Retro Player of the Year 1973-74 UPDATE — Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

[Djoker]

Too many ABA guys in their primes fell off the cliff after the merger. Even the biggest stars like Erving and Gilmore. The only guys that really improved after the merger were guys that were very young in the ABA like Gervin, Thompson, Moses etc. Of course there are exceptions but ABA guys dropping off a lot after the merger is the trend here.

[AEnigma]

Votes are tallied. I recorded 14 voters: Djoker, AEnigma, Dutchball97, Dr. Positivity, Penbeast, LA Bird, One_and_Done, falcolombardi, ardee, 70sFan, ShaqAttac, OhayoKD, Narigo, and trelos. Penbeast, LA Bird, OhayoKD, One_and_Done, Narigo, and ShaqAttac 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.

1973-74 Results

(Retro) Offensive Player of the Year — Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (3)

Code: Select all

Player       1st   2nd   3rd   Points  Shares
1. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar  5   0   1    26   0.650
2. Julius Erving   0   5   2    17   0.425
3. Bob McAdoo   2   1   2    15    0.375
4. Rick Barry   1   0   2   7    0.175
5. Calvin Murphy  0   2   0    6    0.150
6. John Havlicek   0   0   1    1    0.025

(Retro) Defensive Player of the Year — Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (2)

Code: Select all

Player         1st   2nd   3rd   Points  Shares
1. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar  5   3   0    34   0.850
2. Dave Cowens   2   3   0    19    0.475
3. Bob Lanier    1   2   0    11    0.275
4. Artis Gilmore   0   0   4    4    0.100
5. Elvin Hayes   0   0   3    3    0.075
6. Julius Erving  0   0   1    1    0.025

Retro Player of the Year — Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (5) (Unanimous)

Code: Select all

Player      1st 2nd 3rd 4th 5th Pts  POY Shares
1. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar 14 0 0 0 0   140   1.000
2. Julius Erving  0  9  2  1  1   77   0.550
3. Bob Lanier  0  3  4  4  2   55   0.393
4. Bob McAdoo  0  1  2  7  3   41    0.293
5. Dave Cowens  0  1  3  0  2   24   0.171
6. John Havlicek  0  0  2  2  4   20   0.143
7. Artis Gilmore  0  0  1  0  1   6   0.043
8. Walt Frazier   0  0  0  0  1   1   0.007

In the prior project, there were 16 votes, with Dr. Positivity and penbeast overlapping. With their prior ballots removed, these are the aggregated results of the two projects across 28 total ballots:

Spoiler:

Code: Select all

Player   1st 2nd 3rd 4th 5th Pts  POY Shares
1. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar 27 1 0 0 0   277   0.989
2. Julius Erving  1  22  2  1  1   178   0.636
3. Bob Lanier  0  3  10  9  2   100   0.357
4. Bob McAdoo  0  1  9  10  6   88    0.314
5. Dave Cowens  0  1  3  2  2   30   0.107
6. John Havlicek  0  0  3  2  6   27   0.096
7. Rick Barry  0  0  0  2  4   10   0.036
8. Walt Frazier   0  0  0  1  6   9   0.032
8. Artis Gilmore  0  0  1  1  1   9   0.032

1975 thread will open shortly.

[One_and_Done]

Yeah banner accomplishment to win one series in their first five years and to never look like a top three postseason team. Very proud of them.

They're being compared to their ABA selves, not the 80s Lakers.

They are being compared to good teams 1974-79. They “held up” in the sense that they were still a consistent postseason team on the back of a player who was developing into the sport’s best shooting guard. But they were never as relevant as they were in 1976, because beating fully fledged NBA teams is harder than beating a team comprised of Erving, Brian Taylor, half a series of John Williamson, and a collection of players who could not cut it in the NBA.

I mean I already explained why this is flat out untrue. The Spurs performed as well or better from 77 to 79 as they did from 74 to 76, except they did it without the guy who was 2nd in MVP in 76. Clearly if they had him they'd have been at the top of the NBA those years.

[AEnigma]

They're being compared to their ABA selves, not the 80s Lakers.

They are being compared to good teams 1974-79. They “held up” in the sense that they were still a consistent postseason team on the back of a player who was developing into the sport’s best shooting guard. But they were never as relevant as they were in 1976, because beating fully fledged NBA teams is harder than beating a team comprised of Erving, Brian Taylor, half a series of John Williamson, and a collection of players who could not cut it in the NBA.

