Retro POY 1961-62 (Voting Complete)

[colts18]

I didn't think about it earlier, but once upon a time I was adding up individual DWS. you can actually check how many games team won with its defense.

for example 63 Celtics had 46.8 combined DWS meaning they won 47 games with their defense.

more meaningful for this thread: 62 Celtics 45.8 DWS. 62 Warriors 22.2. that means Russell was "quite" a bit more valuable as a defender. honestly given that Philly wasn't even great offensively, I don't know how you can justify ranking Wilt near Russell in the RS.

now playoffs is a different tale, which would have to be re-analysed anyway... but in the RS Russell was far more dominant with his vastly superior defense.

You can also look at it from a different perspective. Why were the Celtics always an average offensive team despite having some good offensive players (Cousy, Hondo, Jones, Sharman, etc.). Could it be that Russell was somewhat of an offensive liability. How would Russell do on a team where he had to carry the offensive load like Wilt did for his career. He obviously could make any defense real good, but what about his offensive skills.

[ThaRegul8r]

I didn't think about it earlier, but once upon a time I was adding up individual DWS. you can actually check how many games team won with its defense.

for example 63 Celtics had 46.8 combined DWS meaning they won 47 games with their defense.

more meaningful for this thread: 62 Celtics 45.8 DWS. 62 Warriors 22.2. that means Russell was "quite" a bit more valuable as a defender. honestly given that Philly wasn't even great offensively, I don't know how you can justify ranking Wilt near Russell in the RS.

now playoffs is a different tale, which would have to be re-analysed anyway... but in the RS Russell was far more dominant with his vastly superior defense.

You can also look at it from a different perspective. Why were the Celtics always an average offensive team despite having some good offensive players (Cousy, Hondo, Jones, Sharman, etc.).

Cousy was inefficient even accounting for the era he played in, and Hondo was inefficient until the '70s. I have the boxscore for Game 7 of the '62 EDF right in front of me, and Jones shot 12-29 (41.4%), Heinsohn 9-22 (40.9%), and Cousy 8-21 (38.1%). Russell was actually the only player on the team to shoot 50% (7-14), and the team outside of Russell shot 37.4% (34-for-91).

I posted a Heinsohn quote in which he said the Celtics' approach on offense was that they weren't worried about efficiency, but I'll have to re-find it.

[colts18]

I didn't think about it earlier, but once upon a time I was adding up individual DWS. you can actually check how many games team won with its defense.

for example 63 Celtics had 46.8 combined DWS meaning they won 47 games with their defense.

more meaningful for this thread: 62 Celtics 45.8 DWS. 62 Warriors 22.2. that means Russell was "quite" a bit more valuable as a defender. honestly given that Philly wasn't even great offensively, I don't know how you can justify ranking Wilt near Russell in the RS.

now playoffs is a different tale, which would have to be re-analysed anyway... but in the RS Russell was far more dominant with his vastly superior defense.

You can also look at it from a different perspective. Why were the Celtics always an average offensive team despite having some good offensive players (Cousy, Hondo, Jones, Sharman, etc.).

Cousy was inefficient even accounting for the era he played in, and Hondo was inefficient until the '70s. I have the boxscore for Game 7 of the '62 EDF right in front of me, and Jones shot 12-29 (41.4%), Heinsohn 9-22 (40.9%), and Cousy 8-21 (38.1%). Russell was actually the only player on the team to shoot 50% (7-14), and the team outside of Russell shot 37.4% (34-for-91).

I posted a Heinsohn quote in which he said the Celtics' approach on offense was that they weren't worried about efficiency, but I'll have to re-find it.

Posters are complaining that Wilt didn't make his supporting cast better on offense, yet for a lot of Russell's tenure, the team was below average offensively. He probably has a lot to do with that. He has a career .471 TS% and only once reached 50 TS% (1967). In the playoffs, his TS% was .474. To put those numbers into perspective, only in Wilt's rookie season did he have a TS% lower than Russell's career high TS%. In the playoffs his .524 TS% is still better than Russell's .474 by a significant margin.

[YvesSmith1]

Lol Colt I like your way of thinking, serves the Wilt naysayers right ROFL!

