Retro Player of the Year 1966-67 UPDATE — Wilt Chamberlain

[OhayoKD]

Overall vs Bill: 8/18 FGA, 7 ast, 1 tov
Post up plays vs Bill: 4/13 FGs, 2 fouls drawn


Overall vs Nate: 11/20 FGA, 4 ast, 2 tovs
Post up plays vs Nate: 5/13 FGs, 3 fouls drawn

Taking this at face value, this would suggest Wilt was alot less successful in terms of creating facing Thurmond instead of Russell.

Based on what you watched do you think it would be fair to say Russell's teammates helped on Wilt significantly more than Thurmond's did?

[70sFan]

Overall vs Bill: 8/18 FGA, 7 ast, 1 tov
Post up plays vs Bill: 4/13 FGs, 2 fouls drawn


Overall vs Nate: 11/20 FGA, 4 ast, 2 tovs
Post up plays vs Nate: 5/13 FGs, 3 fouls drawn

Taking this at face value, this would suggest Wilt was alot less successful in terms of creating facing Thurmond instead of Russell.

Based on what you watched do you think it would be fair to say Russell's teammates helped on Wilt significantly more than Thurmond's did?

Yes, I think Celtics did more helping on Wilt than Warriors, at least from the available footage. Not by a gigantic margin, but Boston guards doubled Wilt more often than Nate teammates.

[Dr Positivity]

But "possible" does not justify ranking Barry over Thurmond. And this is now the 4th time I've said this so I'm confused why you keep repeating this. Are you going to crop out the lede again?

You are arguing for likelihood. "It is possible" does not cut it. What is your basis for the player whose team generally improves less with him, who was missed less on the same team, who fits a less success archetype, and who specialised in the far less successful(team-wise) side of the floor likely being more impactful.

Maybe now that I've underlined the core gap with all your posts in this thread, you might acknowledge it? "Possible" does not lead to Barry 5th, Thurmond off-ballot. "Possible" is a meaningless comment in the context in this discussion yet you keep centering your posts around "possibility".

What makes it likelier Barry was more valuable?

You're not really saying much to me here. Obviously if a rank a player ahead I'm saying I think he's slightly more likely to be more valuable. I use the word possible because ultimately we only have so much information to try to judge players with.

The two things I evidently use less than RealGM board is how teams play when someone gets injured and splitting up offense and defense like NFL units. One of the biggest reasons I do that is I've seen modern examples where teams responded in erratic ways (better or worse than expected) without a star, as if someones they catch opponents who aren't scouted to play the star-less team, they have "pull jenga piece" out effect where they can't lose that one particular skillset, they come together energy/chemistry wise, etc. This is why I brought up some examples like Morant's team playing amazing without him in 22 and horrific in 24, or the Raptors being so built to play well without Kawhi having succeeded in reg season for years. Likewise the reason I don't split teams offense and defense as much is I noticed that some teams seem to overperform on offense and underperform on defense at the same time probably due to factors like coaching and energy expenditure. For example the Warriors in 22 have disappointing offensive rank (17th) but best defense in the league (1st) at the same time, then the next year are 8th offense/17th defense, I would claim that has more to to do with trying harder in 22 than 23 on D or something. Or in 20 Doncic/Porzingis lead one of the best offensives of all time on a 43-20 team, I was saying at the time they may have been especially offensive focused team inflating their results on that end.

With that in mind, I decided to rank Thurmond 4th and Havlicek 5th in my updated ballot, my position would be that I favor mid 70s Barry's skillset over Thurmond but am willing to consider possibility the earlier one had more flaws contributing to how the Warriors didn't collapse replacing him with LaRusso with him the next year.

[tsherkin]

The 95 Bulls minus their best and third best player were as good as the 71 Celtics having replaced their best player despite the 2nd best player filing a trade request. The 94 Bulls without Jordan or Pippen were nearly .500. Consider the postseason and the 72 Celtics with a significantly better roster than what Russell played with in 69 were still not on par.

The Bulls had a lot more talent than the Celtics did in 1970. So 1971 is somewhat irrelevant, since they'd started to replace talent already. The Bulls were SIGNIFICANTLY worse on offense, but still almost league-average, and actually improved on D in 94. They were a talent-heavy team. My point was that they didn't drop off that much because they had a fair amount of talent on either side of the court. They weren't as, so to speak, unipolar as were the Celtics. And they could get away with it due to the league environment.

And you didn't even address Hondo and thereby the Celtics offense improving significantly from 69 or 70.

