Retro Player of the Year 1974-75 UPDATE — Rick Barry

[OhayoKD]

1. Rick Barry

His numbers peak, his team peaks, and he leads a sweep of 60-win Washington completing a run where the Warriors knock off both the best and third best regular-season teams en-route to their first title. He plays 10 more minutes than any of his teammates in the regular-season and 12 more minutes than any of his teammates in the playoffs gesturing towards Barry as a pretty big outlier relative to his teammates. In lieu of any real signals I'm going to defer to convention: The (by far) leading minutes-getter and scorer on the best team in basketball will be my pick for player of the year.

2. Kareem Abdul Jabbar

Likely a down-year, misses 17 games, and misses the play-offs. Still likely the most valuable player in the sport seeing a 30-win(22-win by srs) drop-off as he averages 30 along with strong defense. I'm not a stickler for missed games. On a not terrible team he likely makes the playoffs and makes his case fot #1. Instead the best player of the 70's will have to settle for 2nd.

3. Elvin Hayes

Not the ending he wanted but nonetheless anchors the best team over 82 games and the 2nd best overall. Rebounds+Blocks suggests a co-primary or close-secondary paint-protector also leading their team in scoring. Seems to have had himself a series for the Bullets high-point, a win against the defending champion Celtics. No real signals like Barry so I guess I'll defer to convention again and vote the guy who finished 3rd in MVP voting 3rd.

4. Bob McAdoo

His rebounding is higher than anyone else in the team by a factor of 2(paint-protection proxy), as are his 34.5 points scored on good efficiency. He plays 6 minutes more than anyone else for the season and the second season, seemingly carrying what was a top 5 regular-season team that proceeded to perform like a top 5 playoff team against the 60-win Bullets.

5. Artis Gilmore

Not a runaway ABA lead and the discussion in the 74 thread left me skeptical the leagues were ever truly close but...he does reasonably well when he comes to the NBA and it seems hard to argue for anyone in the ABA against him unless you ignore he playoffs.

And yes that means Erving misses the cut.

[penbeast0]

I'll be happy to get out of the NBA/ABA split years, I never feel good about these rankings.

1. Dr J - The best player in ABA with impact on both ends and Kareem missed time.

2. Rick Barry - While I hate the idea of counting da rings, the playmaking makes him arguably as valuable on offense as McAdoo and it looks like his best defensive season, and the competition lightens this year. The supporting cast is probably better than their name/numbers (I have heard they have a bench mob for the ages) but there's a reason why Brunson's Knicks didn't win the title this year.

3. Bob McAdoo - We'll give him the edge over missed GP Kareem, as McAdoo has the clear offensive advantage to make up for worse D.

4. Artis Gilmore - We'll go with the ABA champion here with great D and efficiency, although I like his supporting cast.

5. Walt Frazier - Frazier has another prime season and takes Knicks to playoffs with some of his friends gone, and is great there in small 3 games.

I originally had Kareem on but I think the moodiness and psychological impact on his team of his impending exit is enough for me to downgrade him.

Offensive player of the year

1. Tiny Archibald
2. Rick Barry
3. Bob McAdoo

Defensive player of the year

1. Bobby Jones
2. Artis Gilmore
3. Elvin Hayes

Gotta love the idea that neither the best offensive player (admittedly a terrible defender) nor the best defender (who averaged 15ppg on a league leading .604 from the field with good passing from the PF spot) make the top 5 in overall POY.

[Dr Positivity]

The best defensive player missing is not that weird historically, but I guess Tiny deserves consideration for this year winning 44 Gs with what seems like pretty weak team (and I'm not the type of person who focuses heavy on team offense/defense ranks), I still think Frazier is better player though as the defensive gap is better than the offensive.

[OhayoKD]

The best defensive player missing is not that weird historically, but yes Tiny not being top 5 is probably rare for a player who's been arguable best offensive player in multiple years, I still think Frazier is better player though.

It is wierd considering the history that surrounds 1975 which is really the only history that matters.

