1965 Warriors/Sixers with/without Wilt

[70sFan]

Hi, I made a rough attempt at capturing Warriors/Sixers ORtg and DRtg with/without Wilt. I used similar methodology to the one presented in this thread about 1968 Sixers:

viewtopic.php?t=2159841

Here are the results:

Warriors with Wilt: 109.3 Tm, 114.3 Opp
Warriors without Wilt: 102.6 Tm, 109.9 Opp

Sixers with Wilt: 113.9 Tm, 113.7 Opp
Sixers without Wilt: 111.4 Tm, 111.9 Opp

Pace estimations:

Warriors with Wilt: 121.0
Warriors without Wilt: 119.1

Sixers with Wilt: 120.3
Sixers without Wilt: 119.2

Ratings:

Warriors full season: 87.7 ORtg, 92.8 DRtg
Warriors with Wilt: 90.3 ORtg, 94.4 DRtg
Warriors without Wilt: 86.2 ORtg, 92.3 DRtg

Sixers full season: 94.1 ORtg, 94.2 DRtg
Sixers with Wilt: 94.7 ORtg, 94.5 DRtg
Sixers without Wilt: 93.5 ORtg, 93.9 DRtg

Relative rankings to league average:

Warriors full season: -5.9 rORtg, -0.8 rDRtg
Warriors with Wilt: -3.3 rORtg, +0.8 rDRtg
Warriors without: -7.4 rORtg, -1.3 rDRtg

Sixers full season: +0.5 rORtg, +0.6 rDRtg
Sixers with Wilt: +1.1 rORtg, +0.9 rDRtg
Sixers without: -0.1 rORtg, +0.3 rDRtg

Relative to opponents faced:

Full season: -6.1 rORtg, -1.6 rDRtg
With Wilt: -3.4 rORtg, +0.3 rDRtg
Without: -7.7 rORtg, -2.4 rDRtg

Sixers full season: +0.5 rORtg, +0.6 rDRtg
Sixers with Wilt: +1.1 rORtg, +0.8 rDRtg
Sixers without: -0.1 rORtg, +0.4 rDRtg

Some obeservations:

- Warriors were very mediocre on defense with Wilt, it could be caused by his health issues,
- Warriors were actually quite good on defense once Thurmond took over the center position,
- Warriors were bad with Wilt on offense, clearly worse than 1964 team,
- Warriors were all-time bad on offense without Wilt, would rank inside top 15 worst offenses ever by Ben Taylor's database.
- Sixers were roughly the same level with Wilt and without him on both ends of the floor (slightly better offensively and slightly worse defensively), a lot of that was probably related to Sixers injuries at the end of the season.

Not a good RS performance from Wilt. Bonus - if we include postseason run:

Ratings:

Sixers in postseason: 96.0 ORtg, 95.8 DRtg
Sixers with Wilt in RS and PS: 95.0 ORtg, 94.6 DRtg

Relative to opponents faced:

Sixers in postseason: +7.5 rORtg, +2.3 rDRtg
Sixers with Wilt in RS and PS: +2.6 rORtg, +1.1 rDRtg

Sixers were brilliant offensively in postseason and with bigger sample (46 games) they look solid on offensive end. They don't look good at all defensively though, which is quite interesting.

[coastalmarker99]

Wilt suffered a heart attack in the 1964 offseason which affected him greatly.

He basically started conserving his energy for offence that entire regular season.

Until the playoffs in which he stepped it up defensively

In-game 4 against the Royals in the 1965 playoffs in the first round in a winner take all game

Wilt's stats were 38 points,26 rebounds and 10 blocked shots.


In game 1 against the Celtics in the ECF Chamberlain's stats were 48 min 33 points (13-22 FG and 7/12 FT) 31 rebs, 3 assists, 11 blocks

In-game 2 as well against the Celtics in the ECF Chamberlain's stats were 48 min 30 points (12-19 FG and 6/9 FT) 39 rebs, 8 assists, 8 blocks

in-game 6 as well against the Celtics in the ECF Chamberlain's starts were 48 min 30 points (13-22 FG and 4/8 FT) 26 rebs, 4 assists, 13 blocks

[70sFan]

Wilt suffered a heart attack in the 1964 offseason which affected him greatly.

