Retro Player of the Year 1965-66 UPDATE — Bill Russell

[AEnigma]

General Project Discussion Thread

Discussion and Results from the 2010 Project

In this thread we'll discuss and vote on the top 5 players and the top 3 offensive and defensive players of 1965-66.

Player of the Year (POY)(5) — most accomplished overall player of that season
Offensive Player of the Year (OPOY)(3) — most accomplished offensive player of that season
Defensive Player of the Year (DPOY)(3) — most accomplished defensive player of that season

Voting will close sometime after 2:30am EST on Sunday, September 1st. I have no issue keeping it open so long as discussion is strong, but please try to vote within the first three days.

Valid ballots must provide an explanation for your choices that gives us a window into how you thought and why you came to the decisions you did. You can vote for any of the three awards — although they must be complete votes — but I will only tally votes for an award when there are at least five valid ballots submitted for it.

Remember, your votes must be based on THIS season. This is intended to give wide wiggle room for personal philosophies while still providing a boundary to make sure the award can be said to mean something. You can factor things like degree of difficulty as defined by you, but what you can't do is ignore how the player actually played on the floor this season in favor of what he might have done if only...

You may change your vote, but if you do, edit your original post rather than writing, "hey, ignore my last post, this is my real post until I change my mind again.” I similarly ask that ballots be kept in one post rather than making one post for Player of the Year, one post for Offensive Player of the Year, and/or one post for Defensive Player of the Year. If you want to provide your reasoning that way for the sake of discussion, fine, but please keep the official votes themselves in one aggregated post. Finally, for ease of tallying, I prefer for you to place your votes at the beginning of your balloting post, with some formatting that makes them stand out. I will not discount votes which fail to follow these requests, but I am certainly more likely to overlook them.

Current Voter List

Spoiler:

________________________________________
Layaway Voters
* B-Mitch 30
* Bad Gatorade
* McBubbles

[Dr Positivity]

The Celtics are slightly more vulnerable this year struggling with both Royals and Lakers, although beating Sixers easily. The Lakers shouldn't have gotten to G7 2 pt loss when they traded Barnett for Boozer and it didn't work with the latter being their 9th man by the finals. Their regular season SRS of 4.34 is not as dominant as before either. Based on this my theory would be that Russell impact may have gone down a notch this year enough that I will now vote Wilt as the best player in the league despite a disappointing playoffs by his team.

[trelos6]

Some stats from ElGee:

Estimated Pace-Adjusted Numbers 1966


ORtg

Code: Select all

1.  Los Angeles   98.5
2.  New York      98.2
3.  Cincinnati    97.6
4.  Baltimore     95.9
5.  Philadelphia  95.5
6.  St. Louis     95.4
LEAGUE AVG.       94.8
7.  San Francisco 92.0
8.  Boston        91.7
9.  Detroit       88.6

DRtg

Code: Select all

1.  Boston        87.7
2.  Philadelphia  91.8
3.  Detroit       94.1
4.  San Francisco 94.2
LEAGUE AVG.       94.8
5.  Los Angeles   95.9
6.  St. Louis     95.9
7.  Cincinnati    96.6
8.  Baltimore     96.9
9.  New York      100.3

Code: Select all

         Pts/75  Reb/75 Ast/75 Rel TS%
======================================
West      22.8   5.2    4.5    8.6%
Jones     21.4   4.7    2.9    3.4%
Wilt      20.8   15.3   3.2    6.0%
Oscar     20.3   5.0    7.2    7.6% 
Barry     19.7   8.1    1.7    3.1%
Greer     16.0   4.2    3.4    1.7%
Russell   8.7    15.4   3.2   -3.9%


Another tough year at the top. There are 4 strong candidates for 1st. The one thing I can pre-populate though is Bill Russell #1 DPOY. Celtics again led the league in defense by a large margin. Wilt brings Philly into 2nd so will also secure his #2 DPOY spot again. I’m considering a few players for #3 DPOY in DeBusschere, Thurmond, KC Jones. Sanders started to play fewer minutes. I lean towards DeBusschere over Thurmond but it’s close.

