In this thread we'll discuss and vote on the top 5 players and the top 3 offensive and defensive players of 1972-73.
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 10:00am PST on Monday, September 23rd. 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.
Kareem will not still be my #1, and I will be overreacting to one series.
I fully expect him to win this year just as he did in the prior project, because yeah, on balance he is very obviously the best player. He cost his team in the postseason though. Not a case of giving a fine performance but losing; no, he was arguably being outplayed by Oscar in a loss to a 5.5 SRS underdog who would go on to lose 4-1 against a team that would go on to lose 4-1. Biggest blemish of his career, and he does not even have a truly outstanding regular season — production is down relative to the prior two MVP seasons, defence is not at the level it will be in the subsequent MVP season, and the Bucks go 6-0 without him — to help us overlook it. It is not some bias with Kareem either: in 1979 I expect I will give him Player of the Year despite not making the conference finals, in 1978 I will consider him heavily for Player of the Year despite being a first round exit (admittedly helps that the same was true of Walton), and in 1976 I will grant him my highest ever ballot finish for a player who did not appear in the postseason. It is this year specifically where I just think there are other players more deserving of recognition than a terrible first round exit.
Now, the trick is that Thurmond also did not win a title, nor come especially close. Wilt made the Finals but was relatively uncompetitive, without a suitably impressive individual performance to offset that lack of legitimate contention. And while Gilmore was close to a title in the ABA, I still do not think he is a better player than Kareem or Wilt, and the lack of a title caps how much I can tell myself I care about almost beating the 1973 Pacers.
What I care about more is what happened in the NBA’s eastern conference, where the Celtics won 68 games in the regular season and were the only team to push the Knicks in the postseason. The two best performers in that series were Frazier and Cowens. Havlicek was hampered and missed a game… where the Celtics ultimately lost in double overtime after their two lead scorers (Cowens and Jo Jo) fouled out along with their top defensive guard (Chaney). I am not going to say winning that game means the Celtics win the title, or even necessarily advance to the Finals; the Knicks going into Boston in Game 7 and blowing out the Celtics tells me they were holding back a bit for any possible elimination games. However, the thought is there that the Celtics won three games against the champion and were then a point away from winning another without their second-best player. Even though Cowens may not have been the “best” centre in basketball, I think he was clearly the most “accomplished” centre this season. And when I think about next year, where Cowens wins the title by arguably outplaying Kareem in a road Game 7, well, this seems like the opportune time to reward the lead player for a team that will return to the conference finals the next three years and win two titles along the way.
1. Dave Cowens 2. Walt Frazier 3. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar 4. Wilt Chamberlain 5. Artis Gilmore
Thurmond and Cunningham regrettable cuts, but I will reward them with the two specialised ballots.
Offensive Player of the Year
1. Tiny Archibald 2. Billy Cunningham 3. Walt Frazier
Do not think highly of Tiny and see a lot of relatively empty offensive production here, but he puts together a difficult to deny volume case relative to the rest of the league, and I do not think any other player would elevate that Royals offence as much as he did… even if at least a dozen others could elevate the team quite a bit more. Cunningham immediately elevates the Cougars to ABA contention behind a massive spike in offensive rating, although they fall narrowly short of the Colonels and the champion Pacers in the postseason. Third place goes to Frazier kind-of by default: West misses games in the regular season and again underwhelms in the Finals; Oscar has a relatively weak regular season, although he is strong against the Warriors and when Kareem is out; Barry lifts the Warriors’ offence by only a couple of points and is limited in the postseason; and Erving really does not do anything of note aside from leading the league in scoring. Frazier’s spectacular conference finals performance is enough for me to acknowledge him ahead of all those flawed alternatives.
Defensive Player of the Year
1. Nate Thurmond 2. Wilt Chamberlain 3. Artis Gilmore
I have seen suggestion that Kareem was limited by injury, but he always struggled against Thurmond to some extent, and this year that cost him. I felt last year Thurmond may have been the better defender than Wilt still, and this year there is no 69-win title to lift up Wilt’s candidacy. Otherwise, same names as last year, because these are the three best rim protectors in basketball right now, and none of them have the level of defensive support you see on the Celtics, the Knicks, the Bullets, or (relative to the ABA) the Pacers.
I too won't have Kareem #1 this year and I'm a big Kareem guy. Getting upset in the 1st round by an average team and playing like crap won't cut it to get the top spot for me. Not to mention he didn't build nearly as large a gap in the RS like he did in 1972.
Djoker wrote:I too won't have Kareem #1 this year and I'm a big Kareem guy. Getting upset in the 1st round by an average team and playing like crap won't cut it to get the top spot for me. Not to mention he didn't build nearly as large a gap in the RS like he did in 1972.
