RealGM

In this thread we'll discuss and vote on the top 5 best player seasons of 1958-59.

Schedule will be Mon-Fri, and Thu-Mon. Typically this will be morning to morning.

Some things to start us off:

NBA
The Year in Review http://www.basketball-reference.com/lea ... _1959.html
Playoff Summary http://www.basketball-reference.com/pla ... _1959.html
Award Voting http://www.basketball-reference.com/awa ... _1959.html
Final Box Score http://webuns.chez-alice.fr/playoffs/1959.htm

1959 Estimated Pace-Adjusted Statistics

ORtg


DRtg

I don't know who Kenny Sears is, but he somehow dropped a .59 TS% on 21ppg. Second best TS% was Pettit with .519. That's an insane gap. It was enough to make him #1 in OWS, #2 in WS, and #1 in WS/48. And the Knicks end up with the 2nd best ORTG. Still though it doesn't look like he got much respect from his peers

Sears was a guy who appears in the efficiency leaders a lot but rarely gets any mention from contemporaries as a top player. Haven't read much about him either; always sort of assumed he's a Bailey Howell type (low post finesse scoring with great efficiency, very good scoring, and not much defense) but would love to learn more.

This year, there are only two outstanding teams, Boston and St. Louis with the Knicks just over .500 but Syracuse beating them in the first round and the Lakers beating the Hawks in their series.

That leaves Boston as the easy and undisputed best team (sweeping the Lakers in the finals). Russell racked up 17/23/3 on .457fg%/.493ts% (in a league where the average fg% was only .395!). Boston led the league in scoring but in terms of efficiency they were pretty average offensively with slightly above average fg% but below average foul draw. Cousy this year really was the best offensive player – still below Sharman and Heinsohn from the field but not as much; still not living up to his rep anywhere but in assists (20/5/9 on .384 with 5.9fta/g – tied for 3rd with Heinsohn behind Russell and 6th man Frank Ramsey; Sharman was at 5.1ft/g). Cousy’s efficiency slipped again in the playoffs (.326) but Frank Ramsey was a monster (23/6/2 on .495) as the Celtics cut designated thug Jungle Jim Lotscutoff’s minutes heavily.

St Louis didn’t play as fast but was the best shooting team in the league (.410), second in foul drawing behind star Bob Pettit (19/15/3 on .438fg% with 12.2 fta! Twice the FT of any player on Boston). In addition, they also led the league in least points allowed with legit 7’ Chuck Share sharing time with Clyde Lovelette (108.8 scored/104.1 allowed v. Celtics 116.4 to 109.9). Second star Cliff Hagan also had a nice year with 24/11/3 on .456 drawing 5.8fta then blowing up for 29/12/3 on .512 in their playoff loss; Pettit went for 28/13/2 on .423. But, other than Lovellette, they had no other offense at all with guards Slater Martin and Jack McMahon shooting around .350 and scoring less than 10 a game (with a combined 4.8 assists to boot).

New York was led in scoring by high efficiency forward Kenny Sears with 21/9/2 on .490 and 8.3fta. They also had Richie Guerin (18/7/5 on .424), defensive forward Willie Naulls (16/10/2 on .378 with 4.6 fta) but only Ray Felix at center (10/8/1 on .371) who later filled in badly for the Lakers too.

The Lakers improved from 19 wins to 33 wins and a trip to the finals behind rookie Elgin Baylor (25/15/4 on .408 with 9.8fta) as their only star.

Syracuse had their normal balanced attack with 6 players reaching double figures behind bigs Dolph Schayes and Red Kerr (21/13/3 .387/8.5 and 18/14/2 441/5.1).

Paul Arizin (26/9/2 .421/10.3fta) and Jack Twyman (26/9/3 .420/9.1fta) also had high scoring seasons finishing send and third in the league.

