Retro POY '77-78 (Voting Complete)

[fatal9]

1. Walton
2. Kareem
3. Gervin
4. Thompson
5. Hayes

Putting Walton over Kareem is tough because he just isn't a better player. Both were extremely valuable to their teams which is shown by their team record with and without them. I just think this year, Walton was more important to his team. If you ever catch a Blazers game from '77 and '78, you will notice several things that don't show up on the stat sheet for Walton, 1) no other player to me (aside from Russell who has very limited footage available) contested more shots than Walton. Key word is contested, not blocking. Walton would jump out at perimeter players 15 feet out if he thought he could change their shot. His activity on defense during the '77 finals is unbelievable. 2) He was the coach on the floor, not Ramsay. Most of the time when the team is running up the floor, Walton is the one reading the situation, throwing up signals to call the plays. And on defense, you can see him positioning his teammates to where they should be. That type of leadership is invaluable. 3) The entire "team" philosophy of those Blazer teams started and ended with Walton. They were a talented sure (Maurice Lucas still led them to 45 wins and playoffs the following season without Walton), but it was Walton's presence which brought the ball movement that got everybody involved (striking guards on cuts, directing ball to Lucas when he had good position etc).

And by the way, Walton was doing the dreamshake before Hakeem even picked up a basketball...





Kareem averaged 27/14/4/4 in the playoffs, lost to a better team withotu HCA, but still underperformed apparently. Despite the fact he had 5 blocks in the fourth quarter of game 2 to save his team from elimination, or that he was the only one on his team rebounding. The minute a shot went up Dantley was already past half court looking from an outlet so he could score, never once considering that rebounding could help out the team (and don't even mention defense...). The team only had 31 rebounds in the elimination game (Kareem had 11 of them). This really is a trend you see over and over again in '78 and '79 Lakers, they just get killed on the boards even though they have the guy who is leading the entire series in rebounds.

4. Kareem - 4th in MVP voting, 1st in PER, 3rd in Win Shares, 1st in Win Shares PER 48 Minutes
Only won 45 games this year. 2nd team All NBA

That is because in the 21 games he missed that year (only played two minutes in the first one so it is basically a missed game), the Lakers were 8-13. And after that he was getting in game shape for the first couple of weeks. The team was 17-24 at one point and with Kareem back in shape for the last 3 months of the season they finished 28-13. Shows his tremendous value to his teams if anything. You see a similar story in '75, Bucks were worst team in the league without him (3-14!) and then when he came back there was a huge turnaround (keep in mind the team went from NBA finalists to worst team in the league in the time he missed).

Kareem in 1981 lost to a team below .500 in round 1 in one of the greatest upsets ever.

Er, I'm not sure how much it was Kareem (at 34 years old) losing it as much as it was Magic choking. In the game 3, which came down to a single possession, Magic shot 2/14 from the field and 6/11 from the field (had 10 pts total). This includes him bricking clutch FTs and also airballing the potential game winning shot on a play that was designed for Kareem. I don't know if anything in a 3 game mini-series can ever even be considered "one of the greatest upsets ever".

[Mean_Streets]

Oh snap It's fatal from insidehoops.

[bballcool34]

^Dude probably just had the most informative ball boy posts ever...

[semi-sentient]

2) He was the coach on the floor, not Ramsay. Most of the time when the team is running up the floor, Walton is the one reading the situation, throwing up signals to call the plays. And on defense, you can see him positioning his teammates to where they should be. That type of leadership is invaluable.

Agreed 100%. Stuff like this goes unnoticed more times than not (especially in the modern era where people are focusing on box scores) and it's something that absolutely should be considered.

Good stuff.

[Doctor MJ]

Some thoughts:

Again, such a crazy year.

I've got zero problems with Walton winning the MVP despite the missed time because he was just do damn valuable, and Kareem got hurt too. Hard for me to imagine putting Walton at #1 though as POY because of the extended effects of the injury in the playoff exit. By that same token, Walton probably will be my POY for '76-77.

