Retro POY '62-63 (Voting Complete)

[Dr Positivity]

Another refreshingly easy ballot. I'm guessing this will be one of the most synced top 5s

1. Russell - MVP, title winner, and with Boston's godawful ORTG, he basically carries them to contention himself
2. Oscar - Another elite year and dominant ORTG. If only the Royals could play d. Easy #2 for me
3. Elgin Baylor - Crazy stats and clearly the man on the Lakers at this point. Led 2nd best team and made Finals. Oscar's playmaking gives him an edge though
4. Bob Pettit - 28/15 on a good team. Considered him over Baylor cause I like Pettit more as a team player, but considering Baylor scoring more at a similar efficiency, had greater rebounding relative to his position, and led a better team, there's no way to justify it
5. Wilt - Insane statline, but clearly did not help his team as much as his stats. If West played the full sched I'd leave Wilt off

[penbeast0]

Positional advantage? I always thought Baylor was the PF in the Lakers sets with LaRusso as the SF though both were 3/4 combo forwards really . . . when LaRusso went to SF he replaced Rick Barry next to F/Cs Fred Hetzel and Clyde Lee.

LaRusso was 2 inches taller but was thinner, less physical, and more of a jump shooter who played outside whereas Baylor was more a Barkleyesque offensive type.

[colts18]

The Celtics had 8 future HOF on this roster. That's ridiculous. Of course they should have been the best team in the league.

[penbeast0]

Let's look at this -- The HOF players are Russell, Cousy, Havlicek, Sam Jones, Tom Heinsohn, KC Jones, Frank Ramsey, and Clyde Lovellette. The problem is that players from the early years of the league had really low admission standards. Pretty much any player who averaged more than 15 ppg in the 50s made the HOF. How many would make it if they were in this year's class against the most marginal of the HOF candidates, former Celtic (Sonic/Sun) Dennis Johnson?

Russell is a GOAT candidate, he'd make it in any era.

Cousy is finishing out his career and is a part time player this year. But in his career, he has a MVP (though they almost had to give it to a Celtic in Russell's rookie year and Russell only played half the season) -- he was the greatest assist guy of his day, a 20 point scorer, and the man credited with being the first great PG. On his down side, he was inefficient even for his era and played poor defense. He's Allen Iverson if AI created for his teammates -- he's legit.

Havlicek is a rookie reserve but goes on to become one of the great defensive swingmen, a 20 ppg scorer and the second best player on two championship teams in the 70s as well (this RPOY look gave the top spot to Cowens on both teams if I remember). He's a similar player to DJ as a defensive star who scored well but not particularly efficiently but better -- he's legit.

Sam Jones is the next biggest star. He is most efficient scorer on the 60s Celtics until they pick up Bailey Howell toward the end of their run and a clutch playoff performer. A marginal top 5 player at best, more generally the 4th best guard in an 8 team lead with okay but not great defense and mediocre secondary skills. Sam’s Celtics won more titles than DJs and he was probably a bigger part of them – legit.

Beyond that it’s pretty shaky.

Tommy Heinsohn was a gunner, a guy who scored a lot but was not terribly efficient for his day, didn’t play much defense, and was an average rebounder and passer. Think Tom Chambers. He doesn’t get into the HOF over DJ in any universe they give me a vote.

KC Jones was, like DJ, a defensive star – maybe better than DJ. Offensively, he was Chris Duhon in a bad year. He’s got slightly less of a chance today than Bruce Bowen.

Frank Ramsey was the first sixth man. He was an instant offense swingman with good handles whose best season is 16.5 pts in 30 minutes. Great guy, has the HOF chances of Jason Terry today.

Clyde Lovellette was a frat brother of my Dad so I have to be nice. He was also one of the first outside shooting centers who had a number of 20 ppg seasons. Probably not a HOF player today but more legit than Ack-Ack, KC, or Ramsey. Hard to really say he contributed much to the Celtics year though since he played only 568 minutes.

So, basically what you have is a team with one GOAT candidate, Russell, one All-PRO type guy in Sam Jones. Two HOF talents at the very end and beginning of their careers both playing part time. Plus 4 guys who also played part time or less. Hard to say these Celtics are so incredibly loaded when the only guys playing at even an All-Star level are Russell and Sam Jones.

[bastillon]

great post penbeast, only 3 Celts made an all-star team that year (Russ, Cooz, Heinsohn) and Cousy made it based on his rep. he was certainly not playing like an all-star (13/7/2.5 poor efficiency and no defense). they actually improved next year when he retired so that should tell you about his impact.

this is a ridiculous notion that Russell's team was stacked. if they were, how come they were dead last in ORtg ? Russell carried them to contention with his defense. they were just gunners in perfect situation for them.

