Retro POY '76-77 (Voting Complete)

[Doctor MJ]

'76-77 Results

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Player                1st 2nd 3rd 4th 5th Pts   POY Shares
1. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar 11   6   1   0   0 157   0.872
2. Bill Walton          7  11   0   0   0 147   0.817
3. Julius Erving        0   1  17   0   0  92   0.511
4. Bob Lanier           0   0   0   8   4  28   0.156
5. Artis Gilmore        0   0   0   4   4  16   0.089
6. Elvin Hayes          0   0   0   4   3  15   0.083
7. David Thompson       0   0   0   1   2   5   0.028
8. Pete Maravich        0   0   0   1   1   4   0.022
9. Bobby Jones          0   0   0   0   3   3   0.017
10. Rick Barry          0   0   0   0   1   1   0.006


[Optimism Prime]

Ten points. Four-letter word, that was a close vote.

[Doctor MJ]

One thing to note, and somebody else already posted this, but the Walton/Kareem debate is probably a precursor to the Russell/Chamberlain comparison. Intangible dominance vs. statistical dominance.

It is indeed. A few people have predicted Russell will take the POY share title, and it's a possibility, but opinions on Russell vary wildly.

[Sedale Threatt]

Yeah, you can probably already guess which end of the spectrum I sit on.

[semi-sentient]

I'm looking forward to Wilt vs. Russell. My perception of both has definitely changed over the past couple of years, especially since I've seen quite a view interviews detailing how much of a stat-padder Wilt was.

Anyway... site updated: www.dolem.com/poy

Kareem now sits at #6, passing up Kobe, Hakeem, and Karl. Dr. J is up to #13 just behind LeBron. Other than that, no changes in the top 15.

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1.  Michael Jordan        9.578
2.  Magic Johnson         7.114
3.  Tim Duncan            6.153
4.  Larry Bird            6.147
5.  Shaquille O'Neal      5.910
6.  Kareem Abdul-Jabbar   4.762
7.  Karl Malone           4.649
8.  Hakeem Olajuwon       4.380
9.  Kobe Bryant           4.326
10. Moses Malone          3.478
11. Kevin Garnett         3.388
12. LeBron James          3.083
13. Julius Erving         2.866
14. David Robinson        2.431
15. Dwyane Wade           2.179

[bastillon]

77-78: Walton's impact versus Kareem's impact.

Sort of a crude on/off type of measure, but when players miss large chunks of time like Walton and Kareem (in 78) it gives us a fairly interesting interesting picture of their value. Obviously there are potential confounds like other injuries, strategy changes, schedule, etc. This is raw data so pace isn't adjusted for either. Nonetheless, thought this data was pretty darn interesting from this period:

Portland 1977:

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             Record    PPG      Opp PPG      Diff     Opp SRS    %Road Games
With Walton   43-21    113.4    105.1       +8.3
W/O Walton    6-12     105.7    110.0       -4.3       0.26      61%
Total Difference                            +12.6


Los Angeles 78:

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             Record    PPG      Opp PPG      Diff     Opp SRS    %Road Games
With Kareem   37-24    111.9    107.8       +4.1
W/O Kareem    8-13     105.6    107.2       -1.6       0.03      48%
Total Difference                            +5.7


Walton's game on 12/30 and Kareem's season opener counted as "missed" games because they both played only a few minutes. Of course, there's more Walton data, as he went on to miss a comparable chunk of time in 1978 as well.

Portland 1978:

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             Record    PPG      Opp PPG      Diff     Opp SRS    %Road Games
With Walton   48-10    110.4    100.4       +10.0
W/O Walton    10-14     101.0    104.3       -3.3      -0.07     58%
Total Difference                            +13.3


Now, one major difference between 77 and 78 in Portland was Lloyd Neal's play off the bench. Praised by commentators and writers, he actually led the 78 team in pts/36, posted a nice .179 WS/48 line, and had 31 points filling in for Walton in the first game he missed (a 111-106 win at Detroit). And still the profound difference is still there without Walton.

If we combine the two seasons and pro-rate the records to 82-games:

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             Record    PPG      Opp PPG      Diff     Opp SRS   %Road Games
With Walton   61-21    112.0    102.9       +9.1
W/O Walton    31-51    103.0    106.7       -3.7       0.07     60%
Total Difference                            +12.6
         
With Kareem   52-30    111.9    107.8       +4.1
W/O Kareem    31-51    105.6    107.2       -1.6       0.03     48%
Total Difference                            +5.7



Im looking at this thread and regret not being here at the time... this is such an amazing post elgee.

what makes me extremely impressed by Walton is how poor Blazers played without him.

year - SRS
73 - -5.68
74 - -4.30
75 - 0.28 (Walton 35 games)
76 - -1.12 (51 games)
77 - 5.39 (65 games)
78 - 5.92 (58 games)
79 - 1.12 (missed season)
80 - -0.87 (14 games injured)

his 2nd season was a down year, low shotblocking numbers, inefficient, probably he was dealing with injured as usual.

but aside from that ? comes to garbage team in 75 and makes them competitive playing 35 games ? then in 77 he's finally healthy and Portland's automatically 5.4 SRS (best in the league) ? and then MVP year with 5.9 SRS ? damn.

but now with Elgee's post I can fully understand why he was considered as equivalent to prime Kareem. maybe he didn't post great statline and wasn't a really good iso scorer, but he did all the little things. deflections, screens, outlet passing, play calling, you name it.

let's put it in some perspective. 77 Blazers with healthy Walton were ~8 SRS team. that's pretty much all time dominant... and they did that in a league where everyone was coasting around .500, which makes it even more impressive. then they went to the playoffs and won with by margin of victory of +4.4. that's while playing against top3 teams in the league: Issel-Bobby Jones-Thompson Nuggets, Kareem's Lakers and all time talented Sixers with Dr J, McGinnis, Doug Collins, Dawkins etc. Blazers had a playoff record 14-5. damn.

78 Blazers were 10 SRS team with healthy Walton. basically top3 all time along with Bucks 71 and Bulls 96. those two seasons combined + playoffs, Blazers with healthy Walton were 105-36... and about 9 SRS.

without healthy Walton 77 Blazers were 6-12, 10-14 in 78 RS and 2-4 in the 78 playoffs. combined 18-30 record and -3.5 SRS.

then 79 Blazers (no Walton at all) had 1.1 SRS after they brought Tom Owens (18/9/4/55%) and Mychal Thompson (15/8/2/49%). Walton's impact was GOAT like.

semi healthy Walton (say... half of each RS and full playoffs) would've had a 3-peat easily by 1980. now I know why they say he'd have been a top10 player easily. he really had the potential to be the GOAT. what he did in 77 and 78 was basically taking a mediocre team and making them all timers.

[penbeast0]

That was Walton. Every year for about 8 years the preseason analysis would list the BLazers and then the Clippers as contenders IF Walton stayed healthy and every year he would start out lhat way with the team talking about how they were going to rest him and protect his foot. Then every year he would go down and the team would fall apart. He basically destroyed 2 franchises for a long time with the futile hope of repeating 76.