Kareem's got a shot for my #1 here this year, but it's unlikely. When I see an elite guy miss a lot of time, I like to see the team overperform come playoff time. Granted that wasn't exactly easy when facing the eventual WFC champs in the first round (though no doubt in my mind, I bet on a healthy Portland over Seattle), but he's just not really achieving a ton this year. He'll certainly be in my top 5, but #1 will be tough.

Also, I wanted to speak up a bit more about the '81 Rocket upset of the Lakers. Losing a closely contested best-of-3 series to a team that then almost wins the title just isn't that big of a deal. It's not that I'm pretending that the team won a championship instead of losing in the first round, but I'm not going to throw away all the good that was done because of an event with so much chance involved.

[Doctor MJ]

Surprised at all the Walton votes. To me a player's value is how close he gets his team to a title. His regular season play's value is how close he gets his team to that goal, meaning it mostly consists of setting up seeding and HCA. Now normally I don't base everything on playoff play because of small sample size where FG% can often come down to luck + the large variable of opponent defense. But when a guy is injured in the playoffs his value in terms of 'how close do they get their team to a title' is minimal. They just get their team a good seed. Walton probably wouldn't make my top 20 this year. The 20th best player healthy gets me closer to a title than an injured Walton in the playoffs

Eh, that logic makes sense if you're talking about a bunch of superstars leading their team deep into the playoffs, but that's not what happened here. Kareem lost in the first round, so Walton got his team further than Kareem did. It's all well and good that Kareem was healthy in the playoffs and Walton wasn't, but if the NBA let every single team into the playoffs, would you rate the star of the worst team ahead of Walton due to his playoff health? I sure hope not. What Walton did in the regular season led to Portland getting closer to the title than Kareem got, that should not be dismissed.

To be clear, I don't have a problem with you putting Kareem and a few others ahead of Walton - it's just that slotting 20 guys in between Kareem & Walton because of a Walton injury that still didn't result in Kareem having as much team success as Walton did seems kinda crazy.

[penbeast0]

how in the world did Wes Unseld win the Finals MVP over Elvin Hayes? It'll be interesting to hear what went down there.

5. Elvin Hayes - Won NBA Title and carried worst team ever record wise to NBA Title and should have gotten Finals MVP.


http://webuns.chez-alice.fr/finals/1978.htm# - Still don't know how the hell Wes Unseld got Finals MVP. WTF

When you look at the numbers:

Wes Unseld: 9.0 points, 11.0 rebounds, 3.9 assists, 52% FG, 7 turnovers, 39.1 mpg
Elvin Hayes: 20.7 points, 11.9 rebounds, 1.4 assists, 2 blocks, 48.0 FG%, 39.4 mpg

You wonder how Hayes didn't win. But I said before that Hayes was a bad teammate, and that played a factor, similar to Rick Barry not winning MVP in 1975.

Bob Ryan said, "he is one of the worst human beings that ever lived. I'm pleased to know that in 1978 Washington won that game with him on the bench. He fouled out and they put Kupchak in."

Phil Chenier said, "Unseld was our inspirational leader. His outlet passing and rebounding--he was always dependable. He would go for 40 or 46 minutes, setting picks, and doing all the little things you need done. He was the established leader of that team. He reinforced that leadership with his style of play and mannerisms on the court--and by age, too.""

Mitch Kupchak, said, "Unseld was the consummate team basketball player; his only objective was to win. Statistics were never ever important to him. You can't begin to imagine what he did to make his teajmmates better--set picks, made outlet passes, guarded the bigger center. He was the MVP of that series."

Hayes was a bad teammate, and people had nothing but good things to say about Unseld. Human nature being what it is, that matters. Additionally, there's the fact that Unseld was the career-long Bullet who had been there for 10 years, including when they were in Baltimore, and who turned the team around by 21 games his rookie year--which was a record at the time, and winning MVP. So once they finally won a championship, Finals MVP went to the long-time Bullet over Hayes, who'd only been there four years.