OPOY is again between West and Oscar. West hasn’t yet hit his playmaking peak, but he does enough in ‘66 to take the #1 spot for me. It’s hard to go past Wilt for 3rd, despite his 51% FT’s. I’ll give Bells my HM.

OPOY
1.Jerry West
2.Oscar Robertson
3.Wilt Chamberlain

HM:Walt Bellamy

DPOY

1.Bill Russell
2.Wilt Chamberlain
3.Dave DeBusschere

HM: Nate Thurmond

Onto the main event. Jerry West is getting some STRONG considerations for #1. Wilt was on the upwards trajectory leading to his peak of ‘67-‘68. Russell rises when it matters the most, basically plying every minute of the playoffs. Honestly, the top 3 are so close this year, I think you could argue any order. Oscar is just behind them in 4th. Between Sam Jones and Hal Greer for the 5th spot, and I’m going with the champion.

POY
1.Bill Russell (by a hair)
2.Jerry West
3.Wilt Chamberlain
4.Oscar Robertson
5.Sam Jones

HM:Hal Greer

[Dutchball97]

An interesting year to see what happens as this group seems to be significantly lower on Wilt than the 2010 voters. Personally I'm pretty confident in West at #1 with Russell taking a noticeable step back in the regular season and Wilt winning a grand total of 1 play-off game.

[Narigo]

1. Wilt Chamberlain- leads the sixers to best regular season record. Played Well in the playoffs against the Celtics but didn't get much help from his teammates. Played exceptional defense as well. Overall I think 1966 Wilt is close to 1964 in terms of Impact based on his two way impact.

2. Bill Russell- Defense is crazy good as always. But seems like he's declining on offense a little. Although he did bump it up in the playoffs

3. Jerry West- This is his peak. Leads the Lakers to best offense in the league. Takes the Celtics to 7 games in PS.

4. Oscar Robertson- Clear number 4. Almost upset the Celtics in Round 1. Great offense impact but I think West was a bit better in the category this year .

5. Sam Jones- Was considering Barry for this spot. But I think Jones was a bit better on offense

[AEnigma]

Offensive Player of the Year

1. Oscar Robertson
2. Jerry West
3. Wilt Chamberlain

Without more playmaking, I still do not see a real case for West over Oscar in the regular season. More of a debate in the postseason in the sense that it becomes mildly plausible that West’s increased scoring advantage bridges Oscar’s decreased playmaking advantage, but I personally still think more teams would benefit offensively from replacing their lead guard with Oscar rather than with West.

Wilkens and Guerin continue to cannibalise each other, and Sam Jones falls back to his normal level, so we welcome back Wilt to this ballot.

Defensive Player of the Year

1. Bill Russell
2. Nate Thurmond
3. Wilt Chamberlain

Same as last. Wilt could have secured second here had the 76ers not collapsed defensively against the Celtics.

Player of the Year

1. Bill Russell
2. Jerry West
3. Oscar Robertson
4. Wilt Chamberlain
5. Zelmo Beaty

By regular season I would go Wilt > Russell > Oscar > West, and accordingly I expect plenty of #1 votes for Wilt. In the postseason, he does nothing to justify that. His scoring drops off, and the team’s defence drops off even worse. Russell goes up against the three other best players of the decade, and Wilt’s 76ers are the worst performer despite probably having the best cast. Not all on him, but much of it is.

West in turn takes second for his superb Finals performance. I thought many of you severely inflated him last year for beating up on a mediocre team, and despite Baylor’s inefficiency, Baylor is clearly still adding a significant co-star effect which Jerry Lucas does not meet for Oscar. No real criticism this year though. The Lakers stole two road games and came a basket short of stealing a third. Good case for this being West’s peak season, and with Oscar in a slow decline and Wilt disappointing in the postseason, that is enough for second this year.

