Kevin Durant vs Oscar Robertson

[Matt15]

Who do you rank higher on your all-time list?

[70sFan]

Oscar fairly clearly. I don't rate Durant nearly as high as most though.

[Cavsfansince84]

I have Oscar as top 12/13, KD as more like 20-23. He's accomplished next to nothing since 2019 while missing around half his rs games.

[tsherkin]

All-time, I would tend to take Oscar. Era-relative, too. His archetype is generally more valuable, and he was a monster scorer with hugely deviant efficiency in his own time. Also has a ring as #2, also has an MVP. Architected the best offense in the league for most of a decade.

I am a fan of Durant, but Oscar was better in his day.

[One_and_Done]

KD and it's not close. Oscar is a product of his own era to a large degree. In today's league he wouldn't even be an all-star.

[penbeast0]

KD and it's not close. Oscar is a product of his own era to a large degree. In today's league he wouldn't even be an all-star.

Thank you for the extremely predictable and uninformative post that does nothing to create decent discussion.

[trelos6]

I have KD ahead, but I'm on the high end evaluation of his post Warriors career.

If you go to a middle or lower end evaluation on his Post Warriors career, then he's below Oscar.

[One_and_Done]

KD and it's not close. Oscar is a product of his own era to a large degree. In today's league he wouldn't even be an all-star.

Thank you for the extremely predictable and uninformative post that does nothing to create decent discussion.

How is it less informative than the 1st and 2nd reply on this page?

I'm happy to elaborate of course. Do you want me to explain in more detail? I thought my reasons would be obvious, and so needed no further explanation.

[penbeast0]

KD and it's not close. Oscar is a product of his own era to a large degree. In today's league he wouldn't even be an all-star.

Thank you for the extremely predictable and uninformative post that does nothing to create decent discussion.

How is it less informative than the 1st and 2nd reply on this page?

I'm happy to elaborate of course. Do you want me to explain in more detail? I thought my reasons would be obvious, and so needed no further explanation.

When you choose to post in every comparison between an older generation player and a more recent player saying that the older player could not play today without elaborating, it entitles you to a bit less consideration than those who do not do the same. If you have something interesting to say, please feel free. If this is all you can offer, please do not.

[One_and_Done]

Leaving the above aside, here is my explanation.

Durant is better on both ends than Oscar. He scores much more efficiently, and is a better and more versatile defensive player. KD can guard multiple positions and offer limited rim protection when a team goes small. Oscar was a good playmaker and scorer for his own era, but his objective level of dribbling and shooting skills would not be remarkable today. While Oscar has been praised by some on this board as having amazing court vision, it is not evident on the footage that exists that his passing was special enough to help him in this comparison where the guy he is being compared to is better at pretty much everything.

When I look at the footage of Oscar, I see a guy whose athleticism would be average today, whose ballhandling would be below average, and whose passing is nothing notable. He didn’t win much in his own era, despite playing in a weaker league, and was only on an elite team when he joined Kareem (who as a rookie had already turned the Bucks into a 56 win powerhouse without him). In today’s league, Oscar would likely come off the bench due to his lack of 3pt shooting. But it’s not just about “today’s league”, it’s about the skillset that is most objectively useful. KDs skillset, including 3pt shooting, is more useful objectively and over the majority of league history. The 3pt line has been around for most of the NBA’s history, and over that time it would be possible for a team to use KDs ability on that end as a cheat code.

Just on the stats, KD seems to be the clearly superior player.

KD 2010-23 RS: 38.2pp100 10rp100, 6.3ap100, 120 Ortg, 631 TS%

KD 2010-23 PS: 36.9pp100, 9.8rp100, 5.3ap100, 115 Ortg, 598 TS%

We don’t have Oscar’s per100 numbers, but I don’t think anyone would dispute they’re going to look much worse than KDs given the Royals played at a pace of between 116 and 125, compared to KDs teams who played at a pace between 92-100. Oscar’s per game numbers also come while playing far more minutes, which means they’ll drop even more in a pace adjustment comparison which is minute neutral. His career TS% is 564. So yeh, he’s worse on paper than KD by a large margin.