I mean I already explained why this is flat out untrue. The Spurs performed as well or better from 77 to 79 as they did from 74 to 76, except they did it without the guy who was 2nd in MVP in 76. Clearly if they had him they'd have been at the top of the NBA those years.

And I already explained why your entire characterisation is “flat out untrue”. You ignore improvement from their two stars, ignore that the one ABA year which makes your claim superficially plausible is entirely because Gervin was off the team for 70% of the year, and ignore how they were never as close as they were to winning a title as they were in 1976… even though the 1976 title winner had all of 2.5 NBA relevant players.

Same schtick you do with praising Pau for twice “leading 50-win teams in the western conference” while ignoring every other garbage season or how other players were more correlated with their success. Once you commit to a narrative, facts become selectively relevant.

[One_and_Done]

They are being compared to good teams 1974-79. They “held up” in the sense that they were still a consistent postseason team on the back of a player who was developing into the sport’s best shooting guard. But they were never as relevant as they were in 1976, because beating fully fledged NBA teams is harder than beating a team comprised of Erving, Brian Taylor, half a series of John Williamson, and a collection of players who could not cut it in the NBA.

I mean I already explained why this is flat out untrue. The Spurs performed as well or better from 77 to 79 as they did from 74 to 76, except they did it without the guy who was 2nd in MVP in 76. Clearly if they had him they'd have been at the top of the NBA those years.

And I already explained why your entire characterisation is “flat our untrue”. You ignore improvement from their two stars, ignore that the one ABA year which makes your claim superficially plausible is entirely because Gervin was off the team for 70% of the year, and ignore how they were never as close as they were to plausibly winning a title as they were in 1976… even though the 1976 title winner had all of 2.5 NBA relevant players.

Same schtick you do with praising Pau for twice “leading 50-win teams in the western conference” while ignoring every other garbage season or how other players were more correlated with their success. Once you commit to a narrative, facts become selectively relevant.

I have no idea how any of the above is supposed to help your argument. Gervin missed a bunch of games in 74 yes, but that's the year they won the fewest games. As Silas improves and Gervin plays more, the team increases to 51 and 50 wins (with a big SRS jump). That's what we'd expect, right? Then they go to the NBA and drop to 44 wins, but that's assumedly because of Silas getting hurt. They then manage to improve the next 2 years as Gervin really hits his stride and rises to Silas absence.

The logical takeaway of any objective person would be that if they had Silas they'd have been even better as an NBA team than they were in the ABA. What am I missing here? They barely lost in 7 games to the defending champs in the 79 ECFs. How is it not logical to conclude that adding a superstar guard probably gets them over the line?

[One_and_Done]

Too many ABA guys in their primes fell off the cliff after the merger. Even the biggest stars like Erving and Gilmore. The only guys that really improved after the merger were guys that were very young in the ABA like Gervin, Thompson, Moses etc. Of course there are exceptions but ABA guys dropping off a lot after the merger is the trend here.

Erving did not 'fall off', not until he got hurt anyway. The 76er situation has been very well documented. They had too many scorers, and the coach asked Erving to sacrifice his shots to make it work; and despite the unbalanced roster it almost did. The Sixers made the finals in 77 and lost in a tight 6 game series.

Gilmore got sent to a garbage situation with no talent and wasn't used well.

[AEnigma]

I mean I already explained why this is flat out untrue. The Spurs performed as well or better from 77 to 79 as they did from 74 to 76, except they did it without the guy who was 2nd in MVP in 76. Clearly if they had him they'd have been at the top of the NBA those years.

And I already explained why your entire characterisation is “flat our untrue”. You ignore improvement from their two stars, ignore that the one ABA year which makes your claim superficially plausible is entirely because Gervin was off the team for 70% of the year, and ignore how they were never as close as they were to plausibly winning a title as they were in 1976… even though the 1976 title winner had all of 2.5 NBA relevant players.

Same schtick you do with praising Pau for twice “leading 50-win teams in the western conference” while ignoring every other garbage season or how other players were more correlated with their success. Once you commit to a narrative, facts become selectively relevant.

I have no idea how any of the above is supposed to help your argument. Gervin missed a bunch of games in 74 yes, but that's the year they won the fewest games.

And it is a year you lean on as a crutch because it is the only year that makes it look like they were in line with their NBA selves, to the same degree that 1979 is an outlier for the Spurs as an NBA team.

As Silas improves and Gervin plays more, the team increases to 51 and 50 wins (with a big SRS jump). That's what we'd expect, right?

