Retro POY '65-66 (Voting Complete)

[bastillon]

For what it's worth, the head-to-head:

R.S.

Wilt -- 28.3 points, 30.7 boards
Russell -- 10.5 points, 20.5 boards

P.S.

Wilt -- 28.0 points, 30.2 boards
Russell: 14.0 points, 26.2 boards

do you have APG and shooting efficiency ?

6-4 for Sixers in RS
4-1 for Celtics in PS

[Sedale Threatt]

I was trying to say you're inconsistent...

LOL, and you aren't? Look no further than this page. There are scores of accounts that credit Havlicek, Sanders and Jones for being among the best defensive players in the league, yet the data/footage is too limited for you to either accept or deny that. You've done pretty much the same thing throughout the 60s by trying to downplay and/or minimize the contributions of Russell's supporting cast.

[Sedale Threatt]

For what it's worth, the head-to-head:

R.S.

Wilt -- 28.3 points, 30.7 boards
Russell -- 10.5 points, 20.5 boards

P.S.

Wilt -- 28.0 points, 30.2 boards
Russell: 14.0 points, 26.2 boards

do you have APG and shooting efficiency ?

6-4 for Sixers in RS
4-1 for Celtics in PS

Nope. I found this on a thread on Inside Hoops, and that's all he had. According to his data, Wilt outscored and outrebounded Russell in every single series, both regular season and postseason, of their career.

http://www.insidehoops.com/forum/showth ... 453&page=2

[semi-sentient]

It'll probably be even more lopsided with apg/ts% thrown in.

[penbeast0]

And yet Russell won almost every one which is the stat that matters most . . . strange that . . . .

[lorak]

And yet Russell won almost every one which is the stat that matters most . . . strange that . . . .

Celtics won.

[bastillon]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f4Vtw7fb ... re=related

4:05

[Doctor MJ]

Jumping in here:

What I'd need to get past to vote Wilt #1 is the feeling that given how much better the '67 76ers were than the '66 76ers, and given that the biggest difference was in the role Wilt played, that it's hard to imagine that Wilt was already having more net impact than Russell before the switch.

Just to put some numbers down, here are the TS% changes when Wilt joined various teams:

'59 vs '60 Warriors: +1.32%
'64 vs '66 76ers: +1.16% (note, Wilt was there part of '65 so I'm taking ignoring that year)
'68 vs '69 Lakers: -1.71%

And what happened with Hannum's system in '67?
'66 vs '67 76ers: +3.77%

It utterly dwarfs the raw shooting impact Wilt ever had coming to a new place, before you even start getting into the benefits involving turnovers and defense.

Not saying I think anyone's crazy for putting Wilt at #1 here, but to me this is very much a case where retrospective omniscience gives us some big new facts to consider.

[mopper8]

If you want to argue that Russell was the highest-impact defensive player the league has ever seen, I would agree with you whole-heartedly.

his teams posted the best DRtg relative to league average. I think they had like 5 results in TOP10 all-time.

As has been noted before, Boston had plenty of good positional defenders outside of Russ, be it Hondo, KJ Jones, Satch Sanders, etc.

yeah, it's hard for me to argue for or against these guys with such limited data or footage, but I read 2003 SI article where Paul Pierce was described as poor defender and Ray Allen was known for his notoriously poor defense in Seattle. now several years later, way past their physical prime (which is crucial in case of perimeter defenders), they're being recognized for their defense and Pierce even won all-defense selection, I think.

it's easy to be overrated with an elite big behind you (Garnett in 00s, Russell in 60s).

Meh, I'm pretty sure nobody is mistaking Ray and Pierce for good defenders (I haven't seen anything to that effect personally--Perkins, Garnett, and Rondo seem to get all the credit for the Celts D as far as I can tell), and nope, Pierce has no all-d selections. The only player who could possibly be getting overrated defensively would be Rondo, because he's getting the all-D recognition and the credit as the top perimeter defender on the Celts.

all I need to know about Russell's defensive impact is how Boston performed when he retired. they went from being easily first to, what, below average ? now consider that Russell was 35 in '69 and he's near prime in '66 so his defense is likely much better. I don't think I have to diminish his accomplishments because he played with other good defenders. you don't say Magic's overrated offensively because he had Kareem, do you ? just as Magic has proven he can lead Lakers to #1 offense without KAJ, Russell's Celtics were 1st on defense regardless of whom he played with. teammates kept changing, Celtics stayed on top. Russell walked away and their defense collapsed.

his impact is not that hard to isolate and it's clearly Magic-like on offense, even moreso given more dominant team results and more sudden downfall after his retirement...