In 1987, Basketball statistical analyst Dave Heeren wrote,

Remember the Elvin Hayes incident? During the 1978 playoffs, the Championship series between Washington and Seattle reached the seventh game. Rick Barry, whose Golden State team had not qualified for the playoffs that year, was announcing that game and doing his usual candid job. He pointed out that one of the referees had a short temper and that he was especially apt to make hasty foul calls against Hayes, whom he did not like because Hayes did a lot of complaining about his calls.

Hayes, who had been the series' outstanding player to that point, picked up his fourth foul during the third quarter and argued before going to the bench. The same official whistled him for his fifth and sixth fouls in quick succession after he reentered the game early in the fourth quarter. Replays showed that Hayes had not committed either of the fouls. On one of them there had been no physical contact at all.

But Hayes was out of the game, and a vindictive referee could have deprived Washington of a league championship becaus the Bullets were ahead by 8 or 10 points when Hayes went out. Paced by Bob Dandridge, the Bullets did hold on to win. But Hayes was deprived of an award he wanted and deserved. Since he had not played during the closing minutes of the championship game, the championship series MVP trophy was given to Wes Unseld. Unseld, then in the twilight of his career, had produced little offense for the Bullets and had been victimized by Seattle center Marvin Webster for 30 points, or a basket more or less, in the final game.

Unseld played 45 minutes in the final game, and had 15 points, a team-high 9 rebounds and 6 assists. Hayes played 30 minutes, and had 12 points, 8 rebounds, 1 assist, 2 blocks. Since Hayes was on the bench when Washington won, that was also a factor in MVP going to Unseld. So there you go.

Some people have compared Unseld to Russell as far as intangibles he brought to the game and doing things to help his team win that didn't show up in the stat sheet. Only... while Russell is the one player in NBA history of whom it's most true that his contribution can't be quantified, you still had some things that showed up in the box score. The fact that only Chamberlain rebounded on his level showed on in the stat sheet. And Russell had some huge games when the team needed it, which showed up in the boxscore along with his usual non-statistical contribution.

I loved this post. Wes was my favorite player growing up and he set the best picks in NBA history and threw probably the best outlet passes; those are the things that they don't have stats for that people talk about other than man defense. But he wasn't this perfect gentleman out there . . . he was brutally physical and talk about whining about calls, Wes never committed a foul in his entire career he didn't complain about. Hayes led the team in scoring and reobunding in the playoffs, raised his scoring and shooting percentage over the regular season and was generally very clutch -- though no one was willing to give him any credit for it.

[semi-sentient]

Yeah, that was very informative regarding Wes/Hayes.

[penbeast0]

Again, looking at MVP by teams . . .

The best team in the league was easily Portland -- easily. And this team was basically Walton and the seven dwarfs, there was no other "star," just some solid roleplayers. Not sure where posters get the idea that Walton, in Portland, had more talent (deeper talent but less second star talent) and more media exposure than Kareem in LA, but to the extent that’s true . . . isn’t it a lovely irony. Walton's injury is a serious factor, otherwise he would be an easy consensus MVP, but he should still be in the mix.

The next best is the Sixers -- again eastily -- and they made it to the ECF before losing to Washington, Erving and McGinnis and a bunch of shotjackers (Collins, World B Free, Dawkins, etc.). Both Erving and McGinnis played well and it’s an open question which was better. Erving shot better from the field, McGinnis rebounded better, roughly even on playmaking and defensive impact, Erving was more the team leader so I’ll rank him slightly higher for now.


Third was San Antonio with a supercooled offense that was basically Gervin and Kenon with Gervin far and away the team MVP candidate on 27pts @ .536 from the field. And, he did up his scoring and efficiency for the playoffs by a little though all his teammates fell off and they also were upset by the Cinderella Bullets after getting a 1st round bye. They are the last team that separated themselves from the pack during the regular season.

Then comes a group of teams bunched up in the .500-.600 area. First among equals has to go to the NBA champion Bullets who beat the two of the three top teams in the league on their way to the finals with the other top team being without their best player and losing early. B-R.com has different numbers for the regular season performances than were posted earlier showing Hayes as the teams leading scorer and rebounder in both the regular season and the playoffs where he picked up his scoring and efficiency both. Despite everyone’s love for Unseld, this was Hayes’s team and everyone else played off his post presence. He’s definitely an MVP candidate once playoffs are added in.

