Peaks project #9

[MyUniBroDavis]

Not really. Russell high-jumped 6-10 before the invention of the Fosbury Flop, which revolutionized the whole event. Fosbury himself went from a career-best jump of 5-4 to a then-world record of 7-4 using the technique. I won't intimate that Russell would have also gained 2 feet with the technique, but it would clearly have put him well, well outside the bounds of a high school caliber high-jumper. In fact, with the new technique and modern equipment Russell would still likely be at least borderline world class as a high jumper...which puts him far outside of the norms for an NBA center. Yes, likely even more athletic than David Robinson (possibly to a significant degree).

And that's not where conversation ended, because my response back then was:

Source?



Cmonn drza, his 5-4 mark was before or at the beginning of high school, so natural psychical growth has A LOT to do with improvement. In high school, when he was using his "flop" technique, he still wasn't the best in the country, for example: "(...) the next year took second place in the state with a 6 ft 5.5 in (1.969 m) jump."

During 1968 Olympics he won, but it's not like he had big advantage over players using old technique (he was first with 2.24m, but needed three attempts, second place player had 2.22m and third 2.20m). In fact on next Olympics in 1972 the best result was set by player using OLD technique (Juri Tarmak won). So it's not so obvious new technique would give big advantage (if any), especially to so big player like Bill (the best high jumpers are usually around 6-1 to 6-5.)

Anyway, suggesting that Russell would gain 2 feet or anything close to that is irrational. Fact is Fosbury was using his technique on world stage since around mid 60s and 7-4 results or even 7-5 (by legendary Valeriy Brumel) weren't uncommon at the beginning of the 60s! (source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Men%27s_high_jump_world_record_progression" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;). And high schoolers right now jump 7-4 regulary (world record for HS is 7-7)... so way better than Russell back then or even better than Fosbury career mark.

And if you would like to continue, your stance isn't reasonable. (Edit: deleted my rant on my track credentials, and ceding the point after Mischievous' last point. I've always been taught that the Flop was clearly better. Perhaps I'm mistaken. Either way, though, the point stands. Russell would clearly, conservatively be a 7-foot-plus jumper today, and whatever his actual number is, the overall point is that he'd be absurdly athletic for a big man, even today).

Plus, modern day athletes have technology advantages that are just as huge and fundamental as the technique approaches. The modern-day track is WAY faster than the track materials of the 50s. The shoes are way different. The training regiments are way different. If Russell was jumping 6-10 in the 50s, he would absolutely be expected to be well into the mid-7s, conservatively, now.

And ALL OF THIS is besides the point. The point is that Russell was a near 7-footer that could high-jump 7+feet and sprint at the rate of the best sprinters. Whether he would actively compete in the current Olympics or not doesn't matter...the fact that no CURRENT near 7-footer in the NBA has that kind of athletic ability IS the point.

well, technically, Davis and Howard do have arguements (not sure what Davis's vert is, it was measured at 35.5 in high school, and i know that it went up a bit)
Are we arguing whether Russell's fitness would meet modern nba standards?
While I am obviously an advocate for Russell, evidenced by my post above (havent really read the thread much tbh)
While Russell in terms of pure athleticism, is easily better than anyone else, and his core strength is also incredible (I recall he outmuscled wilt a few times)
him being 220 pounds is probably the only question, though, his ffmi for his height means that his weight would be questionable.
Other attributes would ensure he is the best defender in the game/all time today still though. especially with modern advancements.

[70sFan]

Quotatious and trex_8063, when I said that Dr J is LeBron before LeBron I mean his all around game, his athletism, his physical dominance. Not passing skills, of course both LeBron and Bird are better passers than him. I like Baylor comparison, they are similar passers.

About Dr J vs Bird comparison, well I agree with basically everything Quotatious said. Julius in 1976 was slightly better (mainly in playoffs) scorer than Bird. Rebounding is wash, defense is Julius advantage.
Keep in mind that Bird in 1986-1988 wasn't as good defender as he was in 1981 (his defensive peak in my opinion).

Also, I'm glad to see people voting Russell. His impact was amazing, his defense is still better than anything we have ever seen. Also, underrated offensive player (well, his early 60s version, because in late 60s he became poor scorer).

[drza]

William Felton Russell !!!

Spoiler:

OK seriously, as some have been pointing out, we don't have enough Bill Russell in this project. The default for many seems to be that he was great in his day, but it might not translate to the 3-point era so we're not necessarily convinced of his modern-day impact. I've found a sequence of my posts from the Top-100 project on Russell that pushes back against these thoughts. I'm going to combine parts of several of those posts, along with some new thoughts to make a case here.

David Robinson was electric...but there's a very real possibility that Russell's athleticism could have dwarfed Robinson's...which would make his modern-day physical defensive potential higher than Robinson's but with an (IMO) much finer basketball mind attached. At the very least, some food for thought that I'd love if someone would push back against because it could lead to some (much needed, probably tardy) analytic Russell conversation:

I. Russell's impact in his day
I've seen convincing data that Russell was personally having a GOAT-level impact on games, that his success drove his team success (and not the other way around), and that his approach and ability would have likely translated his impact a lot more than people credit.

So, first off, I'd like to post ElGee's initial blog on Russell's defensive impact. This article shows the estimated team defensive ratings of the Celtics from 1958 (the year before Russell's arrival) through 1970 (the year after Russell retired), demonstrating that the historic Celtics' defense arrived with Russell, directly followed Russell's career arc, peaked with Russell, declined as Russell declined, and then went away when Russell retired. The article is found here: http://elgee35.wordpress.com/2010/12/31/bill-russells-defensive-impact/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; There are few, at this point, that dispute that Russell was the engine behind the Celtics' defense. But I wanted anyone unfamiliar with this work to see the numbers, as it helps to cement the concept that the Celtics' weren't just some over-talented team that happened to win when Russell was around. They were a team that won with defense far above-and-beyond all else, and that the defense was thoroughly captained by Russell.

Per the article, in 1964 the Celtics' defense was 11.4 pts/100 possession better than league average (!), 5.6 points better than first place. In 1965, the year I argue was Russell's peak, the defense was "only" 9.9 points/100 possessions better than league average and was a full 8.0 points better than second place (!!!).

II. For those that don't think that Russell's impact could translate to the more modern game. From what I read, the main arguments used against him are some combo of a) the league is more athletic now than it was in the 60s, b) the arrival of the 3-point line reduces the impact of protecting the rim because the game is more spread out, and c) Russell wasn't much of a scorer by either volume or percentage. In response, I would point out a few things:

1) Russell was taller than you think. He was listed at 6-9 at a time period when players were usually listed by heights without shoes. These days, players are listed at heights with shoes which normally adds 1 - 2 inches. And anecdotally, when Russell stands next to players known to be 7-feet he often appears to be similar in height. In today's game, Russell would probably be listed at 6-10 or 6-11.

2) Russell was an insane athlete. He considered going to the 1956 Olympics as a high jumper. Track and Field News ranked him as the #7 high jumper in the world, and he was ranked #2 in the United States at the time when he would have had to make the decision (he instead decided to go lead the basketball team to Olympic gold). He also apparently already enjoyed psyching out his opponents the way he later would Wilt: http://www.worldsstrangest.com/mental-floss/5-things-you-didn%E2%80%99t-know-about-bill-russell/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Russell also told Plimpton that he reveled in psyching out other jumpers. “I recall we had one big meet with 34 jumpers. They wanted to start the bar at five-eight. I said, ‘Let’s start it at six-four—let’s get rid of all this garbage.’ I wore a silk scarf, basketball shoes, a track suit and black glasses. I took off the glasses to jump.”