[Doctor MJ]

Posters are complaining that Wilt didn't make his supporting cast better on offense, yet for a lot of Russell's tenure, the team was below average offensively. He probably has a lot to do with that. He has a career .471 TS% and only once reached 50 TS% (1967). In the playoffs, his TS% was .474. To put those numbers into perspective, only in Wilt's rookie season did he have a TS% lower than Russell's career high TS%. In the playoffs his .524 TS% is still better than Russell's .474 by a significant margin.

I think it should just be put out there that it's universally agreed that Wilt's a better offensive player than Russell. Those of us who prefer Russell in a given year, do so because we think his advantage on D is bigger than Wilt's advantage on offense, and are very much shaped by the belief that the amount of impact a big man could have on defense at the time is significantly bigger than what he can have by volume scoring.

[Minge]

Comment removed.

[colts18]

-snipped-
Wilt didn't make his supporting cast better on offense, yet for a lot of Russell's tenure, the team was below average offensively. He probably has a lot to do with that.

I understand the context of this quote, it was in regard to player shooting percentages, but I want to make one clarification, before colts18 continues to post this nonsense. How can you label a team that averaged 120 points a game for almost a decade below average offensively. It doesn't make any sense to me. None.

Let me ask you, colts18 -- Why do you think teams played at such a high pace?

The answer is -- to counter the dominant bigman. I'm sure you'll read about this, but, even in the 50's, basketball officials have tried to take away the advantages of the dominant bigman. The Lakers once played an official game with a 12-foot rim -- Mar. 7, 1954 -- I'll even include the boxscore.



It was their first attempt to take away the advantage of the bigman. It didn't work obviously, because basketball is still played with 10-foot rims. Infact the change had an opposite effect, actually gave the bigman a greater advantage, because he had more time to hold rebounding-position.

What the the league, as a whole, figured out, the way to negate the advantage of the bigman was to increase the pace. The reason -- guards dictate the tempo, the bigmen can't and don't. Who controlled the pace for the Celtics? Cousy. You know, the first great point-guard? Russell, also, had a lot to do with that. You'll probably read things, like, Russell would block shots to a teammate or block a shot in-bounds (rather than in the stands) and he mastered that art. The modern comparison for the 60's Celtics were the 80's Lakers without the "fastbreak efficieny". Cousy isn't Magic. Heisohn isn't Worthy. Russell isn't Kareem. Et cetera -- but all of those guys were runners, including Havlicek, who ran eight miles in a game even at the age of 37. If you have the time, watch some of those games, specifcally the fast break opportunities.

I'll accept those teams weren't "efficient" because offenses have evolved since then. You now have the most efficient method of creating scoring opportunies -- the "pick and roll" -- which even at the time, you didn't see two-man or three-man sets, until the triple-post offense was introduced.

I haven't seen Russell demostrate a lot of post moves, drop steps, hook shots, or finger rolls (Wilt's favorite) but he did demostrate a higher awareness, outleting the ball, or tipping the ball to a teammate to start the break, even full-court passes that were a staple of showtime.

The Celtics were an inefficient offense with Russell. With Auerbach, the team was above average offensively 5 out 10 times. In their average season, they -0.64 points/possession below average offensively. In the 3 Russell seasons, they were -0.58 points/possession below average. That is inefficient anyway you cut it. You are bringing up pace, but that is irrelevant because both teams get the same amount of offensive possessions.

[Doctor MJ]

-snipped-
Wilt didn't make his supporting cast better on offense, yet for a lot of Russell's tenure, the team was below average offensively. He probably has a lot to do with that.

I understand the context of this quote, it was in regard to player shooting percentages, but I want to make one clarification, before colts18 continues to post this nonsense. How can you label a team that averaged 120 points a game for almost a decade below average offensively. It doesn't make any sense to me. None.

Let me ask you, colts18 -- Why do you think teams played at such a high pace?

The answer is -- to counter the dominant bigman. I'm sure you'll read about this, but, even in the 50's, basketball officials have tried to take away the advantages of the dominant bigman. The Lakers once played an official game with a 12-foot rim -- Mar. 7, 1954 -- I'll even include the boxscore.



It was their first attempt to take away the advantage of the bigman. It didn't work obviously, because basketball is still played with 10-foot rims. Infact the change had an opposite effect, actually gave the bigman a greater advantage, because he had more time to hold rebounding-position.

