Retro Player of the Year 1949-50 — George Mikan

[One_and_Done]

I'll vote Mikan, as the clearly most dominant player of the era, the first franchise big man. I don't feel confident enough to vote past #1 given the scarcity of reliable info on the rest of these guys.

[eminence]

Brief rough WOWY for Howie Schultz, 35 games with the Packers/32 with the Pistons

21-14 with the Packers, they went 16-13 after dealing him (and a moderately successful playoff run)

17-15 with the Pistons, who were 23-13 prior to his arrival (had a moderately successful playoff run with him)

Combined
38-29 with
39-26 without

A slightly negative overall RS signal. Tougher to break down into offense/defense. Coaching loss in Anderson may have been felt more than anything he was directly doing on the court.

[eminence]

Evidence for the Ortg/Drtg estimates from the last page being reasonable. Here's the process applied to '51 (not including the Capitols) and compared to the BBref #s (also estimates obviously). Sorted by SRS

Team: Est Offense/Est Defense, BBref Offense/BBref Defense - positive defense is still good
Lakers: +1.5/+3.3, +1.3/+4.4
Warriors: -0.5/+3.9, -0.3/+4.1
Royals: +4.5/-2.0, +4.2/-1.1
Nationals: +1.5/-0.9, +1.3/-0.8
Knicks: +3.4/-2.9, +2.9/-2.5
Celtics: +2.5/-2.9, +2.2/-2.5
Pistons: -3.6/+1.8, -3.1/+1.3
Bullets: -1.3/-0.6, -1.2/-1.2
Olympians: -1.6/-0.4, -1.5/-0.9
Blackhawks: -5.2/+2.0, -4.3/+0.7

Off by a max of just over 1 pt, though the larger spread in '50 should be considered (17 vs 10.5 teams).

[ardee]

Player of the Year

1. George Mikan: obvious pick, he will likely be number 1 for the next few years, and would've been the MVP if that award existed back then. I think in evaluating these early players TS Add comes in quite handy. Mikan's 294.5 in 1950 is higher than any year from Steph Curry's career with the exception of 2014 and 2015, and he did it while leading the league in PPG. In addition, I'm not big on box score all-in-one metrics, but 21.1 WS is higher than LeBron's best year, so at the very least it should signal what a historically dominant year this was from Mikan.

2. Alex Groza: Outrageously efficient rookie who was the best player on a pretty solid team. Schayes may have been the more all-around player but I can't look past Groza's game-breaking efficiency for that era. I mean, even today, three-quarters of a century later, 23 ppg on almost 70% TS for a Playoff series would be a holy **** moment. For 1950 it's unthinkable. This is a legit Curry/Jokic type of outlier on offense. Made it to the 2nd round and lost because it seemed like he was the only guy on his team who could buy a bucket (he was 68.5% TS, next best was 45.3% TS).

3. Dolph Schayes: Also a rookie, but the best player on a 6.5 SRS team that made the Finals. Top 5 in ppg and apg and likely rebounds too, also +10% TS over the league average. Impressive stuff.

4. Bob Davies: seems like the clear driving force on a 7.7 SRS team. Not super efficient but above average and made 1st team All-NBA.

5. Jim Pollard: obviously inefficient, but given how dominant the Lakers were I think they merit a 2nd guy in the top 5. Very rarely in NBA history do you see an 8+ SRS team without an elite second guy, and Pollard is clearly the 2nd best player from the Lakers.

I'm not voting OPOY and DPOY for now, because frankly I have no clue what to even use to judge defensive impact.

[eminence]

3. Dolph Schayes: Also a rookie, but the best player on a 6.5 SRS team that made the Finals. Top 5 in ppg and apg and likely rebounds too, also +10% TS over the league average. Impressive stuff.

Small note, but Schayes played his rookie season in the NBL the year prior.

https://www.basketball-reference.com/nbl/players/s/schayad01n.html

And yes, that means he went pro at the age of 20 after a 4 year college career (played big minutes on the NYU team that went to the NCAA final as a 16 year old Freshman in '45). Absolute phenom.

[70sFan]

I am so embarrassed I cannot remember the name of the outstanding contributor who always shares the highest-quality old NBA footage. (Sorry, my appearances here are just too intermittent anymore.) Anyway, I assume there is none going back this far?

There actually is at least one.

Watch on YouTube

I logged this one years ago when I was doing that game-log project (which I hope to get back to someday). This was the earliest game that had been pointed out or made available to me, and is part of this season in question (played on January 7, 1950). The game is ~85% complete (video not too long, as clock stoppages or occasionally the guard dribbling the ball across the half-court line edited out).