Sam Jones was all-NBA level, Hondo was all-star level, Heinsohn was one of the better PFs (Pettit, Howell, Baylor) but hardly exceptional in 8-team league. the rest doesn't really deserve a mention. KC was always a scrub, Sanders was a nice role player, Cousy declined so bad he wasn't very useful anymore etc.

and some of these players were just really one-dimensional:
Sam Jones was a great shooter/scorer and that's where his role ended, not known for his defense, below avg passer;
Heisnohn is another example - very likely worst rebounding starting PF in the league with little defense and inefficient... past prime Antoine Walker on a bad night;
how about KC Jones ? great defensive specialist but screws spacing with his poor jumpshot and is a cancer on offense, wouldn't make an NBA team today;
Sanders was a defensive glue guy and a great role player but unimpressive offensively to put it mildly, Luc Mbah a Moute;

so that's where the Celtics had their greatness - the fact that they could cover for each other overall. of course none of that would be possible without GOAT defender on their team but still the fit was really impressive. it wasn't about talent on that team, it was about fit (and Russell).

oh and Havlicek was a role player in 76. he was like 5th best player on that team with his foot injury in the playoffs. Cowens carried them to championship that year with his defense.

[lorak]

Lets take away Russell from Celtics. Lets do the same with every other team in the NBA (take away their best player). Compare all 8 teams without their best players:

Celtics without Russell: Cousy, S. Jones, Sanders, Heinsohn, Hondo, Ramsay, KC Jones, Lovelette
Lakers without Baylor: Selvy, West, LaRusso, Barnett, Krebs, Ellis, Wiley, Hundley
Hawks without Pettit: Barnhill, Wilkens, Vaughn, Beaty, Hagan, Farmar, Jordon, Cable
Natonials without Greer: Kerr, Shaffer, Costello, Walker, Schayes, Gambee, Neumann, Bianchi
Roylas without Robertson: Embry, Twyman, Bockhorn, Boozer, Hawkins, Smith, Reed, Piontek
Pistons without Howell: Ohl, Scott, Ferry, Debusschere, Moreland, Jones, Egan, Loughery
Warriors without Wilt: Rodgers, Meschery, Attles, Naulls, Phillips, Hightower, Lee, Sears
Zephyrs without Bellamy: Dischinger, Green, Sauldsberry, Cox, Hardnett, Nelson, McGill
Knicks without Guerin: Gola, Green, Shue, Hogue, Conley, Budd, Butler, Butcher

So Celtics are clearly better than anyone else.
Auerbach “stole” Russell from Hawks and he also stole many other players from other clubs. People forget how good GM he was, how much way ahead of his time.

[penbeast0]

Agree that Red was the most dominant GM of all time; he built outstanding benches consistently and picked up guys like HOFer Bailey Howell to fill gaps. But . . . just listing names here grossly overstates the Celtics strength.

Lovellette was an aging and injury ridden player who played less than 600 minutes, in 64 he closed his career playing less than 500.
Cousy and Ramsey were in their last years and both were part time players at this point. Cousy for example averaged only 13ppg on less than .400 from the field.
Havlicek was a rookie.

So, what you really have is Russell, 2 defensive specialists without much offense (KC and Satch), 2 offensive players one of whom is a lot percentage gunner (Sam and Ack-Ack), and an inefficient but energetic rookie 6th man -- plus some aging vets who can fill minutes competently. A good team but without Russell, I'd take the Lakers over them; Hawks would be about equal (am assuming Heinsohn and Hagan can scale up their minutes), didn't look further

Celtics without Russell:
C -- Tom Heinsohn (biggest of rotation guys)
PF -- Satch Sanders
SF -- John Havlicek
SG -- Sam Jones
PG -- KC Jones (more minutes than Cousy)
Bench -- Cousy, Ramsey, (Loscutoff, Lovellette)

Lakers without Baylor (better size, more efficient scoring)
C -- Jim Krebs (below average starter)
PF -- Rudy LaRusso (good combo forward)
SF -- Frank Selvy (swingman, about equal to Ramsey)
SG -- Dick Barnett (very solid SG)
PG -- Jerry West (best player left in league)
Bench -- Leroy Ellis (C-F), Gene Wiley (G), Hot Rod Hundley (F-G)

Hawks without Pettit (better size, more efficient scoring too)
C Zelmo Beaty (very good non-traditional center)
PF Mike Farmer (journeyman)
SF Cliff Hagan (more efficient, better defense version of Heinsohn)
SG John Barnhill (nothing special)
PG Lenny Wilkens (HOF)
Bench -- Phil Jordan (C/F), Chico Vaughn (G--good player in 1st years of ABA), Bill Bridges (played limited minutes like Loscutoff/Lovellette but was on starting rather than ending end of All-Star career)

[Doctor MJ]

We didn’t waste a lot of time looking for the perfect shots, the way other teams did. Our idea was to overwhelm the opposition by the number of shots we took; the emphasis was clearly on quantity.

