Bill Russell forgotten carryjob

[70sFan]

They had three HOFers left together in Russell, Bailey Howell, and Sam Jones. The latter two were 2nd and 3rd best scorers of the team. Also, Bailey had better advanced stats across the board at that stage over Russell, from PER (19.4 vs 15.2), TS% (.532 vs .467), WS (11.3 vs 10.9) to WS/48 (.215 vs .159).

Yeah, that's why Celtics went from the +5.4 SRS with Jones and Russell to -1.6 without them next season - and all the difference was on defensive end. Sure, they lost old Sam Jones but they got rookie JoJo White who was very solid himself. They even got Hank Finkel who was a better scorer than old, past prime Russell. Why didn't they improve on offense and lost 6 points per100 value on defense? Maybe because Russell carried them?

Again, you are ignoring missing Howell, who was better in every advanced categories than Russell the last season they were together. It was a entirely different team the year after. it's better to say Russell with Howell/Jones... Celtics were much better defensively than that new team a year after.

I don't ignore anything because Howell was still on Celtics team for next two years.

Celtics needed 4 years to become the best defensive team in the league and even then they didn't reach 1969 level, which was down compared to average Russe season.

[Owly]

They had three HOFers left together in Russell, Bailey Howell, and Sam Jones. The latter two were 2nd and 3rd best scorers of the team. Also, Bailey had better advanced stats across the board at that stage over Russell, from PER (19.4 vs 15.2), TS% (.532 vs .467), WS (11.3 vs 10.9) to WS/48 (.215 vs .159).

Yeah, that's why Celtics went from the +5.4 SRS with Jones and Russell to -1.6 without them next season - and all the difference was on defensive end. Sure, they lost old Sam Jones but they got rookie JoJo White who was very solid himself. They even got Hank Finkel who was a better scorer than old, past prime Russell. Why didn't they improve on offense and lost 6 points per100 value on defense? Maybe because Russell carried them?

Again, you are ignoring missing Howell, who was better in every advanced categories than Russell the last season they were together. It was a entirely different team the year after. it's better to say Russell with Howell/Jones... Celtics were much better defensively than that new team a year after.

I may be missing something but Howell was there in '70. His minutes are down by almost 500 and he doesn't look right statistically (though he played every game) but he was on the Celtics.

[dygaction]

Yeah, that's why Celtics went from the +5.4 SRS with Jones and Russell to -1.6 without them next season - and all the difference was on defensive end. Sure, they lost old Sam Jones but they got rookie JoJo White who was very solid himself. They even got Hank Finkel who was a better scorer than old, past prime Russell. Why didn't they improve on offense and lost 6 points per100 value on defense? Maybe because Russell carried them?

Again, you are ignoring missing Howell, who was better in every advanced categories than Russell the last season they were together. It was a entirely different team the year after. it's better to say Russell with Howell/Jones... Celtics were much better defensively than that new team a year after.

I don't ignore anything because Howell was still on Celtics team for next two years.

Celtics needed 4 years to become the best defensive team in the league and even then they didn't reach 1969 level, which was down compared to average Russe season.

You right, Howell was there for another year.

[SinceGatlingWasARookie]

Not winning leads to bad defense. Winning inspires defensive effort. Some of the drop off in defense after 1969 may have been the demoralization of not winning leading to poorer defensive effort.

[SinceGatlingWasARookie]

Baily Howell.

Baily Howell's FG% crashed from 49% in 1969 to 43% in 1970. Maybe he needed Russell and Jones to help him on offense but I think he suddenly got old at age 33 in 1970. I have seen other guys in their early 30s suddenly get old. One year they look 29 years old and the next year they look 40 years old.

Havlicek's Sanders's and Don Nelson's shooting got better in 1970 than they had shot in 1969. Sometimes opposing teams play worse defense against weak teams because they can beat bad teams without playing good defense.

[penbeast0]

Baily Howell.

