RealGM 2020 Top 100 Project: #11 (Kevin Garnett)

[penbeast0]

The ABA looked more "modern" because other than Gilmore the good centers were in the NBA. The ABA was a forwards' league, the NBA a center's league.

Let's look at who the center were in the ABA in 75, the year Doc was talking about. 10 teams:

1. (KEN) Gilmore was indeed the best.
Dan Issel (his PF) was a marginal all-star at center in the NBA for another 8 years
2. (NYN) Bill Paultz went on to have a solid NBA career
3. (StL) Maurice Lucas was a marginal all-star type in the NBA as well (mainly at PF)
4. (MEM) Mel Daniels, the ABA's second best center ever, was aging out and splitting time with
Tom Owens who became a weak starter, top reserve for the next 8 years in the NBA (3-4 as a starter)
5. (DEN) Mike Green became an NBA reserve averaging about 20 mpg the next few years
His backup, Dave Robisch, had 3 more starting years in the NBA after the merger (though I agree he was more a decent reserve -- which is what he was in the ABA this year)
6. (SAS) Sven Nater started most of the next 7 years after the merger in the NBA and won a rebounding title
7. (UTAH) Moses Malone -- was never heard of again?
8. (SD) Caldwell Jones -- had 14 more years AFTER the merger including facing Kareem in the finals though he wasn't used as a scorer the way he was in San Diego

Only Virginia had a gaping hole at center as they drafted a 7' kid named David Vaughn and threw him into the starting role . . . where he failed. They were pretty awful everywhere.

That's a stronger average starting center than the average NBA team had. The ABA was indeed a forward's league but as Dave Cowens (I think) was quoted in Terry Pluto's "Loose Balls," their strength at center surprised all the NBA big men. It was their guards who were the league's weakest position (Gervin was still playing SF that year, David Thompson came into the league the next year).

[Doctor MJ]

Time to vote here:
1. Oscar - year after year put up incredible stats. Good enough to beat out Wilt and Russell for MVP. Considered by virtually all who saw him at the time to be by far best perimeter player of era. Good/smart enough to assume a lesser, but still starring role on all-time great team.

I would object to the characterization as if people from the time thought that prime Oscar was clearly better than prime West. Oscar has the clear edge for their first half decade, after that West has the edge. When you consider that in their first half decade Oscar was given free reign while West was held back due to Baylor, you can actually make an argument pretty easily that West in general showed greater capacity.

Did he put up a triple double? No. If that matters to you, then I expect you'll be voting for Westbrook next.

[mailmp]

West was “held back” by Baylor but also had a much better team around him in large part because of Baylor (and I say that as something of a Baylor hater). Given how well Oscar fit with the Bucks, I do not think I really buy that he was advantaged by having a worse roster. Maybe Baylor slowed the development of West’s passing, but that is hardly a unique situation.

[Odinn21]

The ABA looked more "modern" because other than Gilmore the good centers were in the NBA. The ABA was a forwards' league, the NBA a center's league.

This is just strange to me.

1. Spacing is something offenses do to escape interior bigs. You don't avoid the rim unless there's a rim protector.

2. The ABA had the 3. Now they didn't use it a ton, but it undoubtedly spaced the floor some.

3. Isn't the visible difference in the ABA's spacing compared to the NBA just a thing everyone knows? Are you actually fighting against that? Can you make a concrete argument to explain why people who watch the two only think they see more spacing in the ABA?

I think it's just simple as the top talents dictating how the game was played.
Though I'm not sure if I'd say the ABA lacked properly good bigs. Gilmore, Issel, McGinnis, Daniels were all quite good. Connie Hawkins was an insane player before he fell into drugs hard and he spent half of his quality playing days in the ABA.

BTW, I wouldn't categorize either league modern. The only thing in the '70s, I'd dare to say looked modern is Holzman's Knicks team.

[Doctor MJ]

I think it's just simple as the top talents dictating how the game was played.
Though I'm not sure if I'd say the ABA lacked properly good bigs. Gilmore, Issel, McGinnis, Daniels were all quite good. Connie Hawkins was an insane player before he fell into drugs hard and he spent half of his quality playing days in the ABA.

BTW, I wouldn't categorize either league modern. The only thing in that time I'd dare to say looked modern is Holzman's Knicks team.

Confused by this post.

We're talking about league differences relating to Erving because he wasn't the same in the NBA as in the ABA. If he could force the ABA to be played one way, why not the other? (That's assuming your answer isn't just ABA < NBA.)

