Retro Player of the Year 1962-63 UPDATE — Bill Russell

[OhayoKD]

Alright, voting time.

1. Bill Russell

The biggest impact(likely of history) on the best team to go with another championship and another runaway MVP. Russell is now playing 14 more minutes than the next guy as the Celitcs are, again, a massive regular-season outlier and, again, secure a title with this playoff run including a victory against a Lakers team with two players in successive seasons showcasing superstar-level signals.

I guess one could go "Oscar took them to 7, really?" but it's not really an open and shut-case Russell even had a notable help advantage to speak of. There is the 20+ point drop-off we see last year, a disparity in minute-distribution Tim Duncan would not dream of, and, for whatever it's worth, over 63 and 64 the Celtics are 2-2 with a negative net-rating without their center. Boston becomes a pretty weak cast eventually and now that we are as close to 69 as we are 57, with Basketball reference marking the stars of the old superteam as flat-out role players, I think it's fair to assume we are approaching, if not having already reached, that point.

I can still humor the Celtics as a solid cast of complimentary pieces(aided by Bill Russell's playstyle being easier to compliment than any other star), but that is not worthy of a 5-peat for anyone in history... excepting this thread's likely unanimous #1 (again).

2. Oscar Robertson

It's Oscar's turn to play the "I played Bill Russell close" card. The team didn't really do anything special during the regular-season but we've seen them be pretty horrible in Oscar's absence and Oscar is again putting up big numbers to go with an extra 11-minutes averaged over the next guy. Oscar puts seemingly better numbers in the postseason while taking the most dominant player and team in the sport's history all the way and accordingly may well end up a unanimous #2.

Also beat the 2nd best team (by srs) in the first round so there's that.

3. Wilt Chamberlain

Well this is weird. The year before Wilt authors what is likely the most credible argument against peak Russell yet before arguably mounting a more credible one 2 seasons later. Yet, sandwiched between these 2 seasons is one of the more unusual down-years with a boatload of off-court drama paired with wildly disappointing (team-wide) on-court performance. Seemingly lots of production going by basketball-reference or contemporary accounts, but the final result calls into question just how effectively it all translates. Still surrounded by two clear top two seasons in more typical circumstances, I have a rough time putting Wilt too low.

4. Bob Petit

Not a bad swan song (as a poy candidate). Led a decent regular-season team in-spite of Hagan falling off and probably outplayed Baylor and West to nearly knock of what one could conceivably argue as the most "stacked" team that season from a personnel perspective.

5. Elgin Baylor

Top player on the 2nd or 3rd best regular-season team(record vs srs), and the third best postseason team. West's signal this year is a little better than Baylor's last year, but Baylor plays significantly more games and seems to translate better in this year's playoffs.

[Djoker]

1963 Finals Game 6 is one of the few full games from the 60's that are available to watch.

Here is the full box score for that game too from none other than Squared2020.

[70sFan]

1963 Finals Game 6 is one of the few full games from the 60's that are available to watch.

Here is the full box score for that game too from none other than Squared2020.

We have a few games from earlier seasons that are almost complete (like 90+% complete).

[Dutchball97]

Player of the Year
1. Bill Russell - This wasn't as immediate of a choice as some other years for me as Oscar put together a very impressive season in his own right with significantly less help. That said, Russell won MVP by leading the Celtics to a historically good defensive rating and the best record in the league. In the post-season Russell led the Celtics past Oscar's Royals head to head before beating one of the strongest versions of the 60s Lakers with both Elgin and West playing at an elite level.

2. Oscar Robertson - A prettly clear top 2 here imo as Oscar was playing at a MVP level in the regular season before arguably getting even better in the post-season. I think the main thing seperating him from Russell is that the Royals had the top offense but by not that big of a margin, while the Celtics were lapping the field in defense. I don't hold it against Oscar that the Royals didn't beat the Celtics as Russell obviously had more to work with but overall I think Russell had the better season, although I must admit that if the Royals had made the finals Oscar probably would've been #1.

3. Bob Pettit - Another All-NBA 1st team season for Pettit leading the Hawks to a competitive record and solid play-off run. It was a close call with Baylor for this spot as they had very similar quality regular seasons and seemed to keep pace with each other perfectly in their head to head match up in the post-season. While Baylor should be commended for leading the Lakers to as much success as they had in the regular season with West missing significant time, come play-off time West and Baylor both had arguments to be the best player on the team. The Hawks were really the Pettit show at this point, especially how he went off against the Pistons.

4. Elgin Baylor - Close call for 3rd but Pettit just wins out for me. That doesn't make Baylor's season any less impressive though. Sadly this will probably be the final season for him where he will receive serious consideration for POY as he falls off steadily from 64 onwards.

5. Jerry West - Missing games hurts and still not being the leader of his team doesn't help either but West is really getting into his own at this point. I also considered Sam Jones and Hal Greer but I don't think West's missed games are enough for me to place them above him. Wilt of course deserves a mention but missing the post-season is too much even for him in my book.