Sure, but what I am saying is that the 1975 team does not look meaningfully different from the 1974 team with Gervin. He got there and they were immediately a 50-win, 3-SRS team in the games he played. Their individual improvement was a marginal change, and they actually played worse against the Pacers in 1975.

Then they go to the NBA and drop to 44 wins, but that's assumedly because of Silas getting hurt. They then manage to improve the next 2 years as Gervin really hits his stride and rises to Silas absence.

The logical takeaway of any objective person would be that if they had Silas they'd have been even better as an NBA team than they were in the ABA. What am I missing here?

The degree.

They barely lost in 7 games to the defending champs in the 79 ECFs. How is it not logical to conclude that adding a superstar guard probably gets them over the line?

Because those defending champions were handled comfortably in the Finals. Because you are not adding a “superstar guard” in 1979, you are just improving the guard already playing for you. Because your vision of that “superstar guard” is “second-in-MVP” three years earlier, while ignoring he was in a three-way tie for second with one vote across a league of seven teams (by comparison, Dave Bing has multiple years with a higher first place vote share than that, against more and better competition). And finally, because that same exact core was present in 1980, and in fact got an even better version of Silas than what they had in 1979, but nevertheless they dropped back down to a .500 record and 0 SRS.

[One_and_Done]

And I already explained why your entire characterisation is “flat our untrue”. You ignore improvement from their two stars, ignore that the one ABA year which makes your claim superficially plausible is entirely because Gervin was off the team for 70% of the year, and ignore how they were never as close as they were to plausibly winning a title as they were in 1976… even though the 1976 title winner had all of 2.5 NBA relevant players.

Same schtick you do with praising Pau for twice “leading 50-win teams in the western conference” while ignoring every other garbage season or how other players were more correlated with their success. Once you commit to a narrative, facts become selectively relevant.

I have no idea how any of the above is supposed to help your argument. Gervin missed a bunch of games in 74 yes, but that's the year they won the fewest games.

And it is a year you lean on as a crutch because it is the only year that makes it look like they were in line with their NBA selves, to the same degree that 1979 is an outlier for the Spurs as an NBA team.

As Silas improves and Gervin plays more, the team increases to 51 and 50 wins (with a big SRS jump). That's what we'd expect, right?

Sure, but what I am saying is that the 1975 team does not look meaningfully different from the 1974 team with Gervin. He got there and they were immediately a 50-win, 3-SRS team in the games he played. Their individual improvement was a marginal change, and they actually played worse against the Pacers in 1975.

Then they go to the NBA and drop to 44 wins, but that's assumedly because of Silas getting hurt. They then manage to improve the next 2 years as Gervin really hits his stride and rises to Silas absence.

The logical takeaway of any objective person would be that if they had Silas they'd have been even better as an NBA team than they were in the ABA. What am I missing here?

The degree.

They barely lost in 7 games to the defending champs in the 79 ECFs. How is it not logical to conclude that adding a superstar guard probably gets them over the line?

Because those defending champions were handled comfortably in the Finals. Because you are not adding a “superstar guard” in 1979, you are just improving the guard already playing for you. Because your vision of that “superstar guard” is “second-in-MVP” three years earlier, while ignoring he was in a three-way tie for second with one vote across a league of seven teams (by comparison, Dave Bing has multiple years with a higher first place vote share than that, against more and better competition). And finally, because that same exact core was present in 1980, and in fact got an even better version of Silas than what they had in 1979, but nevertheless they dropped back down to a .500 record and 0 SRS.

I think you’re just conflating a number of things and have confused yourself.

The 75 team does look meaningfully better than the 74 team. They went from 45 wins to 51, and their SRS increased from 0.73 to 3.89. That’s a big increase. Any normal person would look at the team, and say “what changed? Oh, wait, Gervin played much more in 75, that was probably it”. It sure seems like that was the reason, because the exact same thing happened next year when they won 50 games with an SRS of 3.82.

Then if we were to ask someone in 76 “what do you think would happen if the Spurs star guard got hurt next year?” they would probably say “well, the team will probably drop in wins… which they did, back down to 44 wins and 0.53 SRS. So without having Gervin most of the season, they were a 45 win team, and without a healthy Silas they were a 44 win team, but with both healthy they were a 50+ win team with a much stronger SRS. That speaks pretty loudly as to the value of those 2 players. Thankfully for Spurs fans, Gervin got even better in Silas absence, which you’d expect from a guy turning 25. The team matched their healthy Gervin/Silas levels in 78, and exceeded them in 79. It’s hard to find a signal and sample that seems to have a clearer cause and effect that these Spurs teams.

