Prepping for Top 100, ranking the 1960 retirees

[Owly]

With a disclaimer that I don't know that much outside of the box score stuff, Davies still seems crazy high to me. Had a PER under 10 for 3 of the 4 playoffs where that stat was available and when it wasn't, we have him getting knocked out by the Lakers in 1949 averaging 6 PPG against them and by the Pistons in 1950 averaging 7.5 PPG on 23.5% from the field. He's really only got the 1950 run and the 1951 run that are impressive. I don't see how you can rank him ahead of legends like Mikkelsen and Macauley who were consistently superstars over a good stretch of years.

In terms of "legends" I think that term would be more applied to Davies than the others.
Davies, fwiw, as an MVP, star on a title team, coach (college) whilst playing, ballhandling innovator, plus mild literary influence (through the works of coach Clair Bee who apparently modeled the hero of his fiction books on Davies) is probably more "legendary". Possible influence on teammate Wanzer (as his NCAA coach, iirc). His status on the NBA Silver anniversary team perhaps also suggests some legendary status.

VM is perhaps overshadowed by Mikan and is (at) best remembered by most as 1/3 of a great frontline, whilst Macauley is perhaps best remembered for what he was traded for.

Not to say that's fair or what is important but it terms of "legend" status ...

More generally I would note that
1) whilst they were productive - bigs trended more productive at the time - unless you think everyone should have gone big (maybe) one might have to grade on a curve
1a) my estimation of EM's defense based on frame, team D (inc departure and team performance prior to Russell's arrival) and limited recollection of bits of comments ... is that it was quite poor.
2) Davies legacy starts in the NBL including an MVP and a title sometimes considered to be before the major-league era (BAA perhaps seen as the starter of that, though initially NBL regarded as the better league). It rather depends what you trust and what you count and what you emphasize. If one is focused on (known) playoff productivity though, then I would grant that Wanzer would seem the choice from the Royals of that era.

As in prior posts I'll reiterate the significant uncertainty here.

[Doctor MJ]

With a disclaimer that I don't know that much outside of the box score stuff, Davies still seems crazy high to me. Had a PER under 10 for 3 of the 4 playoffs where that stat was available and when it wasn't, we have him getting knocked out by the Lakers in 1949 averaging 6 PPG against them and by the Pistons in 1950 averaging 7.5 PPG on 23.5% from the field. He's really only got the 1950 run and the 1951 run that are impressive. I don't see how you can rank him ahead of legends like Mikkelsen and Macauley who were consistently superstars over a good stretch of years.

First thing I should make clear is that I'm looking at things beginning from '45-46, when the top players came back from WW2.
Second thing is that you need to remember that Davies was 8 years older than those guys.

So, I think it's completely fine to look at things starting at a later date and favor those guys over Davies, but quite frankly at his best Davies was a bigger deal than they were at their best.

I think it's also critical to understand that Davies' primary skill was passing, and that as the floor general he was leading teams that were consistently elite on offense with the expectation that Davies would be doing more of the passing and his teammates would be doing more of the shooting. Hence, a notion that the other team set their mind to stopping him from scoring isn't really correct.

Finally, do remember what scoring was like back then. In that Pistons series, no one averaged 14 PPG and shooting percentage was also very poor compared to later years. It's true that Davies scoring numbers look weak in that series even compared to the others in it, but when you single out the numbers like you've done, we can't help but look at it based on what we expect such numbers to look like from our modern lens.

[Doctor MJ]

Wasn't sure whether to post this one whether it's worthwhile, how it's taken, whether it's pedantry on something that isn't intended to be there ...

One other point that's important:

There were 6 30+ MPG guys in that chip-winning playoff run. The other guy was Earl Lloyd who I've already given a quote from where Schayes talked about him as the defensive forward. He was actually one of the Top 5 minutes guys on the team that year over Kerr.

And in that final Game 7 that won the Nats their chip by a single point, there were 5 guys who played more than 30 minutes, and Schayes - who played only 21 minutes - was not among them.

Now injuries are a thing and if that's why he played so little and so poorly, it makes sense. But I also think it's important to remember that the way guys like Mikan, Arizin & Pettit put up big performances to get the title is part of their legend, and that's not how Schayes got his title.

Personally I wouldn't say teams "get the title" in a single game.

Which would loop us back to my comments regarding those playoffs as a whole and his prime playoff trends generally (or Trex's at a game level) and to an extent (also alluded to at a game level by Trex) Seymour's production (the worst aspect of which being -0.2 OWS) which the limited aggregations seem to say(/guess, depending on inputs ... WS overall will use team data to get a better average read on D, but even now is flawed on that end) that he was ... fine. Now that's perhaps missing the detail on his better end.


