Lets talk about 60s basketball

[GreenHat]

West had a lot of balls, he shot it from anywhere and had 0 hesitation when doing so, which is really why he was one of the top two guards of the 60s and early 70s. This game was a below average game shooting wise.

For both teams and for West it was above average game shooting wise according to official stats:
West averaged 27.1 PPG, .523 TS% in the regular season and 27.8 PPG, .548 TS% in the playoffs. In that game he had 32 points and .563 TS% playing against the best defenisve tem in the NBA. So it was clearly above average game for him in terms of efficiency and volume. (At least according to official stats.)

However, we are probably dealing here with home arena bias (or score keepers back then didn't count blocked shots as FG attemps!, Dipper, do you know anything about it? Saw some articles?) and LAL score keepers didn't count 6 West's missed shots. If that occurred regularly his real efficiency would be lower. And in this game in reality he had 32 pts on .498 TS%. But that TS% value is based on classic formula (with 0.44 * FTA), which is useless in the 60s, because they had many trips to the line with only 1 FTA (most fouls ended with 1 FTA). So his real TS% was .429.

That means that in reality all players during 60s, especially these who shot many FTs have their TS% numbers inflated because of that "0.44 *FTA" factor. That would explain why West's and Oscar's efficiency looks so good in comparison to other 60s players - it's simply because we use flawed TS% equation and they shot many FTs.

Can you explain the most trips ending in one ft part? I must be missing something

And that does make perfect sense about the the players with so many ft attempts standing out because of a flaw in the estimate part of the formula.

A pillar of the argument for West and Oscar being better than most modern superstars has been how much more efficient they were than their peers. This could be why.

Meanwhile, 50 years ago, Russell blocked jumpers routinely and judging by the video you provided, he didn't even do it in the manner which is mostly done today. He wasn't really pressuring the on-ball player, nor was the player pressured by the time expiring. Bill didn't even need to creep to surprise the offensive player from the blind side. All he did and needed to do was wait for the guard to come off the screen and time his jump shot. He wasn't particularly fast doing it, he didn't need to jump particularly high also. So what gives here? Obviously two narratives come forth, the old school and the new school, so to say. Some will say Russell was just vastly better than anyone in the history of the game in terms of instincts, reflexes and ability to be able to do stuff like that routinely. Others will say that the opposition just wasn't skilled, athletic, smart enough to avoid his defense and was surprised by Russell's unprecedented athleticism at the time.

That's excellent observation. No doubt Russell was very smart and athletic (for sure more athletic than every 60s player except maybe Wilt - so he had tremendous advantage because of that), but also no doubt players back then have taken so many bad shots (because of shot selection and skill set and athletic limitations) that it was easier to be dominant shot blocker.[/quote]

That's why I think its crazy that people just automatically believe Russell was by far the best shot blocker of all time and would average more than double the amount of blocks of anyone today.

Forgetting the pace which gave more opportunities to block shots and just looking at the shot blocks that are from a game rather than the highlight blocks culled from his entire career show that we should drop this notion of Russell automatically not only being the best shot blocker of all time but being so much better than modern shot blockers.

This is against one of the best offensive players in the era and he's taking weak unpressured jumpshots and getting them blocked. Imagine how easy it was to block the bad players.

I don't think Russell would be a scrub today, he might even be the best defender in the league. But given the evidence of his actual play and taking into account just how limited the offenses were that he was playing against I just don't see how we can assume he would be so far superior to every other player since. I know his team dominated those unskilled offensive players more than anyone else did and by a higher margin than anyone else outperformed their peers but we have seen that ability doesn't always correlate linearly when moving up in talent level.

Micheal Beasley dominated college basketball as a freshmen more than almost anyone in the modern era but when he moved up in talent it didn't scale linearly and a lot of players passed him up. Saying that Russell would be a far superior defender than anyone else ever because he dominated weak offensive players at such a hige scale relative to his peers is similar to saying a player who dominates a lower level relative to his peers than anyone else must then be the best player. Except we've seen hundreds of examples where it hasn't scaled like that when facing improved talent (college, euro, minors)

[Doctor MJ]

Great post OP.

