Blocked shots data for Bill Russell and Wilt Chamberlain (replacement thread)

[penbeast0]

By request I am putting this thread OP back up. I'm not reopening the old thread because it had settled into extremely unproductive back and forth but this is excellent research and deserves to have good discussion if people choose.

135 games for Bill Russell, 8.1 blocks per game:

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-fRFgkADAK80/VkG0j3zRocI/AAAAAAAAHTA/swVybP9vvpE/s0-Ic42/Russell%252520blocked%252520shots%252520135g.jpg

112 games for Wilt Chamberlain, 8.8 blocks per game:

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-tTIVEWsAP14/VkFK-IE7GHI/AAAAAAAAHSo/n_u04_ScpoQ/s0-Ic42/Wilt%252520blocked%252520shots.jpg

[lessthanjake]

Is the data based on analyzing footage or based on newspaper reports? I’m always a bit skeptical of old newspaper reports in sports, but I imagine that’s largely all we have here, and I wouldn’t say it’s really inconsistent with the footage I’ve seen anyways.

Also, do we have similar data on other players back then? I’d be curious if other centers in that era blocked a ton of shots by today’s standards too (even if less than Russell and Wilt did), or whether they didn’t and Russell and Wilt were just as wild of outliers as these numbers would be today. I suspect there must have been at least a decent bit more blocks back then because of higher pace and fewer outside shots, but I have no conception of what the scale of that effect was.

[Cavsfansince84]

Is the data based on analyzing footage or based on newspaper reports? I’m always a bit skeptical of old newspaper reports in sports, but I imagine that’s largely all we have here, and I wouldn’t say it’s really inconsistent with the footage I’ve seen anyways.

Also, do we have similar data on other players back then? I’d be curious if other centers in that era blocked a ton of shots by today’s standards too (even if less than Russell and Wilt did), or whether they didn’t and Russell and Wilt were just as wild of outliers as these numbers would be today. I suspect there must have been at least a decent bit more blocks back then because of higher pace and fewer outside shots, but I have no conception of what the scale of that effect was.

I think its safe to say that Thurmond had some pretty outrageous bpg seasons by today's standards as well but those were the 3 with the huge defensive reputations, length and who also played huge mpg. So in terms of raw bpg I'd expect them to be sort of head and shoulders above the rest. Maybe Kareem in the 71-73 years as well.

[ceiling raiser]

Three notes on this:

(1) These screenshots originate from nbastats.net. I was a contributor there a few years ago (there are other files for Kareem, West, etc), we went through old digital and print newspaper archives to scour for game records. I do want to note there is a very clear difference between some of the numbers. Please mind that on the site, one of the other contributors whose name you will see credited in the comments section of the files has a proprietary formula he used to calculate some blocks. Those are listed as estimates. I don't see those rows in the screencaps, but just wanted to point this out.

(2) Except for the Lakers with Wilt in 72 and 73, there wasn't an official accounting of blocks and steals. I spoke to Harvey Pollack (RIP) a few times before he died, who refuted the claim that the Sixers tracked Wilt's blocks. Prior to the early 70s when they started compiling stats from league play-by-plays, most of the more esoteric stats were just tracked for post-game reports to provide to Sixers beat reporters.

(3) There is a severe availability heuristic at play here. If blocks, steals, or turnovers are recorded, it usually means that they were *unusually high* in that game. Likewise, if they are not mentioned, they are more likely lower, and less likely to be in-line with the mentioned figures. One caveat, is that you don't necessarily know early in a game if it will end with a high total prior to blocks/steals/turnovers being tracked by the league, so the totals might be imprecise if press isn't tracking in the first quarter/half.

[DQuinn1575]

(3) There is a severe availability heuristic at play here. If blocks, steals, or turnovers are recorded, it usually means that they were *unusually high* in that game. Likewise, if they are not mentioned, they are more likely lower, and less likely to be in-line with the mentioned figures. One caveat, is that you don't necessarily know early in a game if it will end with a high total prior to blocks/steals/turnovers being tracked by the league, so the totals might be imprecise if press isn't tracking in the first quarter/half.

You bring up a good point here - to expand, the newspaper article won't usually include the totals of someone's stats in a story unless they were on the high side. For example, if you were to look at the Sixers when Wilt played, I'm pretty sure if you total the points from the game stories where they mention Hal Greer's points, those totals are higher than his average. They are much more likely to include in the story that he scored 26 points, and far less likely to mention when he scored 14.
The same will apply to blocks, almost every time they will mention it, it will be a high number. So to give these amounts as averages overstates what they actually did.