1. Bill Russell – easy choice
2. Bob Pettit – the first year of his great rivalry with Baylor for best forward
3. Elgin Baylor – great rookie year and playoffs
4. Cliff Hagan – hard to blame Hagan and Pettit for the playoff loss
5. Paul Arizin – tough choice over Cousy
HM: Bob Cousy, Kenny Sears – might move him up if I find out more about his defense and intangibles

1.Russell
2.Pettit
3.Baylor
4.Arizin
5.Hagan

Why Arizin over Hagan? Hagan shot better, rebounded better, passed more, scored only 2 ppg less, had a similar good defensive rep, plus Hagan's team was a lot better despite their complete lack of backcourt offense and Hagan did a great playoff job though his team lost.

bc of defensive attention.

1. Russell - Easy choice

2. Pettit - Best scorer in the league, good rebounder, led by far the best 2nd team in the league and the best ORTG, MVP. Playoff upset hurts but still enough to get here

3. Baylor - Good stats even early, led Lakers to the Finals. Efficiency doesn't bother me when you adjust for lower league wide levels

4. Sears - Arizin and Hagan are bigger names and volume guys, but I look at that Knicks ORTG leading to the 3rd best record overall, combined with the massive efficiency gap between him and everyone else, and I think Sears had a legitimate impact here. One maybe hard to receive proper recognition for with the rudimentary stats back then.

5. Hagan - Great player as a winner's 2nd banana and elite playoff numbers. I have trouble with Cousy's %s and Arizin anchoring the worst offense in the whole league - so I'll give this one to him

HM: Cousy, Arizin

1. Russell
2. Pettit
3. Baylor
4. Sears
5. Arizin

1. Russell
2. Pettit
3. Baylor
4. Hagan
5. Cousy

Why no love for Frank Ramsey. Guy led the Celtics in Win Shares in the Playoffs and WS Per 48 Minutes

1. Russell
2. Pettit
3. Baylor
4. Ramsey
5. Cousy

JordansBulls wrote:Why no love for Frank Ramsey.

Because he played only 2013 minutes, come from the bench (so less defensive attention) and his main job was to score and he wasn't too efficient in doing so (45.9 TS%).

DavidStern wrote:

JordansBulls wrote:Why no love for Frank Ramsey.

Because he played only 2013 minutes, come from the bench (so less defensive attention) and his main job was to score and he wasn't too efficient in doing so (45.9 TS%).

In the playoffs he was 56% TS and Russell was 45% TS. He also led the team in PER, WS and WS PER 48 in the playoffs.

Yeah, in playoffs he played very good, but you know - Celtics playoffs run that year = 11 games, so very small sample.
Besides even in playoffs he still was coming from the bench (so again - less defensive attention) and was 5th in minutes played.

DavidStern wrote:Yeah, in playoffs he played very good, but you know - Celtics playoffs run that year = 11 games, so very small sample.
Besides even in playoffs he still was coming from the bench (so again - less defensive attention) and was 5th in minutes played.

That speaks volumes though. Being able to lead a championship team in Win Shares despite coming off the bench and being 5th in minutes.

JordansBulls wrote:

DavidStern wrote:Yeah, in playoffs he played very good, but you know - Celtics playoffs run that year = 11 games, so very small sample.
Besides even in playoffs he still was coming from the bench (so again - less defensive attention) and was 5th in minutes played.

That speaks volumes though. Being able to lead a championship team in Win Shares despite coming off the bench and being 5th in minutes.

Whats so decisively convincing about winshares?

Jimmy76 wrote:

JordansBulls wrote:

DavidStern wrote:Yeah, in playoffs he played very good, but you know - Celtics playoffs run that year = 11 games, so very small sample.
Besides even in playoffs he still was coming from the bench (so again - less defensive attention) and was 5th in minutes played.

That speaks volumes though. Being able to lead a championship team in Win Shares despite coming off the bench and being 5th in minutes.

Whats so decisively convincing about winshares?

Especially since nowadays it's an estimate based on advance metrics and box score stats... Lord only knows how they calculate win shares for the 50s.

1. Bill Russell
2. Bob Pettit
3. Elgin Baylor
4. Cliff Hagan
5. Kenny Sears

HM: Dolph Schayes, Bob Cousy, Paul Arizin

Admittedly, I don't know a whole lot about this era and didn't check on a whole lot outside of what was posted in this thread.

Final Rankings:

Russell
Pettit
Baylor
Hagan
Cousy