stated a few days ago to Chris Webber, he was a monster.

Holy smokes! I've seen all the well known Wilt clips and some others, but I didn't know he was THAT impressive! Seemed like 75% of his blocks he got his head at least at rim level, some higher. And he was fast! Goodness, is there anybody in the league right now as athletic as Wilt? That video made me think he'd come in and ignite a twitter rampage immediately. Of course his offense is sloppy as all get out and wouldn't translate a lick to today's game, but that'd be taken care of by our training methods. At least he had a shot and passing ability.

I'm not sure though that he was a tier athletically above Russell. I think Russell is in the exact same category. He seemed much quicker, was at least as fast and could jump as high. Wilt was stronger and taller. Both of them would be among the best athletes today imo.

[lorak]

West had a lot of balls, he shot it from anywhere and had 0 hesitation when doing so, which is really why he was one of the top two guards of the 60s and early 70s. This game was a below average game shooting wise.

For both teams and for West it was above average game shooting wise according to official stats:
West averaged 27.1 PPG, .523 TS% in the regular season and 27.8 PPG, .548 TS% in the playoffs. In that game he had 32 points and .563 TS% playing against the best defenisve tem in the NBA. So it was clearly above average game for him in terms of efficiency and volume. (At least according to official stats.)

However, we are probably dealing here with home arena bias (or score keepers back then didn't count blocked shots as FG attemps!, Dipper, do you know anything about it? Saw some articles?) and LAL score keepers didn't count 6 West's missed shots. If that occurred regularly his real efficiency would be lower. And in this game in reality he had 32 pts on .498 TS%. But that TS% value is based on classic formula (with 0.44 * FTA), which is useless in the 60s, because they had many trips to the line with only 1 FTA (most fouls ended with 1 FTA). So his real TS% was .429.

That means that in reality all players during 60s, especially these who shot many FTs have their TS% numbers inflated because of that "0.44 *FTA" factor. That would explain why West's and Oscar's efficiency looks so good in comparison to other 60s players - it's simply because we use flawed TS% equation and they shot many FTs.

Meanwhile, 50 years ago, Russell blocked jumpers routinely and judging by the video you provided, he didn't even do it in the manner which is mostly done today. He wasn't really pressuring the on-ball player, nor was the player pressured by the time expiring. Bill didn't even need to creep to surprise the offensive player from the blind side. All he did and needed to do was wait for the guard to come off the screen and time his jump shot. He wasn't particularly fast doing it, he didn't need to jump particularly high also. So what gives here? Obviously two narratives come forth, the old school and the new school, so to say. Some will say Russell was just vastly better than anyone in the history of the game in terms of instincts, reflexes and ability to be able to do stuff like that routinely. Others will say that the opposition just wasn't skilled, athletic, smart enough to avoid his defense and was surprised by Russell's unprecedented athleticism at the time.

That's excellent observation. No doubt Russell was very smart and athletic (for sure more athletic than every 60s player except maybe Wilt - so he had tremendous advantage because of that), but also no doubt players back then have taken so many bad shots (because of shot selection and skill set and athletic limitations) that it was easier to be dominant shot blocker.

[Warspite]

Thankyou for the objective insights.


I wonder if West like many other NBA players were eventualy shell shocked by Russell. Maybe West played differantly vs the Celts than other teams.


Im 100% certain that stats are skewed and shouldnt be taken as gospel regardless of era. It still seems like John Stockton got a third of is assists in the pregame warm up. I was looking over some stat sheets from a league in 94 that I played in. My little brother and I played on the same team and our numbers were 44 and 41. I scored 36 pts and he only 6 and I know he had a double double. I wonder how many of his baskets were given to me.

[branny]

Damn very nice analysis thanks

[Johnlac1]

Thankyou for the objective insights.


I wonder if West like many other NBA players were eventualy shell shocked by Russell. Maybe West played differantly vs the Celts than other teams.


Im 100% certain that stats are skewed and shouldnt be taken as gospel regardless of era. It still seems like John Stockton got a third of is assists in the pregame warm up. I was looking over some stat sheets from a league in 94 that I played in. My little brother and I played on the same team and our numbers were 44 and 41. I scored 36 pts and he only 6 and I know he had a double double. I wonder how many of his baskets were given to me.