3) Russell was a scorer in college. One of the big arguments used against Russell is that he couldn't score enough to play in today's game. I've seen folks say that in today's game, Russell would be similar to players like Joakim Noah or Ben Wallace. But Russell has stated before that he consciously chose the way that he played, to focus more on defense than on offense, in order to maximize his team's success (I can't find the quote, but if anyone has it please post it). But prior to that decision, Russell actually COULD score. In college, Russell averaged 20.7 ppg on 51.6% shooting from the field. He may never have projected into a monster scorer, but were scoring more of his focus (as it likely would be in today's game) there's no reason to believe he couldn't have done so.

4) Russell was a master of both "horizontal and "vertical" defense", key to the modern game. On Doc MJ's blog "A Substitute for War", he had a really good article breaking down the difference between "vertical defense" (e.g. protecting the rim by waiting there to block shots) and "horizontal defense" (e.g. mobile help defense over a larger area). In the post (found here: https://asubstituteforwar.wordpress.com/2011/04/23/howard-is-the-dpoy-but-hes-no-garnett/#more-1569" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; ) there is a quote from Bill Russell: a Biography, that speaks to Russell's defensive style:

"Bill understood that Wilt’s game was more vertical, that is, from the floor to the basket. Wilt’s game was one of strength and power…Bill’s game was built on finesse and speed, what he called a horizontal game, as he moved back and forth across the court blocking shots, running the floor, and playing team defense."

Now, take a moment and think about what that might mean for the 3-point era. In this era, the best defensive anchors are able to move around the court. Pick-and-roll help defense (on- and off-ball) are incredibly vital. It's still good to be able to block shots, but the data indicates that it's also key to be able to blow up plays defensively before the shot can even go up. In the generation just prior to the +/- data, the generally agreed upon two best defensive players were Hakeem Olajuwon and David Robinson...both of whom were mobile bigs that were excellent at both horizontal defense and shot-blocking. In the +/- era (now from 1997-98 through 2014), the two most impressive defenders are the best shot-blocker (Dikembe Mutombo) and the most horizontal defender (Kevin Garnett). Mutombo and Garnett, in fact, have defensive seasons where their impacts on defense alone rival the very best individual offensive seasons in that stretch (including peak Shaq, Kobe, Nash, Dirk, LeBron and Dirk) according to DocMJ's normalization method of RAPM across years.

From everything that we know, it is certainly fair to project that Russell in the current day might combine the best of the primary defensive strengths of Garnett (mobility, intelligence) and Mutombo (shot-blocking, timing). As such, Russell very likely would still have a defensive impact at least on the order of the very best offensive players of our time, even in the modern era with the 3-point line.

III. No, seriously, Russell's athleticism/comparison to modern day Russell-like defensive descendants

I agree to an extent therealbig3 but I think Russell still had the most perfect defensive body and most perfect defensive mind in history of C position, so to me it would probably translate to other eras, even if not at the impact he had in the 60s. I think there's a valid argument to be made Hakeem, Garnett, Robinson, Duncan are possibly as good as defensive players as Russell if playing in another era, and thus above him at their peaks when taking into account offense

But haven't we seen guys with a combination of the best of Garnett (mobility and intelligence) and the best of Mutombo (shot blocking and timing) in more recent times: Hakeem Olajuwon and David Robinson? I'd throw Duncan in that group, even if his mobility might have been the weakest between him, Garnett, Hakeem, and Robinson, and it's not like he was a sloth in his prime. Even Garnett himself was a bit of a shot blocker during his prime...he averaged over 1 bpg, peaking at 2.2 bpg, every year for the first 14 years of his career. Since then, he's still averaged 0.9 bpg, despite a noticeable reduction in mpg.

Even so, let's look at Hakeem and Robinson, who are the two most obvious comparisons to Russell defensively, when you look at their combination of mobility, athleticism, rim protection, and ability to force TOs. As far as their intelligence, both of those guys were considered two of the most intelligent defensive players of their era as well, Hakeem especially.

So Hakeem and Robinson seemed to have mastered the horizontal and vertical aspects of defense as well, and were as good at that as anyone ever. And I can guarantee that they still would not have been considered best in the game caliber players (and neither would have Duncan or Garnett) if they weren't also high-caliber offensive big men as well.

These were both interesting posts, from posters I really respect, so I certainly understand your argument. And I'm not even going to push back (too hard) against your logic and the conclusions you come to, except in this way:

On the continuum of those 4 players, I think that Garnett is pretty clearly the most mobile (granting that all are more mobile than the vast, vast majority of 7-footers) and that either Hakeem or Robinson likely the best leapers. All of them, plus Duncan, constitute some of the best combos of size, athleticism and intelligence that we've seen in the "Russell mold" of a defensive big man in the modern NBA.

The thing that I was trying to get across in my last post, though, is that Russell quite arguably blows them out of the water as athletes. The arguments that both of you make rely on these four being approximate to Russell on defense in the modern game. And maybe they are. But the other possibility is...

I mentioned that Russell was an Olympic caliber high-jumper. I came across another quote (from Havlicek, I believe) speaking on Russell also being an unbelievable sprinter (on the order of 13s seconds in the sprint hurdles). It's hard to quantify just exactly how fast Russell was, but I'm open to the possibility that his mobility and quickness might not have been "just" excellent for a big man...he very well may have had LeBron-type speed. And when you factor in the world class high jumping, he very well may have had LeBron leaping ability as well.

I guess my point is, Garnett/Hakeem/Robinson/Duncan kind of define our upper limit as far as the mobile, athletic, defensive monster big man of the modern era. But we've seen really big guys with absurd hops in recent years (Kemp, early Amare, Howard, Griffin) and now we're seeing just how absurd that kind of athleticism is in a Karl Malone-like body type with LeBron. Physically, if Russell's body was essentially similar to KG/Hakeem/Robinson/Duncan but his athleticism was on the order of LeBron, that opens the possibility that his defensive impact might translate much more faithfully to this era than we think. That, defensively, he might be as far beyond the best of this era as he was beyond the best of his era.

That "sounds" better than really is, but in reality doesn't say much about his athleticism, because Olympic caliber high jumper in 1957 = high school caliber high jumper now.

Not really. Russell high-jumped 6-10 before the invention of the Fosbury Flop, which revolutionized the whole event. Fosbury himself went from a career-best jump of 5-4 to a then-world record of 7-4 using the technique. I won't intimate that Russell would have also gained 2 feet with the technique, but it would clearly have put him well, well outside the bounds of a high school caliber high-jumper. In fact, with the new technique and modern equipment Russell would still likely be at least borderline world class as a high jumper...which puts him far outside of the norms for an NBA center. Yes, likely even more athletic than David Robinson (possibly to a significant degree).

Haven't got a huge amount of time but the simple version of the pushback for Robinson / anti-Russell

1) Russell's impact in his day
The main "anti-Russell" (or skeptical, or pro-supporting cast) argument has always been, didn't the Celtics get off to as good a record (technically a better record but apparently worse SRS so split the difference for terminological ease) in 56-57 without Russell. That despite Russell's span being largely coincident with the arrival of Frank Ramsey (around a month after Russell). The other thing this season does (if the arguments/research I've seen online is right) is undermine (or rather mitigate) the Boston won with D, Russell played the D, ergo Russell won the titles and didn't have a good supporting cast reasoning, in that in that relative to expectations at the specific points of the season, Boston did improve on D with Russell, but he was also hurting them on offense (and this despite the arrival of Ramsey, and isn't relative to Ed Macauley, but an aging Arnie Risen (or whomever was getting the bulk of the minutes at center; Risen was the starter).

This isn't a strongly "anti-Russell" case. But it eats away a little at margins of the correlation=causation case of Russell's defense = championships.

And Robinson's impact wasn't bad either. Arriving in 89 on a -7.45 SRS team, he transformed them to a +3.58 (they weren't as good as 56 wins suggested). The teams aren't exactly identical to be fair, Terry Cummings arrived for Alvin Robertson and then serviceable big Cadilac Anderson; Elliott also arrived in the draft but wasn't very good (PER of 12.5) and Mo Cheeks and then Rod Strickland replaced Johnny Dawkins. Frank Brickowski regressed. Still the fabled Larry Brown was in charge of both teams. So this is a (very) noisy method. But the manner in which the Spurs got better upon his arrival (and fell in his absence in '97) are indicative of "impact".

