Retro POY 1956-57 (Voting Complete)

[ThaRegul8r]

Other possibility is that Heinsohn's bad defensive rep is false since he was there the whole year in 57 whereas Russell only played half. But the reps for this era seem to be borne out by stats so far.

When I post recap of the Finals, the Celtics were actually PO'ed and there was some internal dissension going into Game 7, because Heinsohn failed to box out Cliff Hagan in Game 6, and as a result Hagan tipped in a miss by Bob Pettit for the game-winner, which tied the series at 3-3 and sent it to a seventh and deciding game.

[Doctor MJ]

That's the diffference between Russell for half a season and no Russell at all? wow (Russell in his first year may have had a bigger impact when he played as teams hadn't learned to adjust)

I'm very cautious in drawing that conclusion. Russell played 48 games this year. If we assume Russell missed the first 24 (which has to be not too far off the mark), that means they went 16-8 without him, good for a winning percentage better than any team in the league this year INCLUDING the Celtics. Undoubtedly this is a large factor in why Bob Cousy won the MVP this year.

Personally I think that this year provides fodder for those that say Russell had one hell of a team behind him. I think it's clear that later on Russell's impact was GOAT level, but this year I don't quite buy it.

Of course, with all this there's the question: The team did fine before Russell showed up, yet we see a major defensive turnaround generally - did Auerbach begin changing his strategy before Russell actually started playing?

[lorak]

Of course, with all this there's the question: The team did fine before Russell showed up, yet we see a major defensive turnaround generally - did Auerbach begin changing his strategy before Russell actually started playing?

We could check it by looking at points scored and allowed in games with and without Russell:

1957
first 24 games
offense 105.2 pts
defense 100.6 pts

48 games with Russell
offense 105.7 pts
defense 100.0 pts

1956

offense 106.0 pts
defense 105.3 pts

So clearly something happened on defensive end before Russell arrived, because difference between Celtics defense in 1956 and first 24 games in 1957 is big. And of course not much changed in 1957 when Russell started playing.

[penbeast0]

okay, now that cuts against Russell's impact in 57. Still, 24 games is a small sample and teams missing a star often pull together until that star can play -- not sure why but it anecdotally I've seen it a lot. What happened in the other Cousy/Sharman/Macauley years -- 53-55?

Of course it could be that Macauley is actually Eddie Curry caliber bad so whoever they plugged in after him was an improvement -- though he did make the HOF

[ronnymac2]

Final Rankings:

Bob Pettit
Bill Russell
Dolph Schayes
Bob Cousy
Neil Johnston


Russell is only in second because he missed a nice chunk of games and was rookie, plus Bob was fantastic.

Russell's season may be the most game-changing and valuable in NBA history though. Imagine a sport like basketball, except you can't block the other guy when he's shooting. Play it ten years. Then have one guy, who is probably the most athletic dude in the league, start blocking the **** out of people. Nobody will know how to react to that. Their responses will be chaotic, confused, and inefficient. Russell was pretty damn awesome. Value exceeds how good he actually was as a player (still an amazing player obviously), but still.....gotta give him credit.


Johnston is massively efficient and has great numbers. Cousy won a title and an MVP and was a great player. Schayes was great. Pettit was dominant.

[shawngoat23]

1. Bob Pettit
2. Bill Russell
3. Neil Johnston
4. Bob Cousy
5. Dolph Schayes
HM: Paul Arizin

Bill Russell is probably the best player even as a rookie, but I gave it to Pettit because Russell missed 24 games. I didn't dock him as much as I normally would a player who misses 1/3 of the season because he had a legitimate reason to miss games and he was there at the end of the season to help his team begin their dynasty.

But that being said, the stats on how the Celtics didn't improve that much in the last 48 games with Russell made me hesitate on voting Russell #1. Usually, the estimated +/- measurements have provided an overwhelming statistical basis (even if the estimates are crude) to complement Russell's intangibles, but it isn't as strong this year. Moreover, he isn't as dominant on the boards or as important in the offense this year as he would later become, so I'm giving the nod to Pettit at #1 here, recognizing him as being a comparable player to Russell--perhaps slightly worse--but one who was there the entire season.

I kind of picked the other names out of the hat, based on statistics and team performance. I was tempted to leave Cousy at #6, but I'm deferring somewhat to contemporary opinion, with the understanding that the stylistic differences some 50-60 years ago may not be suited for modern analysis. I'm not at all confident about my votes here, and it is indeed somewhat of a crapshoot, but it's the best I could do.

[lorak]

1. Russell
2. Cousy
3. Pettit
4. Stokes
5. Schayes

[TrueLAfan]

Sorry I'm late ... busy weekend.