[eminence]

Worst to First '66

Pistons (22-58): Decent defense, terrible offense. Just don't have the offensive talent to do otherwise. A bunch of 3rd to 5th starters without much depth past the starters.

Knicks (30-50): Bellamy helps elevate another offense and sink another defense. Think they might've been better off not moving for Bells and leaning more heavily on Reed earlier, oh well. Dr Dick got buckets as well.

Warriors (35-45): Rookie Barry pairs with Thurmond to show a duo that should've done great things for years to come, darn ABA. Neither are quite actualized, but very good and lots of promise of what's to come.

Hawks (36-44): Pretty average squad, Zelmo/Wilkens/Bridges/old-Guerin put together a decent squad. Acquired Joe Caldwell mid season to help push a decent playoff result, getting revenge on the Bullets and pushing the Lakers to 7. I'd still have Zelmo as their top guy, outside chance at a POY 5th spot, but probably not.

Bullets (38-42): Trade Bellamy early, Gus Johnson misses a bunch of time - and neither really hurts the squad much. Ohl/Howell keep them pretty equally competitive (which is to say not very). Don't get blown out, but do get swept by the equally mediocre Hawks in the playoffs.

Royals (45-35): It's the Oscar/Jerry show again. Jerry has a bit of a lower efficiency season, but still a very strong #2. Decent regular seasons, pretty standard from them and then gave the Celtics a good series. Nothing bad to say about either really, Celtics/Sixers simply had a lot more depth, I don't think expecting better than they gave would be realistic. Oscar will be somewhere 2-4, Jerry will be in contention for my 5th slot.

Lakers (45-35): Fortunate to play in the West (which sucked). Baylor has clearly his worst prime season, but still positive impact likely (7-8 without him). LaRusso is solid, but mostly a West carry job. Baylor seems more in form for the playoffs. Struggle with a weak Hawks team, but then give the Celtics all they can handle, West looks good in both series. West somewhere 2-4.

Celtics (54-26): Woah, the Celtics not the 1 seed. First time we've seen that in Russell's career. With Heinsohn retiring after last season we've now moved fully on from the first championship squad apart from Russell. Sam/Hondo both seem reasonable choices as Celtics #2, both in consideration for #5 in POY voting. Russell will again be receiving my #1 spot - 8 straight titles, as the top star for every single one of them, can you seriously imagine voting against that from a contemporary viewpoint?

Sixers (55-25): The first full season team I see as a talent equal to the Celtics. But pretty young past the top two and Greer doesn't really deliver in the playoffs, unsurprising they don't get it done this season yet. Wilt will be somewhere 2-4 for me (he doesn't adopt the playstyle I think really allows him to challenge Russell until Hannum returns). Greer is a guy I'll give consideration for #5, but probably comes up short off a pretty weak PO performance.

#1 Russell
2-4 Wilt/West/Oscar
#5? Greer/Jones/Hondo/Baylor/Lucas/Zelmo/???

[ShaqAttac]

ok imma vote

RUSSELL

carried celts to another chip. Maybe not the best reg szn but beat everyone when it mattered and cooked wilt. Also scored more than his teammates in finals ontop of obv carrying the team on d.

WEST

Took the GOAT to 7 scoring 30 for season and 34 for playoffs. In finals he do 33/5 vs d ever. Logo for a reason.

OSCAR

Also almost beat the GOAT goin 31/8 vs best d ever and 31/11 for the season. Isn't leading the best o's anymore though and shoots pretty bad vs ce;tocs.

WILT

Good reg szn but he chokes when it matters only taking russ to 5 and scoring less points and shooting alot worse despite the best team in the reg season and an MVP. Ppl will say its help but werent sixers good when Wilt went to LA and choked again?

ZELMO

Most pts and rebound and min on team that had a sweep win and took lakeshow to 7. Bad in rs but not when it mattered. He didnt score much but I guess his d was pretty good.