EDIT: iirc, just turn the audio off.......the guy doing commentary is an idiot.

It looks that trex overtook me on this one. Anyway, I don't know about any other extensive footage from that season, but I do have two more (almost complete) games from 1951/52 and 1952/53. I don't know if I should post them here, or rather wait for the remaining threads.

[eminence]

Updated my voting post with my OPOY/DPOY picks.

Went pretty chalk with the OPOY picks, but some less heralded names for the DPOY ballot.

[Dutchball97]

Player of the Year
1. George Mikan - This is one of those cases where everything but a unanimous win would be very suprising. He was arguably the best player in the league on both sides of the ball, led his team to the top SRS in the regular season and then steamrolled through the play-offs. Certainly at this stage with such limited stats available it's hard to bet against a player who led both the regular season and play-offs in WS by a significant margin.

2. Alex Groza - Groza is a very interesting case here due to him having such a lopsided split between offense and defense. His WS being as high as it is with barely any of it coming from the defensive side is kind of unheard of, especially when we're talking about a 6'7 center. The team rating Eminence posted also paint a very clear picture of the team being elite on offense, while being only a couple spots away from the worst defensive team in the league (although the bottom 3 look like a league of their own in terms of how bas they were on that side). It's definitely fair to say because of this Groza's overall impact was likely less than what the boxscore suggests but for this to actually result in him dropping places there'd have to be strong indications that guys like Schayes or Davies were adding a lot more in terms of hustle and defense that I'm not really seeing tbh.

3. Dolph Schayes - Statistically the 3rd best player in both the regular season and play-offs but him being the best player on the team with the best record in the regular season as well as making the finals and actually taking games off the Lakers paints him in an even more positive light. In the end it was a really tough choice between him and Groza for the 2nd spot but like I said previously I'm not high enough on the defense of Schayes to see it bridge the gap of Groza's raw firepower.

4. Fred Schaus - This feels a bit on the high side for someone like Schaus but among the remaining candidates I think he proved himself the most when just looking at this season. What helps Schaus against the likes of Frankie Brian and Max Zaslofsky is that all of them played on teams that primarily won with defense and Schaus was likely the most valuable defender out of the 3 mostly offensive star players. While Schaus did not have the best showing against the Royals, he did show just how good he could be against the Lakers. He performed much better offensively against the champions than either Brian or Zaslofsky were able to do.

5. Bobby Wanzer - Tough picks for the last spots. Davies was the primary offensive engine for the best offense in the league but it's not like Wanzer was some hanger on that only got to look good because of Davies getting defensive attention. I'm also not too keen on placing a ton of emphasis on small play-off samples but on the other hand I'm not willing to completely overlook someone underperforming in the play-offs as heavily as Davies did. Pollard is another interesting choice in a sea of small sample post-seasons but I don't believe he did enough in either the regular season or play-offs to convince me he was actually a more impactful player than the others mentioned.

Offensive Player of the Year
1. George Mikan
2. Alex Groza
3. Dolph Schayes

The exact same top 3 as my regular POY ballot. The top 2 seems very clear to me and while I don't think Schayes went into the post-season as the 3rd best offensive player, his overall consistency throughout the season is hard to argue against.

Defensive Player of the Year
1. George Mikan
2. Al Cervi
3. Kleggie Hermsen

Mikan at #1 is the only one I'm confident about. The top 2 defenses, the Packers and Pistons are very unclear who deserves the most credit for their success on this end especially with the Schultz - Black swap. I went with Cervi as my number 2 because of the defensive coaching he brought, despite maybe not being the most impactful individual defender I don't think it should be understated how important a floor general like him could be especially in this less streamlined era. It's doubtful I'll extend the same courtesy to many other smaller guards but it'd be unfair to ignore signals he was very important defensively for the Nationals just because of his size. I've put Hermsen at 3 for now as I do think he probably had the most impact defensively on a strong defensive Stags team.

I'm more than willing to listen to arguments for the #4-5 spots for POY and #2-3 spots for DPOY but I wouldn't be surprised if this ended up being my definitive order.

[eminence]

Competitive races:
Groza vs Schayes for #2 in POY
Mikan vs Groza for OPOY
The field duking it out for #2 in DPOY (Risen the early lead)

@Dutch, I'm happy to see Schaus get a vote, I couldn't quite bring myself to put him over Pollard for my #5 slot, but I've never been convinced Pollard was a clear step up on him as a player despite the significant accolade/success gap. Must not have had too bad of basketball mind to mentor Jerry West.

[trex_8063]

My very rough back of the napkin calculations to estimate Ortg/Drt.

