Just how important is a scoring title?

[ballzboyee]

So that's one decade.

But from 1950 to 1990, how many scoring champs won the title? Mikan did it in 1950. Then it next ALMOST happened in 67, when Rick Barry's Warriors lost in the Finals. It was Kareem's 71 Bucks when it next actually happened after the 1950 Lakers. So, a shade over 20 years. If you care about the ABA, it happened with Dr J's 74 Nets and again in 76 (though tbf that was also over 2 series).

Then we don't see it again until the 90s with Jordan, who did it 6 times.

Then we see it with Shaq in 2000, and haven't seen it since. There are guys who won scoring titles and then won titles, but they haven't done it in the same season since Shaq. Scoring ability is very different from actually doing it during a title season. Kobe, for example, played differently in 08-10 than he did in 06 and 07. And KD has been the George Gervin of our era, leastwise outside of his time with the Warriors when he was winning titles and NOT winning scoring titles.

So yeah, it's been almost a quarter century since we have seen a season in which a player won the scoring title AND won a title.

So the decade cross-section you looked at actually isn't all that relevant.

You seem to miss ballzboyee's point. A scoring title may not be very predictive of winning a championship the year the scoring title is claimed but it does seem predictive of winning titles eventually.

From 1950 to 1990 how many scoring champions won a championship? The majority.

If we pulled all nba first team or even second team, I'd guess we'd see the majority won titles. We know the MVP overwhelmingly correlates with winning a title.

The scoring title correlates in the sense that most guys with it, had long careers and most guys with long careers eventually can get a title.

Blaze pointed out a few recent guys, but just go back a few more years. AI, Tmac, Westbrook, and Melo never won. Wade and Robinson has to be paired with younger multie time MVP's. And in recent years still no ring for Embiid, Harden, or Doncic (he's still really young). Throw in KD had to team up with Curry another scoring champ on the list.

Since 2001 the only scoring champ to win a title as their team's clear best player/scorer are Lebron, Curry, and Kobe. if I go back to 1980 All I add is Shaq and Jordan.

Meanwhile here are some names not on this list

Jokic
Giannis
Dirk
Duncan
KG
Hakeem
Magic
Bird
Russell
Moses
Walton

MVP and All-NBA are media awards and they are also announced after the season. They are subjective. The Scoring Title is a statistical fact. Like I said, 22 out of that of the last 33 NBA Champs have had a scoring title winner on that team. Some of your examples of players who did not win a scoring title also had scoring champs on their teams when they won. Magic had Kareem. Duncan had David Robinson. Hakeem finished runner-up multiple years and would have had several scoring titles if not for Jordan and Shaq. Moses Malone finished runner-up multiple times to George Gervin and Adrian Dantley -- two of the most prolific scorers of all-time. Larry Bird finished running-up to Bernard King and played on the same team with other prolific scorers Kevin McHale, Parish, and Dennis Johnson. Bird would have almost certainly won a scoring title if he had not been on such stacked dynasty in the 80's. I could say the same thing for Magic. Magic could have won a scoring title if he really had wanted to do so. He easily could have averaged 30+ ppg in the 1980's, but he chose to be a god-like facilitator instead. It seems to me that it is kind of a truism that if a team has the most dominant scorer in the league, they are going to win. I don't feel like anybody would seriously question this point in hockey, soccer, or baseball where it is +1 a run or goal at a time. It is way more obvious the impact of a dominant scorers in those sports. I think the volume of the scoring in basketball somehow tricks people into thinking that having the most dominant scorer is somehow less important. Scoring the ball is by far the most important skill in basketball and other sports. Dominant scorers win.

[dhsilv2]

You seem to miss ballzboyee's point. A scoring title may not be very predictive of winning a championship the year the scoring title is claimed but it does seem predictive of winning titles eventually.

From 1950 to 1990 how many scoring champions won a championship? The majority.

If we pulled all nba first team or even second team, I'd guess we'd see the majority won titles. We know the MVP overwhelmingly correlates with winning a title.

The scoring title correlates in the sense that most guys with it, had long careers and most guys with long careers eventually can get a title.