Russell is amazing. The man is a basketball genius. He can still give play by plays from memory of games in the 50's. Any game. Literally the man is a savant. Those who think he wouldn't translate are ill informed. With today's advances he'd be in basketball heaven.

http://youtu.be/kr1LUK7o-Rc?t=53m18s

you can say what you want about Russell, he was great...but in terms of what he could do on the court from one end to the other, he doesn't even light a match compared to Wilt, look at the video above from the mark I set it to see how he played in college and what people like Russell had to go up against when Wilt first entered a league...as Russell stated a few days ago to Chris Webber, he was a monster.

Hyperbole aside, I don't think there's ever been any doubt that if you look at Wilt's highlights compared to Russell's, you would conclude Wilt was likely the better all around player.

I also have to note that as someone who has taken shots at Wilt's mental side of the game, I completely understand why that's hard for people to buy when they see clips like this.

Dude was a monster.

[Doctor MJ]

That's why I think its crazy that people just automatically believe Russell was by far the best shot blocker of all time and would average more than double the amount of blocks of anyone today.

Forgetting the pace which gave more opportunities to block shots and just looking at the shot blocks that are from a game rather than the highlight blocks culled from his entire career show that we should drop this notion of Russell automatically not only being the best shot blocker of all time but being so much better than modern shot blockers.

This is against one of the best offensive players in the era and he's taking weak unpressured jumpshots and getting them blocked. Imagine how easy it was to block the bad players.

I don't think Russell would be a scrub today, he might even be the best defender in the league. But given the evidence of his actual play and taking into account just how limited the offenses were that he was playing against I just don't see how we can assume he would be so far superior to every other player since. I know his team dominated those unskilled offensive players more than anyone else did and by a higher margin than anyone else outperformed their peers but we have seen that ability doesn't always correlate linearly when moving up in talent level.

Micheal Beasley dominated college basketball as a freshmen more than almost anyone in the modern era but when he moved up in talent it didn't scale linearly and a lot of players passed him up. Saying that Russell would be a far superior defender than anyone else ever because he dominated weak offensive players at such a hige scale relative to his peers is similar to saying a player who dominates a lower level relative to his peers than anyone else must then be the best player. Except we've seen hundreds of examples where it hasn't scaled like that when facing improved talent (college, euro, minors)

First let me acknowledge that there are people who assert that Russell would block astronomical amounts of shots today, just like there are Wilt supporters who say that. To me that's not really the thing I focus on, and to frank I'm not sure about that really.

What I do believe:

1. Russell's athleticism was top rate by any era's standards.
2. Russell's basketball instincts were top rate by any era's standards.
3. The notion that Russell would be too small to play big today is silly. His build remains the ideal build for a defensive big. Once you are tall enough to block any typical unaltered shots, quickness and motor are more important than additional size - and you don't get to increase the former with the latter.

[Doctor MJ]

4. Official box score says West had 13/24 FGA, but that's not true. In fact he had 13/30, so pretty big difference and another reason (after Frazier's 19 assists) not to trust 60s and early 70s stats. I guess home score keepers are the reason of that -home assists bias is common even today, so no wonder even more stuff like that happened during 60s. But it makes me wonder what West's efficiency really was if that was common that they don't count some of his missed shots, when he played in LA?

First let me say this is a great post. Love seeing it. Where are you getting the game tape from?

To this specific point, I believe you've been on the forefront of this for a while now. When we try to do more in depth analysis beyond what we can get from writing, we use stats, and we of course those who recorded the stats were accurate enough that those stats are actually worthwhile.

When I see stuff like this it doesn't make me throw everything out, but it does make the foundation a bit more shaky.

Talking about the details of the situation:

We know that the Lakers on the whole were a good team with no one really taking note of their defense on the interior. It would take more than just a lower inefficiency of West to convince me that he wasn't a phenomenal offensive player.

That said, everyone here has seen me really side hard against Baylor for his inefficiency next to West. If it were to turn out that there was serious evidence of systematic racism among the stat trackers back then...Wow. That would be huge. However, it's not like West got elevated clearly beyond all the black stars in the league, it's really only teammate Baylor who seriously lags behind.