Criteria will differ ...
It's a really ugly shooting series and as a result an ugly series on the box-side versus especially his high level expectations. He is still outshooting his matchup from the field with a higher creation burden. Versus expectations that's a win for Thurmond. But it's not necessarily a given that Thurmond outplayed him in the series. KAJ has a substantial rebounding lead (obviously hard to know how many are safe "team" rebounds and how many added significant value - we don't even have off, def split). Obviously the non-box stuff of that time leaves a fair bit of a gap, which without watching leaves significant uncertainty. Thurmond is a great defender ... the following is team level but fwiw away from the noise of a single series of shooting ... Milwaukee posted their best relDrtg of this run and their second best ever (to 2020) of -5.7 so it's not implausible KAJ still performed well on D (perhaps more than Nate).
They are upset but this misses the context that they outscore GS on the series with GS's first three wins coming by 3, 5 and 3 points respectively.
As summaries go ... "an average team" 3.12 SRS is "average". No matter how one is bucketing ... that isn't even "above average"?
It's a tough matchup for him. It's a real bad time to shoot .543 from the line (a close series, and for the purposes of this exercise, gives him a first round out and all his playoff production done versus a Thurmond team). His production (in a limited boxscore) in this small sample (versus a particular opponent) is pedestrian in absolute terms and very far below his norms. This is because of bad shooting. It depends what you care about.
For "a Kareem guy" the framing ("crap", "average") seems a little ungenerous.
Djoker wrote:I too won't have Kareem #1 this year and I'm a big Kareem guy. Getting upset in the 1st round by an average team and playing like crap won't cut it to get the top spot for me. Not to mention he didn't build nearly as large a gap in the RS like he did in 1972.
Criteria will differ ...
It's a really ugly shooting series and as a result an ugly series on the box-side versus especially his high level expectations. He is still outshooting his matchup from the field with a higher creation burden. Versus expectations that's a win for Thurmond. But it's not necessarily a given that Thurmond outplayed him in the series. KAJ has a substantial rebounding lead (obviously hard to know how many are safe "team" rebounds and how many added significant value - we don't even have off, def split). Obviously the non-box stuff of that time leaves a fair bit of a gap, which without watching leaves significant uncertainty. Thurmond is a great defender ... the following is team level but fwiw away from the noise of a single series of shooting ... Milwaukee posted their best relDrtg of this run and their second best ever (to 2020) of -5.7 so it's not implausible KAJ still performed well on D (perhaps more than Nate).
They are upset but this misses the context that they outscore GS on the series with GS's first three wins coming by 3, 5 and 3 points respectively.
As summaries go ... "an average team" 3.12 SRS is "average". No matter how one is bucketing ... that isn't even "above average"?
It's a tough matchup for him. It's a real bad time to shoot .543 from the line (a close series, and for the purposes of this exercise, gives him a first round out and all his playoff production done versus a Thurmond team). His production (in a limited boxscore) in this small sample (versus a particular opponent) is pedestrian in absolute terms and very far below his norms. This is because of bad shooting. It depends what you care about.
For "a Kareem guy" the framing ("crap", "average") seems a little ungenerous.
3.12 SRS is admittedly better than I thought the Warriors were. Still Bucks were a 7.84 SRS team. It was a horrible upset. It was a close series as you said but Warriors had no business beating the Bucks that year.
And yes I will stick with "crap" performance too. 22.8/16.2/2.8 on -3.5 rTS is awful. It's not terrible to still vote Kareem #1 this year if you value RS more but I won't. It wouldn't be consistent with my general criteria. And yes I know the context of his brethren being killed in DC and how it affected him psychologically. Kareem will still be on my ballot just not #1.
1. Nate Archibald. Great playmaking season on a hefty load. Volume scoring at great efficiency. Led the best offense in the NBA.
2. Kareem Abdul Jabbar. Great scoring volume and efficiency. A top 5 Kareem passing season. Bucks were a top 5 offense.
3. Walt Frazier. Above average volume, on above average efficiency with great passing. Ramped it up in the playoffs.
HM: Billy Cunningham. Led the best offense in the ABA.
DPOY
1. Dave Cowens. Led the Celtics to 68 wins, anchoring the best defense. Yes Silas and Havlicek were awesome defensive teammates, but that’s how you get to 68 wins. Bucks and Lakers teams that won high 60’s in the early 70’s were stacked.
2. Wilt Chamberlain. Focusing mostly on D, Wilt was a force on that end of the floor.
3. Artis Gilmore. Anchored the best D in the ABA.
HM. Nate Thurmond. Great defender, locked down Kareem in the playoffs. Had a few guys ahead of him though.