Blaze pointed out a few recent guys, but just go back a few more years. AI, Tmac, Westbrook, and Melo never won. Wade and Robinson has to be paired with younger multie time MVP's. And in recent years still no ring for Embiid, Harden, or Doncic (he's still really young). Throw in KD had to team up with Curry another scoring champ on the list.

Since 2001 the only scoring champ to win a title as their team's clear best player/scorer are Lebron, Curry, and Kobe. if I go back to 1980 All I add is Shaq and Jordan.

Meanwhile here are some names not on this list

Jokic
Giannis
Dirk
Duncan
KG
Hakeem
Magic
Bird
Russell
Moses
Walton

From a rough check I count around 14 scoring champions who didn't or haven't yet won a championship. I count around 9 MVPs who fall in that category. I don't see that as an overwhelming accuracy advantage for the MVP especially considering the pretty much hands off nature of determining the scoring champion in comparison to the MVP.

I got 8 of 36 MVP's and 12 of 33 scoring champs. Could be off of course. I removed BBA and ABA. MVP didn't start till later.

The more telling is the list of guys who didn't win though.

MVP's
Joel Embiid
James Harden
Russell Westbrook
Derrick Rose
Steve Nash
Allen Iverson
Karl Malone
Charles Barkley

Other than Embiid who's still young all made the conference finals. Harden, Westbrook, AI, Malone, and Chuck all lost in the finals. Even Embiid has made it to the second round numerous times.

Rose only has the 1 conference finals but injuries. Other than Westbrook I believe you can argue all these guys were the clear best player on at least a conference finals run (minus Embiid). AI (yes Deke has a case for playoffs but not regular season) is the only guy I believe who only had 1 conference finals to his name as you go lower.

Scoring Champs
Joel Embiid
James Harden
Russell Westbrook
Carmelo Anthony
Allen Iverson*
Tracy McGrady*
Dominique Wilkins*
Bernard King*
Adrian Dantley*
George Gervin*
Pete Maravich*
George Yardley*

We already covered Embiid, Harden, Westrbook, and AI.

Tmac never got out of the first round. King had injuries but never made a conference finals. Gervin had 2 conference finals where he only had to win one round. Pistol's only time out of the first round was on the bench for the celtics. Nique never made the conference finals ad only got out of the first round 3 times. Yardley has 2 finals to his name.

And we don't even have Tiny to discuss since he won in a smaller role in boston but before that had nothing to show for his scoring.

There's really no doubt that the floor for the scoring champs is overwhelmingly lower then MVP. MVP's almost always have good playoff success. Scoring champs don't.

[dhsilv2]

You seem to miss ballzboyee's point. A scoring title may not be very predictive of winning a championship the year the scoring title is claimed but it does seem predictive of winning titles eventually.

From 1950 to 1990 how many scoring champions won a championship? The majority.

If we pulled all nba first team or even second team, I'd guess we'd see the majority won titles. We know the MVP overwhelmingly correlates with winning a title.

The scoring title correlates in the sense that most guys with it, had long careers and most guys with long careers eventually can get a title.

Blaze pointed out a few recent guys, but just go back a few more years. AI, Tmac, Westbrook, and Melo never won. Wade and Robinson has to be paired with younger multie time MVP's. And in recent years still no ring for Embiid, Harden, or Doncic (he's still really young). Throw in KD had to team up with Curry another scoring champ on the list.

Since 2001 the only scoring champ to win a title as their team's clear best player/scorer are Lebron, Curry, and Kobe. if I go back to 1980 All I add is Shaq and Jordan.