Seattle is the other finalist and despite my remembering them as three shooting guards and Jack Sikma, their top MVP candidate is probably Marvin “The Human Eraser” Webster who led the team in rebounding over both Sikma and Paul Silas by a 12 to 8 margin, scored at a reasonable slip (14ppg @ .500) on a team with no 20 ppg scorers, and played big in the playoffs – first guarding Kareem to beat the Lakers then having a monster finals v. Washington. He didn’t get any real votes because, well, he was injury prone and this was his only season as a full-time player. Nor will he get mine but wasn’t to give him some props here.

Denver was the other semi-finalist and David Thompson is their marquee player though Bobby Jones and Dan Issel were also quite good. Like Gervin he scored 27ppg on well over .500 shooting (including the famous shootoff for the scoring title where they both came out the last game of the season shooting everything they touched). His scoring efficiency slipped in the playoffs but he still scored 25ppg and they did win a playoff series where Gervin lost his only one so they are still 1A and 1B in my book.

New York and Milwaukee were the other teams to make the second round of the playoffs. Bob McAdoo was still an offensive monster having been traded from Buffalo the previous year and he put up 26/13/4 though the Knicks never really played like a team. I do penalize players who put up great numbers on teams that seem disjointed and selfish – Gervin gets a bonus because despite his one dimensional gunning, his teams always seemed to do better than their talent (Doug Moe should get credit too; he was a pretty good coach despite his rep of just throwing the ball up and letting his guys play).

Milwaukee had a bunch of great shooters – Marques Johnson, Brian winters, Junior Bridgeman, Alex English – plus their “center of the future” Kent Benson who, despite a great college career for Bobby Knight, never panned out as a pro. But even Marques, their best player, was not a 20 ppg scorer which is really the cutoff for a player whose scoring is his signature.

In the West, the first round losers were the Suns and the Lakers. The Suns were another great offense/no defense team featuring 25ppg scorers Paul Westphal and Walter Davis who are roughly even. As True said, will go with Davis as the less bad defender if pushed but to my mind they are behind the duo of Erving and McGinnis despite gaudier stats.

The Lakers feature Kareem with another monster statistical season (though not any better offensively than Bob McAdoo) and a lot of talent around him (Dantley, Wilkes, Norm Nixon – for that matter, James Edwards, Lou Hudson, Charlie Scott – a lot of talent) that never jelled as a team. Like with McAdoo, I penalize Kareem for this. One reason I have him ranked well behind Wilt on my all-time GOAT list is that during the 70s when he was at his personal peak, his teams consistently underperformed their talent level except in 1971.

In the East, the losers were Atlanta and Cleveland where there were no serious candidates (the only 20 point scorer on either was John Drew and no one stands out in other areas much).

SO, MY LIST:

1. Bill Walton – yeah, I know he didn’t make it to the playoffs but no one else stepped up (Kareem lost in the first round so his playoff contribution wasn’t much more) and he was the league’s best player by far.
2. Elvin Hayes – something of a makeup pick since he gets so little credit and they were the champions, again, no one leaps out
3. 5 candidates bunched tightly here – Gervin and Thompson, Erving and McGinnis, Kareem. I will give it to Gervin despite his one dimensional game.
4. Erving – league’s second best team deserves a contender
5. Kareem – stats plus defense; just hate the way it doesn’t translate into a top team

[Dr Positivity]

Surprised at all the Walton votes. To me a player's value is how close he gets his team to a title. His regular season play's value is how close he gets his team to that goal, meaning it mostly consists of setting up seeding and HCA. Now normally I don't base everything on playoff play because of small sample size where FG% can often come down to luck + the large variable of opponent defense. But when a guy is injured in the playoffs his value in terms of 'how close do they get their team to a title' is minimal. They just get their team a good seed. Walton probably wouldn't make my top 20 this year. The 20th best player healthy gets me closer to a title than an injured Walton in the playoffs

Eh, that logic makes sense if you're talking about a bunch of superstars leading their team deep into the playoffs, but that's not what happened here. Kareem lost in the first round, so Walton got his team further than Kareem did. It's all well and good that Kareem was healthy in the playoffs and Walton wasn't, but if the NBA let every single team into the playoffs, would you rate the star of the worst team ahead of Walton due to his playoff health? I sure hope not. What Walton did in the regular season led to Portland getting closer to the title than Kareem got, that should not be dismissed.

