Was Magic really better than Oscar?

[SlowPaced]

I think Magic is better than Big O mainly because of his career accolades. Can't argue with that. However the gap really isn't that big. I rate Magic a bit more highly than most people seem to do, I think he's Top 5 GOAT. But I'd also put Oscar in the Top 10 GOAT.

[tsherkin]

lorak, I'm not entirely clear on how those ratings work. What measure is used to show the productive value of Oscar's offenses? When I look at them conventionally, they don't stun in the way strong post-merger offenses do, and I don't put a lot of stock into relative offensive value in-era from the 69s. Perhaps you could explain?

[The Infamous1]

It's always sad how underrated Oscar is because his game wasn't flashy and he played in the 60s and had bad press because he was fighting for players' rights. But no doubt he was better player than Magic - on both ends of the floor. Robertson was sometimes even put on opponents best perimeter player and he shut him down, while Magic wasn't able to do such thing. And of course there's offense, where results are clear. Lets look at all of their teams ORTG z-score with modified mean (to quote fpliii who did all the work: mean excludes the sample value, i.e. for an 8 team league, mean is calculated for the other 7):

Code: Select all

Team   Season   ORtg Z
MIL   1970-71   3,8
CIN   1961-62   2,4
CIN   1963-64   2,4
CIN   1960-61   2,3
MIL   1971-72   2,2
LAL   1986-87   2,2
LAL   1984-85   2,1
MIL   1973-74   2
LAL   1979-80   2
LAL   1985-86   2
CIN   1968-69   1,8
LAL   1982-83   1,7
CIN   1967-68   1,6
LAL   1989-90   1,6
CIN   1964-65   1,5
LAL   1988-89   1,5
CIN   1962-63   1,4
LAL   1987-88   1,4
MIL   1972-73   1,3
LAL   1981-82   1,2
LAL   1983-84   1,2
LAL   1990-91   1,2
CIN   1965-66   1,1
CIN   1966-67   0,8
LAL   1980-81   0,8
CIN   1969-70   -0,7


So we see that Oscar led more teams to better offensive results than Magic and IMO Robertson had worse offensive supporting cast and played in a league more difficult for perimeter players, so what he did is even more impressive. BTW, 1971 Bucks are the best offensive team ever with 2007 Suns 2nd (3.4 Ortg Z).

Wait.. You said in other threads on this board that perimeter defense during the 1960's sucked. I specifically remember you using that claim to argue against jerry west

[Doctor MJ]

Doc - I don't have the spreadsheet handy but the only changes should be removing the team for which you're trying to find z score from calculations of mean/SD. That is to say, in an 8 team league, mean and SD are calculated for the other 7 teams.

The goal in mind was to get a read on what relative performances would look like in a larger league in which an outlier can't affect league-wide mean/SD as much (originally did put the spreadsheet together to look at Boston's DRtgs). I think I did check the calculations, but it should be pretty easy to replicate for individual teams/seasons.

EDIT: I think this was it: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc ... 0MUE#gid=0

Totally makes sense, but do you understand my complain about using it for the non-Boston defenses of the 60s in comparison to the offenses of that era?

We can't very well say "oh it was only the Cetlics defense that was an outlier, because if look at the variance including that outlier, the rest of the teams don't stand out so much".

Any look at the efficiency ratings of the '63-64 season:

http://www.basketball-reference.com/lea ... _1964.html

will show that the Warriors were a far more dominant defensive team than the Royals were a dominant offensive team (realistically probably at least 50% more dominant). And so if in our adjustments to better understand the dominance of league leaders we get Z' scores for non-league leaders that tell us a different story, that just shows us the limits of what that metric can be used for.

Perfectly good custom metric (love the "modified mean" addition), but not the whole story.

Getting back to Oscar: This is where I run into trouble. How can I see him as someone leading top tier dominant offenses when the 2nd best defense here is 50% more dominant than that offense, and the #1 defense is even further along? It's enough to look at those offenses and see them as nearly inconsequential.

