Retro Player of the Year Project

[mopper8]

Wikipedia:

In 1964, Auerbach made the Celtics the first team to have an all African American starting lineup.

Are we really suggesting that a league that was so far from lucrative that many players held other jobs in the offseason in order to make enough money to get by, and that wasn't even fully integrated, was somehow drawing from the same talent pool as a fully-integrate league that doles out cash in the tens of millions of dollars?

That just seems totally unrealistic to me.

edit: "unrealistic" doesn't do my feelings justice. I'd say that seems disconnected from reality.

[mopper8]

Another way to think about it is this:

If the talent pool hasn't grown at all, then it stands to reason that players who were only the 3rd best on their respective teams in the 50s/60s would be the best players on their teams in the 00's, since the league is 3 times the size now. So, looking at 65 e.g., we're talking about guys like:

Guy Rodgers, a 24-yr-old Hondo, Jack Twyman, Luke Jackson, Bob Boozer, Rudy LaRusso, Lenny Wilkins, Gus Johnson, Ray Scott being the best players for a 3rd of the league. Do you think that sounds right?

OR, conversely, if you think talent has grown at least somewhat apace with expansion, then you'd expect the # of true superstars to grow as well. If the ratio was say, 5 stars in a 10-team league (West, Baylor, Oscar, Wilt, Russell, give or take), then in a 30-team league you'd expect 15 stars. Even if think talent hasn't expanded at the same pace as the league, but still has expanded, to say a 1-to-3 ratio, you're still talking about 10 superstars in today's game as opposed to 5 in the 60's competing for the same 5 spots.

See where I'm coming from?

[Manuel Calavera]

See where I'm coming from?

Nope, because you're arguing the players today are better and I am open to the idea that the league talent level has kept up with the amount of teams in the league.

[bastillon]

Another way to think about it is this:

If the talent pool hasn't grown at all, then it stands to reason that players who were only the 3rd best on their respective teams in the 50s/60s would be the best players on their teams in the 00's, since the league is 3 times the size now. So, looking at 65 e.g., we're talking about guys like:

Guy Rodgers, a 24-yr-old Hondo, Jack Twyman, Luke Jackson, Bob Boozer, Rudy LaRusso, Lenny Wilkins, Gus Johnson, Ray Scott being the best players for a 3rd of the league. Do you think that sounds right?

OR, conversely, if you think talent has grown at least somewhat apace with expansion, then you'd expect the # of true superstars to grow as well. If the ratio was say, 5 stars in a 10-team league (West, Baylor, Oscar, Wilt, Russell, give or take), then in a 30-team league you'd expect 15 stars. Even if think talent hasn't expanded at the same pace as the league, but still has expanded, to say a 1-to-3 ratio, you're still talking about 10 superstars in today's game as opposed to 5 in the 60's competing for the same 5 spots.

See where I'm coming from?

I've been arguing the same way for so long... glad to see someone come up with the same conclusion.

as I said, if we transfered today's league into 1960s model, Kevin Love would be a top10 player in the league.

[Mean_Streets]

Some players I have reevaluated:

Havlicek -- Really unimpressive statistically in the 60s much to my surprise and Cowens clearly the main man in the 70s

Same here. I always just assumed Havlicek was the Celtics #1 player in the 70's but after looking deeper it looks like Cownes was the alpha dog. I also gained tons of respect for Sidney Moncrief, David Thompson, & Bill Russell.

[shawngoat23]

The project went out with a whimper.

[mopper8]

See where I'm coming from?

Nope, because you're arguing the players today are better and I am open to the idea that the league talent level has kept up with the amount of teams in the league.

No, I'm not arguing that today's players are better, I am arguing that there are more total players who are at that "greatness level" today. Even if the ratio of great players to total players stays the same, we'll have 3 times the # of great players today!

Take the following assumptions:

1- The very best players today are no better nor worse than the very best players of yesteryears. So, e.g., just for the 00's, Shaq, Duncan, Russell, Wilt all pretty comparable.

2- The generic starter today is likewise comparable to his counterpart in the 60s

3- Expansion of talent pool has kept up with expansion of teams, or at least grown at roughly a comparable pace.

The conclusion that likely* follows is that there would be 2-3 times as many players in the modern day who were on the level of Russell/Wilt/West/Oscar. And indeed, you look at the players who have done well in the 00's, and you have Shaq, Duncan, Kobe, Lebron, Wade, Nash, Garnett, Dirk, Chris Paul just off the top of my head. 9 guys who at their peak were producing at roughly comparable levels to one another, give or take.

None of Wilt, Russell, West, or Oscar would do nearly as well if they were competing with 4 other players who were at a comparable level. That's the point.

*You could argue that the talent pool has expanded but the distribution has changed, meaning the expansion of talent has only brought in more middle-tier players. That strikes me as implausible though, for reasons previously stated.

[Doctor MJ]

Alright fellas. Voting for the project is now complete.

