Retro POY '76-77 (Voting Complete)

[Optimism Prime]

Dr J had the 2nd best record but still managed to win 2 games and Dr J's numbers in the finals were awesome as well.

30 PPG / 7 RPG / 5 APG / ~ 3 SPG on 54% FG

Whereas with the Lakers with the best record in the league, didn't even manage to win 1 game in the series.

Because they were, going by the strictest definition possible (removal of a tenth) decimated with injuries. From one player, Lucius Allen (4.9 of their 47.1 WS). Then add on Kermit Washington! They were without their 3rd/4th best players (by WS) in that series! Kareem averaged nearly 35/18/4/3.5/2 a game on .607 shooting! No one else on his team topped 5.5 rebounds a game! (I'm using too many exclamation points!) Look at Kareem's numbers against Walton, and tell me they're more impressive than Erving's against Bob Gross.

EDIT: And has been pointed out in this thread, their supporting casts made a HUGE difference. Here it is again: viewtopic.php?f=64&t=1042101&start=15#p24568819 You just can't say "Erving did more than Kareem" because their teams were entirely different, and last I checked it's 5 on 5 out there. 76ers had seven players with 4+ WS in the regular season; Lakers had four. Kareem had 17.8 WS; Erving and his third-best player had 18. How are we still debating this?! Bow to my logic already!

[Dr Positivity]

1. Walton
2. Kareem

Like I said the difference to me is Walton had a huge mental impact on his team's energy level (and the fans!) while Kareem was introverted and sulky. It's hard to vote against a maybe GOAT at his peak, but I think Walton was equalling prime Bill Russell in game at this point, so with both guys it's hard to get better. Props to Kareem for beating that GSW team, I never realized how stacked they were, before.

3. Julius Erving - Made the finals and dominated

After that it gets a bit trickier. There's Lanier, Gilmore, Maravich, Hayes, Thompson, Moses, Lucas. I'm scratching off Maravich, 31/5/5 looks awesome until you realize he took 28 shots a game and the team went 35-47 with a 19th out of 22nd ORTG. When you're as amazing a passer as Maravich, having that big a FGA to assist ratio is not my style. No Moses, 13/13 doesn't cut it if you're nothing special defensively. Thompson led a 50 win team but had help in Bobby Jones and Dan Issel and Larry Brown's coaching leading to a great d (btw I never realized Larry Brown coached ABA teams. Damn he's old, haha. Dude was coaching when Nixon was president.) After that there's the big men Lanier, Gilmore, Hayes. Hayes may have the most complete game on both ends but is a douche. Lanier's numbers are really nice while being a better guy, and he got more MVP love than Hayes despite winning less. So I'm inclined to put Lanier about Hayes. Gilmore... giant mountain. Sort of slow, but puts up 19/13/2.5. Worst offensively of the 3, but better defense. I like that more than Hayes' resume too. Gilmore brings what you need defensively. Mo Lucas put up 20/11 on the title Trailblazers... really nice player, but I can't put him up with the rest.

I think I'll put Gilmore 4th just because I'd rather have a dominant defensive C with decent offense than a dominant offensive C and decent defense. Offense is easier added from the other positions, but you can't recreate the value of that big down low. So Lanier vs Thompson for 5th. I'll go with the guy who got the most MVP consideration since I can't decide between them anyways, Lanier

1. Walton
2. Kareem
3. Erving
4. Gilmore
5. Lanier

[ElGee]

ACtually do think Walton would do more with the Lakers. Nixon, Hudson, Dantley, Wilkes . . . those are all good offensive players who could carry a greater offensive load, where they fall is defense (Hudson and Dantley) and rebounding (Wilkes as a PF) plus someone to pull them together and make them work as a team. Those are Walton's strengths.

A couple of things. One, three of those guys weren't even on this team. Two, Kareem was an equivalent rebounder and every bit as good a defender as Walton, so how much difference would the Red Head make in these areas? Kareem wasn't nearly the same playmaker, true, but it's not like he was Moses Malone.