Re: "Connie Hawkins was an insane player before he fell into drugs hard and he spent half of his quality playing days in the ABA." Are you saying drugs are the reason why he was in the ABA? I imagine that's not what you meant, but...

Re: Holzman Knicks modern. Interestingly because I think he'd tell you that their style was heavily influenced by his time on the Rochester Royals 20 years earlier. You're certainly seeing aspects of the Knicks that remind of the modern game, and I'm sure you'd see other ways in which they weren't. I'd argue the same is true of the ABA in general along with the Walton-Ramsay Blazers a few years later.

[Odinn21]

I think it's just simple as the top talents dictating how the game was played.
Though I'm not sure if I'd say the ABA lacked properly good bigs. Gilmore, Issel, McGinnis, Daniels were all quite good. Connie Hawkins was an insane player before he fell into drugs hard and he spent half of his quality playing days in the ABA.

BTW, I wouldn't categorize either league modern. The only thing in that time I'd dare to say looked modern is Holzman's Knicks team.

Confused by this post.

We're talking about league differences relating to Erving because he wasn't the same in the NBA as in the ABA. If he could force the ABA to be played one way, why not the other? (That's assuming your answer isn't just ABA < NBA.)

Re: "Connie Hawkins was an insane player before he fell into drugs hard and he spent half of his quality playing days in the ABA." Are you saying drugs are the reason why he was in the ABA? I imagine that's not what you meant, but...

Re: Holzman Knicks modern. Interestingly because I think he'd tell you that their style was heavily influenced by his time on the Rochester Royals 20 years earlier. You're certainly seeing aspects of the Knicks that remind of the modern game, and I'm sure you'd see other ways in which they weren't. I'd argue the same is true of the ABA in general along with the Walton-Ramsay Blazers a few years later.

English is not my native language. So I'll go with bullet points to make more sense.

* The quote had the NBA as centers league and the ABA as the forwards like we're experiencing now. My point was, Kareem and Wilt were the top players in the NBA, followed by West / and Erving was the top player in the ABA. So, I don't agree with assessment, just talked about my assumption on how he see those things.

* Erving not being able to force the NBA to play like the ABA looks related to state of mind to me. The NBA was more conservative with their ways, they wanted to stick with what they know. That was relying on team's center. They also had Abdul-Jabbar, Chamberlain, Cowens, McAdoo to justify their ways. And the ABA was interested in being different than the NBA for marketing purposes, they were more open minded about new styles and approaches. So, that'd be my explanation. Not NBA > ABA or something like that.

* No, that was not what I was saying about Hawkins. He was such a great player before drugs took a huge toll on him. And his best days coincide his ABA days. To me, Hawkins was more of an ABA star than NBA star. That's what I was trying to say.

* As an outsider to the US, '60s are the furthest I can go back in the game's history. I doubt if I've seen 10 minutes of Rochester Royals TBH. Even reading material I could find about before the '60s was so little. So, looking for what had a major influence on Holzman is too much for me.

[Doctor MJ]

West was “held back” by Baylor but also had a much better team around him in large part because of Baylor (and I say that as something of a Baylor hater). Given how well Oscar fit with the Bucks, I do not think I really buy that he was advantaged by having a worse roster. Maybe Baylor slowed the development of West’s passing, but that is hardly a unique situation.

We're not having a debate about had greater team success. Everyone agrees West had more team success, Oscar has the edge in volume stats, and he has that edge in part because he had worse teammates, which means that in a very real sense he was advantaged in the perception of others by having worse teammates.

Can you make the argument that Oscar was hurt worse in perception because of his lack of team success? Yes, but these things don't simply "cancel out", and it is undeniably the case that Oscar got WAY more attention early in their career precisely because of the numbers he was putting up.

Re: how well Oscar fit with the Bucks. They acquired Oscar to play Oscar. Oscar got to be the floor general, and thus was not held back in either situation the way West was early on. I'll add that Oscar seems to have been able to have every single team he played on adjust to allow his brilliance to shine all the way back to high school when he was busy losing to the real life "Hoosiers" team.

The same is true for LeBron who I voted for at #1 so I'm not looking to hate on guys whose talent is so obvious that basically every coach uses him pretty well, but it doesn't really make sense to talk about Oscar being highly portable simply because he could go to a more pass-first orientation when he had Kareem as a teammate. Oscar was still allowed to have control pretty much his entire career whereas West had to adapt to a variety of different on vs off ball styles of play in addition to playing a more serious form of defense.