Baily Howell's FG% crashed from 49% in 1969 to 43% in 1970. Maybe he needed Russell and Jones to help him on offense but I think he suddenly got old at age 33 in 1970. I have seen other guys in their early 30s suddenly get old. One year they look 29 years old and the next year they look 40 years old.

Havlicek's Sanders's and Don Nelson's shooting got better in 1970 than they had shot in 1969. Sometimes opposing teams play worse defense against weak teams because they can beat bad teams without playing good defense.

Bailey Howell did drop off, but Havlicek's shooting not only increased but stayed better for the next several years including the Cowens era teams which were very competitive. Very few non-center scorers that you can say that about at age 30.

[penbeast0]

Not winning leads to bad defense. Winning inspires defensive effort. Some of the drop off in defense after 1969 may have been the demoralization of not winning leading to poorer defensive effort.

Two other factors about missing Russell that relate to defense.

(a) Going from a defensive rebounding GOAT candidate to Finkel with undersized power forwards leads to a lot of second shots and maybe some cheating off their men for rebounding position.

(b) Not having a GOAT shotblocker behind you (even ignoring Russell's horizontal help defense) leads to guys not playing their man tight to avoid blowbys.

[MartinToVaught]

Hard to build a good offense around Bill Russell

Not really. Russell could run every position on offense and was playing the point-center role like Jokic after Cousy retired.

Havlicek once said that Russell was the key to the Celtics' offense and that his pick-setting and especially passing made everybody else on the team look better than they were.

People point to Russell's PPG to discredit him on offense, but it's a testament to his unselfishness as a player that he was willing to sacrifice his scoring so much for the sake of the team. When he had to score, he was perfectly fine doing it. He led the Celtics in scoring in the '62 and '66 Finals, for example.

The elite coaches in today's league would have no problem building a good offense around Russell. In the modern NBA, with modern training regimens, offensive systems, etc., I think he would have turned out very similar to Giannis, and Giannis just won a championship as the first option.

Watch on YouTube

[penbeast0]

I'm not as high on Russell's passing as some. The Celtics never managed even an above average offense during his era. You could build a decent offense with Bill but with Bill AND KC playing starter minutes, it's not likely. That's not to discredit him, he's my GOAT over LeBron and Jordan but his incredible impact was in his defense and rebounding.

[70sFan]

Russell's passing and activity could be a good complementary assets to your offense, but I don't think you can build offense around Russell. He could be a very strong contributor to solid offenses in Adebayo or Noah mold, turning him into first option wouldn't be a great thing to do. Unless Russell would develop scoring repertoire he didn't have, but I wouldn't expect massive improvement.

[prolific passer]

Wouldn't say it was a carry job. They just relied on defense with some all timers in Russell, Hondo, Satch, and KC Jones. Pretty much played team offense and i think their top 7 or 8 players were all healthy and played in around 70 games that season.

[SinceGatlingWasARookie]

I think he would have turned out very similar to Giannis, and Giannis just won a championship as the first optiion

Giannis is the top dribbling center of all time except that by 1960s rules enforcement is traveling much of the time.

Who is the 2nd greatist dribbling center? Robinson? Amare? Jokic? Cowens?

Giannis can hit 3s. I still have McAdoo as my greatest shooting center but McAdoo did not shoot 3s.
Giannis is high on the list of jump shooting centers.

Russell could have dribbled more and shot jump shots more in his time but he did not.
What I think Russell would do more now is pick and roll. Set a pick at the 3 point line, roll, rim run, score.

Their is more space in the paint now which makes it easier for Giannis to do Giannis things but I don't think Time Traveling Russell would be like Giannis.

[DQuinn1575]

I mean, Heinsohn was just all around better. I can understand your position if you take ~5% fg difference (1 more made every 20 attempts) over everything else combined...

