Retro Player of the Year 1960-61 UPDATE — Bill Russell

[AEnigma]

General Project Discussion Thread

Discussion and Results from the 2010 Project

In this thread we'll discuss and vote on the top 5 players and the top 3 offensive and defensive players of 1960-61.

Player of the Year (POY)(5) — most accomplished overall player of that season
Offensive Player of the Year (OPOY)(3) — most accomplished offensive player of that season
Defensive Player of the Year (DPOY)(3) — most accomplished defensive player of that season

Voting will close sometime after 18:15 PM EST on Friday, August 16th. I have no issue keeping it open so long as discussion is strong, but please try to vote within the first three days.

Valid ballots must provide an explanation for your choices that gives us a window into how you thought and why you came to the decisions you did. You can vote for any of the three awards — although they must be complete votes — but I will only tally votes for an award when there are at least five valid ballots submitted for it.

Remember, your votes must be based on THIS season. This is intended to give wide wiggle room for personal philosophies while still providing a boundary to make sure the award can be said to mean something. You can factor things like degree of difficulty as defined by you, but what you can't do is ignore how the player actually played on the floor this season in favor of what he might have done if only...

You may change your vote, but if you do, edit your original post rather than writing, "hey, ignore my last post, this is my real post until I change my mind again.” I similarly ask that ballots be kept in one post rather than making one post for Player of the Year, one post for Offensive Player of the Year, and/or one post for Defensive Player of the Year. If you want to provide your reasoning that way for the sake of discussion, fine, but please keep the official votes themselves in one aggregated post. Finally, for ease of tallying, I prefer for you to place your votes at the beginning of your balloting post, with some formatting that makes them stand out. I will not discount votes which fail to follow these requests, but I am certainly more likely to overlook them.

Current Voter List

Spoiler:

________________________________________
Layaway Voters
* B-Mitch 30
* Bad Gatorade
* McBubbles

[tsherkin]

Going to be very interesting to see if there's much variation across this decade now that Russell and Wilt are in play and Russ just won.

[eminence]

Worst to First '61.

Knicks (21-58): They're bad, offense is okayish, Guerin seems to still be leading the offense. No POY candidates here.

Royals (33-46): Big jump up into respectable territory from last season, rookie Oscar certainly has impact, and probably the biggest offensive box-score to date. 31/10/10 on great efficiency is hard to ignore even on a below middling team. Best offense/worst defense in the league by rating, some degree of trade-off there seems possible. Miss the playoffs narrowly to the 2/3 seed Lakers/Pistons. Oscar is a candidate from the jump.

Pistons (34-45): One game ahead of the Royals, another stronger offense with a weaker defense. Shue/Howell splitting offensive credit for me. Lean Shue as top Piston due to PO performance, but can't see him over Oscar. They give the Lakers a bit of a scare, taking them to 5.

Lakers (36-43): Narrowly ahead of the two below, the Lakers have moved to LA and added Mr. West. Jerry isn't up to superstar speed, but he is a good player early. They again take the Hawks to 7 (after getting a scare from the Pistons), but can't pull it out, losing games 6/7 by a combined 3 pts (OT in game 6) after going up 3-2. Baylor with another season of strong candidacy.

Nationals (38-41): Bit of a disconnect this season, well behind the Warriors in the standings, but a step ahead in point differential. Step up to sweep the Warriors in the playoffs (3-0). Yardley is gone, so a little depth lost, but Greer is continuing to develop. Still a solid deep team behind Schayes. The guards (Costello/Greer) and the immortal Swede Halbrook step up in the win over the Warriors (I believe Swede likely outrebounded Wilt while he was on the court), but they all fall back to earth the next round against the Celtics. Schayes a candidate again (12 straight seasons?), it'll feel strange next season without him in contention.

Warriors (46-33): Defense does seem to noticeably step back without Woody. Still strong on that end. Maybe some moderate improvement by Wilt from his rookie season, but not a huge jump that I can see. They get swept by the Nats, but Wilt seems to play pretty well, can't see him as a #1 candidate, but he'll be in the conversation for #2 for certain. If Schayes himself had looked better in the win over the Warriors maybe, but as is it's hard to see anyone listed so far over Wilt, #3 probably his floor.

Hawks (51-28): Woody really does seem to be a force unto himself on both ends, 68 TS+ is almost unfathomable at reasonable volume. Lot of the same old same old, Seymour has taken over as coach, so that probably explains some of the focus shift from offense to defense as well. Hagan doesn't seem to step up quite as much in the playoffs as usual. Sneak by the Lakers in a very tight one, but got handled pretty easily by the Celtics this time, Nationals probably looked a hair better. Anywho, Pettit is who I'll be debating #2/#3 with Wilt.