Re ...hardly a unique situation. Well right, and it's something a serious analyst should be looking to examine in every single situation.

[trex_8063]

Better get mine in before I get too busy to do so.....

1st vote: Kevin Garnett
2nd vote: Kobe Bryant
3rd vote: Karl Malone

I'd sort of gone over KG vs Kobe to a small degree in prior threads. The gist of it is that I feel [and mostly felt at the time, too] that Garnett was simply the better basketball player for the majority of their overlapping careers (and generally better by a wider margin than Kobe was ever better than him).
Kobe is without a doubt the more "iconic" figure. His death, and the reaction to it, really brought that fact to the forefront for me. It's not a major factor in my criteria, and wasn't enough for me to put him over Garnett. However, it is enough that I'll keep him ahead of Karl Malone.

I actually think Karl Malone was the MORE effective player (between he and Kobe) during the rs, and he has a little better longevity too. In fact, for rs ONLY, I think you could make a top 5-7 case for Karl Malone, at least if you value longevity and total career value.
But he is one of the least playoff-resilient superstars of all-time, and I must allow he's almost assuredly outside the top 15 [perhaps outside the top 20] all-time if comparing ONLY playoff careers.
Meanwhile, Kobe is likely one of the more/most playoff resilient superstars; that brings the comparison back to fairly close for me. I could still see the comparison at that point being marginally in Malone's favour; but when I then give a moment's thought to Kobe's impact on basketball culture and fandom [which is on another planet from Mailman's], I find myself leaning ever so slightly in Kobe's favour.
I certainly wouldn't grudge anyone going with Malone in front [I've been there myself periodically], but I'll stick with this order for now.

[trex_8063]

Thru post #88:

Kevin Garnett - 8 (Doctor MJ, freethedevil, limbo, mailmp, sansterre, trex_8063, TrueLAfan, Whopper_Sr)
Kobe Bryant - 5 (Dutchball97, Hal14, Hornet Mania, Joao Saraiva, Odinn21)
Jerry West - 3 (lebron3-14-3, Magic Is Magic, Matzer)
Oscar Robertson - 1 (DQuinn1575)
George Mikan - 1 (penbeast0)


Thread will wrap up somewhere between 4-6pm EST tomorrow (I’ve got a lot of things going around that time, so it will be when I can get to it).

Magic Is Magic, I’ve added you to the voter panel, but please read OP of this thread.

Everyone else, if you don’t see your handle above, YOU HAVEN’T VOTED in this thread.

Spoiler:

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[quote=”sansterre”].[/quote]

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[Joao Saraiva]

trex come on man. don't vote for KG. Karl Malone should be the greatest PF of all time. We can call Duncan a C!

/Green

[trex_8063]

2) More people doing a particular activity does not necessarily mean that those people are now doing that activity any better than before when less people were doing the activity. Your logic = more people in the world so basketball players are better. By that logic, I suppose truck drivers are better than they were 20 years ago, I suppose railroad workers are better than they were 20 years ago, I suppose electricians are better than they were 20 years ago, I suppose dog groomers are better than they were 20 years ago, I suppose politicians are better than they were 20 years ago, I suppose NBA coaches are better than they were 20 years ago, I suppose writers are better than they were 20 years ago, I suppose gymnasts are better than they were 20 years ago, I suppose horesback riders are better than they were 20 years ago, I suppose hip hop rappers are better than they were 20 years ago, I suppose guitar players are better than they were 20 years ago. No! It doesn't work like that. More people doing something does not mean those people are doing it better. Some professions - the people doing them are doing them better today than they did 20 years ago, while in others they are not. Unfortunately, we can't just rely on data to tell the whole story. We have to use the eye test and basketball IQ.

Seriously, enough of these apples to giraffes strawmen. We've been thru it repeatedly; it's so intellectually dishonest, and yet you keep doing it. It borders on trolling.

[mailmp]

West was “held back” by Baylor but also had a much better team around him in large part because of Baylor (and I say that as something of a Baylor hater). Given how well Oscar fit with the Bucks, I do not think I really buy that he was advantaged by having a worse roster. Maybe Baylor slowed the development of West’s passing, but that is hardly a unique situation.

We're not having a debate about had greater team success. Everyone agrees West had more team success, Oscar has the edge in volume stats, and he has that edge in part because he had worse teammates, which means that in a very real sense he was advantaged in the perception of others by having worse teammates.

Can you make the argument that Oscar was hurt worse in perception because of his lack of team success? Yes, but these things don't simply "cancel out", and it is undeniably the case that Oscar got WAY more attention early in their career precisely because of the numbers he was putting up.

