Offensive Player of the Year
1. Rick Barry
2. Calvin Murphy
3. Julius ErvingThought about this a little more, and I was definitely over-penalising the postseason absences for this award relative to how I will vote next year. Barry not bringing the Warriors to the postseason in Thurmond’s absence is why he has no case for Player of the Year, but solely on offence, I like him more than Erving and Havlicek, and probably more than this version of Frazier and Kareem too. Similar premise with Calvin Murphy; no real case for Frazier above him offensively this year, and it is not like Murphy was some ineffectual playoff performer where I could just attribute that to empty production. And then Erving can take third for securing his title and for being a more reliable ballhandler/creator than Kareem was.
Defensive Player of the Year
1. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
2. Dave Cowens
3. Elvin HayesKareem has what I consider his best defensive season. Cowens earns second for his brilliant performance in the Finals, although generally I see the Celtics’ defence as more of an ensemble effort. And then third place goes to minute and rebound leader Elvin Hayes, with acknowledgment that Nate Thurmond would have been here if not for missing a quarter of the season and costing his team a playoff spot. Artis Gilmore toughest cut, but disappointed in the lack of postseason resistance against the Nets.
Player of the Year
1. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
2. Bob Lanier
3. Dave Cowens
4. Julius Erving
5. Bob McAdooKareem is again the runaway best player. Loses Game 7 of the Finals with a highly disadvantaged team. I think he was worse than Dave Cowens in that Game 7, but while I may be willing to let a full series flip where I place players, a single game is not enough to overwrite the other ~hundred. And then Bob McAdoo puts up an impressive pre-MVP season which I cannot justify any higher than fifth. Gilmore is comparatively disappointing, and McAdoo led his Braves to a far more serious series against the eventual champions than Frazier did.
The trouble for me is #2-4. Bob Lanier is my sincere pick for second-best player in the sport this year. Put him on the Celtics and I think you win a title all the same (true both this year and in 1976, although Lanier misses more time in 1976). However, Lanier is also a first round exit and trails distantly in achievement behind the other contenders here.
AEnigma wrote:The Pistons had the league’s second-best SRS (well behind the Bucks) and were a 4 defence. Lanier had career high marks in block rates and steal rates, and nearly in rebounding rate, and this was by all accounts the healthiest season of his career. 1974 was his peak defensive season, by a distance which I think comfortably secures it as his overall peak season.
Lanier finished second that season in both PIPM and BPM (and PIPM wins added and VORP), closely behind Kareem and well ahead of anyone else. Lanier also led the league in BBR’s individual defensive rating and finished third in defensive win shares (Hayes and Kareem), which you would expect from anchoring the league’s third best defence without the strong defensive support you see on the Bullets or Celtics or Bulls.
Sports Illustrated wrote:Detroit has won 10 of its 15 most recent games against .500-plus clubs, and in one heady burst clobbered the NBA's two most successful clubs, Milwaukee (twice) and Boston. These winning ways continued last week as the Pistons swept three weak opponents at Cobo before losing at Chicago 109-91. That defeat prevented Detroit from moving ahead of the Bulls into second place in the Midwest Division, easily the league's toughest, but hardly tarnished the Pistons' 33-19 record, fourth-best in the NBA.
It is defense in its many forms—trap presses, switching man-to-man and occasionally a thinly disguised zone of the sort used by most good pro teams—that has turned the Detroit Pistons, for 16 seasons one of the NBA's most persistent losers, into insistent winners. Last year Detroit ranked 10th in defense, allowing 110 points per game—and that was a six-point improvement over 1971-72. Now the Pistons have a 98.9 defensive average and are getting better with almost every game; only three of their last 13 opponents have scored as many as 100 points.
Bob Lanier was accused of having too much gut and not enough guts. Today, he is no worse than the third-best NBA center and may well be named the NBA's Most Valuable Player.
According to Lanier, it has only been in the last year that he has overcome the physical and psychological effects of the knee injury that ended his college career in 1970 when he was playing in the NCAA regionals for St. Bonaventure and fell over Villanova's (now, ironically, the Pistons') Chris Ford… The most versatile shooter among pro centers, Lanier is grinding down opponents with his inside game and wearing them out with his defense. He averages 23.9 points and 14 rebounds per game, but impressive as those numbers are, his best statistic is the Pistons' defensive average, for which he is most responsible.
