RealGM 2023 Top 100 Project - #4 (Bill Russell)

[f4p]

The playoff games you mention were not against great teams, and 8 of the 12 were home games. At worst, I could throw them into the “Without Steph” averages (which actually would work fine IMO since disproportionately home games against slightly above-average opponents is roughly average difficulty), and Steph would still look incredible overall. For instance, if you add those playoff games in, the “Without Steph” portion becomes -3.67 in the full sample, -1.27 in the full sample excluding 2019-2020, and +0.30 in the peak-dynasty years. It doesn’t really change a whole lot.

at worst? the warriors are a proven veteran championship winning team, those types of teams slack off in the regular season. they don't in the playoffs. we can't just lump 12 playoff games in with 100+ (or whatever) regular season games. my supposition at the time was that they would not prove to be a sub-0.500 team without steph and would instead trounce their slightly above 0.500 opponents. and then they did. the odds that a sub-0.500 team just turns into a +12 team at the exact moment they need it seem pretty low.

but we don't have to take either of our words for it. we can ask the boys in vegas what they thought. after all, money talks and they usually see through the noise and find the signal.

https://www.sportsoddshistory.com/nba-playoffs-series/?y=all&o=s

against portland in 2016, when steph's return was doubtful, the warriors entered the series as -1600 favorites. that implies 94% odds for the warriors. to get that, even for a home team, requires about a 7.3 SRS advantage. so vegas thought they were about a +8 team without steph.

in 2018, when it was basically certain steph wasn't going to play in the 1st round, the warriors entered the series with the spurs as -900 favorites, or 90% chance to win. that requires about +5.9 to win that often. on top of the spurs +2.9, that makes the warriors a +8.8 team according to vegas. and this isn't even the 2017 peak warriors. so vegas basically had them as a strong title winner and the warriors even slightly outdid vegas. whatever info we're getting from the regular season about the non-steph warriors somehow not even being as valuable combined as steph is alone, doesn't seem to hold up when the real games start.

[rk2023]

To me, there’s a strong case that Wilt somewhat surprisingly didn’t have particularly positive offensive impact, despite scoring a ton at high efficiency. This is likely due to things people have talked about—holding the ball too much, clogging the lane, etc.

I do wonder how much of this was a coaching issue and how much was an inherent style issue. Did Wilt *need* to hold the ball that much in order to be as efficient as he was, or was he mostly just doing so because his coaches lacked enough of an understanding to tell him to stop? This was an early era of basketball, and so I wouldn’t discount the possibility that people just didn’t know how to use Wilt and that he didn’t intrinsically understand how best to use his own skills (or did and was actively coached to do something inferior).

In terms of ranking, I’m not sure this matters to me, since I don’t think I can rank a player based on how they might’ve played with better coaching (as opposed to how they did play in reality), but it does perhaps highlight how coaching can help or hurt players in terms of meeting their full potential. For instance, I’m nominating Steph, but I have my doubts that I’d be discussing Steph anywhere near to now if Mark Jackson had stayed coach of the Warriors—Steph was extremely good in 2013-2014, but I’m skeptical he’d have been able to make the further leap he made after that with Mark Jackson (or with any other coach that wouldn’t have figured out how to better utilize Steph’s unique skill set). I don’t intend to rate players based on my own perceived feeling that they may not have met their full potential, or any feeling that they were lucky to get coaches that understood how to get them to their full potential—I will rate people on how they played in reality. But Wilt strikes me as a player that probably will get rated lower by me as a result of that.

Steph is a good example to Wilt. I think it either highlights our bias towards winning (as our eyes look more towards better teams) or shows that a player needs the right environment to be successful.

Think of what Jokic accomplished this year which went against both of these. The common conception before this year was that you could not win with Jokic as your starting center due to his defense. A lot of this notion came from his team's shortcomings in the preceding two play-offs where they were both missing Murray and the additions made to their defensive line-ups (similar things were said of Dirk until he won with similar defensive additions around him).

Think this is good discourse in multiple fronts - moreso the general topics rather than specific application to Wilt (the latter is certainly valid though, don’t get me wrong). In a project like this, I believe fundamental attribution error is vastly important - so glad to see it being discussed and there being a more nuanced side to complement the discussion of raw impact, production, resumes, etc.

[f4p]

Cool work, thank you very much for sharing! May have missed a more detailed, process-specific of this methodology earlier - but am curious to know the input variables and what/how factors are being weighted in this approach.

nothing crazy. took the top 250 of each of the big 3 box score stats for ages 22-31. the top person for a stat got a normalized value of 1.0, the 250th person got a value of 0. if someone was top 250 in one stat but didn't make it in the top 250 for another stat, then for that other stat i just assigned a somewhat arbitrary floor value (1 less PER than 250th place; 0.01 less for WS48 and 0.66 less for BPM) so not being on the list gives you about a -0.07 value for a stat. then i just averaged the 3 values for PER/WS48/BPM, obviously separated for regular season and postseason. for the final value, postseason is just weighted 75% to and regular season 25%. i just wanted a way to smush PER/WS48/BPM all into one thing, since certain players can fare pretty differently in each of the stats.

Some higher-level thoughts:
- I am quite surprised to see Jordan/James at 118 and 112 respectively. On the other hand, when each had such a potent Regular Season offensive baseline - such is hard to maintain as competition and intensity increases.

as i'm thinking about it, i like the overall rankings but the rise/fall thing doesn't really work. there probably needs to be a normalized increase/decrease for each stat. for example, jordan literally can't go up because he finished 1st/1st/1st in the regular season.

- Not too surprised by the Durant, Embiid, Robinson placements on here (amongst others) - as those are players whose resiliencies I question for each of their respective reasons.

i tell you, it's tough to do a playoff/regular season comparison where robinson doesn't come in way at the bottom. except for his insane plus/minus from 98-01.