The mathematics of that approach were obvious. If we took 100 shots and made only 40 percent, we’d still have as many points as a team that took 80 shots and made 50 percent. The meant if the other team was trying to limit its number of shots by playing a slower game, it was going to have to shoot a much higher percentage than we did in order to beat us.

See that thinking right there disturbs the hell out of me. "mathematics of that approach were obvious"? Why yes. they are, and the obvious conclusion is the complete opposite of what he's talking about. Teams get the same number of possessions in a game, so the way to get more shots isn't to run faster, it's to get rebounds.

Obviously there are advantages to playing run n' gun, and I hate to say the Celtics were doing anything dumb because of their success, but we know at this point that the Celtics offense wasn't good, and that there's no significant correlation between pace and defense. The Celtics were winning primarily because opponents were missing shots all game long. So it begs the question: Could the Celtics have been completely confused about their strategy? Meaning, is much of what they focused on simply worthless, and they didn't realize that they could have done just as well without it?

[Doctor MJ]

My vote:

1. Russell
2. Oscar
3. Baylor
4. Pettit
5. West

Russell & Oscar are easy.

The two really interesting guys this year are West & Wilt, and that has the potential to shape the 3 & 4 spots too.

West got the 5 MVP spot missing 25 games. How did that happen? Well, in his big injury he missed 24 games. In those games, the Lakers went 9-15, which means in the rest of the season the Lakers went 44-12. You want to see +/- impact? There ya go. West provided serious lift this year, and even with just that fraction of the season, the Lakers easily clinched the #2 seed in the West.

Still giving Baylor the nod for the 3rd spot over Pettit, but I don't see it as clear cut. Pettit puts up better numbers than Baylor in the playoffs, while not having West by his side (Hagan was good, but not West good) - and almost leads his team past the Lakers. But the Lakers still won, and contemporaries had Baylor ahead of Pettit pretty clearly. Not enough for me to deviate there.

(Of course I've got Oscar ahead of Baylor so I am "revising" there. Seems obvious enough not to warrant more of my time)

Wilt? I honestly don't think he was having much net impact at all. I think with the change of teammates which included the retirement of all-time great Arizin, he had a bunch of teammates who really would have improved tremendously with a star who knew how to make use of them. This is basically Wilt concentrating on scoring, ignoring the rest of the offense, and letting his defensive focus wane. Put another way: Hannum's turnaround of the Warriors has everything to do with getting Wilt to play really smart roles. I don't take away credit from Wilt that year because it was Wilt who had to actually implement it, but no I'm not going dump all the bad on his teammates this year.

I am more impressed by what West did even with the injury, than by what Wilt did.

[Warspite]

We didn’t waste a lot of time looking for the perfect shots, the way other teams did. Our idea was to overwhelm the opposition by the number of shots we took; the emphasis was clearly on quantity.

The mathematics of that approach were obvious. If we took 100 shots and made only 40 percent, we’d still have as many points as a team that took 80 shots and made 50 percent. The meant if the other team was trying to limit its number of shots by playing a slower game, it was going to have to shoot a much higher percentage than we did in order to beat us.

See that thinking right there disturbs the hell out of me. "mathematics of that approach were obvious"? Why yes. they are, and the obvious conclusion is the complete opposite of what he's talking about. Teams get the same number of possessions in a game, so the way to get more shots isn't to run faster, it's to get rebounds.

Obviously there are advantages to playing run n' gun, and I hate to say the Celtics were doing anything dumb because of their success, but we know at this point that the Celtics offense wasn't good, and that there's no significant correlation between pace and defense. The Celtics were winning primarily because opponents were missing shots all game long. So it begs the question: Could the Celtics have been completely confused about their strategy? Meaning, is much of what they focused on simply worthless, and they didn't realize that they could have done just as well without it?

You go down this rolad then you have to question the dogma that Red was the GOAT coach and a genious coach. Theres very few people that will walk that path with you.

Listening to Cousy talk about coaching and strategy explains alot to me why he was such a bad coach. Theres 2 basic ways to get more FGAs than your opponet. Rebs and TOs. I always believed those there the staples of the Celtics but apperntaly they believe its controling tempo and making teams play faster than they want AKA shot selection. So the Celtics attempted to force you to take as many bad shots as they did.
Now Im getting insights into Don Nelson.