To be clear, I don't have a problem with you putting Kareem and a few others ahead of Walton - it's just that slotting 20 guys in between Kareem & Walton because of a Walton injury that still didn't result in Kareem having as much team success as Walton did seems kinda crazy.

I guess it depends on how you see the voting process. For me I choose based on who had the most valuable year to a team in a vacuum. Despite losing in the 1st round Kareem was still FAR more valuable player than Walton this season because he was presumably available for the playoffs. You can rerun this year and put Kareem and Walton on different teams or situations, and Kareem's year will be more valuable 100 times out of 100 because he gives you a chance to win a title and the only way Walton does is if he plays with a supporting cast good enough to do it without him.

I like to imagine I'm picking the top 5 picks in a season draft - I take player's seasons without knowing anything about the team I'm getting around them, with the one goal of winning it all. This is why Walton wouldn't make my top 20. He gives me almost no shot. I don't know who the 20th best player in 78 is, but harking it to 2010 - Would you rather have Paul Pierce the whole playoffs, or Lebron if you know he gets injured and out in the 2nd round? I would rather have Pierce. Lebron gets me a far better playoff seed, but unless he's playing with a good enough team to win it all without him, if you choose Lebron you have 0 chance at winning a title. Lebron's contributions and value to his team are relegated to getting his team a good seed. It's a better choice to take the regular season bullets by taking Pierce, because it's the playoffs that really matter.

[Doctor MJ]

My vote:

1. Gervin
2. Walton
3. Kareem
4. Thompson
5. Hayes

Fascinating year. A year that really says more about how logic, than how you see basketball.

Seems pretty uncontroversial to say it's a 4 man race. 2 top level guys with missed time, and 2 not quite top level guys who played all year long.

I'll start with #4 of 4, Thompson. I think he's getting too much credit for a team success that's really an illusion. #2 seed plus WCF sounds pretty good. In reality the team had a mediocre record, which even then overrated them (horrible division, look at that weak SRS), the one team they beat in the playoffs was a very weak one, and they then lost to the same team Portland and LA lost to without looking clearly better. What all this amounts to is that I don't think you can give Thompson the edge over any of the other 3 on team results.

Which begs the question: Do I think Thompson was more crucial to his team than the other guys? I can't make that leap.

Walton vs Kareem. Bottom line is that I do buy into Walton's incredible effect on the team. Portland was by far the best team when he was healthy, and all indications are that they couldn't hack it without him. (Also, they appeared to do alright the next year, but they also had managed to acquire some new talent, and they took a pretty heavy SRS hit) Walton is my choice for MVP, and I can't lift Kareem over him based on the playoffs when he loses in the first round since it was Walton's regular season impact that let the Blazers get the bye into the second round.

Gervin squeaks into the top slot. It's tough - I give Walton the MVP nod over him, and Gervin lost in the first series he played in the playoffs, how can that be enough to move him ahead? Well, I may yet change my mind, but at this moment: The Spurs' loss was to the eventual champs, and they fought them hard, three losses by 4 points or less, and in that series Gervin had some amazing performances. If I were to rank the teams based on how closely they got to a championship based on how far they got, and how hard they battled the teams they lost to, the Spurs would certainly rank ahead of the other stars' teams. Add in that this Spur team was legitimately strong in the regular season - so it's not like they got that bye because of a fluke. Gervin wasn't what I consider to be a #1 worthy player, but this year he was good enough, and the superior players' seasons so incomplete, I can't put them ahead of him.

Hayes grabs the #5 spot with the title. I do buy into Unseld's impact, but at this point in their careers Hayes is carrying a much heavier load.