(Team TSA)/Games Played = Ortg

SRS - Ortg = Drtg (so positive is good this go around)

Teams, Ortg/Drtg, sorted by SRS (rank on each side, of 17):
Lakers +3.4(4)/+4.8(3)
Royals +6.8(1)/+0.9(7)
Nationals +3.7(3)/+2.8(6)
Olympians +6.0(2)/-3.5(14)
Knicks +3.4(5)/-0.9(12)
Packers -6.0(16)/+8.4(1)
Stags -2.6(13)/+4.7(4)
Pistons -4.3(14)/+6.1(2)
Capitols -0.9(9)/+0.7(8)
Blackhawks -1.2(11)/-0.2(10)
Celtics -1.2(10)/-0.6(11)
Bombers +0.9(8)/-3.0(13)
Warriors -6.4(17)/+4.1(5)
Bullets -4.6(15)/+0.1(9)
Red Skins +2.4(7)/-8.2(15)
Hawks +2.9(6)/-8.8(16)
Nuggets -2.5(12)/-8.8(17)

Hmm.....I don't agree with the methodology here.

TSA/games played would seem like a reasonable method for estimating a team's PACE, not ORtg.

But once having the estimated pace in hand, you could use pts scored/pts allowed to compute an estimated ORtg/DRtg. Not sure why you've gone with this method.

Though I'm not sure I've understood the above correctly. What you've written (TSA/games = ORtg) should have the Packers as #1 in ORtg, as they took more TSA/g than anyone (by sort of a wild margin).......and yet you list them as a -6.0 ORtg [16th of 17]. So it seems like the formula you wrote isn't matching the results you're citing.

[eminence]

My very rough back of the napkin calculations to estimate Ortg/Drt.

(Team TSA)/Games Played = Ortg

SRS - Ortg = Drtg (so positive is good this go around)

Teams, Ortg/Drtg, sorted by SRS (rank on each side, of 17):
Lakers +3.4(4)/+4.8(3)
Royals +6.8(1)/+0.9(7)
Nationals +3.7(3)/+2.8(6)
Olympians +6.0(2)/-3.5(14)
Knicks +3.4(5)/-0.9(12)
Packers -6.0(16)/+8.4(1)
Stags -2.6(13)/+4.7(4)
Pistons -4.3(14)/+6.1(2)
Capitols -0.9(9)/+0.7(8)
Blackhawks -1.2(11)/-0.2(10)
Celtics -1.2(10)/-0.6(11)
Bombers +0.9(8)/-3.0(13)
Warriors -6.4(17)/+4.1(5)
Bullets -4.6(15)/+0.1(9)
Red Skins +2.4(7)/-8.2(15)
Hawks +2.9(6)/-8.8(16)
Nuggets -2.5(12)/-8.8(17)

Hmm.....I don't agree with the methodology here.

TSA/games played would seem like a reasonable method for estimating a team's PACE, not ORtg.

But once having the estimated pace in hand, you could use pts scored/pts allowed to compute an estimated ORtg/DRtg. Not sure why you've gone with this method.

Though I'm not sure I've understood the above correctly. What you've written (TSA/games = ORtg) should have the Packers as #1 in ORtg, as they took more TSA/g than anyone (by sort of a wild margin).......and yet you list them as a -6.0 ORtg [16th of 17]. So it seems like the formula you wrote isn't matching the results you're citing.

It's Team True Shooting Add, not attempts

I should've written it out, too many dang abbreviations.

[trex_8063]

4. ...but, my god, the shot selection. This is where I come at it with exasperated lack of understanding. Clearly the players demonstrate an ability to hit an open jump shot or set shot. Clearly they can pass and dribble and, especially, move without the ball (again, the game is impressively kinetic, like the late 50s games I've seen, so I'll give it that). There is no shot clock rushing offenses. Why is it acceptable to take a 20-foot turnaround J or an imbalanced, underhanded floater in heavy traffic when nothing is forcing those attempts? Why do wild shots seem commonplace? Why not just keep doing DHOs until the defense gets tired or somebody trips or whatever, lol? By the late 50s, (oddly enough, since the shot clock has been introduced to speed up the game overall), you see offenses slowing down a bit and looking more intentional with and protective of the rock. More static jump shots. More (for better or worse) backdowns/drop-steps/baby hooks/etc. More dunks. A lot more (legal) picks. More hard cuts and less zipping pointlessly around the top of the key. This is an impossibly limited sample, of course, but the leap from 1950 to 1960, just in terms of resemblance to basketball as we know it, could be pretty vast?