6. Surpassingly often West was defended by Cousy, who was slow and can't jump, but West didn't take advantage of that. He made 3/9 FGA vs Cousy and total 0,67 ppp. The most efficient he was vs Havlicek (3/5FG, 0,88 ppp) and S. Jones (4/6 FG, 1,0 ppp).

I find this type of observation to be the most damning about the '60s, and it really goes to both sides of the ball. To be frank it actually makes me not care about some other things.

So generally speaking:

1. Offensive players weren't attacking in the smartest possible way.
2. Defensive players weren't cheating toward the most often used attacks.

So you have a guy like West nowadays get knocked for having a weaker dribble, particularly with his weak hand, but if the defender isn't ever going to cheat toward your strong hand, you can just keep doing that attack over and over again, so you don't really need to develop the dribble as much.

This also comes after a long history of poor quality balls and courts where dribbling was simply something likely to go wrong for no reason other than that, and with a sport which was meant to be a bit more like ultimate frisbee where guys were looking to pass to advance the ball. This is why, for example, it's not at all shocking to see guys make passes back then that many players today couldn't make even as some other skills look quite primitive.

I have zero doubt that West brought up today would master dribbling at a modern level, and would drink in all coaching related to varying his game...but to be honest it does leave me a bit concerned with what was accomplished at the time on a few different levels.

7. Going by plays types (Synergy like) West had 41 plays total and most of them were isolations - 25. But he was really inefficient when playing iso ball with only 0.76 ppp. He was also really bad in transition (7 plays, 0,57 ppp), because he liked to take midrange jumpers in transition.

[Doctor MJ]

I just got done watching a clip of the Minneapolis Lakers against some other teams from the NBA playoffs around 1954. At least fifty percent of the shots from both teams were awful shots by today's standards. But by the sixties most of the truly awful kinds of shots had disappeared. I started watching the NBA on tv in the early sixties, and truthfully can't remember a lot of players. I do remember watching Cousy, Russell, Chamberlain, and the others, but I was too young to understand their games. If a guy scored a basket he was a good player to me. Too young to understand the intricacies of the sport.

ABC started broadcasting games in the mid-sixties, and I was better able to discern the various talents of the stars. West and Robertson were clearly the most impressive guards. Baylor and Barry were the best forwards. Russell and Chamberlain were the clear two best centers. But nobody got off their shot as quick as West. It was truly startling. How would that translate today? He'd still be formidable. K.C. Jones was considered with West the best defensive guard in the league and he would still be an excellent defender today. But he couldn't stop West. West would still be plenty impressive physically.

Are there faster, quicker guys than West now? Sure. I'd put him at the Jeremy Lin level athletically except West was probably a little quicker, could jump higher, and got his shot off far quicker and accurately. On defense West used to block the shots of bigger guards like Sam Jones and John Havlicek both fast and several inches taller than West. He'd have to improve his dribbling, but it wasn't near as bad as some people make it out.

Really enjoy hearing you chime in John.

[Doctor MJ]

However, we are probably dealing here with home arena bias (or score keepers back then didn't count blocked shots as FG attemps!, Dipper, do you know anything about it? Saw some articles?) and LAL score keepers didn't count 6 West's missed shots. If that occurred regularly his real efficiency would be lower. And in this game in reality he had 32 pts on .498 TS%. But that TS% value is based on classic formula (with 0.44 * FTA), which is useless in the 60s, because they had many trips to the line with only 1 FTA (most fouls ended with 1 FTA). So his real TS% was .429.

That means that in reality all players during 60s, especially these who shot many FTs have their TS% numbers inflated because of that "0.44 *FTA" factor. That would explain why West's and Oscar's efficiency looks so good in comparison to other 60s players - it's simply because we use flawed TS% equation and they shot many FTs.

Point taken, part of what's noteworthy about West & Oscar's efficiency is that other volume scorers were so much weaker on that front, and it's hard to see FT distortion as the dominant factor there. Baylor shot a lot of free throws too after all.