Honorable Mention:

Julius - Can make the case for him as top 5. While he's still not really finding his groove, once again his Sixers come close to beating the champs, and once again the team's other superstar McGinnis plays absolutely terribly when it matters.

Webster - The star of Seattle this year.

Unseld - As mentioned, I'm a fan of Unseld, and I do think that without his intangible impact, the Bullets don't come close to a title.

Artis - Thrown to the terrible Bulls, he still gets them to mediocrity. Definitely an elite player, who knows what he could have done had he been able to keep his Colonels together.

Marques - The rookie season of the last great Wooden product, and caps it by raising his game in the playoffs and pulling off an upset.

[ItsMillerTime]

I was not looking forward to this year at all. The two best players( Walton an KAJ) missed too much time for me to put them at 1. Here are my putrid rankings

1. Gervin - Played every game of the season, and playe exceptional in the RS and PS
2. KAJ - Missed a lot of games, but no other strong candidates
3. Walton - Won the MVP, but again, too many missed games
4. Thompson - Skywalker's best year as an NBA baller
5. Dr. J - I don't feel confident putting anyone else in this spot

HM: Davis, Westphaul, Mcginnis, Hayes, McAdoo

Yuck

[penbeast0]

Surprised at all the Walton votes. To me a player's value is how close he gets his team to a title. His regular season play's value is how close he gets his team to that goal, meaning it mostly consists of setting up seeding and HCA. Now normally I don't base everything on playoff play because of small sample size where FG% can often come down to luck + the large variable of opponent defense. But when a guy is injured in the playoffs his value in terms of 'how close do they get their team to a title' is minimal. They just get their team a good seed. Walton probably wouldn't make my top 20 this year. The 20th best player healthy gets me closer to a title than an injured Walton in the playoffs

Eh, that logic makes sense if you're talking about a bunch of superstars leading their team deep into the playoffs, but that's not what happened here. Kareem lost in the first round, so Walton got his team further than Kareem did. It's all well and good that Kareem was healthy in the playoffs and Walton wasn't, but if the NBA let every single team into the playoffs, would you rate the star of the worst team ahead of Walton due to his playoff health? I sure hope not. What Walton did in the regular season led to Portland getting closer to the title than Kareem got, that should not be dismissed.

To be clear, I don't have a problem with you putting Kareem and a few others ahead of Walton - it's just that slotting 20 guys in between Kareem & Walton because of a Walton injury that still didn't result in Kareem having as much team success as Walton did seems kinda crazy.

I guess it depends on how you see the voting process. For me I choose based on who had the most valuable year to a team in a vacuum. Despite losing in the 1st round Kareem was still FAR more valuable player than Walton this season because he was presumably available for the playoffs. You can rerun this year and put Kareem and Walton on different teams or situations, and Kareem's year will be more valuable 100 times out of 100 because he gives you a chance to win a title and the only way Walton does is if he plays with a supporting cast good enough to do it without him.

I like to imagine I'm picking the top 5 picks in a season draft - I take player's seasons without knowing anything about the team I'm getting around them, with the one goal of winning it all. This is why Walton wouldn't make my top 20. He gives me almost no shot. I don't know who the 20th best player in 78 is, but harking it to 2010 - Would you rather have Paul Pierce the whole playoffs, or Lebron if you know he gets injured and out in the 2nd round? I would rather have Pierce. Lebron gets me a far better playoff seed, but unless he's playing with a good enough team to win it all without him, if you choose Lebron you have 0 chance at winning a title. Lebron's contributions and value to his team are relegated to getting his team a good seed. It's a better choice to take the regular season bullets by taking Pierce, because it's the playoffs that really matter.

I disagree. Kareem gives you a better chance only with a team that is good enough to get to the playoffs given his contribution; Walton is appreciably better when he plays plus he gets his teammates to play better which Kareem isn't doing at this point in his career. So, Walton gets your team further in the playoffs with an average team that becomes strong enough to get a 1st round bye while Kareem loses in the first round (as actulaly happens); plus Walton takes some of the also ran teams to the playoffs while with Kareem they miss the playoffs. So, it's far from a 100 out of 100 result.