I might also quibble with an that the best defensive player on a defense inclined winning team has be something ...
I think that profile would tend to get you underrated if an ensemble or a less visible defender (young Rodman?) but at the same time it could be done by a Bol or Eaton where they give everything they gain back and are neutral or even worse. Now I don't think that is Seymour (certainly not big picture, looking at his efficiency for a guard in 53 and 54 (spiking a WS or WS/48 [outlier-y?] short prime that accounts for nearly half his career WS); there are clearly times he had real offensive value. I just think net is what matters and you can always nuke one great end with a terrible one.


To reiterate though, big picture: I don't know, it's all very fuzzy. If you call him a 1 (as I did circa a decade ago when breaking all-time lists to primary decades and positions ... probably due to a assist totals in prime years, maybe size) much more so than later it's hard (for me, at least) to have any real confidence in where he is versus McGuire or Martin or Philip or Beard or King (or George).

I do appreciate being able to have dialogue on this ancient stuff where we're all just doing our best to make sense of it. I'm sorry that I'm ornery enough that it makes people hesitant.

Certainly you don't get the title in a single game. and one game doesn't mean you're not the MVP of your team. I wouldn't say anyone was crazy for thinking it most likely that Schayes was the MVP of that team.

Re: being the best defensive player on a defensive champion doesn't necessarily have to be something. Oh I think it does. As I said, I'm not saying you can't be the MVP of your team by having a specialty other than what makes your team good, but whoever is actually the best at what makes your team good is clearly doing something, and if it leads to a championship, that's a pretty big something.

Re: Rodman. I think Rodman is a big deal, and would be a much bigger deal if he were the Pistons' lead MPG guy and coach-on-the-floor.

Re: can always nuke one great end with a terrible one. Yes, but you "nuke" it by keeping your team from being that good. If you win the chip with a great defense, and you have someone known as the best defender on the team, it's awfully hard to imagine he's doing more harm than good.

Re: fuzzy. Oh absolutely. I get chippy when folks come back at me for certain things, but I'm not trying to say I know any of this as a certainty.

Re: hard to have confidence in where Seymour is relative to his rivals. Understandable. Just know that I'm not coming from a place where I feel I absolutely know, only that I force myself to ask, "If I have to pick one over the other, who do I think is more likely to have been more valuable in the interval being discussed?".

[Doctor MJ]

2) Davies legacy starts in the NBL including an MVP and a title sometimes considered to be before the major-league era (BAA perhaps seen as the starter of that, though initially NBL regarded as the better league). It rather depends what you trust and what you count and what you emphasize. If one is focused on (known) playoff productivity though, then I would grant that Wanzer would seem the choice from the Royals of that era.

As in prior posts I'll reiterate the significant uncertainty here.

So one thing I feel I should say here:

That NBL MVP is iffy. Some sources have Davies as the MVP, some have his teammate Al Cervi as the MVP, and when you consider how much time Davies missed during that season, it's awfully hard to fathom that Davies was actually the more valuable player.

Something that does seem pretty clear is that Les Harrison (owner/GM/coach of the Royals) saw Davies as his franchise player before he'd even put a team together, and that at a certain point Cervi ended up leaving (ending up in Syracuse) because he wasn't getting paid what Davies was.

This to say, if Davies really did win that MVP, I feel like Harrison may have had his foot on the scale. And if Harrison did have his foot on the scale, part of what was on his mind might have been all the barnstorming games the team played, where Davies was the clear-cut top draw on the court with his "Houdini" play.

For the record, I do think Davies would have won Finals MVP the previous year had they had such an award back then, and I do think he was a considerably better offensive player than Cervi, but Cervi was no slouch on offense and had an incredible defensive rep.

[prolific passer]

Andy Phillip.
First point guard to put up 400 and 500 assists in a season as well the first point guard to put up at least 7apg in a season.

[Owly]

Wasn't sure whether to post this one whether it's worthwhile, how it's taken, whether it's pedantry on something that isn't intended to be there ...

One other point that's important:

There were 6 30+ MPG guys in that chip-winning playoff run. The other guy was Earl Lloyd who I've already given a quote from where Schayes talked about him as the defensive forward. He was actually one of the Top 5 minutes guys on the team that year over Kerr.