[lessthanjake]

The playoff games you mention were not against great teams, and 8 of the 12 were home games. At worst, I could throw them into the “Without Steph” averages (which actually would work fine IMO since disproportionately home games against slightly above-average opponents is roughly average difficulty), and Steph would still look incredible overall. For instance, if you add those playoff games in, the “Without Steph” portion becomes -3.67 in the full sample, -1.27 in the full sample excluding 2019-2020, and +0.30 in the peak-dynasty years. It doesn’t really change a whole lot.

at worst? the warriors are a proven veteran championship winning team, those types of teams slack off in the regular season. they don't in the playoffs. we can't just lump 12 playoff games in with 100+ (or whatever) regular season games. my supposition at the time was that they would not prove to be a sub-0.500 team without steph and would instead trounce their slightly above 0.500 opponents. and then they did. the odds that a sub-0.500 team just turns into a +12 team at the exact moment they need it seem pretty low.

but we don't have to take either of our words for it. we can ask the boys in vegas what they thought. after all, money talks and they usually see through the noise and find the signal.

https://www.sportsoddshistory.com/nba-playoffs-series/?y=all&o=s

against portland in 2016, when steph's return was doubtful, the warriors entered the series as -1600 favorites. that implies 94% odds for the warriors. to get that, even for a home team, requires about a 7.3 SRS advantage. so vegas thought they were about a +8 team without steph.

in 2018, when it was basically certain steph wasn't going to play in the 1st round, the warriors entered the series with the spurs as -900 favorites, or 90% chance to win. that requires about +5.9 to win that often. on top of the spurs +2.9, that makes the warriors a +8.8 team according to vegas. and this isn't even the 2017 peak warriors. so vegas basically had them as a strong title winner and the warriors even slightly outdid vegas. whatever info we're getting from the regular season about the non-steph warriors somehow not even being as valuable combined as steph is alone, doesn't seem to hold up when the real games start.

I’m not sure I’d put much stock in a method tied to betting odds, especially as it relates to injuries. Vegas doesn’t know if a guy is going to come back from injury or not, and players’ timelines to come back from injury are not particularly predictable especially in the playoffs (and it’s usually pretty dependent on how the games go—a guy will come back sooner if his team needs him). They were surely pricing in the chance that he’d come back, and we have no idea what chance they were pricing that in at, or how elastic they felt the chances were to things going badly (i.e. whether they figured that if the Warriors were in trouble Steph would almost certainly come back). And that’s not even mentioning that Vegas can and very often is simply wrong about how good a team is—for instance, we just saw them have the Nuggets a distant 6th in betting odds before the playoffs started, only for the Nuggets to dominate the playoffs.

Anyways, overall, I think you’re putting quite a lot more stock in 12 games—8 of which were at home—than makes sense, at least to me. 12 games is a very small sample, and in those 12 games, Golden State only won one away game. They mostly just held serve against pretty average teams, and it’s a number of games we can’t draw much of any conclusion from either way.

[ijspeelman]

Vote: Bill Russell



If you looked up winner in a basketball dictionary, I think it would just be a picture of Bill Russell. 11 championships in 13 years. Its crazy to think about especially today where three-peats are incredibly rare. I'd like to remove all of that for my conversation about Bill Russell. I don't want to talk about the player-coaching. I don't want to talk about the leadership on and off the court where he was a leader in the civil rights movement.

Lets talk about what he did on the court and lets strip him of his 11 rings.



To talk about Bill is to talk about Wilt. They are the yin and yang of 60s basketball. To me, these guys are clearly the best of this era and fought it out many times over their years so they were constantly compared. Wilt is known as a offensive behemoth and Russell is thought of as a leader and a hustler. I both don't think Russell gets enough credit and Wilt gets far too much.

Where Wilt had incredible offensive box scores, Bill did not and did not try to. Wilt and Bill were gifted with an assortment of all-star teammates. Where Wilt blasted by them with his volume scoring, Bill did not.

Russell’s teams, however, were not offensively talented. During a majority of Bill’s career, the Celtics were a below to bottom of the league offense in ORTG (they also ranked dead last 3/13 times).

Season ORTG Finish
1956-57 5/8
1957-58 7/8
1958-59 5/8
1959-60 5/8
1960-61 8/8
1961-62 7/9
1962-63 9/9
1963-64 9/9
1964-65 7/9
1965-66 8/9
1966-67 4/10
1967-68 8/12
1968-69 10/14

Some people use this as a positive to show that it was Bill Russell’s defense that created his value as one of the greatest of all time. While I believe this true, his lack of offensive prowess was a detriment to his team, but not as much as it could have been if he forced shots. Russell was not relied on for offense and for good reason. Russell was near league average TS% on below league average FGA/36 minutes.

Season rTS% rFGA
1956-57 0.10% -0.39
1957-58 1.60% -1.18
1958-59 3.60% -3.35
1959-60 3.30% -4.34
1960-61 -1.50% -3.41
1961-62 1.00% -2.96
1962-63 -2.90% -2.99
1963-64 -2.40% -3.76
1964-65 -0.70% -4.78
1965-66 -3.90% -5.33
1966-67 0.70% -5.88
1967-68 -3.70% -4.53
1968-69 -2.40% -7.67

So how can Bill Russell not be blown out by Wilt offensively?

For starters, unlike Wilt, Russell moved around on offense. This led to more avenues for his teammates to attack and for Russell to impact the game when he didn't have the ball. You don't see a ton of screens, PNR, or DHOs in 60s ball, but the Celtics and Russell used them to attack dropping bigs and off-ball to create openings. Like the modern day, this allowed a non-offensive threat to create space for his teammates.

Watch on YouTube

Russell also took a lot of the Celtics missed shots and turned them into more opportunities. He was a ferocious rebounder battling anyone and everyone for on the boards. Russell was also a good decision maker on when to go back up himself or kick out for a reset or an open shot.

Watch on YouTube

Lastly, Russell hustled down the court or started the break on nearly every possession. By virtue of being near the basket each defensive possession, he came down with defensive rebounds aplenty and was quick to throw touchdown passes or quickly to a guard. When he wasn't the rebounder he'd sprint down the floor for easy ones. The Celtics offense was at its best when it was working in transition.