I'd agree with that, but then again, since when does Magic get 100% of the credit for LA's success offensively? A lot of people think Magic is the offensive GOAT even though he played with great offensive players, and a lot of people think Russell is the defensive GOAT even though he played with great defensive players; that seems pretty consistent to me. I don't see the need to pretend that just because personnel had overturn in Russell's tenure that therefor none of them were good defensively and/or deserve no credit for the success when they were there. I'd add the fact that most historical accounts will note that Red often specifically looked for defensive-minded guys to fill roles for his team when scouting; its not like the players that joined the Celts teams after others left/retired were just arbitrary guys with random skillsets. They had a GM who was often specifically searching out defensive-minded guys, so the over-turn in roster seems less impressive to me in terms of saying he was the one constant in their defensive success.

Saying Magic was the offensive GOAT isn't the same as saying he should get 100% of the credit for LA's offensive success in any given series anymore than saying Russell was the defensive GOAT means we should give him 100% credit for Boston's defensive success in any given series.

[Dr Positivity]

Jumping in here:

What I'd need to get past to vote Wilt #1 is the feeling that given how much better the '67 76ers were than the '66 76ers, and given that the biggest difference was in the role Wilt played, that it's hard to imagine that Wilt was already having more net impact than Russell before the switch.

Just to put some numbers down, here are the TS% changes when Wilt joined various teams:

'59 vs '60 Warriors: +1.32%
'64 vs '66 76ers: +1.16% (note, Wilt was there part of '65 so I'm taking ignoring that year)
'68 vs '69 Lakers: -1.71%

And what happened with Hannum's system in '67?
'66 vs '67 76ers: +3.77%

It utterly dwarfs the raw shooting impact Wilt ever had coming to a new place, before you even start getting into the benefits involving turnovers and defense.

I agree the role change for Wilt in 67 was genius - mainly because super high efficiency on less volume is > good efficiency on higher volume. But on the 66 team he still anchors 55 Ws on a team that wasn't doing much before he got there. In 65 he gets traded to a mediocore team and gets them to within a basket of dethroning the Boston dynasty. Wilt's impact his first two years even before the Hannum switch is apparant IMO.

I give Wilt a hard time, but stepping back, he put up 33, 24, 5 and at least 4 blocks. How absurd is that statline? Kareem's 30/16/3 years look mindblowing but this is even better, it's just Wilt's history that makes it seem commonplace. Anybody else puts that up and it's OMFG

[Sedale Threatt]

And yet Russell won almost every one which is the stat that matters most . . . strange that . . . .

Which brings us right back to what I've been arguing all along -- not only was Russell on better teams far more often than not, they played better as well. Especially when it counted.

[Doctor MJ]

I agree the role change for Wilt in 67 was genius - mainly because super high efficiency on less volume is > good efficiency on higher volume. But on the 66 team he still anchors 55 Ws on a team that wasn't doing much before he got there. In 65 he gets traded to a mediocore team and gets them to within a basket of dethroning the Boston dynasty. Wilt's impact his first two years even before the Hannum switch is apparant IMO.

I give Wilt a hard time, but stepping back, he put up 33, 24, 5 and at least 4 blocks. How absurd is that statline? Kareem's 30/16/3 years look mindblowing but this is even better, it's just Wilt's history that makes it seem commonplace

Actually, no. The big improvement on team shooting efficiency had nothing to do with Wilt's improved efficiency. It was the improvement of teammates performance. Teammates TS% went up from 47.1% to 50.7% - 3.62% improvement, while taking WAY more shots than before.

That is the key point. You cannot simply chalk this up to a better balance where Wilt is forcing less shots. There was a problem causing the rest of the team to be far less well utilized than they could be, and the solution was for Wilt to stop volume scoring. So no, it's not fair to say "Wilt did great, the rest of the team sucked, and that's why they didn't win the title", because the rest of the team only sucked because of how Wilt was playing.

Also, so it's clear, Philly in '69 (the first year without Wilt) shot a TS% of 50.6%. Granted that by that point Cunningham was emerging as a great player, but I think it's pretty fair to say that when looking at the 3 numbers for these 3 years (47.1%, 50.7%, 50.6%), it's the '66 year that is the anomaly. The change Hannum made, made the rest of the team play like they could without Wilt, while having the benefit of the good things Wilt could bring to the rest of the team - the changes did not make the rest of the team have shooting success drastically inflated by Wilt's presence.

