Retro Player of the Year 1963-64 UPDATE — Bill Russell

[OhayoKD]

3. Bill Russell - Close call between my OPOY and DPOY. Though Bill won the title, his playoff performance slumps slightly more than Oscar's. I'm probably going counter to much of the board in having Russell only 3rd. But I don't think it's really a stretch to put the guy who has such tremendous impact signals ahead of Russell.

I mean...tiny sample, but if we went with Russell's signals for this time period(62-66 or 64 on its own), it looks better than anything we have for Oscar (and even Wilt). He also has a much bigger minutes gap over the next guy on his team than Oscar does. Pretty skeptical Oscar is even approaching Russell in terms of impact at this point.

[AEnigma]

Votes are tallied. I recorded 14 voters: Djoker, AEnigma, Dutchball97, Dr. Positivity, penbeast0, Ardee, LA Bird, eminence, IlikeShaiGuys, One_and_Done, OhayoKD, Narigo, trex, and trelos. Eminence, penbeast, OhayoKD, LA Bird, One_and_Done, 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.

1963-64 Results

(Retro) Offensive Player of the Year — Oscar Robertson (4) (Unanimous)

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Player       1st   2nd   3rd   Points  Shares
1. Oscar Robertson    7   0   0    35     1.000
2. Jerry West   0    5    2     17    0.486
3. Wilt Chamberlain   0   2   5    11    0.314

(Retro) Defensive Player of the Year — Bill Russell (8) (Unanimous)

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Player         1st   2nd   3rd   Points  Shares
1. Bill Russell   7    0    0     35     1.000
2. Wilt Chamberlain    0   7   0    21    0.600
3. Nate Thurmond    0   0   4    4    0.114
4. Tom Sanders   0   0   3    3    0.086

Retro Player of the Year — Bill Russell (6)

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Player      1st 2nd 3rd 4th 5th Pts  POY Shares
1. Bill Russell  9  4  1  0  0   123    0.879
2. Wilt Chamberlain  5  9  0  0  0   113   0.807
3. Oscar Robertson   0  1  13  0  0   72   0.514
4. Jerry West    0  0  0  13  1   40    0.286
5. Bob Pettit  0  0  0  1  12   15   0.107
6. Elgin Baylor    0  0  0  0  1   1    0.007

In the prior project, there were 17 votes, with Dr. Positivity and penbeast overlapping. With those two prior ballots removed, these are the aggregated results of the two projects across 29 total ballots:

Spoiler:

Code: Select all

Player   1st 2nd 3rd 4th 5th Pts  POY Shares
1. Wilt Chamberlain  14  14  1  0  0   243    0.838
2. Bill Russell  13  12  4  0  0   234  0.807
3. Oscar Robertson   2  3  24  0  0   161    0.555
4. Jerry West    0  0  0  26  3   81    0.279
5. Bob Pettit  0  0  0  3  25   34   0.117
6. Elgin Baylor    0  0  0  0  1   1    0.034

1965 thread will open shortly.

[trex_8063]

3. Bill Russell - Close call between my OPOY and DPOY. Though Bill won the title, his playoff performance slumps slightly more than Oscar's. I'm probably going counter to much of the board in having Russell only 3rd. But I don't think it's really a stretch to put the guy who has such tremendous impact signals ahead of Russell.

I mean...tiny sample, but if we went with Russell's signals for this time period(62-66 or 64 on its own), it looks better than anything we have for Oscar (and even Wilt). He also has a much bigger minutes gap over the next guy on his team than Oscar does. Pretty skeptical Oscar is even approaching Russell in terms of impact at this point.

"....even approaching..." seems an extreme statement.

From '61-65, Royals went 218-166 [.568] with Oscar (on pace for 46.55 wins in 82-game season), and went 3-12 [.200] without him (on pace for 16.4 wins); and his prime/career WOWYR are +8.4/+8.5 (vs +6.4/+6.2 for Russell).

I got no problem if you think Russell was the bigger impact player; he may well have been. I'm skeptical the distance you imply is manifested in the data, however.

[OhayoKD]

3. Bill Russell - Close call between my OPOY and DPOY. Though Bill won the title, his playoff performance slumps slightly more than Oscar's. I'm probably going counter to much of the board in having Russell only 3rd. But I don't think it's really a stretch to put the guy who has such tremendous impact signals ahead of Russell.