Though not as wierd as a first round exit in an inferior league getting placed top 5 let alone #1.

[Dr Positivity]

It is wierd considering the history that surrounds 1975 which is really the only history that matters.

We've had a few other non top 5 competing players like Hutchins and DeBusschere win DPOYs. The main reason it didn't happen more often up to the 70s is Russell was in the league for 13 years.

[OhayoKD]

Am submitting this on Aleco's behalf:

I don't know alot about past nba but I'm going to try and participate. Here's my ballot for 1975 POY

1, Elvin Hayes. led in PER even though PER hates bigs and wins 60 games. Great defender and scores some too. Carried Bullets to final.

2, Bob Mcadoo. 34 PPG and best defender is a killer combo. Almost knocked off the Bullets too.

3 Bob Lanier, 24 points, 4 assists which is pretty nice for a center, best defender and puts up 20/6/10 in the playoffs.

4, Rick Barry has 30/6 in the season and has one of the best finals performances ever. Bad defender but his offense is enough to win.

5, Tiny Archibald, Maybe best guy on offense has 7 assists and 26 points and carries Omaha to the playoffs.

Can dm a screenshot to anyone who wants to verify this is Aleco's vote.

[AEnigma]

Will permit it this round but for various intuitive reasons I think ghost ballots should be exceptions rather than norms, so I expect him to post his own here on out.

[Narigo]

1. Bob McAdoo-

2. Rock Barry-

3. Kareem Abdul Jabbar- missed the playoffs because of injuries in the regular season

4. Bob Lanier-

5. Elvin Hayes- can't decide who's better between Unseld and Hayes. The Bullets were pretty good without Unseld on the few games he missed this season. I guess I choose Hayes

Edit for later

[LA Bird]

This is not a real argument for anything unless you are suggesting that Barry was not by a distance the team’s best player.

Barry being the Warriors' best player is obvious and has zero relevance to my argument...

30.6/5.7/6.2/0.4/2.9 on 50.9% efficiency across 80 regular season games ——> 28.2/5.5/6.1/0.9/2.9 on 50.5% efficiency across 17 games against a slate of teams with a -3 weighted defensive rating. In the regular season, Barry provided 27.5% of his team’s points. In the postseason, Barry provided 28.1% of his team’s points — and did so at greater efficiency relative to the rest of the team. That is not a real decline, no, and frankly I do not believe you think it is either.

30.6 -> 28.2 = decline
5.7 -> 5.5 = decline
6.2 -> 6.1 = decline
50.9 -> 50.5 = decline

Whether you consider that a "real" decline based on opponent defense faced is up to you but am I supposed to say that's an incline? Also, a player providing 0% of his team's points when he missed games is not exactly a clever argument. If you had accounted for that, the RS figure increases to 28.2% before we even look at the difference in minutes.

He would have been my vote and many of our votes. I do not care that he finished behind McAdoo, Hayes, and 65 games of Cowens any more than I cared that Lanier finished behind McAdoo last season, or that Unseld won MVP in 1969, or that Lenny Wilkens was second in 1968. This is a gesture at nothing.

I wasn't referring to actual MVP votes which we all know can be suspect. I am saying most people here would not have ranked Barry as MVP if we only focus on the regular season. You obviously disagree but looking at the other voters, how many has said a single word about Barry being the best RS player? It's all about the ring.

Yet again, most of us are not treating this as an annual best player ranking — and even if that were what we were doing, this is a clear peak for him in a year where most of the other best players either missed the postseason (Kareem) or did nothing in the postseason (Lanier and Erving), which is the exact standard that has weighed against Barry in six of the prior seven seasons.

The exact standard weighing against Barry is simply that he was not good enough in previous years to make top 5. Many great players have made the list despite missing or 'doing nothing' in the postseason. Case in point, Barry himself got cooked by Gilmore 25-1 in 1972 POY points despite making the Finals and eliminating the Colonels in round 1. If the Nets had gotten just three more buckets against the Pacers over two games though, people will likely suddenly start voting for him because of championship bias and I would be making the exact same argument against him.