Russell's impact in the modern game./ Russell the athlete
He would be listed as an inch taller.

He was an elite athlete, but then so was Chamberlain at that time. I could argue eras and talent pools and whether gymnastics (Robinson's other sport) shows a more refined coordinated athleticism than high jump. I think it's moot when it comes to these two though, they both had excellent applied athleticism (at least defensively - as I'll cover I'm less convinced on Russell's O, that's probably less "athleticism" than hands/touch though otoh). I don't think the concerns about time-travelling Russell are about that.

Russell as a scorer is where I get cynical. Two main sources 1) Russell was consistently had the lowest TS%, whilst taking the fewest fga's per 36 amongst all 30ish plus minute centers year on year throughout the 60s; 2) the aforementioned Boston offense tailing off on Russell's arrival (offsetting a lot of the points differential gained on D, sufficiently so that it was within the range of luck to make the W-L worse with Russell, and again this with Ramsey arriving a somewhat shoring up the SF spot). At the margins (now this is very little weight for me) there's also things like the high scoring games they had when Russell went down. I don't trust it because team's don't properly modify their style to account for playing without stars if they know the star is coming back in a week, and it's small samples so if I'm cynical about tiny WoWY/impact type stuff on defensive and net impact it's only right that I should be on O too (and other teams won't have been planning for defending a non-Russell team). And I haven't studied this systematically. But I've seen some people go bonkers over high points conceded in sans-Russell games versus the Lakers and Knicks and think as much as you want to weigh this (and as before, with me it's very little) the flip side should at least be acknowledged.

but were scoring more of his focus (as it likely would be in today's game) there's no reason to believe he couldn't have done so.

I could pull up Dennis Rodman's scoring numbers from college (at a lower standard but then one might be cynical about the talent pool in the NCAA in Russell's time) in terms of do college scoring numbers necessarily translate, but the point needn't be laboured that I don't think he could be an effective scorer. The point here is could he emphasise his offensive game without trading off defense. If Russell was managing his energy for D, I think that was the right thing. I really wouldn't want Russell emphasizing scoring.

On Russell's mobility and horizontal game. I don't think the point's your making are necessarily disupted, but I'm not sure that it makes up for the simple "in Russell's time the most efficient shot was the foul shot - assuming you got two of them or and-1 - and then a layup/dunk which has always been the best way to draw said free throws and then a gulf, and a great help defender covers that" argument. Now the three is a 60% TS look -on average- for a fair few shooter and quite a bit better than that when uncontested. Russell played in an era when many players were used to being able to take as long as they liked to get a shot that suited them. As such distance (jump) shooting was for the most part relatively primative. Russell's mobility is great in the modern game, but there are circumstances that just make any player whose main impact is blocking/altering shots less important than they were in the 50s/60s.

Okay I've spent too long on this already. The arguments aren't perfect or polished, but it's the gist of my concerns and why I've fallen on the more cynical side regarding Russell (or more positive about his teammates) in so far as they relate to your arguments.

Not really. Russell high-jumped 6-10 before the invention of the Fosbury Flop, which revolutionized the whole event. Fosbury himself went from a career-best jump of 5-4 to a then-world record of 7-4 using the technique. I won't intimate that Russell would have also gained 2 feet with the technique, but it would clearly have put him well, well outside the bounds of a high school caliber high-jumper. In fact, with the new technique and modern equipment Russell would still likely be at least borderline world class as a high jumper...which puts him far outside of the norms for an NBA center. Yes, likely even more athletic than David Robinson (possibly to a significant degree).

Not entirely wrong, but as a bit of a trackster this info you're presenting makes it sound like the Fosbury flop technique just added 2 ft to the old high jump technique. For a bit more of the story Dick invented the flop while in high school (so the 5'4 mark is a young hs pr) and went on to perfect it to world class levels and jumped the 7'4 at the olympics 6ish years later. It's the better technique for sure, but not that much better.

Without any pretence to expertise on this I've seen suggestion in one sports/science book that whilst obviously the Fosbury Flop is a more efficient technique in terms of requiring a lower centre of gravity to be achieved, they thought the straddle might be better because it's superior in some other way (maybe more efficient in terms of the energy of the running and jumping motion). Will see if I can locate it. This wasn't (iirc) a specialist in that area and so I'm (very) skeptical but thought I should mention it.

Some general responses:

*The purpose of my post wasn't as much "Russell's case vs. Robinson's case", as much as it was fighting back against a concept. You mentioned Wilt possibly being a better athlete than Russell...that's kind of besides the point, and in other ways makes my point for me: Wilt's 1967 was voted in long ago. Russell's peak, 2 years earlier, has faced push-back on the idea that the game was too different then to know that his game could translate. I don't think that's right. Wilt wouldn't have played the same, now, as he did in 1967 either. The game is different. But the underlying assumption is that Wilt's game, his size/athletic ability, his skills would roughly translate to today's game enough that his peak could still be among the best ever.

Russell was Wilt's peer in every way. Athletically Russell was different, but not necessarily inferior to Wilt. THAT'S one of the fundamental points, here. This isn't like a George Mikan or even a Bob Petit type situation where fundamental quesitons about the translation of their athletic ability are warranted. Russell was an athletic freak then, and he would still be one now.

*Russell's offense. No one can even speculate well as to what his offense would be in today's game, especially not well enough (IMO) to do analysis of it. Russell had the athletic ability to be a high-efficiency finisher near the rim. He had the coordination to handle the ball better than the average center. He'd be quicker than the average center. He had a mind that told him that the best way to help his team in the 50s was to focus all of his energy on defense. He was an excellent passer for a center, capable of being a high-post hub. He was also an awful free throw shooter. I don't know what all of that translates to, but my opinion is that all signs are that he'd be at the least a neutral offensive player if not a net positive one.

*The impact of defense in today's league. Using RAPM estimates from Doc MJ's standard deviation/APM estimates (from my memory), the best offensive impacts of the past 20 years (Nash and LeBron) had their peak marks around +9 on offense. The best defensive impacts of the last 20 years (Mutombo and Garnett) had their peak marks around +7 on defense. And there were more offensive players near that range than defensive players.

I'd argue that Russell's defensive impact, even in today's game, has a very good argument to be better than Mutombo and Garnett. Maybe it wouldn't be, we can't know for sure, but his shot-blocking and interior defense seems like it should be better than Mutombo's and his horizontal abilities are probably the closest that we've seen to Garnett's in the full databall era. All Russell'd have to do is have a defensive impact marginally better than Mutombo/Garnett to have a defensive impact as large as the BEST offensive impact that we have in this era. The dataall era, WITH the 3-point line.

I just don't see how this is such an unreasonable proposition that we can make it a default part of our thinking that Russell couldn't replicate his impact today. Is it possible that Russell wouldn't be as good, now? Yes. But is it probable? I say no. And definitely, is it so probable that we can justify sliding his peak way down the list compared to a contemporary season that was only 2 years removed and voted in long ago? I don't see it.

[drza]

And if you would like to continue, your stance isn't reasonable. (Edit: deleted my rant on my track credentials, and ceding the point after Mischievous' last point. I've always been taught that the Flop was clearly better. Perhaps I'm mistaken. Either way, though, the point stands. Russell would clearly, conservatively be a 7-foot-plus jumper today, and whatever his actual number is, the overall point is that he'd be absurdly athletic for a big man, even today).

Plus, modern day athletes have technology advantages that are just as huge and fundamental as the technique approaches. The modern-day track is WAY faster than the track materials of the 50s. The shoes are way different. The training regiments are way different. If Russell was jumping 6-10 in the 50s, he would absolutely be expected to be well into the mid-7s, conservatively, now.

