RealGM

In this thread we'll discuss and vote on the top 5 best player seasons of 1957-58.

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 ... _1958.html
Playoff Summary http://www.basketball-reference.com/pla ... _1958.html
Award Voting http://www.basketball-reference.com/awa ... _1958.html
Final Box Score http://webuns.chez-alice.fr/playoffs/1958.htm

I think this year Pettit wins the #1 spot.

Pettit and Hagan were awesome this year, it seems.

Would it be crazy to put them at #1 and #2?

Pettit seems like a lock at #1, but look at what Hagan did in the playoffs. Dude was sick.

Edit: Dolph Schayes also had nice playoff numbers -- but he only played 3 games. Still, hard to imagine Hagan getting in over him, so he's likely my #2, with Hagan and Russell battling it out for #4. And what to do with George Yardley? He had himself a nice season as well. Spots 3-5 should be interesting this year.

Eh I'm still putting Russell #1. Still has a massive impact on his team's defense - to the point where he could make almost any team a contender. The Pettit over Russell case essentially comes down to 1 game. Which is fine, Pettit's Game 6 is a GOAT contender. But it's not enough to overcome the impact of Russ defensively for me, especially considering Pettit's overall playoff shooting % isn't that impressive. Hagan was the one going off

Yeah but he beat him without HCA.

Also Pettit certainly was going off.

http://webuns.chez-alice.fr/finals/1958.htm

And you say Pettit shot bad who shot 58/137 or 42% FG, but Russell shot even worse. He shot 17/49 for 35% FG as a Center in the finals and overall Russel shot 36% in the playoffs that year. People say it was defense, but when you look at every team, each one of these guys were pretty pathetic.

Anyway my list this year.

1. Bob Pettit
2. Dolph Schayes
3. Bill Russell
4. Cliff Hagan
5. Bob Cousy

HM: George Yardly

lol@some people fighting for KAJ's RPOY spot... neither of these guys were in Russell's class. Russell is one of the GOAT candidates so you have to be quite nasty to pass him anywhere. Celtics still had 32.5 DWS and merely 16.6 OWS. that should tell you who was responsible for their wins.

Doc, you put up a wrong link for finals boxscore. here's a good one:
http://webuns.chez-alice.fr/finals/1958.htm

finals:
Pettit 29.3 PPG 51.5% TS
Hagan 25.1 PPG 56.3% TS

all postseason:
Hagan 28/10/3.5 57.6% TS
Pettit 24/16/2 47% TS

I'm sorry but to me Hagan clearly outplayed Pettit in that postseason. even assuming Pettit's intangibles - shot creation in this case, and Hagan making open jumpshots, it's still hard to explain such a dramatic difference in %.

my vote:
Russell
Hagan
Pettit
Schayes
Sears (for the lack of candidates)

bastillon wrote:lol@some people fighting for KAJ's RPOY spot... neither of these guys were in Russell's class. Russell is one of the GOAT candidates so you have to be quite nasty to pass him anywhere. Celtics still had 32.5 DWS and merely 16.6 OWS. that should tell you who was responsible for their wins.

Doc, you put up a wrong link for finals boxscore. here's a good one:
http://webuns.chez-alice.fr/finals/1958.htm

finals:
Pettit 29.3 PPG 51.5% TS
Hagan 25.1 PPG 56.3% TS

all postseason:
Hagan 28/10/3.5 57.6% TS
Pettit 24/16/2 47% TS

I'm sorry but to me Hagan clearly outplayed Pettit in that postseason. even assuming Pettit's intangibles - shot creation in this case, and Hagan making open jumpshots, it's still hard to explain such a dramatic difference in %.

my vote:
Russell
Hagan
Pettit
Schayes
Sears (for the lack of candidates)

And what did Russell do in the finals?

JordansBulls wrote:Yeah but he beat him without HCA.

Also Pettit certainly was going off.

http://webuns.chez-alice.fr/finals/1958.htm

And you say Pettit shot bad who shot 58/137 or 42% FG, but Russell shot even worse. He shot 17/49 for 35% FG as a Center.

1. Bob Pettit
2. Dolph Schayes
3. Bill Russell
4. Cliff Hagan
5. Bob Cousy

defensively Bill Russell is like having 3 Pettits on the court at the same time (with the ability to keep the other 4 players on the floor, too), so that's hardly any argument to point out shooting as an indicator of anything.

Celtics only lost because of Russell's injury and everybody knows that.

bastillon wrote:

JordansBulls wrote:Yeah but he beat him without HCA.

Also Pettit certainly was going off.

http://webuns.chez-alice.fr/finals/1958.htm

And you say Pettit shot bad who shot 58/137 or 42% FG, but Russell shot even worse. He shot 17/49 for 35% FG as a Center.

1. Bob Pettit
2. Dolph Schayes
3. Bill Russell
4. Cliff Hagan
5. Bob Cousy

defensively Bill Russell is like having 3 Pettits on the court at the same time (with the ability to keep the other 4 players on the floor, too), so that's hardly any argument to point out shooting as an indicator of anything.

Celtics only lost because of Russell's injury and everybody knows that.

Everyone in the league at the time shot bad, so saying defense is the argument is faulty because a lot of these guys were simply just awful.

I just can't see an argument for a guy who shot 36% in the playoffs and didn't win it all as the #1 guy that year.

JordansBulls wrote:
And what did Russell do in the finals?

he was injured the last 2 games. before that his defense was clearly a factor. Pettit shot like 40% TS in the first 4 games. (he shot 58% TS the last 2 games and 51.5% TS in the finals overall) you'd better be asking what did Russell do to Pettit and well, he f***** him up good before he was injured. league's top star pretty much was embarrassed before Russell was injured.