Meanwhile here are some names not on this list

Jokic
Giannis
Dirk
Duncan
KG
Hakeem
Magic
Bird
Russell
Moses
Walton

MVP and All-NBA are media awards and they are also announced after the season. They are subjective. The Scoring Title is a statistical fact. Like I said, 22 out of that of the last 33 NBA Champs have had a scoring title winner on that team. Some of your examples of players who did not win a scoring title also had scoring champs on their teams when they won. Magic had Kareem. Duncan had David Robinson. Hakeem finished runner-up multiple years and would have had several scoring titles if not for Jordan and Shaq. Moses Malone finished runner-up multiple times to George Gervin and Adrian Dantley -- two of the most prolific scorers of all-time. Larry Bird finished running-up to Bernard King and played on the same team with other prolific scorers Kevin McHale, Parish, and Dennis Johnson. Bird would have almost certainly won a scoring title if he had not been on such stacked dynasty in the 80's. I could say the same thing for Magic. Magic could have won a scoring title if he really had wanted to do so. He easily could have averaged 30+ ppg in the 1980's, but he chose to be a god-like facilitator instead. It seems to me that it is kind of a truism that if a team has the most dominant scorer in the league, they are going to win. I don't feel like anybody would seriously question this point in hockey, soccer, or baseball where it is +1 a run or goal at a time. It is way more obvious the impact of a dominant scorers in those sports. I think the volume of the scoring in basketball somehow tricks people into thinking that having the most dominant scorer is somehow less important. Scoring the ball is by far the most important skill in basketball and other sports. Dominant scorers win.

Yeah and Bird and Tiny...

This is such a dishonest take on connecting a scoring champ to a title, it's laughable. Robinson was a defensive specialist by the time they won in 99 let alone in 03.

But I think what you said about Bird basically sums up why the scoring title is meaningless. It goes to players on teams that aren't in a position to win. You're arguing correlation without causation here.

[ballzboyee]

If we pulled all nba first team or even second team, I'd guess we'd see the majority won titles. We know the MVP overwhelmingly correlates with winning a title.

The scoring title correlates in the sense that most guys with it, had long careers and most guys with long careers eventually can get a title.

Blaze pointed out a few recent guys, but just go back a few more years. AI, Tmac, Westbrook, and Melo never won. Wade and Robinson has to be paired with younger multie time MVP's. And in recent years still no ring for Embiid, Harden, or Doncic (he's still really young). Throw in KD had to team up with Curry another scoring champ on the list.

Since 2001 the only scoring champ to win a title as their team's clear best player/scorer are Lebron, Curry, and Kobe. if I go back to 1980 All I add is Shaq and Jordan.

Meanwhile here are some names not on this list

Jokic
Giannis
Dirk
Duncan
KG
Hakeem
Magic
Bird
Russell
Moses
Walton

From a rough check I count around 14 scoring champions who didn't or haven't yet won a championship. I count around 9 MVPs who fall in that category. I don't see that as an overwhelming accuracy advantage for the MVP especially considering the pretty much hands off nature of determining the scoring champion in comparison to the MVP.

I got 8 of 36 MVP's and 12 of 33 scoring champs. Could be off of course. I removed BBA and ABA. MVP didn't start till later.

The more telling is the list of guys who didn't win though.

MVP's
Joel Embiid
James Harden
Russell Westbrook
Derrick Rose
Steve Nash
Allen Iverson
Karl Malone
Charles Barkley

Other than Embiid who's still young all made the conference finals. Harden, Westbrook, AI, Malone, and Chuck all lost in the finals. Even Embiid has made it to the second round numerous times.

Rose only has the 1 conference finals but injuries. Other than Westbrook I believe you can argue all these guys were the clear best player on at least a conference finals run (minus Embiid). AI is the only guy I believe who only had 1 conference finals to his name as you go lower.

Scoring Champs
Joel Embiid
James Harden
Russell Westbrook
Carmelo Anthony
Allen Iverson*
Tracy McGrady*
Dominique Wilkins*
Bernard King*
Adrian Dantley*
George Gervin*
Pete Maravich*
George Yardley*

We already covered Embiid, Harden, Westrbook, and AI.

Tmac never got out of the first round. King had injuries but never made a conference finals. Gervin had 2 conference finals where he only had to win one round. Pistol's only time out of the first round was on the bench for the celtics. Nique never made the conference finals ad only got out of the first round 3 times. Yardley has 2 finals to his name.

And we don't even have Tiny to discuss since he won in a smaller role in boston but before that had nothing to show for his scoring.

There's really no doubt that the floor for the scoring champs is overwhelmingly lower then MVP. MVP's almost always have good playoff success. Scoring champs don't.

