Retro POY 1961-62 (Voting Complete)

[YvesSmith1]

Based on the fact that it was generally a given that the Celtics were the better team and that everyone gave Chamberlain the credit for having given them a chance to win the series, I have a hard time personally giving Russell credit for outplaying Wilt, but no doubt Russell also played well. If you want to bring in the intimidation factor then no doubt Wilt had a huge impact in this series.

EDIT: Wow, look at the free throws made and attempted by both teams. No doubt every single basket counted....Philly was 39-44 while Boston was 27-30

EDIT Again: I didn't know this but Chamberlain's 56 game performance against the Syracuse nationals came in the final game, game 5, of the series, when during the series he was only averaging like 40 ppg or something. Yet another performance where he delivered in the clutch, so to speak.

[bastillon]

how you doing DarkJaws ? good to see you back.

http://www.basketball-reference.com/blog/?p=1423 - this is about 62 pace inflating individual stats.

what I don't understand is why Wilt's teammates are so easily dismissed. Arizin was a perennial all-NBA player, Gola was a multiple all-star and Meschery was above average starter, too, who once happened to be selected to ASG as well. Guy Rodgers was obviously one of the best distributors in the game but (Please Use More Appropriate Word) as a scorer. still made couple of all-star teams. Attles was a decent bench player. not much depth beyond that.

but anyway that's 4 past/present/future all-stars (Arizin, Gola, Meschery, Rodgers) and 2 past/present/future all-NBA players... and we're talking about minor timing differences. Rodgers and Meschery were 63 all-stars, Arizin was 56-62 all-star and Gola was 60-64 all-star. it's not like they were playing far from that level in 62.

they were 2.63 with Wilt doing 50/25 ? that must've been the biggest stat-padding in history. Wilt's teammates were very good and shouldn't be so easily dismissed.

[YvesSmith1]

http://www.basketball-reference.com/blog/?p=1423 - this is about 62 pace inflating individual stats.

This is a horrible article...I've read it before. There is absolutely no way you can properly extrapolate via pace adjustment. To say that Lebron would average XX XX XX when he is ball dominant and plays via a half court offense(of his own choosing) it is very, very difficult to extrapolate that to the past. His style would have to be completely different, and it's not possible to know how he would personally do in that type of environment. It's slightly more easier to say what a player from the past would average now(like Chamberlain, who played a half court offense half the time anyway) than vice versa.

[Doctor MJ]

I think the more precise way to put it is that until you adjust for pace, you're crediting/blaming players for something irrelevant to performance. Basketball is a possession-game like baseball is an inning-game. You don't win games by adding possessions, you win them by doing more per possession.

Whether LeBron could get a triple double average in '62, and whether Oscar/Wilt would see much higher efficiency in today's game, are questions that go beyond just pace. As our questions of whether competition was more difficult in particular eras. But there is no question that a statement like "until X scores 50 PPG like Wilt he can't possibly be considered a better scorer" is a silly statement.

[YvesSmith1]

they were 2.63 with Wilt doing 50/25 ? that must've been the biggest stat-padding in history. Wilt's teammates were very good and shouldn't be so easily dismissed.

Ooh missed this. I believe MJ's Usage % was higher in 1987 than Wilt's 1962 season.

[lorak]

http://www.basketball-reference.com/blog/?p=1423 - this is about 62 pace inflating individual stats.

Irrelevant here, because we are comparing players from 1962 to each other, not to players from different seasons. And in 1962 Wilt was better than everyone else in 1962.

[Sedale Threatt]

what I don't understand is why Wilt's teammates are so easily dismissed.

You've pretty much done the same thing to Russell's teammates through the entirety of this project.

[colts18]

I don't get the double standard for Wilt. parts of this thread talk about the dominant Celtics regular season and give credit to Russell. Yet they don't give credit to Wilt/Downgrade Russell because Wilt's team was able to extend the series to 7 games and a close 7th game.

[bastillon]

they were 2.63 with Wilt doing 50/25 ? that must've been the biggest stat-padding in history. Wilt's teammates were very good and shouldn't be so easily dismissed.

Ooh missed this. I believe MJ's Usage % was higher in 1987 than Wilt's 1962 season.

irrelevant, I'm not complaining about Wilt being ball dominant, I'm talking about his team underperforming. he had 4 borderline all-stars on his team and they should've played better as a team.

MJ doesn't have anything to do with this, but I was refering to Wilt's stat-padding I'd point out to Philly's offense being slightly above league average and miles behind Royals, for instance. the same trend can be observed throughout Wilt's entire career as his teams were hardly exceptional offensively, which strongly argues with the notion that he was all-time offensive anchor. if he was, it sure didn't show up in team results. I can recall only 67 team being epic offensively. no other stood out.

http://www.basketball-reference.com/blog/?p=1423 - this is about 62 pace inflating individual stats.