[Dutchball97]

Player of the Year
1. Jerry West - It's the first time since 1958 that I vote for someone other than Russell 1st and it's still a pretty close call with Wilt also in the mix. West finished 2nd in MVP voting behind Wilt though and followed up his strong regular season with an even better post-season. While Russell had a dip in the regular season and Wilt ran out of steam early in the play-offs, West was performing at an elite level throughout. A deciding factor for me is West upping his performance in the finals against the Celtics after Wilt and Oscar had struggled against them in previous rounds. Russell did put up an impressive scoring performance himself but Leroy Ellis wasn't a particularly inspiring obstacle, with Zelmo Beaty torching him as well in the previous round.

2. Bill Russell - Russell didn't have his strongest regular season with the Celtics coming back down to earth a bit after a period of unrivaled dominance but it wasn't like he completely fell off either and then had a good post-season in his own right. He was still 4th in MVP voting with the Celtics still having the best SRS and net rating in the league despite having 1 less win than the 76ers. In the play-offs they were undeniably the best team once again.

3. Wilt Chamberlain - While Wilt had the best regular season, he didn't particularly impress in the play-offs. It wasn't enough of a drop off for Oscar to pass him in my opinion as Oscar had a similar drop in numbers against the Celtics, although the Royals did make it a closer fight.

4. Oscar Robertson - Oscar kind of ends up 4th again by default as West and Russell had much deeper runs in the post-season, while individually playing really well while Oscar only played 5 play-off games this year. Wilt is in a similar spot but I do see Wilt's regular season as a step better, while there isn't much to seperate their play-off performances for me so Wilt stays ahead.

5. Jerry Lucas - Lots of guys I considerd for this spot. The guy I thought about first was Sam Jones as I already had him 5th last year and he had another solid run again this time. It weighs pretty heavily though that he plays significantly less minutes than not only Russell but also Havlicek in the play-offs. This Celtics team is still very good top to bottom and I'm not sure if it's fair to give Jones the nod when Havlicek did as much or arguably more but ultimately neither impressed me as much as Jerry Lucas. He had a notable regular season where he was All-NBA 1st team and tied 5th in MVP voting and then went on to put on a pretty impressive performance against the Celtics and outplaying Jones and Havlicek head to head. Baylor made a case for himself in the play-offs but didn't impress enough there to overcome the regular season deficit. Hal Greer deserves a mention too but comes up just short as well.

Offensive Player of the Year
1. Jerry West
2. Oscar Robertson
3. Wilt Chamberlain

Like last season I now have West over Oscar for leading a better offense in the regular season and then having a much deeper play-off run where West continually rises to the occasion. They're still a clear 1a and 1b in whatever order though and I heavily suspect Oscar will top my ballot again next year. Wilt's offense didn't hold up as well in the post-season as it did in the regular season but overall I don't see any other team with real standout offensive centerpieces.

Defensive Player of the Year
1. Bill Russell
2. Wilt Chamberlain
3. Nate Thurmond

Russell is still the top defender in the league although Wilt is now closing in and could make it interesting in the next couple of seasons. Thurmond leads the 3rd best defense in the regular season, while in the play-offs nobody really comes close defensively to the Celtics and 76ers so it's only logical for Thurmond to hold onto that spot here.

[Dr Positivity]

1. Wilt Chamberlain - As arguable top 3 offensive and defensive player, Wilt's 2 way impact is a little too much here now that he's passing.

2. Bill Russell - Russell has great playoffs giving him a case for #1 again. I believe his body may have been hurting by this point, but it's hard to judge how much defensive impact it had. I still like his supporting cast a lot more than Sixers.

3. Jerry West - Probably his best all around season by plaing 79 games, leading team to overperform getting to G7 and having great playoff stats.

4. Oscar Robertson - Pretty easy pick here

5. John Havlicek - I'll give the slight edge to Havlicek over Jones here as he puts up a 23ppg playoffs that's less efficient than Jones but with better D and passing. Greer falls a bit in the playoffs and Barry doesn't pass much.