Some good observations. This is one of the more striking features of these super-early pro games. I've said it before [elsewhere]: the degree to which the game changed going from pre-shotclock to the mid-late 60s is probably larger than the change that has happened since (or at least larger then what transpired over the next 35 years).


My opinion is that a big part of why they didn't improve [more rapidly] on shot mechanics and selection is simply this: they didn't have to to be competitive with their peers at the time.

Sort of as research for something I'm trying to write, I recently re-read that famous novel for teens/pre-teens, Hatchet by Gary Paulson.

There's a scene in it where the main character [Brian?] is trying to spear some fish in the lake, but can't get them. Even after he figures out how the water bends the light, so that he knows where to aim, as soon as he moves his arm the fish are too fast. He realizes he needs something like a bow and arrow, where he can have the tip of the projectile IN the water to start and the mechanism [bow-string] drawn back (no need for a large lead-distance for the projectile to gain momentum: all the force is contained in the drawn bow-string).

He realizes he needs to "invent" the bow and arrow to catch the fish.
He then ambiently wonders if early Man had similar realizations in similar circumstance, speculating that perhaps ALL inventions happened because they NEEDED to happen. ("Necessity is the mother of all invention", basically)


Players didn't immediately develop better ways of shooting because they frankly didn't NEED to take better quality shots to be competitive in this league environment (not because they were incapable of doing so, as some posters [not you] have seemed to insinuate).

[Djoker]

I've been persuaded to adjust my DPOY list (original post edited) and still considering Groza > Schayes for overall list. There is a lot of compelling evidence that Groza's outlier scoring makes up for Schayes' edge as an overall player.

[Doctor MJ]

Putting non-bigs on my DPoY ballot will be exceedingly rare, and even then I will likely limit them to third place. Certainly possible/probable that players like Cervi or “the Bulldozer” stood out more positionally, but nature of the game is that they will never be truly as involved in defensive possessions as the team’s primary big will be. We can see that in seasons like 1954, where neither the Nationals nor Royals seem to miss those “top team defenders” at all defensively.

Granted, Risen does not sparkle in 1956 when replaced by Maurice Stokes… but Maurice Stokes will be my DPoY favourite that year and will be my runner-up to Russell in 1957 and 1958. If he were an option this year, I may have placed him above Mikan. And while Stokes was a significantly better rebounder than Risen, I can hardly say the same for Johnson.

Questioning the Packers is more interesting to me. This bit stood out:

Komenich was the only starter on either team to fall to the second round, not just behind their sixth man Stanczak but also behind the Bombers' backup PF and backup C.

He appears to have been a miserable offensive player, so it does not eliminate his candidacy for DPoY, but league-wide disregard does make me pause. My initial inclination had been toward Harry Gallatin, and maybe I should revisit that comparison.

Another name is Charlie Black, who like Schultz was present on both standout defences that year. Black seems the more notable rebounder of the two, and while both teams were ultimately worse off for the swap — the Pistons declined from 23-13 with Black to 17-15 with Schultz, and the Packers declined from 21-14 with Schultz to 16-13 with Black — Black fared better than Schultz did. Then again, the 1949 Packers did not miss Black at all, and while neither started in the league after this year, of the two, Schultz made for the more successful bench player.

Reasonable thoughts.

So, I think it's important to keep in mind that shot blocking wasn't actually that much of a thing in this era (from what I've read, to be clear, footage is quite limited). It was huge with Kurland in college before goaltending was outlawed, but once goaltending was outlawed the way players were taught to play defense was to be reluctant to leave the ground except for rebounds. It was Bill Russell coming in - and playing a different style not approved of by coaches of the era - that caused the big paradigm shift that has dominated NBA defense ever since.

Additionally in a league where players were need not fear defenders playing goaltender and were gunshy about driving to the hoop for fear that they would get called for an offensive foul whenever contact was inevitably made, the frequency of a big - staying on his feet - being able to alter shots is likely considerably less that it would be in later eras.

One other thing I'll say that's true for me even in other eras: When top team defenses are not led by bigs, I'm quite reluctant to dismiss all of their players as major candidates. One part of it is obvious: If the gap between bigs and everyone else defensively were big enough, then the best defenses would always be led by bigs, so the fact that this doesn't always happen tells us that there's a limit to the dominance that can be expected by bigs.

Of course it's always worth asking: Is it possible that all the 5's are the best defenders but because every team has them they become less impactful (from a +/- type perspective)? To which I'd answer: It's theoretically possible, but I also think we need to keep in mind how big the "bigs" actually are.