Of course that can be explained away with the right rationale, and I'm not even saying I know that rationale to be wrong, but between the ultra-dominant defense of the era, the fact that offense took a major step forward when they started using a big properly, the Royals mediocre success in general, and the matter that on any absolute scale the Royals primitive tactices made them inept by modern standards...

I just can't get comfortable calling him the offensive GOAT. Fine to put him on the short list, the top? Nah. And where he's not the top on offense, you have to ask how much of a defensive edge he really has.

In comparison to someone like Nash, I add all this up and I'm really fine with ranking Oscar ahead. But Magic, with the ease of which he dominated a more modern league that still wasn't as suited for him as the current league would be, to me he remains the exemplar of what this type of player can be.

[SinceGatlingWasARookie]

I think perimeter defense in the 1960s did suck. Why would you defend a guy shooting a shot that he can't hit. Defending the passing lanes to the post made more sense.

From what I saw in my small sample players tried to defend Oscar because he could hit the outside shot but Oscar was too quick for them and then he had space to stop and take the pull up jumper before the defender got back in the play.

I generally I think most of the 1960s players were not good enough to play in the modern NBA. Oscar's teammate Jerry Lucas would be able to play well in the modern NBA.

[ceiling raiser]

Totally makes sense, but do you understand my complain about using it for the non-Boston defenses of the 60s in comparison to the offenses of that era?

We can't very well say "oh it was only the Cetlics defense that was an outlier, because if look at the variance including that outlier, the rest of the teams don't stand out so much".

Any look at the efficiency ratings of the '63-64 season:

http://www.basketball-reference.com/lea ... _1964.html

will show that the Warriors were a far more dominant defensive team than the Royals were a dominant offensive team (realistically probably at least 50% more dominant). And so if in our adjustments to better understand the dominance of league leaders we get Z' scores for non-league leaders that tell us a different story, that just shows us the limits of what that metric can be used for.

Perfectly good custom metric (love the "modified mean" addition), but not the whole story.

I agree that it's not an ideal metric. The goal was actually to identify outliers (it seems Dixon's Test might be better served, after having done more research), rather than to get a true read on them. The actual quality of the offenses/defenses of the teams we're considering outliers are probably somewhere between standard Z score and modified z score.

That being said, 64 was a strange season. The Warriors would qualify as an outlier, and the Celtics were a level (levels?) beyond that. Nonetheless, I am very impressed by Oscar's offenses, and I think even if we temper our expectations from the modified mean/SD calculations, they have to at least border on outlier level IMO.

[ceiling raiser]

Wait.. You said in other threads on this board that perimeter defense during the 1960's sucked. I specifically remember you using that claim to argue against jerry west

I can't speak for lorak (and he can correct me if I'm wrong), but I don't think he's referring to perimeter man defense. Rather, I think he's suggesting:

1) Tougher guidelines for ball-handling

2) More packed paint (discouraging the drive)

would make it tougher.

[lorak]

^
Exactly. And of course lack of 3p shot.

[lorak]

Magic started out with a vastly better supporting cast sure, but what makes Magic's legacy what it is is what he accomplished in the last '80s when he was having to do it all. Look at the '89 & '90 Lakers and you see only Magic with a PER north of 20 leading a team winning 60-ish games. There's nothing about that that screams "amazing offensive supporting cast",

I'm not saying "amazing". I'm saying better than what Oscar had - and it's true for '89 and '90 seasons too.

[LakerLegend]

Someone mentioned comparing Oscar and Magic was like comparing Jordan and Dr. J.

It's not.

It's like comparing Jordan and Baylor.

One guy is just bigger, more athletic, more VERSATILE, and was more dominant against better competition.

Magic's gaudy stats were due to his versatility in plugging holes and mastering of the flow of the game(better than anyone in the history of the game at that).

While it's been well commented a lot of Oscar's numbers are due to his ball dominance(quotes about how if a guy missed a shot Oscar would go out of his way to avoid getting him the ball).