He basically started conserving his energy for offence that entire regular season.

Until the playoffs in which he stepped it up defensively

In-game 4 against the Royals in the 1965 playoffs in the first round in a winner take all game

Wilt's stats were 38 points,26 rebounds and 10 blocked shots.


In game 1 against the Celtics in the ECF Chamberlain's stats were 48 min 33 points (13-22 FG and 7/12 FT) 31 rebs, 3 assists, 11 blocks

In-game 2 as well against the Celtics in the ECF Chamberlain's stats were 48 min 30 points (12-19 FG and 6/9 FT) 39 rebs, 8 assists, 8 blocks

in-game 6 as well against the Celtics in the ECF Chamberlain's starts were 48 min 30 points (13-22 FG and 4/8 FT) 26 rebs, 4 assists, 13 blocks

Sixers defense wasn't consistent in the playoffs either though. Even against Cincinnati, the Royals were slowed down only to 0.4 points per100 below their RS averages.

[coastalmarker99]

Wilt suffered a heart attack in the 1964 offseason which affected him greatly.

He basically started conserving his energy for offence that entire regular season.

Until the playoffs in which he stepped it up defensively

In-game 4 against the Royals in the 1965 playoffs in the first round in a winner take all game

Wilt's stats were 38 points,26 rebounds and 10 blocked shots.


In game 1 against the Celtics in the ECF Chamberlain's stats were 48 min 33 points (13-22 FG and 7/12 FT) 31 rebs, 3 assists, 11 blocks

In-game 2 as well against the Celtics in the ECF Chamberlain's stats were 48 min 30 points (12-19 FG and 6/9 FT) 39 rebs, 8 assists, 8 blocks

in-game 6 as well against the Celtics in the ECF Chamberlain's starts were 48 min 30 points (13-22 FG and 4/8 FT) 26 rebs, 4 assists, 13 blocks

Sixers defense wasn't consistent in the playoffs either though. Even against Cincinnati, the Royals were slowed down only to 0.4 points per100 below their RS averages.

It could be explained by Larry Costello not being healthy in the postseason that year as outside of him and Greer they didn't really have any guards who could play great defence.


Plus Jackson was a rookie who had to learn quickly how to adjust to playing with Wilt.

[70sFan]

Wilt suffered a heart attack in the 1964 offseason which affected him greatly.

He basically started conserving his energy for offence that entire regular season.

Until the playoffs in which he stepped it up defensively

In-game 4 against the Royals in the 1965 playoffs in the first round in a winner take all game

Wilt's stats were 38 points,26 rebounds and 10 blocked shots.


In game 1 against the Celtics in the ECF Chamberlain's stats were 48 min 33 points (13-22 FG and 7/12 FT) 31 rebs, 3 assists, 11 blocks

In-game 2 as well against the Celtics in the ECF Chamberlain's stats were 48 min 30 points (12-19 FG and 6/9 FT) 39 rebs, 8 assists, 8 blocks

in-game 6 as well against the Celtics in the ECF Chamberlain's starts were 48 min 30 points (13-22 FG and 4/8 FT) 26 rebs, 4 assists, 13 blocks

Sixers defense wasn't consistent in the playoffs either though. Even against Cincinnati, the Royals were slowed down only to 0.4 points per100 below their RS averages.

It could be explained by Larry Costello not being healthy in the postseason that year as outside of him and Greer they didn't really have any guards who could play great defence.


Plus Jackson was a rookie who had to learn quickly how to adjust to playing with Wilt.

Yeah, it could be the case. Costello health problems certainly didn't help them, as they were forced to give Al Bianchi way too many minutes for championship contender. Rookie Jackson might also struggle next to Wilt after changing his position, that's possible.

That's still quite unusual though. I mean, Greer was a solid defender and so were their forwards (Gambee had a great reputation, Walker wasn't bad). Maybe chemistry wasn't there yet, maybe Wilt coasted on defense. They became excellent just in the next season defensively.

[coastalmarker99]

Sixers defense wasn't consistent in the playoffs either though. Even against Cincinnati, the Royals were slowed down only to 0.4 points per100 below their RS averages.

It could be explained by Larry Costello not being healthy in the postseason that year as outside of him and Greer they didn't really have any guards who could play great defence.