POY
1. It’s still Kareem. He was pretty good defensively, and fantastic offensively. Yes, his playoffs sucked, but no one else is grabbing this off him.
2. Walt Frazier. It’s great having lead guards who are terrific defensively also. Walt was the heart and engine of the NBA champs.
3. Wilt Chamberlain. 10 pp75 on +20 rTS%. If he shot it, it was going in. Then focused most of his energy on playing amazing defense.
4. Julius Erving. Should’ve won ABA MVP. Terrific season.
5. Artis Gilmore. I like him a little more offensively than Cowens. Defensive impact was pretty close amongst the top 3-4 candidates.
Not a deserving MVP (will save that for the Kareem section) but I think he was at least the 3rd-most deserving and plausibly the best playoff performer overall, particularly in the series he was knocked out by the eventual champions. Let's start with the first part.
As a rookie Cowens oversaw a 4-point and 10-win turnaround playing 38 minutes and averaging 17 points on a .43 fg%. In his second year the Celtics would improve a further 12-wins and 2-points of SRS with Cowens improving to 18 points with a 5 point efficiency spike over 40 minutes. Following that...
18-wins over 10-years with a very impressive 75 signal over a sizable sample, for teams that made 3 of 4 conference finals, 2 finals while winning a championship the next year. Like Thurmond I see a defensive specialist not properly appreciated by because of his skillset and thus seen as an afterthought relative to what his actual value was. You lose some of the defense, but you gain a little offense and, ultimately, like Thurmond, he seems to save his best for when it really matters.
They were the only team to push the Knicks losing by an average of 4 points over 7 games and a double over-time game where they nearly won without Hondo. If Havelock is the 42 minute 23 point player as opposed to the 38 minute 17 point player or even just a "play every game player" Celtics might outright win.
Frazier wins a title with a seemingly not dominant final performance against a Lakers team(with West largely compromised by injury) amidst another Wilt "huh"? and I'd guess was outplayed by Cowens before. He also did not come close to top 5 in MVP voting despite having a player profile I think was great for being overrated defensively and whatever pedigree comes with being a 2x finalist and champion. All considered, no reason to think of him as Cowen's equal this year unless it's just about the ring and it's not like that for me.
2. Kareem Abdul Jabbar
Far and away the best player in the regular season and doesn't win MVP. How?
Bill Simmons wrote:Four factors collided this season: Boston nearly broke the record for regular-season wins by going 68-14 (so everyone felt obligated to vote for a Celtic); Kareem won in '71 and '72 (so everyone felt obligated to vote for someone else); the league was heading into the "everyone's overpaid and doesn't give a ****" era (so someone as intense as Cowens stood out); and the players (still voting) didn't realize that Boston shared a division with 21-61 Buffalo and 9-73 Philly (padding their record by going 14-0), whereas Milwaukee finished 60-22 in a tougher division and had the same point differential as Boston... Meanwhile, the league's best player (Kareem) averaged a 30-16-5 and provided superior defense for the troubled Bucks (other than a slew of injuries and a suspicious Wali Jones meltdown that led to his release, the Big O became he Really Big O), also suffering a personal tragedy when seven coreligionists living in his Washington, D.C., house were murdered by a rival faction... and you know what? The Bucks still won sixty... Anyways, Kareem got robbed
Is it better than it looks? Maybe. Bucks were a -5.5 defense this series and Kareem has something to do with that(the Warriors second best player missing 2 games probably played a role as well). They did outscore them by M.O.V and Kareem's performance was better in the close losses than the blow-out wins with a seemingly strong showing in the close-out loss(if you trust the tracking of the 1970's new york times):
They overcame a generally devastating performance by Kareem Abdul ‐Jabber, who couldn't be prevented from scoring 27 points and who spoiled at least 20 possible layups with his legal goaltending. But Oscar Robertson, suffering from an injured heel, was less effective than normal. He left the game for good with eight minutes to play, when it was not yet decided, although the Warriors led, 83‐72.
...
Meanwhile, the Warriors made little headway trying to force the ball inside, where Kareem's defense was aweH some. Halfway through the first period, the Warriors led,, 8‐5, but seemed to be losing the effects of their opening charge.
20 prevented layups to go with 27 points on 60% shooting seems pretty great. It also seems, at least per the 2010 discussion, Kareem entered the series carrying an injury and it would be wierd to not offer him some grace there when I offer it to players who miss entire games.
