RealGM 2017 Top 100 List: #45 (Dolph Schayes)

[THKNKG]

Did you see that I changed my secondary vote yesterday during the day to Schayes? Sorry, I didn't think to write in an edit.

I did not. Will add your name to the runoff totals:

Dolph Schayes - 5 (micahclay, trex_8063, eminence, scabbarista, pandrade83)
Bob Cousy - 2 (euroleague, Pablo Novi)
Willis Reed - 2 (Clyde Frazier, dhsilv2)


For the sake of discussion (though technically not required if he was your 2ndary vote), would you care to briefly elaborate on why you take him over Cousy or Reed?


btw, to anyone else reading this: if you do change your vote in the course of the thread, I would like you to both edit the original post that contains your vote, BUT ALSO give me a heads up as you do so. I don't save all the vote tallying until the end/deadline.......I'm counting them as we go and have spreadsheets to tabulate them (to save time when the deadline comes, as I'm often doing it at work or in a situation where I can't take a lot of time), and I generally DO NOT go back over posts that I've already counted. So if you go back and change something without giving me a heads-up, I can miss it.

Sure, glad to do so. Again, sorry about that; the one time I forget is the one time it's actually relevant lol.

Accolades:
Cousy - 13x AS, 12x All-NBA, 1x MVP, 6x Champion
Schayes - 12x AS, 12X All-NBA, 1x Champion
Reed - 7x AS, 5x All-NBA, 1x MVP, 2x Champion, 2x FMVP, 1x All-Defensive

I don't care about accolades at all, but I posted these for the purpose of dispelling the idea that Cousy has a clear accolades advantage. I don't feel he does, especially since those championships were primarily due to Russell.

Stats - Regular Season (Playoff change from RS - Minus = decline, Plus = improvement):
Cousy - 924 GP / .446 TS% (-.02) / .803 FT% (-.002) / .350 FTR (+.046) / 18.4 PPG (+.1) / 5.2 RPG (-.2) / 7.5 APG (+1.1) / .139 WS per 48 (-.03)
Reed - 650 GP / .523 TS% (-.012) / .747 FT% (+.018) / .323 FTR (-.086) / 18.7 PPG (-1.3) / 12.9 RPG (-2.6) / 1.8 APG (+0.2) / .156 WS per 48 (-.012)
Schayes - 996 GP / .488 TS% (+.015) / .849 FT% (-.024) / .512 FTR (+.066) / 18.5 PPG (+1.0) / 12.1 RPG (+.1) / 3.1 APG (-0.5) / .192 WS per 48 (-.003)

Reed was the most efficient, but even though Dolph is considered "low efficiency," his absurdly good free throw shooting boosted it a ton. Cousy was just inefficient. Schayes improved in all categories except a slight dip in APG (likely due to his increased scoring load) and a decline in FT%, but that is supplemented by his 7% increase in FTR in the playoffs. Dolph was known as a playoff performer, and Cousy as the opposite; both box score and advanced stats support this.

Playstyle/Impact:
Cousy was a point guard who shot far more than he should have, and his efforts never translated into results. He didn't change with the rapidly improving league, and thus that leads me to believe that it wasn't a sort of impact that would be sustained in any other era, since it wasn't sustained in his own. His team had meager results until Russell, and they won with Russell, not Cousy.

Meanwhile, Dolph consistently performed well in the playoffs, and even was the figurehead in some deep playoff runs (including a championship). In terms of impact and playstyle, he was a stretch 4 who shot free throws at a rate similar to Wilt, and higher than Lebron/Wade/MJ, and he did it while shooting free throws as well as PGs typically do. All in all, I don't particularly question his impact, or his ability to translate across eras.

His longevity relative to his era was stellar too. He had 10 years in the top 5 in total rebounds/RPG (11 in the top 10), 11 years in the top 7 in total points/PPG, and 10 seasons where he finished higher than 3rd in FT%. His peak season by WS/48 is significantly higher than Reed's (though my point is not to argue peaks), and he played at a level near that for much longer than Reed did; his peak season absolutely destroys Cousy's by that metric, and Dolph has 7 seasons higher than Cousy's highest by that metric as well.

Finally, his teams consistently at minimum met expectations, and often surpassed them.