And in that final Game 7 that won the Nats their chip by a single point, there were 5 guys who played more than 30 minutes, and Schayes - who played only 21 minutes - was not among them.

Now injuries are a thing and if that's why he played so little and so poorly, it makes sense. But I also think it's important to remember that the way guys like Mikan, Arizin & Pettit put up big performances to get the title is part of their legend, and that's not how Schayes got his title.

Personally I wouldn't say teams "get the title" in a single game.

Which would loop us back to my comments regarding those playoffs as a whole and his prime playoff trends generally (or Trex's at a game level) and to an extent (also alluded to at a game level by Trex) Seymour's production (the worst aspect of which being -0.2 OWS) which the limited aggregations seem to say(/guess, depending on inputs ... WS overall will use team data to get a better average read on D, but even now is flawed on that end) that he was ... fine. Now that's perhaps missing the detail on his better end.


I might also quibble with an that the best defensive player on a defense inclined winning team has be something ...
I think that profile would tend to get you underrated if an ensemble or a less visible defender (young Rodman?) but at the same time it could be done by a Bol or Eaton where they give everything they gain back and are neutral or even worse. Now I don't think that is Seymour (certainly not big picture, looking at his efficiency for a guard in 53 and 54 (spiking a WS or WS/48 [outlier-y?] short prime that accounts for nearly half his career WS); there are clearly times he had real offensive value. I just think net is what matters and you can always nuke one great end with a terrible one.


To reiterate though, big picture: I don't know, it's all very fuzzy. If you call him a 1 (as I did circa a decade ago when breaking all-time lists to primary decades and positions ... probably due to a assist totals in prime years, maybe size) much more so than later it's hard (for me, at least) to have any real confidence in where he is versus McGuire or Martin or Philip or Beard or King (or George).

I do appreciate being able to have dialogue on this ancient stuff where we're all just doing our best to make sense of it. I'm sorry that I'm ornery enough that it makes people hesitant.

Certainly you don't get the title in a single game. and one game doesn't mean you're not the MVP of your team. I wouldn't say anyone was crazy for thinking it most likely that Schayes was the MVP of that team.

Re: being the best defensive player on a defensive champion doesn't necessarily have to be something. Oh I think it does. As I said, I'm not saying you can't be the MVP of your team by having a specialty other than what makes your team good, but whoever is actually the best at what makes your team good is clearly doing something, and if it leads to a championship, that's a pretty big something.

Re: Rodman. I think Rodman is a big deal, and would be a much bigger deal if he were the Pistons' lead MPG guy and coach-on-the-floor.

Re: can always nuke one great end with a terrible one. Yes, but you "nuke" it by keeping your team from being that good. If you win the chip with a great defense, and you have someone known as the best defender on the team, it's awfully hard to imagine he's doing more harm than good.

Re: fuzzy. Oh absolutely. I get chippy when folks come back at me for certain things, but I'm not trying to say I know any of this as a certainty.

Re: hard to have confidence in where Seymour is relative to his rivals. Understandable. Just know that I'm not coming from a place where I feel I absolutely know, only that I force myself to ask, "If I have to pick one over the other, who do I think is more likely to have been more valuable in the interval being discussed?".

Last one one this - and has to be brief because of time and so primarily directing you back to the argument outlined ... is it not net impact that's important? And is it not possible to be huge at one end and give it all back (and more?) at the other. Could you not be say a slightly more durable version of what Manute Bol may have been (data is limited), be a monster on one end be perhaps a little worse than you are good on the other, be a say ... a slightly below league average player, a lower-end, below average starter (or say it's even, and they're league average, and merely below average starter)

Is it "probable" that a team's best player on one end is that type of extreme ... no. But if it is possible then I think the absolute type statement is wrong.

To me it's like the (basic level version of) "you can't win with a center as poor/middling on D as Jokic" (or indeed "you can't win with a center as good on offense as Jokic") because it isn't something likely to happen to a given team (because in both instances you are extraordinarily unlikely to have a center as offensively good as Jokic - and in the more serious version, are failing to account for net impact).

To me the defense offered to this seems to be that "Yes, but you "nuke" it by keeping your team from being that good." ... but you can win (a title) with one lower-end or below average starter and/or one starter playing at that level.

I think that looking at what makes a team good makes sense and corrects some misconceptions where volume scorers/dynamic "stars" were over-credited. I'd just argue against isolating value in that area rather than net contribution.

[ZeppelinPage]

Andy Phillip.
First point guard to put up 400 and 500 assists in a season as well the first point guard to put up at least 7apg in a season.