Celtics (57-22): Not quite as strong of RS as some surrounding seasons, but they don't get challenged in the playoffs. It's a pretty easy Russell #1. Heinsohn/Cousy/Jones/Ramsey/Sharman/etc is a deep cast with some decent Allstar level guys (I'm a believer in Heinsohn on defense), but nobody else pushing for POY consideration - this team is 100% built around Russell.

Uh oh, 6 candidates for 5 spots this season - Oscar/Baylor/Schayes/Wilt/Pettit/Russell.

[Colbinii]

Does anyone think Oscar is the OPOY?

[AEnigma]

Offensive Player of the Year

1. Oscar Robertson
2. Gene Shue
3. Bob Cousy

For me, Oscar is to this award what Russell is to Defensive Player of the Year and will similarly sit atop this ballot for the next decade. The Royals are immediately transformed into the league’s best offence. They are also utterly inept without him, going 1-7 to miss the playoffs by two games. Nice preview of 1968-70.

Shue and Costello are the primary passers for the second and third best offences, and both reach the playoffs. Guerin is more productive in the regular season but the Knicks continue to slide, and although I like him as a player, 21 wins is too pitiful. Impressed by Costello’s spectacular performance against the Warriors (so much for DPoY Tom Gola ), but ultimately it is Cousy who manages to look like the best postseason point guard with a head-to-head edge over Costello and a moderately impressive Finals, so he secured the third spot.

Defensive Player of the Year

1. Bill Russell
2. Wilt Chamberlain
3. Woody Sauldsberry

Same top two. Sauldsberry switches teams and the Hawks are transformed, while the Nationals take a step back. This will likely be the second-lowest ( ) per game minute load I ever recognise for these awards, but I kind-of think the results speak for themselves, and at least he plays more typical starter minutes in the postseason. If I felt strongly about anyone else I would go for them, but Red Kerr and sophomore Rudy LaRusso are not particularly compelling alternatives this year, and Walter Dukes hardly plays heavy minutes himself.

Player of the Year

1. Bill Russell
2. Wilt Chamberlain
3. Elgin Baylor
4. Bob Pettit
5. Dolph Schayes Oscar Robertson

To obliquely answer tsherkin’s question: not much variation, no.

While this is not one of the years where I think Wilt seriously threatens to unseat Russell from his throne despite a lost effort — stay tuned in 1962, 1964, 1966, and 1968 — I also never seriously considered anyone else for second here.

Baylor improves upon his previous matchup with the Hawks while Pettit is in slightly lessened form from the prior season.

The Nationals do upset (well, by record at least) Wilt’s Warriors, but credit there primarily goes to the guards. Schayes was their best player in the regular season and against the Celtics, but the more I think about this, the more I think that rookie Oscar was a superior talent and that the Nationals would have been significantly better if Schayes and Costello were replaced with Oscar and a Costello-equivalent power forward. The next season the Nationals improve despite Schayes’s decline and even have a better win percentage with Schayes absent; as an impact signal, that simply does not compare to what we see from Oscar year after year after year. Schayes has received plenty of respect throughout this project, and Oscar because of team and league circumstance will likely never be afforded quite the same. Leaving him below Baylor and Pettit is itself a penalty for his ineffectual cast; any further penalty feels excessive… even if that makes him the sole player to crack my ballot twice with a missed postseason.

[AEnigma]

Does anyone think Oscar is the OPOY?

Yes, and the only real argument against him is the missed postseason (which could semi-defensibly be framed as his “fault” relative to someone like Shue).

[tsherkin]

To obliquely answer tsherkin’s question: not much variation, no.

This is about what I expected. I anticipate a fair bit of Oscar as OPOY, Russell as DPOY and then maybe some variation in the overall POY.