1950 - 51-13, lost in finals in 6
1951 - 32-34, lost in ECF in 5
1952 - 40-26, lost in ECF in 4
1953 - 47-24, lost in ECSF in 2 (https://www.si.com/vault/1979/03/05/823430/yesterday-no-playoff-game-was-ever-as-fouled-up-as-syracuse-vs-boston-in-1953)
1954 - 42-30, lost in finals in 7 (Dolph played most of the time with a broken wrist - http://www.nba.com/history/finals/19531954.html - also somehow was still leading scorer in game 7)
1955 - 43-29, championship
1956 - 35-37, lost in ECF in 5
1957 - 38-34, lost in ECF in 3
1958 - 41-31, lost in ECSF in 3
1959 - 35-37, lost in ECF in 7 (to Boston)
1960 - 45-30, lost in ECSF in 3
1961 - 38-41, lost in ECF in 5 (to Boston)
1962 - 41-39, lost in ECSF in 5

So, TL;DR - stretch 4 with really good longevity and insane FTR + FT%, consistently led his team to really solid results versus an inefficient high volume PG - Schayes pretty easily for me, and I'm with Eminence - after looking deeper into this, I think he should have been in much earlier.

[Pablo Novi]

Did you see that I changed my secondary vote yesterday during the day to Schayes? Sorry, I didn't think to write in an edit.

I did not. Will add your name to the runoff totals:

Dolph Schayes - 5 (micahclay, trex_8063, eminence, scabbarista, pandrade83)
Bob Cousy - 2 (euroleague, Pablo Novi)
Willis Reed - 2 (Clyde Frazier, dhsilv2)


For the sake of discussion (though technically not required if he was your 2ndary vote), would you care to briefly elaborate on why you take him over Cousy or Reed?


btw, to anyone else reading this: if you do change your vote in the course of the thread, I would like you to both edit the original post that contains your vote, BUT ALSO give me a heads up as you do so. I don't save all the vote tallying until the end/deadline.......I'm counting them as we go and have spreadsheets to tabulate them (to save time when the deadline comes, as I'm often doing it at work or in a situation where I can't take a lot of time), and I generally DO NOT go back over posts that I've already counted. So if you go back and change something without giving me a heads-up, I can miss it.

Sure, glad to do so. Again, sorry about that; the one time I forget is the one time it's actually relevant lol.

Accolades:
Cousy - 13x AS, 12x All-NBA, 1x MVP, 6x Champion
Schayes - 12x AS, 12X All-NBA, 1x Champion
Reed - 7x AS, 5x All-NBA, 1x MVP, 2x Champion, 2x FMVP, 1x All-Defensive

I don't care about accolades at all, but I posted these for the purpose of dispelling the idea that Cousy has a clear accolades advantage. I don't feel he does, especially since those championships were primarily due to Russell.

There's a significant problem with your "12x All-NBA" for both Cousy and Schayes.
Cousy had TEN 1st-Teams, Schayes had SIX. That's not an insignificant difference; I'd say that Cousy DID have "a clear accolades advantage."

[Pablo Novi]

Did you see that I changed my secondary vote yesterday during the day to Schayes? Sorry, I didn't think to write in an edit.

I did not. Will add your name to the runoff totals:

Dolph Schayes - 5 (micahclay, trex_8063, eminence, scabbarista, pandrade83)
Bob Cousy - 2 (euroleague, Pablo Novi)
Willis Reed - 2 (Clyde Frazier, dhsilv2)


For the sake of discussion (though technically not required if he was your 2ndary vote), would you care to briefly elaborate on why you take him over Cousy or Reed?


btw, to anyone else reading this: if you do change your vote in the course of the thread, I would like you to both edit the original post that contains your vote, BUT ALSO give me a heads up as you do so. I don't save all the vote tallying until the end/deadline.......I'm counting them as we go and have spreadsheets to tabulate them (to save time when the deadline comes, as I'm often doing it at work or in a situation where I can't take a lot of time), and I generally DO NOT go back over posts that I've already counted. So if you go back and change something without giving me a heads-up, I can miss it.

Sure, glad to do so. Again, sorry about that; the one time I forget is the one time it's actually relevant lol.