And ALL OF THIS is besides the point. The point is that Russell was a near 7-footer that could high-jump 7+feet and sprint at the rate of the best sprinters. Whether he would actively compete in the current Olympics or not doesn't matter...the fact that no CURRENT near 7-footer in the NBA has that kind of athletic ability IS the point.

well, technically, Davis and Howard do have arguements (not sure what Davis's vert is, it was measured at 35.5 in high school, and i know that it went up a bit)
Are we arguing whether Russell's fitness would meet modern nba standards?
While I am obviously an advocate for Russell, evidenced by my post above (havent really read the thread much tbh)
While Russell in terms of pure athleticism, is easily better than anyone else, and his core strength is also incredible (I recall he outmuscled wilt a few times)
him being 220 pounds is probably the only question, though, his ffmi for his height means that his weight would be questionable.
Other attributes would ensure he is the best defender in the game/all time today still though. especially with modern advancements.

Howard (pre-injuries) would have an argument on vertical leap (I think I mentioned him as an example in my post), but he'd have no argument all in lateral movement, or in the composite of the two.

Davis...he's a freak. And again, I'm not sure it even matters to me if I think Russell was the better athlete than Davis. If the argument is that Russell might only be AS athletic as the most athletic big men in the current NBA...then I'm satisfied that my case is made. And the possibility still exists that Russell MIGHT be more explosive still. In either case, his mind is still what it was, his combination of shot-blocking and horizontal defense would have him at the top of the league, and "all" he'd have to do is have slightly more defensive impact than Mutombo or Garnett to have a claim to a defensive impact = to the best offensive impact of the full databall era.

At the VERY LEAST, my argument is that the opposing argument isn't strong enough for Russell to slide much further. He MAY not have had the same level of defensive impact as he had in the 60s...but it certainly looks likely that he'd be ONE of the biggest impact players, if not THE best. And I don't see enough proof that he WOULDN'T have mega impact to completely overcome the impact that he actually DID have in his own era...the same era that produced the #4 player on our list.

[lorak]

Not really. Russell high-jumped 6-10 before the invention of the Fosbury Flop, which revolutionized the whole event. Fosbury himself went from a career-best jump of 5-4 to a then-world record of 7-4 using the technique. I won't intimate that Russell would have also gained 2 feet with the technique, but it would clearly have put him well, well outside the bounds of a high school caliber high-jumper. In fact, with the new technique and modern equipment Russell would still likely be at least borderline world class as a high jumper...which puts him far outside of the norms for an NBA center. Yes, likely even more athletic than David Robinson (possibly to a significant degree).

And that's not where conversation ended, because my response back then was:

Source?



Cmonn drza, his 5-4 mark was before or at the beginning of high school, so natural psychical growth has A LOT to do with improvement. In high school, when he was using his "flop" technique, he still wasn't the best in the country, for example: "(...) the next year took second place in the state with a 6 ft 5.5 in (1.969 m) jump."

During 1968 Olympics he won, but it's not like he had big advantage over players using old technique (he was first with 2.24m, but needed three attempts, second place player had 2.22m and third 2.20m). In fact on next Olympics in 1972 the best result was set by player using OLD technique (Juri Tarmak won). So it's not so obvious new technique would give big advantage (if any), especially to so big player like Bill (the best high jumpers are usually around 6-1 to 6-5.)

Anyway, suggesting that Russell would gain 2 feet or anything close to that is irrational. Fact is Fosbury was using his technique on world stage since around mid 60s and 7-4 results or even 7-5 (by legendary Valeriy Brumel) weren't uncommon at the beginning of the 60s! (source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Men%27s_high_jump_world_record_progression" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;). And high schoolers right now jump 7-4 regulary (world record for HS is 7-7)... so way better than Russell back then or even better than Fosbury career mark.

And if you would like to continue, your stance isn't reasonable. (Edit: deleted my rant on my track credentials, and ceding the point after Mischievous' last point. I've always been taught that the Flop was clearly better. Perhaps I'm mistaken. Either way, though, the point stands. Russell would clearly, conservatively be a 7-foot-plus jumper today, and whatever his actual number is, the overall point is that he'd be absurdly athletic for a big man, even today).

Plus, modern day athletes have technology advantages that are just as huge and fundamental as the technique approaches. The modern-day track is WAY faster than the track materials of the 50s. The shoes are way different. The training regiments are way different. If Russell was jumping 6-10 in the 50s, he would absolutely be expected to be well into the mid-7s, conservatively, now.

And ALL OF THIS is besides the point. The point is that Russell was a near 7-footer that could high-jump 7+feet and sprint at the rate of the best sprinters. Whether he would actively compete in the current Olympics or not doesn't matter...the fact that no CURRENT near 7-footer in the NBA has that kind of athletic ability IS the point.

So the point is wrong, because here's actually no proof Russell was as athletic as for example Amare (pre injuries) or Kemp or Griffin (all also 6-10 who are "near 7 footers"...). I guess Russell goes the same "tall tales" road as Wilt. Kind of sad, because he doesn't need such exaggerations, especially as athlete, because his greatness comes from different aspects of basketball.

[trex_8063]

To say that Dr. J was a "bit" better at facing-up, is a clear understatement. Erving was WAY more explosive and he could get layups or dunks where Bird would get contested jumpshots, pretty often.

Fair enough about Dr. J much better in facing up and penetrating (I feared I'd understated that a bit too much). And yet he's still got a significantly lower eFG% (even relative to league avg it's a bit lower than peak Bird), only has a moderately better FT-rate (where he's a significantly less accurate shooter).

Overall, though…..I can’t see an argument to label Erving the better pure scorer. Erving’s best season as a scorer (likely ‘76) he was going for 34.4 pts/100 poss at +5.2% rTS. Bird’s got at least two seasons (‘87 and ‘88) demonstrating better scoring numbers than that. And in an NBA era that [I don’t think anyone would contest this] is tougher/more competitive than the ‘76 ABA.
Short answer: Bird is the better pure scorer. I don’t think the margin is huge, but it’s nonetheless clear to me.

I disagree again.

Bird averaged 25.8 ppg on 58.0% TS in the RS (27.6% usage), 25.9 on 61.5% TS (only 23.3% usage) in the playoffs, while also facing less defensive pressure because he had other dangerous scoring options on his team (especially McHale).

Erving averaged 29.3 ppg on 56.9% TS (29.0% usage) in the RS, 34.7 on 61.0% TS (28.2% usage) in the playoffs, and he was facing more defensive pressure, similar to other GOAT level athletic wings like Jordan and LeBron. '76 Nets was really a "one man team" compared to the '86 Celtics.

Per 100 possessions, Bird averaged 32.2 in RS (34.4), and 29.5 in the playoffs (Erving 37.4, so the postseason gap is pretty big, and remember that their playoff scoring efficiency was almost the same, with Bird having 0.5% edge, which is basically no edge at all).

I'd say Erving was the better scorer. It's close, obviously, but numbers favor Erving (his explosiveness off the dribble at least makes up for Bird's superior shooting).

To be fair, if Bird was under less pressure, part of the reason is because he's a gifted passer. If he were not, teams could throw double-teams at him with impunity.
Also, you're assuming I consider '86 Bird's peak year (actually, I'm undecided). I noted two seasons ('87 and '88) where Bird's scoring numbers trump that of '76 Erving. Accounting for pace differences and league avg shooting:

'76 Erving: 34.4 pts/100 @ +5.14% rTS in 38.6 mpg
'87 Bird: 33.6 pts/100 @ +7.37% rTS in 40.6 mpg
'88 Bird: 37.6 pts/100 @ +7.00% rTS in 39.0 mpg
Now even if I did consider '86 Bird's best year (again: undecided), the scoring profile of '87 and '88 are still relevant imo, because it's not as though Bird was a vastly different player in these years. The major shift going from '86 to '87 to '88 isn't in Bird himself, but rather in his situation/supporting cast. So to me, these years hint at what he was capable of (as drza's indicated, it's not just about what they're capable of within the the specifics of a given year, but how that player might translate across a broad array of situations).