[trelos6]

Pace adjusted stats courtesy of ElGee

Spoiler:

1961 Estimated Pace-Adjusted Statistics

ORtg

Code: Select all

1.  Cincinnati    95.5
2.  Detroit       93.3
3.  Syracuse      92.9
LEAGUE AVG.       91.5
4.  New York      91.2
5.  Philadelphia  90.8
6.  St. Louis     90.7
7.  Los Angeles   90.0
8.  Boston        87.5


DRtg

Code: Select all

1.  Boston        83.4
2.  St. Louis     87.9
3.  Los Angeles   90.1
4.  Philadelphia  90.2
5.  Syracuse      91.3
LEAGUE AVG.       91.5
6.  Detroit       95.2
7.  New York      96.3
8.  Cincinnati    98.3


I think there is a clear top 5 this season, and a clear OPOY and DPOY. Oscar Robertson a rookie, and drops 30/10, boosting Cincinnati’s ORtg from 91.3 (mid pack) to 95.6 (top of the league). Oscar was 21 pp75 +8.6 rTS%, while carrying the largest load in the league (44.3). Meanwhile, Bill Russell keeps doing Bill Russell things, anchoring the best defense in the NBA with a somewhat ageing squad.

The other 3 candidates are Wilt Chamberlain (22 pp75, +5 rTS%), Bob Pettit (19.6 pp75, +4.2 rTS%) and Elgin Baylor (23.4 pp75, +2.9 rTS%) (regular season pp75 and rTS).

Raw stats from Semi-sentient

Spoiler:

* = led the league

Regular Season

Code: Select all

Player            GP   MIN    PTS    TS%    REB    AST    PER    WS
=====================================================================
Elgin Baylor      73   42.9   34.8   .498   19.8   5.1    28.2*  14.4
Wilt Chamberlain  79   47.8*  38.4*  .519   27.2*  1.9    27.8   18.8*
Bob Pettit        76   39.8   27.9   .511   20.3   3.4    25.2   14.9
Oscar Robertson   71   42.7   30.5   .555*  10.1   9.7*   25.9   13.2

Post Season

Code: Select all

Player            GP   MIN    PTS    TS%    REB    AST    PER    WS
=====================================================================
Elgin Baylor      12*  45.0   38.1*  .538   15.3   4.6    28.0*  2.8*
Wilt Chamberlain   3   48.0*  37.0   .492   23.0   2.0    26.7   0.7
Bob Pettit        12*  43.8   28.6   .494   17.6   3.2    22.3   1.7


It’s hard to go past Elgin for OPOY #2, after his impressive post season, where he really boosts his efficiency and scoring. The Lakers offence goes from 2nd last to top of the league (also helped that Jerry West is a playoff demon). I think he does enough to earn him the 2 overall ahead of Wilt in 3rd (22 pp75, +5 rTS%). Pettit grabs 3rd in OPOY as I’m impressed how he handled the Lakers, going toe to toe with Elgin, and having some big games in close wins.

Finally, shout out to Dolph Schayes (17.4 pp75, +1.3 rTS%), his last great year. Really good regular season, but couldn’t keep it up in the playoffs, going up against Wilt and Russell. Also, Bailey Howell, who was 17.6 pp75 on +8.3 rTS%, and Jack Twyman who was 20.1 pp75 on +6.3 rTS%. These 2 may have been included in a top 10 for OPOY.

Defensively, Wilt is #2 again, and Woody gets the nod over Pettit for being the spark to improving the Hawks defense, despite only playing 21.6 mpg.

OPOY
1. Oscar Robertson
2. Elgin Baylor
3. Bob Pettit

HM: Wilt Chamberlain

DPOY
1. Bill Russell
2. Wilt Chamberlain
3. Woody Sauldsberry

HM: Red Kerr

POY
1. Bill Russell
2. Elgin Baylor
3. Wilt Chamberlain
4. Bob Pettit
5. Oscar Robertson

HM: Dolph Schayes

[Dr Positivity]

Going to be very interesting to see if there's much variation across this decade now that Russell and Wilt are in play and Russ just won.

I think Wilt will win between 2 and 4 of the Russell seasons

[eminence]

6 guys RS stats

Oscar (32-39): 30.5 pts, 10.1 reb, 9.7 ast, 118 TS+
Baylor (34-39): 34.8 pts, 19.8 reb, 5.1 ast, 106 TS+
Schayes (38-41): 23.6 pts, 12.2 reb, 3.7 ast, 103 TS+
Wilt (46-33): 38.4 pts, 27.2 reb, 1.9 ast, 111 TS+
Pettit (49-27): 27.9 pts, 20.3 reb, 3.4 ast, 109 TS+
Russell (57-21): 16.9 pts, 23.9 reb, 3.4 ast, 97 TS+

Russell #1, deciding Wilt vs Pettit for 2/3, and the other 3 for 4-6.

[Djoker]

Does anyone think Oscar is the OPOY?

I do. Hard to argue with an efficient 30-point triple double and the #1 offense in the league. It's not his fault the defense sucked.

[OhayoKD]

Wonder if Russell can finally get that elusive unanimous ballot.