Also, this can't be stressed enough -- Walton was incredibly fortunate to have an enforcer like Maurice Lucas next to him. Bill though enough of Luke that he named a son after him, which turned out to be an incredible insult to Maurice. As Simmons mentioned it in the excerpt from his book, the presence of a powerful rebounder/physical presence -- Lucas was a forerunner of the modern PF -- was a critical ingredient to Portland's success.

Kareem never had anything close to that during the four seasons before Magic showed up. At least, not for an entire season. Before their frontcourt was decimated, the Lakers were looking like a legit contender. If they'd stayed healthy, then we'd have a legit comparison.

Sedale, I have to strongly disagree with the bolded points. I think Walton is clearly a better defender (although it's not by some large degree) and again a better rebounder (by a small degree). Actually, I think of this two points as one point -- part of Walton's edge defensively was his superior defensive rebounding.

The rough +/- sketch from their missed games suggests this. The eyes also suggest it: Walton chases his defenders higher from the basket and steps out on PnR/switches more. He flashes his arms around and deflects more balls. His rotations and helps are constant. As a result of this he has a crazy-large defensive "usage" rate, and it seems with a low FG% rate against to go with that. Heck, his block% is even higher and I think that's Kareem's biggest defensive strength.

And yes, Lucas definitely worked well with Walton. Kareem could have used another big body/rebounder. But I'm not sure Luke or a comparable player works as well with Kareem. Walton spent most of his time on offense flashing around the high-post, "running" much of the offense from there and going hi-low with Lucas. That's outside of Kareem's skill-set.

Which hits at how important Walton as a team piece. Walton's not only making some great halfcourt passes -- and non of them are meaningless assists -- but he never really holds the ball meaninglessly. Steve Jones always comments on Portland's ball-movement dying with Walton out, and it's evident on film. Earl Tatum had a nice flash in the 77 post-season. NIce outside shot. But do I think Walton gets a little more out of him, like say, he did out of Johnny Davis or Hollins? I do. That might be a minority opinion, but that's what I'm seeing on the court.

And at the end of the day, we can thought-experiment ourself to death with team fit and circumstance and whatnot. But Portland's SRS is a ~6 with Walton missing a quarter of the season, and they were fantastic in his healthy playoff run this year. So what is that, a 7 or 8 SRS championship team? What are they without Walton? In 1979, a 1.1 SRS. The guys' impact on the game is astronomical.

[Manuel Calavera]

1. Kareem
2. Walton
3. Erving
4. Lanier
5. Gilmore

[penbeast0]

ACtually do think Walton would do more with the Lakers. Nixon, Hudson, Dantley, Wilkes . . . those are all good offensive players who could carry a greater offensive load, where they fall is defense (Hudson and Dantley) and rebounding (Wilkes as a PF) plus someone to pull them together and make them work as a team. Those are Walton's strengths.

A couple of things. One, three of those guys weren't even on this team. Two, Kareem was an equivalent rebounder and every bit as good a defender as Walton, so how much difference would the Red Head make in these areas? Kareem wasn't nearly the same playmaker, true, but it's not like he was Moses Malone.

Sorry ST, you are right, was mentally still in the 78 thread. Walton was clearly better on defense though Kareem was excellent; Walton's rebound rate was also over 10% higher than Kareem's in 77 despite, as you say further on, Walton's playing with a big physical PF in Lucas while Kareem played with a finesse outside shooting F in Don Ford.

[ronnymac2]

Final Ranking:

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
Bill Walton
Julius Erving
Bob Lanier
Rick Barry


Hesitant in putting Walton over Dr. J. I don't think I'll regret it though.

I wanted to put Pistol Pete here, but....even with the stats, and even being arguably the most skilled player ever, I never got the feeling that he knew how to use his skillset and his tools to succeed. Don't get me wrong, I think Maravich gets a bad rap. His teammates always sucked. But I still can't take him over the others.