[ElGee]

Lets take away Russell from Celtics. Lets do the same with every other team in the NBA (take away their best player). Compare all 8 teams without their best players:

Celtics without Russell: Cousy, S. Jones, Sanders, Heinsohn, Hondo, Ramsay, KC Jones, Lovelette
Lakers without Baylor: Selvy, West, LaRusso, Barnett, Krebs, Ellis, Wiley, Hundley
Hawks without Pettit: Barnhill, Wilkens, Vaughn, Beaty, Hagan, Farmar, Jordon, Cable
Natonials without Greer: Kerr, Shaffer, Costello, Walker, Schayes, Gambee, Neumann, Bianchi
Roylas without Robertson: Embry, Twyman, Bockhorn, Boozer, Hawkins, Smith, Reed, Piontek
Pistons without Howell: Ohl, Scott, Ferry, Debusschere, Moreland, Jones, Egan, Loughery
Warriors without Wilt: Rodgers, Meschery, Attles, Naulls, Phillips, Hightower, Lee, Sears
Zephyrs without Bellamy: Dischinger, Green, Sauldsberry, Cox, Hardnett, Nelson, McGill
Knicks without Guerin: Gola, Green, Shue, Hogue, Conley, Budd, Butler, Butcher

So Celtics are clearly better than anyone else.
Auerbach “stole” Russell from Hawks and he also stole many other players from other clubs. People forget how good GM he was, how much way ahead of his time.

This actually reinforces how good Russell was.

First, I don't agree by looking at those rosters that old Cousy, a gunning Heinsohn, rookie Hondo and the rest were "clearly" better than everyone else. I do think there was good team building, balance and depth, so in the end they may very well have been...but at best, it's close. LA can compete around West with that structure as we've seen, Syracuse looks strong, and St. Louis and Cincinnati have decent rosters sans their No. 1 guy too.

But even if we concede Boston's team is the best, it's almost ludicrous to suggest they are 3 SRS points ahead of the next best team. And of the 8 possible candidates for top player in the league, who is boosting their team more than Russell? By plugging in all those No. 1 guys, don't the Celtics actually significantly increase their (theoretical) margin over the rest of the league?

[penbeast0]

You go down this rolad then you have to question the dogma that Red was the GOAT coach and a genious coach. Theres very few people that will walk that path with you.

Listening to Cousy talk about coaching and strategy explains alot to me why he was such a bad coach. Theres 2 basic ways to get more FGAs than your opponet. Rebs and TOs. I always believed those there the staples of the Celtics but apperntaly they believe its controling tempo and making teams play faster than they want AKA shot selection. So the Celtics attempted to force you to take as many bad shots as they did.
Now Im getting insights into Don Nelson.

Never thought Red was the GOAT coach. Overall it's clearly Phil in my book; I rate Larry Brown, then Pat Riley as my next two off the top of my head and without doing any research.

GOAT GM . . . now you can start talking about Red Auerbach; great player personnel guy who knew how to build a team and was tireless in doing so.

[Warspite]

You go down this rolad then you have to question the dogma that Red was the GOAT coach and a genious coach. Theres very few people that will walk that path with you.

Listening to Cousy talk about coaching and strategy explains alot to me why he was such a bad coach. Theres 2 basic ways to get more FGAs than your opponet. Rebs and TOs. I always believed those there the staples of the Celtics but apperntaly they believe its controling tempo and making teams play faster than they want AKA shot selection. So the Celtics attempted to force you to take as many bad shots as they did.
Now Im getting insights into Don Nelson.

Never thought Red was the GOAT coach. Overall it's clearly Phil in my book; I rate Larry Brown, then Pat Riley as my next two off the top of my head and without doing any research.

GOAT GM . . . now you can start talking about Red Auerbach; great player personnel guy who knew how to build a team and was tireless in doing so.

You realy think that in 1963 Phil was a better coach than Red? I mean wasnt Phil still in High School?

[ronnymac2]

Bill Russell is lucky this year. He averaged 20 pgg on 45% with 5 assists in the playoffs. Boston won the title. That's good enough individual offense combined with a team accomplishment to go above Oscar.

Bill Russell is lucky this year. Oscar Robertson played like he could be the best player on the planet. He was clutch and he was probably the the greatest offensive force up to that time in NBA history, Wilt's 50 ppg season be damned. He almost brought his team to a victory over Boston. Boston tortured his Royals throughout this decade. He really almost had them this year.

