70sFan wrote:).
So I've finished logging (game log and shot data) the Royals/Warriors game from '70 (though I still need to tally up the boxscore). The video is about 75% complete (there are a few breaks where the next clip is picking the game up at a later point; probably 11-12 minutes missing in total).
Some general impressions.......
With the exception of Norm Van Lier (who gets himself fouled out), both teams seemed fairly poor defensively in this game.
Robertson is actually pretty quiet thru most of this game, and it's interesting that it's Van Lier and King who did most of the ball-handling. Connie Dierking has a star-like game, despite how unimpressive he generally looks; he plays all 48 minutes, as apparently they didn't really have a back-up C at this point.
One kinda wants to draw conclusions from one game, but obviously there can be a lot of noise with just a 1-game sample. But it sure seems like Fred Foster and Tom Van Arsdale shoot a lot (and not terribly well in this game).
Looking at the stats for the '70 Royals, it indeed seems TVA, Foster, and Dierking ALL take more shots per 36 minutes than Oscar Robertson does......which hardly seems right. I'd have liked to see Oscar be a bit more aggressive in this one.
He destroys all of them in efficiency [not just in this game, but generally speaking on the whole season], and is rarely assisted; he seems able to get those shots when he wants.
For shot location data on Oscar, I now have this game (which again is about 75% complete), and the 2nd half of G4 of the '71 Finals. In this 1.25-game sample, Oscar is absolutely KILLING the mid-range; accuracy is
obscene on this very limited sample. Would like to see him do it a bit more for this team.
Foster in particular kept firing away from the outside to dreadful accuracy (though he did very well around the rim, and seems decent working the baseline or on back-cuts......wish he'd stick to that more).
For the Warriors, I was expecting to see more outside shooting by Jerry Lucas. Maybe this game was an anomaly, but only 1 shot out of 10 was NOT at the rim for him.
Joe Ellis (who if I'd heard of him previously, it was in passing and I'd mostly forgotten him) was ON FIRE in this game.
I think Ellis is perhaps a decent talking point in response to posters who verbally defecate on this era, and perhaps make statements to the effect of "ANY decent athlete from today's era would dominate then".
Ellis was a true 6'6", though lanky of build (175 lbs listed on bbref, noting this in an era prior to the encouragement for, or facilitating of, weight training), seems a fair/decent leaper, and has a certain fluid grace to his movements and body control; seems like
potentially good open-court speed, too, though we rarely get to see him open up his stride and really run in this game.
So he's a pretty decent athlete (would be a fair athlete even in today's league). And he's not totally unskilled. No real handles or playmaking ability that I can see, but he's got a fairly nice looking form/stroke on his shot. His accuracy in this game is somewhat anomalous [looking at his season/career %'s], but perhaps not dreadful given he looks like he's almost exclusively an outside shooter (the vast majority of his shots coming in the 18-22 ft range).
So here we have a decent athlete who has some shooting skill, and he's still not dominating this era......he was in fact barely a fair role player in that era.
There's another good talking point for this topic in Johnny Green. Johnny Green was a legit GOOD athlete for any era of the NBA. A true 6'5", solid but slightly lanky build (200 lbs), could jump (
quick jumper, in particular), really quick first step, really fast......at one point when he really sprints in the open-court and the commentator says "Green's 36 years old, but he still runs like a colt!". It's sort of impressive watching him in this game, realizing he's 36 years old at this point, because he still looks like a terrific pure athlete.
Green is sort of like Kobe Bryant minus the spectacular mid-air body control. He's got all the other features of Bryant's athleticism: almost exact same height and build, I definitely think he could match young Kobe in open-court speed, similar [close anyway] quickness, excellent leaper [close at least], similarly durability.....
But he didn't "dominate" this era. He was a good player, but not great (never received any MVP votes, for example, nor ever made an All-NBA Team).
There are other examples we can bring up, but I'm drifting enough off-topic, I suppose I'll just stop here.
"Never argue with an idiot. They will only bring you down to their level and beat you with experience." -George Carlin
"The fact that a proposition is absurd has never hindered those who wish to believe it." -Edward Rutherfurd