Anyway here's my vote.

1. Bill Russell

MVP, leader of a historically massive regular-season outlier that cruises to a still unmatched four-peat. This placement should probably be unanimous.

2. Wilt Chamberlain

Open to arguments for his personal improvement or individual play, but his team regressed in every conceivable way taking him out of a conversation with Russell for me. If anything, I'd be more open to the idea Petit or Robertson should be placed ahead.

3. Oscar Robertson

Possibly higher with better help. A 14-win and 2-point rookie turnaround in an era of suppressed M.O.V certainly isn't nothing.The Royals going 1-7 without Oscar doesn't hurt either. But the Royals were still not good with Robertson and it's tough to sell me on a rookie beating out a much better defender in the 60's on a much worse team; especially without a playoff hurray such as what lifted Baylor last thread.

4. Bob Petit

Still leading very good finalists with the gap between him and Hagan looking especially stark. Maybe I'm placing him too low. I wouldn't begrudge anyone who has him top 2 (again).

5. Dolph Schayes

A weak regular-season by record. A strong regular-season by SRS. And a strong postseason by either approach. He's here, rather than 2nd or 3rd, because there was a big (scoring) volume and efficiency gap h2h between him and Wilt. Nonetheless, sweeping goliath warrants some recognition.


DPOY

1. Russell
2. Wilt
3. Schayes

OPOY

1. Oscar Robertson
2. Elgin Baylor
3. Bob Petit

[penbeast0]

1. Russell -- his offense is sliding down the scale but his defensive impact is still unrivaled in NBA history
2. Wilt -- big offensive numbers, clear defensive impact. Not used ideally it seems but hard not to have him this high
3. Pettit -- took his team to the NBA finals again. Big numbers again. Slipped a bit in the playoffs, particularly against Russell again.
4. Oscar -- I still have Baylor as the most exciting player in the NBA but Oscar is the newest, hottest, thing and, even as a rookie, his numbers are slightly better than Baylor's and the offense he plays on does better as a team than Baylor's offense.
5. Baylor

HM to Dolph Schayes, I may be underrating his defensive impact but he seems a step down from the top 5 and more a 50s star whereas Pettit seems to keep improving with the league while retaining that famous relentless effort and ability to draw fouls.

[Dr Positivity]

1. Bill Russell - Once again I'd theorize the offensive gap is closer than the stats suggest with Wilt because Russell is passing (nearly 5 assists a game in the playoffs) while Wilt's assists are particularly putrid this year at 1.9 reg/2 playoffs a game with 37-38ppg and my impression is they are polar opposite ends in setting screens interest. A contender for the best Celtics team since the Cousy, Sharman, Ramsey, Heinsohn, Russell overlaps with KC Jones, Sam Jones, Sanders pretty well with all at least within shouting range of their prime.

2. Elgin Baylor - He is a huge volume scorer and rebounder like Wilt, while Wilt is a better defender and Baylor is a better passer. Baylor has a better playoffs and with West already great by the playoffs could've made the finals if not for ridiculous found money offensive performance by Sauldsberry replacing Lovellette.

3. Wilt Chamberlain - His passing seems the worst of his career and while he still has a defense and rebounding advantage over Baylor/Oscar, his defensive differences from Russell may have got exposed in the playoffs as they play the two fastest guards in the league I think and get TORCHED with Costello going for 24ppg 54% and Greer 23ppg 47%. While it's hard to know how much is his fault, they have some poor defenders like Rodgers and old Arizin but also good ones like Attles and Gola, it could be suggestive of Wilt not being as made on defense for that type of help D matchup (and Costello and Greer went on to have hilarious dropoff to 12ppg 31% and 9ppg 29% against the Celtics, ftr).

4. Bob Pettit - Another really good season in overall consistent year to year career as Hawks pound out a superb record of 51-28 with 5 game finals loss where they once again pay the price for injury fortune in 58 by having another injury in Lovellette after Martin in previous years, Sauldsberry defense beside Hagan/Pettit in some ways is better fit and may screw up the Lakers in that series, but yeah against Celtics D playing one of the worst offensive Cs ever instead of the best floor stretch C in the league is probably not the trade off you want matchup wise.

5. Oscar Robertson - The only thing that gives me pause I think Twyman, Embry and Bockhorn (solid utility starter) is not really that bad of supporting cast for missing the playoffs with him, it's not really any worse than Howell's Shue/Dukes/Ohl for example and has similar results, although the latter's poor playoffs and less appealing style of play (SF/PF Pettit?) compared to on ball master take him out of contention. Then there's Schayes who has a better team but with way better cast with Costello/Greer/Kerr/Barnett with Hannum, and only 5 Ws improvement so I won't put the latter over him for team results.

