AEnigma wrote:OhayoKD wrote:Hmm?
Not the cleanest sample but Cincinatti only get a little worse by SRS and 5-wins worse by record in 71.
Replacing him with several young stars, yes. This is not particularly distinct from the circumstances for 1975 Kareem leaving the Bucks.
More or less agree. In '71 they add rookie Tiny Archibald (who shows a lot of promise in his first year), NVL ups his minutes AND shows
dramatic improvement over his '70 season (goes from being hardly more than a replacement-level player to a borderline All-Star). Plus they added another promising rookie in C Sam Lacey;
and TVA is healthier, fwiw (misses 0 games in '71, whereas he'd missed 11 in '70).
Yet all of this combined was insufficient compensate for the loss of '70 Oscar [+ an aging Connie Dierking, fwiw], as they still got
a little worse.
AEnigma wrote:Bucks do take a big jump but about half of that comes on the defensive end with Kareem seeing a 2 point uptick in points and a massive uptick in fg%.
Do you think Kareem became something like 6 points better in one offseason.
The water is of course a bit muddy, as Kareem obviously does make a jump forward; but agree a +6 pt jump in one off-season does seem a bit bullish (and fwiw, I think Oscar is a comfortably better defensive guard than Flynn Robinson [whose minutes he was replacing]).
I also combine these observations to at least a diluted awareness of his impact profile across other parts of his prime and career. For examples.....
a) the gigantic drop the Bucks suffer upon his departure [not the ONLY change or loss, but BY FAR the most relevant one (unless you think the loss of Curtis Perry is carrying the weight here)], wherein the Bucks fall by 21 wins and over -7 in SRS. Granted, Kareem also missed 17 games in '75, but even in the games he played the Bucks were on pace for just over 44 wins......which is still almost 15 games shy of their '74 record.
b) His raw year-to-year WOWY, looking at any years where he missed more than three games......'in '61 they were 32-39 [.451] with him and 1-7 [.125] without; in '65 they were 47-28 [.627] with him and 1-4 [.200] without; in '66 they were 44-32 [.579] with him and 1-3 [.250] without; in '68 they were 35-30 [.538] with him and 4-13 [.235] without; and in '70 they were 32-37 [.464] with him and 4-9 [.308] without.
c) His WOWYR [fwiw, I have my reservations] is +8.4 for prime [9th all-time] and +8.5 for career [3rd all-time].
We have this very consistent, and frankly sort of amazing impact profile in surrounding years to suggest that any perceived impact might not be a mirage. So when he leaves and I see the team get a little worse despite
kinda significant upgrades to the rest of the roster outside of his departure,
and I see the team he goes to make a massive jump forward.......I tend to think he's still a legit big-time player in '70.
Which, fwiw, is certainly still backed up by the boxscore: he is, after all, still 3rd in the league in PER and 4th in WS/48 [while playing 41.5 mpg] this year.
I'm not gonna raise a ruckus if everyone doesn't have him on their ballot somewhere; there's room to argue. But I certainly don't think his inclusion (especially as only 5th on POY and <1st on OPOY) is particularly controversial.
"The fact that a proposition is absurd has never hindered those who wish to believe it." -Edward Rutherfurd
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