Offensive player of the year

1. Oscar Robertson
2. Jerry West
3. Wilt Chamberlain

Defensive player of the year

1. Bill Russell
2. Wilt Chamberlain
3. Nate Thurmond

[penbeast0]

1. Bill Russell --- closer but still the strongest in my book with nice playoff numbers to go with the always amazing Drtg
2. Wilt -- best RS record in the league, good not great team defense, below average team offense despite his passing more, still best individual talent in NBA, still second to Russell in impact
3. Jerry West -- great season, great playoffs, lost to Russell, story of his career
4. Oscar -- another great year, team was tied for 3rd in the league, 3rd in offense, 3rd worst on defense. Lucas would seem to be a great fit with his outside game freeing up Oscar to score inside plus great rebounding. Defense is the flaw.
5. Hard choice. Greer/Havlicek/Jones second bananas who don't seem to have big numbers; Bellamy, Lucas, and Barry have big numbers but despite Barry having Nate Thurmond, doesn't really elevate his team. I got no real separation for anyone past the big 4. Will throw a vote to a personal favorite homer pick and say Gus Johnson.

[Djoker]

I came into this thread pretty sure I'd have Russell #1 but now I'm actually reconsidering, I just don't like Wilt's play in the PS, Not a good series against the Celtics, arguably the worst of his career apart from 1969. He won't be my #1 but West could.

[LA Bird]

Player of the Year
1. Bill Russell
2. Wilt Chamberlain
3. Jerry West
4. Oscar Robertson
5. Zelmo Beaty

Getting really repetitive at this point but it's still Russell at #1. Wilt got prematurely overhyped in the regular season because of a superior team record but it's only one game and the Celtics still held onto the #1 SRS despite far more injuries. If we look at missed games from 20+ minutes players, Celtics missed 54 games in total while Sixers only missed 2. 65 Wilt supporters love to talk about how Philly got ravaged by injuries as an excuse for the regular season but they only missed 31 games ... which was the same number Boston missed last year. Healthy SRS has the 66 Celtics as the best team by a clearer margin and they proved it once again in the playoffs with their 8th straight title. The Celtics no longer crushing the league in the regular season does open up the possibility of someone else besides Russell going #1 but at the end of the day, they would still go on to win 3 of the next 4 championships even without the top seed. Sometimes I feel like we get too numbed by the absurdity of Russell's 11 rings that we forget how rare even 3 titles in 4 years is. Russell scored a career high 24/24/4 on 59% TS in the Finals and this along with his 3 previous Finals against the Lakers in 62, 63, 65 would be (by far) the best scoring series of his entire playoffs career.

Wilt is the assist leader on his team for the first time in his career after Costello retired to go play in the EPBL like Arizin. He would also win the rebounding title (after two years of coming second to Russell), the last of his scoring titles, another FG% title, and anchor the second best defense behind the Celtics. All in all, 1966 Wilt had a strong all-round season. But what about the playoffs? Well, he did get beat down in the least competitive series of his career against Russell but he also lost in 5 in 64 with similar individual numbers. It wasn't as good as his series against the Celtics last year but I don't think it's particularly bad either. The bigger problem was Greer and Walker as second and third options falling from a combined 42.6 ppg on 50.7% TS to 31.0 ppg on 43.4% TS. Wilt had 46/34 on 51% TS in the elimination game and still lost with the rest of his team shooting 36% TS.

In an injury riddled career, this is West's healthiest season, missing only 1 game vs 15 games + playoffs, 31 games, 21 games in following years. West also led the league in TS% in both regular season and playoffs whilst averaging a career high 31.3 ppg. It appears much of his case over Wilt though hinges on the fact the Lakers pushed the Celtics to 7 while the Sixers lost in only 5. This feels somewhat reductionist to me. If not for a controversial goaltending call at the end of G1 in regulation, the Lakers might have been swept before they even could have a comeback. Furthermore, Baylor, despite a horrible injured regular season, played about just as well as West in their 3 Finals wins:
• Baylor: 34.0 points, 16.7 rebounds, 3.3 assists, 52.7% TS
• West: 34.7 points, 6.3 rebounds, 4.7 assists, 59.0% TS
If Baylor had played like Greer/Walker, would the Lakers still have pushed the Celtics to 7? Alternatively, if Baylor had not averaged 38/13/8 on 64% TS in G2 and G7 wins against the Hawks, do the Lakers even make it to the Finals? None of this fundamentally changes who West was as a player. I think West has a better case as POY than Oscar did in 1964 by pure luck because he peaked in relatively weaker years for Russell/Wilt but I don't think the postseason team record argument is a particularly good one to put him over Wilt (even less so Russell) this year.