1. Pettit
2. Russell
3. Johnston
4. Schayes
5. Arizin

[drza]

Not much time today. The first blush realization that the Celtics had such a huge defense change between 56 and 57 seemed to suggest Russell came in with huge impact. But the pre/post Russell splits from this year didn't really change at all and in this case it wasn't just a few games (like in '58).

On the other hand, Pettit clearly demonstrated that he was carrying his team through both the season and postseason. Still not sure I believe he was ever better than Russell, but for this year he gets the vote.

1. Pettit
2. Russell
3. Schayes (gotten more love from me in this project than I ever would have expected)
4. Johnston
5. Stokes (kind of a flyer vote, but the 2nd in rebs/3rd in assists/leader in DWS was a strong combo)

[Optimism Prime]

1. Bob Pettit
2. Bill Russell
3. Dolph Schayes
4. Bob Cousy
5. Neil Johnston

[semi-sentient]

1. Bob Pettit
2. Dolph Schayes
3. Bill Russell
4. Neil Johnston
5. Bob Cousy

Edit: I think I underrated Schayes and gave Russell a little too much credit, so I'm updating my rankings.

[bastillon]

Not much time today. The first blush realization that the Celtics had such a huge defense change between 56 and 57 seemed to suggest Russell came in with huge impact. But the pre/post Russell splits from this year didn't really change at all and in this case it wasn't just a few games (like in '58).

On the other hand, Pettit clearly demonstrated that he was carrying his team through both the season and postseason. Still not sure I believe he was ever better than Russell, but for this year he gets the vote.

1. Pettit
2. Russell
3. Schayes (gotten more love from me in this project than I ever would have expected)
4. Johnston
5. Stokes (kind of a flyer vote, but the 2nd in rebs/3rd in assists/leader in DWS was a strong combo)

I agree with this list. that's how I'm voting too.

[bastillon]

1. Russell
2. Cousy
3. Pettit
4. Stokes
5. Schayes

why Cousy #2 ? Boston was sub-par on offense in both regular season (17 OWS 32 DWS) and the playoffs (2 OWS, 5.8 DWS) so they won with their defense. also, while Cousy was averaging a lot of assists, his scoring wasn't particularly helping his team given awful efficiency, which took on a further hit in the playoffs. (40.9 TS%!) Heinsohn and Sharman were 2 best Celtics in the playoffs from an offensive standpoint.

and Cousy has a lousy defensive rep...

you could argue he's not in the top10 offensive players in the league.

[Sedale Threatt]

1. Pettit
2. Russell
3. Johnston
4. Schayes
5. Cousy

[lorak]

and Cousy has a lousy defensive rep...

I don't believe in things like rep.
I saw some games with him, he was quick enough to have a lot of steals, he also was good rebounder for a guard so for sure he had some value on defense. IMO bigger than his rep suggest. Don't forget that Celtics that year had as good defense without Russell, with Cousy as their leader (he played the most minutes) as later when Russell joined. And he's my #2 because he's MVP and second best player on championship team.

BTW, no other Celtics played more minutes in playoffs than Cousy. I guess Auerbach was stupid coach or he know more than +50 years later we could see from very limited data we have. Second option seems much more reasonable.

[Doctor MJ]

My vote:

1. Pettit
2. Dolph
3. Russell
4. Cousy
5. Arizin

Pettit's the obvious #1. I put Dolph as well ahead of Russell. From what I see, Boston had a good chance at the title even without Russell, and come playoff time, he still wasn't playing nearly as much as Cousy. I'd still take Russell over Cousy for this year though - saying led the team to the title seems a bit much.

I'll give the 5 spot to Arizin. A bit surprised to see so much love for Johnston win Arizin was the one who got all the MVP love. Y'all might not be aware, but Johnston's got about the most glaring track record for racking up stats on terrible teams of anyone in history. The team's success really seemed to correlate much more with Arizin.

[Doctor MJ]

Guys, I'll tally the votes later tonight.

[Dr Positivity]

1. Pettit
2. Schayes
3. Russell
4. Johnston
5. Sharman

I'm pretty vicious towards players who miss so many games. With most teams Russ' injury leads to a missed playoffs and he gets punished like 75 Kareem. It just so happens the rest of the Celtics were really good anyways, though.

I'll admit to borrowing from other years to rank Schayes and Arizin over Johnston. They have a better history of clear positive impact. As Dr. MJ mentioned, when Johnston had to carry Philly without Arizin the team sucked going 12-57 and 29-43 in Arizin's military years. Arizin/Johnston combo together was mediocore to decent despite looking like they should dominate offensively. And when Johnston fell off in 59 they didn't get much worse.

edit - Took Arizin off for apparant PS injury

[penbeast0]

Did you look at Arizin and Johnston's postseason numbers? That may explain it.

[Dr Positivity]

I'm assuming he was injured... and yeah that alters my list