What the the league, as a whole, figured out, the way to negate the advantage of the bigman was to increase the pace. The reason -- guards dictate the tempo, the bigmen can't and don't. Who controlled the pace for the Celtics? Cousy. You know, the first great point-guard? Russell, also, had a lot to do with that. You'll probably read things, like, Russell would block shots to a teammate or block a shot in-bounds (rather than in the stands) and he mastered that art. The modern comparison for the 60's Celtics were the 80's Lakers without the "fastbreak efficieny". Cousy isn't Magic. Heisohn isn't Worthy. Russell isn't Kareem. Et cetera -- but all of those guys were runners, including Havlicek, who ran eight miles in a game even at the age of 37. If you have the time, watch some of those games, specifcally the fast break opportunities.

I'll accept those teams weren't "efficient" because offenses have evolved since then. You now have the most efficient method of creating scoring opportunies -- the "pick and roll" -- which even at the time, you didn't see two-man or three-man sets, until the triple-post offense was introduced.

I haven't seen Russell demostrate a lot of post moves, drop steps, hook shots, or finger rolls (Wilt's favorite) but he did demostrate a higher awareness, outleting the ball, or tipping the ball to a teammate to start the break, even full-court passes that were a staple of showtime.

The Celtics were an inefficient offense with Russell. With Auerbach, the team was above average offensively 5 out 10 times. In their average season, they -0.64 points/possession below average offensively. In the 3 Russell seasons, they were -0.58 points/possession below average. That is inefficient anyway you cut it. You are bringing up pace, but that is irrelevant because both teams get the same amount of offensive possessions.

Yeah, I think what Minge describes about the impact of avoiding defensive bigs on pace makes a good post, but efficiency is king. Doesn't matter how many points you score, if your points per possession is weak, it's not impressive offense.

Now I'm open to arguments for how pushing that pace helped the team's defense - and thus they'd have been sacrificing offense for defense - but that still wouldn't mean the offense was good, it'd just make it a little bit more understandable.

Getting to the point though of "Russell holding back the offense" - given how successful they were on defense, and how that led to far greater domination overall than from any dynasty in history, such criticisms don't carry much weight for me. Not that I'm saying you shouldn't knock Russell for his offense compared to superior offensive players, but success is success. It's not arbitrary that the Celtics dynasty was keyed around defense, and Russell's portion of the team's defensive impact was obviously much bigger than anyone else's.

[TrueLAfan]

I actually think Russell was more important to the offense than he’s being given credit for. In a slower, half court offense, efficiency would matter more—and Russell’s weaknesses in that area would have more impact. In a superfast offense, Russell’s outlet passing and the fact that his team shot more but more poorly—bringing him more in line with their “average” offensive output—makes him more effective in the type of offense Boston ran. In other words, I think Boston’s offense was more keyed toward Russ than most people realize. In that sense, I don’t think Russell held back the offense at all—rather, his outlet passing and mobility were more important than they would have been in another scheme. I’m not saying that Bill Russell was a great offensive player, but I think he’s more valuable than he’s being given credit for by some.

I’d also like to say that there’s the comment from Hannum about McGuire changing Wilt’s offensive role in the playoffs. And I think something is being lost here—it worked. The Warriors were 45-23 against the rest of the league…but 4-8 against the Celtics. The Celtics were the better team. I kind of applaud the idea of trying to do something different in a postseason series to overcome that kind of obstacle. And the series went down to the last two seconds of Game 7, when after a controversial goal tending call with less than 90 seconds to go (the controversy is noted in Tall Tales via Frank McGuire and through Wilt’s comment about “questionable goal tending,” through interview(s) with Tom Gola in Gary Pomerantz’ Wilt, 1962, in Matt Doeden’s book on Wilt, in one of Leonard Koppett’s books…it’s a known action) Sam Jones hit a jumper over Wilt, who was rushing at him, and whose game play was described in the AP report like this: “Chamberlain, though he didn’t score as much as usual, did a great job of rebounding, blocking shots, and setting up plays” and “Wilt was outstanding defensively and as a team player.”

[ronnymac2]

^^^That reminds me of Kobe Bryant in 06. He scored 35 ppg in the REG SEA, then scaled back his scoring against PHX and did other things on the court, like help the team take advantage of its size inside. He pushed a superior team to seven games because of it.