Bill Russell is lucky this year. Not because of teammates or anything. He's just lucky I'm choosing him over Oscar for some reason.......


**** it. I always loved when Shaq put up 40/20 playoff games. Wilt averaging that, no matter what the era, is too much for me.

I'm leaving West off. Not because of the 25 games missed. That means nothing to me with his outstanding playoffs. But I think we're getting to a point now where it isn't the best of Jerry West no matter what the stats say. He's still a great player, but he isn't clearly the best player on his team to me anymore. Pettit was a beast, as was Elgin.

Final Rankings:

Russell
Oscar
Wilt
Baylor
Pettit

Super HM: Jerry West

[lorak]

1. Robertson
2. Russell

Well, I think that Russell became a little bit overrated here. One reason is that many of us think: "Player's A team won, so Player A is better than B". But that's not how team game works.

Second, Russell's defensive impact was great, but Celtics great DRtg numbers were in very weak offensively league, so more impressive is what Robertson was doing with Royals offense. You know, for example it's easier to have a dozen blocks or 20-30 rebs when everybody is shooting quick and from bad position, but it's harder to have effective offense in this environment.

3. Wilt
4. Baylor
5. Pettit

[shawngoat23]

1. Bill Russell
2. Oscar Robertson
3. Elgin Baylor
4. Wilt Chamberlain
5. Bob Pettit

[TrueLAfan]

Sorry…been gone a lot. Ending with:

1. Russell
2. Oscar
3. Baylor
4. Pettit
5. Wilt

..which is to say that, like others have noted, I thought this was a fairly straightforward year. And, like others have noted, I have nothing really bad to say about Oscar this year. He was great. But I think Russell was better and more instrumental to his team overall.

The hardest selection was for #5. If West had played more than 2300-2400 minutes, it would have been different. But he didn’t. I have real questions about Wilt’s impact compared to other years…but I also think that his teammates regressed. Did Wilt regress as well? Sure...but I’ve got him dropping several spots, and squeaking it at #5. That’s regression, too.

Baylor should be coming up more here more often. He’s a player who may have gotten the long end of the stick in the past, but I think gets the short end with many advanced statistical analysis tools. Great player.

[Sedale Threatt]

1. Russell
2. Robertson
3. Chamberlain
4. Baylor
5. Pettit

[drza]

This year wasn't as clear-cut to me as it was to many of you, but ironically at the end of the day I don't think my ballot will vary all that much outside of my placement of Wilt. As for Wilt, it goes back to a refrain that I've had to say far too often in the last 20 years or so...I just don't know enough. The dominant impression I get from you guys as I read this thread is that since Wilt's team only won 31 games he couldn't have had that big of an impact...that it's his fault that his teammates regressed to the point they couldn't beat a Summer League team (side note: really? That's pretty awful)...that his style of play was an issue and the difference between him being the consensus #1 player in '64 and being left off of some ballots in '63 is primarily due to Hannum's coaching...

...but to all of that I say, I just don't know. I've witnessed and voted for players on losing teams when I was convinced that their impact was still big but their teammates let them down. Heck, I voted Wilt #2 in '65 and the Warriors team was just as bad for the first half of the year before he got traded. And I just don't know how much blame I can give him for scoring ridiculously at ridiculous efficiency while also dominating the glass. I get the damage in the "pass-it-to-Will" offense, but do I blame the player for a coaching decision?

In the end, I do blame him to an extent because he drops down below Oscar for I believe the first time in this era on my ballot. But I just can't drop him any further. He's still better than Baylor to me. In fact, thanks to Doc MJ's post, we see that without West the Lakers were on 30-win pace just like the Warriors. Do I all of a sudden believe Baylor is better because when you add in West the team is a contender? Some folks on here hate hypotheticals, but I'd be willing to bet that if you added 56 games of West to the Warriors they'd have made the playoffs and had an even better shot at the title. Just can't put Baylor above him.

I'm tempted to also put Petit above Baylor as well, but not having much to work with besides their individual stats and the personal accolades, I don't have enough to go on. The consensus on here so far has been to put Baylor higher, and whoever pointed out that the sentiment at the time also had Baylor higher...that kind of gets me as well. In the absence of enough info to counter it, I'm leaving Petit behind. But it was a difficult call for me.

As for West, right now it's kind of an either/or for him and Baylor with respect to the other competition out there. I'm choosing Baylor this year, which leaves West off for me.

Final Vote

1) Russell
2) Oscar
3) Wilt
4) Baylor
5) Pettit

[Optimism Prime]

1. Bill Russell
2. Oscar Robertson
3. Elgin Baylor
4. Wilt Chamberlain
5. Bob Pettit