Retro Player of the Year 1961-62 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 1961-62.

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 18:30 PM EST on Monday, August 19th. 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

[eminence]

Worst to First '62.

Packers (18-62): There's a new team, and boy do they set expansion teams off on the wrong foot. Bellamy puts up big individual numbers. Not sure anyone else on the roster is worthy of starters minutes. Might've been nice to Bells come up on a more competitive team, but as is I don't see him pushing for my ballot. His career long defensive team results point towards him being a pretty bad defender.

Knicks (29-51): Guerin gets himself a tiny bit of MVP love and seems like a strong offensive player at his peak. Naulls/Green don't seem terrible, but not players I'd push for the Allstar list most seasons.

Hawks (29-51): Hawks have trouble keeping anyone but Pettit/Hagan around, including coaches. I'm not aware of it being directly the stars fault, but it's certainly not a good look that they couldn't pull it together a bit better. Hagans last real season of star relevance. Pettit might have a shot at my ballot, but he'll be losing a lot of tiebreakers with that team performance.

Pistons (37-43): Near .500, upset the Royals and then look okay vs the Lakers. Not a bad showing from the Pistons. I'd go with Howell as their top guy, but I'm having a tough time picturing him over Pettit even with Pettit failing to deliver the wins.

Nats (41-39): Schayes has passed the torch, skipping right over Costello/Kerr to Greer as the franchise player. Unfortunately he doesn't get a chance to show what he's got as a star in the playoffs this time. They put up a pretty good series against the Warriors even without Greer. But no candidates from the Nats with Greer missing the playoffs.

Royals (43-37): Another solid step forward from the Royals, Oscar looks as good as ever. Inexperience and a lack of defense catch up to them in the playoffs, losing a pair of 1 pt games to the Pistons to drop the series 1-3. Based off the PO numbers we do have they *may* have lost the TO battle by a meaningful margin, which could reflect poorly on Oscar. Oscar will be on my list, very clearly above anyone listed so far.

Warriors (49-31): Last season in Philly. Do seem to miss Gola in his missed games. Underwhelm in getting pushed by the Greer-less Nationals, but then step up against the Celtics. Seems likely Gola rushed back for the playoffs (1 regular season game and then a return), doesn't play well in the playoffs. Up 1 in Boston going into the 4th quarter of game 7, lose by 2, about as close as you can get. Meschery did seem to step up in the playoffs. Overall a very strong Wilt season, I can see an argument over Bill this time, though I'll personally be going with Russell again.

Lakers (54-26): Notably 37-11 with Baylor (17-15 without). Honestly, Baylor's time away in Tacoma doesn't seem to hurt his play at all. It's the two stars all the way, and both seem to deliver every step of the way. Get about as close as you can come to winning a series. Up 3-2, have a shot at the buzzer to win in regulation in game 7, wind up in OT losing by 3. It's tough to weight Baylor's missed time this season (might've had homecourt vs Boston if he'd been there all season), I'm interested to see what others think. Both will be in my top 5 (joining Oscar/Wilt/Russell).

Celtics (60-20): Whew, talk about some squeakers after a very strong regular season. Heinsohn is still my favorite non-Russell player here, and I'm a Satch fan as well - but still fully built around Russell. His first regular season at a bit higher assist volume, but it's really all about the defense. Russell had one of his best scoring series beating the Lakers, game 6/7 particularly statistically notable. Game 6 - 19/24/10, Game 7 - 30/40/4 (combined 21/27 from the line, Mr. Clutch).

So Russell #1. West/Baylor/Wilt/Oscar 2-5. Baylor the trickiest to place, West probably over Oscar this time around. No ballot for Pettit.

[AEnigma]

Strongly encourage everyone to read the 2010 thread this time (as always, linked in the OP). Good material for one of the more historically contentious “top player” debates.

Offensive Player of the Year

1. Oscar Robertson
2. Jerry West
3. Wilt Chamberlain

West’s superstardom is established, and he will be this award’s mainstay runner-up for the next decade. I see this as Baylor’s approximate peak and still prefer him as an overall player to early prime West, but West really should be the team’s lead offensive player already.

Third place was between Wilt and Guerin, for opposite reasons. Guerin might be the second best playmaker in the league, although I think I prefer West in the postseason. Unfortunately, his roster is offensively abominable, and while I think playmakers are necessary to elevate teammates, their value is limited when there is nothing much to elevate. Wilt by contrast is a true black hole this season. However, through sheer volume, he does lift a relatively mediocre roster to a ~+1 offence. He scores more than the second and third place players combined this year, and he does so on top five efficiency. Is this Wilt more valuable than 1964 Wilt? No. But the comparison is not a better-passing version of Wilt, the comparison is Richie Guerin. And Richie Guerin’s offensive influence is limited by his teammates in a way that is less true of Wilt, which in this circumstance favours Wilt as the more valuable offensive player this year.