[Johnlac1]

However, we are probably dealing here with home arena bias (or score keepers back then didn't count blocked shots as FG attemps!, Dipper, do you know anything about it? Saw some articles?) and LAL score keepers didn't count 6 West's missed shots. If that occurred regularly his real efficiency would be lower. And in this game in reality he had 32 pts on .498 TS%. But that TS% value is based on classic formula (with 0.44 * FTA), which is useless in the 60s, because they had many trips to the line with only 1 FTA (most fouls ended with 1 FTA). So his real TS% was .429.

That means that in reality all players during 60s, especially these who shot many FTs have their TS% numbers inflated because of that "0.44 *FTA" factor. That would explain why West's and Oscar's efficiency looks so good in comparison to other 60s players - it's simply because we use flawed TS% equation and they shot many FTs.

Point taken, part of what's noteworthy about West & Oscar's efficiency is that other volume scorers were so much weaker on that front, and it's hard to see FT distortion as the dominant factor there. Baylor shot a lot of free throws too after all.

Of all the great offensive players from that era, Baylor took the most bad shots, although a lot of them weren't considered bad in those days. Turn around shots from 20 ft and a lot of off-balance shots. Baylor usually shot in the low forties from the field for the first ten years of his career. Then at the age of 35 for the '69-70 season, Baylor shot close to 49% from the floor. And he still averaged over 20 pts. a game. By the late sixties the level of athleticism had increased appreciably since the start of the decade and players were taller on average as well. What did Baylor do different to increase his fg pct?

I suspect he simply stopped taking as many bad shots as he had in previous years. I'm wondering if Baylor didn't use more of his off hand to steady the ball as well. When he shot his jump shots early in his career, like a lot of jump shooters from that era, he literally shot them one-handed without using his off hand to steady the ball. Using the off hand to steady the ball and avoiding off-balance/running twisters is probably why West and Robertson were the only non-centers who managed to shoot close to or better than 50% from the floor in those days.

[lorak]

Can you explain the most trips ending in one ft part? I must be missing something

During that game (1963 finals G6) both teams had total 38 trips to the FT line and 21 of them ended with only one free throw attempt. So 55% of trips to the line ended with one FTA.

Of course it's only one game so we can't draw too much conclusions based on that. But in current NBA (5 years sample) 45% of all defensive fouls are non shooting fouls (so with that 1 FT rule, they would end with one free throw attempt). So how much likely is that during 60s non shooting fouls were even larger % of all fouls? IMO it's very likely because from what wee see on tape officials back then called shooting or and1 fouls less favorably for players. And also players played in more stupid way (+ they were allowed to hand check - what caused additional fouls during dribbling the ball, because sometimes hand check was too "strong"), what resulted in unnecessary fouls - which today would be non shooting, but then of course they ended with 1 FTA.

Of all the great offensive players from that era, Baylor took the most bad shots, although a lot of them weren't considered bad in those days. Turn around shots from 20 ft and a lot of off-balance shots. Baylor usually shot in the low forties from the field for the first ten years of his career. Then at the age of 35 for the '69-70 season, Baylor shot close to 49% from the floor. And he still averaged over 20 pts. a game. By the late sixties the level of athleticism had increased appreciably since the start of the decade and players were taller on average as well. What did Baylor do different to increase his fg pct?

Exactly. IMO it's because he didn't have athleticism anymore to do that all that fancy things which affected his efficiency the most. Nobody also expected him to do such things, so he focused on fundamentally sound game and he was always very good at that.

Your point about off hand is also very good one.

First let me say this is a great post. Love seeing it. Where are you getting the game tape from?

There are some "invite only" torrent sites or games collectors with really rare stuff. I don't know if I'm allowed to post links to such sites here. There's even one free torrent site with old NBA games. If you want to know link - send me PM.

When I see stuff like this it doesn't make me throw everything out, but it does make the foundation a bit more shaky.

Talking about the details of the situation:

We know that the Lakers on the whole were a good team with no one really taking note of their defense on the interior. It would take more than just a lower inefficiency of West to convince me that he wasn't a phenomenal offensive player.

Well, yes, but the question is - how much phenomenal? I think good starting point is comparison to Oscar and If anyone thinks West was better, then we have problem.