Plus Jackson was a rookie who had to learn quickly how to adjust to playing with Wilt.

Yeah, it could be the case. Costello health problems certainly didn't help them, as they were forced to give Al Bianchi way too many minutes for championship contender. Rookie Jackson might also struggle next to Wilt after changing his position, that's possible.

That's still quite unusual though. I mean, Greer was a solid defender and so were their forwards (Gambee had a great reputation, Walker wasn't bad). Maybe chemistry wasn't there yet, maybe Wilt coasted on defense. They became excellent just in the next season defensively.

My thinking is that it would be incredibly hard for a coach to adjust his team on both sides of the ball to someone of Wilt's status coming in so late into the season.


Plus the 76ers were a young team who really didn't have that much veteran experience in the playoffs outside of Wilt.

It's honestly a miracle they took that Boston team to the limit in 1965.


As a better 76ers team with far better depth due to the addition of Billy got crushed the next year due to everyone not named Wilt disappearing offensively.

As Wilt shot 50.9 from the floor in that series, while his teammates collectively shot 35.2.

[coastalmarker99]

I do wonder how people would view Wilt's 1965 playoff run to his 1964 and 1967 playoff runs.

Had they got past Boston.

As he most likely would have destroyed a Baylor-less Lakers team in the finals.

As LA basically had no answer for Wilt during that entire decade when they faced each other as he basically owned them.

[70sFan]

It could be explained by Larry Costello not being healthy in the postseason that year as outside of him and Greer they didn't really have any guards who could play great defence.


Plus Jackson was a rookie who had to learn quickly how to adjust to playing with Wilt.

Yeah, it could be the case. Costello health problems certainly didn't help them, as they were forced to give Al Bianchi way too many minutes for championship contender. Rookie Jackson might also struggle next to Wilt after changing his position, that's possible.

That's still quite unusual though. I mean, Greer was a solid defender and so were their forwards (Gambee had a great reputation, Walker wasn't bad). Maybe chemistry wasn't there yet, maybe Wilt coasted on defense. They became excellent just in the next season defensively.

My thinking is that it would be incredibly hard for a coach to adjust his team on both sides of the ball to someone of Wilt's status coming in so late into the season.


Plus the 76ers were a young team who really didn't have that much veteran experience in the playoffs outside of Wilt.

It's honestly a miracle they took that Boston team to the limit in 1965.


As a better 76ers team with far better depth due to the addition of Billy got crushed the next year due to everyone not named Wilt disappearing offensively.

As Wilt shot 50.9 from the floor in that series, while his teammates collectively shot 35.2.

Sixers were quite young, but they had some experience. Greer was already a veteran, so was Costello. They also had Gambee who was in the league longer than Wilt himself. The coaching point is legit one though and Sixers injuries at the end of the season certianly didn't help to gain a chemistry.

In 1966 the whole team collapsed in postseason. Wilt's teammates shot absolutely horribly, but Wilt himself wasn't good either by his standards. In the first two blowout losses, Wilt averaged only 24 ppg on 45 FG% and 46.6 TS%. He had a good game 3, but didn't shoot well in deciding game 4 as well. Game 5 performance was amazing, but it was too late anyway.

We have to give Celtics defense credit for how well they defended Sixers offense. Russell did a tremendous job on Wilt.

[70sFan]

I do wonder how people would view Wilt's 1965 playoff run to his 1964 and 1967 playoff runs.

Had they got past Boston.

As he most likely would have destroyed a Baylor-less Lakers team in the finals.

As LA basically had no answer for Wilt during that entire decade when they faced each other as he basically owned them.

Well, they'd definitely beat the Lakers and assuming decent finals performance, Wilt would have truly ATG postseason run. Might be ranked ahead of 1964 and on par with 1967.

[coastalmarker99]

I do wonder how people would view Wilt's 1965 playoff run to his 1964 and 1967 playoff runs.

Had they got past Boston.

As he most likely would have destroyed a Baylor-less Lakers team in the finals.

As LA basically had no answer for Wilt during that entire decade when they faced each other as he basically owned them.

Well, they'd definitely beat the Lakers and assuming decent finals performance, Wilt would have truly ATG postseason run. Might be ranked ahead of 1964 and on par with 1967.