Defensive Player of the Year

1. Bill Russell
2. Wilt Chamberlain
3. Red Kerr

Anchors for the three best defences. Much more impressed by Kerr this time around, as he keeps the Nationals afloat despite significant missed time by his front-court partner (and frequent Retro DPoY vote recipient).

Player of the Year

1. Bill Russell
2. Wilt Chamberlain
3. Oscar Robertson
4. Elgin Baylor
5. Jerry West

One of four competitive Wilt/Russell seasons in my eyes. I am impressed by Wilt nearly managing the upset with an appreciably* inferior roster and an appreciably less advantageous whistle, but I think Russell overall got the better of Wilt throughout the year.

Oscar takes third as he is fully in his prime. Silly upset by the Pistons, but given their superior collective talent and the fact the Royals lost two games by a point, not going to hold it against him when I feel he is a demonstrably better player than both Baylor and West… who are nevertheless absolute superstars and show as much by also nearly managing the ever-elusive “winner-take-all” victory against Russell.

I am seeing some criticism of Baylor based on games missed. I mean, people are free to do that, but the Lakers were twenty wins better with Elgin in the lineup (both literally and figuratively), and he was their best performer in the postseason on a team that was a made free throw away from winning a title. And people are going to exclude him from their ballots because he was obligated to only play on weekends???

A U.S. Army Reservist at the time, Elgin lived in a barracks in the state of Washington, leaving only whenever they gave him a weekend pass ... and even with that pass, he could only fly coach on flights with multiple connections to meet the Lakers wherever they happened to be playing. Once he arrived, he would throw on a uniform and battle the best NBA players alive on back-to-back nights — fortunately for the Lakers, most games were scheduled on the weekends back then — and make the same complicated trip back to Washington on Sunday night or Monday morning. That was his life for five months.

Bob Pettit is not taking the Lakers to a title that year, so why all this extra credit for a guy playing thirty extra games on one of the league’s worst teams.

* Although not drastically; a 0-4 record without Russell undercuts that notion. Put 1st team all-NBA Pettit in Russell’s place, and the Celtics do not make the Finals.

[trelos6]

Looking at ElGee’s pace adjusted ORtg and DRtg

Estimated Pace-Adjusted Numbers 1962

ORtg

Code: Select all

1.  Cincinnati   98.7
2.  St. Louis    95.0
3.  Los Angeles   94.8
4.  Philadelphia  94.5
LEAGUE AVG.      93.3
5.  Syracuse     92.5
6.  Detroit      92.2
7.  Boston       91.6
8.  New York     90.5
9.  Chicago      89.3


DRtg

Code: Select all

1.  Boston       84.6
2.  Syracuse     91.0
3.  Philadelphia  92.5
4.  Los Angeles   93.0
LEAGUE AVG.      93.3
5.  Detroit      93.6
6.  New York     94.4
7.  Chicago      96.1
8.  Cincinnati   97.2
9.  St. Louis    97.5


Individual numbers are going to look insane, as it was one of the fastest paced seasons in history.

* = led the league

Regular Season

Code: Select all

Player           GP   MIN   PTS   TS%   REB   AST
=======================================================
Bill Russell     76   45.2   18.9   .489   23.6   4.5
Wilt Chamberlain  80   48.5*  50.4*  .536   25.7*   2.4
Oscar Robertson   79   44.3   30.8   .554   12.5   11.4*
Elgin Baylor     48   44.4   38.3   .492   18.6   4.6
Jerry West       75   41.2   30.8   .524   7.9   5.4
Bob Pettit     78   42.1   31.1   .522   18.7   3.7
Walt Bellamy     79   42.3   31.6   .554*   19.0   2.7

Post Season

Code: Select all

Player           GP   MIN   PTS   TS%   REB   AST
=======================================================
Bill Russell     14   48.0*  22.4   .519   26.4   5.0
Wilt Chamberlain  12   48.0*  35.0   .508   26.6*   3.1
Oscar Robertson   4   46.3   28.8   .519   11.0   11.0*
Elgin Baylor     13   43.9   38.6*  .503   17.7   3.6
Jerry West       13   42.8   31.5   .544   6.8   4.4

For POY, there are 7 contenders for 5 spots. Bill Russell, Wilt Chamberlain, Oscar Robertson, Elgin Baylor, Jerry West, Bob Pettit, Walt Bellamy.

Offensively, Oscar was stellar again. 20.1 pp75, +7.5 rTS%, his team had a rORtg of +3.5. He was the best playmaker in the league. Bob Pettit with 21.4 pp75, +4.3 rTS% anchored the #2 offense, while Jerry West was 21.9 pp75, +4.5 rTS%, with some playmaking. Finally, Wilt was hard to deny. 28.7 pp75 on +5.7 rTS%. His team was a little better than average offensively, and he hit free throws better than his career rate (61% this season).

