Milwaukee Bucks in the 80s and how good was Paul Pressey

[bastillon]

I'm gonna present to you the results of my findings about Paul Pressey in 85-87. Milwaukee Bucks were dominant force at the time and my analysis shows impact of Pressey's absence on their success. my methodology is based on point differential. "in" represents games when Pressey was playing as a starter. "out" represents games when Pressey was absent (42g) or came off the bench (7g).

examples:
in 120 / 110 means Bucks with Pressey scored 120 ppg and allowed 110 ppg
out 150 / 150 means Bucks without Pressey scored 150 ppg and allowed 150 ppg

simple as that. so here we go:

Paul Pressey 1987
in 110.9 / 105.1(60 g)
out 109.0 / 110.1 (22 g)

that gives you MOV
in 5.8
out -1.1

that's +6.9 to 5.8, almost all of the impact coming on the defensive end. I went with games started instead of games played, so in fact there's one game more in which Pressey played.

Paul Pressey 1988
in 106.7 / 105.3 (75g)
out 98.4 / 108.3 (7g)

in +1.4
out -9.9

that's +11.3 to 1.4

Paul Pressey 1989
in 109.9 / 104.3 (62g)
out 105.8 / 108.5 (20g)

in +5.6
out -2.7

that's +8.3 to 5.6
he played 5 games off the bench which I didn't count. he was probably at half speed anyway. I don't even know which games those were etc.

later Pressey was a bench player at 24 mpg. I won't go into all that as it's much more work-consuming to check out bench player. he played 57g that year though.

total Pressey 85-87
out 106.2 / 109.2 (49g)
in 109.0 / 104.9 (197g)

that's +2.8 on offense, -4.3 defense
total +7.1 to 3.1

what do you think Elgee ? now numbers add up. Moncrief was overrated and Pressey was a silent superstar.

[ronnymac2]

I've always liked Pressey. He was a middle-class man's Scottie Pippen.

[penbeast0]

I've always loved Pressey too but he was mas much a rich man's Craig Ehlo as a "middle-class man's Scottie Pippen" . . . he didn't have the offensive repetoire to up his scoring much over the same 12-15ppg level that people slam Bobby Jones for (and without Jones's efficiency plus he had the ball in his hands). Well below a Shawn Marion or Larry Nance type scorer plus his career was pretty short.

He stepped up when Moncrief went down and fit a role on that team extremely well. He had good handles and passing skills for his size and busted his ass defensively. But not an offensive weapon and more a good defender than a great one.

[bastillon]

I've always loved Pressey too but he was mas much a rich man's Craig Ehlo as a "middle-class man's Scottie Pippen" . . . he didn't have the offensive repetoire to up his scoring much over the same 12-15ppg level that people slam Bobby Jones for (and without Jones's efficiency plus he had the ball in his hands). Well below a Shawn Marion or Larry Nance type scorer plus his career was pretty short.

He stepped up when Moncrief went down and fit a role on that team extremely well. He had good handles and passing skills for his size and busted his ass defensively. But not an offensive weapon and more a good defender than a great one.

Bobby Jones was not a point forward; he was a finisher. Shawn Marion was a finisher. Larry Nance was a finisher. Paul Pressey created shots for himself. completely different roles. it's fine to slam Pressey for not being a great scorer, but to compare playmaker with finishers is simply not fair.

good defender ? I remember Bird having serious problems against Pressey. so much so that he couldn't even post him up and needed to get free using numerous off ball screens. by these results Bucks played very poor defense without Pressey and excellent with him. 4.1 differential in points allowed isn't quite as big as Hakeem's impact or D-Rob's, but it's right up there with Mutombo.

valuable playmaker and defensive anchor as a SF... that's a superstar.

[ElGee]

Very interesting observations about Pressey. I agree that watching him I was impressed. But let's be clear that it was in an Eddie Jones type way, not a Scottie Pippen type way. Pressey's obviously not a top-100 GOAT player -- longevity rules that out. Whether he was underrated and had some kind of all-star impact...

Well, I don't know. It's possible. I do think Moncrief is overrated (heavily by some on this board). I looked at that 87 season and

in the 29 games Pressey and Moncrief start together, Mil was +2.2 (mostly Sikma-Cummings-Lucas).
in the 31 games Pressey starts without Sid Moncrief, Mil was +9.1 (mostly Sikma-Cummings-Hodges).

The games were scattered throughout the year, so it's hard to infer any sweeping changes in the team unit. So from a broad perspective, there are only a few simple explanations:
-the schedule was skewed
-Reynolds is secretly a monster
-Hodges is secretly a monster
-the Reynold's-Hodges unit has better chemistry
-No Moncrief unleashes Pressey

In the 31 games without Moncrief, Pressey averaged 13.8 ppg 7.4 apg and 5.8 rpg (55.2% TS) which are actually worse numbers than the rest of the year. So I'm inclined to conclude something else is responsible for those numbers, even while holding Pressey in high esteem.