And yeah, agree with you, that coaching decision was possibly the greatest in NBA history (depending on whether you give Auerbach credit for letting Russell play the way Russell wanted to play), which is why it's so hard for me to take criticisms of Hannum in his handling of Wilt seriously.

[ronnymac2]

Shocked. Wilt vs. Russell again.......


If anybody knows how that STL vs. LAL series went to seven games, I'd appreciate the info. My guess is that STL went all 2010 Boston on them, using a nice collective effort to nearly take down the team with far greater top-end talent. Maybe like Boston vs. Cleveland, actually. Bridges and Beaty hammering away inside while LA's average C and an injured Elgin Baylor (likely playing PF) try to defend them. Then you have Geurin and co. on the perimeter trying to equalize Jerry West. Looks as though West and Baylor needed to do a lot of work on offense.

West and Robertson are as revolutionary as Russell imo. They were the Kobe's and Wade's and Lebron's and Jordan's- wings who were true offensive anchors via scoring AND playmaking, could iso score, and were do-it-all players in general. Very valuable in this era.

To me, the West/Baylor tandem works better in this era. West's J spreads the floor with the 3-point shot so Baylor can do his iso scoring a la Melo. Baylor actually takes better shots (emphasis on better shot selection in this era make him more efficient) and actually plays the small forward position.

I always think of West as a shooting guard. I know Penbeast always says he was a point guard. Honestly, looking at this era more....I think Penbeast was right in calling West a point guard for that era. I still believe he'd be a shooting guard with elite playmaking abilities today (like Wade and Kobe).

That Laker team only had success because of West's value in-era and Baylor's immense talent. Talent can only carry you so far- but it can still carry you. I don't think that team was ever built well until 1972. I don't think West and Baylor are a fantastic fit in that era to be honest.

[ElGee]

Estimated Pace-Adjusted Numbers 1966


ORtg

Code: Select all

1.  Los Angeles   98.5
2.  New York      98.2
3.  Cincinnati    97.6
4.  Baltimore     95.9
5.  Philadelphia  95.5
6.  St. Louis     95.4
LEAGUE AVG.       94.8
7.  San Francisco 92.0
8.  Boston        91.7
9.  Detroit       88.6

DRtg

Code: Select all

1.  Boston        87.7
2.  Philadelphia  91.8
3.  Detroit       94.1
4.  San Francisco 94.2
LEAGUE AVG.       94.8
5.  Los Angeles   95.9
6.  St. Louis     95.9
7.  Cincinnati    96.6
8.  Baltimore     96.9
9.  New York      100.3

Code: Select all

         Pts/75  Reb/75 Ast/75 Rel TS%
======================================
West      22.8   5.2    4.5    8.6%
Jones     21.4   4.7    2.9    3.4%
Wilt      20.8   15.3   3.2    6.0%
Oscar     20.3   5.0    7.2    7.6% 
Barry     19.7   8.1    1.7    3.1%
Greer     16.0   4.2    3.4    1.7%
Russell   8.7    15.4   3.2   -3.9%


[Dr Positivity]

Thank you! Wow @ Boston's crapass offense. And it looks like Wilt deserves a lot of defensive credit for this team like 67 and 68. Not like Russ, but still.

[Sedale Threatt]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f4Vtw7fbktc&feature=related

4:05

A great point.

What do you think of these?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ESDFppbQ ... re=related

8:48

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lMNmGOgh ... re=related

All

[Sedale Threatt]

...which is why it's so hard for me to take criticisms of Hannum in his handling of Wilt seriously.

As a whole, of course not. But for that particular Game 7 in '68, most definitely. Something wasn't working, and nobody did their part -- not Wilt, not his teammates, not Hannum -- to get it fixed.

A good point about the volume scoring, though. ElGee posted a paper on that subject -- I'm sure he could throw it up again -- about this. Even Jerry West, 40 years after all those defeats, talked about this in his recent biography, questioning the approach he and Baylor took in terms of dominating the offense. It's a real concern that deserves to be debated.