I think the comparison between Royals' Risen & Johnson is a good one here. Risen was 6'9" while Johnson was 6'6" with a considerably bigger, stronger frame. Hence the idea that Risen was a "big" and Johnson wasn't is not quite so clear cut. No doubt Risen was more capable of blocking shots in theory...but was he actually doing this? I can't give a definitive answer here, but in my reading shot blocking just isn't something Risen is associated with.

So if we don't know that Risen was a major shot-blocking deterrent, and we know that his more massive teammate Johnson is the one singled out for great defense rather than him, on what grounds are we saying Risen was the more accomplished defender?

Now Cervi by contrast is a more clear cut example: He's a perimeter shut down defender guy. Same with Slater Martin. I think we have a general sense for how such guys were adding value, and in the modern NBA there's a limit to how much value you can have that way compared to modern bigs. But how sure are we that that bigs back then were having more value? And how do we reach such certainty?

Here's where I'll point something out about the WNBA: The consensus defensive GOAT of the WNBA is Tamika Catchings (5-time DPOY), a perimeter player known more for steals than blocks. It's definitely worth doing analysis on whether those votes were correct, but aside from the fact that I've done so and agree with the assessment, I think it makes sense why in a league where a 6'6" person (woman) is a big, that shot blocking probably isn't as much of a deterrent as it is when bigs are typically more like half a foot taller and have better jumping ability.

(Incidentally, as someone who expected Brittney Griner to become the WNBA's overall GOAT and definitely defensive GOAT with her being 6'9", extra long, and considerably more agile that most female ballers of anywhere near the same size, it's been educational to realize she wasn't able to do either of these things for reasons that really don't seem to be physical in nature.)

Re: Komenich, bad on offense, so maybe great on defense. Yup. I'm not assuming he isn't and welcome any evidence he is.

I will note in that quote you give ("Komenich was the only starter on either team to fall to the second round..."), that makes it pretty telling that contemporary observers were more impressed by the other starters on his team overall. Maybe he was the best defender on a team winning with elite defense and yet still seen as the worst of the starters do to his offense, but if I can't find any evidence that anyone thought he was the best defender, I'll be reluctant to assume it simply because he was the tallest player on his team at 6'7".

Re: Black. Yeah I looked at him too and the swap with Schultz is fascinating. I'd feel better about both their candidacies if I saw them do more in subsequent years.

One other thing: It's worth noting that actually the big common thread between the Packers & Pistons was probably coach Murray Mendenhall who was the Packer coach before Schultz, and would once again be Schultz's coach on the Pistons.

[Doctor MJ]

4. ...but, my god, the shot selection. This is where I come at it with exasperated lack of understanding. Clearly the players demonstrate an ability to hit an open jump shot or set shot. Clearly they can pass and dribble and, especially, move without the ball (again, the game is impressively kinetic, like the late 50s games I've seen, so I'll give it that). There is no shot clock rushing offenses. Why is it acceptable to take a 20-foot turnaround J or an imbalanced, underhanded floater in heavy traffic when nothing is forcing those attempts? Why do wild shots seem commonplace? Why not just keep doing DHOs until the defense gets tired or somebody trips or whatever, lol? By the late 50s, (oddly enough, since the shot clock has been introduced to speed up the game overall), you see offenses slowing down a bit and looking more intentional with and protective of the rock. More static jump shots. More (for better or worse) backdowns/drop-steps/baby hooks/etc. More dunks. A lot more (legal) picks. More hard cuts and less zipping pointlessly around the top of the key. This is an impossibly limited sample, of course, but the leap from 1950 to 1960, just in terms of resemblance to basketball as we know it, could be pretty vast?

Some good observations. This is one of the more striking features of these super-early pro games. I've said it before [elsewhere]: the degree to which the game changed going from pre-shotclock to the mid-late 60s is probably larger than the change that has happened since (or at least larger then what transpired over the next 35 years).


My opinion is that a big part of why they didn't improve [more rapidly] on shot mechanics and selection is simply this: they didn't have to to be competitive with their peers at the time.

Sort of as research for something I'm trying to write, I recently re-read that famous novel for teens/pre-teens, Hatchet by Gary Paulson.

There's a scene in it where the main character [Brian?] is trying to spear some fish in the lake, but can't get them. Even after he figures out how the water bends the light, so that he knows where to aim, as soon as he moves his arm the fish are too fast. He realizes he needs something like a bow and arrow, where he can have the tip of the projectile IN the water to start and the mechanism [bow-string] drawn back (no need for a large lead-distance for the projectile to gain momentum: all the force is contained in the drawn bow-string).

