Why were the 1960s celtics below average on offense?

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Re: Why were the 1960s celtics below average on offense? 

Post#21 » by Doctor MJ » Mon Jun 20, 2022 9:02 pm

capfan33 wrote:If I remember correctly, Elgee came up with a better way to predict ratings for seasons before 1974 and basketball reference hasn't been updated to reflect this. Here are the updated numbers for the Celtics. (Not sure if this is allowed but I do feel like it's very interesting data that a lot of people would find relevant)

ORTG DRTG rORTG rDRTG
56-57 91.6 86.9 2.2 -2.5
57-58 90.1 85.6 1.4 -3.1
58-59 92.8 87.6 1.7 -3.5
59-60 92.8 86.6 2.5 -3.7
60-61 87.7 83.5 -1.4 -5.5
61-62 92 85 0.9 -6.1
62-63 94 88.3 -0.6 -6.3
63-64 90.1 83.8 -2.4 -8.7
64-65 91.5 84.7 -0.4 -7.2
65-66 92.2 88.2 -0.5 -4.5
66-67 96.9 90.4 2.3 -4.3
67-68 95.4 92 0.5 -2.8
68-69 93.4 88.7 0.1 -4.6

Essentially, the Celtics weren't as bad offensively, and weren't as good defensively as we previously thought. How that changes your perception of Russell and/or his supporting cast is up to you, but it is interesting.


This is indeed Taylor's new and improved version.

Folks in terms of what's allowed here, this is a grey area as far as I know, but here's what I'll say for now:

If you see this data because someone shares it, and you learn stuff from it, and you can afford to throw someone a bone on Patreon, why not do it?

On the basketball analysis:

While there may have been a net shift that makes the Celtics look less bad on offense and less good on defense, I don't see it as a clear general trend and I don't think people should "round up" or "round down" from bkref to estimate these numbers.

I think the most interesting thing here is that the Celtics as best ORtg goes down from 12 to 11 - where the year that switches over is Russell's rookie year where he missed half the season, and where the Celtics certainly seemed like the dominant defensive team in the playoffs.

(The best DRtg in '56-57 by this new update are the Rochester Royals' defense lead by Maurice Stokes.)

Also of note: Pettit's Hawks and Oscar's Royals both lose a couple crowns with this revision, and all 4 of those crowns are lost to the same franchise: The Syracuse Nationals, who then become the Philadelphia 76ers. In '58-59 & '59-60 they are led by Dolph Schayes, in '62-63 by Hal Greer, and in '68-69 as the 76ers by Bill Cunningham.

(This brings Pettit down to zero times led a team to the best ORtg in the game, and brings Oscar down to 4 years as his team's lead, and 5 years total including '70-71 in Milwaukee. West & Wilt, incidentally, end up gaining 2 years at the end of their run in LA, which brings West up to 4 total #1 ORtg teams and Wilt up to 3. Kareem also grows to 3 #1 ORtg years before Magic arrives, to go along with the 6 of Magic's 7 he's on Showtime for - giving him 9 total, which is actually not THAT far away from Russell's DRtg champ mark of 11 now...though done over much more time.)
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Re: Why were the 1960s celtics below average on offense? 

Post#22 » by Dr Positivity » Tue Jun 21, 2022 12:19 am

I think system related. The Celtics biggest strength was depth so part of the strategy is to make the opponent tired and making it a war of attrition. Some of this may have led to being tired as well and shooting worse. They also seem to have not known that scoring the most points doesn’t give them the best offense
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Re: Why were the 1960s celtics below average on offense? 

Post#23 » by SinceGatlingWasARookie » Tue Jun 21, 2022 5:34 am

I watched a game video narrated by Frank Ramsey and Satch Sanders. The host asked them what they were doing flinging up bad fast break shots. Ramsey and Sanders said that Red Auerbach told them to shoot quick because Red Auerbach believed that the Celtics could break teams with defensive pressure and preferred quick shots as a method to get back on defense where the Celtics could crack the other team’s minds.

Cousey and Heiensohn were were high volume low percentage shooters. John Havlicek was the Celtics stretch shooter. Havlicek was a high volume bad shooter until after Russell retired. After Russel retired Havlicek turned himself into a high volume mediocre shooter on the Cowens championship teams. The good thing about Heinsohn, Cousey, and Havlicek is that they were not defensible.

The good shooters were Sam Jones, Sharman and Bailey Howell. Don Nelson was a good shooter at lower volumes.

KC Jones could not shoot. Ramsey and Sanders were OK if they only took easy shots but they were bad shooters when Red made them force up shots. The role players were not good shooters. Siegfried could shoot a little bit. The team chose players for defense not offense.

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