... What? Boston was a -1.7 offense in 1969... and a -1.7 offense in 1970. Yeah, Hondo was more efficient as a scorer in 1970. And Boston moved from a 93.8 ORTG to a 97.3, but they couldn't really keep pace with the rest of the league.

The situations between the other stars and Russell aren't really the same, so I don't treat them that way. Like I said, with Kareem, the Lakers were barely using him in his final season, so you don't see the drop-off. With the Bulls, they'd added a whole pile of talent to somewhat mitigate his loss. There was still a very large net loss on offense, though. And as was capably pointed out, the 99 Bulls lost a lot more than just Jordan, so the full scope of that loss is hard to isolate.

Boston had a 6-point drop in rDRTG following Russell's loss, which isn't that dissimilar to what happened to Chicago's offense, and that's with more mitigation in Chicago than in Boston.

[Dr Positivity]

I wouldn’t call the 72 supporting cast significantly better than 69 personally

[penbeast0]

I wouldn’t call the 72 supporting cast significantly better than 69 personally

69 Rotation (excluding Russell): Havlicek, Howell, Sanders, Siegried -- Sam Jones, Nelson, Bryant

72 Rotation (excluding Cowens): Havlicek, White, Chaney, Nelson -- Sanders, Art Williams, Kuberski

Havlicek is improved in 72 with more efficient scoring (positive rather than negative TS Add) and that's probably the biggest piece of the puzzle. Howell is a better offensive and stronger overall player than JoJo White. Chaney and Sanders both defensive specialists, Nelson clearly superior to Siegfried (or Em Bryant who starts part of the year). Off the bench, Sam Jones still scores but his efficiency drops to below league average, Sanders still a good defender but has lost a step; Nelson and Art Williams both look strong and likely to improve, Bryant is an old head that won't hurt you much while Kuberski is a young talent that never lived up to potential.

I'd say Cowens' supporting cast is stronger for these particular years but it's not massive. 72 has the better version of Havlicek and Don Nelson is a better player than Larry Siegfried which makes up for Howell being the best 2nd option scorer, bench close but I'd go with 69 if you play Jones and Nelson for the hot hands.

[OhayoKD]

The 95 Bulls minus their best and third best player were as good as the 71 Celtics having replaced their best player despite the 2nd best player filing a trade request. The 94 Bulls without Jordan or Pippen were nearly .500. Consider the postseason and the 72 Celtics with a significantly better roster than what Russell played with in 69 were still not on par.

The Bulls had a lot more talent than the Celtics did in 1970. So 1971 is somewhat irrelevant, since they'd started to replace talent already. The Bulls were SIGNIFICANTLY worse on offense, but still almost league-average, and actually improved on D in 94. They were a talent-heavy team. My point was that they didn't drop off that much because they had a fair amount of talent on either side of the court. They weren't as, so to speak, unipolar as were the Celtics. And they could get away with it due to the league environment.

The relevant question is was whether that talent was a product of 94 additions or if that was reflective of what they were with Jordan. Even if you use 1992 as your with, that leaves the Bulls dropping off by 5 with their starters in 94(vs 8-points for Boston in a league where SRS was lower). Jordan(and Wilt) simply lack real evidence for providing Russell-level impact beyond anarchistic assumptions about the value of scoring in the 60's.

They added generally negative defensive personnel in 94 and lost their second best defender in 95 without ever finding a proper replacement at SG (a factor which contributed to Pippen getting minutes at SG their to start the 94 season and along with a very slow start).

71 is relevant because it's a similar roster plus a suitable positional replacement and a better Hondo. That team realistically would make for better help than what the 69 Celtics had while the 95 Bulls should make for worse help than the 93 Bulls had and
definitively better help than what the 92 Bulls had.

Finally, there is the matter of corroboration: the 69 Celtics looked as bad as the 70 Celtics and during the Celtics most dominant stretch they were bad when Russell left. Small samples, but it is nonetheless data without a real counterpoint.


Jordan(and Wilt) have no equivalent signal for what we saw from Russell as a retiree player-coache, and barring fixation on a very different 1957/58 Celtics team(as opposed to even just lumping those results with all the others), the rest is consistent with that interpretation.

Simply getting a comparable raw signal(which would still be worse keeping in mind srs tresholds) would require you to assume something like "jordan was the only reason the Bulls improved between 84/86 and 88" and that is before we consider the ramifications of +4 being sufficient to make you the clear title favorite in the early 60's.