He realizes he needs to "invent" the bow and arrow to catch the fish.
He then ambiently wonders if early Man had similar realizations in similar circumstance, speculating that perhaps ALL inventions happened because they NEEDED to happen. ("Necessity is the mother of all invention", basically)


Players didn't immediately develop better ways of shooting because they frankly didn't NEED to take better quality shots to be competitive in this league environment (not because they were incapable of doing so, as some posters [not you] have seemed to insinuate).

So, I think the thoughts here are important, but I'd push back against the cause described as "they didn't have to shoot better in order to compete" even though I think there's a kernel of truth here.

The thing is, in a winner-take-all environment like this, everybody but the champs surely feels like if they could only find a way to make more shots and miss less they'd be the champs instead. And this was certainly leading them to practice their shooting, and as noted before, apparently (allegedly) reaching something near modern levels from a shot chart perspective in the 1950s.

This then to say I think we're talking about something very much in the family of "So why didn't they practice 3's and take the league by storm immediately?"

The data available to players and coaches back in the day was sorely lacking, and that made it far harder to tell what was working and what wasn't. And practically speaking this means that even changes that don't require a massive change in skill generation took longer to take hold. I'd imagine if we had all the footage what we'd see is players gradually taking smaller and smaller percentage of shots that we'd just think of as "bad idea" shots every year.

(This by contrast to 3's where in the ABA what actually happened was that coaches became more and more averse to letting their players shoot 3's, thus driving their teams 180 in the wrong direction big-picture, but possibly for the best in-era because they were literally telling their players to shoot easier shots, which was probably the same thing coaches were doing to drive down "bad idea" shots over time prior to the 3.)

[ZeppelinPage]

The Anderson Packers were an elite defensive team as a result of their philosophy and playstyle, rather than any standout individual defenders (although Closs and Hargis were both very good)… So, while I would say the team were all solid defenders across the board, it was more of a coaching and strategy thing than anything else… Random aside here, but this is why I do caution against utilizing advanced stats and box scores too much for players from so far back (especially win shares). Although it can give one a brilliant outline to work with, there is a lot of context that can be lost, and sometimes other resources can help fill in that outline with color for a more complete picture.

Thank you for the valuable context on the 1950 Packers, Zeppelin. Do you have opinions on which players were the standout defenders in the league that year?

George Mikan
Jim Pollard
George Senesky
Al Cervi
Andy Phillip
Paul Hoffman
Paul Seymour
Vern Mikkelsen

Mikan would have likely won DPOY if the award had existed this season.

Pollard was regarded as a top 5 player in the entire league. Versatile defender that certainly would have made all-defensive teams regularly.

Senesky, Cervi, Phillip, Hoffman, and Seymour were all likely to have made the all-defensive team this year had it existed. Cervi was on the older side by now, so I would personally have a guy like Senesky or Phillip ahead of him, but he was still among the best. Senesky was an elite lock down defender, and was given the nickname The Human Handcuff for his abilities on this end. Phillip was also a tough man defender, but was exceptional at ball stealing. Seymour was still young, but he was certainly one of the better defensive guards in the league already. Hoffman usually defended the oppositions best perimeter player, but I'd just put him a tick below the absolute best defensive guards like Senesky. Mikkelsen was only a rookie, but he would be an elite defender for years, and was certainly valuable to have at PF on defense, even if he was 21.

[eminence]

I see the Komenich 2nd round thing as noteworthy and interesting but tough to know how to rate. In that era it could be something as simple as 'I don't want to move from Anderson' - the NBA just wasn't that good of career. He never wound up playing for the Warriors at all - he stuck with Anderson in the new NPBL and played for another Anderson team in the 1954 IPL.

I will say it seems strong enough to say that he wasn't seen as head and shoulders above the others at least.

[ZeppelinPage]

The strategy the Packers used under Schultz is reminiscent of Frank Keaney's "Firehouse" basketball style. They would essentially run fast breaks as a way to tire the opposition and get them out of their comfort zone. This meant shooting earlier in the shot clock to limit turnovers and conserve energy. The Packers were also a borderline dirty team, utilizing physicality to help make up for their lack of size. Mendenhall and Schultz were very well aware of the teams weakness to size, and crafted a strategy that would help alleviate that. The speed of their game would drain stamina from the taller players--and long, quicker shots would result in difficult rebounds that could bounce further, making box-outs less effective. All of this combined made many teams dread playing against the Packers' unique playstyle.

I'm curious as to how much this approach or its neighbors in the basketball strategy world may have contributed to the pace of the game altogether. In my posts I have asked for wisdom on the puzzling shot selection of that 1950 sample (again, granting it may not be representative). Was it just especially important to play fast and get up shots, lest you cough up the ball for an easy lay-in at the other end, and also so as to generate more offensive rebounds (and with them, higher-percentage putbacks)? That makes sense, and in an era where you couldn't attack the basket relentlessly or be rewarded for effective spacing with an extra point on deep attempts, maybe accounts for a lot of the "bad" shots I observed.