Your rebuttal to that is just weird. You seem hyper focused on their playoff results, but they did better in the playoffs in the NBA than the ABA, so how is that helping your argument? Regardless of whether you think Silas was a superstar, all-nba guy, or just an all-star, he was clearly a big loss. He was never the same after his injuries in 77, so the Spurs never had the real James Silas in the NBA. I don’t even understand how you think adding a star guard doesn’t put the Spurs over the top tbh.

[AEnigma]

I have no idea how any of the above is supposed to help your argument. Gervin missed a bunch of games in 74 yes, but that's the year they won the fewest games.

And it is a year you lean on as a crutch because it is the only year that makes it look like they were in line with their NBA selves, to the same degree that 1979 is an outlier for the Spurs as an NBA team.

As Silas improves and Gervin plays more, the team increases to 51 and 50 wins (with a big SRS jump). That's what we'd expect, right?

Sure, but what I am saying is that the 1975 team does not look meaningfully different from the 1974 team with Gervin. He got there and they were immediately a 50-win, 3-SRS team in the games he played. Their individual improvement was a marginal change, and they actually played worse against the Pacers in 1975.

Then they go to the NBA and drop to 44 wins, but that's assumedly because of Silas getting hurt. They then manage to improve the next 2 years as Gervin really hits his stride and rises to Silas absence.

The logical takeaway of any objective person would be that if they had Silas they'd have been even better as an NBA team than they were in the ABA. What am I missing here?

The degree.

They barely lost in 7 games to the defending champs in the 79 ECFs. How is it not logical to conclude that adding a superstar guard probably gets them over the line?

Because those defending champions were handled comfortably in the Finals. Because you are not adding a “superstar guard” in 1979, you are just improving the guard already playing for you. Because your vision of that “superstar guard” is “second-in-MVP” three years earlier, while ignoring he was in a three-way tie for second with one vote across a league of seven teams (by comparison, Dave Bing has multiple years with a higher first place vote share than that, against more and better competition). And finally, because that same exact core was present in 1980, and in fact got an even better version of Silas than what they had in 1979, but nevertheless they dropped back down to a .500 record and 0 SRS.

I think you’re just conflating a number of things and have confused yourself.

The 75 team does look meaningfully better than the 74 team. They went from 45 wins to 51, and their SRS increased from 0.73 to 3.89. That’s a big increase. Any normal person would look at the team, and say “what changed? Oh, wait, Gervin played much more in 75, that was probably it”. It sure seems like that was the reason, because the exact same thing happened next year when they won 50 games with an SRS of 3.82.

You did not read what I wrote. I agree the sole difference is Gervin. I am saying that does not mean the 1974 Spurs were some inferior team. They were just as good, and they showed as much in the postseason — and the fact they were just as good does not reflect well on Silas or on the state of the league overall.

Then if we were to ask someone in 76 “what do you think would happen if the Spurs star guard got hurt next year?” they would probably say “well, the team will probably drop in wins… which they did, back down to 44 wins and 0.53 SRS. So without having Gervin most of the season, they were a 45 win team, and without a healthy Silas they were a 44 win team, but with both healthy they were a 50+ win team with a much stronger SRS. That speaks pretty loudly as to the value of those 2 players.

Not really, that is a relatively typical all-star mark even if we ignore the consistent decline we saw from the ABA transfer.

Thankfully for Spurs fans, Gervin got even better in Silas absence, which you’d expect from a guy turning 25. The team matched their healthy Gervin/Silas levels in 78, and exceeded them in 79. It’s hard to find a signal and sample that seems to have a clearer cause and effect that these Spurs teams.

Your rebuttal to that is just weird. You seem hyper focused on their playoff results, but they did better in the playoffs in the NBA than the ABA, so how is that helping your argument?

They did not. In the ABA, they took the title winners to a game seven without their co-best player. In the NBA, a more talented version of that team only managed to take the runners-up to a Game 7, with those runners-up faring much worse against the eventual champion than at least one other team did.

Regardless of whether you think Silas was a superstar, all-nba guy, or just an all-star, he was clearly a big loss. He was never the same after his injuries in 77, so the Spurs never had the real James Silas in the NBA. I don’t even understand how you think adding a star guard doesn’t put the Spurs over the top tbh.