Lanier is not only clogging the middle with his immense frame, but is using his unexpected quickness to move away from the basket and help Detroit's switching defense in much the same manner that last year's MVP, Dave Cowens, does for the Celtics. Twice in the Pistons' 93-89 win over Houston last week, Lanier switched onto Rocket Calvin Murphy, the smallest (5'9") and perhaps the fastest man in the league. Both times Murphy attempted to drive past Lanier, only to end up passing off in frustration when he could not get by. The next night Lanier put together one of the tidiest performances of the season as Detroit beat Seattle 94-83. He scored 27 points, grabbed 19 rebounds, had five assists, stole the ball three times and blocked seven shots. He said of that night's work: "I've had quite a few games like this so far this year, and I expect I'm going to have even more of them in the future."
The Pistons went on to lose to that Bulls team, but against the league’s top defence Lanier elevated his already impressive regular season scoring level, and the Pistons actually outscored the Bulls over the course of that seven-game road series. Unfortunately for the Pistons, it turns out winning four games matters more than outscoring in aggregate, and total wins matters more for seeding than total SRS; in a seventh game decided by two points, that Chicago home advantage may well have been the difference.
Greg Eno wrote:The Pistons lost a brutal, angry seven-game series to the Chicago Bulls in the first round. The Pistons weren't done until the final inbounds pass of Game 7, with just seconds to play and the Pistons trailing by one. But David Bing's throw-in was batted away by Dennis Awtrey. Game over. Series over. Season over.
And the tears flowed; not just for 10 year-old Greg Eno, but for Ray Scott's grown-up Pistons players.
"Yeah, we cried, too," Scott said when I told him of my crying jag. "Bob was a spartan; he did everything that we could possibly get him to do… We got beat by Clifford Ray.” Clifford Ray was a big, long-armed shot-blocker and rebounder. He was not, by any stretch, an offensive threat. Kind of like Ben Wallace that way. But, Scott said, Ray was able to match Bob Lanier's offensive production in Game 7 -- a matchup that hadn't worked in the Bulls favor in the previous six games.
In my own film watched of Lanier, I have always been impressed by his overall play, and his defence at least seems like something you could clearly build around. The 1974 postseason section which 70sFan linked was maybe the worst stretch of Pistons play you could find in that series — Pistons end the video down 34-14! — but even there you can see Lanier switching onto Van Lier and switching onto multiple players in one possession and clearly pushing the Bulls to take jumpshots (which unfortunately for Lanier and the Pistons they made at a disproportionately high rate), with the commentators highlighting how Detroit is switching everything and asking a lot of Lanier. Here we have an impact giant who
can anchor a good defence, is one of the best ever big man scorers, elevates in the postseason, has great range, has good passing vision and instincts for his position (a few steps behind guys like KMalone or Walton, but well ahead of anything you see from Ewing or Gilmore or Mourning or McAdoo or Moses), fits well with a variety of teammates because of that passing and that range… Oh, and had his biggest outlier season perfectly coincide with the only year he could claim a reasonably normal level of health.
TrueLAFan wrote:This is Peak Bob Lanier. Think of it like this: Clifford Ray got all the juice for being such a great defender in the 1975 playoffs. And Ray was a very good defender. Lanier averaged 26 and 15 with 3 assists and 2 blocks in the playoff series where they were matched up.
Cowens wins the NBA title and outplays arguably peak Kareem on the road in Game 7 of the Finals. But he does have a good supporting cast, and while I can entertain him over Erving or McAdoo or Gilmore, I can more easily argue him outside the top five than I can argue him at second
as a player.
Cort Reynolds wrote:In game seven of the epic 1974 NBA Finals, the Celtics faced the tall task of beating Milwaukee on the road. Buck center Kareem Abdul-Jabbar was in his youthful prime and enjoyed nearly a six-inch height advantage - which was probably close to a foot when reach is included - over Cowens.
…
The Bucks had forced a seventh game by winning a double overtime classic in Boston just two days earlier, when Jabbar's long running baseline hook over Celtic backup center Hank Finkel gave Milwaukee a see-saw 102-101 victory.
Cowens had fouled out earlier in overtime, or the outcome may well have been different, with the Celtics likely celebrating title number 12 at home.
John Havlicek had traded baskets with the 7-2 Jabbar throughout the final extra session, scoring nine of his 36 points in the second OT, but Kareem got the last shot in.
Yet a hustling play by Cowens that came to epitomize his career happened late in that classic sixth contest. Dave switched off on a pick defensively to cover Robertson, then used his quick hands to poke the ball away from the Hall of Famer.
The speedy center then out-sprinted the 6-5 guard for the loose ball, which rolled into the backcourt. Cowens dove for the ball and slid with it near the sidelines while the loose leather bobbled in and out of his arms. Oscar trailed the play and never left his feet, almost in disbelief at the bigger man's reckless dive.
Cowens left a sweat streak about 10 feet long on the old Garden parquet, probably along with some skin. While the Bucks argued that he never had possession of the ball, the referees correctly ruled that the 24-second clock had nevertheless run out to give Boston the ball.
