Why didn't the 1976 Warriors repeat? What would the consensus ranking of Rick Barry be if they did?

[WestGOAT]

Statistically, they were arguably the most dominant RS team relative to their competition:
• RS SRS of 6.23, whereas the rest of the league was [2.34, 2.25, 2.2, 0.85, 0.59, 0.33, 0.18, -0.15, -0.71, -0.74, -1.18, -1.05,
-1.11, -1.55, -2.83, -2.89, -2.66, 0.01]
• this is a SRS z-score of 3.73 (number of standard deviations above the average, in this case excluding their own SRS-value), which is highest in league history*

*top 20 SRSz-scores:

Spoiler:

Code: Select all

Season                   Team   SRS  SRSz
   1976  Golden State Warriors  6.23  3.73
   1957         Boston Celtics  4.78  3.47
   1970        New York Knicks  8.42  3.18
   2017  Golden State Warriors 11.35  3.13
   1956  Philadelphia Warriors  3.82  3.12
   1996          Chicago Bulls 11.80  2.60
   1971        Milwaukee Bucks 11.92  2.58
   1986         Boston Celtics  9.06  2.56
   1965         Boston Celtics  7.46  2.56
   1974        Milwaukee Bucks  7.61  2.47
   1986        Milwaukee Bucks  8.69  2.42
   2007      San Antonio Spurs  8.35  2.42
   1978 Portland Trail Blazers  5.92  2.35
   1962         Boston Celtics  8.25  2.32
   1984         Boston Celtics  6.42  2.32
   1992          Chicago Bulls 10.07  2.31
   1975     Washington Bullets  6.53  2.30
   2016  Golden State Warriors 10.38  2.29
   2015  Golden State Warriors 10.01  2.27
   2016      San Antonio Spurs 10.28  2.27

Their PS rotation doesn't differ much from their RS one, only Gus Williams missed some games against their 7-game WCF series loss against the Phoenix Suns. The Phoenix Suns, on the other hand, had Gar Heard playing big minutes in the playoffs while he played relatively way less minutes during the RS. Who is this guy? Did he maybe stop the GSW from repeating?

Where would Rick Barry rank all-time if the Warriors repeat ?

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What was the expected championship for GSW this season? Where does it rank in your list for highest expected championships?

[f4p]

.

What was the expected championship for GSW this season? Where does it rank in your list for highest expected championships?

0.729 expected championships, the highest ever for a non-champion (1958 celtics second at 0.707).

1971 MIL NBA 0.946
1965 BOS NBA 0.845
1962 BOS NBA 0.815
1960 BOS NBA 0.769
1957 BOS NBA 0.751
2017 GSW NBA 0.735
2015 GSW NBA 0.732
1976 GSW NBA 0.729
1996 CHI NBA 0.724

[Doctor MJ]

Their PS rotation doesn't differ much from their RS one, only Gus Williams missed some games against their 7-game WCF series loss against the Phoenix Suns. The Phoenix Suns, on the other hand, had Gar Heard playing big minutes in the playoffs while he played relatively way less minutes during the RS. Who is this guy? Did he maybe stop the GSW from repeating?

So, I'd note that Offensive Rebounding was what the Warrior offense did best in the regular season - as well as the prior playoff run that led to a championship - but against Phoenix - who had been an inferior rebounding team in the regular season - Phoenix won the battle of the boards.

In Game 5, Phoenix got 20 Offensive Boards to Golden State's 7...in a 1 point game.
Game 6 doesn't have the Offensive vs Defensive breakdown of rebounds, but Phoenix has an 8 rebound advantage.

And yeah, Gar Heard was definitely part of this. Heard was acquired midseason and the Suns were 23-13 after the all-star break after being 19-27 before hand, and his signature was rebounding.

Was this a fluke that kept the Warriors from repeating? Well, the Celtics murdered the Suns on the boards in the finals, so I think the Warriors were likely screwed in that matchup too.

Looking back to '74-75, it kinda seems like they got just the right matchups. When they swept Washington in an upset, while Washington had the two leading rebounders in Unseld & Hayes, Golden State still outrebounded Washington by more than 10 boards per game. Maybe the '74-75 Warriors could have done that against all comers that year, but what's definitely the case is that the critical ingredient to those Warriors seems to have been rebounding, and against the Sun duo of Alvan Adams & Gar Heard, they met their match.

Where would Rick Barry rank all-time if the Warriors repeat ?

Well it would help obviously, but I'd note first off that I think the 1st chip is always the most important. Take away the '74-75 chip, and Barry is seen as a volume scorer who was never a champion - not in the first NBA run, not in the ABA run, and not when he came back to the NBA.