We’ve also had plenty of samples to indicate KD has a lot of lift, even for non-stacked teams.

In 2014 for example, the Thunder were 25-11 in the games Westbrook missed, thanks to KD.

His Brooklyn time is a bit of a mess to assess, because of all the stuff that happened involving availability of guys, but we can see in 21 the team was 23-12 with KD, and only 25-24 without him. Similarly, the Nets in 22 were 36-19 with him, and only 8-19 without him. We also saw KD carry the Nets in the 21 playoffs, almost past the Bucks, with Kyrie and Harden both going down with injuries.

In KD’s Phoenix tenure, despite being past his prime, the win-loss still holds up well for KD. From 23 to 25 the Suns were 85-60 with him, and 15-30 without him. The contrast was stark.

Meanwhile, playing in a much weaker league, Oscar’s Royals averaged 42 wins a year during his 10 year tenure, were a 500. team or worse 5/10 times, and missed the playoffs 4 times.

Prime KD provides a strong floor raise in the RS, and a even bigger PS playoff lift.

Coming back to Oscar though, I have made my position before very clear. You’ve seen me cover this ground many times before, so it should be no surprise. I only give players credit for the skillset they actually possessed. It’s unfair to create hypothetical players who never existed except in my imagination, and rate them on a list of guys who actually did play. It’s the same reason I don’t include Bill Walton or Len Bias in my top 20, or “Shaq if he had been taught to shoot FTs” or “DeMarcus Cousins if he had his head on straight”. Maybe in a parallel timeline those things would all be different, and Duncan and KG would shoot 3s too, but that’s not actually what happened and it is unfair of us to rate players on things they never did. You could say that is “unfair”, I don’t really care if it is. I’m not trying to be “fair”, I’m trying to decide who was best at basketball in an objective sense. It might not have been fair that Len Bias died young, but that’s what happened. While it’s moot to me, I actually don’t think it’s unfair either, because it’s also not fair to punish modern players for not being born in a time when the league was full of scrubs who wouldn’t make it today.

You might point to Oscar’s FT or midrange shooting like it matters, but it really doesn’t. DeRozan has great midrange shooting, and he can’t hit 3s. Just because you can hit FTs or midrange shots, it doesn’t mean it’ll translate to 3pt shooting. There’s just no way to know, and my position is we can’t just grant that ability to a player unless they demonstrated it. Going back to what is “fair”, it’s worth noting that these arguments saying such and such could shoot well from midrange, so he’d have been good from 3, always assume the older player will be able to develop the skill. They never assume that the older player will be a guy like Demar who couldn’t translate that skill. As I said, I’m not fussed about what is “fair”, but that strikes me as extremely unfair because the assumption is always that the older player will develop the skill they didn’t have when reality shows us that is often not the way it goes. It’s too bad that Demar didn’t play in the 70s, because if he did we’d be hearing from his fans that he’d have been an awesome 3pt shooter today.

There is essentially a 3 stage approach to era comparison.

The first stage is where the majority of the argumentation tends to be, namely how player X would adapt to period Y. I give players the skillset they actually had, and ask how it would work in another era. In the case of 3pt shooting for instance, it’s basically impossible to infer you’d develop it from a good midrange game, because plenty of guys like Demar have a great midrange game and still can’t hit the 3 point shot. On the other hand, today’s dribbling is far more advanced than dribbling in the 60s. It should be relatively easy for players to tone down their dribbling to adjust to 60s rules. Poor dribbling is just a subset of advanced dribbling, so it’s a skill they already possess, like how someone who runs can already crawl. Players in today’s game are very sophisticated and skilled, and show their adaption to major rule changes every other year (in terms of how to foul, when they need to draw body contact, etc), and we have seen plenty of skill challenges where modern NBA players are showing off their versatility.