Going to leave this thread stickied for a little while longer. I'll make a summary thread in a few days.

In the meantime, if you have any interest in logging your ballots for posterity, now's a good time to do it.

While we'll be doing a little bit more to conclude the project, we're pretty much done. I want to thank all of you for the effort you've given and the insight you've brought to these boards. I hope to continue conversing with y'all in the future.

Cheers,
Doc

[Dr Positivity]

Happy to be a part of this project. Great work everyone.

[Doctor MJ]

But I'm not convinced that players are being driven to the NBA because they can make more money now, like Kobe would have become an insurance salesman if he didn't get paid as much. The best of the best have always gone to "their" sport.

I'm with mopper, shocked that anyone would dispute this. Everyone profession is affected by salary, otherwise they wouldn't have different salaries. A 25% difference can make a world of difference in acquiring drastically superior talent in many professions. In the NBA, we're talking about something like a 10,000% difference in income over the course of what we did in this project. It's going to make a difference both in who ends up a pro basketball players, and how much dedication and training those players put into their game in the formative years.

If we must have a debate, well there were two super-dominant college big men in the 40s: Mikan, and Bob Kurland. Kurland never played in the NBA, literally choosing instead to parlay his basketball success into a career as an insurance salesman at Phillips.

[Optimism Prime]

Finished tallying my votes; spreadsheet is at: https://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key ... li=1#gid=0

Will add some notes tomorrow or Thursday. Too tired, brain hurt, Prime go sleep now.

[mopper8]

-all sorts of smart stuff snipped -

Just to extend it more, if, in 50 years, teachers were making an inflation-adjusted floor of $150K and the very best teachers were making 10 million per year, I somehow think we'd have a whole lot more teachers and a whole lot fewer I-bankers and corporate lawyers.

[penbeast0]

Only if the bankers and lawyers salaries didn't rise proportionately -- got to be anal about those details man

[mopper8]

Haha indeed.

[Warspite]

Another way to think about it is this:

If the talent pool hasn't grown at all, then it stands to reason that players who were only the 3rd best on their respective teams in the 50s/60s would be the best players on their teams in the 00's, since the league is 3 times the size now. So, looking at 65 e.g., we're talking about guys like:

Guy Rodgers, a 24-yr-old Hondo, Jack Twyman, Luke Jackson, Bob Boozer, Rudy LaRusso, Lenny Wilkins, Gus Johnson, Ray Scott being the best players for a 3rd of the league. Do you think that sounds right?

OR, conversely, if you think talent has grown at least somewhat apace with expansion, then you'd expect the # of true superstars to grow as well. If the ratio was say, 5 stars in a 10-team league (West, Baylor, Oscar, Wilt, Russell, give or take), then in a 30-team league you'd expect 15 stars. Even if think talent hasn't expanded at the same pace as the league, but still has expanded, to say a 1-to-3 ratio, you're still talking about 10 superstars in today's game as opposed to 5 in the 60's competing for the same 5 spots.

See where I'm coming from?

I've been arguing the same way for so long... glad to see someone come up with the same conclusion.

as I said, if we transfered today's league into 1960s model, Kevin Love would be a top10 player in the league.

Kevin Love would be selling concessions in a 8 team league. In a 8 team league theres only 96 NBA players while today we have 150 starters. An 8 team league is every current teams top 3 players. So if your the 2nd best player on the Lakers your a 6th man in a 8 team league. If your the 3rd best player on the Bulls your a 12th man.

The money aspect doesnt make any sense to me. Even if players didnt make huge sums they still made money than the avg person. Sure players took summer jobs but those were good jobs befitting a college grad that had celebrity. Much like todays reality TV stars. They dont care about the money from the show they know they get paid for what they do afterwards.

[drza]

Kevin Love would be selling concessions in a 8 team league. In a 8 team league theres only 96 NBA players while today we have 150 starters. An 8 team league is every current teams top 3 players. So if your the 2nd best player on the Lakers your a 6th man in a 8 team league. If your the 3rd best player on the Bulls your a 12th man.

I think this is the crux of the disagreement. One side is arguing that the distribution/range of talent may be similar now to what it was in the 50s, but the pool of players is much larger and there are also more teams in which to place those players. The other side seems to be arguing that, essentially, only the 96 best players from this current league would have played in the 60s and that the rest of the league is made up of guys that wouldn't have made the cut back in the day.

At least, that's the understanding that I get from reading the arguments. And I've got to be honest, the second line of thought makes no sense to me at all. Regardless of the salary (and I do believe the exorbitant money has strongly influenced both the number and quality of player attracted to the league), just the sheer pool of people makes it exceedingly unlikely that today's league is just the 50s league with watered down extras. Replicating the dynamics of the 8-team league today would require putting a cap on the number of African-American players (maybe 20% of the league?) and removing all foreign-born players. And in that universe, yes, Kevin Love would be a superstar. Last year's All-Star teams were made up of 23 African Americans, three foreign-born players, and two American born Caucasians. Taking it back to the 50s and 60s you can keep about 5 of the black players, Chris Kaman and David Lee. Love might even be in the MVP discussion.