Offensive Player of the Year
1. Oscar Robertson
2. Elgin Baylor
3. Jerry West

The 3 top offenses in both the regular season and post-season were the Royals, Lakers and Nationals. Oscar is still clearly in the lead for now with his combination of scoring and playmaking leading to consistent top offenses. I did strongly consider Hal Greer here because of that but I do believe both Baylor and West are superior offenses players this season. Pettit, Bellamy and Wilt all deserve mentions as well but there's only so many spots on these ballots.

Defensive Player of the Year
1. Bill Russell
2. Tom Sanders
3. Bob Pettit

Russell is still the easy pick and this season he probably has the least competition for this award in his entire career. The Celtics were the best defense by a mile, while the Hawks were second best in both the regular season and post-season. Adding Beaty definitely helped a lot on defense but looking at the respective minutes played by Beaty and Pettit I'm going to give most of the credit to the guy playing significantly more.

[Djoker]

VOTING POST

POY

1. Bill Russell - MVP, 1st Team All-NBA and anchored an outlier defense yet again. Easy choice for #1 as it's also one of his best scoring years in the playoffs. 16.8/23.6/4.5 on 46.4 %TS (-2.8 rTS) in the RS then 20.3/25.1/5.1 on 51.9 %TS (+2.7 rTS) in the PS.

2. Oscar Robertson - 1st Team All-NBA and led the #1 offense for a third season in a row. Just a monster combination of scoring and playmaking. 28.3/10.4/9.5 on 58.8 %TS (+9.6 rTS) in the RS then 31.8/13.0/9.0 on 57.4 %TS (+8.2 rTS) in the PS. He played a magnificent 7-game series against Boston in the EDF and not winning it shouldn't be held against him considering the major talent edge for the Celtics. Not to mention that his Royals upset a better Nationals team in the EDSF.

3. Wilt Chamberlain - 2nd Team All-NBA. Reduced impact in what is a disappointing regular season from a team perspective as the Warriors missed the playoffs in the weaker Western Division. Still when they relocated, Arizin retired so the talent level decreased around him. Wilt still had an immaculate scoring season and given his defensive cred, it's hard for me to put him below clearly far inferior players. Averaged 44.8/24.3/3.4 on 55.0 %TS (+5.8 rTS).

4. Elgin Baylor - 1st Team All-NBA. Last great season before succumbing to injuries and the Lakers become West's team. Terrific all-around offensive player who can both score and pass well. 34.0/14.3/4.8 on 51.9 %TS (+2.7 rTS) in the RS then 32.6/13.6/4.5 on 50.8 %TS (+1.5 rTS) in the PS.

5. Bob Pettit - 1st Team All-NBA. 28.4/15.1/3.1 on 52.5 %TS (+3.3 rTS) in the RS then 31.8/15.1/3.0 on 54.3 %TS (+5.1 rTS). He really had a great postseason in what his last truly elite year. He was a just a little bit better than West offensively and the #1 guy on his team so he got the nod here especially given that West missed a lot of games.

HM: Jerry West

OPOY

1. Oscar Robertson - Led the #1 offense. Monster combo of scoring and playmaking.

2. Elgin Baylor - Next best combo of scoring and playmaking after Oscar.

3. Wilt Chamberlain - Scoring simply too good to ignore in terms of both volume and efficiency.

DPOY

1. Bill Russell

2. Wilt Chamberlain

3. Bob Pettit - Hawks were the #2 defense and he was a great rebounder and paint presence.

[eminence]

Player of the Year
1. Bill Russell
I wonder if fans of other teams were in the acceptance stage yet? Absurdly consistently winning close series. Russell continues to anchor the best defensive dynasty ever. I'm out of things to say about him and the Celtics.

2. Oscar Robertson
Oscar gets his crack at the Celtics and does as well as folks ever do, goes 7 and comes up short. I'm curious how much of a 'make someone else beat us' strategy the Celtics took, as the stats point towards Oscar performing excellently and everyone else coming up well short in that series. An offensive monster, even West I don't think was *that* close to him and it'd take until Magic until we saw a similar level of offensive player. Still curious if anybody has any articles/links to that game 5 vs the Naitonals.

3. Elgin Baylor
The healthy Laker this go around, impact signals between the two aren't different enough for me to feel confident going towards West as my top vote getter in a season where Baylor narrowly grabbed #2 in MVP, played in a bunch more games and still seemed to be their #1 offensive option.

4. Bob Pettit
Lots of new things with the Hawks this season, but one old piece still chugging along - Mr. Pettit. I don't think anything too dramatic changed about Pettit over his career, but I do think players have can notably better/worse POY seasons independent of dramatic changes in their own 'goodness'. Still a great scorer/rebounder and another season that supports him being a solid defender. I could see putting him over Baylor, but I'll go with Elgin for having a bit more team success/being a bit more self-sufficient on offense.

5. Wilt Chamberlain
The team defensive results in this one (and a couple of others) leave Wilt well short of Russell in my defensive estimations, still enough for DPOY ballot contention in plenty of years - but maybe a guy I think of a bit more in line with Kerr in this era, or Marc more recently. Not true all-timers. This is the first fairly notable change I've come to while going through this project (it does bring me up a bit on Wilt's offense). In this particular season I imagine his early offensive approach may have been more helpful than in surrounding seasons, carrying a huge load with poor support to a decent, if uninspiring, result.