So he's been basically a Top 40 lock in our projects for forever, and without that chip it's very possible he struggles to have Top 50 consideration.

Back-to-back titles, and being the only back-to-back champ between the Russell Celtics & Showtime Lakers, I think would make Barry give Julius Erving a serious run for his money as the #2 guy from the '70s on these lists.

[Owly]

Statistically, they were arguably the most dominant RS team relative to their competition:
• RS SRS of 6.23, whereas the rest of the league was [2.34, 2.25, 2.2, 0.85, 0.59, 0.33, 0.18, -0.15, -0.71, -0.74, -1.18, -1.05,
-1.11, -1.55, -2.83, -2.89, -2.66, 0.01]
• this is a SRS z-score of 3.73 (number of standard deviations above the average, in this case excluding their own SRS-value), which is highest in league history*

*top 20 SRSz-scores:

Spoiler:

Code: Select all

Season                   Team   SRS  SRSz
   1976  Golden State Warriors  6.23  3.73
   1957         Boston Celtics  4.78  3.47
   1970        New York Knicks  8.42  3.18
   2017  Golden State Warriors 11.35  3.13
   1956  Philadelphia Warriors  3.82  3.12
   1996          Chicago Bulls 11.80  2.60
   1971        Milwaukee Bucks 11.92  2.58
   1986         Boston Celtics  9.06  2.56
   1965         Boston Celtics  7.46  2.56
   1974        Milwaukee Bucks  7.61  2.47
   1986        Milwaukee Bucks  8.69  2.42
   2007      San Antonio Spurs  8.35  2.42
   1978 Portland Trail Blazers  5.92  2.35
   1962         Boston Celtics  8.25  2.32
   1984         Boston Celtics  6.42  2.32
   1992          Chicago Bulls 10.07  2.31
   1975     Washington Bullets  6.53  2.30
   2016  Golden State Warriors 10.38  2.29
   2015  Golden State Warriors 10.01  2.27
   2016      San Antonio Spurs 10.28  2.27

Their PS rotation doesn't differ much from their RS one, only Gus Williams missed some games against their 7-game WCF series loss against the Phoenix Suns. The Phoenix Suns, on the other hand, had Gar Heard playing big minutes in the playoffs while he played relatively way less minutes during the RS. Who is this guy? Did he maybe stop the GSW from repeating?

Where would Rick Barry rank all-time if the Warriors repeat ?

.

What was the expected championship for GSW this season? Where does it rank in your list for highest expected championships?

Where should he rank? Depends what changes.
Where would he rank? Higher.

As others have pointed to, if noting maybe unlucky/unexpected to lose in '76 they were lucky/unexpected to win in '75.

Barry was, box-wise, worse as the Warriors improved something that would give me pause in raising him.

'76 also features the alleged sulk because his teammates were slow to protect him in the Sobers fight. If one buys that that is what happened (that Barry stopped trying) is that changing? If so because Barry is different? Or teammates?

In general he's someone I think I'm more bearish on than the norm. The offensive stuff didn't really happen together, his RS ABA includes the league near its weakest (early) and isn't that much more box impressive than Donnie Freeman for the same spell but significantly less available. I suspect Thurmond was the greater driver of impact when together. Whilst he's the offensive star and big minutes guy he was surrounded with competent players and defenders for the title and the title was won through defense. Maybe he carried the offense to good enough? Honestly that title feels fluky (I will grant/specify that within the playoffs they outscored each opponent to not fluky in that manner). At the margins his reputation as a person/teammate is ... generally not positive.


Regarding Heard/rebounding, without knowing the detail, at surface level he doesn't look that much better on the boards than John Shumate (just percentage wise, without trying to allocate them a position and curving or anything), the guy they sent out. He does play much more though.

W-L probably also overstates their improvement. They're outscored by 25 points total before the trade, which shouldn't be a big negative through 46 games (19-27 seems quite unlucky).

[AEnigma]

Bad bounces mostly. The Suns won the four closest games, including the 1-point Game 6 and a double overtime Game 4. Gus Williams was absent for Games 6 and 7. And while many seem to gesture at SRS as some objective arbiter of team quality, that 6-SRS team was bookended by 3-SRS teams without drastic changes on either side. Say we smooth that out and call those Warriors something more akin to a 5-SRS team, based on the addition of Gus to the 1975 team and the improvement of Wilkes and Smith. Still an upset, but now fairly less drastic.