Never liked Thompson this year. Hayes came really close, but I'm not a fan of his offense. I think Barry still gives me a better chance of winning a title than Hayes. Lanier was awesome this year.

[Dr Positivity]

Maravich has to have the biggest "what if" career ever that's not drug or injury related. He could've averaged 20/10 for his career in another life and been a top 3-5 PG and top 50 player easily. Probably wouldn't make my top 100, nor a single of these lists. Too bad.

[semi-sentient]

1. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
2. Bill Walton
3. Julius Erving
4. Bob Lanier
5. Artis Gilmore

[ThaRegul8r]

1. Bill Walton
2. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

This was a tough decision, and I've been critical of the number of games Walton played in the past myself. But I can't deny the impact he had, and he played about the same amount of games as prime Shaq did from 2001-02 to 2003-04. Though it's hard to put Kareem at #2 with the season he had and how he performed in the postseason.

3. Julius Erving
4. Artis Gilmore
5. Bob Lanier

[Doctor MJ]

Edited my vote:

Thought more about Lanier, moved him down to HM, bumped up Gilmore & Thompson. Two things, 1) Lanier missed 18 games this year - somehow I missed that before. Tough for me to include a non-megastar when a guy misses that much time, 2) Questions about Lanier's defense also plays into my uncertainties about the guy.

[penbeast0]

Yeah, I edited mine too, you convinced me to take another look. Bobby Jones was tempting but just doesn't play enough minutes; not sure why no one else is even giving Elvin Hayes consideration -- his team did well, he plays excellent defense, rebounds well even next to Unseld, and is an ironman plus this year and 78 he shot close to 50% from the field which was always the knock against him (other than the fact that he's a bit of a jerk which never stopped anyone from voting for MJ who was worse).

[Sedale Threatt]

El, Pen,

First of all, I always feel like I've got one arm tied behind my back when the debate gets into the deeper statistical studies. I just don't have that kind of knowledge.

Second, I was mainly reacting to the notion that Walton was so much better a rebounder and defender than Kareem that he'd shore up two of L.A.'s biggest weaknesses. He wasn't, and he wouldn't have.

Again, I'm probably misunderstanding the numbers, but at Basketball Reference I see a 21% rebounding rate for Walton and 18% for Kareem. That's equivalent in my eyes. Was Walton better? Yes. Was he so much better that he'd have made a bigger impact than Kareem? I don't see how one can draw that conclusion.

Regarding defense, it's always going to be one of those areas that's difficult to judge. Obviously, Walton was fabulous. But everything I've read, seen and studied indicates Kareem was as well. I'm willing to concede that Walton might have been better this year, even though Kareem led the league in defensive win shares and was dominant in his own right. But again, I don't think the gap would have been so substantial that Bill would have magically shored up L.A.'s weaknesses.

Obviously Kareem didn't compare to Walton as a passer and playmaking hub. Among centers, who could? It was one of the more unique skill sets in basketball history. Portland fed off Walton in general, but in this area particularly. This is Walton's biggest advantage, just as volume scoring is Kareem's biggest advantage. But again, it's not like Kareem was terrible in this area. Indeed, he might have been the second-best passing big behind Walton.

All in all, it seems to me that Kareem's biggest flaw this year was that his team, not all that talented to begin with, was decimated by injuries. I'm not going to hold that against him.

Could he have lifted a team the way Bill did, or someone like Hakeem Olajuwon in the mid 90s? He didn't, so it's not all that fair to give him credit for having done so.

But as much as I dislike hypotheticals, I've seen it done so many times for others I don't feel all that bad doing it here. Give Kareem a physical, jump shooter at PF to complement his game, the way Walton had a physical, low-post PF to compliment his -- Charles Oakley? Horace Grant? -- and a solid shooting perimeter corp -- maybe what Dream had in Smith, Horry and a young Cassell -- and I don't have any problem whatsoever seeing Kareem rise to the occasion.