And you didn't even address Hondo and thereby the Celtics offense improving significantly from 69 or 70.

... What? Boston was a -1.7 offense in 1969... and a -1.7 offense in 1970. Yeah, Hondo was more efficient as a scorer in 1970. And Boston moved from a 93.8 ORTG to a 97.3, but they couldn't really keep pace with the rest of the league.[/quote]
Ah, i just looked at the raw. They were 1.3 points better in 1971 and a full 3 points better in 1972 along with Hondo's effeciency jumping and a "whole pile of talent" being added to mitigate Russell's departure...Russell was just harder to replace. "Added a whole bunch of talent" also gets pretty weak as an explanation if you go off 1992 rather than 1993.

The situations between the other stars and Russell aren't really the same, so I don't treat them that way. Like I said, with Kareem, the Lakers were barely using him in his final season, so you don't see the drop-off. With the Bulls, they'd added a whole pile of talent to somewhat mitigate his loss.

I was not strictly speaking about retirement drop-offs. Kareem does have some great signals with the 1975 -> 1976/1977 Lakers improvement being very impressive in the context of

A. the Lakers trading key pieces for him
B. SRS being relatively low like it was in Russell's era.

But the catch there is Kareem was at a point in his career he should be better and it was on teams that did not come paticularly close to a title.

There was still a very large net loss on offense, though. And as was capably pointed out, the 99 Bulls lost a lot more than just Jordan, so the full scope of that loss is hard to isolate.

Boston had a 6-point drop in rDRTG following Russell's loss, which isn't that dissimilar to what happened to Chicago's offense, and that's with more mitigation in Chicago than in Boston.

It "isn't that dissimilar"(5-point drop) because Pippen and Grant got injured(they did not in 93). With both the 94 Bulls were a +2 offense in 94 and a +1.5 offense in 1995 with just one. Use those values and that drop-off, even complete ignoring them improving defensively with negative defensive additions, is quite dissimilar. In fact, even using the 1992 Bulls would see a smaller drop-off.

[OhayoKD]

I wouldn’t call the 72 supporting cast significantly better than 69 personally

69 Rotation (excluding Russell): Havlicek, Howell, Sanders, Siegried -- Sam Jones, Nelson, Bryant

72 Rotation (excluding Cowens): Havlicek, White, Chaney, Nelson -- Sanders, Art Williams, Kuberski

Havlicek is improved in 72 with more efficient scoring (positive rather than negative TS Add) and that's probably the biggest piece of the puzzle. Howell is a better offensive and stronger overall player than JoJo White. Chaney and Sanders both defensive specialists, Nelson clearly superior to Siegfried (or Em Bryant who starts part of the year). Off the bench, Sam Jones still scores but his efficiency drops to below league average, Sanders still a good defender but has lost a step; Nelson and Art Williams both look strong and likely to improve, Bryant is an old head that won't hurt you much while Kuberski is a young talent that never lived up to potential.

I'd say Cowens' supporting cast is stronger for these particular years but it's not massive. 72 has the better version of Havlicek and Don Nelson is a better player than Larry Siegfried which makes up for Howell being the best 2nd option scorer, bench close but I'd go with 69 if you play Jones and Nelson for the hot hands.

Why are we using "without Cowens" here when Cowens is a contributor to how the Celtics looked without Russell?

The comparison should be "with Cowens" and with that even the 1971 Celtics are significantly better than what Russell was winning with in 69 and the 72 Celtics are "much better".

Russell is not being compared to Cowens here. Unless you are excuding Pippen for the 95 Bulls or Greer for the 1969 Sixers, this isn't a worthwhile exercise

[Dr Positivity]

I wouldn’t call the 72 supporting cast significantly better than 69 personally

69 Rotation (excluding Russell): Havlicek, Howell, Sanders, Siegried -- Sam Jones, Nelson, Bryant

72 Rotation (excluding Cowens): Havlicek, White, Chaney, Nelson -- Sanders, Art Williams, Kuberski

Havlicek is improved in 72 with more efficient scoring (positive rather than negative TS Add) and that's probably the biggest piece of the puzzle. Howell is a better offensive and stronger overall player than JoJo White. Chaney and Sanders both defensive specialists, Nelson clearly superior to Siegfried (or Em Bryant who starts part of the year). Off the bench, Sam Jones still scores but his efficiency drops to below league average, Sanders still a good defender but has lost a step; Nelson and Art Williams both look strong and likely to improve, Bryant is an old head that won't hurt you much while Kuberski is a young talent that never lived up to potential.