OPOY
1.Oscar Robertson
2.Jerry West
3.Wilt Chamberlain

HM: Bob Pettit

DPOY
1.Bill Russell
2.Wilt Chamberlain
3.Tom Sanders

HM: Red Kerr

POY
1.Bill Russell
2.Wilt Chamberlain
3.Oscar Robertson
4.Jerry West
5.Bob Pettit

HM: Elgin Baylor

[Dr Positivity]

62 and 63 are peak Russell to me in the playoffs including a contender for best game ever in G7. I’ll definitely be voting him 1st.

[penbeast0]

Baylor only played half although per game this was his absolute scoring peak. Despite this LA won 54 games for the second best record in the league and took Boston to overtime in game 7 of the NBA finals as Jerry West had his breakout season and Rudy LaRusso had a pretty solid year.

1. Russell (as almost always, unparalleled defensive impact led to another title)
2. Wilt (as always, the greatest individual talent and stat stuffer)
3. Oscar (league's best offense)
4. West (LA rolled along even when Baylor was gone)
5. Pettit (had the #2 offense in the league again with help from Cliff Hagan)

HM Baylor (limited by military service)

[ardee]

Well, I missed the last 10 years, so I apologize. Gonna try and be more consistent from now.

POY

1. Bill Russell

Hard to argue against anchoring such a historic defense, leading the best record in league history until that point (I think?), and the insane Finals performance. Also ran the offense more from the high post than ever before as Cousy aged and his own role was scaled down.

2. Wilt Chamberlain

There is an argument that if Sam Jones misses the jumper in game 7, Wilt wins his first ring, is no. 1 here and would be argued as the GOAT peak. I suppose that if that were the case, he should get those plaudits regardless because that was out of his control. Even so, I just think Russ has more impact. One of the strongest no. 2s ever though.

3. Oscar Robertson

Raw stats are there obviously, but led a +4.7 offense, which is impressive with the teammates he had on hand. I would likely put Baylor above him if not for games missed though.

4. Elgin Baylor

Ridiculous RS, likely would be as well regarded as Wilt's if not for the games missed. The 37-11 record when he was playing jumps out. I do consider RS games missed as a factor, that's why he's 4 and not 3. There's just no one else close enough to leapfrog him further given his amazing Playoffs (capped off with a 60/20 Finals game).

5. Jerry West

Still not in his prime, but gets this spot by default kind off. Pettit is the only other candidate but his numbers just didn't translate to team success.

'62 is a cool year because it's the only one I am sure that the 5 most iconic 60s players are the definitive 1-5 in.

[One_and_Done]

Everyone should have the same 5 I'd say.

[trelos6]

'62 is a cool year because it's the only one I am sure that the 5 most iconic 60s players are the definitive 1-5 in.

Now if Elgin played more games in the RS, I’m with you, but he lost a LOT of value only playing 48 games.

Now the Hawks with Pettit went 29-49, but the season before they went to the finals, and the season after they took the Lakers to 7 in the West finals. It kinda looks like coaching was the issue (3 coaches that year). They were the 2nd best defense in the years before and after, while this season they were dead last, despite Pettit and Hagan logging big minutes.

Lovellette was injured for half of the season, but the team wasn’t great with him (13-27). Wilkens also missed most of the year for military service, and in the 20 games he played, Hawks looked average (10-10).


Anyways, it’s close between Elgin and Pettit. Despite Elgin being a beast in the playoffs.

[70sFan]

Everyone should have the same 5 I'd say.

I don't think there was a single season when Elgin vs Pettit wasn't a legitimate debate. I think Baylor reached extremely high peak in the playoffs this year, but he missed a lot of games during the RS. Surrounding seasons also put them very close.

[eminence]

1. Bill Russell

Hard to argue against anchoring such a historic defense, leading the best record in league history until that point (I think?)

Kinda, most wins but lower %, the season was getting longer.

1. '47 Capitols 49-11 (81.7%)
2. '50 Nationals 51-13 (79.7%)
3. '60 Celtics 59-16 (78.7%)
4. '49 Packers 49-15 (76.6%) (NBL)
T-5. '62 Celtics 60-20 (75%)
T-5. '50 Lakers 51-17 (75%)
T-5. '50 Royals 51-17 (75%)
T-5. '49 Royals 45-15 (75%)

I don't think I missed anybody from '47 onwards. I'm more impressed by the ''62 Celtics doing it in a 9 team league than the '50 and prior squads doing it in a split/overinflated league. But win % is win %, and the '60 Celtics are above them anyways.