Irrelevant here, because we are comparing players from 1962 to each other, not to players from different seasons. And in 1962 Wilt was better than everyone else in 1962.

it wasn't directed against Chamberlain - I was trying to explain crazy ass numbers, which made some posters confused earlier in this thread.

what I don't understand is why Wilt's teammates are so easily dismissed.

You've pretty much done the same thing to Russell's teammates through the entirety of this project.

do you wanna add something valuable ? I have no problem with you attacking me - I'm accustomed to "competitive" debates - just write about something important to the project... in this case, what's your problem with the opinion you quoted ?

I'm only interested in discussions...

[bastillon]

I don't get the double standard for Wilt. parts of this thread talk about the dominant Celtics regular season and give credit to Russell. Yet they don't give credit to Wilt/Downgrade Russell because Wilt's team was able to extend the series to 7 games and a close 7th game.

how do you know WILT was able to extend the series to 7 games ? his impact pretty clearly wasn't all-time great in the RS and he was hardly dominant against the Celtics (considering he was stat-padding in 3 blowouts) in the playoffs.

[bastillon]

I didn't think about it earlier, but once upon a time I was adding up individual DWS. you can actually check how many games team won with its defense.

for example 63 Celtics had 46.8 combined DWS meaning they won 47 games with their defense.

more meaningful for this thread: 62 Celtics 45.8 DWS. 62 Warriors 22.2. that means Russell was "quite" a bit more valuable as a defender. honestly given that Philly wasn't even great offensively, I don't know how you can justify ranking Wilt near Russell in the RS.

now playoffs is a different tale, which would have to be re-analysed anyway... but in the RS Russell was far more dominant with his vastly superior defense.

[ThaRegul8r]

I didn't think about it earlier, but once upon a time I was adding up individual DWS. you can actually check how many games team won with its defense.

for example 63 Celtics had 46.8 combined DWS meaning they won 47 games with their defense.

How about the '64 Celtics? 55.7 combined DWS (they won 59 games that year, so 95% of the games they won were won with D) in the regular season and 6.9 combined DWS in the postseason.

[YvesSmith1]

I didn't think about it earlier, but once upon a time I was adding up individual DWS. you can actually check how many games team won with its defense.

for example 63 Celtics had 46.8 combined DWS meaning they won 47 games with their defense.

more meaningful for this thread: 62 Celtics 45.8 DWS. 62 Warriors 22.2. that means Russell was "quite" a bit more valuable as a defender. honestly given that Philly wasn't even great offensively, I don't know how you can justify ranking Wilt near Russell in the RS.

now playoffs is a different tale, which would have to be re-analysed anyway... but in the RS Russell was far more dominant with his vastly superior defense.

If you imply this literally that means Chamberlain's offense was more effective than his defense....but that isn't to say that his defense was bad. Russell is very impressive for his defensive prowess, but how much of that can be attributed to the fact that he had less usage % and thus was able to go back on defense asap, whereas Chamberlain had to shoot the ball, grab rebounds, and was thus the last person down the court on defense at times? This is simply a conflict of styles and nothing more. Stating that one had a better defense than the other or better offense than the other is irrelevent...the question is what they COULD do and DID do. Wilt could do what Russell was doing at any time(which also meant sacrificing some of the scoring in a fast paced league), and he did this in the 1962 conf finals...and lost thanks to bad officiating. Russell could never do what Wilt could do except for his shot blocking and rebounding, but he wasn't required to either. Look to game 7 and look at how the scoring is evenly distributed amongst 8-9 players while for the Warriors it was among 6 players.

[YvesSmith1]

I didn't think about it earlier, but once upon a time I was adding up individual DWS. you can actually check how many games team won with its defense.

for example 63 Celtics had 46.8 combined DWS meaning they won 47 games with their defense.

How about the '64 Celtics? 55.7 combined DWS (they won 59 games that year, so 95% of the games they won were won with D) in the regular season and 6.9 combined DWS in the postseason.

Very impressive.

[YvesSmith1]

they were 2.63 with Wilt doing 50/25 ? that must've been the biggest stat-padding in history. Wilt's teammates were very good and shouldn't be so easily dismissed.

Ooh missed this. I believe MJ's Usage % was higher in 1987 than Wilt's 1962 season.

irrelevant, I'm not complaining about Wilt being ball dominant, I'm talking about his team underperforming. he had 4 borderline all-stars on his team and they should've played better as a team.

MJ doesn't have anything to do with this, but I was refering to Wilt's stat-padding I'd point out to Philly's offense being slightly above league average and miles behind Royals, for instance. the same trend can be observed throughout Wilt's entire career as his teams were hardly exceptional offensively, which strongly argues with the notion that he was all-time offensive anchor. if he was, it sure didn't show up in team results. I can recall only 67 team being epic offensively. no other stood out.