Still, the Bucks went from the 2nd best team in the league to not remotely relevant losing to a team that would themselves be torched by a team that would itself get torched. Oscar also seems to have played surprisingly well along with surprisingly high minutes. That sort of failure justifies a spot-drop imo. Even if it's just a few games vs a bad matchup.
3. Nate Thurmond
He was, even just going by the ballots of a voting block significantly lower on Nate than I am, a top 5 player when healthy in a league with prime Oscar, West, Russell, and Wilt. The data paints him as a direct peer for prime West in the regular season and when he did play enough to make the playoffs his teams seemed to significantly overperform against excellent opposition headed by the aforementioned players(including a team with Wilt and West).
Now his team is actually winning regular season games. Now he's healthy. Now the competition is weak enough he's the DPOY frontrunner. And now he replaces almost upsets with an actual historic upset achieved with his best teammate as a shell. Beating the Bucks with half a Rick Barry is probably the most impressive thing any player has done over a series this year. And, considering Oscar's play, and considering it was a team they lost to by 10-points the previous year...I think the most likeliest explanation is that Thurmond was the clear best player. Sharing the court with the far and away best player in the league is wildly impressive. No the next series didn't go so well. I'm still going to give Thurmond his props.
4. Wilt Chaimberlain
Another dissapointing ending:
Spoiler:
ElGee wrote:Hmmm - maybe I'm not being quite clear (fatal and regul8r are certainly making interesting points).
When good players play with other good players their usage naturally drops. In Wilt's case, that's a fine role to take with Goodrich, West and McMillan. What I'm trying to figure it how good Chamberlain's offensive contribution is despite the obvious fact that his usage will decline in such a setting.
Here, the usage declines more than we would expect. Why? Maybe he wanted the FG% record. Maybe his coach thought he was a terrible option. It's not terribly important to me why. What is important is if he's still capable of being a ~20 ppg scorer on good efficiency when context dictates he needs to be. It seems that very situation arose in the Finals.
Consider in 1972 he averaged 7.9 FGA's/36. In the Finals against New York, he averaged 9.5 FGAs/36. But then in 1973, he averaged 6.0 FGAs/36. In the Finals against New York, he averaged 6.3 FGAs/36.
So, the question is, with West hobbled and no Hairston, why didn't Chamberlain produce more on offense? If the answer was "he couldn't," or "he was afraid," or "he relied on Jerry West," those are all equally problematic for me in evaluating his contributions as a player.
I'm not really interested in "blame." Nor do I think "coaching strategy" is a big factor here, unless we're suggesting that Sharman decided it would be best to rarely use Chamberlain on offense, which is equally problematic for me.
From what I've seen, his defense is ridiculous in this period, but I'm surprised others aren't more concerned about this. Even Wilt himself talked about how he wasn't as good of a shooter as he used to be because he stopped shooting.
Sports Illustrated wrote:Reed was right on target. His contribution to the Knicks' victory was greater than his statistics—16.4 scoring average, .493 shooting percentage and 9.2 rebounds a game—indicated. On defense he frustrated Wilt Chamberlain, whose scoring outburst over Jerry Lucas led the Lakers to the title last year. Against Reed, who is taller, stronger, heavier and quicker than Lucas, Chamberlain's attempts to back under the basket for his finger rolls and dunks yielded almost as many traveling calls, three-second violations and offensive fouls as they did goals. And Lucas' presence on the bench was an asset. The Knicks' plan was to foul Chamberlain whenever he seemed sure to score, and Reed and Lucas had an average of 7.2 personals a game, more than either one could have afforded individually. The luxury of having two men available to clobber Chamberlain permitted New York to hold him to a measly 22 field goals in the series. Wilt made the strategy look even better by missing 24 of 38 free throws.
Wilt was probably the 2nd most deserving regular-season MVP candidate. He led the #1 srs team, kept them pretty good (+3.5 net) without Jerry West and then led his team to the final outplaying a guy I've placed ahead of him to do it. Consequently, entering the finals, Wilt's Lakers were favored. And then Wilt disappeared completely on offense, failing to scale-up whatsoever with West limited, and the Lakers got shellacked.
Wilt was going out of his way to avoid shots in regular-season games to protect his fg% and a "field goals made" streak. And then it happened in the playoffs. I'm not going to ignore what he offered in-spite of his unusual set of priorities, but it's a bad look nonetheless and calls into question (again) just how much you can rely on the good being repeated. Whether it was due to physical limitations or a difference in priorities, Wilt is now really just a one-way player who didn't achieve the same highs the 3 above him did (Bucks upset, MVP/ECF, Far and away best rs campaign). Tempted to put under Frazier as well, but that seems more a response to an emotional impulse than cogent analysis of what the two offered over the course of the year.
