coastalmarker99 wrote:Dutchball97 wrote:The year before Russell joined the Celtics their defensive rating was 91.7, which ranked 6th out of 8th in the league. In Russell's rookie year the Celtics had a defensive rating of 84. That was 2.9 points better than the 2nd best defensive team in the league and 3.9 points better than the best team of the year before (both time the Royals).
The Knicks were the worst defense in the league in 56 with a 92.8 rating. By 1957 they had improves somewhat to a defensive rating of 90.7, which saw them pass the Warriors and Pistons on that end by the slightest of margins. Both years the Knicks had no center of note of their roster. I really don't see any outcome outside of Russell making the Knicks the best defensive team in the league immediately.
Something interesting to ponder is that.
The Celtics played the first 24 games of 1956-57 w/o Russell who was at the Olympics.
In 24 first games w/o Russell Celtics were
16-8, .66.7 % (pace of 55 W in 82 g)
Best record in NBA (Syracuse 2nd at .528)
105.2 P/G
100.6 P/G opponents
Thus, in 1956-57, the Celtics were by far the best team in the NBA without Russell while also having the best defence.
Though I am sure that once Russell joined the team that their defence got even better which explains why there was such a huge gap between them and rest of the NBA
Preface: Russell had huge impact. He had that through his defense.
That said, doing year before to arrival without ... oh and Boston were net similarly as good as they would be for the rest of the season through the first 24 games as they would be through the last 48 with him (and also they lose Sharman for a spell in the early without Russell and then he basically comes back as Russell arrives and also then about a month later Ramsey arrives) and '56 is with Ed Macauley, a great scorer who was a 6'8 185lbs center and maybe not a great defender and Boston have other turnover such as adding Heinsohn, Phillip. So whilst I am very much inclined to think Russell made the Celtics more than vice-versa, I do think it's right to investigate flaws in the year-to-year method in this particular instance.
Other samples support Russell's enormous impact but are I suppose hard to separate from any "Boston effect".
One could certainly over-credit Red. At times he may have liked to perpetuate his own myth more generally for a psychological advantage (I think). On the other hand Auerbach coached and (as best I can tell) largely constructed a dominant (RS) Capitols team, outperformed the prior Blackhawk coach in '49, and generally had Boston above average (what that means versus talent levels is debatable) before Russell.
I do think being a great defense more-or-less requires team buy-in. If one player consistently lets his man waltz by him then a big can protect the rim and limit stuff but it's tough to prevent a light/no contest 10 footer (or else a pass to an open big ...). Mentally too, if you don't think everyone is trying, it would be hard not to get down, demotivated (especially at the end where rewards are less tangible and more at a team level). Not to say one individual can't have a big positive impact. Nor that Boston is special.
I do think a weak expansion franchise with no continuity would be a tough landing spot for any great. Maybe that hurts Russell early (New York, meanwhile, had some talented teams and giving them a defensive anchor, that looks like a really interesting team).
Still Russell was a great defender who had huge impact. It's difficult to be certain but the working assumption based on what we know is that that would roughly continue.