But let’s assume that you didn’t buy that for some reason. I don’t agree, but for the sake of argument let’s proceed. That gets you to stages 2 and 3. Stage 2 is “well, it’s more valuable to adjust to today’s superior game, and that’s what we should be looking at; how guys would do in a league of the best of the best”. Stage 3 is “let’s say for the sake of argument that no era is more inherently valuable than the other… the skillset that is more usable over a larger period of the NBAs history is surely more valuable, right?” The 3pt shot has existed for the majority of league history, for the last 45 years. Even further back if we include the ABA. Similarly, for the majority of NBA history players did not have the constraints of 60s dribbling rules. A more modern approach to dribbling is more valuable for the majority of the history of the league. So modern players are going to get an advantage in any weighting of skillsets when we move onto the 2nd and 3rd stage of analysis. I don’t think it even gets to these stages, but if it did older players would still lose out; as they should, because they played in a barely professional bush league to paraphrase Wilt.

Now I’ve given a very long explanation, though I’m unsure that an analysis that isn’t based on era relativity should require more reasoning than one that is. This is a subjective exercise, and neither viewpoint should require less analysis than the other.

[penbeast0]

Although we disagree on many of your points, that made sense. And if I had a poster (and we used to have one) that in every single post comparing an older player to a modern player, the poster would just write a dismissive comment that the modern player couldn't play in a real league, I would (and did) call him out when he did it too. He would then go on to talk about how modern players are spoiled and kept in a little bubble of agents, trainers, etc. in a league that won't let you play defense to artificially inflate scoring and efficiency numbers and how every 60s player would be a superstar today because they had to be to even get a job in such a smaller league. And that was okay. His p.o.v. which I didn't agree with but not just a bald statement of "older guys are always better."

So, if you feel compelled to jump into every discussion of modern v. older players, bring reasons rather than just dismissing one player with "it's obvious."

[LukaTheGOAT]

Oscar to me is his generation's version of Magic.

He's actually above KD in my rankings.

Oscar wasn't quite Durant as a pure scorer, but I still think he was elite. At his peak, I’d argue he was a top 3 scorer in the league.

From 1960 to 1968, the Big O averaged:

30.3 PPG
9.0 RPG
10.6 APG

His points per 75 numbers are more modest, but the pace was much faster back then. Players simply had more possessions to work with, which I think translates to more actual per-game impact than what per 75 stats can fully capture.

That said, his per 75 scoring is still impressive. The efficiency is outstanding, and the real feather in his cap is how dominant his teams were offensively:

Oscar Robertson’s production + team offensive rating in the 1960s (per 75 possessions):

1961: 25.8 pts | 8.2 ast | +8.6 rTS% | +3.5 (Best offense)
1962: 24.3 pts | 9.0 ast | +7.5 rTS% | +4.7 (Best offense)
1963: 23.0 pts | 7.7 ast | +9.5 rTS% | +3.5 (Best offense)
1964: 25.9 pts | 9.1 ast | +9.1 rTS% | +4.3 (Best offense)
1965: 25.1 pts | 9.5 ast | +8.2 rTS% | +4.4 (Best offense)
1966: 24.3 pts | 8.6 ast | +7.6 rTS% | +2.6 (3rd offense)
1967: 24.9 pts | 8.7 ast | +9.0 rTS% | +2.3 (2nd offense)
1968: 25.3 pts | 8.4 ast | +9.0 rTS% | +4.3 (2nd offense)
1969: 21.2 pts | 8.4 ast | +8.8 rTS% | +4.7 (Best offense)

I just don’t think KD ever demonstrated the same ability to lead elite offenses as the clear-cut #1 guy. I'm someone who really values floor-raising, so I tend to side with hjm on these kinds of comparisons.

KD is definitely better as an on-ball defender against wings and brings more as a weakside rim protector, but to me, that doesn’t close the offensive gap—especially when the plus-minus data we do have doesn’t clearly show that KD’s defense puts him ahead of other offense-first players like Harden in plus-minus metrics.

[70sFan]

We don't have a lot of footage available for Oscar and highlights just don't do players like him enough justice. If anyone is interested in how Oscar impacted the game without crazy numbers (that he posted during his prime), there is no better way than to watch this sequence from the 4th quarter of the famous end of the streak Bucks vs Lakers RS game:

Watch on YouTube

Watch from 1:20:10 to 1:28:20 how Oscar controlled the pace of the game, take a look how he broke down Lakers defense (the best in the league) and how his simple, methodical approach gave his team open looks inside. Take a look at his two-man game with Kareem, how effective it was despite lack of spacing around them.