I do wonder if winning the title in 1965 as a scoring machine would have influenced Wilt to keep being a scorer for the rest of his career.


As I don't see Hannum being hired by the 76ers in the 1966 offseason if Schayes has a title under his belt.

Therefore you probably have Wilt averaging over 30 PPG in the next two seasons instead of being an all-around force.

[70sFan]

I do wonder how people would view Wilt's 1965 playoff run to his 1964 and 1967 playoff runs.

Had they got past Boston.

As he most likely would have destroyed a Baylor-less Lakers team in the finals.

As LA basically had no answer for Wilt during that entire decade when they faced each other as he basically owned them.

Well, they'd definitely beat the Lakers and assuming decent finals performance, Wilt would have truly ATG postseason run. Might be ranked ahead of 1964 and on par with 1967.

I do wonder if winning the title in 1965 as a scoring machine would have influenced Wilt to keep being a scorer for the rest of his career.


As I don't see Hannum being hired by the 76ers in the 1966 offseason if Schayes has a title under his belt.

Well, that wouldn't be good for Wilt or the Sixers, given the hindsights. I don't think the team would reach their potential with Schayes as a coach.

[coastalmarker99]

Well, they'd definitely beat the Lakers and assuming decent finals performance, Wilt would have truly ATG postseason run. Might be ranked ahead of 1964 and on par with 1967.

I do wonder if winning the title in 1965 as a scoring machine would have influenced Wilt to keep being a scorer for the rest of his career.


As I don't see Hannum being hired by the 76ers in the 1966 offseason if Schayes has a title under his belt.

Well, that wouldn't be good for Wilt or the Sixers, given the hindsights. I don't think the team would reach their potential with Schayes as a coach.

Wilt's legacy would look better through if he had 2 to 3 rings to go along with a 30 to 32 PPG playoff average for his career.


As casuals nowadays use the 30 to 22 PPG argument against him nonstop.


I also still see the 1967 76ers winning the title under Schayes as that team was stacked with talent who were all in their primes outside of Billy.


You can make the argument if not for bad luck that the 76ers should have beaten Boston three out of four times in the playoffs from 1965 to 1968.

[coastalmarker99]

I do feel incredibly bad for Schayes and Joe Mullaney.

As both men could have easily won titles with Wilt had luck shined their way.

Instead, they lost and ended up getting replaced by two legendary head coaches in Hannum and Sharman who completely overshadow them.


I honestly still don't understand why Mullaney was fired when both Wilt and West got destroyed by injuries in back to back seasons.

[70sFan]

Wilt's legacy would look better through if he had 2 to 3 rings to go along with a 30 to 32 PPG playoff average for his career.


As casuals nowadays use the 30 to 22 PPG argument against him nonstop.

I don't think Wilt would be able to win 2-3 title with his high scoring years. The only time he went very close was 1965, as 1962 finals wouldn't be a given for him.

I also still see the 1967 76ers winning the title under Schayes as that team was stacked with talent who were all in their primes outside of Billy.

They wouldn't have been nearly as dominant though.

You can make the argument if not for bad luck that the 76ers should have beaten Boston three out of four times in the playoffs from 1965 to 1968.

Well, 1965 certainly had some luck behind it. 1968 was deralied by injuries, but it's a part of the game. Celtics were simply better in 1966 though.

[Doctor MJ]

Hi, I made a rough attempt at capturing Warriors/Sixers ORtg and DRtg with/without Wilt. I used similar methodology to the one presented in this thread about 1968 Sixers:

viewtopic.php?t=2159841

Here are the results:

Warriors with Wilt: 109.3 Tm, 114.3 Opp
Warriors without Wilt: 102.6 Tm, 109.9 Opp

Sixers with Wilt: 113.9 Tm, 113.7 Opp
Sixers without Wilt: 111.4 Tm, 111.9 Opp

Pace estimations:

Warriors with Wilt: 121.0
Warriors without Wilt: 119.1

Sixers with Wilt: 120.3
Sixers without Wilt: 119.2

Ratings:

Warriors full season: 87.7 ORtg, 92.8 DRtg
Warriors with Wilt: 90.3 ORtg, 94.4 DRtg
Warriors without Wilt: 86.2 ORtg, 92.3 DRtg