And with regard to usage and primacy, I'll put it to you this way: how much offensive primacy do you think Erving would have received if playing next to McHale, Parish, and DJ? idk, but his scoring numbers never quite hit that zenith again ('82 is really the only year that was close). Or how much primacy would Bird have received if his best teammates were Brian Taylor, John Williamson, and Rich Jones? I'd wager Bird's usage (and thus scoring) would go up substantially with that cast. Could he handle it while still maintaining efficiency? Well, I'd note Bird was shouldering 30.2% usage in '88 (higher than '76 Erving), with the roles of DJ, Parish, and McHale (who would miss 18 games) all in decline, and his scoring numbers were as indicated above.

Point I'm making is that a straight-up statistical comparison---and taking the results at face value---assumes that all circumstances are equal; which clearly they are not. If they were, we'd likely come to the conclusion that George Mikan was the GOAT peak.
I realize you've given this concern token service at the end of your post; I'll address it there, too, but am bringing it up here as well.

Rebounding
Bird rebounded at a significantly better rate. Some of that is how he was used defensively (typically guarding PF’s and C’s), but still…...rebounding is not by any means a factor that can be used against Bird in a comparison to Erving.

Where are you getting this from? Erving averaged 11.0 rpg in RS (12.9 per 100 possessions, 13.6% TRB), and 12.6 in the playoffs (13.6 per 100 possessions, 14.4% TRB), Bird averaged 9.8 in the RS (12.3 per 100 possessions, 14.2% TRB), 9.3 in the playoffs (10.6 per 100 possessions, 12.1% TRB).

Rebounding is a toss-up (although the playoffs gap in Erving's favor is a little bigger).

Here again is the assumption that all scenarios are equal (like '76 ABA = '86-'88 NBA).
I note that Erving's TRB% in '76 was 13.6%.....yet he only once managed to top 12% (at 12.5% in '81) in his NBA career; only twice managed to top 11.5%. I note his reb/100 in '76 was 12.9......yet he never managed as many as 11.0 in the NBA (his NBA best was 10.6). I don't believe that's coincidence, or that it's because he was quite suddenly a vastly different caliber of athlete/player beginning in '77. I believe that's a direct reflection of the level of competition he suddenly found himself facing from '77 on.

Bird's reb/100 possession ranged from 11.0 to 12.3 in '86-'88 (ALL higher marks than Erving ever achieved in 11 NBA seasons, despite slightly higher shooting %'s--->which mean marginally fewer missed shots), and his TRB% ranged from 12.8-14.2% (again: ALL higher than Erving ever achieved in 11 NBA seasons).

I feel the only way you can call this a toss-up (or slight edge to Erving) is by ignoring the strength of competition (which brings us back to the Mikan as GOAT conundrum).

Defense
As always, this is the toughest one to scrutinize, as we don’t have reliable statistical measures (at least not in their era(s)). A typical young casual fan may suggest “Dr. J easily” or some such, fueled by nothing more than the usual “Bird sucks at defense” narrative and the fact that Erving got a fair number of steals/blocks. Here’s how I see them defensively…..

While it’s true Bird was often “hidden” down low, generally guarding the opposing PF (because he lacked the lateral quickness to be good defensively against opposing SF’s), there’s two catches to this criticism: 1) he was GOOD (excellent even, imo) as a low post defender--->he was outstanding at using his lower body to create space, and would fight guys off their spot, make entry passes difficult, he bodied up hard when they got the ball, hands straight up on shots, was fantastic on the defensive boards, etc. 2) While it’s true that having to shift him off his position defensively means it created a potential mis-match for his team (the Celtics were fortunate to have a PF---McHale---who was capable of doing a decent defensive job on a SF), the thing is that in nearly any other era (or even on some teams in his own era) Bird would likely be played as a PF anyway, thus not creating a defensive mis-match for his team.
And wrt to Bird’s perimeter defense…..
imo, he made up for some of his short-comings in lateral quickness with fantastic anticipation and hand/eye coordination. He made some truly remarkable strips, low elevation blocks, and picked off passes (evidenced in the video Quotatious previously provided). Was also excellent at sneaking over from the weak-side to strip the ball from a post player.
In short: I agree with Quotatious’ stance that Bird was definitely a positive defensively (at least thru the majority of his prime).

As to Erving’s defense……
tbh, I’m not impressed with what I see of his man defense (something the 70sFan even echoed in his above post). Not saying he’s a BAD man defender; but he’s…..well, completely average to my eye.
He is, however, excellent in transition defense and in some other help defense scenarios, excellent at playing passing lanes, etc.

So overall, I’m not sure who to give the defensive edge to. Whoever gets the edge doesn't get it by much, imo.

I'll agree with your assessment of Bird's defense, and I'll even agree with what you said about Erving's 1 on 1 defense (it was average, but still probably a bit better than Bird's, at least on the perimeter, where Larry really struggled against quicker, more explosive players), but the thing is, there's a bit more evidence in Erving's favor. Nets had the best defense in the ABA with Brian Taylor being the only notable defender on that team aside from Erving, he made the All-Defensive 1st team, while Bird didn't even make a second team in '86, and Parish/McHale/DJ were all more important for the Celtics defensively than Bird was. Erving's help defense seems to be superior than Bird's.

I'd say Doc gets the edge on D. It's not a big edge, but he gets the upper hand. It's hard to speak with conviction if we have so little game footage of '76 Erving compared to what we have for '86 Bird, though. At least I would agree with you that whoever gets the edge on D (to me it's Doc, like I've just said), doesn't get it by much.

I could easily get behind that viewpoint.

How about advanced metrics?

Erving had higher PER, WS/48, BPM and VORP in both regular season and playoffs (well, Bird had higher playoff VORP, but he played 18 games compared to 13 for Doc, but RS + PS total VORP is slightly in Erving's favor, 11.7 to 11.1, with Bird playing 100 games and Erving 97).

Also, Doc had a bit higher total WS that year - 21.4 to 20.0, in less games played. That implies he made a bit higher impact.

Again: all are era/league-standardized stats. So unless you're contention is that Erving's peers in the '76 ABA are equal to Bird's peers in the '86-'88 NBA---I sure hope that's not your contention; agree to disagree......agree to strongly disagree if it is---this doesn't exactly seal the case.

Now, you can say - "but Bird played in a much better league" - sure, that would be true, but realistically, how much of a difference could that make, in terms of their numbers? Considering that Dr J put up by far the best numbers of his season against the best (on paper) team in the league, the Nuggets, in the highest pressure situation you can be in - the finals, I see no reason why Doc's stats would decline by any significant margin, if he played against stronger opponents on a regular basis

If you see no reason to believe his stats would fall off against better competition, then my question to you would be why did his stats do just that the moment he entered the NBA? Was this coincidence? Was he suddenly a significantly changed player?

Hell, I'm not even sure what my #1, 2 and 3 votes will look like, 5 spots from now. The gaps between peaks are clearly smaller than the career-wise gaps we were talking about in the top 100 project (and even those gaps were rarely big, to begin with...).

Yeah, totally agree. I may end up switching gears pretty drastically in my ballots, too. It's not even splittin' hairs between some peaks, it's splittin' epithelial cells.

I don't think the divide between Bird and Erving is that small though (in Bird's favor for me; and I'm not saying it's big either). I respect your opinion, I just don't agree with it here.

[Djoker]

Bill Russell was bar none the greatest defensive player and center ever to play in the NBA. Sure you can say that era which had less outside shooting was more conducive to greater big man impact on defense but other contemporaries who were great defenders in their own right like Wilt, Reed, Hayes, Unseld, and Kareem never approached his impact on defense.

