ty 4191 wrote:ty 4191 wrote:sansterre wrote:I love 1967 Wilt but I hate how his efficiency dropped by 9% in the playoffs (fueled, in part, by shooting 38.8% from the line).
In the regular season he used 16.9% of his team's shots at +14.4% rTS, which is slightly low volume but insane efficiency.
In the playoffs it dropped to 16.4% of his team's shots at +5.3% rTS (not adjusted for opposition). Obviously he played 11 of 15 against Russell/Thurmond (which doesn't do him any favors) but it's hard to hold up a guy shooting below 40% from the line as a paragon of all-around play.
It isn't adjusted for opposition, which is everything in basketball. Do you really expect him to do better than (or as well as) his seasonal averages against two First Ballot HOF Centers in the playoffs?
Well, regardless. Here's how he did, heads up, in any case:
EDF:
-Wilt vs. Russell 1967 Playoffs: 21.6/32.0/10.0 (also averaged 12 blocks per game) on .556 shooting.
-Russell vs. Wilt: 11.6/23.4/6.0 on .358 shooting.
Finals:
-Wilt vs. Thurmond: 17.7/28.5/6.8 (with 13 blocks per game) on .560 shooting
-Thurmond vs. Wilt: 14.2/26.7/3.3 assists on .343 shooting.
I rest my case. Totally owned two of the greatest centers in history.
Sansterre,
Where's your reply/rebuttal here?
Sorry, I had one and got distracted with real life for a bit.
You're right, I didn't adjust for opposition. According to BackPicks, Wilt normally dropped about 4% TS against Russell, though Russell's effect on other centers could be higher (in the 5-9% range). I don't know what the adjustment for Thurmond is, but it's probably in the same territory as Russell.
Wilt dropped 11% against those two. That's way, way bigger than their normal defensive adjustment. But adjusted for opposition, let's call Wilt's opponent-adjusted true shooting change in the postseason around -6%.
If so (and again, we're ballparking), that would be a conspicuously non-resilient playoffs. David Robinson gets flack for being weak in the postseason, but his career adjustment is about -3% (he had three runs worse than -6%). Garnett for his career averaged about -2% (two runs worse than -6%). High volume Harden averaged about -3% (one worse than -6%). This is a long way of saying that -6% opponent adjusted TS% for the playoffs is historically non-resilient.
Does that mean he was bad at scoring? Definitely not. Not adjusted for opposition he shot +3.4% rTS (better than league average). On 16% of his team's shots that's pretty unremarkable, but if we adjust for defense, we can probably call it more like +9% rTS, which is clearly excellent (even if a big drop from his regular season).
Am I making too much of his non-resilience in this postseason? Maybe. He dropped from eye-bleedingly efficient to very efficient; it's a drop but it's not like he got bad. And his defense/rebounding/passing were clearly the larger part of his value (BackPicks estimates that only about 25% of Wilt's positive contribution was scoring+passing).
For better or for worse I don't care too much about head to head box scores (though I'll admit they're far more persuasive than they would be if the players didn't defend each other). Wilt beating Thurmond isn't a surprise; nobody is suggesting that Thurmond is remotely Wilt-level. And Wilt in his prime beating Russell past his prime is . . . I mean, the margins are pretty extreme, but it's still not super-persuasive. After all, Russell's biggest strength was playing team defense, and we wouldn't necessarily see that in a Russell v Wilt matchup.
I think the most impressive argument for playoff Wilt in 1967 is simply that the '67 Sixers were historically dominant, Wilt was obviously their best player, and if his scoring regressed notably in the postseason (even more than you'd expect given the opposition), well, scoring was only a small fraction of his value at that point.
I think I've just worked on my resilience project for too long. A 9% TS drop is insane and it really jumped out at me; I probably overreacted.
I will say though, in an era where Philadelphia averaged around a point per possession, having Wilt shoot below 40% from the line in the playoffs makes hack-a-shaq style strategies an obvious weakness.
Interesting (if arbitrary) stat for the playoff Sixers that year:
Games decided by 4 or less points: 1-2
Games decided by 5 or more points: 10-2
I guess having a late-game liability doesn't really matter if you just blow the other team out . . .
