LA Bird wrote:Player of the Year
1. Bob Pettit
2. Dolph Schayes
3. Bill Russell
4. Bob Cousy
5. Neil JohnstonFirstly, not sure why people are saying Russell's 24 games missed is small sample size WOWY when we have been working with far less without any problem. Yeah, it is inconsistent with the level of impact we see from the rest of his career but that doesn't mean anything we don't like can just be dismissed as "small sample". If anything, the fact that the missed games came before the rookie showed up and made any difference to the team on court or in the locker room makes this one of the more accurate impact indicators we can have. Some might point to the record 53.5 ppg differential at the Olympics during the regular season as a pro-Russell argument here but there are diminishing returns to the MOV in a blowout and the level of international talent during this period was so low (even by era standards) that it's kind of pointless. I would have been more impressed with a crushing victory in the Finals but the Celtics got pushed to 7 games by the much weaker Hawks, with four being single possession games and a fifth won by only 5. To be fair, Cousy and Sharman did shoot very poorly in some games (notably 6-20, 2-20, 5-20, 3-20 in G6, G7) but the overall talent was still vastly in Boston's favor. Also, I am not fully sold on Russell's intangibles at this point:
Russell ignored Heinsohn's request for an autograph on behalf of his cousin and openly said to Heinsohn that he deserved half of his $300 Rookie of the Year check.
Maybe it wasn't a big deal but the blatant saltiness makes me wonder whether he was a perfect teammate from day 1 or whether he developed into that over the years with more maturity. I also have some questions about Russell's impact on the Celtics' offense. Yeah, there is that cool quote where he said he would never distort a team's offense but there is a reason everyone loves showing the rDRtg graph but not the corresponding rORtg graph. Regardless of the offense/defense split though, I would say it's pretty clear Russell has taken over as the MVP of the Celtics and it won't be long until he ascends into god-level impact in the early 60s.
Between Pettit and Schayes, I usually prefer the latter but in this particular year, he was stuck on such a poor team that Pettit seems the more suitable pick in a POY vote. Syracuse's guard rotation was so awful that Schayes ended up leading in assists, on a team with the second best record no less. This is some TWolves Garnett stuff. In comparison, Pettit was 5th on the Hawks in assists, with McMahon (2nd behind Cousy) and Martin (5th) among the league leaders, and Coleman being one of the best passing bigs. There was a vast difference in terms of how much they had to create for themselves so while Pettit had nicer scoring numbers in the playoffs, I think the level of team support played a part in this. Still, Schayes' scoring was horrendous in the first round against the Warriors (some weirdly low free throw rate like in 56 vs Knicks) and while he did great against the Celtics, it ultimately wasn't a competitive series at all. Maybe Schayes could have done better than Pettit with a similar supporting cast but he didn't get the chance so I have to go with the guy who actually did it. I would point out though that Schayes' free throw shooting sometimes goes under the radar, especially back in the 50s when TS% wasn't a concept and nobody cared about the effect of FTs on scoring efficiency. Schayes hit 90% in FT shooting on very high volume when Oscar/West never even reached 88% and he would be the only player with back to back 90% seasons until Rick Barry in the mid 70s.
Cousy is the next obvious pick here but I don't know why nobody is talking about the difference in his numbers before and after Russell joined the team. His scoring volume fell off (23.2 -> 19.1 ppg) and he is not getting his points from the line nearly as often:
Cousy FT/FG ratio1953: 1.032
1954: 0.846
1955: 0.881
1956: 1.082
1957: 0.911 (pre-Russell)
1957: 0.659 (post-Russell)
1958: 0.622
1959: 0.680
1960: 0.562
1961: 0.686
He also apparently forgot how to shoot FTs in the playoffs, going 75% this year and 76% the rest of his postseason career when he had gone 86-91 (95%!) in the four series leading up to this point. He missed more FTs in his first playoffs game in 1957 (7, 4-11) than he did in all those previous series combined. If Russell never showed up, I think Cousy would still have continued his run as the (clear) best offensive player of the 50s. Would Boston have been better off with Cousy leading the way instead of Russell? Absolutely not. But no one is arguing for Cousy over Russell anyway. The fit is not as seemless as most would think and Cousy's decline in his role as the offensive helio once Russell showed up would ultimately cost him his spot in the top 5 going forward.