Watch on YouTube

But, Russell gains significant traction in this conversation based on his defense. Due to his era (no three point line or illegal defense), the center position was the most important position defensively and by a huge margin. And Russell was the best defender of this era.

Russell was incredibly athletic and long (estimated wingspan of 7'4), but his best asset was his brain. Russell is known to not only block shots, but keep them inbounds. He is also one of the fathers of deterring the shot rather than blocking it (wrote about this phenomenon here: https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=2194359&p=99152325#p99152325).

Watch on YouTube

To compare him to modern day bigs, Russell was probably a better weak-side helper than a drop big. He had incredible instinct for when to leave his man and run to help clean up messes. He was incredibly quick and smart with these reads, rarely missing them.

Watch on YouTube

Thinking Basketball has a great video on the Wilt vs Russell debate. There is a section where they explain Russell's dominance on defense against Wilt (@11:04 https://youtu.be/kCKSvjBnCRQ, but entire video is worth the watch). To summarize, though Wilt continued to score massive points against Russell, in their career facing each other Bill shaved 8 points/gm off his average and more importantly 3% of his TS% basically making him an average efficiency scorer (where Wilt's team's offenses were already in dire need of offense).

His utter domination on defense, his selflessness and motor on offense and his relative longevity make Bill Russell a perfect candidate for the number 4 spot for the Top 100.

Nomination: Kevin Garnett

Just going to put my blurb about him from last time.

Spoiler:

A lot of these lower spots are dominated by big men and rightfully so. During most of NBA history, if you were an exceptional big man defender and brought anything on the offensive side you were a consistent all-star to all-NBA talent. Garnett brings modern-like switchability, help-side defense, and constant disruption at the big man spot. He also brought what most people credit Duncan with, spacing from the big man in an era with typically poor shooting. Where Duncan trumps him is in the post, both offensively and defensively. However, with Garnett's skillset I think he deserves a spot in our 5 contenders for the #4 spot.

[lessthanjake]

I want to also just provide some information that I think goes to the playmaking effect of Steph Curry’s gravity.

www.pbpstats.com has data on “shot quality” that a player’s teammates have had with and without that player on the floor. This is a bit of a back-of-the-napkin method, but I looked at regular season + playoffs and then averaged the shot quality increase with certain star players on the floor, for teammates that played at least 1,000 minutes with the given player. I chose a set of great playmakers and some other great players, and tried to use timeframes correlating with their best years and/or their stints with specific teams (note: the data starts at 2000-2001, so that’s why no timeframe includes years before that). The idea was to measure to what extent a player causes his teammates to get good looks. Here’s what I found:

Average Shot Quality Increase for Teammates with Player on the Floor (only teammates with 1,000+ minutes with the player)

1. Steph Curry (2014-2015 to 2018-2019): +5.1%

2. Steph Curry (2014-2015 to 2022-2023): +3.8%

3. Nikola Jokic (2020-2021 to 2022-2023): +3.7%

4. LeBron James (2014-2015 to 2017-2018): +2.9%

5. Steve Nash (2004-2005 to 2011-2012): +2.6%

6. LeBron James (2005-2006 to 2009-2010): +2.3%

7. James Harden (2012-2013 to 2019-2020): +2.2%

8. Draymond Green (2014-2015 to 2022-2023): +2.2%

9. Shaquille O’Neal (2000-2001 to 2003-2004): +1.9%

10. Kobe Bryant (2000-2001 to 2009-2010):: +1.9%

11. Tim Duncan (2000-2001 to 2006-2007): +1.7%

12. Chris Paul (2011-2012 to 2016-2017): +1.5%

13. Giannis Antetokounmpo (2019-2020 to 2022-2023): +1.5%

14. Luka Doncic (2019-2020 to 2022-2023): +1.3%

15. LeBron James (2010-2011 to 2013-2014): +1.0%

Steph’s presence on the court has an immense effect on the shot quality of his teammates. Part of this is, of course, his own direct playmaking. But there’s a lot of immense direct playmakers sitting below Steph on this list. Steph being ahead of these guys suggests to me that Steph’s gravity is a bigger playmaker than even the best passers. And that would, of course, be consistent with the immense impact metrics that Steph has. I’d caveat this a bit by repeating that my method here was a bit back-of-the-napkin, but I do think that the ordering passes the smell test (i.e. guys like Jokic, LeBron, and Nash sitting near the top, for instance) such that it looks on its face like it’s measuring something real.

[f4p]

The playoff games you mention were not against great teams, and 8 of the 12 were home games. At worst, I could throw them into the “Without Steph” averages (which actually would work fine IMO since disproportionately home games against slightly above-average opponents is roughly average difficulty), and Steph would still look incredible overall. For instance, if you add those playoff games in, the “Without Steph” portion becomes -3.67 in the full sample, -1.27 in the full sample excluding 2019-2020, and +0.30 in the peak-dynasty years. It doesn’t really change a whole lot.

at worst? the warriors are a proven veteran championship winning team, those types of teams slack off in the regular season. they don't in the playoffs. we can't just lump 12 playoff games in with 100+ (or whatever) regular season games. my supposition at the time was that they would not prove to be a sub-0.500 team without steph and would instead trounce their slightly above 0.500 opponents. and then they did. the odds that a sub-0.500 team just turns into a +12 team at the exact moment they need it seem pretty low.

but we don't have to take either of our words for it. we can ask the boys in vegas what they thought. after all, money talks and they usually see through the noise and find the signal.

https://www.sportsoddshistory.com/nba-playoffs-series/?y=all&o=s

against portland in 2016, when steph's return was doubtful, the warriors entered the series as -1600 favorites. that implies 94% odds for the warriors. to get that, even for a home team, requires about a 7.3 SRS advantage. so vegas thought they were about a +8 team without steph.

in 2018, when it was basically certain steph wasn't going to play in the 1st round, the warriors entered the series with the spurs as -900 favorites, or 90% chance to win. that requires about +5.9 to win that often. on top of the spurs +2.9, that makes the warriors a +8.8 team according to vegas. and this isn't even the 2017 peak warriors. so vegas basically had them as a strong title winner and the warriors even slightly outdid vegas. whatever info we're getting from the regular season about the non-steph warriors somehow not even being as valuable combined as steph is alone, doesn't seem to hold up when the real games start.