[Dr Positivity]

There should be more Oscar vs Russell/Wilt talk this year, or at least Oscar vs Wilt. Dude put up 30/11/12 + tied for the best TS% in the league, and anchored by far the best ORTG with his robin not on the team yet. There's basically nothing more Oscar could do this year...

[Doctor MJ]

There should be more Oscar vs Russell/Wilt talk this year, or at least Oscar vs Wilt. Dude put up 30/11/12 + tied for the best TS% in the league, and anchored by far the best ORTG with his robin not on the team yet. There's basically nothing more Oscar could do this year...

Honestly, every year I try to think about Oscar along these lines. I do consider him to be the superior offensive player in all years except probably '67, and I don't think Wilt's defensive impact is ridiculously strong this year. It's hard though when you see a major gap in team success.

Philly was the better team in the regular season, won a playoff series, and almost beat Boston. Cincy was weaker, and then got upset by an even weaker team in the playoffs. Oscar's supporting cast was weak, but that also makes me think about the fact that Oscar didn't really do much for their weakness, whereas I think Wilt would have.

[bastillon]

Russell holding the offense back doesn't make a lot of sense. first of all, as far as scoring efficiency is concerned, he was above team average. second, Celtics based their offense on fast break and it functioned so well because of Russell's defense and outlet passing. they were repugnant HCO team.

and see, this is where myth about Russell's epic teammates falls apart. when their great supporting cast couldn't even get their damn offense at respectable level.

[Doctor MJ]

So wanted to comment on Baylor specifically. Seems to me like the buzz around him this year is a bit misguided. He missed half the season. What happened? Best record for the Lakers in Baylor's prime. Seems crazy to look at that and say he carried the team to that record to me unless there's some proof of some ungodly +/- (if any one knows what games he played/missed, that would be great to see).

Also, I know Win Shares are hardly the end all be all, but do y'all realize that even in this year, West basically kicked Baylor's butt in this stat all the time? I understand that people can go overboard with efficiency fetish, but I've yet to hear an explanation for why it would make sense to not take the major efficiency gap between West & Baylor seriously.

[TrueLAfan]

Okay, this was an unsually tough year. Several players have top level seasons...in totally different fashions. I wouldn't blame anyone else for having the top 3 in a different order. But I'm going with:

1. Wilt
2. Russell
3. Oscar
4. Pettit. Okay, here's the deal. St. Louis was miserable this year. But, as far as I can see, they had Cliff Hagan—a good player—and Clyde Lovelette—who was fading and played only 40 games anway. And that's basically it. I've barely heard of any of the other players...and I don't want to make myself out to be some sort of expert, but if I have no idea about you as an NBA player, you're pretty low on the totem pole. So I can excuse the team record in this case. I could switch #4 and #5 at the last minute.
5. West

Super honorable mention: Baylor. He just doesn't make it. I've dinged everyone else who plays (really) low minutes, except West in 1969, which was a funny year. This year, there are several very strong players. Baylor is awesome this year, but he also played barely 2100 minutes. I do think he was more valuable, in court time, than West. But he played 30% less than Jerry, and I've basically got West and Pettit even.

[Dr Positivity]

Also on Pettit, the ORTG stats have the Hawks are 2nd in the league, their bad record this year is almost solely from defense. As with Oscar that makes Pettit's W record a bit more acceptable to me. Unlike say Bellamy who anchored the worst offense in the league...

[Warspite]

So wanted to comment on Baylor specifically. Seems to me like the buzz around him this year is a bit misguided. He missed half the season. What happened? Best record for the Lakers in Baylor's prime. Seems crazy to look at that and say he carried the team to that record to me unless there's some proof of some ungodly +/- (if any one knows what games he played/missed, that would be great to see).

Also, I know Win Shares are hardly the end all be all, but do y'all realize that even in this year, West basically kicked Baylor's butt in this stat all the time? I understand that people can go overboard with efficiency fetish, but I've yet to hear an explanation for why it would make sense to not take the major efficiency gap between West & Baylor seriously.

Baylor missed because of Military Service. He shouldnt be discounted for service to freedom and in fact should be applauded.