All these things look very simple and not eye-pleasing for highlight reels, but it's something very few players could do at the highest level and Durant certainly isn't one of them.

[One_and_Done]

If there was a player for whom we had literally zero footage, then my view is that we would be unable to rate that player at all.

When I hear “the footage doesn’t do him justice”, it’s the same as someone telling me that we don’t actually have any video footage to prove the guy was as good as people said he was. This consistent approach to evidence is very important, in fields other than just sport. In history for example, oral evidence is basically treated as worthless by serious historians. That’s because the Chinese whispers effect can lead to the truth being distorted even in real time, never mind over generations. I could give a number of more modern examples, but I’d probably offend people on one side of the religious/political divide.

The human mind is a funny thing, and nostalgia can warp memories so that a guy seems better than he was. I remember the first time I went back and rewatched Jordan’s games, and how deeply disappointed I was. I showed a friend of mine, who was a big NBA fan growing up in the 90s, and after several hours of watching game footage he had to admit he was wrong. There was absolutely no way Jordan would be the GOAT if he played today.

Worse, if there is no footage available then the oral history of a player becomes impossible to refute. At least with Jordan I can go back and point to his footage and ask “hang on, was he really the GOAT when we compare him to modern players?” With Osar I’m basically being told not to trust my eyes, and that if we just had more footage then he would look more amazing than I could believe. I watched the footage of Oscar that was linked above. I’m not seeing anything different to what I had previously seen. He looks like a guy who would be able to play today, but who has average athleticism by today’s standard, sub-par dribbling, etc, though he does throw some nice passes in this stretch. However, he doesn’t stand out in the 1972 league in the way his own team mate Kareem does. Kareem looks great out there. Oscar looks like a good player, but not a historical outlier, and his lack of 3pt shot would basically relegate him to a bench role (especially with his poor handle).

[DraymondGold]

We don't have a lot of footage available for Oscar and highlights just don't do players like him enough justice. If anyone is interested in how Oscar impacted the game without crazy numbers (that he posted during his prime), there is no better way than to watch this sequence from the 4th quarter of the famous end of the streak Bucks vs Lakers RS game:

Watch on YouTube

Watch from 1:20:10 to 1:28:20 how Oscar controlled the pace of the game, take a look how he broke down Lakers defense (the best in the league) and how his simple, methodical approach gave his team open looks inside. Take a look at his two-man game with Kareem, how effective it was despite lack of spacing around them.

All these things look very simple and not eye-pleasing for highlight reels, but it's something very few players could do at the highest level and Durant certainly isn't one of them.

Oh cool! Thanks for the game. Might try to watch the whole game if I get the chance.

A few plays that stand out:

1:20:00 -- great drive by West. Gets around Oscar with a burst of speed (not the best defense from Oscar) for the high layup between the triple team. Misses (possible defensive intimidation from kareem who was loading up to jump before West had the quicker release?), before Wilt gets the offensive rebound and taps it back in. Wilt's offensive rebounding is infamous, and it's on display here even after he's lost his vertical athleticism.

1:20:15 -- Oscar's little dribble hesitation gets West going the wrong way, then the fake gets Wilt in the air. Oscar behind the head pass to Kareem for the dunk. Nice pass by Oscar -- by any era's standards -- and the chemistry with Kareem is clear.

1:21:30 -- who doesn't love the Kareem Wilt matchup. Kareem fake gets Wilt in the air; nice recovery from Wilt for the load-up leap (hand higher than the square) that helps force the miss, but Kareem's already getting ready for the offensive tap in.

1:21:57 -- West's gravity is clear. Doubled by Kareem and Oscar. Pass out takes a sec, but Wilt's too slow and the advantage is lost. Today a player with more range shoots that, or drives, or passes to the guy at the top. Still, nice off-ball motion from West for the handoff, and Wilt with the screen helps West get free of Oscar. West's speed gets around Kareem. Maybe the right move is the layup bounce pass if you're Steve Nash, or the high arcing floater if you're Curry, but West does the scoop shot from too low and it's blocked.