This leaves Oscar as the obvious 4th. Still the usual individual dominance (3rd in points, 1st in assists, 2nd in TS%) but team ORtg slips to 3rd behind Lakers and Knicks. The Royals push the Celtics to elimination in a 5 games series but Oscar had an underwhelming shooting series at 53% TS and his playmaking got shut down once again. All of his lowest assist playoff performances in the 60s came against Boston (11.0, 9.6, 8.6, 11.2, 5.6, 12.0, 7.8, 11.3) and playmaking is his one big advantage over West.

The 5th spot is very much in the air. I could go with Sam Jones again but I don't think his individual numbers or team performance were dominant enough to get there this time, especially with Havlicek arguably overtaking him as Celtics #2 in the playoffs. Baylor had some incredible playoffs games where he looked like his previous healthy self but his regular season was so bad and his poor performances in the Finals (particularly G7) would ultimately cost LA the series. Barry goes straight to 1st team All NBA in his rookie season with some nice scoring numbers but the Warriors were second to last in SRS with the third worst offense and Thurmond would appear to be the more impactful player until the mid 70s when Barry learned to pass. That leaves Beaty as the best candidate IMO. His numbers were slightly higher (17/12 -> 21/14) and the Hawks were the best team not led by any of the big 4. They also pushed the Lakers to 7 in the Western Finals but they had six players averaging 15 points so it was very much an ensemble effort.

[One_and_Done]

I'll go with the same 5 as last time:
1. Russell
2. Wilt
3. Oscar
4. West
5. Zelmo

I think those were the 5 most impactful players. I don't really care that Sam Jones averaged 23ppg and Zelmo only averaged 20. Zelmo was more impactful.

Russell and Wilt are the stand outs here. They're impact in the middle was far more significant than perimeter oriented guys like West and Oscar in this era.

[Narigo]

Not a good series against the Celtics, arguably the worst of his career apart from 1969. He won't be my #1 but West could.

What way was it bad? Wilt had a 50FG% against the Celtics. His terrible free throw shooting is why his TS% was so bad

[Djoker]

Not a good series against the Celtics, arguably the worst of his career apart from 1969. He won't be my #1 but West could.

What way was it bad? Wilt had a 50FG% against the Celtics. His terrible free throw shooting is why his TS% was so bad

If you look at it game by game, it was a bit rough. The Celtics blew them out pretty badly in the series by an average of 9.6 points per game. And according to newspapers, Wilt was outplayed by Russell in Game 2 and Game 4. His huge Game 5 masks the fact that he averaged 23.5 ppg in the first four game as they fell in a 1-3 hole.

1966 EDF - Wilt vs. Russell

Game 1 - Celtics by 19

Wilt: 25/32/5 on 48.8 %TS (+0.1 rTS)
Russell: 13/18/3 on 50.9 %TS %TS (+2.2 rTS)

Game 2 - Celtics by 21

Wilt: 23/25/2 on 47.8 %TS (-0.9 rTS)
Russell: 10/29/9 on 36.7 %TS (-12.0 rTS)

Game 3 - Warriors by 6

Wilt: 31/27/4 on 52.6 %TS (+3.9 rTS)
Russell: 11/23/3 on 41.7 %TS (-7.0 rTS)

Game 4 - Celtics by 6

Wilt: 15/33/3 on 47.6 %TS (-1.1 rTS)
Russell: 18/30/7 on 46.4 %TS (-2.3 rTS)

