Retro POY '76-77 (Voting Complete)

[drza]

Outside of PenBeast I haven't seen Artis Gilmore mentioned, despite him having good stats (top-5 in both PER and Win Shares) as well as finishing top-10 in the MVP vote. Among the witnesses, is there any particular reason why he isn't getting more love for a potential #4 or #5 slot?

(I plan to come back to this thread over the weekend, but just in case I don't get to here's my initial vote):

(Edit: Thanks to everyone for the Gilmore discussion, and I've read enough now to be comfortable putting him into my top-5 over Lanier. Still unsure about Lanier and Hayes, but with MJ pointing out the games that Lanier missed right now that's going to be my tie-breaker).

1) Kareem
2) Walton
3) Dr. J
4) Artis Gilmore
5) Elvin Hayes

[Doctor MJ]

I watched game 4. Had time to watch and analyze one game, this seemed the reasonable one to do.

Game 4

Blazers are getting a lot of steals, but not without consequence. They're full court pressing and trapping, and the result is that there's lots of space down court for Kareem. Kareem's points are often coming from easy passes, and single coverage from Walton with lots of space in the court partly due to how the guards are defending. When they do get a real double team on Kareem, he's passing the ball. It's reasonable to ask if this would have been an entirely different series with smarter guards - but I think it's wrong to look at Kareem's numbers in a vacuum.

Despite the fact that Walton seems to be playing Kareem so tight when Kareem has the ball, he doesn't hesitate to leave Kareem to effect the rest of the play when Kareem doesn't have the ball.
I will say though Walton's man defense is really tough, and it doesn't seem to phase Kareem much at all as long as he’s got that space to work with. Stunning skill from Kareem.

Kareem's defense on Walton is clearly much more successful, but Walton doesn't spend a lot of time trying to score when Kareem's on him. Instead, he immediately starts looking for someone to pass it to, and once the ball is passed, Kareem seems largely out of the play. Part of that is due to Walton being able to draw Kareem out, which leaves Kareem in poor position to challenge shots. Walton's passes seem strategically smart, and often quite sharp, but he is committing a good amount of turnovers in the process.

Portland's also getting easy baskets off defensive rebounds. Walton's looking to pass the ball forward before he touches the ground.

People've said Kareem's exhausted, and that's believable. He's just not running around very much. If the Lakers to get a fast break opportunity, Kareem totally disappears from the play, evidently hoping they can make a basket, and he can save himself a lap.

Tendency to fast break is part of why Walton looks more active than Kareem. On the other hand, this is part of a trade off, no? If you're going to run a possession where the big man gets the ball in the post, and then twists and turns for his shot, you can't run. By not playing Walton as a volume scorer, you get to take advantage of running much more.

General statistical observations:

The Lakers had the ball stolen a lot in this series. Other than that (rebounding, etc) they did fine.

Interestingly, in general, Portland's statistical advantage comes from making shots, and making opponent's miss them, not from causing turnovers specifically. I'd say they shot making is primarily a product of the push to run out before the defense can get set, and the push to pass the ball to a guy who can do something with the ball, and the Laker series appears to bear this out.

With that said, the next year, Portland’s pace is significantly slower, why?

Defensively, the Lakers series was not normal for the Blazers. Every other opponent in the series, they really did a number on their ability to make shots, not the Lakers. The Lakers did about as well in this series shooting the ball as they had done against Golden State which was not what you'd expect from the regular season. Again this plays into my thought that Portland up'ed their gambling in the Laker series, which decreased they're effectiveness at actually stopping shooting.

[Doctor MJ]

ElGee, that breakdown is great.

[Sedale Threatt]

Agreed, very interesting.

[ElGee]

With that said, the next year, Portland’s pace is significantly slower, why?

My understanding from reading/watching about 78 is other teams were more conscious of slowing the pace down against Portland. I think that could account for most of the difference. They may have played slower with Walton out in 78 as well due to better bench play in the post.

Your take on the whole series is interesting - do you have the team stats just for the series? I'm watching the GS games online and there are definitely times when Kareem conserves energy by not really running. You also alluded to a difference I mentioned in another post about outlet passing. Walton's ridiculously good at getting a stop and/or defensive rebound and instantly turning and making a great pass to start the break. Almost like it's a singular motion - it's uncanny. He runs with em a lot too if I remember.

Glad you liked the earlier breakdown...

[Doctor MJ]

I did some quick math, don't have time to really exact it out and publish this moment, but I'll try to do it tomorrow.