1:22:00 -- nice transition pass from Oscar. Good placement in range for his teammate and out of range of the other guy.

1:22:35 -- pick and roll, then nice two man passing game with West and Wilt until they get the open layup.

1:25:50 -- nice layup pass from Oscar. Would love for Wilt to have a hand out in the passing lane, though the cut was behind his back.

1:28:05 -- another behind the head pass from Oscar to Kareem after drawing the defense. That's what having a midrange shot does for a star offensive big. Kareem drains the open midrange -- unlike Wilt from a few possessions ago.

[Ol Roy]

Players perform based upon the stylistic and rule considerations of their era. If your baseline for comparison is the modern game, by definition older players will always fall short. That incongruity doesn't mean older players are automatically inferior, it means they were playing a different game.

On the one hand, you say you don't grant players skillsets you say they never had.

But then you will judge those same players based on conditions they never played under.

It's a selective method of player evaluation that purposefully skews in one direction.

It is true that Oscar Robertson didn't shoot three pointers and that he didn't handle the ball as players would later.

It does not follow that Oscar Robertson in a modern setting would not be able to shoot three pointers and handle the ball like modern players, and that he therefore would be relegated to the bench.

There is a difference between saying one "didn't" and "couldn't." You like to say the latter.

When transporting a player across time, hypothetically, imposing a rigid handicap is your choice. But it doesn't actually have to be that way, that's just what you like to do. And, in fact, it's not the most likely scenario for what would transpire. The idea that Oscar Robertson would demonstrate zero adaption is not plausible whatsoever. Because adapting is what humans are wired to do. So, I don't see the point in planting your flag on situations that are totally implausible.

Whether I say that Oscar Robertson could adapt, or whether you say he can't, the moment we agree to transport him to the modern era, we have created an imaginary player that didn't exist in reality, so you can't pretend you are just trying to stick to reality. This is ALL speculative.

Rather than impose selective handicaps, it makes more sense to (A) attempt to make educated projections about cross-era translation or (B) determine that cross-era translation isn't possible, and to refrain from it entirely.

[One_and_Done]

Players perform based upon the stylistic and rule considerations of their era. If your baseline for comparison is the modern game, by definition older players will always fall short. That incongruity doesn't mean older players are automatically inferior, it means they were playing a different game.

On the one hand, you say you don't grant players skillsets you say they never had.

But then you will judge those same players based on conditions they never played under.

It's a selective method of player evaluation that purposefully skews in one direction.

It is true that Oscar Robertson didn't shoot three pointers and that he didn't handle the ball as players would later.

It does not follow that Oscar Robertson in a modern setting would not be able to shoot three pointers and handle the ball like modern players, and that he therefore would be relegated to the bench.

There is a difference between saying one "didn't" and "couldn't." You like to say the latter.

When transporting a player across time, hypothetically, imposing a rigid handicap is your choice. But it doesn't actually have to be that way, that's just what you like to do. And, in fact, it's not the most likely scenario for what would transpire. The idea that Oscar Robertson would demonstrate zero adaption is not plausible whatsoever. Because adapting is what humans are wired to do. So, I don't see the point in planting your flag on situations that are totally implausible.

Whether I say that Oscar Robertson could adapt, or whether you say he can't, the moment we agree to transport him to the modern era, we have created an imaginary player that didn't exist in reality, so you can't pretend you are just trying to stick to reality. This is ALL speculative.

Rather than impose selective handicaps, it makes more sense to (A) attempt to make educated projections about cross-era translation or (B) determine that cross-era translation isn't possible, and to refrain from it entirely.

There’s nothing complex or contradictory about the approach I’m taking.

Evaluating how a player with a certain skillset would do in different circumstances is entirely reasonable. We do that every day when we speculate what a player is worth in a trade, and whether a team should trade for a guy, or when we evaluate draft picks, or player contracts. With that comparison, only 1 element is unknown; the new situation. With the proposed approach of an imaginary player who has new skills they never possessed, both aspects of the comparison are uncertain (both the player and the situation). Everything is somewhat speculative, but the latter is what I would call too speculative.