I'd say Cowens' supporting cast is stronger for these particular years but it's not massive. 72 has the better version of Havlicek and Don Nelson is a better player than Larry Siegfried which makes up for Howell being the best 2nd option scorer, bench close but I'd go with 69 if you play Jones and Nelson for the hot hands.

I was actually considering Cowens as the one in the supporting cast and Havlicek the star, I think 72 Cowens vs 69 Havlicek is a pretty fair comparison for 2nd bananas.

White looks like he have it all scoring 23.1 pts on 22.6 shots a game at TS 3.4 TS% below league average and 3.8 points below any of Havlicek/Cowens/Williams/Chaney/Nelson, and has only .079 WS/48. Not saying he isn't still useful to them, but per minute I'm not convinced he's better than old Jones who scores higher volume per minute and better efficiency for his league/team, but has less assists. At the least, I definitely prefer Howell as 3rd guy.

Nelson is similar except for passing more in 72. Chaney may be better than 69 Sanders tbh as the latter actually plays less minutes in 69 playoffs than his washed looking version in 72. I like Siegfried quite a bit with great defensive guard reputation, 14ppg with FT% padding his TS (although better earlier in 60s) and presumably icing games, and 5 assists in an era where that was a little more impressive. Art Williams also looks like a pretty useful backup for 72 team with elite assist rate and good rebounding for guard, if not much of a scorer. Em Bryant actually has huge role in 69 averaging 34mpg in playoffs (and scores 20 points in the famous game 7) which I guess is a knock on them but it does look like he was a great defender and they know how to play with defense first at PG.

I prefer 69 because looking at it, I just don't like JoJo that much other than being a respectable passer (around the same assists rank in the league as Murray), by the time of the title years it looks like a classic example where the guy putting up 18ppg on the 8th highest TS% on the team is overrated while a guy like Silas is a non boxscore hero. Still with that said the 69 Celtics are better than their 48 Ws in that they had to go through one of the hardest roads of all time, and even though there's expansion in 69, it's clear the new teams took more good players away by 72 than they in 69 when they all sucked, so there's still some concentration effect making the old 69 teams more stacked.

[OhayoKD]

I wouldn’t call the 72 supporting cast significantly better than 69 personally

69 Rotation (excluding Russell): Havlicek, Howell, Sanders, Siegried -- Sam Jones, Nelson, Bryant

72 Rotation (excluding Cowens): Havlicek, White, Chaney, Nelson -- Sanders, Art Williams, Kuberski

Havlicek is improved in 72 with more efficient scoring (positive rather than negative TS Add) and that's probably the biggest piece of the puzzle. Howell is a better offensive and stronger overall player than JoJo White. Chaney and Sanders both defensive specialists, Nelson clearly superior to Siegfried (or Em Bryant who starts part of the year). Off the bench, Sam Jones still scores but his efficiency drops to below league average, Sanders still a good defender but has lost a step; Nelson and Art Williams both look strong and likely to improve, Bryant is an old head that won't hurt you much while Kuberski is a young talent that never lived up to potential.

I'd say Cowens' supporting cast is stronger for these particular years but it's not massive. 72 has the better version of Havlicek and Don Nelson is a better player than Larry Siegfried which makes up for Howell being the best 2nd option scorer, bench close but I'd go with 69 if you play Jones and Nelson for the hot hands.

I was actually considering Cowens as the one in the supporting cast and Havlicek the star, I think 72 Cowens vs 69 Havlicek is a pretty fair comparison for 2nd bananas.

For a fair comparison you need to include both. "the supporting cast of the russell-less team" is a red herring. The player whose impact is being assessed is Russell, not "Russell - Cowens" or "Russell - Havelick". The Celtics performance without Bill in 70, 71, and 72 was a product of everyone on the team, including the best players so the whole team must be factored in when contexualising the signal.

I'm honestly baffled how a discussion about "the Celtics without Russell" turned into the "the Celtics without Russell and Hondo/Cousy".

[AEnigma]

Votes are tallied. I recorded 12 voters: Djoker, AEnigma, Dutchball97, Dr. Positivity, Ardee, LA Bird, eminence, trex, ShaqAttac, Penbeast, OhayoKD, IlikeShaiGuys, and trelos. Penbeast, Eminence and ShaqAttac abstained from voting for Offensive and Defensive Player of the Year. Please let me know if I seem to have missed or otherwise improperly recorded a vote.