[LA Bird]

Not voting this year because I have no idea what to do with Wilt. If we look at his regular season stats, there are 3 somewhat distinct sections

Games 1~30: 50.9 points, 2.6 assists (11-19, -1.90 MOV)
Games 31~53*: 41.9 points, 2.0 assists (8-14, -1.41 MOV) *Excluded the Jan 20 game because he only played 4 minutes
Games 54~80: 41.9 points, 5.3 assists (12-15, -2.89 MOV)

Wilt started the season with similar scoring numbers as 1962 and ended the season with similar assist numbers as 1964. But then there is a chunk in the middle where he was neither scoring a ton (for his standards) nor really passing. And maybe I didn't dig deep enough but there doesn't seem to be any clear reasons for the drastic shifts either. Between Dec 22 and Jan 2, Wilt scored 40+ only once in seven games when he had three 60 point games just a week prior. This was way after Gola was traded and Meschery had returned to the team so why did he suddenly started scoring less? Then just as randomly, Wilt doubled his assists without losing any scoring volume. The usual narrative is that he only started passing in 1964 with the arrival of Hannum but this was clearly not the case when we check the game logs. The problem though with all these statistical changes is that the Warriors were still pretty bad through it all. The passing months had the best W/L record but also the worst MOV. And for all the credit Hannum gets for the transformation of Wilt in 1964, they were actually a worse offensive team relative to the league that won through improved defense. Hannum was also still the coach in 1965 when the Warriors were the worst offense and team in the league and Wilt's assists had dropped back down to 3.1. The 63 Warriors lacking a strong #2 without Arizin is often mentioned but Meschery was the second highest scorer on the 64 Warriors too when team success wasn't a problem. I think the main issue with 63 Wilt was defense but there were some interesting things going on with his offensive development that gets overlooked because this was an irrelevant non-playoffs year.

Fun fact: Arizin played for 3 more years with the (Camden) Bullets.

[AEnigma]

Votes are tallied. I recorded 12 voters: Djoker, AEnigma, Dutchball97, Dr. Positivity, penbeast0, Ardee, 70sFan, eminence, OhayoKD, Narigo, trex, and trelos. Eminence, penbeast, OhayoKD, Ardee, and Narigo abstained from voting for Offensive and Defensive Player of the Year. Please let me know if I seem to have missed or otherwise improperly recorded a vote.

1962-63 Results

(Retro) Offensive Player of the Year — Oscar Robertson (3) (Unanimous)

Code: Select all

Player       1st   2nd   3rd   Points  Shares
1. Oscar Robertson    7   0   0    35     1.000
2. Elgin Baylor    0   4   1    13     0.371
3. Jerry West   0    2    1     7    0.200
4. Walt Bellamy   0   1   1     4    0.114
5. Bob Pettit     0   0   2     2    0.057
6. Hal Greer     0   0   1     1    0.029
6. Wilt Chamberlain   0   0   1    1    0.029

(Retro) Defensive Player of the Year — Bill Russell (7) (Unanimous)

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Player         1st   2nd   3rd   Points  Shares
1. Bill Russell   7    0    0     35     1.000
2. Tom Sanders   0   4   0    12    0.343
3. Wilt Chamberlain    0   2   1    7    0.200
4. Bob Pettit   0   1   2    5    0.143
5. K.C. Jones   0   0   1    1    0.029
5. Red Kerr   0   0   1    1    0.029
5. Rudy LaRusso   0   0   1    1    0.029
5. Zelmo Beaty   0   0   1    1    0.029

Retro Player of the Year — Bill Russell (5) (Unanimous)

Code: Select all

Player      1st 2nd 3rd 4th 5th Pts  POY Shares
1. Bill Russell  12  0  0  0  0   120    1.000
2. Oscar Robertson  0  11  1  0  0   82  0.683
3. Wilt Chamberlain   0  1  5  0  4   36    0.300
4. Elgin Baylor    0  0  3  5  3   33    0.275
5. Bob Pettit  0  0  1  5  4   24   0.200
6. Jerry West    0  0  1  2  1   12    0.100
7. Hal Greer    0  0  1  0  0   5    0.042

In the prior project, there were 12 votes, with Dr. Positivity and penbeast overlapping. With those two prior ballots removed, these are the aggregated results of the two projects across 22 total ballots:

Spoiler:

Code: Select all

Player   1st 2nd 3rd 4th 5th Pts  POY Shares
1. Bill Russell  21  1  0  0  0   217    0.986
2. Oscar Robertson  1  20  1  0  0   155  0.705
3. Elgin Baylor   0  0  9  9  3   75    0.341
4. Wilt Chamberlain    0  1  9  2  6   64    0.291
5. Bob Pettit  0  0  1  9  10   42   0.190
6. Jerry West    0  0  1  2  3   14   0.064
7. Hal Greer    0  0  1  0  0   5    0.023

1964 thread will open shortly.