I explained all this above. I grant that a player can deploy their skillset in the most optimal way in whatever era they play, but I don’t grant that they can develop skills they never had, because it opens a pandora’s box where we go from rating players who actually existed to rating ones who only existed in our imagination (e.g. healthy Bill Walton thanks to modern medical care, or Len Bias who didn’t OD, or Sheed with a better attitude, etc). The reality is Oscar did not have a 3 or a good handle by modern standards, so he would be a bench player today. Moreover, it’s not even about today. If you took a more modern player like Ray Allen, or even Aaron Nesmith, and put them into the ABA in 1974 (when Oscar was still playing), or the NBA in 1980, then had the team deploy them and their offense in the most optimal way possible, they would be more valuable players than prime Oscar. The league wouldn’t know how to react to these guys firing away automatically at high percentages from way out. It’d be the best offense in the NBA.

Oscar was certainly a product of his era, but that isn’t a good thing. Someone doing something badly by modern standards, because it was accepted at the time, makes them still bad at said thing. It gives us context to why they were doing it badly, and it doesn’t change their historical significance, but it also doesn't prove a typewriter repairman could build a computer. Oscar will always have a greater legacy and significance to the game than Ray Allen. There will be more statues and legends and tributes for Oscar Robertson. There’s absolutely no way he was objectively better at basketball than Ray Allen though.

Oscar may try to adapt his shot to the modern game, just like I might try to develop Gladiator skills if I was transported to the ancient Roman Colosseum, but it’s purely speculative if I’d be good at it. We can see guys who ‘should’ be good at 3pt shooting, based on their midrange shot, who are just not able to develop the skill, e.g. Demar. Therefore it would be inappropriate to just assume Oscar could develop such an ability. He never proved it, so we can’t just grant it to him,

[Ol Roy]

There’s nothing complex or contradictory about the approach I’m taking.

Evaluating how a player with a certain skillset would do in different circumstances is entirely reasonable. We do that every day when we speculate what a player is worth in a trade, and whether a team should trade for a guy, or when we evaluate draft picks, or player contracts. With that comparison, only 1 element is unknown; the new situation. With the proposed approach of an imaginary player who has new skills they never possessed, both aspects of the comparison are uncertain (both the player and the situation). Everything is somewhat speculative, but the latter is what I would call too speculative.

I explained all this above. I grant that a player can deploy their skillset in the most optimal way in whatever era they play, but I don’t grant that they can develop skills they never had, because it opens a pandora’s box where we go from rating players who actually existed to rating ones who only existed in our imagination (e.g. healthy Bill Walton thanks to modern medical care, or Len Bias who didn’t OD, or Sheed with a better attitude, etc).

An Oscar Robertson who plays in the modern era only exists in our imagination, period. You aren't eliminating a variable by saying he couldn't adapt, you are simply imposing your own variable, a constraint.

You say projecting skillset adaptations is too speculative. I say neglecting to do so, while time traveling a player anyway, is an exercise in absurdity.

By the way, you are free to believe Oscar Robertson would suck today. That isn't the point. The point is that an Oscar Robertson who would be prohibited from palming the ball or making a shot from beyond the arc, playing today, is theoretically preposterous.

One definition defines a pandora's box as, "a process that generates many complicated problems as the result of unwise interference in something."

I disagree that a pandora's box is automatically activated with such discussions (because all of your examples are actually unrelated, and this is just harmless internet discussion), but if there is such a box, you are opening it yourself.

As I mentioned, you could refrain from transporting a handicapped Oscar Robertson into an era in which he didn't play, but you choose to do so anyway. Then, you draw vehemently-held conclusions based upon the handicapped player you insist on constraining. Box=opened.

The reality is Oscar did not have a 3 or a good handle by modern standards, so he would be a bench player today.

Again, you totally bulldoze the distinction between did/didn't and would/wouldn't.

Moreover, it’s not even about today. If you took a more modern player like Ray Allen, or even Aaron Nesmith, and put them into the ABA in 1974 (when Oscar was still playing), or the NBA in 1980, then had the team deploy them and their offense in the most optimal way possible, they would be more valuable players than prime Oscar. The league wouldn’t know how to react to these guys firing away automatically at high percentages from way out. It’d be the best offense in the NBA.