Game 5 - Celtics by 8

Wilt: 46/34/1 on 51.1 %TS (+2.4 rTS)
Russell: 18/31/6 on 58.4 %TS (+9.7 rTS)

Series Averages

Wilt: 28.0/30.2/3.0 on 50.0 %TS (+1.3 rTS)
Russell: 14.0/26.2/5.6 on 47.0 %TS (-1.7 rTS)

[OhayoKD]

1. Bill Russell

LA Bird already made a much better case than I would have so

Getting really repetitive at this point but it's still Russell at #1. Wilt got prematurely overhyped in the regular season because of a superior team record but it's only one game and the Celtics still held onto the #1 SRS despite far more injuries. If we look at missed games from 20+ minutes players, Celtics missed 54 games in total while Sixers only missed 2. 65 Wilt supporters love to talk about how Philly got ravaged by injuries as an excuse for the regular season but they only missed 31 games ... which was the same number Boston missed last year. Healthy SRS has the 66 Celtics as the best team by a clearer margin and they proved it once again in the playoffs with their 8th straight title. The Celtics no longer crushing the league in the regular season does open up the possibility of someone else besides Russell going #1 but at the end of the day, they would still go on to win 3 of the next 4 championships even without the top seed. Sometimes I feel like we get too numbed by the absurdity of Russell's 11 rings that we forget how rare even 3 titles in 4 years is. Russell scored a career high 24/24/4 on 59% TS in the Finals and this along with his 3 previous Finals against the Lakers in 62, 63, 65 would be (by far) the best scoring series of his entire playoffs career.

Was actually going to say "Wilt had the best regular-season" having forgotten the injury context so often brought up for players playing Russell. It's also not clear to me Wilt's team was worse at this point. The Sixers were roughly .500 during this stretch without him and quite good in 69 (not the cleanest sample admittedly). 66 is one of the few years the Celtics are above average by net (+2.5) though 1-1 but extending our sample has them turning negative.

A quick win plausibly explained by Russell's scoring on top of a regular season where the Celtics were arguably better despite significant injury concerns doesn't strike me as a particularly compelling case for Chamberlian. Russell is just generally a better player for this era and upon scrutiny the case this year was a break towards that norm seems dubious.


2. [b]Wilt Chamberlain

Top 2 in the regular-season and skeptical Wilt and West varying fortunes against Boston was a product of a significant gulf in play. Yes Baylor for the season was not the same as he was when West joined the Lakers. But for the 7 games West's case is built on...

• Baylor: 34.0 points, 16.7 rebounds, 3.3 assists, 52.7% TS
• West: 34.7 points, 6.3 rebounds, 4.7 assists, 59.0% TS
If Baylor had played like Greer/Walker, would the Lakers still have pushed the Celtics to 7? Alternatively, if Baylor had not averaged 38/13/8 on 64% TS in G2 and G7 wins against the Hawks, do the Lakers even make it to the Finals? None of this fundamentally changes who West was as a player. I think West has a better case as POY than Oscar did in 1964 by pure luck because he peaked in relatively weaker years for Russell/Wilt but I don't think the postseason team record argument is a particularly good one to put him over Wilt (even less so Russell) this year.

Going to take Wilt's defense over West's offense.


3. Jerry West

A great scoring performance against the Celtics gets him here. Not sure if he was top 3 in the regular-season but facing the champs it seems his offense held up better than Oscar's.

4. Oscar Robertson

Impressive rs and some kudos is warranted for pushing the 8-peaters but in an especially strong year for this period he ends up 4th.

5. Zelmo Beaty

Seems like a fairly clear lead on what was a good playoff team (if a mediocre regular-season one). I can see the argument for Baylor or Lucas but I'll take the lead over the support piece.


OPOY

1. Oscar Robertson
2. Jerry West
3. Wilt

DPOY

1. Bill Russell
2. Nate Thurmond
3. Wilt Chaimberlain

[penbeast0]

Not a good series against the Celtics, arguably the worst of his career apart from 1969. He won't be my #1 but West could.