To whatever marginal extent the peaks projects are at all relevant here (I did not vote for Gilmore…), that still leaves Barry top two, because McAdoo has not managed the same consistent advantage.

The peaks project results are relevant here because it establishes a history of how the two players are ranked on this board which gets thrown out the window here without any reasoning. Imagine if Russell regularly ranks above Bird in the top 100 project but Bird is now easily getting voted higher in a GOAT Celtics list - would I be wrong to point out the inconsistency?

I did not vote for Gilmore…

Good to know but I was talking about the board opinion at large, not you specifically. Not sure why you took offense.

[OhayoKD]

Good to know but I was talking about the board opinion at large, not you specifically. Not sure why you took offense.

The board at large isn't voting though. How much of this voting block was involved in the peaks project thread for Barry?

[Dutchball97]

Player of the Year
1. Artis Gilmore - Like I previously said, the top spot for me is only between Gilmore and Barry. I initially expected to have Barry come out on top but in the end I flipped it around. Well neither was the best player in the regular season, I do think Gilmore had more of an argument over Erving and McGinnis there than Barry has over McAdoo. In the post-season Barry's volume and efficiency in terms of scoring both dropped and I think it's noticeable the Warriors went from the top offense in the regular season to a pretty average one in the play-offs, while the reverse happened to their defense. Barry's steals suggest he did have a positive impact on their defense but with him averaging the same SPG in the regular season and play-offs I don't see Barry as primarily responsible for the defensive improvement in the post-season. Meanwhile the Colonels got the top defensive spot back from the Nets in the regular season but while Gilmore also had a bit of an efficiency drop in the play-offs, the defense got even more dominant while their offense remained similar to the regular season. Considering I see the ABA as only marginally worse than the NBA at this point these signals are enough for me to go with Gilmore over Barry for POY.

2. Rick Barry - Top 5 regular season followed by the best overall post-season run in the NBA this season. He impacted the game on both ends and would have probably been my number 1 if not for the utter defensive dominance of the Colonels in the post-season.

3. George McGinnis - Being the co-MVP alongside Erving in the ABA is a bit much imo as the Pacers were a balanced team that did not seem to have outlier offensive impact despite McGinnis putting up big numbers. The amount of turnovers and fouls he had are also hampering my hype a bit but that's only the reason why I didn't see him as a serious challenger to Gilmore and Barry. It was still a really good regular season followed by arguably the best post-season run across either league.

4. Bob McAdoo - He was the best player in the NBA in the regular season and comfortably so with Kareem missing time. The play-offs ended a bit too soon for McAdoo to make a real push for the top spot but he nonetheless performed well individually there as well and held up much better in that sense than Erving did over in the ABA. I did consider Hayes and Cowens here as they had more "complete" seasons with strong regular seasons and deep play-off runs but I don't think either of them did enough to seperate themselves from their teammates (Unseld and Havlicek) in a way to make their season more impressive than McAdoo's.

5. Elvin Hayes - I considered Lanier and Frazier as guys with good regular seasons who had short but sweet play-off outings but I don't think either of their short play-off stints was enough to overcome Hayes and Cowens here. Erving's play-offs were a bit too lackluster for me to have him on the ballot. With Hayes winning the head to head matchup with Cowens and having an overall somewhat more impressive post-season statline gives him the edge.

Offensive Player of the Year
1. Rick Barry
2. Bob McAdoo
3. George McGinnis

That was a tough one but Barry led the top offense in the regular season and held up well enough in the post-season. McAdoo's elite scoring and better offensive results in the post-season gets him in this time around. McGinnis rounds up ballot with an elite combination of scoring and playmaking that could've seen him grab the top spot if not for his high amount of turnovers. Honestly most of the top offenses across both leagues this season like the Rockets, Celtics and Nuggets are more by committee instead of being led by just 1 outlier offensive talent.