JordansBulls wrote:

Everyone in the league at the time shot bad, so saying defense is the argument is faulty because a lot of these guys were simply just awful.

I just can't see an argument for a guy who shot 36% in the playoffs and didn't win it all as the #1 guy that year.

awful or not, they were MUCH WORSE against the Celtics and that's what matters. I'm not comparing them between eras, I'm comparing Russell to his contemporaries. whereas they scored on Pettit without much trouble, being defended by Russell was like "arbeit macht frei" - a f*ckin hell.

bastillon wrote:

JordansBulls wrote:
And what did Russell do in the finals?

he was injured the last 2 games. before that his defense was clearly a factor. Pettit shot like 40% TS in the first 4 games. (he shot 58% TS the last 2 games and 51.5% TS in the finals overall) you'd better be asking what did Russell do to Pettit and well, he f***** him up good before he was injured. league's top star pretty much was embarrassed before Russell was injured.

Um no.

Pettit first 3 games

11-22
8-20
10-23


Russell first 3 games

4-15
7-15
4-12


Game 4 Russell missed and Pettit was 3-17. So Pettit was on lock once Russell was gone.

Game 5 Russell missed and Pettit was 7-21 that game.


Game 6 Russell comes back and Pettit was 19-34.


So yeah, Russell didn't really have an effect on Pettit.
In fact, Pettit played much much better when Russell was there.

So really can we say it was Russell who limited Pettit when Pettit only played bad when Russell didn't play?


Overall for Pettit when Russell played:

11-22
8-20
10-23
19-34

48%

Games in which Russell missed Pettit was:

3-17
7-21

26%


So yeah, the C's held down Pettit when Russell was gone. So maybe Russell gets too much credit for his defense than he should especially when you consider Pettit was the Center as well.

JordansBulls wrote:

bastillon wrote:

JordansBulls wrote:
And what did Russell do in the finals?

he was injured the last 2 games. before that his defense was clearly a factor. Pettit shot like 40% TS in the first 4 games. (he shot 58% TS the last 2 games and 51.5% TS in the finals overall) you'd better be asking what did Russell do to Pettit and well, he f***** him up good before he was injured. league's top star pretty much was embarrassed before Russell was injured.

Um no.

Pettit first 3 games

11-22
8-20
10-23


Russell first 3 games

4-15
7-15
4-12


Game 4 Russell missed and Pettit was 3-17. So Pettit was on lock once Russell was gone.

Game 5 Russell missed and Pettit was 7-21 that game.


Game 6 Russell comes back and Pettit was 19-34.


So yeah, Russell didn't really have an effect on Pettit.
In fact, Pettit played much much better when Russell was there.

So really can we say it was Russell who limited Pettit when Pettit only played bad when Russell didn't play?

fair point.

Bill Russell tried to play on a bad ankle, but could only play 20 minutes.

that's not exactly what I'd call "Russell comes back". still even with Russell being injured for couple of games, there's no chance Pettit even makes it thus far without Hagan who was arguably better than him.

let's also not forget that Russell was pretty much far away off either in the RS. Celtics dominated SRS again.

JB, use TS%. Pettit was 19-22 from FTs in game 5 making you FG figures useless.

Yes they dominated SRS which is why they should have won.

Hell Russell had 2 guys on the team in Cousy and Sharman who were 1st team, while he himself was 2nd team that year.

Seems like Yardley had a big year. Put up 28 points (leads league), 11 rebounds, .505 TS% which was pretty good relative to the league, especially for a G/F - he got to the FT line a ton. He's 2nd in WS, 1st in OWS, and 3rd in PER, as shoddy as those stats are for ranking this period. Pistons are sub .500 but make the 2nd round. He'll probably make my list.

Schayes score 24ppg on about the same efficiency as Yardley, grabs 14rpg, and leagues the 3rd best team in the league. Like Yardley he shoots like crap from the field but is a FT line hound. Somehow he shoots a league leading 90% from the line at 9.7 attempts a game, despite being a big guy in THIS era. Dude is only a slightly worse FT line scorer than Kevin Durant was this year. That's crazy.

Something else about Schayes I noticed that's interesting. Somehow he played 15 years in the league, from 49-50 to 63-64. He came into the league only a year after Mikan and was actually drafted in 1948, the 2nd BAA draft. Lasting that long is pretty damn impressive for this era. Not only did he withstand with the lack of medical and conditioning, but he managed to be an effective player for his first 5 years playing deadball, then actually improve his place with the new rules and pace.

JordansBulls wrote:Yes they dominated SRS which is why they should have won.

They dominated SRS in the regular season...with a healthy Russell. Hard to imagine Russell's injury wasn't a factor here.

Honestly not sure who I'm going to pick at this moment. I see good cases for both.

Doctor MJ wrote:

JordansBulls wrote:Yes they dominated SRS which is why they should have won.

They dominated SRS in the regular season...with a healthy Russell. Hard to imagine Russell's injury wasn't a factor here.

*wonders how different this discussion would be if it were Jordan instead of Pippen who got injured in the '98 Finals*

Hmmm, didn't realize Russell was injured. Any game-by-game analysis? I'd like to see what he was doing before his injury.

Doctor MJ wrote:

JordansBulls wrote:Yes they dominated SRS which is why they should have won.

They dominated SRS in the regular season...with a healthy Russell. Hard to imagine Russell's injury wasn't a factor here.

Honestly not sure who I'm going to pick at this moment. I see good cases for both.

Well he had two teammates that were 1st team NBA while he himself was 2nd team All NBA. If you are the best in the league you shouldn't be 2nd team ALL NBA while you have not only 1 teammate make the 1st team but two of them.