I do not really think Oscar has a perception advantage because of his scoring totals, and I think he exhibited a comfortable passing and rebounding advantage even when you look at West’s years with higher volume.

Re: how well Oscar fit with the Bucks. They acquired Oscar to play Oscar. Oscar got to be the floor general, and thus was not held back in either situation the way West was early on. I'll add that Oscar seems to have been able to have every single team he played on adjust to allow his brilliance to shine all the way back to high school when he was busy losing to the real life "Hoosiers" team.

The same is true for LeBron who I voted for at #1 so I'm not looking to hate on guys whose talent is so obvious that basically every coach uses him pretty well, but it doesn't really make sense to talk about Oscar being highly portable simply because he could go to a more pass-first orientation when he had Kareem as a teammate. Oscar was still allowed to have control pretty much his entire career whereas West had to adapt to a variety of different on vs off ball styles of play in addition to playing a more serious form of defense.

I have already commented on portability; those of you who continue to be even more hyper-focused on portability than elgee ever was are welcome to your thoughts there, but most people are not inclined to go that far. Yes, West was more portable than most ball dominant guards; no, I do not really care about that beyond acknowledging that Oscar would have struggled to accommodate Baylor in much the same way West would have struggled to provide the same heliocentric lift to the Royals from day one.

Re ...hardly a unique situation. Well right, and it's something a serious analyst should be looking to examine in every single situation.

I do not really see it as automatically “serious” to be praising a player for their portability while simultaneously giving them hypothetical credit for all the numbers they could have conceivably put up in a perpetually heliocentric system — and in this instance I see profoundly little to suggest that West would have ever matched Oscar’s passing (or rebounding) had Baylor not pushed him into a lesser role, or that Oscar could not have conceivably been an even more lethal scorer for the first part of his career had a player like Baylor been drawing defensive attention away from him.

[eminence]

West was “held back” by Baylor but also had a much better team around him in large part because of Baylor (and I say that as something of a Baylor hater). Given how well Oscar fit with the Bucks, I do not think I really buy that he was advantaged by having a worse roster. Maybe Baylor slowed the development of West’s passing, but that is hardly a unique situation.

We're not having a debate about had greater team success. Everyone agrees West had more team success, Oscar has the edge in volume stats, and he has that edge in part because he had worse teammates, which means that in a very real sense he was advantaged in the perception of others by having worse teammates.

I would at least argue the advantage is significantly more marginal than many realize. Avg season for Lakers/Royals from '61-'68.

Lakers +1.9 SRS, 47 wins (adj to 82-game schedule), +2.3 Ortg, +0.5 Drtg, +1.8 Net
Royals +0.8 SRS, 44 wins, +3.7 Ortg, +2.9 Drtg, +0.8 Net

Peaks:
Lakers +5 SRS ('68), 55 wins ('62), +4.9 Ortg ('68), -1.2 Drtg ('61/'63), +4.7 Net ('68)
Royals +4.4 SRS ('64), 56 wins ('64), +4.7 Ortg ('62), -0.1 Drtg ('64), +4.4 Net ('64)

The Lakers playing in the much weaker conference really inflates their historical standing. They were nothing resembling a historical dynasty prior to Wilt.

[SinceGatlingWasARookie]

I would rather have peak Robinson than Peak KG.
Mikan and Oscar probabl were farher ahead of the average players in their own time than any of the later generation players were.
But, do you judge Mikan and Oscare relative to thier own era or relative to current playes? In a hypothetical time trave I think Mikan would still be a better than average player in the current NBA after he adjusted to the modern gamee.

Old West was very effective. I wasn't so impressed woth old Bucks version Oscar. After watching video with Oscar backing up the court with the Bucks I thought he really changed from his Cincinati videos.

[freethedevil]

West was “held back” by Baylor but also had a much better team around him in large part because of Baylor (and I say that as something of a Baylor hater). Given how well Oscar fit with the Bucks, I do not think I really buy that he was advantaged by having a worse roster. Maybe Baylor slowed the development of West’s passing, but that is hardly a unique situation.

We're not having a debate about had greater team success. Everyone agrees West had more team success, Oscar has the edge in volume stats, and he has that edge in part because he had worse teammates, which means that in a very real sense he was advantaged in the perception of others by having worse teammates.

Can you make the argument that Oscar was hurt worse in perception because of his lack of team success? Yes, but these things don't simply "cancel out", and it is undeniably the case that Oscar got WAY more attention early in their career precisely because of the numbers he was putting up.