Defensive Player of the Year
1. Artis Gilmore
2. Elvin Hayes
3. Wes Unseld

Colonels were the top defense in the ABA in the regular season and by the time the play-offs rolled around, nobody could hold a candle to them anymore. I think Hayes and Unseld both contributed significantly to the consistent success the Bullets had on defense so I decided to include them both. I considered Cowens but the Celtics didn't do well enough on the defensive end in the play-offs to keep him in contention. Similar story for Bobby Jones, who also has the added disadvantage of not playing that many minutes for a star (around 32 MPG in the regular season and 35 MPG in the post-season). I'd have considered Erving again as a representative for the very strong Nets defense but that kind of went out of the window with the play-offs as well. McGinnis and Barry deserve a mention for their work but I don't buy either having top 3 defensive impact as even Erving last year with insane individual numbers as well as unrivaled team success only just snuck in on my ballot (with of course nobody else even entertaining the thought). The only thing that gives me pause is the Bulls. They were the 2nd best defense in the NBA in both the regular season and post-season. Usually that'd give a team a very good chance of getting a player on the ballot but just like with the Rockets on offense, I'm not sure who I could reward here. Thurmond joins but it's not like the Bulls made a big jump compared to the previous season and with his low amount of minutes in the post-season without a noticable drop-off, I'm not convinced he's the one making this Bulls defense so consistently elite. Is Bob Love a much better defender than we give him credit for? Is somebody else on that team a secret defensive phenom or is this also a case of a solid defensive team all around without necessary having a DPOY candidate?

[trelos6]

Interesting observation, in the greatest peaks 2022 edition, Artis Gilmore 74-75 finished above Rick Barry 74-75 and Barry edged out McAdoo 74-75.

[Owly]

Player of the Year
1. Artis Gilmore - Like I previously said, the top spot for me is only between Gilmore and Barry. I initially expected to have Barry come out on top but in the end I flipped it around. Well neither was the best player in the regular season, I do think Gilmore had more of an argument over Erving and McGinnis there than Barry has over McAdoo. In the post-season Barry's volume and efficiency in terms of scoring both dropped and I think it's noticeable the Warriors went from the top offense in the regular season to a pretty average one in the play-offs, while the reverse happened to their defense. Barry's steals suggest he did have a positive impact on their defense but with him averaging the same SPG in the regular season and play-offs I don't see Barry as primarily responsible for the defensive improvement in the post-season. Meanwhile the Colonels got the top defensive spot back from the Nets in the regular season but while Gilmore also had a bit of an efficiency drop in the play-offs, the defense got even more dominant while their offense remained similar to the regular season. Considering I see the ABA as only marginally worse than the NBA at this point these signals are enough for me to go with Gilmore over Barry for POY.

2. Rick Barry - Top 5 regular season followed by the best overall post-season run in the NBA this season. He impacted the game on both ends and would have probably been my number 1 if not for the utter defensive dominance of the Colonels in the post-season.

3. George McGinnis - Being the co-MVP alongside Erving in the ABA is a bit much imo as the Pacers were a balanced team that did not seem to have outlier offensive impact despite McGinnis putting up big numbers. The amount of turnovers and fouls he had are also hampering my hype a bit but that's only the reason why I didn't see him as a serious challenger to Gilmore and Barry. It was still a really good regular season followed by arguably the best post-season run across either league.

4. Bob McAdoo - He was the best player in the NBA in the regular season and comfortably so with Kareem missing time. The play-offs ended a bit too soon for McAdoo to make a real push for the top spot but he nonetheless performed well individually there as well and held up much better in that sense than Erving did over in the ABA. I did consider Hayes and Cowens here as they had more "complete" seasons with strong regular seasons and deep play-off runs but I don't think either of them did enough to seperate themselves from their teammates (Unseld and Havlicek) in a way to make their season more impressive than McAdoo's.

5. Elvin Hayes - I considered Lanier and Frazier as guys with good regular seasons who had short but sweet play-off outings but I don't think either of their short play-off stints was enough to overcome Hayes and Cowens here. Erving's play-offs were a bit too lackluster for me to have him on the ballot. With Hayes winning the head to head matchup with Cowens and having an overall somewhat more impressive post-season statline gives him the edge.