Fastbreaks were extremely valuable, because the dribbling rules and lack of offensive contact made penetration difficult for anyone without exceptional dribbling abilities. This just made half-court scoring much less efficient. A half-court shot was usually going to be less valuable than a shot in transition. The defense wasn't set yet, and a shot going up quickly means less time to turn the ball over. It's definitely the main reason why the pace was higher, especially when the Celtics started to win more with it. This is partly why a player like Bob Cousy was seen as so great for the era, and why I think he's continuously underrated for how important he was in his era. Yes, he takes bad or tough shots, but that was literally their strategy! Just as you said, it is better to take a quick shot in transition rather than throw a contested jumper up in the half-court, or turn the ball over and give the opposition a valuable fast break. A well-conditioned team would be able to do this through the course of a game, but it was difficult.

With that being said, you still needed the personnel to run a playstyle like this. A team with Mikan isn't going to want to run up and down the floor non-stop. Auerbach's Celtics played a firehouse style before, (and especially after) Russell arrived, but with absolutely no ability to rebound it resulted in relatively poor defenses. Auerbach would make it a point that to actually fast break you need to have possession of the ball. If you can't get those valuable possessions, you're going to lose. Because more often than not, the team with more shots won the game.

[AEnigma]

Putting non-bigs on my DPoY ballot will be exceedingly rare, and even then I will likely limit them to third place. Certainly possible/probable that players like Cervi or “the Bulldozer” stood out more positionally, but nature of the game is that they will never be truly as involved in defensive possessions as the team’s primary big will be. We can see that in seasons like 1954, where neither the Nationals nor Royals seem to miss those “top team defenders” at all defensively.

Granted, Risen does not sparkle in 1956 when replaced by Maurice Stokes… but Maurice Stokes will be my DPoY favourite that year and will be my runner-up to Russell in 1957 and 1958. If he were an option this year, I may have placed him above Mikan. And while Stokes was a significantly better rebounder than Risen, I can hardly say the same for Johnson.

Questioning the Packers is more interesting to me. This bit stood out:

Komenich was the only starter on either team to fall to the second round, not just behind their sixth man Stanczak but also behind the Bombers' backup PF and backup C.

He appears to have been a miserable offensive player, so it does not eliminate his candidacy for DPoY, but league-wide disregard does make me pause. My initial inclination had been toward Harry Gallatin, and maybe I should revisit that comparison.

Another name is Charlie Black, who like Schultz was present on both standout defences that year. Black seems the more notable rebounder of the two, and while both teams were ultimately worse off for the swap — the Pistons declined from 23-13 with Black to 17-15 with Schultz, and the Packers declined from 21-14 with Schultz to 16-13 with Black — Black fared better than Schultz did. Then again, the 1949 Packers did not miss Black at all, and while neither started in the league after this year, of the two, Schultz made for the more successful bench player.

Reasonable thoughts.

So, I think it's important to keep in mind that shot blocking wasn't actually that much of a thing in this era (from what I've read, to be clear, footage is quite limited). It was huge with Kurland in college before goaltending was outlawed, but once goaltending was outlawed the way players were taught to play defense was to be reluctant to leave the ground except for rebounds. It was Bill Russell coming in - and playing a different style not approved of by coaches of the era - that caused the big paradigm shift that has dominated NBA defense ever since.

Additionally in a league where players were need not fear defenders playing goaltender and were gunshy about driving to the hoop for fear that they would get called for an offensive foul whenever contact was inevitably made, the frequency of a big - staying on his feet - being able to alter shots is likely considerably less that it would be in later eras.

One other thing I'll say that's true for me even in other eras: When top team defenses are not led by bigs, I'm quite reluctant to dismiss all of their players as major candidates. One part of it is obvious: If the gap between bigs and everyone else defensively were big enough, then the best defenses would always be led by bigs, so the fact that this doesn't always happen tells us that there's a limit to the dominance that can be expected by bigs.

Of course it's always worth asking: Is it possible that all the 5's are the best defenders but because every team has them they become less impactful (from a +/- type perspective)? To which I'd answer: It's theoretically possible, but I also think we need to keep in mind how big the "bigs" actually are.

I think the comparison between Royals' Risen & Johnson is a good one here. Risen was 6'9" while Johnson was 6'6" with a considerably bigger, stronger frame. Hence the idea that Risen was a "big" and Johnson wasn't is not quite so clear cut. No doubt Risen was more capable of blocking shots in theory...but was he actually doing this? I can't give a definitive answer here, but in my reading shot blocking just isn't something Risen is associated with.