BTW, after adjusting TS% it seems Jack Twyman is one of the most underrated scorers ever. Until his last seasons he was more efficient than West. We could for example look only on eFG% relatively to league average (of course there's still unsolved problem with non counted FGA). West without last season has +3.5 per season (13 years), Twyman +3.8 per season (11 years) and +4.6 per season without last 3 years (when he played less than 30 MPG and was injured in first year). And Oscar: +4.6 (without last season).

That said, everyone here has seen me really side hard against Baylor for his inefficiency next to West. If it were to turn out that there was serious evidence of systematic racism among the stat trackers back then...Wow. That would be huge.

I didn't see even slightly evidence of anti Baylor behavior among stat trackers. It was rather pro West among LAL score keepers. And as Johnlac1 said - Baylor took the most bad shots. It's interesting his jumper was really good and of course athletics also was top tier, but he was trying to do so many fancy things it affected his efficiency. I think in some way he was victim of his own brilliance - everybody wanted to see some great finish in the air around the basket, and Baylor was capable of doing so, so he was trying these kind of shots. But they aren't efficient even today, so that affected his efficiency. He and Wilt are IMO the most hurt by era philosophy players ever (Wilt because coaches, owners and fans wanted him to score as much as possible - at least at the beginning).

But despite all those bad shots and many 1on1 isolations plays (West wasn't different here, he also played a lot iso ball and have taken bad jump shots - only difference was in finishing around the rim: West wasn't as athletic, so he wasn't even trying fancy moves, he was simply deadly efficient at rim) he was really smart player. His passing is particularly amazing for me and defensively he also seems to be underrated. Unfortunately he started to play too son, NBA wasn't ready for such player, to use him right way. Would he have been born after WWII and started career around late60s/early70s - he might be better than Dr J (and I'm fan of Erving, for example I think he was better than Kobe).

Point taken, part of what's noteworthy about West & Oscar's efficiency is that other volume scorers were so much weaker on that front, and it's hard to see FT distortion as the dominant factor there. Baylor shot a lot of free throws too after all.

Well, I addressed it above - if we look at FG% then West's and Oscar's advantage isn't so obvious. Twyman is good example. And there's still issue with West's field goals attempts which weren't count by LAL score keepers. But it's hard to say if it was regular thing, if it happens in other arenas, or maybe at the time NBA simply didn't count blocked shots as FGA? I wish we would have more games from 60s.


BTW, it's still work in progress, but based on some rough estimations (based on frequency of non shooting fouls in today NBA) in best case for West after adjusting TS% he would lose 2-2.5 percentage points in raw TS% and 1 relatively to league average. So he still would look good, but as I said - it's best case scenario for him, assuming non shooting fouls frequency during 60s was the same as today. What's rather not true because of reasons I stated at the beginning of this post.

[Johnlac1]

West was plenty athletic and he'd look athletic today. And he claims in his book "West By West" that he was actually closer to 6'4 than the 6'3 he was always listed at. Even when he was 34 and he won his first title, he looked plenty athletic. If you watch the fifth and last game, which is available on youtube, you can see his athleticism. Although he had a poor game from the field, he had a number of bursts past Frazier that left Frazier nailed to the floor. (By the way, Frazier had a great final game with 32 pts.)

Some people think that because a player doesn't dunk, he's not athletic. Even though he could easily dunk, West had so many injuries in his career and the fact that he was by nature not someone who dunked just to dunk he didn't dunk much. In one book I read about West he did deliberately dunk in college one time. West Virginia was playing Vanderbilt and the play'er's benches were situated at the ends of the court rather than the sidelines. He intentionally came down either after a steal or on a fastbreak and slammed the ball down in front of the Vandy players.

And West says he really didn't learn the game until late in his career. His first five or six years in the league he mostly played on athletic ability, desire, and skill. A number of people who watched him regularly said that if they kept stats at that time, West probably averaged close to 10 steals a game.

[lorak]

10 steals per game? Very doubtful. For example in this game he had 0 steals and in other available games with him he also wasn't impressive in that area. Against worse competition for sure he looked better, but 10 SPG is very unlikely. Bill Russell's shot blocking dominance is easily seen in available games, but not West's stealing brilliance.