1956 Olympics: (from another user on RealGM)

Average team scored about 70 pts/game. USA avg opp ppg - 45.6.

Phillipines scored 94 and 77 in first 2 games but 53 against USA;
Japan 61 and 70... 40 against USA;
Thailand 55 and 50... 29 against USA;
Soviet Union 82 vs the rest... 110 vs USA... in two games icon_biggrin.gif (55 average)

and if you think it's because of the competition, compare those results to 60 olympics in Rome. USA sent a team with Oscar, West, Bellamy and Lucas and still weren't as dominant defensively as 56 team. matter of fact, they never APPROACHED that level - their opponents scored 59.5 PPG (again, compared to 45.6 vs Russell's team).

there were 2 future NBA players on 56 team - Russ and KC.

similar story happened in NCAA. Russell simply fit wherever he went. the argument against Russell that he was only succesful because Celtics were perfect team for his capabilities is one of the most ridiculous of all that's been said in this project. Russell would take any team to contention with his defense. his style of play fits everywhere.

Sheer Defensive Impact (my post, data from B-Ref)

And the defensive breakdown Russell vs. Wilt (my post, data from B-Ref)

In case people are curious Boston's DRtg was 91.7 in 55-56 which means that Russell improved them by 7.7! After Russell retired Boston's DRtg in 69-70 was 98.9 and it declined by a whopping 9.8! Wilt's teams saw an improvement of 2.5 and a decline of 4.8, respectively.

The great Wilt Chamberlain when defended by Russell (my post, data from nbastats.net)

1960, 1962, 1964-1969
Wilt Overall: 32.6 ppg, 4.9 apg on 53.3 %FG
Wilt vs. Russell Playoffs (49 games): 25.7 ppg, 4.2 apg on 50.8 %FG

Celtics with and without Russell (my post, data from nbastats.net)

In 28 regular season games Russell missed from 57-58 to 68-69, Boston went 10-18 (29 win pace...) and allowed 123.2 points a game which would have been dead last in the league in any season! In the games in which Russell played they allowed a league best 108.6. That's a differential of 14.6 points a game! Best with him, worst without him.

[MyUniBroDavis]

And if you would like to continue, your stance isn't reasonable. (Edit: deleted my rant on my track credentials, and ceding the point after Mischievous' last point. I've always been taught that the Flop was clearly better. Perhaps I'm mistaken. Either way, though, the point stands. Russell would clearly, conservatively be a 7-foot-plus jumper today, and whatever his actual number is, the overall point is that he'd be absurdly athletic for a big man, even today).

Plus, modern day athletes have technology advantages that are just as huge and fundamental as the technique approaches. The modern-day track is WAY faster than the track materials of the 50s. The shoes are way different. The training regiments are way different. If Russell was jumping 6-10 in the 50s, he would absolutely be expected to be well into the mid-7s, conservatively, now.

And ALL OF THIS is besides the point. The point is that Russell was a near 7-footer that could high-jump 7+feet and sprint at the rate of the best sprinters. Whether he would actively compete in the current Olympics or not doesn't matter...the fact that no CURRENT near 7-footer in the NBA has that kind of athletic ability IS the point.

well, technically, Davis and Howard do have arguements (not sure what Davis's vert is, it was measured at 35.5 in high school, and i know that it went up a bit)
Are we arguing whether Russell's fitness would meet modern nba standards?
While I am obviously an advocate for Russell, evidenced by my post above (havent really read the thread much tbh)
While Russell in terms of pure athleticism, is easily better than anyone else, and his core strength is also incredible (I recall he outmuscled wilt a few times)
him being 220 pounds is probably the only question, though, his ffmi for his height means that his weight would be questionable.
Other attributes would ensure he is the best defender in the game/all time today still though. especially with modern advancements.

Howard (pre-injuries) would have an argument on vertical leap (I think I mentioned him as an example in my post), but he'd have no argument all in lateral movement, or in the composite of the two.

Davis...he's a freak. And again, I'm not sure it even matters to me if I think Russell was the better athlete than Davis. If the argument is that Russell might only be AS athletic as the most athletic big men in the current NBA...then I'm satisfied that my case is made. And the possibility still exists that Russell MIGHT be more explosive still. In either case, his mind is still what it was, his combination of shot-blocking and horizontal defense would have him at the top of the league, and "all" he'd have to do is have slightly more defensive impact than Mutombo or Garnett to have a claim to a defensive impact = to the best offensive impact of the full databall era.

At the VERY LEAST, my argument is that the opposing argument isn't strong enough for Russell to slide much further. He MAY not have had the same level of defensive impact as he had in the 60s...but it certainly looks likely that he'd be ONE of the biggest impact players, if not THE best. And I don't see enough proof that he WOULDN'T have mega impact to completely overcome the impact that he actually DID have in his own era...the same era that produced the #4 player on our list.

See, im not denying ANYTHING you are saying. I dont know what your "opponent" is arguing. Its Downright foolish, naive, biased, etc to say that Russell just simply is not as athletic as many of those guys. His defensive impact alone would basically be like having Mutombo and Garnett on the floor at the same time. heck, lets throw in pippen as well.

What I was saying was that I believe that Davis and Howard are NEARLY as athletic as Russell. I doubt that they are though, even though im a HUGE Davis fan. I have him high on my list, as I said before, if Garnett and Mutombo are 6+ on offense, I consider Russell to be +15.

Estimating his on-off numbers (I did it before, but iin 30 games he missed, according to Colts, the celtics defense went down by about 8-13 rtg points on defense, and since on-off numbers typically are lower than when a player is absent due to a variety of factors such as defense, I would estimate his on-off career rating is around 15+, 20+ adjusting for everything)

Russell pretty much was quicker than Hakeem, smarter than Garnett, had a calm influence on the game like Duncan, had VERY quick hands, could get up higher than even pre injury dwight, etc.

I think that Russell is an outlier on defense. people seem to say that one player cant win in the modern era by dominating on only one side of the ball.

I mean, we see people like Ben Wallace/Mutombo pop up and be extremely high impact players.

I would wager than Russell is defensively so far above anyone else that his offensive impact can be net negative, and he would still rank in teh top 10 peak wise.

[MyUniBroDavis]

Bill Russell was bar none the greatest defensive player and center ever to play in the NBA. Sure you can say that era which had less outside shooting was more conducive to greater big man impact on defense but other contemporaries who were great defenders in their own right like Wilt, Reed, Hayes, Unseld, and Kareem never approached his impact on defense.

1956 Olympics: (from RealGM)

Average team scored about 70 pts/game. USA avg opp ppg - 45.6.

Phillipines scored 94 and 77 in first 2 games but 53 against USA;
Japan 61 and 70... 40 against USA;
Thailand 55 and 50... 29 against USA;
Soviet Union 82 vs the rest... 110 vs USA... in two games icon_biggrin.gif (55 average)

and if you think it's because of the competition, compare those results to 60 olympics in Rome. USA sent a team with Oscar, West, Bellamy and Lucas and still weren't as dominant defensively as 56 team. matter of fact, they never APPROACHED that level - their opponents scored 59.5 PPG (again, compared to 45.6 vs Russell's team).

there were 2 future NBA players on 56 team - Russ and KC.

similar story happened in NCAA. Russell simply fit wherever he went. the argument against Russell that he was only succesful because Celtics were perfect team for his capabilities is one of the most ridiculous of all that's been said in this project. Russell would take any team to contention with his defense. his style of play fits everywhere.

Sheer Defensive Impact (my post, data from B-Ref)

And the defensive breakdown Russell vs. Wilt (my post)

In case people are curious Boston's DRtg was 91.7 in 55-56 which means that Russell improved them by 7.7! After Russell retired Boston's DRtg in 69-70 was 98.9 and it declined by a whopping 9.8! Wilt's teams saw an improvement of 2.5 and a decline of 4.8, respectively.