MVP almost always goes to one of the best scorers on one of the best teams after the season. It's a two-part award. Pretty easy to explain. Scoring title is just an objective fact on who scored the most points during a season.

[dhsilv2]

From a rough check I count around 14 scoring champions who didn't or haven't yet won a championship. I count around 9 MVPs who fall in that category. I don't see that as an overwhelming accuracy advantage for the MVP especially considering the pretty much hands off nature of determining the scoring champion in comparison to the MVP.

I got 8 of 36 MVP's and 12 of 33 scoring champs. Could be off of course. I removed BBA and ABA. MVP didn't start till later.

The more telling is the list of guys who didn't win though.

MVP's
Joel Embiid
James Harden
Russell Westbrook
Derrick Rose
Steve Nash
Allen Iverson
Karl Malone
Charles Barkley

Other than Embiid who's still young all made the conference finals. Harden, Westbrook, AI, Malone, and Chuck all lost in the finals. Even Embiid has made it to the second round numerous times.

Rose only has the 1 conference finals but injuries. Other than Westbrook I believe you can argue all these guys were the clear best player on at least a conference finals run (minus Embiid). AI is the only guy I believe who only had 1 conference finals to his name as you go lower.

Scoring Champs
Joel Embiid
James Harden
Russell Westbrook
Carmelo Anthony
Allen Iverson*
Tracy McGrady*
Dominique Wilkins*
Bernard King*
Adrian Dantley*
George Gervin*
Pete Maravich*
George Yardley*

We already covered Embiid, Harden, Westrbook, and AI.

Tmac never got out of the first round. King had injuries but never made a conference finals. Gervin had 2 conference finals where he only had to win one round. Pistol's only time out of the first round was on the bench for the celtics. Nique never made the conference finals ad only got out of the first round 3 times. Yardley has 2 finals to his name.

And we don't even have Tiny to discuss since he won in a smaller role in boston but before that had nothing to show for his scoring.

There's really no doubt that the floor for the scoring champs is overwhelmingly lower then MVP. MVP's almost always have good playoff success. Scoring champs don't.

MVP almost always goes to one of the best scorers on one of the best teams after the season. It's a two-part award. Pretty easy to explain. Scoring title is just an objective fact on who scored the most points during a season.

Correct, the MVP goes to a player who's team was good. The scoring title doesn't. It goes to someone who likely was chucking because their team wasn't very good. It could indicate they're a great player on a bad team. I could indicate they're a chucker who's unlikely to have team success. But we know with an MVP, you can have team success playing the way you do.

[tsherkin]

But we know with an MVP, you can have team success playing the way you do.

We do also see with the MVP that you can have a bleh volume scorer on a highly-proficient defensive team and that can turn into an MVP. We saw that with Iverson and Rose, for example. And that's more about bleh offense fronted by the way the player was performing, and then the defense/rebounding winning the possession game. Of course, they still have to perform at a given level; indeed, both Iverson and Rose were at (Iverson) or slightly above (Rose) league average efficiency during their MVP seasons.

So the quality of the scoring is relevant to the MVP to at least some extent, and less so to the scoring title. That speaks to quality of player, but it also looks at scoring which may not be as elite as the volume alone might suggest.

[dhsilv2]

But we know with an MVP, you can have team success playing the way you do.

We do also see with the MVP that you can have a bleh volume scorer on a highly-proficient defensive team and that can turn into an MVP. We saw that with Iverson and Rose, for example. And that's more about bleh offense fronted by the way the player was performing, and then the defense/rebounding winning the possession game. Of course, they still have to perform at a given level; indeed, both Iverson and Rose were at (Iverson) or slightly above (Rose) league average efficiency during their MVP seasons.

So the quality of the scoring is relevant to the MVP to at least some extent, and less so to the scoring title. That speaks to quality of player, but it also looks at scoring which may not be as elite as the volume alone might suggest.

Well, this certainly is an argument for Blaze's point that the MVP is narrative driven and not perfect. It's just that these outliers tend to be less common than guys leading the league in scoring on teams with barely winning or even losing records.