5. Frazier
Last year he led a competitive finals team without his best teammate. This year he leads a champion. I see these Knicks as more of an ensemble cast but I certainly understand voting him higher.
His inclusion also signifies the total exclusion of anyone from the ABA. To be honest, the ABA does not really hold the same weight to me it did a couple days ago. Billy Cunningham is likely to pick up top 5 votes off a dominant ABA MVP and an ABA bitw argument. Billy Cunningham did not start in the ABA. He started in the NBA where he...did not receive a single one of my votes.
The gap is probably larger than I thought it was so, at least until Erving takes off, I'm not really going to be valuing ABA impact and accomplishment unless it is "run away best player in the league by a laughable margin" looking.
DPOY
1. Thurmond
2. Wilt
3. Kareem
its my last message in this thread, but I just admit, that all the people, casual and analytical minds, more or less have consencus who has the weight of a rubberized duck. And its not JaivLLLL
1. Kareem Best player, and it's still not even close, regardless of one series 2. Dr J 3. Gilmore 4. Frazier 5. Wilt
Kareem was the best player, so this is fairly simple for me. Dr J clearly got better, enough that I'll move him ahead of Gilmore. Frazier stays in my top 5, it's obvious he was better than Reed at this point and was driving their title run. Not sure after that. Maybe Wilt? Beaty seems to have fallen off enough to open things up for him.
I am just not a fan of a Cowen's impact. I think he should have zero MVPs. He looks like a recipient of winning bias.
Warspite wrote:Billups was a horrible scorer who could only score with an open corner 3 or a FT.
One_and_Done wrote:I am just not a fan of a Cowen's impact. I think he should have zero MVPs. He looks like a recipient of winning bias.
Why?
His shown impact looks excellent, his team-success is up there, and he, like the guy you voted 1st basically every thread in the 60's, was far and away the best paint-protector on his team.
What makes you so suspicious of Cowens he's not even getting top 5
its my last message in this thread, but I just admit, that all the people, casual and analytical minds, more or less have consencus who has the weight of a rubberized duck. And its not JaivLLLL
I feel like the Celtics were a really deep team, and Cowens was just one part of that ensemble cast. I'm dubious he was better than Havlicek, and because the dude was never hurt it's hard to guage their respective impacts. I'm not saying I wouldn't have Cowens top 10, but I don't see him as a genuine MVP player. He was just in the right place at the right time. The footage of Cowens doesn't impress me either.
Warspite wrote:Billups was a horrible scorer who could only score with an open corner 3 or a FT.
I have 3 NBA guys in competition for the top spot. Kareem, the most talented, with a bad playoff run. Cowens, the leader of the best RS team who came up just short (4-3 though the deciding game was not tight). Frazier, the clear alpha of the league champions who had an excellent RS and strong PS. The Celtics seem to be more of an ensemble cast strong 1-6; the Knicks are famous for that but without Reed seem to be more of a carry job for Walt than one would expect.
In the next tier I have Wilt, though I feel he's already mentally moving to the ABA, and one of the top ABA players: Probably still Gilmore for the defense. Cunningham made a jump in playmaking starting the previous NBA year that continues in the ABA, but he, McGinnis,and Erving all seem turnover prone. Not sure how that looks relative to primacy. Shout out to Nate Archibald but I'm just not as sold on Tiny's ceiling raising potential though he shows some strong floor raising.
1. Frazier 2. Jabbar 3. Cowens 4. Wilt 5. Artis
“Most people use statistics like a drunk man uses a lamppost; more for support than illumination,” Andrew Lang.
One_and_Done wrote:I feel like the Celtics were a really deep team, and Cowens was just one part of that ensemble cast. I'm dubious he was better than Havlicek, and because the dude was never hurt it's hard to guage their respective impacts. I'm not saying I wouldn't have Cowens top 10,
Why do you need to see Havlicek hurt to ballpark Cowens impact? If Cowens misses time and the team gets alot worse consistently worse including multiple 15+ in a season stretches, Havelick being a 30-win player or a 5-win player would not change that the team got alot worse. Regardless of Hondo, the Celtics fall off consistently in a way that teams with top 5 players do, and then they improve that way too. Not to mention the Celtics taking the champs to double time without Hondo in the swing game.
Secondly, you literally picked two players from a league where a fringe top-10 nba player just waltzed in and won MVP. There's "Cowens wasn't better than Kareem" and then "wait no Cowens who was consistently getting more MVP votes and saw his teams improve more" than your #2 is actually not even top 5 because of vague nothing burgers.
but I don't see him as a genuine MVP player. He was just in the right place at the right time. The footage of Cowens doesn't impress me either.