Offensive Player of the Year
1. Rick Barry
2. Bob McAdoo
3. George McGinnis

That was a tough one but Barry led the top offense in the regular season and held up well enough in the post-season. McAdoo's elite scoring and better offensive results in the post-season gets him in this time around. McGinnis rounds up ballot with an elite combination of scoring and playmaking that could've seen him grab the top spot if not for his high amount of turnovers. Honestly most of the top offenses across both leagues this season like the Rockets, Celtics and Nuggets are more by committee instead of being led by just 1 outlier offensive talent.

Defensive Player of the Year
1. Artis Gilmore
2. Elvin Hayes
3. Wes Unseld

Colonels were the top defense in the ABA in the regular season and by the time the play-offs rolled around, nobody could hold a candle to them anymore. I think Hayes and Unseld both contributed significantly to the consistent success the Bullets had on defense so I decided to include them both. I considered Cowens but the Celtics didn't do well enough on the defensive end in the play-offs to keep him in contention. Similar story for Bobby Jones, who also has the added disadvantage of not playing that many minutes for a star (around 32 MPG in the regular season and 35 MPG in the post-season). I'd have considered Erving again as a representative for the very strong Nets defense but that kind of went out of the window with the play-offs as well. McGinnis and Barry deserve a mention for their work but I don't buy either having top 3 defensive impact as even Erving last year with insane individual numbers as well as unrivaled team success only just snuck in on my ballot (with of course nobody else even entertaining the thought). The only thing that gives me pause is the Bulls. They were the 2nd best defense in the NBA in both the regular season and post-season. Usually that'd give a team a very good chance of getting a player on the ballot but just like with the Rockets on offense, I'm not sure who I could reward here. Thurmond joins but it's not like the Bulls made a big jump compared to the previous season and with his low amount of minutes in the post-season without a noticable drop-off, I'm not convinced he's the one making this Bulls defense so consistently elite. Is Bob Love a much better defender than we give him credit for? Is somebody else on that team a secret defensive phenom or is this also a case of a solid defensive team all around without necessary having a DPOY candidate?

Regarding Bulls from the traditional core (not including centers, looking at holdovers) most of the guys were somewhat regarded as defenders though degree differs.

Backcourt were the top defenders. Forwards had a larger offensive load. Love had once been regarded as a defensive specialist. Hard to know how much that sustained as he started putting up a lot more shots.

If I were to rank off reputations my impression would be
Sloan
Van Lier
Love
Walker
(probably with a gap between Van Lier and Love). Fwiw, I would think Thurmond at this point and Ray before made good defensive centers Boerwinkle less mobile but a big body and I think smart, perceptive on O so maybe on D as well).

Then Motta too was an aggressive, I think defense-minded coach.

Overall player wise, Walker is the clear production leader among bigger minutes guys so if you think the defense is broadly within an ensemble band, so he might be the choice. Then again ... whilst granting different team and player landscapes ... he didn't make a single ballot in 1972 when he was 2nd in WS/48 (at .268!), 5th in PER and played on a much better team (granted in a much more uneven league (so that 7.91 SRS didn't stand out so much) .. he's still 3rd and 10th ... still it would seem surprising if he made it now. I guess his playoff production is substantially better.

[AEnigma]

This is not a real argument for anything unless you are suggesting that Barry was not by a distance the team’s best player.

Barry being the Warriors' best player is obvious and has zero relevance to my argument...

Then why would it matter that they had defensive success. If their defence were worse but suddenly everyone on the team had an outlier scoring season, would that make Barry better? Is the argument that Barry’s passing vision dropped off a cliff as soon as he hit the postseason?

30.6/5.7/6.2/0.4/2.9 on 50.9% efficiency across 80 regular season games ——> 28.2/5.5/6.1/0.9/2.9 on 50.5% efficiency across 17 games against a slate of teams with a -3 weighted defensive rating. In the regular season, Barry provided 27.5% of his team’s points. In the postseason, Barry provided 28.1% of his team’s points — and did so at greater efficiency relative to the rest of the team. That is not a real decline, no, and frankly I do not believe you think it is either.