[tsherkin]

Well, this certainly is an argument for Blaze's point that the MVP is narrative driven and not perfect. It's just that these outliers tend to be less common than guys leading the league in scoring on teams with barely winning or even losing records.

I agree that the MVP has a heavy narrative component, yes. I also agree that it's at least a little more well-correlated with title chances/contention than the scoring title, though.

[Sane]

Can they? That actually isnt 100% guaranteed at all...

It 100% can be done. That doesn't mean you're guaranteed a title of you try to. Do you understand the difference?

Uh… what’s the basis for this 100% thing, because as I’ve laid out in my post, scoring champions rarely win the title the same year, and as @tsherkin further laid out, at least a dozen of them never won a title period.

That's because you're shifting the burden of proof. I can show you data that says points and wins are loosely correlated in general. I don't have to go out and prove that to you for the first time in history.

You have to go out and prove that it's not possible to win with a scoring champion. I'll save you the trouble: you can't prove that.

Also I didn't want to nitpick for just this point, but since we're talking: the requirement that they win it in the same year is totally arbitrary and subjective. That's a made up requirement so that the story suits your narrative.

[tsherkin]

It 100% can be done. That doesn't mean you're guaranteed a title of you try to. Do you understand the difference?

Uh… what’s the basis for this 100% thing, because as I’ve laid out in my post, scoring champions rarely win the title the same year, and as @tsherkin further laid out, at least a dozen of them never won a title period.

That's because you're shifting the burden of proof. I can show you data that says points and wins are loosely correlated in general. I don't have to go out and prove that to you for the first time in history.

You have to go out and prove that it's not possible to win with a scoring champion. I'll save you the trouble: you can't prove that.

Also I didn't want to nitpick for just this point, but since we're talking: the requirement that they win it in the same year is totally arbitrary and subjective. That's a made up requirement so that the story suits your narrative.

But what I'm saying is you can't make the broad comment without also examining the quality of scoring (and overall offensive play).

Efficiency. Resilience in the playoffs. # of dribbles/time of possession, playmaking, turnovers. These are all beyond the raw scoring volume, which is all the scoring title considers. Like, I question anyone who thinks that 86 Nique was a title-level player. Slightly below-average efficiency on high volume, no playmaking, negative TS Add, 11th-ranked offense in a 23-team league, customarily-tepid playmaking. With his shooting volume and turnover economy, as well as his ORB, he ended up having decent impact on O, but he was the classic gunner we've seen for decades doesn't really correlate to real title contention.

So again, looking ONLY at PPG is a pretty narrow sliver, and there are loads of examples where it wasn't really enough. And that's even before we start considering defensive inadequacy in certain players, and then all that time-of-possession stuff which has implications for a ceiling on offensive impact in many players.

Yeah, a lot of the best guys in league history have scored a lot, and even won a scoring title in their history... but there are ADDITIONAL factors beyond JUST the scoring title which create the full picture, and which are necessary.

[Sane]

Uh… what’s the basis for this 100% thing, because as I’ve laid out in my post, scoring champions rarely win the title the same year, and as @tsherkin further laid out, at least a dozen of them never won a title period.

That's because you're shifting the burden of proof. I can show you data that says points and wins are loosely correlated in general. I don't have to go out and prove that to you for the first time in history.

You have to go out and prove that it's not possible to win with a scoring champion. I'll save you the trouble: you can't prove that.

Also I didn't want to nitpick for just this point, but since we're talking: the requirement that they win it in the same year is totally arbitrary and subjective. That's a made up requirement so that the story suits your narrative.

But what I'm saying is you can't make the broad comment without also examining the quality of scoring (and overall offensive play).

Efficiency. Resilience in the playoffs. # of dribbles/time of possession, playmaking, turnovers. These are all beyond the raw scoring volume, which is all the scoring title considers. Like, I question anyone who thinks that 86 Nique was a title-level player. Slightly below-average efficiency on high volume, no playmaking, negative TS Add, 11th-ranked offense in a 23-team league, customarily-tepid playmaking. With his shooting volume and turnover economy, as well as his ORB, he ended up having decent impact on O, but he was the classic gunner we've seen for decades doesn't really correlate to real title contention.