What way was it bad? Wilt had a 50FG% against the Celtics. His terrible free throw shooting is why his TS% was so bad

Isn't that part of the game too?

[eminence]

Will use this post to talk through my 5th slot (will probably have one for 2-4 later).

RS stats for the 6 guys I initially thought of as contenders + Barry/Thurmond
Greer: 55-25, 22.7/5.9/4.8 @ 50.4 TS%
S. Jones: 46-21, 23.5/5.2/3.2 @ 52.1 TS%
Hondo: 49-22, 18.8/6.0/3.0 @ 45.0 TS%
Baylor: 38-27, 16.6/9.6/3.4 @ 45.6 TS%
Lucas: 44-35, 21.5/21.1/2.7 @ 49.9 TS%
Zelmo: 36-44, 20.7/13.6/1.6 @ 53.5 TS%
Thurmond: 32-41, 16.3/18.0/1.5 @ 45.4 TS%
Barry: 35-45, 25.7/10.6/2.2 @ 51.8 TS%

PO stats
Greer: 5 games, 16.4/7.2/4.2 @ 40.5 TS%
S. Jones: 17 games, 24.8/5.1/3.1 @ 52.4 TS%
Hondo: 17 games, 23.6/9.1/4.1 @ 47.3 TS%
Baylor: 14 games, 26.8/14.1/3.7 @ 50.1 TS%
Lucas: 5 games, 21.4/20.2/2.8 @ 53.3 TS%
Zelmo: 10 games, 19/13.1/2.2 @ 54.7 TS%

Thoughts per guy
Greer - Solid regular season that may have ranked at the top of this heap for health if nothing else, but laid an egg in the playoffs.
S. Jones - Between a solid chunk of missed games (8-5 without) and seemingly falling behind Hondo in the playoffs it seems a clear step back from his last season.
Hondo - Another couple missed games (5-4 without) and I think just overall not yet at a high enough level in the regular season. If he'd played at his playoff level all season.
Baylor - (7-8 without), really steps up in the playoffs, worth considering for that. Would probably be at the bottom of this list for regular season alone.
Zelmo/Lucas - Good solid all around seasons. These guys are both Robins. The Hawks just didn't have a Batman.
Thurmond/Barry - Next season they'll be in contention.

Really looking at Zelmo vs Lucas vs Baylor here. Baylor clearly behind in the regular season, but with another gear in the playoffs. Personal preference to side with the regular seasons who still had solid PO outings. Down to Zelmo vs Lucas and will think on it some more.

[eminence]

Talking through my 2-4 race

RS Stats
Wilt: 55-24, 33.5/24.6/5.2, 54.7 TS%
Oscar: 44-32, 31.3/7.7/11.1, 56.3 TS%
West: 45-34, 31.3/7.1/6.1, 57.3 TS%

PO Stats
Wilt: 5 games, 28.0/30.2/3.0, 50.0 TS%
Oscar: 5 games, 31.8/7.6/7.8, 53.0 TS%
West: 14 games, 34.2/6.3/5.6, 58.1 TS% (vs Celtics, 7 games, 33.9/6.4/5.1, 58.7 TS%)

I'd probably rank the RS casts like this: Sixers > Royals > Lakers

More equal in the playoffs. With Wilt's cast stepping down and Baylor stepping up. Royals about what was expected.

No serious gaps here this season, all available, similar levels of accomplishment (Wilt/Sixers with a RS lead, but a worse PO showing). Wish we could've gotten a healthy Boston as the 1 seed and seen the Sixers/Royals matchup again, would make this process easier.

Wilt had the better cast, but there's a reasonable gap in RS team success and 2-3 is only one game better than 1-4, so Wilt #2 is what I'll go with. And still slightly preferring Oscar's playmaking to Wests gift of playing in the weaker conference (I mostly kid, but I do find Wests scoring/defensive edges more slight than the playmaking gap).