Sixers full season: 94.1 ORtg, 94.2 DRtg
Sixers with Wilt: 94.7 ORtg, 94.5 DRtg
Sixers without Wilt: 93.5 ORtg, 93.9 DRtg

Relative rankings to league average:

Warriors full season: -5.9 rORtg, -0.8 rDRtg
Warriors with Wilt: -3.3 rORtg, +0.8 rDRtg
Warriors without: -7.4 rORtg, -1.3 rDRtg

Sixers full season: +0.5 rORtg, +0.6 rDRtg
Sixers with Wilt: +1.1 rORtg, +0.9 rDRtg
Sixers without: -0.1 rORtg, +0.3 rDRtg

Relative to opponents faced:

Full season: -6.1 rORtg, -1.6 rDRtg
With Wilt: -3.4 rORtg, +0.3 rDRtg
Without: -7.7 rORtg, -2.4 rDRtg

Sixers full season: +0.5 rORtg, +0.6 rDRtg
Sixers with Wilt: +1.1 rORtg, +0.8 rDRtg
Sixers without: -0.1 rORtg, +0.4 rDRtg

Some obeservations:

- Warriors were very mediocre on defense with Wilt, it could be caused by his health issues,
- Warriors were actually quite good on defense once Thurmond took over the center position,
- Warriors were bad with Wilt on offense, clearly worse than 1964 team,
- Warriors were all-time bad on offense without Wilt, would rank inside top 15 worst offenses ever by Ben Taylor's database.
- Sixers were roughly the same level with Wilt and without him on both ends of the floor (slightly better offensively and slightly worse defensively), a lot of that was probably related to Sixers injuries at the end of the season.

Not a good RS performance from Wilt.

I think what '64-65 clearly shows us is that there's a definitive answer to the question:

"Is it really possible to put up volume numbers like Wilt did and have very little impact?"

Yup. Wilt was capable of big numbers and capable of big impact but '64-65 shows us he could do the former without the latter, and thus the source of his big impact is more subtle than people typically realize.

I'll also note that, as expected, people are bringing up Wilt's health for '64-65 and I don't dispute that at all. I think clearly Wilt wasn't at his best in '64-65...yet somehow this translated into Wilt having a higher PPG & RPG than the prior season. Surely it wasn't because he was being told he hadn't scored enough the previous year and needed to commit to scoring even more. Rather, for whatever reason, this is what Wilt decided to do...as he was going through health problems on a team that was losing and losing and losing.

I have a hard time not looking at this as Wilt feeling like as long as he got his numbers, it was unreasonable for people to criticize him. None of this is saying that he wasn't trying, or that he was looking to sabotage his team, but rather that he felt such a strong connection to his numbers that his instinct when things were going badly was to make sure he got big ones.

And in fairness: It's not like he was imaging that people were evaluating him based on his numbers. Even today, the average fan knows him for how big his scoring and rebounding volume was, so I think you can make a serious argument that he did what he had to do in '64-65 to defend himself from certain veins of criticism.

[70sFan]

I think what '64-65 clearly shows us is that there's a definitive answer to the question:

"Is it really possible to put up volume numbers like Wilt did and have very little impact?"

Yup. Wilt was capable of big numbers and capable of big impact but '64-65 shows us he could do the former without the latter, and thus the source of his big impact is more subtle than people typically realize.

I'll also note that, as expected, people are bringing up Wilt's health for '64-65 and I don't dispute that at all. I think clearly Wilt wasn't at his best in '64-65...yet somehow this translated into Wilt having a higher PPG & RPG than the prior season. Surely it wasn't because he was being told he hadn't scored enough the previous year and needed to commit to scoring even more. Rather, for whatever reason, this is what Wilt decided to do...as he was going through health problems on a team that was losing and losing and losing.

That's true, it shows that we shouldn't judge players by raw numbers. Wilt had comparable boxscore stats just the season before, but nobody can dispute the fact that he didn't have the same impact.

I have a hard time not looking at this as Wilt feeling like as long as he got his numbers, it was unreasonable for people to criticize him. None of this is saying that he wasn't trying, or that he was looking to sabotage his team, but rather that he felt such a strong connection to his numbers that his instinct when things were going badly was to make sure he got big ones.

That's unknown for us. Neither you or I know what Wilt felt during that time.