Also a fantastic defender, leading George Senesky to call him the "best defender in the league" in 1955. Certainly has an argument.

[penbeast0]

I cut two places where people just copied the whole of Doctor MJ's fantastic but quite long post detailing his top players. Both are on the same page and neither interspersed comments so it shouldn't be a chore to scan up. Just for readability since I really enjoy this thread.

[prolific passer]

Andy Phillip.
First point guard to put up 400 and 500 assists in a season as well the first point guard to put up at least 7apg in a season.

Also a fantastic defender, leading George Senesky to call him the "best defender in the league" in 1955. Certainly has an argument.

I believe Red wanted Andy over Cousy but lucked out with getting Bob.

[prolific passer]

Andy Phillip.
First point guard to put up 400 and 500 assists in a season as well the first point guard to put up at least 7apg in a season.

Also a fantastic defender, leading George Senesky to call him the "best defender in the league" in 1955. Certainly has an argument.

Andy only lived like a half hour away from St. Louis. Would have been interesting to see somebody like him team up with Pettit and Hagan.
Not to take anything away from Slater Martin who was underrated at playmaking and assists. Was probably the first great defensive point guard in the NBA. Paved the way for the likes of KC Jones, Dennis Johnson, Payton, etc.

[Doctor MJ]

Wasn't sure whether to post this one whether it's worthwhile, how it's taken, whether it's pedantry on something that isn't intended to be there ...

Personally I wouldn't say teams "get the title" in a single game.

Which would loop us back to my comments regarding those playoffs as a whole and his prime playoff trends generally (or Trex's at a game level) and to an extent (also alluded to at a game level by Trex) Seymour's production (the worst aspect of which being -0.2 OWS) which the limited aggregations seem to say(/guess, depending on inputs ... WS overall will use team data to get a better average read on D, but even now is flawed on that end) that he was ... fine. Now that's perhaps missing the detail on his better end.


I might also quibble with an that the best defensive player on a defense inclined winning team has be something ...
I think that profile would tend to get you underrated if an ensemble or a less visible defender (young Rodman?) but at the same time it could be done by a Bol or Eaton where they give everything they gain back and are neutral or even worse. Now I don't think that is Seymour (certainly not big picture, looking at his efficiency for a guard in 53 and 54 (spiking a WS or WS/48 [outlier-y?] short prime that accounts for nearly half his career WS); there are clearly times he had real offensive value. I just think net is what matters and you can always nuke one great end with a terrible one.


To reiterate though, big picture: I don't know, it's all very fuzzy. If you call him a 1 (as I did circa a decade ago when breaking all-time lists to primary decades and positions ... probably due to a assist totals in prime years, maybe size) much more so than later it's hard (for me, at least) to have any real confidence in where he is versus McGuire or Martin or Philip or Beard or King (or George).

I do appreciate being able to have dialogue on this ancient stuff where we're all just doing our best to make sense of it. I'm sorry that I'm ornery enough that it makes people hesitant.

Certainly you don't get the title in a single game. and one game doesn't mean you're not the MVP of your team. I wouldn't say anyone was crazy for thinking it most likely that Schayes was the MVP of that team.

Re: being the best defensive player on a defensive champion doesn't necessarily have to be something. Oh I think it does. As I said, I'm not saying you can't be the MVP of your team by having a specialty other than what makes your team good, but whoever is actually the best at what makes your team good is clearly doing something, and if it leads to a championship, that's a pretty big something.

Re: Rodman. I think Rodman is a big deal, and would be a much bigger deal if he were the Pistons' lead MPG guy and coach-on-the-floor.

Re: can always nuke one great end with a terrible one. Yes, but you "nuke" it by keeping your team from being that good. If you win the chip with a great defense, and you have someone known as the best defender on the team, it's awfully hard to imagine he's doing more harm than good.

Re: fuzzy. Oh absolutely. I get chippy when folks come back at me for certain things, but I'm not trying to say I know any of this as a certainty.

Re: hard to have confidence in where Seymour is relative to his rivals. Understandable. Just know that I'm not coming from a place where I feel I absolutely know, only that I force myself to ask, "If I have to pick one over the other, who do I think is more likely to have been more valuable in the interval being discussed?".

Last one one this - and has to be brief because of time and so primarily directing you back to the argument outlined ... is it not net impact that's important? And is it not possible to be huge at one end and give it all back (and more?) at the other. Could you not be say a slightly more durable version of what Manute Bol may have been (data is limited), be a monster on one end be perhaps a little worse than you are good on the other, be a say ... a slightly below league average player, a lower-end, below average starter (or say it's even, and they're league average, and merely below average starter)

Is it "probable" that a team's best player on one end is that type of extreme ... no. But if it is possible then I think the absolute type statement is wrong.