And as you have made clear many times, you will break your rule about being "too speculative" because it's OK to grant players skills you deem to be lower on the evolutionary scale of basketball.

Most people disagree with your assessment that it's easier to dribble with strict rules and such, but put that aside.

You break your own rules when it suits you. Don't be surprised when others don't adopt your arbitrary methodology.

Oscar was certainly a product of his era, but that isn’t a good thing. Someone doing something badly by modern standards, because it was accepted at the time, makes them still bad at said thing. It gives us context to why they were doing it badly, and it doesn’t change their historical significance, but it also doesn't prove a typewriter repairman could build a computer. Oscar will always have a greater legacy and significance to the game than Ray Allen. There will be more statues and legends and tributes for Oscar Robertson. There’s absolutely no way he was objectively better at basketball than Ray Allen though.

A typewriter repairman isn't worse at building computers. He's not building computers badly. He's not building them at all. Anyway, those are two totally different professions, so I don't see the validity in the example.

You again conflate playing to the rules and situation as performing poorly. This is fallacious. Playing within a set of rules and being the best at doing so is performing well.

Oscar may try to adapt his shot to the modern game, just like I might try to develop Gladiator skills if I was transported to the ancient Roman Colosseum, but it’s purely speculative if I’d be good at it.

You love appeals to the extremes. Like one from earlier in the post, as if Oscar Robertson being able to palm the ball is on the same possibility plane as Len Bias not overdosing and dropping dead.

That is not how reasonable analysis of anything takes place in the real world.

reductio ad absurdum

[One_and_Done]

I don’t think I’m the one being absurd here. The player Oscar Robertson, with his defined skillset, exists outside of our imagination. The position you’re trying to take is that we can’t ask how effective a Roman sword would be if it tried to cut a tank, because if the Romans had made it in the year 3000 it would be a lightsabre. That is not a sensible way to approach comparative analysis. A steel sword made in 2000 BC has a defined hardness, and if we tried to use it to cut a titanium wall today it would be less effective than a tank shell. That doesn’t invalidate the awesome history and innovation around the Roman army, who deserve their historical recognition… but yes a tank shell can do more damage to a titanium wall than a sword. Both the Roman sword and the tank shell exists, only the context in which it is being used is different. Neither is “imaginary”.

The disagreement about dribbling is a disagreement about what a players skillset constitutes. You don’t have to agree with my assessment on that, but it’s a disagreement about what skills players have, not that we should rate them on the skillsets they had. In the case of the example I used above, of Nesmith, it would be irrelevant anyway. It’s also the case that over the majority of NBA history dribbling more closely resembled modern dribbling than what Oscar did in the 60s, so Oscar loses that comparison also (again, as I set out in the post above). Oscar is the outlier here (in a bad way).

You cite typewriter repair as a different profession to computer repair. I agree. In a sense, the basketball of Oscar’s era was almost a different sport. That doesn’t change any of what I’ve said though.

[kcktiny]

Durant is better on both ends than Oscar. He scores much more efficiently

Well you're certainly showing your ignorance.

For a guard the Big O was the greatest shooter of his generation.

In his decade with Cincinnati he shot a 48.9% 2pt FG% playing 33,000+ minutes. Not including his stats the average NBA PG/SG that decade shot just a 42.8% 2pt FG% - less than 43%. No guard playing as much as just 10,000 minutes (less than 1/3 the time Robertson played) during that time shot anywhere close to that - even Jerry West shot just a 47.2% 2pt FG%, and no other guard with 10,000+ minutes played shot even 46% on 2s.

If you really knew anything about 60s NBA this would be it - the leaguewide low FG%s compared to today. You clearly don't.

Robertson was absolutely the best shooter for a guard in his era.

Add to this Robertson - over a full decade - averaged 10.5 FTA/g and hit them at 84%, one of the absolute highest FT%s by a guard during that time.

As for Durant, looking at his best 10 year shooting stretch as a SF (he played primarily PF once he left Golden State) he shot a 55.7% eFG% when just the league average SF shot a 50.4% eFG% (no 3s in Robertson's era).