Accolades:
Cousy - 13x AS, 12x All-NBA, 1x MVP, 6x Champion
Schayes - 12x AS, 12X All-NBA, 1x Champion
Reed - 7x AS, 5x All-NBA, 1x MVP, 2x Champion, 2x FMVP, 1x All-Defensive

I don't care about accolades at all, but I posted these for the purpose of dispelling the idea that Cousy has a clear accolades advantage. I don't feel he does, especially since those championships were primarily due to Russell.

There's a significant problem with your "12x All-NBA" for both Cousy and Schayes.
Cousy had TEN 1st-Teams, Schayes had SIX.

ONLY TEN players have ever gotten 10 or more ALL-League 1st-Team selections (a super-select, tiny group over the last 80 years). Many more have gotten 6 1st-Team selections.

That's not an insignificant difference; I'd say that Cousy DID have "a clear accolades advantage."

[Dr Positivity]

Another accolades feather in Cousy's cap is he made the top 11 players of all time in 1980 (the other players being Mikan, Russell, Wilt, Pettit, Oscar, West, Baylor, Havlicek, Kareem, Erving) beating some players voted in already like Barry, Frazier and Gilmore

[janmagn]

Can you offer us just a little more wrt your thinking? For instance, where Cousy was the second best player (some would disagree with this, fwiw, and with good reason at least by '62 and after) on title teams, Schayes [his contemporary] was the best player on a title-winning team (and several other contender/near-contender teams). Cousy was a great playmaker; Schayes was a great scorer and rebounder, and had better longevity.

Not necessarily trying to get you to switch your pick, but rather trying to draw you out on how you would respond to these points (since two brief, and very general, statements is sort of walking the line of minimal required/allowable argumentation).

Schayes might have been the best player on a championship team, but Cousy was the second best player in a team that many, including me, consider the best team in the history of NBA. He wasn't a bad scorer either, and gets some 'legacy points' for showing that you don't have to be the biggest to be dominant

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So, does it not bother you that pre-Russell - when Schayes & Cousy were both in their primes, that Schayes beat Cousy 3/4 times in the playoffs, made 3 Finals & won a title, while Cousy never made one Final?

Well, I can't say anything right now, I'd have to look on their supporting casts

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[dhsilv2]

I did not. Will add your name to the runoff totals:

Dolph Schayes - 5 (micahclay, trex_8063, eminence, scabbarista, pandrade83)
Bob Cousy - 2 (euroleague, Pablo Novi)
Willis Reed - 2 (Clyde Frazier, dhsilv2)


For the sake of discussion (though technically not required if he was your 2ndary vote), would you care to briefly elaborate on why you take him over Cousy or Reed?


btw, to anyone else reading this: if you do change your vote in the course of the thread, I would like you to both edit the original post that contains your vote, BUT ALSO give me a heads up as you do so. I don't save all the vote tallying until the end/deadline.......I'm counting them as we go and have spreadsheets to tabulate them (to save time when the deadline comes, as I'm often doing it at work or in a situation where I can't take a lot of time), and I generally DO NOT go back over posts that I've already counted. So if you go back and change something without giving me a heads-up, I can miss it.

Sure, glad to do so. Again, sorry about that; the one time I forget is the one time it's actually relevant lol.

Accolades:
Cousy - 13x AS, 12x All-NBA, 1x MVP, 6x Champion
Schayes - 12x AS, 12X All-NBA, 1x Champion
Reed - 7x AS, 5x All-NBA, 1x MVP, 2x Champion, 2x FMVP, 1x All-Defensive

I don't care about accolades at all, but I posted these for the purpose of dispelling the idea that Cousy has a clear accolades advantage. I don't feel he does, especially since those championships were primarily due to Russell.

There's a significant problem with your "12x All-NBA" for both Cousy and Schayes.
Cousy had TEN 1st-Teams, Schayes had SIX.

ONLY TEN players have ever gotten 10 or more ALL-League 1st-Team selections (a super-select, tiny group over the last 80 years). Many more have gotten 6 1st-Team selections.

That's not an insignificant difference; I'd say that Cousy DID have "a clear accolades advantage."

The issue is that the league was big man dominate in those days and Cousy was getting those awards as a point guard. I get that you'll disagree but if you were to ask even at the time who the best players were you'd get a list with virtually no guards on it. Much like how from that era we have no once brought up a single guard for this discussion.