To me it's like the (basic level version of) "you can't win with a center as poor/middling on D as Jokic" (or indeed "you can't win with a center as good on offense as Jokic") because it isn't something likely to happen to a given team (because in both instances you are extraordinarily unlikely to have a center as offensively good as Jokic - and in the more serious version, are failing to account for net impact).

To me the defense offered to this seems to be that "Yes, but you "nuke" it by keeping your team from being that good." ... but you can win (a title) with one lower-end or below average starter and/or one starter playing at that level.

I think that looking at what makes a team good makes sense and corrects some misconceptions where volume scorers/dynamic "stars" were over-credited. I'd just argue against isolating value in that area rather than net contribution.

Net impact is of course what truly matters.

To the question of whether it's literally impossible for someone to be...

a) the best defensive player
b) and the guy who plays the most
b) on the best defensive team
c) that's also the best overall team
d) but he's a net negative overall

and I must add:

e) on a team that literally is bad at offense

I certainly won't say it's literally impossible, but I think we have to be asking ourselves a) how that would come about in practice, and b) how likely that any particular situation in the past could be best explained by that.

I think sometimes people feel like it's less of a sin to be wrong because you leave something in the default setting than it is if you actively try to assess things for yourself and are wrong. And if anything, I think the opposite. Even if on average putting more thought leads to the exact same over accuracy, the thought you put into it is worthwhile.

But, truly speaking, I do think we can do better than the default setting on average if we go about it the right way, and if I didn't, then I probably wouldn't bother to try to think about history much at all. Instead, I think about it quite a bit in many domains with much the same process I use to go about understanding the world with scientific bent.

Okay, back to the specific topic at hand, let's start with this in mind:

If he's having a net negative impact out there, and the coach is insisting on playing him more than all of his other players, that's a major mistake by the coach, right? And this is the coach of the champion team we're talking about, so how is his team succeeding the way it does? Whatever the answer is to that question, I think it's got to be really interesting.

Last, the Jokic point is a good one. I'll piggy back on something you said:

Not only is it unlikely he can have a defensive impact so negative it can swallow his offensive impact,
chances are if it gets anywhere even close to doing that it makes a championship impossible for the Nuggets..which as a guy who just love me some Jokic, is precisely what I worry about.

[Doctor MJ]

Andy Phillip.
First point guard to put up 400 and 500 assists in a season as well the first point guard to put up at least 7apg in a season.

Also a fantastic defender, leading George Senesky to call him the "best defender in the league" in 1955. Certainly has an argument.

Andy only lived like a half hour away from St. Louis. Would have been interesting to see somebody like him team up with Pettit and Hagan.
Not to take anything away from Slater Martin who was underrated at playmaking and assists. Was probably the first great defensive point guard in the NBA. Paved the way for the likes of KC Jones, Dennis Johnson, Payton, etc.

"first" is hard to say because of how things went down with the consolidation of leagues into the NBA, but I'd guess that the guy who was born first of all the defensive point guards in the NBA would be Al Cervi, born in 1917.

Cervi actually made his pro debut in the '30s!

[prolific passer]

Ed Macauley was just very good all around. Good scorer, rebounder, passer/assist big, decent defender.
Celtics just didn't have that 15rpg guy to compliment his 8-9rpg like they had with Russell and Heinsohn. Somebody like Gallatin would have been nice with him. Celtics probably make at least a few NBA finals pre russell. Start an early rivalry with the Lakers.

[Doctor MJ]

Andy Phillip.
First point guard to put up 400 and 500 assists in a season as well the first point guard to put up at least 7apg in a season.

True and I'm glad you mention him.

I remember us talking about him quite a bit as a serious candidate during the 2020 project...and I guess none of us actually voted for him. I would certainly have him above some of the guys on my list.

[Owly]

For mentions ... I'll put out possible longlists for positions by primary decade ... being here means some level of "achievement" whether via accolades, statistical production (PER or WS/48 above a certain threshold, peak or career), placement on some rankers list ... but doesn't mean everyone here is better than not.

Done by arbritrary choice of primary decade rather than date of retirement. Thinks 40s is tilted to "major-league era" players or players at least partially from that. Positional and decade choices somewhat arbitrary/guesswork. Not in a specific order except may have been filtered by something(s) when I last edited them circa a decade ago.
going 40s C, 40s PF, .... 50s C, 50s PF ...