The footage of no one here impresses you. What part of the footage convinced you it's unlikely the 3-time conference finalist, 2-time finalist, and 1-time champion who kept getting MVP votes(something you allegedly care about) and sees his teams drop off by an average of 18-wins over 10 years was not actually a top 5 player in the year he has the champs at double-over-time without his best teammate, after taking a team that was "going nowhere" with peak Hondo to being top 2 and then top 1.
its my last message in this thread, but I just admit, that all the people, casual and analytical minds, more or less have consencus who has the weight of a rubberized duck. And its not JaivLLLL
Player of the Year 1. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar 2. Walt Frazier 3. Dave Cowens 4. Artis Gilmore 5. Wilt Chamberlain
First things first, yes, Kareem is still #1 for me. Nobody was close enough to him in the regular season for an upset to change anything. Especially when it was a close series where they outscored a 3 SRS team with the greatest man defender in history at his own position. Granted the results may be different this time, 2007 Dirk finished 3rd in POY votes against closer competition for comparison despite losing by a 9 point wider margin against a 0 SRS team while guarded by Stephen Jackson and Matt Barnes. The lowest I could see Kareem go is second behind Frazier but he had an underwhelming Finals offensively after an excellent series against Boston. Defensively, West got shut down for the second year in a row with only 21 points and 5 assists on sub 50% TS but he also shot 67.6% from FT so not sure how much of it was defense vs decline from age.
I was very high on Paul Silas on the Suns last year so I credit him more with the Celtics jump than Cowens suddenly turning from non top 5 to peak Kareem level. Cowens did improve and was the best player on the team but I think Silas, like DeBusschere, was a key 3rd piece to reach championship level. Cowens stepped up in the playoffs against the Knicks this year (24.4 ppg on 51.5% TS vs 13.6 ppg on 39.7% TS) and I am impressed with him upping his scoring to 28 per game in the later games of the series with Havlicek injured without losing efficiency.
Gilmore seems the obvious pick from the ABA. The best individual numbers in the league (18.5 WS vs 11.9 from MVP Cunningham) on the #1 SRS team with #1 defense that outscored the eventual champions in a 7 game series. He was even tied for the assist leader in the Finals and nearly outblocked the entire Pacers team combined. If the rest of the team had contributed more than just 62 points on 42% TS in G7 of the Finals, Gilmore would be rightfully remembered as the second greatest ABA player behind Dr J.
This leaves Wilt at #5. After one year of team dominance, he decides to go chase individual stats again (hello, 68 assist title). Lakers were still the #1 SRS team but come the playoffs, that hyperefficient FG% was nowhere to be found despite him shooting even less. 5 points, 2.5 assists on 39% TS over back to back games in the Finals is just absurd against post injury Willis Reed. Not to mention Wilt also let Reed go off on him and win FMVP. Tempted to replace him with Thurmond here but I don't think Thurmond had that great of a season outside of one historically epic series.
One_and_Done wrote:I feel like the Celtics were a really deep team, and Cowens was just one part of that ensemble cast. I'm dubious he was better than Havlicek, and because the dude was never hurt it's hard to guage their respective impacts. I'm not saying I wouldn't have Cowens top 10,
Why do you need to see Havlicek hurt to ballpark Cowens impact? If Cowens misses time and the team gets alot worse consistently worse including multiple 15+ in a season stretches, Havelick being a 30-win player or a 5-win player would not change that the team got alot worse. Regardless of Hondo, the Celtics fall off consistently in a way that teams with top 5 players do, and then they improve that way too. Not to mention the Celtics taking the champs to double time without Hondo in the swing game.
Secondly, you literally picked two players from a league where a fringe top-10 nba player just waltzed in and won MVP. There's "Cowens wasn't better than Kareem" and then "wait no Cowens who was consistently getting more MVP votes and saw his teams improve more" than your #2 is actually not even top 5 because of vague nothing burgers.
but I don't see him as a genuine MVP player. He was just in the right place at the right time. The footage of Cowens doesn't impress me either.
The footage of no one here impresses you. What part of the footage convinced you it's unlikely the 3-time conference finalist, 2-time finalist, and 1-time champion who kept getting MVP votes(something you allegedly care about) and sees his teams drop off by an average of 18-wins over 10 years was not actually a top 5 player in the year he has the champs at double-over-time without his best teammate, after taking a team that was "going nowhere" with peak Hondo to being top 2 and then top 1.
If the footage of nobody from this period impressed me, I wouldn’t have Kareem in my top 3 all-time.