Basically though, you can reason out team stats by looking at what they're opponents did. The further the team goes in the playoffs, the more complicated the process. I can tell you though that Portland averaged 14.25 steals per game in the Laker series which is quite large.

[ElGee]

While were here, thoughts on Rick Barry? He's playing great ball in the series vs. LA...

[Dr Positivity]

I'm considering it with him putting up the same numbers as he did in 76, where he'll probably be my #2 with a bullet (I don't believe the rumor about him quitting because his teammates didn't pick him off the floor once). But 76 is a really weak year and I don't really like measuring other years in criteria like that. It's clear though that despite his shaky TS% and lowered ppg numbers, Barry still had a huge offensive impact in 76 and 77

[ElGee]

In the seasons he averaged 50 and 44 PPG, he had the highest true shooting % on his team as well. How can that possibly be hurting the team? He was called an "inefficient shooter" and I completely disagree with that assessment. This guy could put up anywhere from 35-50 points at will, while shooting at a rate that was much, much higher than average.

Wilt's P/36 PPG in his 2 highest scoring seasons are significantly higher than anything Jerry West or Kareem have put up too. So it wasn't exactly because of the minutes he received either.

So there's a couple issues.

First, how due you credit/blame players in earlier eras where shooting was worse in general? Do you adjust for that? On the whole I say no, though it's worth bringing up in specific comparisons. In Wilt's case, he didn't go away from the super-massive volume scoring because he got worse, so it doesn't make sense to me to say "Look how he stacked up in efficiency next to people in 1960!" and ignore what he did later on. Prime Wilt, when scoring at comparable volume to other top volume scorers of the era, was not more efficient than them, he was less efficient (than some of them) despite the fact that he was clearly more efficient than when he was scoring super-massive amounts.

We see prime volume Wilt going up against prime volume West who goes up against prime volume Kareem. it's clear who does it more efficiently. To adjust for ear in this case would mean that you'd argue that West was more impressive than Kareem because of what he did in '65, despite the fact that West really didn't get worse before Kareem got in the league. It's bizarre reasoning.

Second, how can a really efficient guy be hurting his team? If I pass the ball into a guy who twists and maneuvers for 20 seconds and then either shoots an efficient shot, or passes the ball out to a teammate who's not in a position to score, then the question of whether I'm really helping matters all depends on how often I'm actually shooting, and how often I'm just destroying possessions. See Adrian Dantley for a guy who had incredible stats but who was constantly traded by team's who realized he wasn't helping them, and whose team's offensive efficiency never seemed to show glaring trends of improvement/falloff as he came and went.

Now to be clear, I'm not saying that Wilt's teams while he volume scored were worse because of him. I'm saying his net positive effect wasn't nearly as large as it was when he stopped scoring so much. The proof is in the pudding. The '67 Sixers were arguably the greatest team in history, and that was the year Wilt changed how he played. No one thinks that's a coincidence. Think of it from Coach Hannum's point of view: You have the guy known as the greatest scorer in history, do you decide to stop having him score on a whim? Hell no, he saw a problem, and the solution was to use Wilt in a different way.

I'd like to import this into the 77 RPOY discussion as well. This is a great post and hits at some really fundamental ideas about basketball teams being better suited to play as teams than through one individual. It's not that Abdul-Jabbar (or Chamberlain) or even Dantley were bad or "wrong" in their approach. But instead, I think players who have a better balance between team play and individual prowess help teams more than players who, be it due to skill-set or merely approach, focus on individual performance uber alles. (Of course, the makeup of one's teammates matters.)

In the seasons he averaged 50 and 44 PPG, he had the highest true shooting % on his team as well. How can that possibly be hurting the team?

There is a paper out there by Brian Skinner called "The Price of Anarchy in Basketball" that explains how this is possibe: http://arxiv.org/pdf/0908.1801 based largely on Braess's Paradox. Here's an intersting blog post which might be easier to scan: http://gravityandlevity.wordpress.com/2 ... ng-theory/

The idea seems counterintuitive but upon digestions is fairly simple. Doctor MJ provides a real world example: Wilt Chamberlain in 1966 vs 1967.

Chamberlain can score at an efficiency much higher than his team's average. He does this by holding the ball, twisting and turning and essentially going one-on-one with the intention to score (Skinner may call this one "path" to scoring the ball). He does that, in 1966, at 54.7 TS%.

But every time he does this and passes, or every time he's not involved in a play, his teammates score at a certain rate. Let's call that 47.1% (the 1966 figure for his Philadelphia teammates).