George Mikan
Arnie Risen
Connie Simmons
Don Otten
Red Rocha
Stan Miasek
Ed Sadowski
Chick Halbert

"Bones" McKinney

Joe Fulks
Bob Feerick
Arnie Johnson
Howie Dallmar

Bobby Wanzer
Max Zaslofsky
Frankie Brian
Frankie Baumholtz

Bob Davies
John Logan
Fred Scolari
Kenny Sailors
Ernie Calverley


Neil Johnston
Ed Macauley
Clyde Lovellette
Larry Foust
Charlie (Chuck) Share
Bob Houbregs
Ray Felix
Alex Groza
Walter Dukes
Nat "Sweetwater" Clifton
Noble Jorgensen
Eddie Miller

Dolph Schayes
Bob Pettit
Harry Gallatin
Vern Mikkelsen
Kenny Sears
George Yardley
Jack Coleman
Maurice Stokes
Mel Hutchins
Joe Graboski
Bob Lavoy

Paul Arizin
Ernie Vandeweghe
Jim Pollard
Woody Sauldsberry
Odie Spears
Dick Schnittker
Fred Schaus

Bill Sharman
Frank Ramsey
Gene Shue
Carl Braun
Dick Garmaker
Paul Walther
Billy Kenville
Bob Donham

Bob Cousy
Dick McGuire
Slater Martin
Andy Phillip
Ralph Beard
Paul Seymour
George King
Jack George

[prolific passer]

For mentions ... I'll put out possible longlists for positions by primary decade ... being here means some level of "achievement" whether via accolades, statistical production (PER or WS/48 above a certain threshold, peak or career), placement on some rankers list ... but doesn't mean everyone here is better than not.

Done by arbritrary choice of primary decade rather than date of retirement. Thinks 40s is tilted to "major-league era" players or players at least partially from that. Positional and decade choices somewhat arbitrary/guesswork. Not in a specific order except may have been filtered by something(s) when I last edited them circa a decade ago.
going 40s C, 40s PF, .... 50s C, 50s PF ...

George Mikan
Arnie Risen
Connie Simmons
Don Otten
Red Rocha
Stan Miasek
Ed Sadowski
Chick Halbert

"Bones" McKinney

Joe Fulks
Bob Feerick
Arnie Johnson
Howie Dallmar

Bobby Wanzer
Max Zaslofsky
Frankie Brian
Frankie Baumholtz

Bob Davies
John Logan
Fred Scolari
Kenny Sailors
Ernie Calverley


Neil Johnston
Ed Macauley
Clyde Lovellette
Larry Foust
Charlie (Chuck) Share
Bob Houbregs
Ray Felix
Alex Groza
Walter Dukes
Nat "Sweetwater" Clifton
Noble Jorgensen
Eddie Miller

Dolph Schayes
Bob Pettit
Harry Gallatin
Vern Mikkelsen
Kenny Sears
George Yardley
Jack Coleman
Maurice Stokes
Mel Hutchins
Joe Graboski
Bob Lavoy

Paul Arizin
Ernie Vandeweghe
Jim Pollard
Woody Sauldsberry
Odie Spears
Dick Schnittker
Fred Schaus

Bill Sharman
Frank Ramsey
Gene Shue
Carl Braun
Dick Garmaker
Paul Walther
Billy Kenville
Bob Donham

Bob Cousy
Dick McGuire
Slater Martin
Andy Phillip
Ralph Beard
Paul Seymour
George King
Jack George

Feel sorry for Sauldsberry. He was an all star averaging 16 and 12 before Wilt arrived and then became a career journeyman bench player after Wilt arrived.


Charlie Share and Jim Loscutoff pretty much were similar players. Both double double guys for their teams. Just that one was a center and one was a small forward.

Carl Braun was one of if not the first big point guard in the NBA. Very underrated.

[Owly]

I do appreciate being able to have dialogue on this ancient stuff where we're all just doing our best to make sense of it. I'm sorry that I'm ornery enough that it makes people hesitant.

Certainly you don't get the title in a single game. and one game doesn't mean you're not the MVP of your team. I wouldn't say anyone was crazy for thinking it most likely that Schayes was the MVP of that team.

Re: being the best defensive player on a defensive champion doesn't necessarily have to be something. Oh I think it does. As I said, I'm not saying you can't be the MVP of your team by having a specialty other than what makes your team good, but whoever is actually the best at what makes your team good is clearly doing something, and if it leads to a championship, that's a pretty big something.