I’m not sure I’d put much stock in a method tied to betting odds, especially as it relates to injuries.

gambling odds are among the best predictors of things. not only are they based on the wisdom of the crowd, but the crowd has to put its money where its mouth is. figuring out injuries and such is why lines move in mysterious ways ahead of news. and while you may have a point about people thinking a player will come back if their team is in trouble, it doesn't apply to 2018

Coach Steve Kerr announced that Steph Curry will miss the opening round of the postseason after he was diagnosed with a Grade 2 MCL sprain in his left knee on Saturday.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/nba/2018/03/25/steph-curry-miss-first-round-playoffs-steve-kerr-announces/457348002/

And that’s not even mentioning that Vegas can and very often is simply wrong about how good a team is—for instance, we just saw them have the Nuggets a distant 6th in betting odds before the playoffs started, only for the Nuggets to dominate the playoffs.

well yes, they don't have a crystal ball. but in the case of "the warriors are a -3.7 or +0.3 SRS team without curry who the spurs will beat vs the warriors are a +12 team who will dominate the spurs", vegas weighed in beforehand that they thought it was way closer to +12 and gave the warriors 90% odds with no curry.

Anyways, overall, I think you’re putting quite a lot more stock in 12 games—8 of which were at home—than makes sense, at least to me. 12 games is a very small sample, and in those 12 games, Golden State only won one away game. They mostly just held serve against pretty average teams, and it’s a number of games we can’t draw much of any conclusion from either way.

it's the only 12 games that meant anything. but still, let's set all that aside. are you really telling me that kevin durant, draymond green, and klay thompson are a -3.7 or +0.3 SRS team? everyone has just wildly missed the boat on all of these guys? KD might be top 20 in this project and is an MVP who has made the finals on his own team and been on a different +9 thunder team and a different one that knocked off a +10 SRS spurs team. draymond is the greatest defender of his generation. klay thompson is a perennial all-star. but it was all an illusion? the 3 great players steph seemed to be playing with are the 3 guys who everyone was most wrong about? combining an mvp, a dpoy and a 3rd all-star is just a 0.500 team because the "without steph" set of minutes/games says so? does that sound likely, or does that combo of players winning 75% of their 1st and 2nd round playoff games sound more like what we would expect?

[lessthanjake]

it's the only 12 games that meant anything. but still, let's set all that aside. are you really telling me that kevin durant, draymond green, and klay thompson are a -3.7 or +0.3 SRS team? everyone has just wildly missed the boat on all of these guys? KD might be top 20 in this project and is an MVP who has made the finals on his own team and been on a different +9 thunder team and a different one that knocked off a +10 SRS spurs team. draymond is the greatest defender of his generation. klay thompson is a perennial all-star. but it was all an illusion? the 3 great players steph seemed to be playing with are the 3 guys who everyone was most wrong about? combining an mvp, a dpoy and a 3rd all-star is just a 0.500 team because the "without steph" set of minutes/games says so? does that sound likely, or does that combo of players winning 75% of their 1st and 2nd round playoff games sound more like what we would expect?

As an initial note, I do actually think that Klay was “an illusion” to some degree. To me, he’s just a good 3-and-D role player. I will definitely not be voting for him in this project. Nevertheless, of course Durant + Draymond + Klay is a lot of talent. It is not necessarily clear though that they work/fit very well together without Steph, though. We have actually seen that they did well but not *that* well when all on the court together without Steph. Indeed, in regular season + playoffs, the Warriors’ net rating with just Steph on the court and none of those three was better than the Warriors’ net rating with all three of those guys on the court and no Steph. How could this be? Well, we could all have theories on it. For my money, I just don’t think they fit that well without Steph. Draymond is a great defender, but he’s a significant offensive liability outside of the context where he’s conducting short roll 4-on-3’s caused by teams suiciding their defense to try to limit Steph. Relatedly, Durant has always had a lot more difficulty the more the defense can sag off of other players to take swipes at his dribble when he tries to drive or get to his spots (in part because he’s just so tall that those swipes are hard for him to deal with). With Steph on the court, the spacing makes it almost impossible for defenses to do that. But without Steph and with Draymond still in, suddenly defenses are much more able to do the thing that is most effective against Durant. And Klay benefits a lot from open shots caused by Steph, and can’t really create his own shot much if he’s not getting those open looks. Things just fall apart for those guys a bit without Steph IMO, especially offensively. They’re talented enough that they still had a decently positive net rating when all on the court without Steph, but I don’t know that we *would* expect them to be incredible without Steph. Nor do I think a 12 game sample of mostly home games against mediocre teams actually tells us that they were (especially as the data from those games is included in the data I’ve reported).

[70sFan]

This is an open discussion project. Present the case why you find it unreasonable, but don't call people ridiculous or biased.

Wilt put up 40/25/3.5/10 for 7 years, and literally nobody here cares.

He has 72 all time records, 68 to himself. And literally nobody cares.

So why bother making a case?

So I, and others, can get completely ignored and continue reading people blathering on batting ad nauseam ad perpetuam about "WOWY-R", "CORP", and other BS self-congratulatory metrics that nobody (but this board and the Ben Taylor sycophants) gives a **** about?

I mean, some people care more about impacting the probability to win basketball games than getting massive boxscore numbers. It's fine if you have different criteria, but your rant about Ben Taylor is completely unnecessary...

[70sFan]

We're a ways from that, but all the available information shows that Wilt just wasn't a very valuable offensive player.

I mean, that's not true. We can see that Wilt improved Warriors offense noticeably. We can see that the Warriors became significantly worse on offense when Wilt left. Wilt also anchored the best offense ever up to that point in 1967 and after a fluke beginning of the season, he basically repeated it next year.

Wilt wasn't top tier offensive player, but it's not true that he wasn't very valuable.