Re: how well Oscar fit with the Bucks. They acquired Oscar to play Oscar. Oscar got to be the floor general, and thus was not held back in either situation the way West was early on. I'll add that Oscar seems to have been able to have every single team he played on adjust to allow his brilliance to shine all the way back to high school when he was busy losing to the real life "Hoosiers" team.

The same is true for LeBron who I voted for at #1 so I'm not looking to hate on guys whose talent is so obvious that basically every coach uses him pretty well, but it doesn't really make sense to talk about Oscar being highly portable simply because he could go to a more pass-first orientation when he had Kareem as a teammate. Oscar was still allowed to have control pretty much his entire career whereas West had to adapt to a variety of different on vs off ball styles of play in addition to playing a more serious form of defense.

Re ...hardly a unique situation. Well right, and it's something a serious analyst should be looking to examine in every single situation.

I dont think considering a player's ability to maintain value on op teams is meaningless, I'd say when --its close-- being beter on better teams is worth more and its always nice to see a proof of concept of a player on a atg team.

All that said, I do think when you're assesing cieling raising, it eels like you treat cieling raising as "seperate" from floor riasing when its really just an extension of floor raising, or more speficially, how much impact you retain on a top team. Portability is nice, But if there's a significant enough gap in floor raising, even a less portable floor raiser could also be a better "cileing raiser."

Floor raising is the basis of cieling raising, being able to keep value is nice and all assumign you have value to maintain in the first place.

You bring up Lebron, and this "unportable=/not cieling raiser" logic really shows up with him, where he posts the most valuable seasons ever, by a significant margin, on a 66 win team, but then he gets knocked down on the assumption that he'd essenitlaly be worth 20 less wins on a team taht was say, 5 wins better.


This is all to say, I think if the gap in floor raising is large enough, player a can proabbly ends up being better than player b as a cieling rasier, even if they're not that portable.

I don know if this applies to oscar+west, but I dont think you can just say "portable" and assume player b is better on better teams.

[Joao Saraiva]

I would rather have peak Robinson than Peak KG.
Mikan and Oscar probabl were farher ahead of the average players in their own time than any of the later generation players were.
But, do you judge Mikan and Oscare relative to thier own era or relative to current playes? In a hypothetical time trave I think Mikan would still be a better than average player in the current NBA after he adjusted to the modern gamee.

Old West was very effective. I wasn't so impressed woth old Bucks version Oscar. After watching video with Oscar backing up the court with the Bucks I thought he really changed from his Cincinati videos.

And why do you prefer peak Robinson?

[Joao Saraiva]

Better get mine in before I get too busy to do so.....

1st vote: Kevin Garnett
2nd vote: Kobe Bryant
3rd vote: Karl Malone

I'd sort of gone over KG vs Kobe to a small degree in prior threads. The gist of it is that I feel [and mostly felt at the time, too] that Garnett was simply the better basketball player for the majority of their overlapping careers (and generally better by a wider margin than Kobe was ever better than him).
Kobe is without a doubt the more "iconic" figure. His death, and the reaction to it, really brought that fact to the forefront for me. It's not a major factor in my criteria, and wasn't enough for me to put him over Garnett. However, it is enough that I'll keep him ahead of Karl Malone.

I actually think Karl Malone was the MORE effective player (between he and Kobe) during the rs, and he has a little better longevity too. In fact, for rs ONLY, I think you could make a top 5-7 case for Karl Malone, at least if you value longevity and total career value.
But he is one of the least playoff-resilient superstars of all-time, and I must allow he's almost assuredly outside the top 15 [perhaps outside the top 20] all-time if comparing ONLY playoff careers.
Meanwhile, Kobe is likely one of the more/most playoff resilient superstars; that brings the comparison back to fairly close for me. I could still see the comparison at that point being marginally in Malone's favour; but when I then give a moment's thought to Kobe's impact on basketball culture and fandom [which is on another planet from Mailman's], I find myself leaning ever so slightly in Kobe's favour.
I certainly wouldn't grudge anyone going with Malone in front [I've been there myself periodically], but I'll stick with this order for now.

So you say Malone wasn't that good in the playoffs. Well, I'll give you his play wasn't always sustainable, but we've seen some great runs from Malone, it's not like he always dropped. However, with that being the case for so many guys ahead of Malone, don't you feel KG dropped his production in the playoffs too? If not, can you elaborate on that?

I give Kobe the edge over the two exactly because of that. And I even have Jerry West after Kobe, cause his playoff resume is actually super impressive.