[TrueLAfan]

I’m the camp that thinks

a) Alex Hannum was the best thing that ever happened to Wilt Chamberlain in terms of basketball
b) Wilt was sometimes childish in his responses to Hannum (and at other times in his career)…but it didn’t necessarily hurt his teams. What it did mean was that Wilt didn’t always/often help his teams in ways that Bill Russell, for instance, did. But, again, I think Wilt was better about things in general this year than some of the more sensational articles say/imply. Look at some of Wilt’s quotes for this season, how he’s saying the team is going win; look at how he stepped up big in Game 7. There’s some leadership there, even if it is tempered. And these are (largely) the same teammates that he had in the next two years, when they performed well…but not at all well in the PS in 1966 (leaving out that Cunningham was injured and almost totally ineffective in the playoffs). And there was no blowback on Wilt's play from any of those players.
c) Yeah, Hannum deserves some criticism for his handling of Game 7 of the EC Finals in 1968. But it wasn’t enough to detract from the other good things he did, especially in terms of what his teams got out of Wilt Chamberlain

I personally don’t think those thoughts are mutually exclusive. And, again, getting back to 1966, I’m having a real problem with a guy who averaged 28 and 30 for a series and 46 and 34 in a Game 7 while his teammates shot very badly for all 5 games getting anything other than, well, praise.

Re: West/Baylor. I’m always kind of dumbstruck at how horrible imbalanced the Lakers frontcourt was compared to, well, everyone in the early and mid-1960s. Did some analysis on the 1966 league frontcourts…for the starters and reserves that got 90% of total minutes, the Lakers were last in scoring, last in rebounding (by a lot), near the bottom in assists, and probably near the worst (if not the worst) on D. Interestingly, Boston had frontcourt offense that was at least as bad in scoring and shooting…but it’s my understanding that the Celtics had a couple of bigs who could pass and play pretty well on the other end of the court.

[Doctor MJ]

...which is why it's so hard for me to take criticisms of Hannum in his handling of Wilt seriously.

As a whole, of course not. But for that particular Game 7 in '68, most definitely. Something wasn't working, and nobody did their part -- not Wilt, not his teammates, not Hannum -- to get it fixed.

A good point about the volume scoring, though. ElGee posted a paper on that subject -- I'm sure he could throw it up again -- about this. Even Jerry West, 40 years after all those defeats, talked about this in his recent biography, questioning the approach he and Baylor took in terms of dominating the offense. It's a real concern that deserves to be debated.

I believe you're talking about "The Price of Anarchy in Basketball":

http://www.bepress.com/jqas/vol6/iss1/3/

Here's the guy who wrote it explaining it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oz1uQi_epAo

Thing is though, the issue with Wilt goes deeper than Breaess' paradox. The basic idea he's talking about is that if you have one option that's best in a vacuum, you may use it so much that the opposing team adapts and makes it much less efficient. The analogy is a bunch of people commuting to work on the freeway, and clogging up the freeway while the side streets are empty.

There's nothing in the idea captures Wilt's big problem here, which is in causing the rest of the team to do worse. To try to come up with something to extend the analogy: Say you're on the freeway and it's clogged, and you see that there's a side street that's open. At a certain point the freeway becomes so gridlocked you're desperate to use the side street, and you drive off the side of the freeway causing massive damage to your vehicle along the way. You get to the open side street, but now with the flat tires and bleeding livestock attached to your car, you're not able to drive very fast on the side street even though there's no traffic.

This is something that happens to varying degrees with role players, but the extent of it in Wilt's case is mind-blowing. Literally, Wilt with Hannum's method was many, many times more valuable than Wilt without Hannum's method.

[bastillon]

Code: Select all

    1.  Boston        87.7
    2.  Philadelphia  91.8
    3.  Detroit       94.1
    4.  San Francisco 94.2
    LEAGUE AVG.       94.8
    5.  Los Angeles   95.9
    6.  St. Louis     95.9
    7.  Cincinnati    96.6
    8.  Baltimore     96.9
    9.  New York      100.3

Wilt's Philly was +3 with similar teammates to Russell defensively (rebounding is part of the defense). Celtics were +7.1... that's like Celtics 2008 or Pistons 2004 IIRC.

no wonder why Celtics were so bad offensively. although KC and Satch were good defenders (Sanders was borderline great) they had absolutely no game offensively. KC Jones was like Rondo but without driving ability or elite passing. total scrub on offense. Sanders lacked jumpshot too, but he wasn't THAT bad. I'll challenge you guys to find me a clip of KC making an outside jumpshot.