Early in his career when he was scoring the ball, he was a complete black hole going down to the block and completely ignoring teammates and he consistently led below average offenses.

This contradicts to the limited footage I have collected from that era. I know there are stories about Wilt taking every shot possible and never passing out, but even from mathematical perspective it's clear that these were massive exaggerations. I estimated that Wilt scored almost 30% of his points from offensive rebounds, that alone should tell you that he didn't really dominate the ball nearly as much as some people think.

About offenses - it's true (though Warriors offense in 1962 was solid), but Wilt didn't have much to work with during that era. He had some of the worst shooting teammates in the league history.

He also showed little effect offensively when joining the Warriors as a rookie

That's not true, even going with Basketball-Reference numbers the team improved by +1.1 rORtg, that's not '"little effect".

or when leaving them and joining the Sixers.

This one is more clouded and the Sixers indeed did a great job at sustaining strong offense without Wilt in 1969, but I think the effect is visible when you take into account that the Sixers simply had a bad start in 1967/68. I discussed this problem here:

viewtopic.php?f=64&t=2159841&hilit=Wilt+rORtg

When he became a pass-first player, he led one really elite offense when guys were still doubling him, but then he went overboard the next year focusing on leading the league in assists, teams stopped doubling him, and he went back to having pretty neutral impact on offense.

That's a very strong opinion, do you have anything to back it up? We don't have a lot of footage from 1967/68 season, but what we have indicates that Wilt was still doubled plenty in that season.

When he demanded another trade and joined the Lakers, their offense got worse the year he joined.

Yeah, that is the only time I'd say Wilt didn't have a clear positive impact on a new team's offense.

Furthermore, we don't have turnover stats for Wilt's era, but the little bit of tracking done and the stories at the time suggest that he was likely an extremely high turnover player which might counteract a lot of his efficiency from shooting high percentages from the field.

Provide these numbers, because my tracking doesn't indicate that Wilt was outlier in terms of turnovers. Trex also did his tracking analysis and Wilt looked better compared to Russell in turnover economy as well.

I have never seen any tracking suggesting that Wilt was "extremely high turnover player", unless by tracking you mean turnover numbers from 2 Lakers games.

[70sFan]

What about defense? I think it's critical to make a distinction:

Are we judging Shaq based on how effective he actually was on defense in general?, or,
Are we scouting him based on his weaknesses...which are much more glaring when viewed back from this pace & space era?

I scoured Shaq defense more for his era than modern era and I still came up underwhelmed - bad fundamentals, weak timing, very low motor, a lot of dumb fouls, poor positioning and many missed contests.

I'm not saying he was bad defender, he had his value due to the size and post defense, but he's not even close to a great defender even in his era that suited him more than any other era.

You talk about being raised stories from people watching from the time, and you're effectively pointing out a blind spot they had that wasn't all that applicable when they were actually watching Shaq except in rare exceptions. However this stacks up in one's personal GOAT assessment, what's undeniable is that at the time it was so freaking scary that teams stocked up on bigs and eventually made rule changes specifically to curtail what Shaq was doing...which the '03-04 Pistons are often pointed to as exploiting.

I often wondered how much truth it is within these stories about signing 7 feet scrubs just for Shaq. It was a normal thing for teams back then to get at least one big body for post defense. Shaq definitely influenced some of these choices, but I doubt the league would look much different without him.

The league really never saw what Duncan as doing as the same time up league-warping effect, and frankly, I think they were correct in their assessment. Doesn't mean Duncan wasn't overall more impactful, but it wasn't just the imagination of people watching the game that Shaq was the more unstoppable force, the whole NBA felt that way.

I don't know, teams treated Duncan very tough back in the early 2000s. I think they also overreacted a little bit, but it doesn't change the fact that Duncan was actually seen as the dominant inside force.

To get to some +/- stuff, let me point this out. If we rank the best 9 year post-season per48 on/off from the TB database, here's the top 5:

1. Shaq ('97-05) +15.4
2. LeBron ('12-21) +15.0
3. Garnett ('01-13) +14.4
4. Kidd ('02-10) +12.5
5. Ginobili ('04-12) +11.9

Now, does that trump all other stats in the same family? Nah. I'm all for bringing up stuff like RAPM, but I do think it's important to take note when raw stuff goes in another direction.

When you say there's nothing to indicate that Shaq had a level of impact that matched/surpassed other bigs, I would say that's not true. There are certainly indicators that go in that direction, just as I'll acknowledge indicators that go Duncan's way.

If one stat from the same family gives Shaq edge, but another one gives Duncan the edge, then I don't conclude it with " well it indicates that Shaq was on another level than Duncan" or the other way around. It is another reason to believe that theu were actually on similar level.

[70sFan]

Absolutely sure. Whether he should have or not is debatable, but the perception advantage for Shaq at his best was clear cut.

To give a timeline of it:

1999: Will Shaq emerge as the dominant player now that Shaq has retired?
2000: Shaq's the best player, will he lead a dynasty?
2001: Shaq's Lakers are WAY better than everyone else, but can he and Kobe keep from killing each other?
2002: Well, they 3-peated, but the Lakers seem like they are about spent.
2003: Spurs won, but they didn't seem that amazing as they were getting pushed by teams like the Suns & Nets, Re-Loaded Lakers still favorite.
2004: Well the Lakers are dead, but the Pistons seem fluky, Spurs slight favorites over the Kings, Wolves...and the Lakers.
2005: Spurs won again despite Duncan's horrible choke job, so they gotta be the favorite now. Imagine beating them if Duncan doesn't suck?
2006: Mavs have an edge over the Spurs.
2007: Mavs have an edge over the Spurs, but Dirk got exposed in the finals. Co-meh-favorites.

Please forgive the pithy tone. I'll elaborate if anyone wants, but this isn't meant to be what I think people should have been thinking, just how it was.

Well, I can only say that it's not something I have heard from people watching that era at all. Some of these takes looks extremely unfair to be honest, but I don't think I want to go further with that.