We also for both have to discount the all first teams a bit since 2 all nba first team guy were banned from the league after their second years.

[LA Bird]

Run off vote: Dolph Schayes

Cousy retired as the all time leader in assists. Schayes was the all time leader in points, rebounds and win shares all at one point. He surpassed George Mikan (who was voted in 20 places ago btw) in all three categories and stayed at #1 spot for a longer period. If we are giving out pioneer points to players in the 40s/50s, Schayes is not losing to Cousy unless flashy basketball plays are given greater precedence than actual achievements.

In terms of on-court basketball play, Schayes has the lead in the regular season almost every year which only grows in the playoffs. Funny to see that Cousy is remembered as the bigger winner when he didn't have much playoff success pre-Russell and it was Schayes who led his team to a title as the best player in the league. Cousy later won 6 titles after Bill Russell arrived but exactly how much credit does he get for those rings when Boston were consistently an awful offensive team and he was usually around 4th on the team in playoff WS or PER during their championship runs? Cousy was not a clear #2 to Russell as Pippen was to Jordan and arguments for Cousy should be less ring based and more focused on his years before 1957 when he was actually leading good offensive teams rather than just riding Russell's coattail to championships. On a more positive note, Cousy had great longevity especially for his era and I will be voting for him ahead of Reed if a runoff between the two were to occur in the next few rounds.

[Winsome Gerbil]

Cousy was not a clear #2 to Russell as Pippen was to Jordan and arguments for Cousy should be less ring based and more focused on his years before 1957 when he was actually leading good offensive teams rather than just riding Russell's coattail to championships.

No no -- I attempted that exact same argument re Paul Pierce vs. A.I. and we weren't having any of it. We don't get to change the rules player to player.

What really happened is that Cousy showed tremendous ability to be portable and function as the #2 on a (6x) championship team to a great interior defensive force, and THAT, not earlier head to head individual matchups as franchise guys or playoff success in the years before the championship runs, is how you should judge guys.

Or so I've been told.

Unless of course we are changing the rules again. In which case I'd like a heads up before I start to develop whiplash.

[THKNKG]

I did not. Will add your name to the runoff totals:

Dolph Schayes - 5 (micahclay, trex_8063, eminence, scabbarista, pandrade83)
Bob Cousy - 2 (euroleague, Pablo Novi)
Willis Reed - 2 (Clyde Frazier, dhsilv2)


For the sake of discussion (though technically not required if he was your 2ndary vote), would you care to briefly elaborate on why you take him over Cousy or Reed?


btw, to anyone else reading this: if you do change your vote in the course of the thread, I would like you to both edit the original post that contains your vote, BUT ALSO give me a heads up as you do so. I don't save all the vote tallying until the end/deadline.......I'm counting them as we go and have spreadsheets to tabulate them (to save time when the deadline comes, as I'm often doing it at work or in a situation where I can't take a lot of time), and I generally DO NOT go back over posts that I've already counted. So if you go back and change something without giving me a heads-up, I can miss it.

Sure, glad to do so. Again, sorry about that; the one time I forget is the one time it's actually relevant lol.

Accolades:
Cousy - 13x AS, 12x All-NBA, 1x MVP, 6x Champion
Schayes - 12x AS, 12X All-NBA, 1x Champion
Reed - 7x AS, 5x All-NBA, 1x MVP, 2x Champion, 2x FMVP, 1x All-Defensive

I don't care about accolades at all, but I posted these for the purpose of dispelling the idea that Cousy has a clear accolades advantage. I don't feel he does, especially since those championships were primarily due to Russell.

There's a significant problem with your "12x All-NBA" for both Cousy and Schayes.
Cousy had TEN 1st-Teams, Schayes had SIX.

ONLY TEN players have ever gotten 10 or more ALL-League 1st-Team selections (a super-select, tiny group over the last 80 years). Many more have gotten 6 1st-Team selections.

That's not an insignificant difference; I'd say that Cousy DID have "a clear accolades advantage."

That's differences in competition level. Schayes' competition for those spots were Johnston, Mikan, Arizin, Pettit, Yardley, Baylor, Hagan, Heinsohn, Russell. It's understandable that some years he got 1st and some he got 2nd. Who was Cousy's competition?