MVP votes are a useful indicator of what people thought at the time, and they’re worth noting to get a beat on contemporary views. That said, they’re not perfect, and I’ve noted before a number of times the MVP was wrongly awarded (as even Cowen supporters are admitting on this thread, Cowen should not have been MVP this year). I also think the voting for MVP has generally improved over time. You still see bad modern day MVP votes, like Embiid, Kobe and Iverson (though Embiid wasn’t even that bad), but the voters have to defend their views more now and have better data available to them to consider. Voters also lose their votes when they make asinine decisions. In 1973 the NBA voting system was so biased that 22 different candidates got votes. Imagine if that happened today. Basically a lot of beat reporters had biases for their local players, and voted for them come hell or high water.
Cowens is a guy who played for the public team, the Celtics, just after desegregation. Kareem was a prickly personality who hated the media and fans for the most part, and was happy to let them know it. He also had converted to a controversial religion and changed his name by this point. I am not surprised the media would look for an excuse to give the award to someone else. If Kareem won the award every time he should have, he’d have 10+ MVPs probably. I think it’s also a little misleading to cite MVP votes Cowens got from 72-76 in a vacuum, because the league was split in half. If the leagues were merged, his MVP vote results would look significantly worse I feel. A more interesting fact is that Cowens was never on the all-nba 1st team; he somehow won an MVP, while never doing that once.
I don’t think Cowens was a bad player, I’d have him in the top 10 this year. I just don’t see him as being in the top 5. 2 of the guys I have over him weren’t even playing in the same league as him, and finished 2nd and 4th in the MVP vote in 1973. So to cite Cowen’s unjust MVP award is not a great argument. You learn more about the perceived value of a guy from his consistent MVP performance, rather than whether he won in a given year. Shaq has only 1 MVP, and I have him about 5th all-time. Circumstances kind of went against Shaq. He should probably have 2-3 if the correct guy won every year. Gilmore was all-ABA first team all 5 years he was in the ABA. Dr J, who I also have over Cowens, won 4 MVP awards and finished 2nd twice. It’s not like I’m picking bums over Cowens. The guys I’m picking over Cowens were frankly rated better on the whole, just not in this weird year where Cowens got gifted an MVP unjustly. It happens.
I am not the only voter lower on Cowens than you, and I am not the only voter who has excluded him. Yes, the Celtics were very good, and where better with Cowens, but they were also still a good team without Cowens too. They weren’t as good, but we can’t be sure that the team wouldn’t have suffered even more if Havlicek had missed that time instead of Cowens. I don’t think I’m alone in wondering if Havlicek was really better. In 1977 Cowens missed 32 games, and the Celtics were still a 44 win team (but still went 15-17 without him). Indeed, the demise of the 70s Celtics appears to come as Havlicek aged out and then retired. If Cowens impact was so huge, why didn’t we see it from 77-79 when Cowens was 29-31, but Havlicek was 36. 37, and then retired. The Celtics fell to 44, 32 and 29 wins those years. If Cowens was giving close to the impact of Kareem, I find this pretty unusual.
Warspite wrote:Billups was a horrible scorer who could only score with an open corner 3 or a FT.
1 - Dave Cowens 2- Nate Thurmond 3- Kareem 4 - Walt Frazier 5 - Gilmore
This was a tough year to choose. I don't really know who should have been or not have been MVP but it kind of seems Cowens is getting a little hated on for being a defense-first guy. I get its weird when they aren't scoring alot but if he'smaking the team do lots better anyway and they win alot does it matter?
I thought he might have struggled or something in the playoffs but his stats go up and as people pointed out he did pretty ok with his biggest help hurt and missing games. This is also kind of controversial but I feel taller guys should probably get some benefit of the doubt over shorter ones?
Kareem sucked and its weird to me how he's just getting a pass. Like if he played great okay but he shoots terribly and his team loses to someone who they had no business losing to. Thurmond probably should get alot of credit for that.
It's wierd Frazier didn't get any MVP support but he leads NY to another final and wins so maybe he's being underrated by voters? His stats were kind of bad in the finals but they won pretty easily. I really don't know how strong the ABA is so I get being annoyed with ABA votes but I think appreciating the ABA is good for history things so I'll still give a spot to an ABA guy. Gilmore almost won again and he won MVP and he beat down Erving and then beats the MVP so I guess I'll just vote him again
I don't really get the logic going on right now around Wilt. Sure Wilt didn't have the greatest scoring performance in the post-season but his defense was immaculate. Just about every thread we've been getting people talking about how defensive guys like Russell and Thurmond get underrated just because they're not scoring at a high level and now those very same people are saying Wilt's scoring pushes him to the bottom of their ballots or even out of the top 5 completely despite how strong the Lakers were defensively because of Wilt. Can someone make it make sense?