1966-67 Results

(Retro) Offensive Player of the Year — Oscar Robertson (7)

Code: Select all

Player       1st   2nd   3rd   Points  Shares
1. Oscar Robertson    7   2   0    41     0.911
2. Wilt Chamberlain   2    6    1    29    0.644
3. Rick Barry   0   1   7    10    0.222
4. Jerry West   0   0   1    1    0.022

(Retro) Defensive Player of the Year — Bill Russell (11)

Code: Select all

Player         1st   2nd   3rd   Points  Shares
1. Bill Russell   4   4   1     33     0.733
2. Nate Thurmond    5   1   3    31    0.689
3. Wilt Chamberlain    0   4   5    17    0.378

Retro Player of the Year — Wilt Chamberlain (Unanimous)

Code: Select all

Player      1st 2nd 3rd 4th 5th Pts  POY Shares
1. Wilt Chamberlain 12  0  0  0  0   120   1.000
2. Bill Russell  0  6  6  0  0   72   0.600
3. Nate Thurmond   0  6  3  3  0   66   0.550
4. Oscar Robertson  0  0  3  9  0   42   0.350
5. Rick Barry  0  0  0  0  8   8   0.067
6. Hal Greer    0  0  0  0  2   2    0.017
7. John Havlicek    0  0  0  0  1   1    0.008
7. Jerry West    0  0  0  0  1   1    0.008

In the prior project, there were 17 votes, with Dr. Positivity and penbeast overlapping. With their prior ballots removed, these are the aggregated results of the two projects across 27 total ballots:

Spoiler:

Code: Select all

Player   1st 2nd 3rd 4th 5th Pts  POY Shares
1. Wilt Chamberlain  27  0  0  0  0   270    1.000
2. Bill Russell  0  12  11  4  0   151   0.559
3. Oscar Robertson  0  8  7  12  0   127   0.470
4. Nate Thurmond   0  7  7  10  3   117   0.433
5. Rick Barry  0  0  2  1  19   32   0.119
6. Hal Greer    0  0  0  0  3   3    0.011
7. John Havlicek    0  0  0  0  1   1    0.004
7. Jerry West    0  0  0  0  1   1    0.004

1968 thread will open shortly.

[ceiling raiser]

Increasingly, I don't think Wilt was the best player in 1967. He was pretty much the same player from 66-67 through 68-69 (and arguably through 72-73), and while he was better suited to team basketball than his younger iteration, I think some of it was luck/variance.

The loss in 67-68 I don't think can be entirely attributed to passiveness, but partly might be due to defenses figuring him out. If you know what Wilt is going to do, easier to stop him. I think this narrative that Wilt "took passing too far" infantilizes him a bit -- he was a grown man with agency, teams just reacted.

Honestly, a larger question for me about one-off peaks or champions is, if a team breaks through due to shock value, how much of it is small sample size.

[70sFan]

Increasingly, I don't think Wilt was the best player in 1967. He was pretty much the same player from 66-67 through 68-69 (and arguably through 72-73), and while he was better suited to team basketball than his younger iteration, I think some of it was luck/variance.

The loss in 67-68 I don't think can be entirely attributed to passiveness, but partly might be due to defenses figuring him out. If you know what Wilt is going to do, easier to stop him. I think this narrative that Wilt "took passing too far" infantilizes him a bit -- he was a grown man with agency, teams just reacted.

Honestly, a larger question for me about one-off peaks or champions is, if a team breaks through due to shock value, how much of it is small sample size.

I have no idea how you can watch 1967 Wilt and 1973 version and then conclude that he was "pretty much the same player".

1967/68 loss isn't entirely attributed to passiveness, but mostly to the injuries of Wilt and his teammates (and yet they went to very close 7 games series).

[kcktiny]

I don't think Wilt was the best player in 1967

Hmm, let's see.

Chamberlain was the best player on the best team in the league, lead the league in minutes played, FG%, rebounds, was 3rd in the league in assists and points. Lead the league in FTAs, and while a poor FT shooter still drew a ton of fouls on the opposition.

At that time the 76ers had the best single season W-L record in the 18 year history of the NBA at 68-13, the best winning percentage (.840) in league history, the best average per game point differential (+9.4 pts/g) in league history. They were a truly dominant team.

Wilt lead this dominant team in minutes played, points (despite not leading the team in FGAs), rebounds, assists.

Just out of curiosity what is your criteria for best player in the league such that Chamberlain wasn't it that season?