So again, looking ONLY at PPG is a pretty narrow sliver, and there are loads of examples where it wasn't really enough. And that's even before we start considering defensive inadequacy in certain players, and then all that time-of-possession stuff which has implications for a ceiling on offensive impact in many players.

Yeah, a lot of the best guys in league history have scored a lot, and even won a scoring title in their history... but there are ADDITIONAL factors beyond JUST the scoring title which create the full picture, and which are necessary.

I don't think you're fully understanding dude. I can make the broad comment because I can show a correlation of some sort. I can say scoring more broadly equates to winning more. That won't factor in 50% of the game (defense) but it will have a loose correlation.

What you're theorizing here is totally unproven. Yes you're stitching together pieces of evidence but when you look at the number of scoring title winners who have win an NBA title, there is actually a loose correlation there. You're randomly ignoring this loose correlation arbitrarily by insisting that they should have won the titles in the same year. That's baloney, you can throw that in the bin and we have a decent correlation.

Where your evidence and stats are divorced from reality is an invisible base assumption: that if a person scores at high volume and medium efficiency, that's what they are in perpetuity. That's false. History shows those players many times just side shuffled into a lower volume and better efficiency to suit their teams' winning strategy.

There are additional factors but I'm holding everything else constant. Honestly if I'm the owner of a team with an Allen Iverson or a Melo and my coach comes and tells me they have no idea how to use those guys as important pieces in a title run, that coach is fired. It's not even a conversation. Sounds like an excuse to lose if anything.

Yes of course give me the scoring champion. It's my job to find a coach who knows how to sharpen that extremely rare commodity.

[tsherkin]

I don't think you're fully understanding dude. I can make the broad comment because I can show a correlation of some sort. I can say scoring more broadly equates to winning more. That won't factor in 50% of the game (defense) but it will have a loose correlation.

But again, that correlation is heavily dependent upon a very small number of fairly specific players. Like, you remove Jordan, and the whole picture you're describing changes rather significantly.

What you're theorizing here is totally unproven.

Not really. It's actually the prevailing theory from the pre-Jordan era...

Yes you're stitching together pieces of evidence but when you look at the number of scoring title winners who have win an NBA title, there is actually a loose correlation there.

But again, retrack. You're speaking of Kareem, Jordan and Shaq, primarily. Especially until you go back into the BAA/early NBA.

Sure, you find guys who HAVE won the scoring title who could carry on and win an NBA title, but the HOW changes. They aren't scoring at that same volume when they won the title, primarily. Especially guys like Archibald and McAdoo, who had totally different roles when they finally won.

You're randomly ignoring this loose correlation arbitrarily by insisting that they should have won the titles in the same year. That's baloney, you can throw that in the bin and we have a decent correlation.

No, I'm not ignoring anything. I'm pointing out inconsistencies and issues with making a broad comment linking scoring titles and NBA championships.

Where your evidence and stats are divorced from reality is an invisible base assumption: that if a person scores at high volume and medium efficiency, that's what they are in perpetuity. That's false. History shows those players many times just side shuffled into a lower volume and better efficiency to suit their teams' winning strategy.

Yes... precisely. So the scoring title is actually less relevant than the broader aspect of the player's ability... and shooting volume involved in the scoring title isn't that important. And with the very small number of players involved, it's also a challenge to properly assess what's going on.

There are additional factors but I'm holding everything else constant. Honestly if I'm the owner of a team with an Allen Iverson or a Melo and my coach comes and tells me they have no idea how to use those guys as important pieces in a title run, that coach is fired. It's not even a conversation. Sounds like an excuse to lose if anything.

And see, that's a mistake. Both of those guys are far from the profile of the successful scorers who won titles... and had other angles of impact as well. Melo and AI had some very specific issues with their scoring which go beyond their volume, which was part of my point.

Yes of course give me the scoring champion. It's my job to find a coach who knows how to sharpen that extremely rare commodity.

Nah, that's a mistake waiting to happen without extra details. Yeah, if you're looking at a top 15 player overall, sure, you've got something to work with. Forgetting that bit and excising it from the conversation is disingenuous.