Obviously the main point stands - the Celtics had a very impressive regular season.

[B-Mitch 30]

I think a good argument could be made that this is Bill's best season, especially factoring in his performance in the playoffs:

1. It was the last year he placed in the top 20 of field goal percentage, and was one of his best free throw shooting seasons, at nearly 60% in the regular season, and a career high of 72% in the playoffs.

2. Of those aforementioned top 20 seasons, this one had his highest assist rate as well, and the fifth best rebounds per game numbers of his career, though this was mostly a product of the huge amount of minutes he played. However, he was still the second best rebounder in the league by every metric.

3. Then of course in the postseason, Bill led the Celtics in scoring and rebounds on better efficiency than the regular season in two close 7 game series against Wilt and and the Lakers, culminating in an epic 30 point and 40 rebound overtime win in game 7 of the Finals.

[eminence]

I don't have this as peak West, but I don't see much reason to not include it in his prime.

I can see the Pettit case over Baylor due to the missed games (semi voluntarily), but the Lakers were so good in the games he played, I'll be sticking with Baylor. Bellamy has a kind of similar case to Pettit as well.

[Djoker]

Baylor was so ridiculously good in the playoffs and the season games that he actually played in. I have a feeling that if he didn't miss those games, he'd be a serious contender for #1 for me. As is he'll probably be #3. Then Oscar/Pettit/West after him.

[AEnigma]

All I can say is that I expect anyone excluding Baylor for “missed time” to extend the same to 1963/68 West, who did not go as far in pushing a worse Celtics team, did worse in MVP voting, and in a meta sense will have more ballot competition.

[eminence]

I view Jerry/Elgin as on about the same level at this point, both have strong WOWY signals in this immediate window, their box scores are both impressive, Elgin a bit more recognized by the awards voting, but the incumbent having the edge there is a known factor to weigh. I expect to go with West>Elgin this season and Elgin>West next season. How they stack up to the competition around the league is still open. This season it's deciding where to place them in relation to Wilt/Oscar, next season Wilt turns in a bit of a dud and the Hawks/Pettit bounce back a bit to rejoin the conversation. Greer is also healthy for the playoffs, but I think he'll top out as an HM.

[AEnigma]

Personally I see stronger ballot competition from Wilt missing the playoffs than I do from Pettit missing the playoffs.

[Dr Positivity]

1. Bill Russell - I'm lower on the early black hole version of Wilt, and he puts up arguably his best playoffs with a meaningful offense of 22 pts 5 ast on good efficiency in combination with the D.

2. Wilt Chamberlain - I had West and Oscar close, but his playoffs look pretty solid to me with a big close out game against Nationals and did fine against Russell so I'll give him the edge

3. Oscar Robertson - Oscar has offensive advantage over West at this point to make up for D and is his team's best player. His supporting cast has talent but leans a bit too offensive to be a contender.

4. Jerry West - West puts up pretty huge efficient 30/5 season with defense and the team does fine without Baylor

5. Elgin Baylor - This is tricky with the GP, but ultimately it's hard to leave him off for his playoff heroics and Pettit and Guerin both had poor team seasons.

Offensive player of the year

1. Oscar Robertson
2. Jerry West
3. Elgin Baylor

Defensive player of the year

1. Bill Russell
2. Wilt Chamberlain
3. Tom Sanders

[eminence]

Personally I see stronger ballot competition from Wilt missing the playoffs than I do from Pettit missing the playoffs.

Agreed, I was mostly referencing Wilt's own surrounding seasons. At first glance that'll lead to West getting pushed off the ballot next year, where Baylor will get on this season, but maybe I wind up leaving Wilt off next season as I'm planning to do with Pettit this season (unlikely, unless someone makes a very convincing case on '63 Wilt completely mailing it in).

[One_and_Done]

1. Bill Russell - I'm lower on the early black hole version of Wilt, and he puts up arguably his best playoffs with a meaningful offense of 22 pts 5 ast on good efficiency in combination with the D.

2. Wilt Chamberlain - I had West and Oscar close, but his playoffs look pretty solid to me with a big close out game against Nationals and did fine against Russell so I'll give him the edge

3. Oscar Robertson - Oscar has offensive advantage over West at this point to make up for D and is his team's best player. His supporting cast has talent but leans a bit too offensive to be a contender.

4. Jerry West - West puts up pretty huge efficient 30/5 season with defense and the team does fine without Baylor

5. Elgin Baylor - This is tricky with the GP, but ultimately it's hard to leave him off for his playoff heroics and Pettit and Guerin both had poor team seasons.

This would be my sense of it as well. I'd go
1. Russell
2. Wilt
3. Oscar
4. West
5. Baylor

These guys were just far and away the 5 best players. Pettit was overrated to begin with, and I somewhat regret not voting against him the years he won.