The great Wilt Chamberlain when defended by Russell:

1960, 1962, 1964-1969
Wilt Overall: 32.6 ppg, 4.9 apg on 53.3 %FG
Wilt vs. Russell Playoffs (49 games): 25.7 ppg, 4.2 apg on 50.8 %FG

Celtics with and without Russell:

In 28 regular season games Russell missed from 57-58 to 68-69, Boston went 10-18 (29 win pace...) and allowed 123.2 points a game which would have been dead last in the league in any season! In the games in which Russell played they allowed a league best 108.6. That's a differential of 14.6 points a game! Best with him, worst without him.

Good posts. However, I have 1 or 2 critiques.
1, for what you said were you posts, do you mean you posted them somewhere else? because I've seen that data on realgm before
2, Looking at the ppg for that last sample isnt really perfect. they went 10-18 with an SRS of 2.02, so in a rough estimate they probably were closer to a 33 win pace.
HOWEVER, the same person that made that compiled a estimate of the defensive ratings from that chart.

career wise, it ranged from 7 to 11.5 in terms of net rating.
Factoring all data in, peak russell was probably approaching 15-20, which is comfortably best of all time defensively

Something else, does that mean they played with a higher pace without Russell? that would definately lower the net rating a bit.

That being said, Russell is obviously the best defensive player of all time.

[MyUniBroDavis]

And that's not where conversation ended, because my response back then was:

And if you would like to continue, your stance isn't reasonable. (Edit: deleted my rant on my track credentials, and ceding the point after Mischievous' last point. I've always been taught that the Flop was clearly better. Perhaps I'm mistaken. Either way, though, the point stands. Russell would clearly, conservatively be a 7-foot-plus jumper today, and whatever his actual number is, the overall point is that he'd be absurdly athletic for a big man, even today).

Plus, modern day athletes have technology advantages that are just as huge and fundamental as the technique approaches. The modern-day track is WAY faster than the track materials of the 50s. The shoes are way different. The training regiments are way different. If Russell was jumping 6-10 in the 50s, he would absolutely be expected to be well into the mid-7s, conservatively, now.

And ALL OF THIS is besides the point. The point is that Russell was a near 7-footer that could high-jump 7+feet and sprint at the rate of the best sprinters. Whether he would actively compete in the current Olympics or not doesn't matter...the fact that no CURRENT near 7-footer in the NBA has that kind of athletic ability IS the point.

So the point is wrong, because here's actually no proof Russell was as athletic as for example Amare (pre injuries) or Kemp or Griffin (all also 6-10 who are "near 7 footers"...). I guess Russell goes the same "tall tales" road as Wilt. Kind of sad, because he doesn't need such exaggerations, especially as athlete, because his greatness comes from different aspects of basketball.

No offense, but
no.
just no.

Amare is 6ft 8 barefoot
Griffin is 6ft 8.5 barefoot

Russell woould be listed as 6ft 11. they take the shoe height and round up, and Russell was taller than the "6ft 9" Ben wallaces afro.

I mean, did you not see what DZRA posted? he was probably athletically superior to Howard as well.

http://www.insidehoops.com/forum/showthread.php?t=299597 skip to the gif. he had to duck at the rim.

ranked 7th in the world in 1956 in high jumping.

I would have a rough guestimate of 41 inches tbh.
and thats conservative.

[Djoker]

Bill Russell was bar none the greatest defensive player and center ever to play in the NBA. Sure you can say that era which had less outside shooting was more conducive to greater big man impact on defense but other contemporaries who were great defenders in their own right like Wilt, Reed, Hayes, Unseld, and Kareem never approached his impact on defense.

1956 Olympics: (from RealGM)

Average team scored about 70 pts/game. USA avg opp ppg - 45.6.

Phillipines scored 94 and 77 in first 2 games but 53 against USA;
Japan 61 and 70... 40 against USA;
Thailand 55 and 50... 29 against USA;
Soviet Union 82 vs the rest... 110 vs USA... in two games icon_biggrin.gif (55 average)

and if you think it's because of the competition, compare those results to 60 olympics in Rome. USA sent a team with Oscar, West, Bellamy and Lucas and still weren't as dominant defensively as 56 team. matter of fact, they never APPROACHED that level - their opponents scored 59.5 PPG (again, compared to 45.6 vs Russell's team).

there were 2 future NBA players on 56 team - Russ and KC.

similar story happened in NCAA. Russell simply fit wherever he went. the argument against Russell that he was only succesful because Celtics were perfect team for his capabilities is one of the most ridiculous of all that's been said in this project. Russell would take any team to contention with his defense. his style of play fits everywhere.

Sheer Defensive Impact (my post, data from B-Ref)

And the defensive breakdown Russell vs. Wilt (my post)

In case people are curious Boston's DRtg was 91.7 in 55-56 which means that Russell improved them by 7.7! After Russell retired Boston's DRtg in 69-70 was 98.9 and it declined by a whopping 9.8! Wilt's teams saw an improvement of 2.5 and a decline of 4.8, respectively.

The great Wilt Chamberlain when defended by Russell:

1960, 1962, 1964-1969
Wilt Overall: 32.6 ppg, 4.9 apg on 53.3 %FG
Wilt vs. Russell Playoffs (49 games): 25.7 ppg, 4.2 apg on 50.8 %FG

Celtics with and without Russell:

In 28 regular season games Russell missed from 57-58 to 68-69, Boston went 10-18 (29 win pace...) and allowed 123.2 points a game which would have been dead last in the league in any season! In the games in which Russell played they allowed a league best 108.6. That's a differential of 14.6 points a game! Best with him, worst without him.

Good posts. However, I have 1 or 2 critiques.
1, for what you said were you posts, do you mean you posted them somewhere else? because I've seen that data on realgm before
2, Looking at the ppg for that last sample isnt really perfect. they went 10-18 with an SRS of 2.02, so in a rough estimate they probably were closer to a 33 win pace.
HOWEVER, the same person that made that compiled a estimate of the defensive ratings from that chart.

career wise, it ranged from 7 to 11.5 in terms of net rating.
Factoring all data in, peak russell was probably approaching 15-20, which is comfortably best of all time defensively

Something else, does that mean they played with a higher pace without Russell? that would definately lower the net rating a bit.

That being said, Russell is obviously the best defensive player of all time.

After the first post about the 1956 Olympics which was made by another user on RealGM (unfortunately I don't remember who), the rest of the analysis is my own and it was taken/generated from data on B-Ref and nbastats.net. Maybe someone else took my post from Hoops-Nation and posted bits of it here. Sorry for the confusion.

I made that last Celtics ppg post is my own and I got it from nbastats.net. The Russell spreadsheet clearly indicates the games he missed and I just took opponent team ppg in games he did play vs. games he didn't play. The DRtg estimates I compiled are from B-Ref.

I just edited my previous post to reference properly.

[Quotatious]

And yet he's still got a significantly lower eFG%

That's not true. Bird indeed has the edge in terms of eFG%, but it's an extremely small difference.

RS:

Bird - 52.1%
Erving - 51.6%

PS:

Bird - 55.1%
Erving 54.0%

Very small gap. I don't see how Erving's eFG% is "significantly" lower.

only has a moderately better FT-rate

Well, if Erving only has a moderate advantage in regular season FTr, the playoff gap is very significant (Erving had 35.3 in RS, Bird had 30.6, but in the playoffs, Erving's free throw rate skyrocketed to 52.7, and Bird's went up only by a little, to 32.9).

(where he's a significantly less accurate shooter).

Bird was a far better shooter from any distance other than at rim, or shots inside 10 or 12 feet (we don't have stats for that, but it's likely the case - Bird is much better on mid-range jump-shots, threes, and free throws, Erving is better inside). I'm not gonna act like Bird isn't a much better shooter than Erving - he sure is.

To be fair, if Bird was under less pressure, part of the reason is because he's a gifted passer. If he were not, teams could throw double-teams at him with impunity.