I'm just throwing that out to chew on. Obviously Bill's going to be able to blend in with more casts because of the altruistic nature of his game. But I don't have much trouble seeing scenarios where Kareem could have had a similar impact, in his own way.

[penbeast0]

Kareem is one of the 4 top players in NBA history, he has more talent than Walton without a question. However, the Hanabi Muslim incident and the racial politics of the 70s deeply affected him as an intelligent, politically active, and somewhat shy and sensitive human being -- his response was to withdraw from the people around him and become more of a solo star. (Walton was far from unaffected -- his response was to smoke dope, grow his hair and beard, and make silly left wing political comments -- but those things didn't affect his oncourt play that much).

The question was who was better this year. Although I put nothing past Kareem with his incredible skills and talent, he didn't have the impact this year that Walton did (and for whatever reason, they kept trying to put stretch 4's next to him -- Ford, Wilkes, etc. Maybe that wasn't the right thing to do though AC Green was hardly a big 4, nor was Worthy who played a lot there in Kareem's championship years)

[Doctor MJ]

Yeah, I edited mine too, you convinced me to take another look. Bobby Jones was tempting but just doesn't play enough minutes; not sure why no one else is even giving Elvin Hayes consideration -- his team did well, he plays excellent defense, rebounds well even next to Unseld, and is an ironman plus this year and 78 he shot close to 50% from the field which was always the knock against him (other than the fact that he's a bit of a jerk which never stopped anyone from voting for MJ who was worse).

So...just changed by vote again. Crazy with the indecisiveness. Putting as a reply to your post partly because you bring up Bobby Jones, and I'm not putting him in my top 5. I may regret this later, but I'll explain the thing I just couldn't stop thinking about:

Do y'all realize that Denver had the best defensive efficiency in the league this year? It's strange, not in character with what Denver's known for. On the other hand, this is the single greatest year by SRS in the Nuggets NBA history so it's obviously a bit singular.

Bobby Jones is the one guy on that team known for defense. Considered one of the great forward defenders of all time, both in man and help defense, and in a lot of ways this looks to be his peak. He pulled a 2 block / 2 steal seasons, which is something only a few guys in history have ever done. He very nearly led the team in rebounding, his efficiency on offense was astounding, and it adds up to some staggering advanced statistics. Top 5 in Win Shares despite the limited playing time.

Manu Ginobili comes to mind. A guy who I really strongly considered for Top 5 his best year. I didn't give Ginobili the nod, but that was in the end because I couldn't put him over Kevin Garnett in his prime, not because he was unworthy. It's true that Ginobili's team was better, but then he also had Duncan.

If you're in doubt about the kind of impact Ginobili has, and you don't totally dismiss +/- stats, I'd urge you to study this doc which measures adjusted +/- over the last 6 years before '09-10:

https://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key ... l=en#gid=0

Ginobili's 3rd in the entire league behind Garnett & LeBron, and just a smidge ahead of Duncan.

Jones feels the same way - and when I consider that Denver's true competitive advantage was not the offense which glamorizes Thompson & Issel, but the defense, that just becomes too much to ignore.

[Doctor MJ]

Again, I'm probably misunderstanding the numbers, but at Basketball Reference I see a 21% rebounding rate for Walton and 18% for Kareem. That's equivalent in my eyes. Was Walton better? Yes. Was he so much better that he'd have made a bigger impact than Kareem? I don't see how one can draw that conclusion.

Not sure why you think that's equivalent. Walton's % this year was 37th best all time, Kareem's 210th best, that doesn't seem big to you?

[Doctor MJ]

Last call.

[ElGee]

My 1977 POY Ballot:

1. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
2. Bill Walton
3. Julius Erving
4. Elvin Hayes
5. David Thompson

This thread has proven to be one of the best in the whole project. A fantastic debate between two all-time great pivots. I see a lot of people say, "It's Kareem, he's a GOAT candidate at his peak, so I can't vote against him."