At that point in regular seasons:
Tom Meschery gave you 13.5/7.7/1.9 in 30.3 min;
Tom Heinsohn gave you 16.5/6.1/2.4 in 26.8 min.

in the playoffs,
Tom Meschery gave you 16.8/7.3/1.8 in 33.8min;
Tom Heinsohn gave you 17.4/8.0/2.6 in 30 min.

Per 75 stats for Meschery and Heinsohn:

Tom Heinsohn: 17.8/6.5/2.6 on -2.7 rTS%
Tom Meschery: 13.9/7.9/1.9 on +1.4 rTS%

Playoffs:

Tom Heinsohn: 17.2/6.5/2.5 on -1.1 rTS%
Tom Meschery: 15.3/6.5/1.6 on +3.1 rTS%

So Meschery was a better rebounder and much more efficient scorer. He was also a better defender based on reputation. Heinsohn was a better passer. My eye-test view them as comparable. Of course Meschery played far more minutes which should be a big bonus for him.

Don't see any case for him, except if you like volume scoring over anything else combined.

With the amount of teams, the Celtics got 3 all-stars each year. One was Russell.
Sam Jones got the second spot.
Havlicek was not starting games, so they gave Heinsohn the all-star spot basically by default.


And I do use this time period to show how good Sam Jones was - I don't think he gets enough credit for his contribution in this time spot.







Interesting how you use "much better" to describe 4% in efficiency but not 28% difference in points per 75. 4% difference is 1 more made per 25, really not much. Duncan scored at 20% higher rate than Bonzi Wells, and Bonzi had 4TS% advantage in 2001. A 28% decrease in per 100 scoring will get you from Embiid down to Towns, but I doubt anyone would choose Towns for his better efficiency.

[MartinToVaught]

I'm not as high on Russell's passing as some. The Celtics never managed even an above average offense during his era. You could build a decent offense with Bill but with Bill AND KC playing starter minutes, it's not likely. That's not to discredit him, he's my GOAT over LeBron and Jordan but his incredible impact was in his defense and rebounding.

He was top 10 in assists per game in '63, '64, '65, and '67, in an era where scorekeepers were stricter about what counted as an assist than they are today. He and Wilt were both phenomenal passers at their position.

[penbeast0]

He was top 10 in assists per game in '63, '64, '65, and '67, in an era where scorekeepers were stricter about what counted as an assist than they are today. He and Wilt were both phenomenal passers at their position.

Number of assists didn't correlate with efficient shooting; when that happens (as with Cousy), I look at it skeptically.

[SinceGatlingWasARookie]

He was top 10 in assists per game in '63, '64, '65, and '67, in an era where scorekeepers were stricter about what counted as an assist than they are today. He and Wilt were both phenomenal passers at their position.

Number of assists didn't correlate with efficient shooting; when that happens (as with Cousy), I look at it skeptically.

I think Russells asists got people easy shots. The team offense does not because collectively as a team the Celtics were bad shooters/scorers. Russell helped get teamates easy shots because the alternative is Havilcek shooting 38% from Mid range. Havicek's 38% from mid range was still useful because it is better than having KC Jones or Satch Sanders forcing up poor shots at 35%.

Give the 1960s Celtics 2 best of Cousy, KC Jones, Curry, Norm Nixon point guards,
and 2 best of Satch Sanders, Heinsohn and Draymond Green point forwards
And a best of Klay and Havilicek so that Havilicek can actually hit the shots he took,
And a best of Lovelette, Embry, Counts, Ostertag so that Russell does not have to play 48 minutes at center.
And then the 1960s celtics don't have to win all those game 7s because they would sweep every series or at least win 4-1.

The 1960s Celtics did not have a good offense but won anyway with defense. I love Cousy's passing but he was a horrible shooter who sht a lot. Russell being the best defender on a team that won with defense is the case for a carry job but I can't call it a carry job because the other guys also played good defense and the 1960s Celtics can't win without Sam Jones offense.