[Doctor MJ]

I think what '64-65 clearly shows us is that there's a definitive answer to the question:

"Is it really possible to put up volume numbers like Wilt did and have very little impact?"

Yup. Wilt was capable of big numbers and capable of big impact but '64-65 shows us he could do the former without the latter, and thus the source of his big impact is more subtle than people typically realize.

I'll also note that, as expected, people are bringing up Wilt's health for '64-65 and I don't dispute that at all. I think clearly Wilt wasn't at his best in '64-65...yet somehow this translated into Wilt having a higher PPG & RPG than the prior season. Surely it wasn't because he was being told he hadn't scored enough the previous year and needed to commit to scoring even more. Rather, for whatever reason, this is what Wilt decided to do...as he was going through health problems on a team that was losing and losing and losing.

That's true, it shows that we shouldn't judge players by raw numbers. Wilt had comparable boxscore stats just the season before, but nobody can dispute the fact that he didn't have the same impact.

I have a hard time not looking at this as Wilt feeling like as long as he got his numbers, it was unreasonable for people to criticize him. None of this is saying that he wasn't trying, or that he was looking to sabotage his team, but rather that he felt such a strong connection to his numbers that his instinct when things were going badly was to make sure he got big ones.

That's unknown for us. Neither you or I know what Wilt felt during that time.

That's true, though you saying that makes me want to emphasize something:

It's common, in my experience, for people when they look at things in deeper history to avoid theory-of-mind analysis on the grounds that such things cannot be known.

I personally would urge people to use an approach that doesn't consider errors of commission as inherently worse than errors of omission. Meaning, while from a "slander" perspective, it's better to say "I don't know" than to speculate on why something happened they way it did, if you're actually trying to come to conclusions that are closest to what was actually the case, that shouldn't factor in.

This isn't to say that you should ever assume you know what's going on in someone's mind and hold to that as firmly as you know objective facts, but so long as that seems the most likely conclusions, it's sub-optimal to ignore it.

Make sense? Feel free to respond back with counter-philosophy as I'd imagine you specifically have thought a lot about how to evaluate players from yesteryear.

[70sFan]

I think what '64-65 clearly shows us is that there's a definitive answer to the question:

"Is it really possible to put up volume numbers like Wilt did and have very little impact?"

Yup. Wilt was capable of big numbers and capable of big impact but '64-65 shows us he could do the former without the latter, and thus the source of his big impact is more subtle than people typically realize.

I'll also note that, as expected, people are bringing up Wilt's health for '64-65 and I don't dispute that at all. I think clearly Wilt wasn't at his best in '64-65...yet somehow this translated into Wilt having a higher PPG & RPG than the prior season. Surely it wasn't because he was being told he hadn't scored enough the previous year and needed to commit to scoring even more. Rather, for whatever reason, this is what Wilt decided to do...as he was going through health problems on a team that was losing and losing and losing.

That's true, it shows that we shouldn't judge players by raw numbers. Wilt had comparable boxscore stats just the season before, but nobody can dispute the fact that he didn't have the same impact.

I have a hard time not looking at this as Wilt feeling like as long as he got his numbers, it was unreasonable for people to criticize him. None of this is saying that he wasn't trying, or that he was looking to sabotage his team, but rather that he felt such a strong connection to his numbers that his instinct when things were going badly was to make sure he got big ones.

That's unknown for us. Neither you or I know what Wilt felt during that time.

That's true, though you saying that makes me want to emphasize something:

It's common, in my experience, for people when they look at things in deeper history to avoid theory-of-mind analysis on the grounds that such things cannot be known.

I personally would urge people to use an approach that doesn't consider errors of commission as inherently worse than errors of omission. Meaning, while from a "slander" perspective, it's better to say "I don't know" than to speculate on why something happened they way it did, if you're actually trying to come to conclusions that are closest to what was actually the case, that shouldn't factor in.

This isn't to say that you should ever assume you know what's going on in someone's mind and hold to that as firmly as you know objective facts, but so long as that seems the most likely conclusions, it's sub-optimal to ignore it.

Make sense? Feel free to respond back with counter-philosophy as I'd imagine you specifically have thought a lot about how to evaluate players from yesteryear.

