trex_8063 wrote:Doctor MJ wrote:--snip---
Question to you and anyone else reading: do you think these seemingly non-sensible volume/efficiency inequities were potentially more common and/or less likely to be corrected during that era (~1960's) simply because it was decidedly pre-databall?
It's been pointed out in other places (perhaps even by you specifically) that we have entered the era of data and analytics, where in-depth statistical analysis is playing a significant role in the coaching/front-office decision making and strategy. Most of the data used in these analyses did not exist at that time. And further I have some feeling that there was a general mis-conception regarding offense by the teams of that era.....seems like the strategy was simply "get shots up, and get 'em up in a hurry. If we take more shots than the other team, we'll score more points than the other team" (hence, the absolutely ridiculous ~120 average pace seen in that time period).
Could what we see from Baylor (that we have been debating) be to some degree a
result of that (or "symptom" of that, if you want to use language that strong)?
Great question to ask.
I certainly think that era has something to do with why this happened.
And from there I suppose there are 2 major tracks I see as relatively reasonable:
1) Play it as it lies - what value did you actually contribute.
2) Try to imagine what his play & stats would have looked like if he had played smarter, and then knock him appropriately for the fact that he wasn't smart enough to see this.
What I consider completely unreasonable is to essentially keep the volume and give him a pass on the efficiency, and when I see high volume guys getting talk before lower volume guys, I think people need to seriously consider if that's essentially what they are doing.
Also, not necessarily a response to you, but a query that seemed relevant: If we look at the biggest volume scorers of the day, what did their TS% look like?
I've chosen '67-68 for this. Reason being that I'm not going to use early Baylor, as that's not where the issue is, and the years between then and '67-68 seem to show Baylor gradually rounding back into form and improving. Of Baylor's 10 All-NBA seasons, this was the most efficient of them to occur after '62-63.
So here's the query:
http://bkref.com/tiny/1l4j8There are 8 guys who scored 24 PPG or more, and then there's a drop off. Baylor is one of those guys. Here they are sorted by whether they were more or less efficient than Baylor:
More - Oscar, West, Wilt, Monroe, Greer
Less - Bing, Abdul-Rahman
If we take the list down to 20 PPG, here are some more guys who are more efficient than Baylor:
Rudy LaRusso, Bob Boozer, Jerry Lucas, Sam Jones, Zelmo Beaty, Willis Reed, Lenny Wilkens
Most of these guys haven't been mentioned yet, and it's not worthy that Zelmo is one of the one's who has and he was mentioned only as a reason to DISMISS the ABA. As in "The ABA clearly wasn't any good, Zelmo Beaty looked like a star in it. Clearly any guy with height could thrive in that donut league" to paraphrase.
This is the thing I"m getting at with Baylor. There were all these other guys playing in the time period, back court, front court, whatever. When you look at the stats from an efficiency perspective, and recognize that he really shouldn't have scored at such volume, it's not that Baylor ceases to be an impressive player, it's that he ceases to be a player head and shoulders above a bunch of guys that almost certainly won't get mentioned in the Top 100.
It's that canyon that I think people don't cross. They see the efficiency, and they attempt to adjust for it by "rounding down" their original assessment which was based on volume, yet the gap between Baylor and most of the guys above still ends up so, so massive to the point that the canyon between Baylor and them essentially hasn't shrunk at all in any meaningful way despite the fact that when you actually do the head-to-head comparison blind, the canyon of separation.may not even exist.
And yes, to be clear, I recognize that Baylor '63 and earlier was a different thing and that's not something to just be brushed aside, but if you're advocating for Baylor here, it's almost certainly affected by a reputation of Baylor which relates to him being named All-NBA 1st team 5 more times after '63.