[70sFan]

That lasted from 1999 to 2001. After the Spurs got humiliated in the 2001 playoffs, Shaq was clearly seen as THE player of the era, and while Duncan's later titles helped his career case, nothing he did really made most think he was Shaq's equal in prime.

So it lasted in 1999-01, then the Spurs lost and Shaq got the edge, but then Duncan outplayed him in two consecutive years... I don't know, I think you don't look at this objectively Doc.

I have KG, LeBron & Bowen.

While I do believe Duncan was wronged a few years earlier when Bowen became the guy getting DPOY love from the Spurs, once we get beyond a certain point Bowen had a pretty consistent defensive +/- edge from what I see. Duncan played a bit more minutes which helps some, but it's not really a gigantic edge.

Cool, but Duncan had significantly more important role on the Spurs than Bowen and the Spurs defense certainly wasn't built around Bruce either. Plus minus aren't everything.

I won't comment LeBron, it's not something I can agree with at all. Duncan was closer to Garnett in 2008 than anyone was to Duncan in my opinion and the truth is that he's not remembered that way because he lost (unlike KG).

In 2009 you have him as a Top 3 DPOY. In that year, the team had a better DRtg in both the regular & post season with him on the bench, and this was dramatically so in their 1st round upset to the Mavs. Does this concern you?

It does, which is why I said "probably" and not "certainly".

In 2013 & 2014 there are minutes issues particularly in the regular season, but clearly I can get looking past that if you're just focused on the playoffs. Thing is, wasn't Kawhi Leonard the more resilient playoff defender those years? The github single year playoffs RAPM gives Kawhi the stronger DRAPM both years, and if I do a similar count to 2009 where I ask "For whom was the on-court DRtg better than the team's overall DRtg?" for those playoffs, I get a count of Kawhi 6 to Duncan 4. (I'll note that I have Kawhi in my Top 3 DPOY both year.)

No, I don't think Kawhi was more resilient than Duncan. I also suggest not using this database, their results aren't reliable.

[70sFan]

Shaq was SO dominant in 2000 though, in a way we had never seen Duncan be.

What exactly makes you believe it's the case? Duncan didn't score as many points as Shaq, is there anything else though?

In 2002...felt like a LeBron vs KD in 2014 year, where the playoffs kind of proved who the best really was.

It would be a good analogy if Durant outplayed James in the playoffs h2h. I have no idea how you can come up with the conclusion that Shaq was better after their h2h encounter.

[70sFan]

This is becoming more of a personal attack than a talk about basketball.

It doesn't matter if iggymcfrack ranks Wilt #15 or out of the top 100, its not deserving of personal attacks.

100% agree, you may disagree with iggy but such behaviour is inexcusable.

1. Wilt held the ball a lot and struggled to generate offense for his teammates with his own scoring. A lot of elite offensive producers use their offense to bend the defense and create easy ones for their teammates (think MJ passing out of a double to Kerr, any LeBron kick-out, Jokic always, etc.)

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Wilt had two modes, passing and then shooting. First, his team would run the floor around him as he sat in the post and he looked for any openings. If there were none, he would shoot. This is a fine way to play basketball, but when you are the most dominant scorer of your era and you are not generating shots for others with your creation, typically your teammates are getting worse shots (see this article by your favorite analyst Ben Taylor, https://fansided.com/2017/08/11/nylon-calculus-measuring-creation-box-score/).

Watch on YouTube

I think the "two modes Wilt" is still a hypothesis, not a solidified theory. We don't have enough footage from prime Wilt's era to conclude whether that really was the case or not.

I see such tendencies as Wilt got older and didn't look to score nearly as much (especially in LA), but in his scoring years he was fairly quick with his movement and decision making.

2. Wilt had a tendency to clog the lane which lead to a lack of driving/cutting lanes for his teammates. He would run from block to block on the floor and play from there. Wilt played almost every minute of every game and some assume this was his way of conserving energy, but effectively left the easiest shot for his teammates much harder than normal.

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Do you think anything specific in Wilt's game that made him different from the other heavy post reliant players (Shaq, Kareem, Hakeem)?

Both of these things really lower his offensive impact in my eyes and shed some light onto why his team's offenses were not typically above league average when he was their primary scorer despite his impressive stat lines. Paul Arizin was his teammate for those first three years and I think his three original all-star teammates numbers tell a light story.

Paul Arizin

Spoiler:

Season rTS% rFGA
1950-51 0.084 N/A
1951-52 0.108 2.875
1954-55 0.023 3.239583333
1955-56 0.068 4.491666667
1956-57 0.066 4.714583333
1957-58 0.03 3.322916667
1958-59 0.062 3.55 <- year before Wilt
1959-60 0.029 1.358
1960-61 0.037 2.391139241
1961-62 0.007 3.139375

Tom Gola

Spoiler:

Season rTS% rFGA
1955-56 0.038 -4.608333333
1957-58 0.033 -3.277083333
1958-59 0.027 -3.45 <- year before Wilt
1959-60 0.032 -5.642
1960-61 0.025 -3.908860759
1961-62 -0.006 -4.960625
1962-63 0.012 -4.485625
1962-63 0.007 -4.585625 <- leaves Wilt in trade
1962-63 0.014 -4.485625
1963-64 -0.003 -4.76125
1964-65 0.027 -5.475625
1965-66 0.027 -6.634476844

Guy Rodgers

Spoiler:

Season rTS% rFGA
1958-59 -0.044 -3.05 <- year before Wilt
1959-60 -0.049 -5.342
1960-61 -0.038 -3.608860759
1961-62 -0.084 -5.960625
1962-63 -0.063 -2.485625
1963-64 -0.068 -2.56125
1964-65 -0.058 1.324375 <- Wilt leaves mid-season via trade
1965-66 -0.068 4.165523156
1966-67 -0.033 0.820107444
1967-68 -0.082 -5.131368389
1967-68 -0.15 0.068631611
1967-68 -0.073 -5.531368389
1968-69 -0.058 -0.372169168
1969-70 -0.071 -5.6037553

Outside of Arizin (who might have just regressed with age), the other two didn't see their efficiency getting higher without Wilt. Rodgers in particular was one of the worst scorers ever and there was no reason to give him bigger scoring role than he had. It's not like Rodgers run any efficient offense without Wilt after all.