I think this approach has its value but we have to remember that it is only our hypothesis. I love thought experiments, but in the end we should remember that we just can't get inside players heads. That's it, we just have to remember that!

[DQuinn1575]

Yeah, it could be the case. Costello health problems certainly didn't help them, as they were forced to give Al Bianchi way too many minutes for championship contender. Rookie Jackson might also struggle next to Wilt after changing his position, that's possible.

That's still quite unusual though. I mean, Greer was a solid defender and so were their forwards (Gambee had a great reputation, Walker wasn't bad). Maybe chemistry wasn't there yet, maybe Wilt coasted on defense. They became excellent just in the next season defensively.

My thinking is that it would be incredibly hard for a coach to adjust his team on both sides of the ball to someone of Wilt's status coming in so late into the season.


Plus the 76ers were a young team who really didn't have that much veteran experience in the playoffs outside of Wilt.

It's honestly a miracle they took that Boston team to the limit in 1965.


As a better 76ers team with far better depth due to the addition of Billy got crushed the next year due to everyone not named Wilt disappearing offensively.

As Wilt shot 50.9 from the floor in that series, while his teammates collectively shot 35.2.

Sixers were quite young, but they had some experience. Greer was already a veteran, so was Costello. They also had Gambee who was in the league longer than Wilt himself. The coaching point is legit one though and Sixers injuries at the end of the season certianly didn't help to gain a chemistry.

In 1966 the whole team collapsed in postseason. Wilt's teammates shot absolutely horribly, but Wilt himself wasn't good either by his standards. In the first two blowout losses, Wilt averaged only 24 ppg on 45 FG% and 46.6 TS%. He had a good game 3, but didn't shoot well in deciding game 4 as well. Game 5 performance was amazing, but it was too late anyway.

We have to give Celtics defense credit for how well they defended Sixers offense. Russell did a tremendous job on Wilt.

Sixers had veterans in Bianchi, Costello, and Kerr who would all coach in the league - that should be a lot of veteran presence there. Of the top 10 players, only 2 were younger than 27, and Chet Walker had already been an all-star.
Costello injury hurts, but he is your 4th-5h best player.

[70sFan]

My thinking is that it would be incredibly hard for a coach to adjust his team on both sides of the ball to someone of Wilt's status coming in so late into the season.


Plus the 76ers were a young team who really didn't have that much veteran experience in the playoffs outside of Wilt.

It's honestly a miracle they took that Boston team to the limit in 1965.


As a better 76ers team with far better depth due to the addition of Billy got crushed the next year due to everyone not named Wilt disappearing offensively.

As Wilt shot 50.9 from the floor in that series, while his teammates collectively shot 35.2.

Sixers were quite young, but they had some experience. Greer was already a veteran, so was Costello. They also had Gambee who was in the league longer than Wilt himself. The coaching point is legit one though and Sixers injuries at the end of the season certianly didn't help to gain a chemistry.

In 1966 the whole team collapsed in postseason. Wilt's teammates shot absolutely horribly, but Wilt himself wasn't good either by his standards. In the first two blowout losses, Wilt averaged only 24 ppg on 45 FG% and 46.6 TS%. He had a good game 3, but didn't shoot well in deciding game 4 as well. Game 5 performance was amazing, but it was too late anyway.

We have to give Celtics defense credit for how well they defended Sixers offense. Russell did a tremendous job on Wilt.

Sixers had veterans in Bianchi, Costello, and Kerr who would all coach in the league - that should be a lot of veteran presence there. Of the top 10 players, only 2 were younger than 27, and Chet Walker had already been an all-star.
Costello injury hurts, but he is your 4th-5h best player.

Yeah, don't agree with the explaination that Sixers were too inexperienced.

I disagree that Costello was only their 4th-5th best player though. You can argue that he was their 3rd best player period (and to be honest, I don't see anyone else close in 1965) but his absence was even more critical because Sixers had no depth at guard position. They lost Paul Neumann in Wilt's trade (very solid option from the bench) and they didn't have Wali Jones yet, which forced them to play Al Bianchi heavy minutes. Bianchi wasn't good player at that point. So not only he was their 3rd best player in a vaccum in my opinion (you can argue Walker, but I wouldn't - not at this point), but Costello loss was more critical than any other player, outside of Wilt and Greer of course.