Post#112 » by tsherkin » Wed Aug 27, 2014 6:00 pm
Hmmm. Not willing to vote for Mikan here, nor Pippen; my opinion of Scottie's postseason offensive performance is too low for me to support him just yet, defense aside. Way too high IMO, though I've enjoyed the discussion.
Wade, Gilmore, Frazier, Nash, Stockton, Hondo... all very interesting players.
Hondo... started shooting a ton in his second season and thereafter, and it wasn't awesome. It was by design, and he did other stuff that made him worthwhile but.... eh. Led the league in MPG in 71 and 72, so between that and the pace of the time still, his raw averages are a little sketchy as value points (as for anyone, really). Mostly it makes his volume scoring look more impressive, since even his PER36 numbers for those seasons are nice. His scoring efficiency looks like crap at first glance, and is crap by today's standards, but was actually slightly better than league average through his peak from 70-74 (well, his lead-player peak, I guess, since it's debatable whether or not that was his actual peak, since it was in his early 30s).
In 69-70, he posted 24.2 ppg, 7.8 rpg and 6.8 apg in 41.6 mpg on 53.3% TS... which was +2.2 over league average. Was that awesome for Boston? Not really, since they were a 34-win team that missed the playoffs and had the third-worst offense in the league, winning 14 games fewer than they had in Russell's final season. They were fast, shot poorly and below average at drawing fouls in a league without 3pt shooting. They fouled a lot and didn't rebound well. At first glance, it looks to me like they kept trying to play a style not wholly different from what they'd done the year before with Russell, and didn't adapt super-well. They fell off of a cliff defensively, to absolutely no one's surprise, and Hondo wasn't able to really elevate the team enough.
That said, if you ignore team offensive ranking, you can see that they went from an estimated ORTG of 93.8 in 68-69 (which was 10th of 14) to 97.3 (which was 12th). So their raw team ORTG was actually considerably better than the previous season. Stuff like that makes me wonder. He's an interesting player and this is definitely the right range in which to consider him. His defense and stamina were legendary, he made some clutch plays and of course he was a big part of a pair of Celtic title teams in the 70s. I think Cowens was, perhaps, the more important player, but Hondo certainly comes to mind as a major part of Boston's success. I mind less his efficiency at volume because it was stretched out across so many minutes to get there, and because he was actually slightly above average in terms of efficiency for the time. Still obviously not my first choice in that regard, of course, but Boston eventually figured it out to the tune of some highly successful teams. They won 10 more games the year after and STILL missed the playoffs, then went ECF or Finals for the next half-decade, winning both times they exited the conference, while grabbing 58.8 wins on average (peaking at 68 in 73).
An interesting player for whom to make a case.
Gilmore interests me, but the passive nature of his game bothers me some. Not a ton to say about him yet because I need to read more, do more research.
Frazier is the guy I consider the true MVP of the Knicks in that time frame, and generally more important than Reed. I think he was viciously robbed of Finals MVPs on two occasions. He's got something like a 5- to 7-year prime, with a few other nice seasons on either side of that. Holzman's system wasn't conducive to volume assist production, but that's fine: he was clearly both a willing and clever passer as well as an adept scorer who didn't call his own number too frequently. Logged loads of minutes, too, though that was the norm of the era. 69-72, his efficiency looks great by modern standards, sans three-ball, and then tailing off from there. In 1970, he was 4th in the MVP vote but arguably more deserving of the award than the recipient, his teammate Willis Reed. Definitely a fantastic playoff performer.
And of course his defense.
As far as handchecking, everything I've read/seen of Frazier suggested that he liked to play without doing it.
I'm watching G7 of the 1970 Finals right now.
First thought: Wilt's arms are huge. His base is pretty impressive, too. Even in his mid-30s, dude was a beast. Right away, I can see part of why he sucked at the line, though: his form was crap. Even setting everything else aside, his form was proper crap. No-legs, herky-jerky flick. Ugh. Also, the color commentators suck a lot. Wilt got some serious boos, lol. Baylor's first shot was an ugly-ass airball, too; yikes!
Wilt's finger roll may be the stupidest shot in basketball. No touch, what so ever. BLECH. Frazier had a lot more of a left hand than West, but West was bloody quick.
Don't see a ton of handchecking from Frazier. Good ball denial, though, solid transition D. I notice that he isn't guarding the primary ball-handler in this game, he's guarding Garrett, and Baylor's bringing the ball up the floor. Hard to get a feel for his defensive impact; not really disrupting team offense too much, but he seems to be locking in pretty well. You can see him kicking the crap out of L.A. on offense, and he really does have some nice crossovers, a behind-the-back, he uses his backside well for guard post above the arc...
But yeah, while he's playing very good individual defense, I'm not seeing too much of him on-ball, so it's hard to tell. Like I said, he's playing very good off-ball and transition defense, though. Don't really see hand checking when he IS on-ball, either, though, so I don't think the era would matter too much to his overall defensive impact.