Offensive player of the year

1. Oscar Robertson
2. Elgin Baylor
3. Bob Pettit

Defensive player of the year

1. Bill Russell
2. Wilt Chamberlain
3. KC Jones

I don't see anyone else with bigger minutes with Jones here I like as much (Sauldsberry and the other Celtics are around 20mpg) and I don't want to vote for my usual pick Gola after getting killed in playoffs.

[Dr Positivity]

2. Gene Shue
3. Larry Costello

Shue and Costello are the primary passers for the second and third best offences, and both reach the playoffs. Costello likely would have been nudged out for Guerin, but his stupendous performance upsetting the Warriors (so much for DPoY Tom Gola ) earns him a place on this ballot.

I'm not one for using team offenses to judge players to begin with compared to other people here, but Costello has a pretty nice offensive supporting cast of Schayes, Greer, Barnett and Kerr with a genius coach, and there is a good argument for Howell over Shue on offense, so personally it'd be hard for me to consider them top 3 just because of their team rank. While Sauldsberry helps Hawks D, there is also clear trade off with "Mendoza blushed" sub 30% FG/.318 TS season, meanwhile Baylor doesn't have as much around him as Costello/Shue to me with West having a 17ppg reg season, Guerin also has less to work with as I'm not a big fan of Naulls. I suppose Shue isn't far off OPOY ballot consideration for me but I don't really see the numbers being big enough for Costello, and when it comes to the playoffs he sucked in the 2nd round so it's not like he had front to back amazing performance.

[Dr Positivity]

HM to Dolph Schayes, I may be underrating his defensive impact but he seems a step down from the top 5 and more a 50s star whereas Pettit seems to keep improving with the league while retaining that famous relentless effort and ability to draw fouls.

I feel like Schayes problem at this point compared to Pettit is just age. He was our 2nd ranked player in 1950.

I would have Schayes and Pettit close on my ATL now which didn't use to be the case. I didn't think I would rate Schayes as competitively with him as I did from 56-60, and Pettit's prime only lasts 3 seasons after his.

[AEnigma]

I have been pretty clear that most of the time I will be voting for creators rather than for scorers, and while the Nationals certainly have the more talented offensive roster, I do not think that justifies the Lakers having a notably below average offensive result as a team. Also not much of a point for Baylor that the team’s offensive success seems to correlate much more closely with an elevating West.

That said, I take your point that I am disproportionately rewarding Costello for one three-game stretch, so I will switch to Cousy, who was better head-to-head and had a reasonably strong Finals.

[Djoker]

Wilt's numbers this year are really good but the impact or lack thereof is a bit concerning.

RS: 38.4/27.2/1.9 on 51.9 %TS (+5.0 rTS)
PS: 37.0/23.0/2.0 on 49.2 %TS (+2.3 rTS)

The loss to the Nationals seems really bad on the surface of it but based on SRS, the Nats were a better team than the Warriors (44 PW vs. 42 PW) so it's not an upset it appears to be from a team standpoint.

This will be a tough year to order everyone after #1 which is Russell. #2 to #5 for me is Wilt, Oscar, Baylor and Pettit in some order.

[Narigo]

1. Bill Russell- Best defensive player by a wide margin. Looked really good on offense in playoffs too

2. Wilt Chamberlain- Pretty much the same player as the year prior in my opinion but his team took a step back

3.Elgin Baylor- Pettit has the better regular season. But Elgin played better against head to head wise in the playoffs

4. Oscar Robertson- Probably the best offensive player in the league in his rookie season but his team wasn't good though.

5..Bob Pettit- Probably would've been 3 or 4 on this list if if it was just the regular season. His playoff performance was subpar probably his game revolves heavily on getting to the free throw line and getting offensive rebounds me thinks

[One_and_Done]

1. Bill Russell
2. Wilt Chamberlain
3. Oscar Robertson
4. Baylor
5. Pettit

The first 2 are easy, they had the biggest impact in the league by far. As for the rest, you have to ignore team ranking a little bit given the backwards era they were in. Players weren't used optimally at times, and guys were incentivised to play in certain ways to make money.

Oscar was a better player than Baylor, just like Baylor was more talented than Pettit. I feel fairly confident about that much. Baylor was probably more impactful on both ends than Pettit, and Oscar was the best offensive player in this bygone league.