One_and_Done wrote:Cowens is a guy who played for the public team, the Celtics, just after desegregation. Kareem was a prickly personality who hated the media and fans for the most part, and was happy to let them know it. He also had converted to a controversial religion and changed his name by this point. I am not surprised the media would look for an excuse to give the award to someone else. If Kareem won the award every time he should have, he’d have 10+ MVPs probably. I think it’s also a little misleading to cite MVP votes Cowens got from 72-76 in a vacuum, because the league was split in half. If the leagues were merged, his MVP vote results would look significantly worse I feel. A more interesting fact is that Cowens was never on the all-nba 1st team; he somehow won an MVP, while never doing that once.
No one has argued Cowens deserved MVP. You are attacking a strawman. Why wasn't he all-nba 1st team? Because all-nba is done by position and Cowens had to compete with the likes of Kareem who you just said should have won 10 MVPs.
The question is why you have him a tier below players like Frazier who played in the biggest media market, had a much flashier game, had a title and 2 finals appearances and was unable to match Cowens in MVP voting year after year after year.
Cowens at this point is the more successful and valuable archetype and also literally looks more valuable, consistently, when he misses time, and also is taking him to double overtime without his best teammate. He was not percieved as an equal, the data suggests he was not an equal, but you keep talking about Kareem to justify why Walt Frazier is a tier up.
I don’t think Cowens was a bad player, I’d have him in the top 10 this year. I just don’t see him as being in the top 5. 2 of the guys I have over him weren’t even playing in the same league as him, and finished 2nd and 4th in the MVP vote in 1973. So to cite Cowen’s unjust MVP award is not a great argument. You learn more about the perceived value of a guy from his consistent MVP performance
Cowens finished higher than Frazier 5 years in a row including the next 3. The only year he wasn't ahead of Frazier in MVP voting was when he was a rookie. He was top 5[/b] for 4 years in a row including 2 top 3 finishes and 3 top 3 finishes. By "consistent MVP performance" he was a top 3 player in a league this year's ABA MVP [i]could not crack the top 7 finishing 9th and 21st before dropping down a level. When Artis Gilmore came the highest he ever finished was 8th. The only players you listed in Cowens weight class in terms of "consistent MVP performance" are Julius Erving who at this point wasn't the runaway best aba player he'd peak as and Kareem who no one is arguing was worse in the regular season.
Maybe if you're going to talk about "consistent mvp performance" you should look at...their consistent MVP performance?
The guys I’m picking over Cowens were frankly rated better on the whole
They were not. See above.
I am not the only voter lower on Cowens than you, and I am not the only voter who has excluded him. Yes, the Celtics were very good, and where better with Cowens, but they were also still a good team without Cowens too.
They generally ranged from average to great with him or bad to good with him and they were bad more ofren. Which is...what you would expect from a top 3-5 player. And now he's maybe peaking. Honestly as I look at this, putting Frazier above Cowens is pretty weak. But leaving him off entirely? Yeah this is just doubling down on terrible priors built from trying to transport theories from 60 years in the future.
Unless someone doesn't care about winning or impact, Cowens should be a unanimous top 5. And I think it's telling how little is offered in terms of substance or specifics ('consistent mvp performance -> ignores Cowens having top 3 consistent MVP performance") by people leaving him out(or even just putting Frazier ahead)
its my last message in this thread, but I just admit, that all the people, casual and analytical minds, more or less have consencus who has the weight of a rubberized duck. And its not JaivLLLL
That's a weird response. Obviously when I said the Celtics were still good without Cowens I was talking about the early years with a still good Havlicek, not 77 to 79. Once you remove them from the sample the Celtics were a positive win team without Cowens.
Would they have been a 500 team if you took out Havlicek and kept Cowens? I kind of doubt it, because of what happened once Havlicek fell off and retired.
Warspite wrote:Billups was a horrible scorer who could only score with an open corner 3 or a FT.
Nah wierd is opening with "consistent MVP performance" and completely sidestepping that Cowens mollywhops 3 of your top 5 in "consistent MVP performance".
Obviously when I said the Celtics were still good without Cowens I was talking about the early years with a still good Havlicek, not 77 to 79. Once you remove them from the sample the Celtics were a positive win team without Cowens.
And what is your point? He had top 3-5 impact on a "positive win team" then he had top 3-5 impact on a "bad team". Explain to me how that adds up to "not top 5"?
its my last message in this thread, but I just admit, that all the people, casual and analytical minds, more or less have consencus who has the weight of a rubberized duck. And its not JaivLLLL