Because there is nothing impressive about what they did in 1979, and in 1977 they were comically far removed from competing with the Blazers. The quality of the guard absolutely matters in that circumstance, and not only is there nothing suggesting Silas to be some all-time guard on his own merits, there is also no good indication that he would have successfully carried over his 1976 level of play — whatever it was — into a tougher and more talented league environment. I agree the injury made him worse than he would have been, but he was never a great passer, never a noteworthy guard defender, never as tight with his handle as you would want, never a high volume option… so ultimately what I come back to is that the biggest consequence of his injury was likely just the sheer minutes load, and while that matters, it is a relatively marginal hit to their realistic title contention.

[One_and_Done]

Maybe I'm missing it somehow, but I don't feel you're making any compelling points here. Your sole argument appears to be that Silas would somehow have sucked in the NBA even if he had never been injured. That seems crazy, given even the injured shell of Silas was a good player in 79. Somehow having a healthy body would have made no real difference? That makes less than no sense. We saw a tonne of player (and several teams) transition to the NBA just fine. I can't really get on board with the idea Silas wasn't going to transition just fine. He was one of the very best ABA players after all.

You keep insisting the ABA sucked, but the Spurs pretty much prove the opposite.

[AEnigma]

They do not, they went into a better league and were less serious title contenders despite general internal improvement, and your only argument to the contrary is a blind insistence that was all due to James Silas not being healthy — as if we are expected to ignore how the Spurs still managed to seriously compete for an ABA title in 1976 without him.

I reiterate: 80% of the ABA could not cut it in the NBA, and all but three players on the final ABA title-winner could not cut it in the NBA. Those that were good enough to make it only ever looked better in the NBA if they were younger than 26, which is the entire reason you are leaning on the Spurs at all. It was a weak league that happened to have some good players at the top, and those good players disproportionately exploited their relative talent advantage.

[trex_8063]

Just touching base. Sorry I've been absent for a few threads; just had other things going on [life, and all that]. Keep up the good work, hopefully I'll join back in soon.

Glad to see Kareem cleaning up on the 70s; I've always felt he dominated that decade much like Mikan dominated the late 40s/early 50s, and possibly slightly more than Jordan did the 90s [minus the hiatus] or LeBron the 10s.
Not sure my votes would have changed the resulting order for this year. Glad to see Lanier come in heavy at #3; always though his '74 campaign was a monster, and a really solid peak.
I think my top 6 would have been the same, with a possible slight re-ordering of 4-5.

[One_and_Done]

They do not, they went into a better league and were less serious title contenders despite general internal improvement, and your only argument to the contrary is a blind insistence that was all due to James Silas not being healthy — as if we are expected to ignore how the Spurs still managed to seriously compete for an ABA title in 1976 without him.

I reiterate: 80% of the ABA could not cut it in the NBA, and all but three players on the final ABA title-winner could not cut it in the NBA. Those that were good enough to make it only ever looked better in the NBA if they were younger than 26, which is the entire reason you are leaning on the Spurs at all. It was a weak league that happened to have some good players at the top, and those good players disproportionately exploited their relative talent advantage.

If the 74-76 Spurs could only win 45-51 games with Silas, but could then win 44-52 games in the NBA without healthy Silas, then the logical conclusion is that maybe the ABA was actually the tougher league. The Spurs team was otherwise largely the same after all.

[AEnigma]

They do not, they went into a better league and were less serious title contenders despite general internal improvement, and your only argument to the contrary is a blind insistence that was all due to James Silas not being healthy — as if we are expected to ignore how the Spurs still managed to seriously compete for an ABA title in 1976 without him.

I reiterate: 80% of the ABA could not cut it in the NBA, and all but three players on the final ABA title-winner could not cut it in the NBA. Those that were good enough to make it only ever looked better in the NBA if they were younger than 26, which is the entire reason you are leaning on the Spurs at all. It was a weak league that happened to have some good players at the top, and those good players disproportionately exploited their relative talent advantage.

If the 74-76 Spurs could only win 45-51 games with Silas, but could then win 44-52 games in the NBA without healthy Silas, then the logical conclusion is that maybe the ABA was actually the tougher league. The Spurs team was otherwise largely the same after all.

Only by a “logic” which assumes Silas was a legitimate superstar, ignores how Silas’s own improvement barely affected the Spurs in either league, ignores Gervin (and Kenon) settling into his real prime, ignores how the Spurs’ SRS with Gervin generally went down outside of one inexplicable outlier spike season, and ignores every other negative indicator for basically every other ABA team and veteran ABA player.