Plus, even if the gap was "sizable," there are all the other factors I mentioned pretty clearly in Schayes' favor.

[Winsome Gerbil]

Sure, glad to do so. Again, sorry about that; the one time I forget is the one time it's actually relevant lol.

Accolades:
Cousy - 13x AS, 12x All-NBA, 1x MVP, 6x Champion
Schayes - 12x AS, 12X All-NBA, 1x Champion
Reed - 7x AS, 5x All-NBA, 1x MVP, 2x Champion, 2x FMVP, 1x All-Defensive

I don't care about accolades at all, but I posted these for the purpose of dispelling the idea that Cousy has a clear accolades advantage. I don't feel he does, especially since those championships were primarily due to Russell.

There's a significant problem with your "12x All-NBA" for both Cousy and Schayes.
Cousy had TEN 1st-Teams, Schayes had SIX.

ONLY TEN players have ever gotten 10 or more ALL-League 1st-Team selections (a super-select, tiny group over the last 80 years). Many more have gotten 6 1st-Team selections.

That's not an insignificant difference; I'd say that Cousy DID have "a clear accolades advantage."

That's differences in competition level. Schayes' competition for those spots were Johnston, Mikan, Arizin, Pettit, Yardley, Baylor, Hagan, Heinsohn, Russell. It's understandable that some years he got 1st and some he got 2nd. Who was Cousy's competition?

Plus, even if the gap was "sizable," there are all the other factors I mentioned pretty clearly in Schayes' favor.

Doesn't "who was Cousy's competition?" again just underscore the revolutionary nature of Cousy's game? For the first 1/4 of the league's history he was THE guard in a league set up for feature big men. Every guard who follows owes Cousy a debt for being the trailblazer.

[THKNKG]

There's a significant problem with your "12x All-NBA" for both Cousy and Schayes.
Cousy had TEN 1st-Teams, Schayes had SIX.

ONLY TEN players have ever gotten 10 or more ALL-League 1st-Team selections (a super-select, tiny group over the last 80 years). Many more have gotten 6 1st-Team selections.

That's not an insignificant difference; I'd say that Cousy DID have "a clear accolades advantage."

That's differences in competition level. Schayes' competition for those spots were Johnston, Mikan, Arizin, Pettit, Yardley, Baylor, Hagan, Heinsohn, Russell. It's understandable that some years he got 1st and some he got 2nd. Who was Cousy's competition?

Plus, even if the gap was "sizable," there are all the other factors I mentioned pretty clearly in Schayes' favor.

Doesn't "who was Cousy's competition?" again just underscore the revolutionary nature of Cousy's game? For the first 1/4 of the league's history he was THE guard in a league set up for feature big men. Every guard who follows owes Cousy a debt for being the trailblazer.

Does it underscore the revolutionary nature of his game? Sure it does. I'd agree with that. I don't agree with using accolades in Cousy's favor due to his lack of relative competition.

I also (as you know) don't think it was as revolutionary as you do; it was revolutionary in the infancy of the game, but not beyond that. Oscar was the more revolutionary PG that had a longer lasting "revolution," so to speak.

Sure Cousy was a trailblazer, but a) how good was his trailblazing and b) how much weight should be given to trailblazing? My argument is that Dolph was a trailblazer too - he was a "big man with a guard's flair," as I've seen him called. He was Dirk-lite (or would it be proto-Dirk?) in the 50's and 60's, while still being a top tier rebounder who shot free throws at a rate equal with other ATG big men (minus Shaq), and shot free throws like a guard.

I guess my questions would be: a) in what ways is cousy better? And b) how was he actually more revolutionary than Dolph?

[trex_8063]

Thru post #70, it's looking like Dolph fairly comfortably in the runoff (we won't even have to eliminate the 3rd-place guy and have a second runoff):

Dolph Schayes - 9 (trex_8063, eminence, scabbarista, pandrade83, 70sFan, micahclay, penbeast0, Dr Positivity, LABird)
Bob Cousy - 4 (euroleague, Pablo Novi, janmagn, Winsome Gerbil)
Willis Reed - 3 (Clyde Frazier, dhsilv2, Doctor MJ)


Calling it for Schayes. Will have the next thread up in a moment.

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[Clyde Frazier]

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