30.6 -> 28.2 = decline
5.7 -> 5.5 = decline
6.2 -> 6.1 = decline
50.9 -> 50.5 = decline

Whether you consider that a "real" decline based on opponent defense faced is up to you but am I supposed to say that's an incline?

Whether you call it inclining or maintaining does not matter much to me, but I disagree with penalising players for facing good defences and implicitly rewarding those who face weak defences.

If you look at how Barry performed against these teams in the regular season, he played a bit better against the postseason Sonics, worse against the postseason Bulls, and much better against the postseason Bullets. He deserves some criticism for the Bulls series, which probably should not have gone seven games, but I think that is fully outpaced by his Finals — even if he was not the sole reason they pulled off the most unexpected Finals upset in league history to that point (possibly not matched since, but certainly at least not until 2004).

Also, a player providing 0% of his team's points when he missed games is not exactly a clever argument. If you had accounted for that, the RS figure increases to 28.2% before we even look at the difference in minutes.

Will admit the slight of hand on that front; to me the key bit is the improved efficiency relative to his own team and to his opponents. For the former, Barry was +0.5 rTS over his own team in the regular season (keeping in mind that he is a significant part of his team’s total true shooting), and in the postseason he was +1.4 rTS over his own team. As the runaway primary scorer on the team, I think that reflects quite well on his own resilience. For the latter, he was +4.7 rTS against the Sonics, -2.5 rTS against the Bulls, and +3.9 rTS against the Bullets. Is that a decline?

He would have been my vote and many of our votes. I do not care that he finished behind McAdoo, Hayes, and 65 games of Cowens any more than I cared that Lanier finished behind McAdoo last season, or that Unseld won MVP in 1969, or that Lenny Wilkens was second in 1968. This is a gesture at nothing.

I wasn't referring to actual MVP votes which we all know can be suspect. I am saying most people here would not have ranked Barry as MVP if we only focus on the regular season. You obviously disagree but looking at the other voters, how many has said a single word about Barry being the best RS player? It's all about the ring.

Torn on this because I think if anything there is too substantial a focus on meaningless regular season accomplishments, but also I think there should be much more respect for what Barry did in the regular season among those who do focus on it.

Yet again, most of us are not treating this as an annual best player ranking — and even if that were what we were doing, this is a clear peak for him in a year where most of the other best players either missed the postseason (Kareem) or did nothing in the postseason (Lanier and Erving), which is the exact standard that has weighed against Barry in six of the prior seven seasons.

The exact standard weighing against Barry is simply that he was not good enough in previous years to make top 5.

1968: did not play
1969: plays 35 games and misses postseason because of injury
1970: plays 52 games and goes out in the first round against a non-finalist
1971: plays 59 games and goes out in the first round against a non-finalist
1973: is injured in the postseason and is also the second-best player on his team
1974: no postseason and is still only the second-most important player on the team

None of that applies this year. Missed games obviously matter to you too, otherwise you would have Kareem #1 just for being the best player per game. I am curious to see what you do next year though.

Many great players have made the list despite missing or 'doing nothing' in the postseason.

Because competition matters. Is Neil Johnston a better player than Barry? Are you more impressed by 1963 Wilt than by what Barry did this year? What if we took this exact season for Barry and the Warriors and put it in 1978… and then if necessary also pretended Kareem did not exist. Does he have a #1 argument then?

This year’s competition is not equivalent to prime Russell, Wilt, Oscar, and West. If you want to use the peaks project as a frame of reference, do you think any season here in isolation would ever compete for top 25?

Case in point, Barry himself got cooked by Gilmore 25-1 in 1972 POY points despite making the Finals and eliminating the Colonels in round 1.