[bastillon]

I watched Pressey only in the playoffs and I was impressed in Scottie Pippen way. that's the reason why I ran the numbers in the first place. Pressey's defensive impact was huge when I was watching him. when he guarded Bird, Larry was well contained. then somebody else would switch off and Bird would go on a big run.

197g / 49g is a pretty large sample in this type of test. I don't think anyone can ignore these numbers. the fact remains: Bucks without Pressey played at about 30W pace and with him skyrocketed to 50+W pace. his impact was consistently high, there were changes outside of Pressey that didn't impact Bucks as much and eye test (well...my eye test) confirmed the data. or rather data confirmed the eye test.

his offensive impact isn't even that huge for a guy who's responsible for running the offense... but as a defensive player ? why did the Bucks fall off a cliff defensively without Pressey ? extremely interesting case. could he possibly be their defensive anchor ?

you know ElGee, that's what really inspired me. chemistry can be particularly important on offense, but it's rather unusual to see a big discrepancy in the defensive efficiency solely because of better fit...and what would better fit even mean on defense ?

[bastillon]

I just noticed something. you know how Bucks used to be pretty good with Marques and Lanier in the early 80s ? they both left in 1985 along with Bridgeman (15 ppg shooter). you would think Bucks would've regressed at that point. guess what - they improved from 4 SRS to 6.7 SRS. considering it's harder to improve from good to great, 2.7 SRS is really a lot. so what caused that improvement ?

looking at MP:
Terry Cummings joined the team and played 2700 mins
Craig Hodges joined the team and played 2500 mins
Paul Pressey became starting SF and played 1100 mins more

Hodges posted 10/4 (Bridgeman 15/3)
Cummings went for 24/9 (Lanier 14/6)
Pressey went for 16/7/5.5 (Marques 21/4/6.5)

where did the improvement happen ?
DWS:
84 30.0
85 30.5

OWS:
84 21.4
85 27.5

Cummings was a valuable player no doubt, but Pressey made big impact as well.

[ceiling raiser]

Very interesting topic/thread. A bit old, but hopefully bumping this will reignite the conversation.

[pinkblackattack]

Evading the language filter

[Quotatious]

Sometimes you just have bad luck...Some GREAT teams are now forgotten, or will be forgotten in a few years, just because they never won a championship - Nellie's early/mid 80s Bucks (they peaked at 8.69 SRS, top 10 of all-time in 1986!!!), late 80s/early 90s Cavaliers, basically with 5 All-Star caliber players - Daugherty, Price, Nance, Harper and Hot Rod Williams, who peaked in 1989 at 7.95 SRS, early 2000s Blazers and Kings...These last two are still well remembered, mainly because many people despise the Lakers, and think that those series were rigged (in particular WCF 2000 and WCF 2002), and their leaders (Webb and Smitty) are now on NBA TV along with Shaq, so they sometimes have conversations about it, but in a decade or two, they'll be forgotten just as the Bucks and Cavs of the 80s.


As for Pressey - he was a very unique player. I don't think he was ever the best player on the Bucks - it was Moncrief (not trying to offend anyone, but whoever says that Pressey was Bucks MVP in the 80s, and Oscar was their MVP in the early 70s, is a revisionist historian), but that being said, Pressey was clearly an All-Star talent, kinda like Lamar Odom - he did unique things on the court, and even though he wasn't really the first "point forward" like many people say (that was Hondo or Barry in the 60s), his skillset was a, pardon me, pain in the ass for opposing teams - Bastillon talked about his defense on Bird - an it's true.

What's funny about Pressey is that he averaged more assists than rebounds for his career - 5.1 APG to 3.9 RPG, which is a very unusual occurence for wing players.

I don't see a reason to blame him for not being a volume scorer - he was still an efficient scorer on moderate volume, and even more importantly, a guy who could create offense for himself or others. He didn't have much of an outside shot, but it's acceptable for 80s players. He could knock down a 15-18 footer relatively well, from what I've seen, and finished strong at rim (great athlete).

Only thing that Pressey can be blamed for was his turnover proneness - he had about 20% career TOV% - that's really bad.

[tsherkin]

One of Nellie's point forward projects, in a way the spiritual successor to playmaking wings like Hondo and Barry, and sort of a precursor to Pip and all that.

Very talented. "Superstar" is perhaps more generous than I'd allow, I'd be interested in a deeper analysis of the Bucks' defense and health history over his career, but this thread is great and very welcome because Pressey is too often simply undiscussed.