[ZeppelinPage]

1. Wilt held the ball a lot and struggled to generate offense for his teammates with his own scoring. A lot of elite offensive producers use their offense to bend the defense and create easy ones for their teammates (think MJ passing out of a double to Kerr, any LeBron kick-out, Jokic always, etc.)

Wilt had two modes, passing and then shooting. First, his team would run the floor around him as he sat in the post and he looked for any openings. If there were none, he would shoot. This is a fine way to play basketball, but when you are the most dominant scorer of your era and you are not generating shots for others with your creation, typically your teammates are getting worse shots (see this article by your favorite analyst Ben Taylor, https://fansided.com/2017/08/11/nylon-calculus-measuring-creation-box-score/).

I think the "two modes Wilt" is still a hypothesis, not a solidified theory. We don't have enough footage from prime Wilt's era to conclude whether that really was the case or not.

I see such tendencies as Wilt got older and didn't look to score nearly as much (especially in LA), but in his scoring years he was fairly quick with his movement and decision making.

True, 70sFan. Not only that but I also think comparing Wilt's game with modern eras is a complex matter.

When analyzing these players it's important to think of the game without our benefit of hindsight. We can look back with a modern lens but they could not. A lot of rules that aided future players were not available to earlier eras.

For instance, dribble rules and overall spacing made finding cutters and anything other than jumpers significantly more difficult in the 1950s and 1960s. Refs were also harsher on travel calls. This is why the fast break was so popular as it was the easiest way to score with the spacing it provided before the defense was set. It was also more difficult because, as you know, the offensive foul rules and quick three in the key calls that refs would make. Creating your own offense in the half-court was not an easy thing to do back then and teams relied more on moving the ball around.

This leads into why Hannum implemented his "wheel offense" with Wilt, where players would constantly move around him in a wheel to keep the defense guessing and give Wilt options as a way to counteract how difficult it was to score in the half-court.

There is a substantial difference in the rules between what Wilt and guys like Jokic and Jordan played under. The rules in Wilt's time made it harder for a player to back a defender down and apply pressure and "generate offense" consistently.

I don't really care how Shaq played in 2000s, I don't care how Jokic is playing, I don't care how Hakeem or any other center outside of his era played because, to me, it doesn't matter. Wilt could only play within the confines of his rules and era. And within that era, with him playing that way, the team was the greatest offense ever. His passing and scoring must have been really valuable.

Although there are certainly instances where Wilt draws doubles and passes or hits cutters on film. I just don't find it fair to watch Jokic or someone else and then criticize Wilt for not playing similarly, because they played under separate rules where the game was thought of in different ways.

[70sFan]

1. Wilt held the ball a lot and struggled to generate offense for his teammates with his own scoring. A lot of elite offensive producers use their offense to bend the defense and create easy ones for their teammates (think MJ passing out of a double to Kerr, any LeBron kick-out, Jokic always, etc.)

Wilt had two modes, passing and then shooting. First, his team would run the floor around him as he sat in the post and he looked for any openings. If there were none, he would shoot. This is a fine way to play basketball, but when you are the most dominant scorer of your era and you are not generating shots for others with your creation, typically your teammates are getting worse shots (see this article by your favorite analyst Ben Taylor, https://fansided.com/2017/08/11/nylon-calculus-measuring-creation-box-score/).

I think the "two modes Wilt" is still a hypothesis, not a solidified theory. We don't have enough footage from prime Wilt's era to conclude whether that really was the case or not.

I see such tendencies as Wilt got older and didn't look to score nearly as much (especially in LA), but in his scoring years he was fairly quick with his movement and decision making.

True, 70sFan. Not only that but I also think comparing Wilt's game with modern eras is a complex matter.

When analyzing these players it's important to think of the game without our benefit of hindsight. We can look back with a modern lens but they could not. A lot of rules that aided future players were not available to earlier eras.

For instance, dribble rules and overall spacing made finding cutters and anything other than jumpers significantly more difficult in the 1950s and 1960s. Refs were also harsher on travel calls. This is why the fast break was so popular as it was the easiest way to score with the spacing it provided before the defense was set. It was also more difficult because, as you know, the offensive foul rules and quick three in the key calls that refs would make. Creating your own offense in the half-court was not an easy thing to do back then and teams relied more on moving the ball around.

This leads into why Hannum implemented his "wheel offense" with Wilt, where players would constantly move around him in a wheel to keep the defense guessing and give Wilt options as a way to counteract how difficult it was to score in the half-court.

There is a substantial difference in the rules between what Wilt and guys like Jokic and Jordan played under. The rules in Wilt's time made it harder for a player to back a defender down and apply pressure and "generate offense" consistently.

I don't really care how Shaq played in 2000s, I don't care how Jokic is playing, I don't care how Hakeem or any other center outside of his era played because, to me, it doesn't matter. Wilt could only play within the confines of his rules and era. And within that era, with him playing that way, the team was the greatest offense ever. His passing and scoring must have been really valuable.

Although there are certainly instances where Wilt draws doubles and passes or hits cutters on film. I just don't find it fair to watch Jokic or someone else and then criticize Wilt for not playing similarly, because they played under separate rules where the game was thought of in different ways.

I think the fair comparison would be the other high volume scoring centers around that era - Mikan, Bellamy, Reed and Kareem. I think it's fair to acknowledge some of the limitations Wilt had compared to them (lesser range, weaker faceup game) but I don't think he looks that unfavorably in aspects ijspeelman mentioned.

[ijspeelman]

I think the "two modes Wilt" is still a hypothesis, not a solidified theory. We don't have enough footage from prime Wilt's era to conclude whether that really was the case or not.

I see such tendencies as Wilt got older and didn't look to score nearly as much (especially in LA), but in his scoring years he was fairly quick with his movement and decision making.