That was the one exception, yes — but the reason that was an exception was because of the Erving factor. I think if Barry had not been matched up with Erving and been outplayed, then he would have ultimately been the ABA token representative that year. But he was outplayed (or at least was by the box score), and when the postseason is unclear, the regular season comes into larger focus.

If the Nets had gotten just three more buckets against the Pacers over two games though, people will likely suddenly start voting for him because of championship bias and I would be making the exact same argument against him.

Why? Okay, treat Kareem and Wilt as givens. Based on what we know of 1973/74, treat Thurmond as a given too. Why would you be confident in guys like Frazier or West or Gilmore or Erving being inherently “better” than Barry? Did Barry have some great team, no; the only player working with less was Erving. Yet in this scenario he would have won a title over the other two best players in the league and over two of the three best teams in the league. If you feel you have so perfectly quantified the nuances of every player’s exact ranking relative to each other, such that shallow achievements like “winning” do not matter at all to your assessment, congratulations, but most of us see grey areas in play which can be shaded by personal success as a determinant.

To whatever marginal extent the peaks projects are at all relevant here (I did not vote for Gilmore…), that still leaves Barry top two, because McAdoo has not managed the same consistent advantage.

The peaks project results are relevant here because it establishes a history of how the two players are ranked on this board which gets thrown out the window here without any reasoning. Imagine if Russell regularly ranks above Bird in the top 100 project but Bird is now easily getting voted higher in a GOAT Celtics list - would I be wrong to point out the inconsistency?

Are you trying to argue we should not expect “inconsistency” from different voters in different projects arriving at different determinations simply because we are all part of the same forum? The determinations for “Player of the Year” are different from what they are for “best peak” — albeit here the distinction is more mild in a comparison of two title-winners.

Past that, if you are worried about “inconsistency” with prior results, what is the point of this project update then. What is the point of any project update aside from incorporating new players. Why not just use the original projects as a base and insert new players/seasons relative to that original base?

I did not vote for Gilmore…

Good to know but I was talking about the board opinion at large, not you specifically.

Two people voted for Gilmore in the last peaks project.

There were six voters. One was a vote for Barry. Two others were Ohayo and I, who voted for neither at the time but here are voting for Barry. The other was trelos. Literally a 50:50 split between the two players in the most recent sample you are citing.

And then the 2019 project had seven votes in Gilmore’s induction thread, so fully possible this thread alone gives you a larger voting sample than the combined bloc of the prior two peaks projects.

Not sure why you took offense.

Well that prior statement was just to illustrate there is no reason to care about a vote you did not make. We are not here to grasp at how we think the average user would vote — and even if we were, your gesture at how there seems to be a real disconnect between this project both now and in 2010 with what we see in the peaks project shows you do understand that the “board opinion” is not especially clear.

More broadly, I will always take offence when you try to dismiss votes as ring chasing, because if that were the case, we would not have results like 1951, 1957, 1968, 1970, 1972, 1973, 1974, probably 1977, and certainly 1978-79 and 1989-90 to come… Barry has an obvious argument on his own merits. The title helps, because titles matter, but no one here blindly votes for the winner and calls it a day. If you object to Barry as a player, then make an active argument why he was demonstrably worse than others. You do not think he was the regular season MVP? Okay, why not. You think Gilmore was more impressive against two abysmal teams and a mediocre Pacers team? Okay, why. That seems like a far more worthwhile avenue of discussion.

[penbeast0]

Will permit it this round but for various intuitive reasons I think ghost ballots should be exceptions rather than norms, so I expect him to post his own here on out.

If Aleco is banned from the site or the board (I hadn't heard anything about it until ohayoKD brought to Trex's attention so it's probably a full site ban), he shouldn't be allowed to participate in board projects. I'm not running this so just my P.O.V., the decision is yours.

[penbeast0]

It is wierd considering the history that surrounds 1975 which is really the only history that matters.

We've had a few other non top 5 competing players like Hutchins and DeBusschere win DPOYs. The main reason it didn't happen more often up to the 70s is Russell was in the league for 13 years.