[bastillon]

Kevin Love would be selling concessions in a 8 team league. In a 8 team league theres only 96 NBA players while today we have 150 starters. An 8 team league is every current teams top 3 players. So if your the 2nd best player on the Lakers your a 6th man in a 8 team league. If your the 3rd best player on the Bulls your a 12th man.

At least, that's the understanding that I get from reading the arguments. And I've got to be honest, the second line of thought makes no sense to me at all. Regardless of the salary (and I do believe the exorbitant money has strongly influenced both the number and quality of player attracted to the league), just the sheer pool of people makes it exceedingly unlikely that today's league is just the 50s league with watered down extras. Replicating the dynamics of the 8-team league today would require putting a cap on the number of African-American players (maybe 20% of the league?) and removing all foreign-born players. And in that universe, yes, Kevin Love would be a superstar. Last year's All-Star teams were made up of 23 African Americans, three foreign-born players, and two American born Caucasians. Taking it back to the 50s and 60s you can keep about 5 of the black players, Chris Kaman and David Lee. Love might even be in the MVP discussion.

exactly, Love isn't selling any f*ckin concession when there's no Gasol, no Nowitzki, no Duncan, maybe there's Howard, maybe KG... but Love would be no doubt in the top10 of the league with majority of top players gone.

consider this: 65% of players in '62 were white (basketball-reference Neil Paine's data).
all-star game 62: 9 or 10 of 25 players were black (not sure if Johnny Green was black).

this is honestly a ridiculous notion that league with majority of players being white could be superior to today's dominated by afroamericans. let's assume 62 league had 100 starters. imagine today's league with 100 starters and 65 of them white. I don't even think there are 65 white NBA players born in America...

[penbeast0]

Part of the problem with both those explanations is that the 50s and the 60s were very different eras. The 50s were still the era of the 2 handed set shot and the running hook, of a majority white league, etc. The argument wasn't about the 50s though; it said Kevin Love would be a superstar in the 60s.

The 60s still had traces of that at the beginning but relatively few (instead of having one token black, teams generally kept at least one token white at the end of the bench if it didn't have any white rotation players). 60s basketball was dominated by black players (Wilt, Russell, Oscar, Elgin were 4 of the top 6 of the league in pretty much any discussion along with West and Pettit -- the last of players with a significant portion of their careers in the 50s). The Celtics became the first team not to have any white players and the style was run and gun, jumpers and post play.

So, in the pre-expansion 60s, the talent pool had spread to include black Americans and this was particularly true at center which is both the thinnest talent pool (there just aren't that many 6-10+ people out there) and the most thoroughly exploited (of the 6'10 people out there, very few haven't been approached to play basketball in America -- exploiting world talent is more recent). Thus, particularly with centers, even in the 60s, the great American big men were probably all trying to get into the league and with only 8 teams, there was probably a much greater concentration of talent from a much smaller pool. Thus the number of "great" centers relative to other positions, the focus on getting a great center to compete, and the growth of offenses designed around the big post anchor.

Also, by the 60s, salaries for star players were already out of line with normal earning expectiations. Players like Russell and Chamberlain were paid like star lawyers, not like insurance salesmen and the pay scale for role players was competitive at least. Thus the argument that talent follows the money isn't as accurate for star talent -- though the depth of the talent pool was probably less as mediocre players weren't paid equal to Harvard Law Review stars like they are now. But at the top, the money was there, and the talent was there -- particularly for bigs who are easier to identify.

[bastillon]

Also, by the 60s, salaries for star players were already out of line with normal earning expectiations. Players like Russell and Chamberlain were paid like star lawyers, not like insurance salesmen and the pay scale for role players was competitive at least. Thus the argument that talent follows the money isn't as accurate for star talent -- though the depth of the talent pool was probably less as mediocre players weren't paid equal to Harvard Law Review stars like they are now. But at the top, the money was there, and the talent was there -- particularly for bigs who are easier to identify.

what about money in comparison to other sports ?

[mopper8]

"particularly for bigs" is an important caveat though. Like I said in a previous post, what about all the great non-bigs? Kobe, wade, Paul, Nash...and then what about foreign born bigs. Gasol, Gasol, Yao, Dirk, even maybe Duncan. All question marks.

Plus, you'll have a drag on the effect of $ as well. If a kid is 5 in 1950 he's being exposed to a low-paying all white league that's integrating as be grows up. Sure, by the time he hits 17 the NBA is more lucrative and hospitable to African-Americans, but at that point you've already missed a whole generation of kids who maybe dropped it early than they otherwise would have, didn't pursue it as hard, etc. You don't see the full effect of that until you have a generation that grew up with the league looking like that band let's notmoverstate the integration of a league that didn't see it's first all-black lineup until 1964