Doctor MJ wrote:Hmm. So you don't know much about the 1955 finals, but are confident that you know Schayes' defense well enough to dismiss anything I say on the grounds that if it were correct, you'd already know about it? Be careful my friend, that sure sounds like you're not just in danger of cognitive dissonance, but that you're consciously using it as a epistemic tool.
Well, don't worry about my comprehension ability. You know that I respect your knowledge as much as anyone here, but right now I think that either you didn't read what I wrote or you argue in a bad faith. These are my words:
70sFan wrote:I don't know that much about 1955 finals, so that's a new information to me. Outside of game 7, his minutes seemed to be consistently above 30 mpg though, so I don't think the reason why he sat down was because of him being a defensive liability. He averaged 32.6 mpg in the first 6 games, which was actually 2nd highest on the team. I don't know why he played so little in game 7, but I don't think it's fair to assume it's because of his defense.
When did I say anything about being confident that Schayes defense to dismiss your hypothesis? I am not certain about anything here, as I said I don't know that much about the series (neither you do in reality to be honest). I just said that your hypothesis doesn't convince me, because you made almost a quantum leap from the evidences we to your conclusion.
Let's look again at the thought process here:
- evidences: "Schayes played only 21 minutes in the final game of the finals and his teammates were known for tough defense"
- conclusion: "Schayes struggled offensively, so he didn't play a lot of minutes because he didn't bring much value on defense"
Don't you see that the foundation of your theory is incredibly weak? It could be explained the way you did, the explaination is logical and all, but as always we should ask the question: "can't we explain it in different (often simpler) way?". I can find a lot of hypotheses that would be just as convincing as yours (if not more).
I think I have read that Schayes played through injury in that series. I don't remember the source, but penbeast also found something (although the source isn't very credible). Back then, it was a normal thing that players played through injuries and maybe Schayes simply couldn't overcome it after a grueling 6 finals games. That's not a definitive explaination, but it's not less convincing than yours. You can come up with a lot of different ones and they would all be more or less reasonable, but I would never conclude anything as strong from them as "Schayes wouldn't be able to defend anyone in later eras", which you did.
Also, here is one more important thing - evidence you ignored:
1. "Schayes played 2nd most minutes in the first 6 games of the finals."
2. "Syracuse players didn't play high minutes in general, outside of Seymour."
3. "Game 7 is not the only game in which Schayes struggled offensively and even though we don't have minutes numbers for all games, it seems unlikely that he played much below 30 mpg in other games, given averages we have."
4. "Against Boston in the previous round, he had two bad offensive games and he played normal minutes in both of them."
All these facts don't disprove your hypothesis, but they makes it less convincing to me.
I do want to be clear that I didn't say "Schayes was sat because of his defense". I certainly understand why my collection of statements would lead you to believe I'd said that, but I didn't. What I said took a lot more words, and I said those words rather than "Schayes was sat because of his defense" for a reason.
Yeah, you said that his bad scoring night and lack of defense made him play low minutes. I don't think it's a lot more than what I responded to though.
Re: "I haven't heard anything negative about (Schayes' defense) before." I'm curious the sources you've used, and what they've said about Schayes' defense.
Basketballography documentary
A few 1955 reports and other contemporary reports (not much though)
https://www.nba.com/news/archive-75-dolph-schayes
Interviews of his contemporaries
To be perfectly honest, I haven't heard or seen many descriptions of Schayes defense, which suggests that he wasn't elite defender. In any instance his defense was mentioned, it's something like "he was a tough, rough defender" or something in this taste, which also doesn't suggest he was bad.
As for my methods, I'll readily admit to both a) trying to make reasonable inferences through indirect information, and b) not having any claim to absolute certainty, but, here are some things to chew on:
First, here's an article about the 1955 Finals, and a quote from it:The Nationals had chased the George Mikan-led Lakers for years. They came close, but failed to dethrone King George in the 1950 and 1954 title series. Mikan retired Sept. 24, 1954 after winning three consecutive titles, opening the door for the Nats. But Syracuse had to overcome a rather daunting limitation - they had a hard time scoring.
Dolph Schayes was the team's only consistent shooter, a 6-8 power forward who could sink 25-foot set shots and scoot to layups. He had a marvelous understanding of the game's secrets and its rhythms. Schayes has often been described as the Larry Bird of Syracuse. Some pioneers would argue that it would be more proper to call Bird the Dolph Schayes of Boston.
The rest of the Nats' starters - center John Kerr, forward Red Rocha and guards George King and Paul Seymour - specialized in defense. The Nats finished next-to-last in the NBA in shooting percentage, but they embraced coach Al Cervi's frantic defensive style. Cervi led his team as a charismatic dictator. Eckman sat on the bench and watched. Cervi stormed on the sideline, directing every detail.
They don't say that Schayes was "bad at defense", they just say that the other 4 starters were "specialized in defense" and that the coach had a "frantic defensive style", while praising Schayes offense.
I think I have read this article on apbr page before, but thanks for sharing nonetheless. Yeah, not much can be deducted from this.