So if we don't know that Risen was a major shot-blocking deterrent, and we know that his more massive teammate Johnson is the one singled out for great defense rather than him, on what grounds are we saying Risen was the more accomplished defender?

Now Cervi by contrast is a more clear cut example: He's a perimeter shut down defender guy. Same with Slater Martin. I think we have a general sense for how such guys were adding value, and in the modern NBA there's a limit to how much value you can have that way compared to modern bigs. But how sure are we that that bigs back then were having more value? And how do we reach such certainty?

Here's where I'll point something out about the WNBA: The consensus defensive GOAT of the WNBA is Tamika Catchings (5-time DPOY), a perimeter player known more for steals than blocks. It's definitely worth doing analysis on whether those votes were correct, but aside from the fact that I've done so and agree with the assessment, I think it makes sense why in a league where a 6'6" person (woman) is a big, that shot blocking probably isn't as much of a deterrent as it is when bigs are typically more like half a foot taller and have better jumping ability.

(Incidentally, as someone who expected Brittney Griner to become the WNBA's overall GOAT and definitely defensive GOAT with her being 6'9", extra long, and considerably more agile that most female ballers of anywhere near the same size, it's been educational to realize she wasn't able to do either of these things for reasons that really don't seem to be physical in nature.)

I like the WNBA analogy. But where I will contrast Catchings is that she was a top of the line rebounder, perennially finishing in the top ten in the league and leading her team in rebounds. I can appreciate your point about shot-blocking being a lesser focus in a league which broadly settled for jumpshots regardless, but I still think that leaves rebounding as a paramount skill.

This is why I gestured at Gallatin, who was not exactly “big” but was one of the league’s best rebounders. Arnie Johnson distinctly was not. I would sooner look to Jack Coleman from that lens (although less so in 1950 specifically). And then this focus on shot quality undermining the potential effect of bigger defenders cuts both ways, because for as effective as Martin and Cervi could be as defenders, in the end it is not as if they are taking an Oscar/West level offensive superstar out of the game. Indeed, most of the OPoY ballots here are heavily skewed toward bigs anyway.

I am only truly comfortable with Mikan on the DPoY ballot. And I understand that not all strong rebounders qualify as good defenders, with Groza being a strong example how. However, Risen does not have that same negative defensive profile (nor does Komenich), and that matters to me more than abstract perception about whether guards or wings were more defensively notable. Plenty would and did take Jerry Sloan and Norm Van Lier over Cliff Ray. Plenty would and did take Dennis Johnson over Jack Sikma. Plenty would and did take Joe Dumars over Bill Laimbeer. The majority of fans still think guys like Jordan and Payton were more defensively impactful than your typical centre. Marcus Smart won DPoY two years ago, and Tim Duncan never did because he was regularly voted behind Bruce Bowen. Perception needs something quantifiable to back it up. I do not respect DJ and Kidd because of their “reputation”; I respect them because they seem to meaningfully affect their team’s defences.

In 1950, that process is more difficult. I am more willing to defer to contemporary perception in the absence of the usual means of assessment. But if I am being asked to ignore a top rebounder on a small team with fair defensive signals in his own right, I need more than a gesture at reputation.

Re: Komenich, bad on offense, so maybe great on defense. Yup. I'm not assuming he isn't and welcome any evidence he is.

I will note in that quote you give ("Komenich was the only starter on either team to fall to the second round..."), that makes it pretty telling that contemporary observers were more impressed by the other starters on his team overall. Maybe he was the best defender on a team winning with elite defense and yet still seen as the worst of the starters do to his offense, but if I can't find any evidence that anyone thought he was the best defender, I'll be reluctant to assume it simply because he was the tallest player on his team at 6'7".

Principally this is fine, but he also seems to have been their most important rebounder, and I am skeptical that high pace functions if you are not able to reliably secure rebounds.

EDIT: And I see Zeppelin gestured at this principle as well.

Re: Black. Yeah I looked at him too and the swap with Schultz is fascinating. I'd feel better about both their candidacies if I saw them do more in subsequent years.

Sure, and among bigs, that is why I feel relatively fine with Risen. That is why I think Gallatin merits some consideration. My question then is, what forwards/bigs have a pattern of being their team’s best defender in any demonstrable way?

[eminence]

On brief film I've never been particularly impressed with Arnie Johnson, defensively or otherwise. Coleman struck me as much more impressive when the Royals moved to just 2 guards.