Owly wrote:To clarify my own points. West and Robertson's efficiency broadly improved as the league improved (obviously %s are subject to significant fluctuations). The point isn't Baylor would match them, it was he was also coming up with the rising tide, until big injury significant dropoff, further injury problems, further dropoff, eventual recovery/adjustment.
Hmmm, yes, that's why I made some comments along those lines earlier. I saw his WS/48, and they were crap after 63, which certainly fits the profile of your point even though his other markers were way similar to pre-64. It's certainly possible that changing his usage to league-average as it motored on upwards would have made a big difference for L.A.
My point was that you brought up West and Oscar, right? Oscar CRUSHED the league as a scorer to an extent that was effectively Wilt-like... and from his rookie year onwards. By Year 2, West was already better than Baylor had ever been, so it's hard for me to look at those guys as a reasonable analog, which is what I thought you were trying to do. Both of them were way, way more aggressive going to the basket and had reasonably different styles and levels of efficacy compared to even 63 Baylor. Perhaps I'm merely struggling with your point because I'm thinking about it the wrong way, though. Oscar didn't really change with the league, he kicked the league in the face from his rookie season. West sort of altered a little but with the league, but more like as he figured out his own game, because he had a significant deviation from league average over the length of his career. League average in his second season was 47.9%, so he was +4.5% as soon as his second year in the league, which is not something we saw from Baylor. The 46.8% TS West posted as a rookie was actually -0.1% TS compared to league average and more in line with what we normally see from rookie volume scorers.
Baylor at his peak was at 51.9% in 63, against 49.3%... which was great. It also represented a 2.7% jump from his previous season, a career-high at the line and a 2.5% increase in his FG% (career-high before 69-70, which was injury-shortened), and 5 fewer shots per game.
Of course, none of that is super-reliable either, at least for the direct year-to-year comparison, because he's been playing on weekend passes from the Reserves in 62, so judging that is... well, entirely without modern context. That was bad-ass, and I suppose if he'd had a full season instead of that crap, the plot of his career arc might have looked even further different, and maybe enhanced the value lost as he adapted to the developing league.
Even devil's advocate wise I'm not sure you can call Baylor a "second-tier star" (non-DA I'm not sure I'd do that at all of prime Baylor, but I guess it depends on how one defines the tiers) based on the idea he's not West, whilst also saying "well he's still creating shots" as evidence he's "back" or "fine" or whatever is meant to be implied by the fga numbers, when his percentages are in the toilet and he's playing with said star.
For clarity's sake, my first tier is the ultra-dominants. Kareem, Jordan, Russell, etc, etc, etc. Baylor in no way compares to that upper echelon of the NBA's ultra-elite, particularly when it's debatable that he was better than young West and clear that he never reached the level West reached in his prime. That's all.
It's generally how I approach someone like Carmelo Anthony. Melo, like Baylor, is a fine player and gets a lot of flak for this or that, but mainly for not being one of the most freakishly gifted and successful players in league history. That's largely his greatest sin, not being good
enough, and that's roughly my opinion of Baylor. Very important to the league, but surpassed before he was even injured, let alone retired.
Meantime, were his percentages in the toilet, really? Through 63, he shot 43.1% from the floor; 64-70, 43.5%. He had a couple of down years in 65 and 66 that looked a like like his first two years, but in that stretch, he shot 44%+ (e.g. better than his pre-64 best) 4 times, 3 of which which were 75+-game seasons. He had three seasons of 80%+ FT to none prior to 64. His advanced metrics were way worse, sure, but again, his scoring percentages were similar, so it's not that his numbers were in the tank so much as that they were not evolving and his draw rate was hindered... but again, half a dozen of those years were in his 30s... into the end of his mid-30s. You're going to see decline. Even Michael Jordan was physically different in that same stretch of career. Kobe, as well. We see it time and again, and with superior medical assistance, training and so forth helping out contemporary players.
I certainly see where you say the fall-off happened, but I wonder how much of it was a mixture of age, the knees and the fact that the league was changing and he wasn't that much undercutting his value.