For as much as we can make of “failing” to win in 1976 — I would probably prefer the Celtics even if the Warriors had beaten the Suns — they were similarly not expected to win in 1975 as a 3.65 SRS underdog (in a sweep!). Barry was the #1 SRS team once and won once. Same with Hayes/Unseld. In a sense of hypothetical partial championships, perhaps both underperformed, but they both had a year they lost when they “should” have won and a year where they won when they “should” have lost. Barry was a great player; he just was not the type of player who could repeatedly bring good but not outright great teams to titles.

[lessthanjake]

I think it’s just bad luck to be honest. They outscored the Suns by 4.2 points a game in that series. Meanwhile, the Suns had improved their roster with Gar Heard in the second half the season and had done significantly better in that span, having a 2.31 SRS in their 42 RS+PS games with Heard prior to that series. In other words, I think the Warriors basically played roughly up to their 6.23 SRS, but just happened to lose the series anyways.

On Barry, it’s worth noting that box score numbers indicate he actually was better in that series than he’d been in the regular season. In the regular season, he’d averaged 21/6/6 on 48.3% TS%. In that series, he averaged 28/6/4 on 53.2% TS%.

As for how it affects Barry’s legacy, with back-to-back titles, I think his Warriors would be seen as something of a mini-dynasty. We’d be looking at a guy who won back-to-back titles as his team’s best player, and who also lost once in the finals in both the NBA (1967) and ABA (1972). So he’d be more clearly competing for the title of second best player of that general era. But even without back to back titles, Barry still has one title and that’s enough to put him pretty high up IMO.

[Cavsfansince84]

For me personally I wouldn't move him up much. Maybe from 35 to about 30(roughly). I don't think two titles would necessarily get him above Hondo or Frazier for instance. The issue with Barry is he missed so many games for various reasons from 68-73 and also had an abrasive personality and by the time he got back to the nba wasn't that efficient anymore. I don't think one extra title magically makes all his resume weaknesses go away.

[prolific passer]

Barry finally had some help with Phil Smith putting up 20 a game and Wilkes putting up 18. I don't think Barry wanted that kind of help though.

[ShaqAttac]

how good was barry

[ShaqAttac]

how good was barry

[rk2023]

how good was barry

Pretty gud

[prolific passer]

how good was barry

His 2nd season might have been his best season.

[70sFan]

I think I will rewatch the series at some point, because there are a lot of narratives around it to falsify.

[WestGOAT]

I think I will rewatch the series at some point, because there are a lot of narratives around it to falsify.

Which narratives do you have in mind?

[70sFan]

I think I will rewatch the series at some point, because there are a lot of narratives around it to falsify.

Which narratives do you have in mind?

Barry sabotaging his own team in game 7:

https://www.goldenstateofmind.com/2022/6/1/23149995/warriors-celtics-finals-that-almost-was

[WestGOAT]

I think I will rewatch the series at some point, because there are a lot of narratives around it to falsify.

Which narratives do you have in mind?

Barry sabotaging his own team in game 7:

https://www.goldenstateofmind.com/2022/6/1/23149995/warriors-celtics-finals-that-almost-was

That was an interesting read!

[tsherkin]

how good was barry

Pretty good relative to his peers over his first two years in the NBA and in the ABA. Very much less remarkable when he returned to the NBA and wasnt drawing fouls anymore (sub .300 FTr). Volume scorer who wasnt particularly efficient by 70s NBA standards (which is even dicier when you consider how good he was at the line). Pretty versatile, though, could pass, could rebound, played lanes for steals very well. Most known for his volume scoring though.

Capricious personality. Good player. I'd say a touch overrated by the title, but I think he's been sufficiently forgotten at this point as to make that not true any longer. Definitely not a tier one star, though.

[Doctor MJ]

I think I will rewatch the series at some point, because there are a lot of narratives around it to falsify.

I'm definitely interested in reading your detailed analysis on the subject.

Something I have to say is that just speaking generally - not about Barry in specific - is that I think players do actually do stuff like this when from time to time. I think it's one of those things that to us looking back feels like an unimaginable sin, but in the moment, players can get pissed off at their teammates/coaches and they end up letting it affect their play in a variety of negative ways.

[ShaqAttac]

how good was barry

Pretty good relative to his peers over his first two years in the NBA and in the ABA. Very much less remarkable when he returned to the NBA and wasnt drawing fouls anymore (sub .300 FTr). Volume scorer who wasnt particularly efficient by 70s NBA standards (which is even dicier when you consider how good he was at the line). Pretty versatile, though, could pass, could rebound, played lanes for steals very well. Most known for his volume scoring though.

Capricious personality. Good player. I'd say a touch overrated by the title, but I think he's been sufficiently forgotten at this point as to make that not true any longer. Definitely not a tier one star, though.

he sounds like jimmmy

[tsherkin]

he sounds like jimmmy

Hmm?