So on the surface, one might ask, why doesn't Chamberlain shoot more? Perhaps he should shoot every time and his teams TS% would gravitate toward 54.7%? I hope it's intuitively obvious why that's not a good idea and why we've never seen something like that work at basketball levels above Lisa Leslie's high school games.

And similarly, it's possible for Chamberlain to actually shoot less and have his team's overall efficiency go up. If, instead, he looks to pass the ball more and aid his teammates in scoring (or even be used as a distraction off the ball), he can shoot a lot less -- even shooting at the same or lower (!) efficiency -- and his teammates can be more efficient, leading to an overall increase in team efficiency.

Look at what happened in 1967: Wilt, the team's leading shot-taker and leader in efficiency, shot the ball FOURTEEN fewer times per 36 minutes. His teammates scored at 50.7% efficiency. Wilt's TS% went up as well.

But, even if Chamberlain's TS% had remained the same, the overall team TS% would have gone from 49.0% to 51.4%! (As it were, the team's TS% increased to 52.8% because Chamberlain's TS% also increased.)

The 66 and 67 Phily team's had little team turnover and the same core group of players one through six. And despite Chamberlain's individual scoring attempts being reduced by more than half, even as the most efficient scorer, the different approach helped the team overall offense increase drastically.

On a more subtle level, I think that highlights some of the differences between Walton and Jabbar offensively. Although, in Jabbar's defense, his teammates weren't very good in 77 and 78, so it's possible LA/Jabbar's approach was closer to optimal anyway.

Walton and Jabbar clearly have different offensive skill-sets. It's possible that Walton's defense/outlet passing does just help the Blazers that much when he's on the court. But it's also possible, that despite his lower TS% and fewer post moves, he was playing at a more "optimal" approach offensively; he had a perfect balance of when to shoot, when to cut, when and where to screen, where to pass, spacing, angles and boxing out. And of course, he was a ridiculous half-court passer and "coached" on the floor.

Obviously, in a one-on-one game, we'd all take Kareem. When he puts his pivot foot down and goes to work, he can spin, hit the jumper over his left shoulder, finger roll, drop step, and of course...dribble...dribble...swing...Sky Hook.

But Walton's bringing something very different to the table, and I'm not sure it isn't better at the end of the day. Or at least, better if we include his defense.

I assume we'll revisit this with Wilt v Russell but I thought it was worth injecting here.

[TMACFORMVP]

1. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
2. Bill Walton
3. Julius Erving (want to put him higher, but not sure)
4. Elvin Hayes
5. Bob Lanier

[Doctor MJ]

Walton and Jabbar clearly have different offensive skill-sets. It's possible that Walton's defense/outlet passing does just help the Blazers that much when he's on the court. But it's also possible, that despite his lower TS% and fewer post moves, he was playing at a more "optimal" approach offensively; he had a perfect balance of when to shoot, when to cut, when and where to screen, where to pass, spacing, angles and boxing out. And of course, he was a ridiculous half-court passer and "coached" on the floor.

Obviously, in a one-on-one game, we'd all take Kareem. When he puts his pivot foot down and goes to work, he can spin, hit the jumper over his left shoulder, finger roll, drop step, and of course...dribble...dribble...swing...Sky Hook.

But Walton's bringing something very different to the table, and I'm not sure it isn't better at the end of the day. Or at least, better if we include his defense.

I assume we'll revisit this with Wilt v Russell but I thought it was worth injecting here.

This is a crucial point for me. I've talked before about the identical twin scenario - I don't want to mistakenly conclude one identical twin is better than the other because of his situation. If Walton is giving more lift to his team than Kareem, but Kareem has all Walton's skills and then some, then Kareem's my clear choice.

It's awful hard for me to watch the two of them though and just think Walton's an inferior version of Kareem though. I can't claim certainty that indeed Kareem wouldn't have done as well in Portland, but it does seem clear that Portland's using a strategy that really benefits from Walton's crisp passing mentality and overall all-over-the-placeness of him (I've never seen a big man throw himself around like Walton did - no wonder he got hurt) when he doesn't have the ball, and that it's not clear how they'd make use of a volume scoring big man.

As it stands, Walton's going to be my #1 this year. Giving it until tomorrow to rattle around in my brain though.