Baylor when injured was a superstar, a perpetual MVP discussion guy. At 35 he was a very good player (though D compromised). It's the injury. '70 could be an outlier. But that's not a normal career trajectory. Massive dropoffs at 29 and 31, partial recovery at 33, best year of the 2nd half of his career at 35 (back in the 60s). There are acknowledgements to be made at the margins (expansion). But I can't see it as not being the injury and I don't care if he's on court if he's a "meh" player
Keep in mind that the 60s weren't the greatest for longevity in general. Heavy minutes logged sapped guys even earlier than the usual rigors of the league, and we often see players tailing off into their 30s as quickness ebbs.
But let's look at something:
Code: Select all
Yr: lgav / Baylor / Diff / FG% / FTr / Age
59: 45.7 / 48.8 / +3.1 / 40.8 / .462 / 24
60: 46.3 / 48.9 / +2.6 / 42.4 / .432 / 25
61: 46.9 / 49.8 / +2.9 / 43.0 / .398 / 26
62: 47.9 / 49.2 / +1.3 / 42.8 / .397 / 27
63: 49.3 / 51.9 / +1.6 / 45.3 / .348 / 28
64: 48.5 / 48.7 / +0.2 / 42.5 / .330 / 29
65: 47.9 / 46.3 / -1.6 / 40.1 / .321 / 30
66: 48.7 / 45.6 / -3.1 / 40.1 / .326 / 31
67: 49.3 / 49.1 / -0.2 / 42.9 / .326 / 32
68: 49.8 / 50.5 / +0.7 / 44.3 / .363 / 33
69: 49.1 / 50.0 / +0.9 / 44.7 / .347 / 34
70: 51.1 / 53.7 / +2.6 / 48.6 / .340 / 35
So now we can start to see what I'm talking about some, right?
He definitely had some down years, mostly 65 and 66... but generally speaking, his FG% and overall scoring efficiency had recovered by the time 67 rolled round. His draw rate had diminished... but it had been doing that since he turned 26, before the injuries really became any kind of an issue. It's a fairly reasonable downward slope going along with his age. League average rises enough that even his BEST season is only 0.3% better relative to league average than the year before, and that starts to take the legs out from beneath him as far as his offensive value as reflected in something like WS/48.
Like I said, he was an OLD rookie, so compared to modern standards, the bigger travesty is that he lost half a decade of play with the apex of his physical tools.
The other thing to consider is that his rebounding began to decline, which wasn't just about his knee, it was about the league evolving. As better bigs got into the league, it became progressively more difficult for little dudes to dominate the glass, and he shows a generally linear decline in his rebounding. Then his counting stats declined some because he played 42.1 mpg before 64, and 38.9 from 64-70 (not that this affected his more advanced metrics, of course).
Remember:
59-63: 42.1 mpg, 27.2 FGA/g at 43.1% FG, 11.0 FTA/g at 77.8% FT, 32.0 ppg, 16.7 rpg, 4.4 apg, 49.9% TS, .195 WS/48
64-70: 38.9 mpg, 21.8 FGA/g at 43.1% FG, 7.3 FTA/g at 78.1% FT, 24.5 ppg, 11.6 rpg, 4.3 apg, 49.0% TS, .113 WS/48
But again, there are factors obscuring things beyond his injuries. The league change, it evolved. What he was doing after 61 was progressively less impressive, and that period wasn't one markedly dampened by injuries. His scoring efficiency was lesser by virtue of the improving league, rebounding going down, draw rate declining semi-linearly after his rookie season... Remember, he was never at .400 again after his second year, and though some of that is volume shooting, some of it is the general decline of a dude in his late 20s and progressive into his 30s.
Now, back on your side of things, his post-63 playoff performance tells it's own brand of different story, so there's another angle for discussion that kind of highlights the difference in Baylor pre/post injury... though again, those other factors do come into play.
Interesting stuff, regardless. Fun to think about. Makes me want to do a study on wing scorer age decline.