[One_and_Done]

They do not, they went into a better league and were less serious title contenders despite general internal improvement, and your only argument to the contrary is a blind insistence that was all due to James Silas not being healthy — as if we are expected to ignore how the Spurs still managed to seriously compete for an ABA title in 1976 without him.

I reiterate: 80% of the ABA could not cut it in the NBA, and all but three players on the final ABA title-winner could not cut it in the NBA. Those that were good enough to make it only ever looked better in the NBA if they were younger than 26, which is the entire reason you are leaning on the Spurs at all. It was a weak league that happened to have some good players at the top, and those good players disproportionately exploited their relative talent advantage.

If the 74-76 Spurs could only win 45-51 games with Silas, but could then win 44-52 games in the NBA without healthy Silas, then the logical conclusion is that maybe the ABA was actually the tougher league. The Spurs team was otherwise largely the same after all.

Only by a “logic” which assumes Silas was a legitimate superstar, ignores how Silas’s own improvement barely affected the Spurs in either league, ignores Gervin (and Kenon) settling into his real prime, ignores how the Spurs’ SRS with Gervin generally went down outside of one inexplicable outlier spike season, and ignores every other negative indicator for basically every other ABA team and veteran ABA player.

Was Silas better with 2 working knees or one? He was universally regarded to be at least a good NBA player, so assumedly with 2 working knees he'd have been better still. You go on about the Spurs SRS going down in 77 and 78, as though that's somehow disconnected from their co-star having a career threatening injury and missing most of 2 seasons.

[AEnigma]

Silas being better if uninjured and the 1977/78 Spurs being better with him are gestures at an unquantified value which you are desperately trying to extrapolate into nonexistent title contention and an overwriting of every general failure the ABA had in its absorption by the NBA.

[One_and_Done]

Silas being better if uninjured and the 1977/78 Spurs being better with him are gestures at an unquantified value which you are desperately trying to extrapolate into nonexistent title contention and an overwriting of every general failure the ABA had in its absorption by the NBA.

Yeh, because it's a huge stretch that the team who took the defending champs to 7 close games in the ECFs would be able to get over the line if their point guard had 2 good knees instead of one.

[AEnigma]

Silas being better if uninjured and the 1977/78 Spurs being better with him are gestures at an unquantified value which you are desperately trying to extrapolate into nonexistent title contention and an overwriting of every general failure the ABA had in its absorption by the NBA.

Yeh, because it's a huge stretch that the team who took the defending champs to 7 close games in the ECFs would be able to get over the line if their point guard had 2 good knees instead of one.

It is when those “defending champs” do not put up any fight in the Finals.

May as well argue the 1971 Knicks would have beat the Bucks if Willis Reed were truly healthy.

[One_and_Done]

Silas being better if uninjured and the 1977/78 Spurs being better with him are gestures at an unquantified value which you are desperately trying to extrapolate into nonexistent title contention and an overwriting of every general failure the ABA had in its absorption by the NBA.

Yeh, because it's a huge stretch that the team who took the defending champs to 7 close games in the ECFs would be able to get over the line if their point guard had 2 good knees instead of one.

It is when those “defending champs” do not put up any fight in the Finals.

May as well argue the 1971 Knicks would have beat the Bucks if Willis Reed were truly healthy.

Except that same team won the title the previous year, against the same Sonics, and those same Spurs existed minus Silas. If they had not just Silas but healthy Silas, it's hardly a stretch they'd have won at least 1 title over that span.

[Djoker]

Too many ABA guys in their primes fell off the cliff after the merger. Even the biggest stars like Erving and Gilmore. The only guys that really improved after the merger were guys that were very young in the ABA like Gervin, Thompson, Moses etc. Of course there are exceptions but ABA guys dropping off a lot after the merger is the trend here.

Erving did not 'fall off', not until he got hurt anyway. The 76er situation has been very well documented. They had too many scorers, and the coach asked Erving to sacrifice his shots to make it work; and despite the unbalanced roster it almost did. The Sixers made the finals in 77 and lost in a tight 6 game series.

Gilmore got sent to a garbage situation with no talent and wasn't used well.

So basically they fell off but you think there is are good explanations for it. Eh you need many explanations unless you acknowledge that the ABA was simply the weaker league. That covers almost all the bases.