[Dr Positivity]

Wow I highly recommend everyone reads those "Price of Anarchy" and "Braess's Paradox" articles. It really makes sense of some stuff like Barry and Wilkins anchoring league best offenses while super efficient Dantley leads crap offenses

[Dr Positivity]

The discussion here is also excellent: http://sonicscentral.com/apbrmetrics/vi ... 7313#27313

[Dr Positivity]

Wow, John Hollinger and Dean Oliver are members of that apbrmetrics site. I'm pretty sure someone said most of the guys on there are professionals. That site is now going to be one of my boos.

[Doctor MJ]

Wow, John Hollinger and Dean Oliver are members of that apbrmetrics site. I'm pretty sure someone said most of the guys on there are professionals. That site is now going to be one of my boos.

It's the premier stat discussion board. A lot of respected statisticians, smart analytical thinkers, and Dave Berri have been known to post there.

[NO-KG-AI]

Wow, John Hollinger and Dean Oliver are members of that apbrmetrics site. I'm pretty sure someone said most of the guys on there are professionals. That site is now going to be one of my boos.

It's the premier stat discussion board. A lot of respected statisticians, smart analytical thinkers, and Dave Berri have been known to post there.

LOL, I see what you did there.

[lorak]

1. KAJ
2. Walton
3. Dr J
4. Lanier
5. Bobby Jones: 2.3 SPG, 2.0 BPG, 8.3 RPG, 3.2 APG, 15.1 PPG o .570 FG% shooting and he was the best Nuggets player (and Denver had 2nd record in the NBA)

[ItsMillerTime]

1. Bill Walton - Bill at his prime, winning the Finals MVP and finishing 2nd in the MVP race
2. KAJ- Another monster year
3. Dr. J - Led the 76ers to the finals and posted 21,8, and 4 a game
4. David Thompson - The offensive force on the 50 win Nuggets
5. Bob Lanier- The driving force of the Pistons. Almost put Hayes here, but looking back that Bullets team was stacked and should have done more with that much talent

HM: Hayes, Maravich, Jo Jo White

[ElGee]

Inspired by fatal, Bill Walton's game logs. Not that statistics really represent Walton well, but here are his playoff games:

Pts/Reb/Ast FGs (FTs)

vs. Bulls
G1: 11/9/6. 4-9 (3-3) -- 3 steals in 39 minutes. Foul trouble began 4 minutes in. Replacement refs were used during these games until the strike was resolved a week or two later. Some people had complaints
G2: 24/17/?
G3: 17/11/4. 8-14 (1-4) -- 1 TO. Fouled out. (Blazers held on after big lead evaporated in final minutes)

Series avg: 17.3 ppg 12.3 rpg

vs. Nuggets
G1: 22/12/6. 9-18 (4-6)
G2: 19/16/10. 7-13 (5-6) -- Fouled out with 8 minutes left. Played 35 min. had 6 first quarter assists.
G3: 26/13/5. 12-21 (2-2) -- 2 steals. Defense described as "outstanding"
G4: 11/11/4. 5-15 (1-2)
G5: 15/?/?. -- Fouled out again.
G6: ? Quick math says he scored 22 points and in these 2 games averaged 13.0 rpg.

Series avg: 19.2 ppg 13.0 rpg

vs. Lakers
G1: 22/13/6.
G2: 14/17/2. -- According to SI, got Kareem in foul trouble which changed game.
G3: 22/15/9. 11-20 -- Walton hit 7 straight shots in the 3rd quarter to take over the game.
G4: 19/14/6.

Series avg: 19.3 ppg 14.8 rpg 5.8 apg 2.3 bpg 50% FG

Ramsey, not exactly impartial, said it was the best anyone had played against Jabbar and he would take Walton to start any team. Interestingly, John Wooden also said something similar.

*Walton totalled 15 assists in the 3 games missing ast numbers.

vs. Sixers (from chez)
G1: 28/20/3. 11-17 (6-7) -- 2 blocks and 2 steals.
G2: 17/16/2. 8-20 (1-2) -- 2 blocks and 1 steal.
G3: 20/18/9. 9-15 (2-3) -- 4 blocks and 2 steals.
G4: 12/13/7. 6-10 (0-0) -- Epic blowout. Walton only played 26 minutes. 4 blocks and 1 steal.
G5: 14/24/3. 6-11 (2-2) -- 2 blocks.
G6: 20/23/7. 8-15 (4-5) -- 8 blocks.

Finals Avg: 18.7 ppg 19.0 rpg 5.2 apg 3.7 bpg 1.0 spg .579 TS%

[Sedale Threatt]

Tim Duncanesque Game 6.