Retro POY '72-73 (Voting Complete)

[Doctor MJ]

My vote:

1. Frazier
2. Kareem
3. Cowens
4. Artis
5. Tiny

Tough, tough year.

Frazier gets the nod. Simply put, he was the best player in the playoffs. His series against the Celtics was incredible.

I can completely understand how someone would say: So you're just going to ignore the regular season? Well, Frazier didn't come out of nowhere - and Kareem was really unimpressive come the post-season. I know Thurmond was involved with that, but Kareem's Bucks lost to a team far worse than them, who then lost easily in the next round, to a team that lost easily in the next round to Frazier's team.

I'll give Cowens the 3rd spot. I don't feel that great about it, but I'm not comfortable putting Hondo ahead of him this year, and Boston really was a strong team that came very close to a title.

Gilmore's my lone representative from the ABA in the top 5. Incidentally, I did some digging on the ABA finals. Gilmore was the star in all 3 of his team's wins, scoring about as much as Issel (or McGinnis) over the whole series on efficient shooting, rebounding more, and blocking 7 shots in two different games (Kentucky won both).

Tiny squeaks into the 5th spot. Still not really sold on him, but compelling arguments have been made on his behalf.

Erving could easily be in my top 5. If he hadn't missed some time, I'd probably put him above Tiny. This though probably won't be his last mention on my lists. Erving went absolutely nuclear in the '71-72 playoffs.

Wilt was someone who I was honestly considering for #1 but the more I looked at him, the worse he looked - not just this year either. I also think we need to be careful giving too much credit to Reed alone since Wilt was playing 18 more minutes per game than Reed.

Billy Cunningham is a guy I like a lot, but he got hurt the next year and the team did mostly fine. Cunningham clearly cut major credit for the team's turnaround. However, the glaring trend in retrospect is that Carolina has 2 great years surrounded by crap. Who was coach in those two years and only those two years? Larry Brown. The next year he went to Denver and orchestrated an improvement from 37 wins to 65. Dear lord - I don't think there's much doubt that when it comes to X's and O's, Brown's got the highest IQ we've ever seen. If only he weren't so temperamental.

[Doctor MJ]

Last call.

[penbeast0]

Hard to imagine a guy who is 4th on his team in scoring and averages 10 ppg in the playoffs and 13 ppg in the season as the 2nd best player in the league.
That is just silly.

Hard to imagine a guy like Michael Jordan who usually finished 3rd or 4th on his team in rebounds being considered a GOAT. That's just silly.

Oh, right, there are other things that go into play other than one stat.

[ElGee]

My vote:

1. Frazier
2. Kareem
3. Cowens
4. Artis
5. Tiny

Tough, tough year.

Frazier gets the nod. Simply put, he was the best player in the playoffs. His series against the Celtics was incredible.

I can completely understand how someone would say: So you're just going to ignore the regular season? Well, Frazier didn't come out of nowhere - and Kareem was really unimpressive come the post-season. I know Thurmond was involved with that, but Kareem's Bucks lost to a team far worse than them, who then lost easily in the next round, to a team that lost easily in the next round to Frazier's team.

I'll give Cowens the 3rd spot. I don't feel that great about it, but I'm not comfortable putting Hondo ahead of him this year, and Boston really was a strong team that came very close to a title.

Gilmore's my lone representative from the ABA in the top 5. Incidentally, I did some digging on the ABA finals. Gilmore was the star in all 3 of his team's wins, scoring about as much as Issel (or McGinnis) over the whole series on efficient shooting, rebounding more, and blocking 7 shots in two different games (Kentucky won both).

Tiny squeaks into the 5th spot. Still not really sold on him, but compelling arguments have been made on his behalf.

Erving could easily be in my top 5. If he hadn't missed some time, I'd probably put him above Tiny. This though probably won't be his last mention on my lists. Erving went absolutely nuclear in the '71-72 playoffs.

Wilt was someone who I was honestly considering for #1 but the more I looked at him, the worse he looked - not just this year either. I also think we need to be careful giving too much credit to Reed alone since Wilt was playing 18 more minutes per game than Reed.

Billy Cunningham is a guy I like a lot, but he got hurt the next year and the team did mostly fine. Cunningham clearly cut major credit for the team's turnaround. However, the glaring trend in retrospect is that Carolina has 2 great years surrounded by crap. Who was coach in those two years and only those two years? Larry Brown. The next year he went to Denver and orchestrated an improvement from 37 wins to 65. Dear lord - I don't think there's much doubt that when it comes to X's and O's, Brown's got the highest IQ we've ever seen. If only he weren't so temperamental.

One of your most interesting ballots. I thought this was year was a jumbled mess so it's nice to see some variation here. After reading this, I would have liked more discussion on Erving, Cunningham and Gilmore. 1972 will be on the long side of our rotation, so hopefully players like Spencer Haywood, Gimore and Erving are given ample attention. At least I hope so...I'm having a very hard time in this period balancing the style of play with new blood with the old guard with the weaker ABA.

[Doctor MJ]

'72-73 Results

Code: Select all

Player                1st 2nd 3rd 4th 5th Pts   POY Shares
1. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar 13   1   2   0   1 148   0.871
2. Walt Frazier         4   7   4   1   0 112   0.659
3. Wilt Chamberlain     0   5   2   3   0  54   0.318
4. Dave Cowens          0   3   2   2   5  42   0.247
5. Julius Erving        0   0   4   5   1  36   0.212
6. Tiny Archibald       0   1   3   2   4  32   0.188
7. Jerry West           0   0   0   2   1   7   0.041
8. Artis Gilmore        0   0   0   1   1   4   0.024
9. Billy Cunningham     0   0   0   1   0   3   0.018
  John Havlicek         0   0   0   0   0   3   0.018
11. Nate Thurmond       0   0   0   0   1   1   0.006


[ThaRegul8r]

Don't have the quote handy, but to add fatal9's post, Wilt said he thought Thurmond was a tougher matchup than Russell.

I found the exact quote and just wanted to add it since Thurmond's being discussed:

“In later years, when I had to play against Nate, I came to appreciate how tremendously talented he was. He’s probably the toughest center of all for me to play against—tougher than either Kareem Abdul-Jabbar or Bill Russell. Kareem says the same thing—that Nate gives him his hardest games.”
(Wilt Chamberlain and David Shaw, Wilt: Just Like Any Other 7-Foot Black Millionaire Who Lives Next Door [New York: MacMillan, 1973], p. 162)

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think this was sometime after Wilt and Russell had their feud in 1969 before they repaired their relationship decades later. He wasn't going to give Russell any credit during this time.

As you can see from the date, it was in 1973, so it was four years after the feud began, for whatever that means.

[semi-sentient]

Site updated: http://www.dolem.com/poy

Kareem passes Magic for the #2 spot and is looking poised to knock Jordan out of the top spot. No other changes in the top 15.

Code: Select all

1.  Michael Jordan        9.578
2.  Kareem Abdul-Jabbar   7.566
3.  Magic Johnson         7.114
4.  Tim Duncan            6.153
5.  Larry Bird            6.147
6.  Shaquille O'Neal      5.910
7.  Julius Erving         5.027
8.  Karl Malone           4.649
9.  Hakeem Olajuwon       4.380
10. Kobe Bryant           4.326
11. Moses Malone          3.478
12. Kevin Garnett         3.388
13. LeBron James          3.083
14. David Robinson        2.431
15. Dwyane Wade           2.179