DeBusschere, at least, was an inefficient shooter. Bobby Jones is a pretty good (though certainly not top 10 caliber) offensive player but I understand that scoring tends to be most people's first take on a player.

[capfan33]

POY

1. Rick Barry

2. Bob McAdoo

3. Elvin Hayes

4. Artis Gilmore

5. George McGinnis


OPOY

1. Rick Barry

2. Bob McAdoo

3. George McGinnis


DPOY

1. Elvin Hayes

2. Artis Gilmore

3. Wes Unseld


Difficult year to vote for generally, even as a massive Kareem homer I can't really in good faith vote him missing 17 games and failing to make the playoffs given the criteria of this project. Barry at 1 is boring and feels underwhelming, but he performed quite well against some elite defenses culminating in an unlikely finals sweep as the clear-cut best player on his team, so it makes sense. McAdoo is tempting with his historic scoring numbers and his (abbreviated) playoff performance, but I think I'll just go with the safe pick here.

After that it becomes a lot hazier, I could honestly see the next 3 in any order. McAdoo had a crazy season and playoffs (albeit short), and in a year like this, I think its good enough for second. I like Hayes defense a bit more than Gilmore and he also elevated in the playoffs getting to the finals. And I do think some adjustment is needed for ABA offense.

DPOY is difficult for #3, Unseld is an obvious choice but it does seem a bit of a stretch to give 1 and 3 to the same team, even if they were 3 points better then anyone else. Cowen's to me seems like the only other good choice, maybe Jones but I'm not familiar enough with the turnover of his supporting cast to feel strongly about him. So ultimately I think I'll just give it to the outlier defense with Unseld.

[Dr Positivity]

I feel like Erving would've been almost a unanimous 1st if he had a good playoffs/the Nets won so him being downgraded off ballots seems like reacting a lot to him playing bad the first 3 games of the series.

G1 - 32, 12 and 6 (.48 TS)
G2 - 6, 6 and 5 (.21 TS)
G3 - 30, 11 and 6 (.44 TS)
G4 - 35, 8 and 5 (.60 TS)
G5 - 34, 12 and 6 (.58 TS)

League average TS is .517. It's not a great series but outside of one game I don't think it's a disgrace either. In games like 1 and 3 because of all around game he can still be making a positive impact overall.

[One_and_Done]

I feel like Erving would've been almost a unanimous 1st if he had a good playoffs/the Nets won so him being downgraded off ballots seems like reacting a lot to him playing bad the first 3 games of the series.

G1 - 32, 12 and 6 (.48 TS)
G2 - 6, 6 and 5 (.21 TS)
G3 - 30, 11 and 6 (.44 TS)
G4 - 35, 8 and 5 (.60 TS)
G5 - 34, 12 and 6 (.58 TS)

League average TS is .517. It's not a great series but outside of one game I don't think it's a disgrace either. In games like 1 and 3 because of all around game he can still be making a positive impact overall.

This. People are overthrowing things if Barry is over the likes of Erving. Erving's support cast stunk.

[Owly]

It is wierd considering the history that surrounds 1975 which is really the only history that matters.

We've had a few other non top 5 competing players like Hutchins and DeBusschere win DPOYs. The main reason it didn't happen more often up to the 70s is Russell was in the league for 13 years.

DeBusschere, at least, was an inefficient shooter. Bobby Jones is a pretty good (though certainly not top 10 caliber) offensive player but I understand that scoring tends to be most people's first take on a player.

He does have the benefit of the defensive box inputs but more broadly overall box profiles put him pretty high already (in a way they don't for Dave) and then you throw in the rep as a defender (and teammate and his long-term NBA impact profile, whilst playing arguably the same position on the same team as a guy argued, heralded as all time elite).

Fwiw his OBPM that year is 4th in the ABA, though the league's perception (both in terms of typical competition level and competition for top spots) will vary.

Minutes is probably the main fly in the ointment for him over his career and it is real though at least in his +/- stuff he was able to accumulate greater team +/- in his limited minutes than Erving was with longer in their shared Philadelphia period.