Awfully hard for me to give a lot of credit to a player who "hypethetically" makes a playoff team good when he was unable to make his actual team win a playoff round -- with both losing in the first round, it goes to the guy who was better in the regular season . . .wespecially when that player was sufficiently better to get his team a 1st round bye (with less talent around him I would say at that!)

[Dr Positivity]

Well if Kareem played with a team bad enough to miss the playoffs with him and Walton had just as bad help, and then Walton got injured for the playoffs, I'd say the chance of either of their teams winning a title is ZERO. Walton's impact in this scenario is leading a bunch of scrubs to a slaughter instead of the golf course. So maybe that team has 0.0000001% chance of winning a title instead of 0%.

Kareem still has a way better chance to win a title with an average team than injured in the playoffs Walton. And the Lakers had a better chance of winning it all this year than the Blazers. Lakers lost 2-1 to Game 7 of the Finals bound Sonics. Couple things go differently and they could win that and face a not so hard rest of the West. Blazers had no chance once Walton went down. Lakers came far closer to a title than the Blazers this year, despite losing in the 1st round

[Dr Positivity]

1. Kareem - Missed games, but still has by far the most complete game in the league. Good enough for #1 this season.
2. Gervin - Scored well and led his team far. Outstanding offensive anchor.
3. Thompson - Has to be put right behind Gervin. Scoring title came down to to the last day with Thompson scoring 73 but Gervin scoring 63 to still get it, finished 2nd and 3rd in MVP voting, both lost to eventual Finals teams
4. Erving - Still 21/6/4 with d on a great team. Still Julius.
5. Hayes - Weak RS, but leading guy on the title winner + should've been Finals MVP gives him a spot over Davis, Westphal, Gilmore, etc.

[drza]

My thoughts:

*This year really strains the normal methods by which one would choose a PoY. The best players missed a bunch of games, the teams that won the playoffs were not led by dominant players, and the season was before my time which makes nuanced voting very difficult.

*It seems to me that, despite their missed time, 1 and 2 have to be Kareem and Walton in some order. They were just the 2 best players in the league that year, and both played at a high level when available. Dealing with injury and time absences has been a persistently difficult thing to do throughout the project, but Mufasa's analogy of a full season of Paul Pierce or a LeBron that gets hurt really brought home to me that I'd still say that LeBron was the more valuable. He would still have done more to add to the win column for his team than Pierce did, in my opinion.

*For the second year in a row, despite not loving his style of play, Ice is going to end up in my top-5

*Likely to still have a spot in there for Dr. J. He was still a strong individual player that led a very good team and also had great intangibles.

*Not sure what to do with Hayes vs Unseld. I recently made arguments in a different thread comparing current KG and Bosh, and I relied heavily upon things not found in a traditional box score to make my case. From what I've read in this thread, some that watched at that time did the same thing with Unseld over Hayes. But there's a dissenting opinion as well, that Hayes may have been the deserving player and was just penalized for being a jerk. I don't know which to believe.

*Thompson is almost indistinguishible from Gervin, and seems like the other player that should definitely be in the mix.

My vote:

1. Kareem - was close enough between he and Walton for it to go either way. There really did seem to be very little to separate them, though Kareem was the better scorer and he did play more and was available at the end (which is more reasonable as a tie-breaker than a deal-breaker to me).

2) Walton - really 1b.

3) Gervin - Not my type of player, but he seems to have maximized his effect and had a huge team impact despite his more limited style of play.

4) Thompson - Again, very little to separate Ice and Skywalker this season.

5) Dr. J. Beats out Hayes in a relatively close call. I like MillerTIme's reasoning: I don't feel comfortable putting anyone else in this spot.

[ElGee]

I'd like to hear more about Lanier (who also missed a bunch of time), Gilmore and the Phoenix guards (EDIT: I guess technically Davis is a forward), if possible. Going to try and get some articles up later...