My only problem with that is Walton's peak is also among the all-time greats. The dude basically made the hall of fame because of 2 years of playing! I was scanning Simmons' entry on Bob Lanier last night and ended up reading Walton's, and the Blazers went 70-15 from April 77 to March 78. That's In a league with parity we've been marveling at and Portland's third best player being...? Bob Gross?

So yes, I would take Walton in 77. Not by much, as this and 1980 are the best Kareem I've seen. I just think Walton has a bigger impact on the game for reasons I've outlined. With that said, Walton's superiority is simply not great enough to offset the 17 games he missed. It's hard to know where that cutoff point is -- maybe 10 games wouldn't be enough to swing it -- but when it approaches 20 games, I think it starts to change HCA in more than one series. That's pushing too many points to overcome with Walton than Kareem.

Erving comfortably goes 3rd. Still had a great youthful spring in his step from what I saw and put up some monster statistics.

The last two spots were extremely competitive and came down to five players (Thompson, Hayes, Lanier, Barry and Gilmore).

Elvin Hayes is a tricky player to slot this year. I've always liked most of his game, but his shot selection seemed to throw away too many possessions. And yet this year his TS% jumps to +3.3%...but plummets right back down in the playoffs against weak defensive teams. Hmm.

The Nuggets and David Thompson are an interesting study, joining the league intact from the ABA. Gilmore joins the Bulls and they start 2-14 (they finished 20-4). Denver started 8-0 and finished 10-12. It's hard for me to think that type of learning curve-pattern is a coincidence.

Rick Barry, who is regarded by many as one of the best passing forwards ever -- for good reason -- is again is the primary cog in an elite offense. He's somewhat of a gunner in these years, but I think he offsets that with his passing/decision making. Barry increased his scoring in the playoffs but he did it by simply shooting more. 40 points in G1 v LA. 40 points in G3 again. And yet the Warriors overall ORtg in the series was below 100 (presumably from G2 and G7). I'm also inclined to give Barry a little less credit given the nice young team the Warriors had.

Lanier is at a disadvantage because I just haven't seen him play that much. I like the idea of Bob Lanier and his size 21's, but it's hard for me to differentiate among this group so his 18 missed games and apparent defensive shortcomings drop him out.

In the end, I'll take Hayes and Thompson. I've flipped many times. All these guys have flaws and are tricky. Hayes is a good enough defender, rebounder, and IMO better offensive player than Gilmore. Artis just seemed to struggle adjusting to the NBA. (?) Thompson sneaks in the last spot over Barry because he's a great scorer -- amazing first step to the right -- and Barry's teammates hated him. That was the tiebreaker: wherever Barry played, despite his orchestration and scoring and maybe even having a greater overall impact on the game than Thompson, his teammates hated him.

[Sedale Threatt]

Again, I'm probably misunderstanding the numbers, but at Basketball Reference I see a 21% rebounding rate for Walton and 18% for Kareem. That's equivalent in my eyes. Was Walton better? Yes. Was he so much better that he'd have made a bigger impact than Kareem? I don't see how one can draw that conclusion.

Not sure why you think that's equivalent. Walton's % this year was 37th best all time, Kareem's 210th best, that doesn't seem big to you?

Like I said, I feel like I've got one arm behind my back with the statistical studies. A couple of percentage points don't feel all that huge to me, when in fact it probably is. But considering the list of guys who have played in the NBA runs well into the thousands, no, this doesn't do much for me either.

[Optimism Prime]

This thread has proven to be one of the best in the whole project. A fantastic debate between two all-time great pivots.

This comment should get 1.000 agreement shares from the voting panel.

This year has been tremendous.

[Sedale Threatt]

One thing to note, and somebody else already posted this, but the Walton/Kareem debate is probably a precursor to the Russell/Chamberlain comparison. Intangible dominance vs. statistical dominance.