Don't really see anyone other than Johnston/Arizin for the last spot here. Warriors were the #1 offense, #2 SRS overall and both had elite individual box score numbers. Arizin was the better of the two last year and he increased his volume to win his second scoring title. However, his TSA per assist goes from 8.8 to 11.8 and I am generally not a fan of players being black holes (
that being said Pettit is at 13.4...). The key difference between Arizin/Johnston last year was playoffs performance and as such, I think it is only fair to give Johnston the nod this time around with Arizin being injured.
Quoting as some of this is a jumping off point for some thoughts though not a "response" post as such...
Russell plays 1695 of 3476 possible RS minutes (marginally boosted by all 4 overtime periods Boston had in the RS coming after his arrival). That's a little under 49% (48.7629459%).
On the autograph thing on the one hand ... the positioning of the two Heinsohn incidents makes it sound like they're connected.
To my limited knowledge (and I had heard and internalized the autograph story but haven't been able to source it recently, or know when it occured) ... I don't
think they are.
There's ...
kind of ... a Russell "don't do autographs" policy. And one can justify that (on principle or practical grounds - against hero worship; it's a pain, doing it encourages more people to ask and they just end up being sold ...). Except it doesn't seem to be so hard and fast ... Russell autographs are out there so ... maybe the stance changed over time ...
Personally I would concur that there isn't much we can glean from team Olympic performance.
On the without ... some here look at single game absences. This is by far the largest "Russell out" sample in his career. I
think it's greater than all others put together (some will use what I would call external samples and call it WoWY, I mentally compartmentalize arrival and departure type impact signals as something else, separate) although that may be RS only? It's the only Russell out sample where it's known in advance, planned for [to the extent you can] and it's not something like game-to-game with the ad hoc (presumably internal) shuffle filling up circa 43mpg of center minutes normally filled. Some (I think Ben Taylor has, for instance - but at least done so openly) have excluded '57 from otherwise career level WoWY.
On Schayes, generally not averse ... the FT framing on accuracy ... " he would be the only player with back to back 90% seasons until Rick Barry in the mid 70s" ... okay technically it's true. I think the impression one might get ... that might even be the intent to convey (invoking other shooters and finding them lesser) is that he is
the outlier shooter of the era. Schayes plays 16 years (including his NBL year) besides the two mentioned above (both .904) there are two more that exceed Bill Sharman's (RS) career average. 12 are below. This is not an accident or fluke: RS (with Schayes including NBL) Sharman is at a career number a little above 88% (0.883113234); Schayes a little above 84% (0.843485618). Unlike his game more generally Schayes's FT% drops a little in the playoffs whilst Sharman's rises (to above 91%). In this regard I'd suggest Schayes is great (and an outlier for a big) and elite for a spell ... Sharman is elite.
Cousy is the next obvious pick here but I don't know why nobody is talking about the difference in his numbers before and after Russell joined the team. His scoring volume fell off (23.2 -> 19.1 ppg)
I would guess because those stats aren't immediately at hand to most participants.
I would also add though
- A chunk of the without Russell is without Sharman. You would expect Cousy to be shooting more here.
- None of the without Russell and most of the with Russell is with Ramsey. You would expect Cousy to be shooting less here.
- We don't know about pace e.g. if Boston are better on O, worse on D without Russell you might expect a faster pace; if Boston are allocating fewer minutes per game to notional centers you might expect a faster pace.
- I don't know if we know about efficiency but it isn't given here. This would also influence conclusions.
This isn't to say it's implausible Russell gums things up a bit versus Macauley or whomever got center minutes early in the season (Risen? Nichols? Heinsohn?).
More interested in the discussion value of the ballots than strict deadlines, and hard for me to argue the project is harmed by metaphorically reopening the polls for an extra hour.