I'll note that they don't mention the defense of the 6th core player, Earl Lloyd, who played the 3rd most minutes for the Nats in that game (behind the two Reds and tied with Seymour). So what do we hear about Lloyd - best known as the first Black player to play in the NBA?
Well, here's from the Naismith HOF entry on him:A rugged power forward who became a starter on Syracuse’s NBA championship team in 1955, Lloyd was known for his defensive play on the opponent’s top scorer, rugged rebounding, and effective offensive game.
Tons of sources will say that he played "tenacious defense", but I thought this from the New York Times was noteworthy:He was a strong rebounder and was so tenacious on defense that he sometimes guarded the Minneapolis Lakers’ 6-foot-10 center, George Mikan, the league’s first superstar.
Worth noting that Lloyd was listed at 6'5", so it's a bit eye-brow raising that he would guard Mikan. Another thing I'll note is that the Black players at the time talked about being used as enforcers. I have a memory about Lloyd being talked about as an example of this, but can't find the link.
I also heard about Lloyd's defense, but I don't know what to take out of these reports. As you noted, at the beginning of the league existance, black players were always seen as "rugged enforcers" and I'm just not sure how much it was caused by their actual ability and how much it was simply a stereotype. Without any better evidences though, I can call him a good defender.
All this to say, it's pretty clear cut historically that Schayes was part of a 6 man core where the other 5 guys have massive raves about their defense that he doesn't have, along with a coach with an extremely strong defensive reputation, while Schayes reputation just doesn't come from that.
I think "massive raves" is a huge exaggaration. I know that Kerr for example was praised to be a tough defender, but I haven't seen anyone calling him great defensively (or anything that would imply so). Specializing on defense" isn't the same as "raving about defense", that's your interpretation of these words.
It's also false that no reports show Schayes defense in positive light. Your own source about Al Cervi mentions this:
Schayes, whose own college coach questioned whether he could make it in pro ball, has come to fully appreciate what he owes to Cervi. Schayes matured into one of the great scorers in the game. He played with a bunch of guys who hit the boards, played fierce defense, sometimes brawled on the court and never, but never, quit in the fourth quarter.
I think you ignored what doesn't support your claim even in the source provided by you. You focused on the beginning talking about teenager Schayes playing in college being soft, but you ignored the last words of the article, calling Schayes fierce defender and tough competitor.
So take all that information, along with the fact that Schayes did have people at the time talk about him as soft, and come to your own conclusion about how good you think Schayes was at defense.
I come to the conclusion that Schayes defense was probably irrelevant to the point it wasn't worth discussing in comparison to his offensive game. It doesn't mean he was a bad defender.
Also, your extrapolation of Schayes being soft in college into him being soft at pro level is just dishonest, given how many reports we have calling Schayes very tough competitor who never quit and played through injuries and against all obstacles (read Archive 75 article for starters). Schayes was seen as an ironman who would always play no matter what, that doesn't sound like a soft player.
Only other thing I'll say is this:
I think it's really quite important not to fall prey to the idea that it's analytically superior to have an absence of assessment about X, than it is to do the best you can with the information you have. There's clearly a cognitive pull to try to avoid putting something bold forward and be proven wrong, and understandably so, but that's something you do to protect yourself from embarrassment, not arrive at the accurate evaluation.
I agree that it's better to make hypotheses and try to explain observed phenomena than doing nothing. I just disagree with your conclusions. It's not the first time you accuse me of limiting my thinking to "we don't know, so we should stop" when we disagree and I don't think that's fair. At times, it looks like when I come up with different conclusions, you think I don't think deep enough.
Further, what I see in this response and the next is people focusing on me rather than the actual content. People are perceiving me making absolute assertions, when I'm not, and are then going straight to question of my "bias", without ever seeming inclined to try to respond to what I say by referencing sources themselves.
When did I say that you make any absolute assertions? Actually, it's you who said in this response that I am confident enough to dismiss your take, when I didn't show any sign of that.
[/quote]While I know that you've done a ton of work with video going back into history and that's very meaningful, what I see in general is people not even attempting to do serious historical research, and then s**ting on those that do for having some agenda that makes them morally inferior to the do-nothings, and it makes me wonder why I keep wasting my time.
If me finding out anything new is just going to be perceived as part of some kind of ego-aggrandizing manipulation, then I'm probably better off just not sharing the stuff I'm trying to do, and others would be better off either learning it from a source they can trust, or, more likely, just never learning anything and feeling self-satisfied with what they think they now.
Sigh, I'm going to regret saying all that stuff, and it's certainly not meant to be targeted at you specifically, but damn, I just don't understand why it's so hard for people to just take in the information they are given with a skeptical but not cynical eye any more. Feels like it makes it impossible to actually get anywhere as a community.
I don't really understand this take to be honest. I think anything I wrote here was caused by me being skeptical, not cynical. If anything I wrote to you made you think that I see you as "some kind of ego-aggrandizing manipulator", then you should know that I never thought about you that way.
I don't know, maybe it's not about this conversation but a broader point. If you feel you are wasting your time, don't feel forced to respond. I will always respect your knowledge, you providing more informations, no matter what your conclusions are.