Not long after, Cowens fouled out with just 13 points on five of 19 shooting, and his absence contributed to the series-tying Buck win. Determined to redeem himself, the proud Celtic star came out firing in game seven.
Boston came up with a new strategy to aid Dave. The Boston braintrust decided to pressure the aging Robertson hard with defensive ace Don Chaney while he brought the ball upcourt.
And then once Milwaukee was into its halfcourt offense, coach Tom Heinsohn had Paul Silas, Havlicek and others also double down and help while Cowens fronted and battled Jabbar for position.
After he was told about the change in defensive strategy, Dave would relate years later in an interview that he felt like saying, "Yes! I am finally going to get some help on this guy."
After having the redhead go one-on-one for six games with the much bigger man who was the total focal point of their offense, Jabbar had averaged almost 34 points per game, so the Celtic brass felt it had to try something.
By not having to expend as much energy defending the 7-2 Jabbar alone, it seemed as if Cowens had been unchained and energized for the decisive contest.
On offense, the muscular Cowens used his superior speed and quickness to take the slower Jabbar out on the floor and drive by him, taking advantage of Kareem's relative lack of lateral quickness.
The high-leaping, aggressive Cowens won the opening jump over Jabbar and tapped it it to Havlicek, who fed a cutting Chaney perfectly for a layup that set an immediate, positive tone in the contest for the Celtics.
As time ran out in the first period, Dave bombed a 25-footer from the right side at the buzzer that went straight in to give Boston a 22-20 lead.
The Celtics lengthened the lead late in the half as their defense stymied Jabbar and Robertson. Dave triggered the vaunted Celtic fast break with a defensive rebound and airborne outlet pass that led to a 16-footer by Don Nelson.
Shortly afterward, Cowens nailed consecutive foul line jumpers that gave the visitors a 53-40 intermission edge. Their defensive strategy, cooked up between games six and seven by Celtic patriarch Red Auerbach, Heinsohn and the legendary Bob Cousy, was working almost to perfection.
Robertson, who had played for Cousy in Cincinnati before their falling out led to the Big O's trade to Milwaukee, was hounded into perhaps the worst playoff game of his career at a very inopportune time.
If nothing else, the all-court pressure put on by the quicker Celtics rushed the Bucks and took vital seconds off the shot clock, forcing hurried decisions and field goal tries. With veteran leader and playmaker Robertson flustered, the Buck offense floundered.
As a result, scoring machine Jabbar was amazingly held without a single point in the entire second stanza and for half of the third period. This was a major drought when one realizes that Kareem came into game seven averaging his number per outing in the 1974 playoffs (33).
…
At the other end, Boston closed the door with a clever bit of body control and quick reactions. Cowens missed a half hook in the lane that richocheted off Jabbar's hands to a nearly-prone Westphal, who was just getting up off the hardwood after being floored while setting a screen.
Paul then hung in the air as he looked to shoot a short jumper over the looming 7-2 Buck center. But at the last second, he double-clutched and instead tossed a beautifully improvised short alley-oop pass to Cowens past Jabbar. Dave caught the ball in the air on the right side of the lane and cleverly kissed it in off glass before Kareem could recover. That was the final nail in the Milwaukee coffin.
…
Havlicek, who enjoyed a great series, was named Finals MVP even though he tallied a modest 16 points on six of 20 shooting in the decisive contest.
His second fourth quarter three-point play on a foul line jumper as he was hit in the stomach capped a decisive 11-0 spurt that put the game well out of reach, 98-79.
But the game seven MVP was definitely Big Red. The final box score showed Cowens with game-high totals of 28 points and 14 rebounds, compared to 26 and 13 for Jabbar.
Yet the considerable numbers did not show his great intangible contribution, as well. Or how much energy the fiery redhead had supplied his team. Nor how his defense had helped Kareem wear down and fade. He sank just six of 11 free throws in the game and went scoreless for over a third of the game in the crucial middle section when Boston took command.
Or how Cowens had ignited the deadly Celtic transition game with his defensive rebounding and quick outlet bullets, often firing his passes in midair while coming down with the carom.
…
Due in large part to the scrambling defensive strategy of Boston, Jabbar only took 21 shots in the decisive seventh contest, six below his series average for attempts to that point.
He also converted only 10 field goals after making 14.5 baskets per contest over the first six games - well below his 54 percent shooting accuracy to that point in the title series.
Finally, Erving mows through the ABA with a decent cast, but while the ABA is rapidly closing the per-team talent gap with the NBA, I would still expect his Nets to lose to the Celtics or Bucks, and I do not think it is a given that his scoring output makes him a more valuable player than some of these NBA bigs. I expect he will be a close to unanimous #2 regardless of how I vote.