Re: Rodman. I think Rodman is a big deal, and would be a much bigger deal if he were the Pistons' lead MPG guy and coach-on-the-floor.

Re: can always nuke one great end with a terrible one. Yes, but you "nuke" it by keeping your team from being that good. If you win the chip with a great defense, and you have someone known as the best defender on the team, it's awfully hard to imagine he's doing more harm than good.

Re: fuzzy. Oh absolutely. I get chippy when folks come back at me for certain things, but I'm not trying to say I know any of this as a certainty.

Re: hard to have confidence in where Seymour is relative to his rivals. Understandable. Just know that I'm not coming from a place where I feel I absolutely know, only that I force myself to ask, "If I have to pick one over the other, who do I think is more likely to have been more valuable in the interval being discussed?".

Last one one this - and has to be brief because of time and so primarily directing you back to the argument outlined ... is it not net impact that's important? And is it not possible to be huge at one end and give it all back (and more?) at the other. Could you not be say a slightly more durable version of what Manute Bol may have been (data is limited), be a monster on one end be perhaps a little worse than you are good on the other, be a say ... a slightly below league average player, a lower-end, below average starter (or say it's even, and they're league average, and merely below average starter)

Is it "probable" that a team's best player on one end is that type of extreme ... no. But if it is possible then I think the absolute type statement is wrong.

To me it's like the (basic level version of) "you can't win with a center as poor/middling on D as Jokic" (or indeed "you can't win with a center as good on offense as Jokic") because it isn't something likely to happen to a given team (because in both instances you are extraordinarily unlikely to have a center as offensively good as Jokic - and in the more serious version, are failing to account for net impact).

To me the defense offered to this seems to be that "Yes, but you "nuke" it by keeping your team from being that good." ... but you can win (a title) with one lower-end or below average starter and/or one starter playing at that level.

I think that looking at what makes a team good makes sense and corrects some misconceptions where volume scorers/dynamic "stars" were over-credited. I'd just argue against isolating value in that area rather than net contribution.

Net impact is of course what truly matters.

To the question of whether it's literally impossible for someone to be...

a) the best defensive player
b) and the guy who plays the most
b) on the best defensive team
c) that's also the best overall team
d) but he's a net negative overall

and I must add:

e) on a team that literally is bad at offense

I certainly won't say it's literally impossible, but I think we have to be asking ourselves a) how that would come about in practice, and b) how likely that any particular situation in the past could be best explained by that.

I think sometimes people feel like it's less of a sin to be wrong because you leave something in the default setting than it is if you actively try to assess things for yourself and are wrong. And if anything, I think the opposite. Even if on average putting more thought leads to the exact same over accuracy, the thought you put into it is worthwhile.

But, truly speaking, I do think we can do better than the default setting on average if we go about it the right way, and if I didn't, then I probably wouldn't bother to try to think about history much at all. Instead, I think about it quite a bit in many domains with much the same process I use to go about understanding the world with scientific bent.

Okay, back to the specific topic at hand, let's start with this in mind:

If he's having a net negative impact out there, and the coach is insisting on playing him more than all of his other players, that's a major mistake by the coach, right? And this is the coach of the champion team we're talking about, so how is his team succeeding the way it does? Whatever the answer is to that question, I think it's got to be really interesting.

Last, the Jokic point is a good one. I'll piggy back on something you said:

Not only is it unlikely he can have a defensive impact so negative it can swallow his offensive impact,
chances are if it gets anywhere even close to doing that it makes a championship impossible for the Nuggets..which as a guy who just love me some Jokic, is precisely what I worry about.

The point of difference here is I was talking to two statements that were expressed as conceptual and seemingly not Seymour specific. And I stated “now I don’t think that is Seymour” of my conceptual player in the first exchange on this particular topic.


So my conception (at least as I envisioned it) was I just need (to justify my position)
A and
Sort of d (but not necessarily) – i.e. I’ve phrased as league average and below average starter or below average player and low-end/below average starter (the latter fitting D, the former not).
And then variations on … but not … c* and e. Doesn’t have to be best team overall, just needs to be the champ. Team doesn’t need to be literally bad at offense, just needs defense to be stronger than offense.

*= If C came from Seymour and one is not defining champs as necessarily the best team (well either way, but more likely to be able to meaningfully engage if the former) … I don’t first glance think they’re better than the Pistons. At least it certainly isn’t a given. Pistons have better SRS and outscore them in the series (going 7). For further context it’s not like Nat’s Conference Final (each only played that one additional round) is much more dominant and that was against a weaker opposition. Would have to look closer at health and what is meant by the question but those two indicators would tilt me towards the Pistons.