They didn't underperform, they took the best team in the league to game 7 and lost to bad officiating. Furthermore, it's well documented that Frank McGuire personally asked Wilt to score as much as he can. The scary thing is that Wilt purposely held his scoring back for a few games because he was afraid he was scoring too much, so his 50 ppg average would have been even higher....so if your intent is to blame Wilt for his huge numbers look no further than the coach.

I have a hard time believing that his teammates were all that great offensively...the reason they were close to the Celtics in game 7 was because of Chamberlain's defense, not his team's offense(though it helped that they didn't suck for once except for Guy Rogers)


Plus it's impossible...even if Jordan were in the league at the time...to be an "offensive anchor" in a high paced, high scoring league. It's much easier in fact to look great on the defensive end especially if your role on offense is limited.

[Sedale Threatt]

do you wanna add something valuable ? I have no problem with you attacking me - I'm accustomed to "competitive" debates - just write about something important to the project... in this case, what's your problem with the opinion you quoted ?

I'm only interested in discussions...

What, you mean like Tom Meschery being a rookie who scored 12 ppg on 40% shooting during the RS? Or Paul Arizin still producing at a very high level but being in the last season of his career? Or Guy Rogers being competent at basically one facet of the game? Or Tom Gola chipping in with a whopping 35 TS% in the playoffs? Or the bench absolutely sucking outside of Al Attles?

Outside of Arizin and a huge bump in postseason production from Meschery -- which he never came close to repeating again -- what about this lineup stands out? Especially compared to the Celtics, who you have repeatedly portrayed as a couple of great players and a bunch of others who basically rode Russell's coattails?

[Sedale Threatt]

Really important question: If Philly really did change their strategy with Wilt for game 7, why? A series as an underdog where they've managed to win half the games, and just came off of a win. Would seem crazy to make any big change for that last game.

All I have to go on here is a three- or four-graph passage in one book, which obviously isn't much. So I have no idea if this substantial change really did take place or if it was just coach-speak. (Which is very possible.) But the book seems to indicate that putting Wilt up top was done at the start of the series, not Game 7. I have no idea if this is enough to absolve the dip in scoring or not, or if it even happened. But there it is.

[Warspite]

how you doing DarkJaws ? good to see you back.

http://www.basketball-reference.com/blog/?p=1423 - this is about 62 pace inflating individual stats.

what I don't understand is why Wilt's teammates are so easily dismissed. Arizin was a perennial all-NBA player, Gola was a multiple all-star and Meschery was above average starter, too, who once happened to be selected to ASG as well. Guy Rodgers was obviously one of the best distributors in the game but (Please Use More Appropriate Word) as a scorer. still made couple of all-star teams. Attles was a decent bench player. not much depth beyond that.

but anyway that's 4 past/present/future all-stars (Arizin, Gola, Meschery, Rodgers) and 2 past/present/future all-NBA players... and we're talking about minor timing differences. Rodgers and Meschery were 63 all-stars, Arizin was 56-62 all-star and Gola was 60-64 all-star. it's not like they were playing far from that level in 62.

they were 2.63 with Wilt doing 50/25 ? that must've been the biggest stat-padding in history. Wilt's teammates were very good and shouldn't be so easily dismissed.

In a 8 team league the 4th best player at each position is an avg player however the top 4 players at each position (and sometimes 5) are allstars. Its a pure numbers games when you consider there are 40 NBA starters and 20 allstars (allstar teams had 10 man rosters at the time)

Arizin was a great player but he was as far away from his prime as Shaq is today. Hes 5 yrs removed from leading the NBA in scoring and this is his last season. When you consider the dramatic change in the sport from 1056-1962 is Arizin realy better than a Jones or Hondo? Even though Arizins reputation as an alltime great scorer is without question along with the invention of the fade-away jumpshot.

[Doctor MJ]

I don't get the double standard for Wilt. parts of this thread talk about the dominant Celtics regular season and give credit to Russell. Yet they don't give credit to Wilt/Downgrade Russell because Wilt's team was able to extend the series to 7 games and a close 7th game.

Eh. Well it has been talked about. Different people weight these things differently. I personally don't like putting a ton of stock in almost winning a playoff series, doesn't mean I'm totally ignoring Philly doing putting up a good fight.

[Doctor MJ]

Arizin was a great player but he was as far away from his prime as Shaq is today. Hes 5 yrs removed from leading the NBA in scoring and this is his last season. When you consider the dramatic change in the sport from 1056-1962 is Arizin realy better than a Jones or Hondo? Even though Arizins reputation as an alltime great scorer is without question along with the invention of the fade-away jumpshot.

Well, there is the matter that the '62 Warriors were so so much better than the '63 Warriors. It's hard to look at that and not think the '62 supporting cast was pretty impactful.