Oscar Robertson vs. Larry Bird

[70sFan]

Bird is one of those guys that the myth of him is probably slightly greater than he actually was. Mainly because his defensive reputation is probably overrated

You think so? From 1979-80 to 1987-88 (9 seasons) the Boston Celtics were the league's 2nd best team defensively (103.1 pts/100poss allowed). Only Milwaukee was better.

Here's their players minutes played during that time:

min player
027371 Larry Bird
020882 Robert Parish
019399 Kevin McHale
014313 Cedric Maxwell
014254 Danny Ainge
013976 Dennis Johnson
009662 Nate Archibald
008152 Gerald Henderson
006429 Chris Ford
005810 M.L. Carr
005528 Rick Robey
032594 31 other players (no single player more than 4026 minutes)
-------------------------------
178370 Total Minutes

Bird alone played 15%-16% of the Celtics total minutes played. The first 11 players listed played 82% of their total minutes played.

Someone on that team had to be playing great defense - for a long time - for the Celtics to have been the 2nd best team defensively in the league over a long 9 year period.

If Bird was not an excellent or great defender, then who was such that they were as a team 2nd best on defense over 9 seasons?

I say that McHale, D.J., Parish, and Bird were all excellent defenders, for a long time, and that these 4 players are the primary reason why Boston was such a great team defensively over those 9 seasons.

By this logic, Curry has to be amazing defender in 2015-19 period because he played a lot of minutes in all-time great defensive team right?

[cupcakesnake]

This community (PC board) is low on Bird. I'm not crying bias here; it's a result of Bird having very identifiable holes in game/career that have been well discussed here. Bird is high up on a lot of people's favorite historical player list, for his swag as much as his game.

But once you come to terms with the brevity of Bird's career (compared to other greats) and some of the subtle holes in his playoff scoring repertoire (weak source of rim pressure in an era where he wasn't compensating that much with 3-point volume) you become a little more accepting of Bird being more of a cuspy top 10 guy than a definite lock.

The top 100s project had Larry Bird at 5-6 until 2014, when he drops to a consistent #10 in every iteration since. We see hungry cases for Kobe, Garnett, West, Oscar to nab that coveted #10 spot, and Bird has become one of the main candidates to fall out. As another generation of greats peak and retire (Giannis, Durant, Curry, CP3), I think we'll be measuring them against Bird's to see if they qualify for the arbitrarily important "top 10 all-time".

I think considering their reputations, and how little people have seen of Oscar, the casual perception of Bird rates him higher than Oscar. But any scrutiny makes it immediately clear that Oscar has a clear-cut case to be ranked over Bird, especially after removing narrative advantages. Lots of on/off based stats like WoWYr leans Oscar. I have Oscar as a better overall offensive player but think Bird has a few more quality defensive seasons. I like to dock the players who weren't great on defense (Oscar, Magic, Shaq) a little more than the data suggests I should (kind of magical thinking around not understanding defensive impact as it shows up in the numbers) when it comes to the top 10.

[kcktiny]

By this logic, Curry has to be amazing defender in 2015-19 period because he played a lot of minutes in all-time great defensive team right?

Not for that length of time, the Warriors were just a middle-of-the-field team defensively in 2017-18 and 2018-19.

But from 2014-15 to 2016-17 he was very good on defense, as was Golden State.

Check out the defensive FGAs allowed data at stats.nba.com for that 3 year period, the Players Defense Dashboard Overall. You'll see Curry allowed just a 40%-44% FG% on defense each season.

It shows for 2015-16 that of the 58 players that defended against 800+ FGAs, Curry allowed the second lowest FG% at just 39.6%.

On top of that he lead the league in steals over that 3 year stint with 475.

When you combine a lower FG% allowed on defense with a high rate of turnovers forced - isn't that very good defense? What do you consider very good defense?