I agree that its a theory as we do only have a small sample size of games to watch him in. I think with the sample we have which is mainly these more high leverage games (finals games), its potentially telling of his typical demeanor on the floor. From what I've seen of Wilt, the theory seems to reign true, but I've watched 6-8 pre-Lakers Wilt games out of the 706 RS and 80 PO games.

I also put credence in that his FGA/Assist ratio is one of the worst in NBA history.

Do you think anything specific in Wilt's game that made him different from the other heavy post reliant players (Shaq, Kareem, Hakeem)?

I'll compare him to Kareem as he was the closest in era. This somewhat goes hand-in-hand with the "two modes Wilt", but I like Kareem's handling of balancing play-making and scoring (I am going to borrow clips from Thinking Basketball as I am at work and cannot clip).

Watch on YouTube

Watch on YouTube

Watch on YouTube

I also like Kareem's off-ball movement more (this is going to go for Hakeem and Shaq as well). I think inherently as a big man that sticks near the post, you will have moments where you are blocking the lane. From what I've seen of Wilt is a bit different. He typically didn't move from his spot on the block which clogged holes in the lane. Kareem would flash across the lane, screen for ballhandlers, and occasionally set-up outside the block.

https://www.nba.com/watch/video/10-18-1969-bucks-vs-pistons-kareem-debut?plsrc=nba&collection=milwaukee-bucks-classics @0:40 good movement @3:25 Kareem's presence provides good position for his defender to help (though I like his attempt to get in good position for a lay-down)
https://www.nba.com/watch/video/1971-finals-game-4-bucks-clinch-title?plsrc=nba&collection=milwaukee-bucks-classics @0:30 just the little flash brings a cutter from his own team to fill the space (it doesn't lead anywhere) @1:40 screen for Oscar Robertson

I think Hakeem and Shaq have even more going on off-ball wise.

Outside of Arizin (who might have just regressed with age), the other two didn't see their efficiency getting higher without Wilt. Rodgers in particular was one of the worst scorers ever and there was no reason to give him bigger scoring role than he had. It's not like Rodgers run any efficient offense without Wilt after all.

Arizin's could be up to age and I only included Rodger since we was an all-star, but his numbers are not good for an average volume shooter. I think there is potential with Gola's numbers, but they don't falter heavily (he also wasn't a volume shooter).

[70sFan]

I agree that its a theory as we do only have a small sample size of games to watch him in. I think with the sample we have which is mainly these more high leverage games (finals games), its potentially telling of his typical demeanor on the floor. From what I've seen of Wilt, the theory seems to reign true, but I've watched 6-8 pre-Lakers Wilt games out of the 706 RS and 80 PO games.

What games from pre-LA career have you seen? I don't think we have 6-8 pre-Lakers Wilt games available.

I also put credence in that his FGA/Assist ratio is one of the worst in NBA history.

Sure, but that's because he shot more than anyone in the league history. If you take 1964-66 period into account, he doesn't look nearly as bad.

I'll compare him to Kareem as he was the closest in era. This somewhat goes hand-in-hand with the "two modes Wilt", but I like Kareem's handling of balancing play-making and scoring (I am going to borrow clips from Thinking Basketball as I am at work and cannot clip).

Watch on YouTube

Watch on YouTube

Watch on YouTube

I am out of the country, so sorry that I can't provide any clips either, but I will mention that Ben stated in his podcast that he became higher on younger Wilt's off-ball game.

I also like Kareem's off-ball movement more (this is going to go for Hakeem and Shaq as well). I think inherently as a big man that sticks near the post, you will have moments where you are blocking the lane. From what I've seen of Wilt is a bit different. He typically didn't move from his spot on the block which clogged holes in the lane. Kareem would flash across the lane, screen for ballhandlers, and occasionally set-up outside the block.

https://www.nba.com/watch/video/10-18-1969-bucks-vs-pistons-kareem-debut?plsrc=nba&collection=milwaukee-bucks-classics @0:40 good movement @3:25 Kareem's presence provides good position for his defender to help (though I like his attempt to get in good position for a lay-down)
https://www.nba.com/watch/video/1971-finals-game-4-bucks-clinch-title?plsrc=nba&collection=milwaukee-bucks-classics @0:30 just the little flash brings a cutter from his own team to fill the space (it doesn't lead anywhere) @1:40 screen for Oscar Robertson

I think I agree Wilt was less active on average than Kareem, but I disagree that Wilt didn't flash across the lane or set up outside the post. I will provide some clips next week in the next voting thread if necessary.

I think Hakeem and Shaq have even more going on off-ball wise.

Agree with Shaq, disagree with Hakeem. Hakeem clogged the lane just as much as Wilt and he didn't provide the same value as a lob finisher and offensive rebounder. You may argue that he had some value due to the shooting advantage, but it's not a significant part of Hakeem's game.

It's also important to mention that Hakeem was one of the most one side (left block) reliant volume post players I have ever tracked. Wilt also liked the left block more, but not to the same degree.

[ijspeelman]

What games from pre-LA career have you seen? I don't think we have 6-8 pre-Lakers Wilt games available.

I used to have all the games on a playlist on YouTube, but a lot of my videos in that playlist have been deleted.

On YouTube, I only found 4 (partial games which I should have clarified).

Watch on YouTube

Watch on YouTube

Watch on YouTube

Watch on YouTube

I was under the impression there were more. I remember the channel called "Wilt Chamberlain Archive" having full NBA games there, but I'm either completely mistaken or they were taken down.

Agree with Shaq, disagree with Hakeem. Hakeem clogged the lane just as much as Wilt and he didn't provide the same value as a lob finisher and offensive rebounder. You may argue that he had some value due to the shooting advantage, but it's not a significant part of Hakeem's game.

It's also important to mention that Hakeem was one of the most one side (left block) reliant volume post players I have ever tracked. Wilt also liked the left block more, but not to the same degree.

I need to do more film research for Hakeem in general, especially for this project so I may just be mistaken with his movement. Feel free to send any clips for Wilt, Hakeem, or anyone.