On Jokic:
Whilst I'll listen to more complex phrasings I'd struggle to look at a guy that's +20 on-off (and monstrous box-composites) and conclude that because he hasn't happened to have won that he has flaws that make it "impossible". Talking balance of probabilities ... that seems ... unlikely (heck teams have won with DeShawn Stevenson [not playing crazy over his head or anything)] on the fringe of their rotation but Jokic makes it impossible?!).

[Owly]

For mentions ... I'll put out possible longlists for positions by primary decade ... being here means some level of "achievement" whether via accolades, statistical production (PER or WS/48 above a certain threshold, peak or career), placement on some rankers list ... but doesn't mean everyone here is better than not.

Done by arbritrary choice of primary decade rather than date of retirement. Thinks 40s is tilted to "major-league era" players or players at least partially from that. Positional and decade choices somewhat arbitrary/guesswork. Not in a specific order except may have been filtered by something(s) when I last edited them circa a decade ago.
going 40s C, 40s PF, .... 50s C, 50s PF ...

George Mikan
Arnie Risen
Connie Simmons
Don Otten
Red Rocha
Stan Miasek
Ed Sadowski
Chick Halbert

"Bones" McKinney

Joe Fulks
Bob Feerick
Arnie Johnson
Howie Dallmar

Bobby Wanzer
Max Zaslofsky
Frankie Brian
Frankie Baumholtz

Bob Davies
John Logan
Fred Scolari
Kenny Sailors
Ernie Calverley


Neil Johnston
Ed Macauley
Clyde Lovellette
Larry Foust
Charlie (Chuck) Share
Bob Houbregs
Ray Felix
Alex Groza
Walter Dukes
Nat "Sweetwater" Clifton
Noble Jorgensen
Eddie Miller

Dolph Schayes
Bob Pettit
Harry Gallatin
Vern Mikkelsen
Kenny Sears
George Yardley
Jack Coleman
Maurice Stokes
Mel Hutchins
Joe Graboski
Bob Lavoy

Paul Arizin
Ernie Vandeweghe
Jim Pollard
Woody Sauldsberry
Odie Spears
Dick Schnittker
Fred Schaus

Bill Sharman
Frank Ramsey
Gene Shue
Carl Braun
Dick Garmaker
Paul Walther
Billy Kenville
Bob Donham

Bob Cousy
Dick McGuire
Slater Martin
Andy Phillip
Ralph Beard
Paul Seymour
George King
Jack George

Feel sorry for Sauldsberry. He was an all star averaging 16 and 12 before Wilt arrived and then became a career journeyman bench player after Wilt arrived.

Charlie Share and Jim Loscutoff pretty much were similar players. Both double double guys for their teams. Just that one was a center and one was a small forward.

Carl Braun was one of if not the first big point guard in the NBA. Very underrated.

I will say all-star didn't mean so much at the time. Team's were capped at three (once [at least] broken for an injury replacement, but generally held) so in an 8 team league if the squads carried 11, you were locked in to have 2 and probably 3.

Think I left out ASG as a qualifier for this reason, but Sauldsberry made Slam's 500, so he's included.

And that All-Star year is one of 4 -200 TS add or worse campaigns (high pace but with the lower baseline average shooting perhaps harder to be that much worse than league norms and in a 72 game league ... considering the harm he got into a short career he might be the most harmful offensive player ever unless other stuff mitigated it somewhat. WS tilts heavily on scoring efficiency but ... he's a career negative WS player (via -24.2 OWS) which is pretty tought to do ... those numbers are outlier bad.


Share has a substantial productivity advantage on Jungle Jim, though in limited minutes (because of the area of similarity: fouls) and from a position where a lot of players were productive (though if JL is considered a 4 then they too have a fair list of 50s players that are so, though a couple I put there could be considered 3s).

[prolific passer]

Clyde Lovellette. Underrated center. Too bad Lakers couldn't keep their success going post Mikan and pre Baylor. Clyde and Vern could have been something special.

[Doctor MJ]

Clyde Lovellette. Underrated center. Too bad Lakers couldn't keep their success going post Mikan and pre Baylor. Clyde and Vern could have been something special.

I'm curious what you mean when you say "could have been". To me that implies they didn't get a shot, but I think from the Lakers perspective, they did get a shot.