[Doctor MJ]

So wanted to comment on Baylor specifically. Seems to me like the buzz around him this year is a bit misguided. He missed half the season. What happened? Best record for the Lakers in Baylor's prime. Seems crazy to look at that and say he carried the team to that record to me unless there's some proof of some ungodly +/- (if any one knows what games he played/missed, that would be great to see).

Also, I know Win Shares are hardly the end all be all, but do y'all realize that even in this year, West basically kicked Baylor's butt in this stat all the time? I understand that people can go overboard with efficiency fetish, but I've yet to hear an explanation for why it would make sense to not take the major efficiency gap between West & Baylor seriously.

Baylor missed because of Military Service. He shouldnt be discounted for service to freedom and in fact should be applauded.

Neither here nor there with what I'm talking about. Honestly if someone believes he was having huge impact when he played, and on principle refuses to ding him because of the military, I'm not going to tell them they're wrong (it's a very special case).

The fact that he missed time due to military service though does not mean we shouldn't look at how the team did without him, and it certainly doesn't mean we shouldn't compare his stats to other players. I don't object to keeping the military time from hurting him necessarily, but I do object to inflating his level of impact when he did play to the level of gods if that narrative is fictional.

[ronnymac2]

So wanted to comment on Baylor specifically. Seems to me like the buzz around him this year is a bit misguided. He missed half the season. What happened? Best record for the Lakers in Baylor's prime. Seems crazy to look at that and say he carried the team to that record to me unless there's some proof of some ungodly +/- (if any one knows what games he played/missed, that would be great to see).

Also, I know Win Shares are hardly the end all be all, but do y'all realize that even in this year, West basically kicked Baylor's butt in this stat all the time? I understand that people can go overboard with efficiency fetish, but I've yet to hear an explanation for why it would make sense to not take the major efficiency gap between West & Baylor seriously.

Baylor missed because of Military Service. He shouldnt be discounted for service to freedom and in fact should be applauded.

I admire him for that as a person, which is more important than what I think of him as a player. However, I'm judging him as a player in this project, not as a person.

Of course, it doesn't matter much to me anyway. 48 plus he was there for the playoffs. Baylor is likely to be in my top four. I don't think the missed games is going to hurt him on my list.

Gotta look at the final spot a little more....

[drza]

Hard year, especially at the top. When Wilt and Russ had similar supporting casts but Russ won anyway, it was easier to illustrate/believe Russell's unmeasured/difficult-to-quantify advantages in a given year. When Wilt carried teams with much lesser talent to about the same endpoint with much better box score output I was able to justify to myself voting Wilt over Russell's tangible intangibles. But this year is the best/worst of both worlds. Wilt's support is much weaker, but he also doesn't lead as strong of a team. He got them to game 7 in the 1-on-1, but in the season it was clearly the Celtics by a lot over the Lakers. Muddies the water.

In the end, I'm almost forced to just pick one since I could make a compelling case for either. Considering the work/results many have done on the defensive stats, of which Russ was clearly dominant and not well supported even by his talented teammates, I'm leaning towards giving him the nod. Wilt's stats were awesome and he did a lot with a little, but Russell gets my nod this year.

Oscar is another third-that-could-have-been first-in-other-years. Postseason hurts, especially in lieu of a detailed explanation of what happened. Even still, though, would have had difficulty cracking the top 2.

That leaves Petit and the two Lakers. I'll join the chorus of I-didn't-do-it-but-I-wish-someone-else-would've posters that would have loved to see a breakdown of how the Lakers did with and without Baylor. I would suspect that the Lakers when Baylor was out struggled in a similar manner to how they struggled the next year when West was out, but that when the 2 played together the team was great. Unfortunately, I don't know one way or the other.

I'm not going to kill Baylor for his missed games. They were in the regular season, he had an excellent reason, and he was dominant when he did play. Plus he came up huge in the postseason. The Lakers were clearly his team, IMO...again, unless someone does the record +/- thing and he didn't make a difference. That could potentially change my mind.

Pettit...hard to gauge. His numbers look great, and I do appreciate Mufasa's point about the strong team ORTG suggesting Pettit was having an impact. I think it might be enough to get him into 5th, once again barring a big +/- revelation for the Lakers.

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

HM West