West was fearless against all big men. He was quoted as saying you couldn't be afraid or your whole game would suffer. Remember in the early sixties there were only eight teams in the league. That means the Lakers played the Celtics about ten times during the regular season. Sometimes he ate the bear, and sometimes the bear ate him.

[Kubbas]

West had a lot of balls, he shot it from anywhere and had 0 hesitation when doing so, which is really why he was one of the top two guards of the 60s and early 70s. This game was a below average game shooting wise. Oh, and I don't think all of the statistics were bad back then, it depended on where you play. If you played for the Celtics, and if your name was Bill Russell, you typically had your rebounds inflated. The official warriors/76ers statistician harvey pollack had decided to count Russell's rebounds and noticed that they were consistently overstating them. He went over to them and told them so. Reportedly after that game, Red Auerbach never had friendly relations with him again. Point being, this statistician (who would then be Wilt's statistician) had some respect for correctly counting stats (and still has a statbook that you can buy, here is a link to his 2010 statistical yearbook, not sure if he's updated it since: http://www.nba.com/sixers/media/pollack ... e_2010.pdf . Wilt used to complain to him that he was undercounting his rebounds all the time.

So can we be sure Wilt scored 100 or rebounded 44 rebs?

[Bodhi]

How do you find these games?

[ardee]

Great post OP.

Russell is amazing. The man is a basketball genius. He can still give play by plays from memory of games in the 50's. Any game. Literally the man is a savant. Those who think he wouldn't translate are ill informed. With today's advances he'd be in basketball heaven.

http://youtu.be/kr1LUK7o-Rc?t=53m18s

you can say what you want about Russell, he was great...but in terms of what he could do on the court from one end to the other, he doesn't even light a match compared to Wilt, look at the video above from the mark I set it to see how he played in college and what people like Russell had to go up against when Wilt first entered a league...as Russell stated a few days ago to Chris Webber, he was a monster.

I wonder if the detractors on this board have even seen that video.

[Sharifani_San]

So can we be sure Wilt scored 100 or rebounded 44 rebs?

The points scored aren't ever in question...because the competition is a competition for points, and there is no way someone could skew those numbers without someone noticing. Rebounds and assists, on the other hand, can be. I argue that Mr. Pollack's love for statistics and his yearly statistical yearbook, show that he cared about the numbers and whether they were real or not.

[tsherkin]

Given the absence of a full-length video of that game, it's a debatable point. I suspect a feat of that nature to be accurate, especially given how the team was ramming the ball into him, too.

[rrravenred]

Great post OP.

Russell is amazing. The man is a basketball genius. He can still give play by plays from memory of games in the 50's. Any game. Literally the man is a savant. Those who think he wouldn't translate are ill informed. With today's advances he'd be in basketball heaven.

http://youtu.be/kr1LUK7o-Rc?t=53m18s

you can say what you want about Russell, he was great...but in terms of what he could do on the court from one end to the other, he doesn't even light a match compared to Wilt, look at the video above from the mark I set it to see how he played in college and what people like Russell had to go up against when Wilt first entered a league...as Russell stated a few days ago to Chris Webber, he was a monster.

That wraparound pass on the break... I mean... you don't have many players that size who would even think of that...

[GreenHat]

Thankyou for the objective insights.


I wonder if West like many other NBA players were eventualy shell shocked by Russell. Maybe West played differantly vs the Celts than other teams.


Im 100% certain that stats are skewed and shouldnt be taken as gospel regardless of era. It still seems like John Stockton got a third of is assists in the pregame warm up. I was looking over some stat sheets from a league in 94 that I played in. My little brother and I played on the same team and our numbers were 44 and 41. I scored 36 pts and he only 6 and I know he had a double double. I wonder how many of his baskets were given to me.

But no way will they be as skewed as this.

You can't just not count six missed shots today because some tracker will notice and make a big stink about it. I'm sure there are some 50/50 calls that go the incorrect way on some of the subjective calls but nothing ridiculous like this.