I mean...tiny sample, but if we went with Russell's signals for this time period(62-66 or 64 on its own), it looks better than anything we have for Oscar (and even Wilt). He also has a much bigger minutes gap over the next guy on his team than Oscar does. Pretty skeptical Oscar is even approaching Russell in terms of impact at this point.

"....even approaching..." seems an extreme statement.

From '61-65, Royals went 218-166 [.568] with Oscar (on pace for 46.55 wins in 82-game season), and went 3-12 [.200] without him (on pace for 16.4 wins)

From 61-65 the Celtics went 293-95 with Russell(62-win pace) and 3-8 without (22-win pace). So, even if we just go by raw record(celtics are worse by net-rating than record minus Russell), Russell has a substantial edge.

and his prime/career WOWYR are +8.4/+8.5 (vs +6.4/+6.2 for Russell).

Really don't care for WOWY-regression but if we are using it, I think it's worth noting that different approaches yeild much different results. In Moonbeam's for example Russell is a big outlier over everyone with the curved down stuff and an even bigger one if you use the raw inputs(this would be the WOWYR equivalent) with his score doubling second place Wilt for the decade.

Also

I got no problem if you think Russell was the bigger impact player; he may well have been. I'm skeptical the distance you imply is manifested in the data, however.

wasn't just thinking of the wowy data here. The other factors to me are

1. Oscar's team gets good with him no longer being a minutes outlier and
2. I don't think there's any Lucas equivalent on the 1964 Celtics (closes the minutes gap with oscar -> team and defense improve dramatically)

[Owly]

I mean...tiny sample, but if we went with Russell's signals for this time period(62-66 or 64 on its own), it looks better than anything we have for Oscar (and even Wilt). He also has a much bigger minutes gap over the next guy on his team than Oscar does. Pretty skeptical Oscar is even approaching Russell in terms of impact at this point.

"....even approaching..." seems an extreme statement.

From '61-65, Royals went 218-166 [.568] with Oscar (on pace for 46.55 wins in 82-game season), and went 3-12 [.200] without him (on pace for 16.4 wins)

From 61-65 the Celtics went 293-95 with Russell(62-win pace) and 3-8 without (22-win pace). So, even if we just go by raw record(celtics are worse by net-rating than record minus Russell), Russell has a substantial edge.

and his prime/career WOWYR are +8.4/+8.5 (vs +6.4/+6.2 for Russell).

Really don't care for WOWY-regression but if we are using it, I think it's worth noting that different approaches yeild much different results. In Moonbeam's for example Russell is a big outlier over everyone with the curved down stuff and an even bigger one if you use the raw inputs(this would be the WOWYR equivalent) with his score doubling second place Wilt for the decade.

Also

I got no problem if you think Russell was the bigger impact player; he may well have been. I'm skeptical the distance you imply is manifested in the data, however.

wasn't just thinking of the wowy data here. The other factors to me are

1. Oscar's team gets good with him no longer being a minutes outlier and
2. I don't think there's any Lucas equivalent on the 1964 Celtics (closes the minutes gap with oscar -> team and defense improve dramatically)

I think in both instances the "outs" are all from tiny samples where they
a) can rightly expect they will be back soon
b) may not know in advance if they will miss games at all - or they may
c) will not feel a need to address the roster and may not have the time to substantially alter strategy.

Those out samples then are ... fuzzy.

Even cumulatively they make a small sample.

Oscar may have an "advantage" here in that he has larger samples of the team going to hell without him. We're far out enough that Russell's one big out sample ('57) isn't going to be relevant for roster assessment purposes. One would have to look closer at the Royals rosters though.


Lucas as an aid to Robertson in the context of a broadly WoWY-focused argument ... goes in the face of Lucas's own WoWY profile, in the following season and throughout the 60s.

I have Lucas missing 14 games in which Cincy outscore opponents by 54 or +3.857142857 per game.
(Fwiw sans Robertson - no overlap - 5 games -25, -5 per game).
(trusting old numbers here, feel free to check)

And it's not like the defense holds at '64 levels with Lucas later.

Nor was Lucas reputationally regarded as a notably positive defender.

Sam Jones actually plays slightly more minutes in that season ('65) than Lucas anyhow and the consolation for Oscar is doesn't seem to matter that he doesn't get as much of his notional next best player because it isn't clear he's helping (see also '69, '70).

Given the poor fit with broader trends I'd wonder whether the coaching change or Embry getting more minutes (and even chucked a bone by some MVP voter), the reduction of Twyman's minutes, luck or a combination of the above might not be better fits than Lucas as a substantial defensive asset.