So Robertson shot 6% better than the average guard in his era, Durant 5% better than the average SF during his era.

And forget FTs - Robertson in his 10 year prime shot 2300+ more FTs (at an 84% FT%) than Durant (88% FT%).

Maybe you should learn a little about basketball back in the day before you make such clueless remarks.

Oscar was a good playmaker and scorer for his own era

Good? He was great. 7731 assists his first decade in the league when only one other player had more than 4500.

I would say he was the Magic Johnson of his day, but for that to make sense you would have to had seen Magic play, too.

but his objective level of dribbling and shooting skills would not be remarkable today.

What a clueless remark. His fundamentals were elite. Shooting, passing, dribbling, oh, and rebounding.

You bashing Tim Duncan these days because he didn't dribble between his legs, throw behind the back passes, or shoot 3pters?

While Oscar has been praised by some on this board as having amazing court vision, it is not evident on the footage that exists

Well you have to actually watch the footage to know. And it's clear you have watched very little of prime Robertson.

and was only on an elite team when he joined Kareem

Remind us all again when Durant won his first title? After he joined a 73 win warriors team, correct?

I’m trying to decide who was best at basketball in an objective sense

It would clearly help if you knew anything about the NBA in the 60s. Because it's clear you haven't watched it much - if at all.

I only give players credit for the skillset they actually possessed.

And you know this how of players from the 60s? It's clear you didn't watch 60s NBA, otherwise you would know of the low FG%s back then.

But you don't. And that is obvious.

It might not have been fair that Len Bias died young, but that’s what happened.

???

What are you sipping?

I give players the skillset they actually had

And you know this how of players from the 60s?

It should be relatively easy for players to tone down their dribbling to adjust to 60s rules.

Oh?

What about playing in poorly lit arenas? Or playing in Converse All-Stars? Or not getting the medical care athletes get today? Or taking 2-3 planes to get to a destination?

Think about that and ask yourself how a player in that era managed to play 44 min/g over an entire decade scoring more points than anyone other than the arguably greatest player in league history, while shooting better than every guard in the league - in poorly lit arenas, in Converse All-Stars, without the medical care players get today?

This is a subjective exercise, and neither viewpoint should require less analysis than the other.

Correct. Unless one's viewpoint is predicated on limited if not zero information of the time period he is professing to compare to. Anyone who has watched or researched the 60s know of the much lower FG%s.

If there was a player for whom we had literally zero footage, then my view is that we would be unable to rate that player at all.

Well your view is clearly wrong, because many people saw Robertson play. And many saw him play and also saw the players of today play. You simply can't conceive of players from back then being as good as - or better - than players today.

And there is footage of Robertson. But I'm sure if you watched it you would say the footage was faked, like the footage of the moon landings. Simply because you don't want to admit how good players from back then were compared to your idols of today.

The human mind is a funny thing, and nostalgia can warp memories so that a guy seems better than he was.

You know what's even funnier? Guys who claim to know the skillset of NBA players who they've never actually even seen play.

I watched the footage of Oscar that was linked above.

You should probably watch more than one game of a player's entire career before deciding on his skillset.

he doesn’t stand out in the 1972 league

Well he was 33 years old at the time, and in his 12th season in the league. You evaluate most players at that age?

Kareem looks great out there.

He was age 24 at the time.

Oscar looks like a good player, but not a historical outlier

Not many were back then at the age of 32.

and his lack of 3pt shot would basically relegate him to a bench role

Here's a newsflash for you son - 3pt shots were a decade away then.

Oscar wasn't quite Durant as a pure scorer

What are you talking about?

Robertson in his time with Cincinnati scored the 2nd most points by a player in the league. Durant's best 10 year stretch he also scored the 2nd most points in the league.

Also during his time with Cincinnati, Robertson was only 1 of 2 players to score 30+ pts/g in a season 6 times, the other being Chamberlain. You know, the - again - demonstrably greatest player in league history.

Oscar Robertson was as pure a scorer as there ever was, as well as one of the greatest passers there ever was.

And that's coming from someone that actually watched him play.

The player Oscar Robertson, with his defined skillset, exists outside of our imagination.

You really do live in your own world, don't you?

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