[Odinn21]

I would at least argue the advantage is significantly more marginal than many realize. Avg season for Lakers/Royals from '61-'68.

Lakers +1.9 SRS, 47 wins (adj to 82-game schedule), +2.3 Ortg, +0.5 Drtg, +1.8 Net
Royals +0.8 SRS, 44 wins, +3.7 Ortg, +2.9 Drtg, +0.8 Net

Peaks:
Lakers +5 SRS ('68), 55 wins ('62), +4.9 Ortg ('68), -1.2 Drtg ('61/'63), +4.7 Net ('68)
Royals +4.4 SRS ('64), 56 wins ('64), +4.7 Ortg ('62), -0.1 Drtg ('64), +4.4 Net ('64)

The Lakers playing in the much weaker conference really inflates their historical standing. They were nothing resembling a historical dynasty prior to Wilt.

I think it's worth noting that SRS scale was different back then.
https://i.imgur.com/Z5CfYO7.png

+1.9 SRS average would put a team on the top half, and +0.8 SRS would be in the bottom half except for two or three seasons in the '60s.

Those numbers are not like +1.9 SRS being 8th-10th in 30 team league and +0.8 SRS being 14th. The disparity between those numbers at the time was bigger.

[DQuinn1575]

Time to vote here:
1. Oscar - year after year put up incredible stats. Good enough to beat out Wilt and Russell for MVP. Considered by virtually all who saw him at the time to be by far best perimeter player of era. Good/smart enough to assume a lesser, but still starring role on all-time great team.

I would object to the characterization as if people from the time thought that prime Oscar was clearly better than prime West. Oscar has the clear edge for their first half decade, after that West has the edge. When you consider that in their first half decade Oscar was given free reign while West was held back due to Baylor, you can actually make an argument pretty easily that West in general showed greater capacity.

Did he put up a triple double? No. If that matters to you, then I expect you'll be voting for Westbrook next.

Never heard of the term triple double when I saw Oscar play or the first 1,000 times or so I read about him. Not only did Oscar not chase stats, he played with someone who is noted for doing that (Lucas)
1961-1968 - first 8 years Oscar is ahead of West in mvp voting every year but 1; West was barely ahead. 1969 neither shows on b-reference, but Oscar was 1st team nba, not West,
so for the first 9 years, when Oscar was at his peak he was considered better than West. Basically 8 wins and 1 narrow loss. ESPN Sports Century- Robertson 36, West 62.
AP player of the Century- Oscar 2nd behind only Jordan, West 9th.
1986 poll - Oscar second best player of all-time picked by panel. (Jabbar 1st)
Probably every basketball magazine or book I read in the 60s-70s.
Virtually everything I read or saw at the time- Oscar was better.
Oscar aged quicker than West. The West I saw was better than Oscar.
I’m not using any of these as proof Oscar was better; I’m trying to convey to people who didn’t read or talk to people in the 70s about how good he was. People who didn’t experience any of this are going to post how they know so much more than virtually everyone who saw them play.

[DQuinn1575]

I would at least argue the advantage is significantly more marginal than many realize. Avg season for Lakers/Royals from '61-'68.

Lakers +1.9 SRS, 47 wins (adj to 82-game schedule), +2.3 Ortg, +0.5 Drtg, +1.8 Net
Royals +0.8 SRS, 44 wins, +3.7 Ortg, +2.9 Drtg, +0.8 Net

Peaks:
Lakers +5 SRS ('68), 55 wins ('62), +4.9 Ortg ('68), -1.2 Drtg ('61/'63), +4.7 Net ('68)
Royals +4.4 SRS ('64), 56 wins ('64), +4.7 Ortg ('62), -0.1 Drtg ('64), +4.4 Net ('64)

The Lakers playing in the much weaker conference really inflates their historical standing. They were nothing resembling a historical dynasty prior to Wilt.

I think it's worth noting that SRS scale was different back then.
https://i.imgur.com/Z5CfYO7.png

+1.9 SRS average would put a team on the top half, and +0.8 SRS would be in the bottom half except for two or three seasons in the '60s.

Those numbers are not like +1.9 SRS being 8th-10th in 30 team league and +0.8 SRS being 14th. The disparity between those numbers at the time was bigger.

SRS is points. A point is a point, unless you want to scale it against total points scored. (You can argue a point is worth more in a 80 point game vs a 110 point game).the scale didn’t change, I believe the variance changed. So the Lakers were about 1 point better.