Magic damn sure could have upped his scoring on good efficiency if he wanted to sacrifice some assists.

That's what I think it really comes down to. Magic was better at making teams better

Magic is what Oscar would be if you gave him 3 inches, better court vision, and made him faster.

[Quick Eye]

When people talk about Oscar's game not being flashy, there's an interview he had with Chris Webber that explains why his game was like that. Growing up Oscar liked flashy players such as Marques Haynes and Goose Tatum of the Globetrotters (both made the Basketball Hall of Fame). During a high school game or practice, Oscar busted out some Globetrotter moves of falling down while dribbling the ball. His coach blew his whistle and told Oscar to never do that again (at the threat of not playing again). Basically, Oscar said he knew why his coach scolded him about it - during those times, that type of play was seen as clown basketball and showing people up. Some coaches didn't want their players doing stuff like that to potentially draw negative attention to themselves.

In that same interview Webber said he never saw Oscar dunk. But then showed an old clip of Oscar jumping to block a shot and his elbow being at or above the rim. While people know Oscar as athletic, he was really one hell of a jumper and would have been a big dunker if he came up in a later era and had coaches that would encourage him to do it (same as with the crazy ballhandling, Oscar was not encouraged to do that stuff).

In a more modern era, Oscar would have been flashier and dunked without the fear of needing to tone down his game. But Oscar playing more conservatively worked well for him - it made him just a pure no-nonsense kind of guy and play with fundamentals.

[Doctor MJ]

Someone mentioned comparing Oscar and Magic was like comparing Jordan and Dr. J.

It's not.

It's like comparing Jordan and Baylor.

One guy is just bigger, more athletic, more VERSATILE, and was more dominant against better competition.

Magic's gaudy stats were due to his versatility in plugging holes and mastering of the flow of the game(better than anyone in the history of the game at that).

While it's been well commented a lot of Oscar's numbers are due to his ball dominance(quotes about how if a guy missed a shot Oscar would go out of his way to avoid getting him the ball).

Magic damn sure could have upped his scoring on good efficiency if he wanted to sacrifice some assists.

That's what I think it really comes down to. Magic was better at making teams better

Magic is what Oscar would be if you gave him 3 inches, better court vision, and made him faster.

I like your more specific points here, but I have to say I actually think the gap between Magic & Oscar is closer than between Jordan & Erving, and I see the gap between any of those guys and Baylor as far greater.

[Warspite]

When it comes to Oscar's assists, it becomes hard to compare it to Magic and later point guards because in Oscar's era, many people say that back then stat keepers were more strict in what they considered an assist. Sometimes in today's game, people have made threads debating if certain point guards are getting their stats inflated a bit due to questionable stat keeping. Oscar might have averaged more assists in today's game all things considered equal due to some of his "non-assist" plays being called "assist" plays today.

If you look at how select stars accumulated assists back then it to me is pretty clear that the issues back then were just a more extreme version of what we see now: The guys who get the arbitrary stats regularly called their way are the guys the scorekeepers know to expect to get those stats. Once that stat becomes something people are actually paying attention to for that guy, scorekeepers make a real point to not miss them, and tend to go too far in the other directions. "Was that worthy of an assist?", "Well it came from X, I guess it must have been."

For example, guys here have done play-by-play analysis of Walt Frazier's 1970 Game 7 performance, and they don't see anywhere near 19 assists. Frazier in general isn't even a guy who racked up huge assists, but that night, for whatever reason, he was getting credited on assists for every jump shot conceivable. My guess would be it was because he got off to a hot start and the statkeepers then "nudged" him a bit further toward history. Same stuff happens today, although I doubt you'd see it during the Finals given how scrutinized it is.

Frasier had (9) assists which from a typo was turned into 19 when a ( was read as a 10. It was a clerical error that was never fixed.


I view all stats as pretty subjective and with an error limit of about 10-15%.