[ronnymac2]

Won't be able to do as much research in this one either, but I'm learning a lot right here. Great information guys.

My take on Walton......Most likely, Bill Walton is clearly the Most Valuable Player in the the NBA regular season. Most Valuable. I take that phrase as saying I should almost disregard quality of the best player on a team and almost exclusively focus on the player's value to their own team. I liken Walton to Steve Nash this decade with Phoenix. He may not be the best player in the league, but if a team is a structure, then Walton/Nash is the pin keeping that structure together and functioning at a high level. The team's ability to function will stall without them. They fundamentally can't be the same team without Nash/Walton. There is a player coming up in future (past?) seasons that I believe will truly test my ability to differentiate "value to a team" from "who's better, who's best."

This year, the pin came loose for Portland. I can't put the pin in my top five. Unfortunate, because if Walton did what I think he was capable of in the playoffs and Portland won the title, I would have been compelled to give him RPOY over superior player/s. Perfect Storm years usually do that.

I do usually make my lists based on who I think are the BEST players, not most valuable. Intrinsically, a top player usually gets a boost from being my personal Most Valuable Player because I get to see their personal effect on the game nearly maximized, whereas if the best player in the league is on a team that can survive without them, I may not always get to clearly see them maximize their effect on the game. They just aren't needed as much.

Gervin and Thompson are in the mix despite their awesome/dumbass last REG SEA games. Marques Johnson is out since he's a rookie who didn't do anything CRAZY. Gilmore, Mcadoo, and Lanier are possiblities. Hayes, Unseld, Jabbar, some Sonics, and Erving are here, too.

[semi-sentient]

1. George Gervin - I'm going with the Iceman here because he was actually available from start to finish. Yeah, he's a one-dimensional gunner, but a damn good one. I don't know what else he could have really done, and the fact that both Walton and Kareem missed so much time opens the door for him. Was he the best player in the league? Clearly no. Does he have to be? Nope. He played great and was available when his team needed him to be.

2. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar - Wasn't quite there this season due to injuries, and didn't quite lift his team in the playoffs. Still, he put up some great numbers and he was clearly one of the more valuable players to his team as evidenced by the fact that the Lakers struggled without him. One has to wonder how much better the team would have been without Dantley's usual poisoning though.

3. Bill Walton - The league MVP. I really hate giving players who missed so much time this high of a ranking, but he meant a lot to his team and without him they would have gotten nowhere. I think ronnymac summed it up nicely by saying he was that generations Steve Nash. I had him at #2 but then I remembered that his his son, Brokeback Walton, played for us, so I had to knock him down a notch (j/k).

4. Julius Erving - Great season and led the Sixers to the 2nd best record in the league. His stats don't exactly jump out at you and he didn't get much love from the MVP voters, but he was still one of the best two-way players in the game and is deserving of a spot.

5. David Thompson - The final spot was between he and Walter Davis. He gets the nod for having a better regular season (stats, awards recognition, more minutes) as well as having a deeper playoff run. His efficiency wasn't all that hot though. I haven't heard much of how these two guys impacted the game for their teams (leadership, other intagibles...), so that might change things later on.

HM: Walter Davis, Elvin Hayes, Wes Unseld

[ElGee]

1978 SI Articles:

Saw this type of criticism of Kareem more than once:

Dec 19 NBA roundup: In Los Angeles the big question was what has happened to Kareem? The Lakers. 8-13 when Abdul-Jab-bar returned to action six weeks ago, were expected to regain the form that gave them the Pacific title last season. But Kareem's aggressiveness and domination have been missing, and L.A. is now 17-24 and remains in the cellar. The 7'2" center says he has been inhibited by the spate of violence in the NBA.

Before it all went bad for Portland: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/ ... /index.htm

February piece on rookie class - lot of Walter Davis stuff: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/ ... /index.htm

Bullets over Spurs: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/ ... /index.htm

Gervin: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/ ... /index.htm

Early season piece on Seattle's turnaround: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/ ... /index.htm

76ers-Bullets: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/ ... /index.htm

Sonics-Nuggets: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/ ... /index.htm