I'm not sure about that, because we've seen LeBron, who is a comparable passer to Bird (well, I think Larry is a little bit better as a passer, but LeBron is an even more dangerous playmaker because of his great passing combined with much better athleticism and ball-handling, compared to Bird), getting a ton of doubles. Same with Jordan, who was a better passer/playmaker than Erving, too. You have to double guys like Jordan, LeBron or Dr J because they are so explosive and able to blow by their defenders off the dribble, all three had an amazing first step - they're several tiers ahead of Bird in terms of explosiveness.

Also, you're assuming I consider '86 Bird's peak year (actually, I'm undecided). I noted two seasons ('87 and '88) where Bird's scoring numbers trump that of '76 Erving. Accounting for pace differences and league avg shooting:

'76 Erving: 34.4 pts/100 @ +5.14% rTS in 38.6 mpg
'87 Bird: 33.6 pts/100 @ +7.37% rTS in 40.6 mpg
'88 Bird: 37.6 pts/100 @ +7.00% rTS in 39.0 mpg
Now even if I did consider '86 Bird's best year (again: undecided), the scoring profile of '87 and '88 are still relevant imo, because it's not as though Bird was a vastly different player in these years. The major shift going from '86 to '87 to '88 isn't in Bird himself, but rather in his situation/supporting cast. So to me, these years hint at what he was capable of (as drza's indicated, it's not just about what they're capable of within the the specifics of a given year, but how that player might translate across a broad array of situations).

You conveniently ignored the playoffs, where '76 Erving owns '87 and '88 Bird as a scorer. He has clearly higher volume AND efficiency (especially compared to '88). That's the reason why I choose '86 as Larry's peak - he was far better in the playoffs, compared to '87 and especially '88 (he shot the ball extremely poorly in the '88 ECF against Detroit). Or, over '85 for that matter, too. It's not even like we are talking about a small sample size (like one round) - no, '76 Erving played 13 postseason games, Bird played more than 15 every year between '84 and '88 (actually, '84 would be my second choice, after '86, for Larry's peak, because IMO '84 was his best playoff run, even slightly better than '86 - but there's a bigger gap between his '84 and '86 regular seasons, in favor of '86, so I go with '86 as his overall peak).

And with regard to usage and primacy, I'll put it to you this way: how much offensive primacy do you think Erving would have received if playing next to McHale, Parish, and DJ? idk, but his scoring numbers never quite hit that zenith again ('82 is really the only year that was close). Or how much primacy would Bird have received if his best teammates were Brian Taylor, John Williamson, and Rich Jones? I'd wager Bird's usage (and thus scoring) would go up substantially with that cast. Could he handle it while still maintaining efficiency? Well, I'd note Bird was shouldering 30.2% usage in '88 (higher than '76 Erving), with the roles of DJ, Parish, and McHale (who would miss 18 games) all in decline, and his scoring numbers were as indicated above.

That's a fair point, but again, we are talking about what actually happened, not what could have happened. Something about Bird just seems like he wasn't normally capable of sustaining his regular season productivity/efficiency in the playoffs. His usage AND efficiency was usually going down in the postseason, and in his top 2 playoff runs ('84 and '86), his usage went down, especially in '86, it's a noticeable difference (27.6 in RS, 23.3 in the playoffs).

Bird's reb/100 possession ranged from 11.0 to 12.3 in '86-'88 (ALL higher marks than Erving ever achieved in 11 NBA seasons, despite slightly higher shooting %'s--->which mean marginally fewer missed shots), and his TRB% ranged from 12.8-14.2% (again: ALL higher than Erving ever achieved in 11 NBA seasons).

Right, but we are talking about '76 Doc, specifically, so my point stands. Doc averaged 10.5 rebounds per 100 possessions in '77, and 10.6 in '81, when he was already over 30 years old, and he was having serious knee problems in the late 70s.

Point I'm making is that a straight-up statistical comparison---and taking the results at face value---assumes that all circumstances are equal; which clearly they are not. If they were, we'd likely come to the conclusion that George Mikan was the GOAT peak.

ABA was still much stronger, and basketball was far more developed/advanced in the '76 ABA, than it was in Mikan's era, so I don't think it's a good analogy.

I feel the only way you can call this a toss-up (or slight edge to Erving) is by ignoring the strength of competition (which brings us back to the Mikan as GOAT conundrum).

When you look at rebounds per game leaders in the '76 ABA and '86 NBA, the top 5 guys had extremely similar numbers. Actually, the ABA rebound leader (Artis Gilmore) averaged clearly more rebounds than the NBA rebound leader (Bill Laimbeer), and in terms of TRB%, Charles Oakley and Swen Nater, who led those leagues, were extremely close, too (21.2 to 20.8 for Oakley).

Well, maybe I wouldn't give Erving a slight edge as a rebounder, anymore, but I still think they're about equal (for what it's worth, Erving was smaller and played more on the perimeter than Bird did - Larry was still getting some minutes at PF, even with McHale being the Celtics starting PF, while Doc's secondary position was SG rather than PF).

Again: all are era/league-standardized stats. So unless you're contention is that Erving's peers in the '76 ABA are equal to Bird's peers in the '86-'88 NBA---I sure hope that's not your contention; agree to disagree......agree to strongly disagree if it is---this doesn't exactly seal the case.

As I've already mentioned, Doc's numbers would've gone down a bit against stronger competition, but as it is, he still has quite a bit room for decline to get down to Bird's level based on those stats...His advantage over Bird based on those metrics is pretty clear, especially in the postseason, so even if we adjust for league strength, they are still likely to be better than Bird's.

If you see no reason to believe his stats would fall off against better competition, then my question to you would be why did his stats do just that the moment he entered the NBA?

I said I thought his stats would fall off a little bit, but not by much, assuming he was still playing the same role.

Was this coincidence? Was he suddenly a significantly changed player?

No, it was not a coincidence, but believe it or not, be DID become a significantly changed player. He publicly mentioned that a lot of times, in interviews, and Gene Shue, as well as any member of the Sixers organization at that time, would confirm that. Sixers had three offensive stars right after the merger - Erving, McGinnis and Collins. They decided to run a balanced offense, with all of them scoring about 20 ppg. I'm not sure if you've seen Doc's interview with Bill Simmons, but he mentioned it there. He also said that he had already won championships, scoring titles and MVPs in the ABA, so he didn't feel motivated to prove that he could be a dominant individual player, he bought into the team concept (if you watch The Doctor documentary, you can see that the people from the Sixers organization were even a little surprised that he didn't demand a bigger role for himself).

But, here's something that should help you decide whether Erving all of a sudden declined so much in the NBA, compared to the ABA, or not - look at regular season numbers, then his playoff numbers, and finally his NBA finals numbers in '77 - you can see there's a pretty big increase in terms of his scoring, in the postseason. Not only that, but his efficiency improved simultaneously, as well.

In the '76-'77 regular season, Erving averaged 21.6 ppg on 55.3% TS.

For the entire '77 playoffs, he averaged 27.3 ppg on 57.7% TS.

In the '77 finals against Portland, he averaged 30.3 ppg on 60.4% TS.

The worse his team was playing, the more Erving was stepping up his own game, at least in terms of scoring. To me, it clearly seems like he was saving something for the playoffs. You can appreciate him even more if you see how much of McGinnis's sorely lacking offensive production he made up for with his own play.

'78 and '79 were kind of "down years" for Doc, but then he became revitalized in the early 80s, and when you look at his per 100 poss. numbers, they are very similar to '76, with lower rebounds (but still around 10 rpg per 100 possessions, and remember that he was already 30-32 years old, with knee problems that could've robbed him of some of that insane leaping ability and explosiveness that he had in the early/mid 70s (he was still super athletic in the early 80s, but likely not as much as he was in his early/mid 20s).

I respect your opinion, I just don't agree with it here.

Same with me. Always appreciate your insight, and you are fun to debate with, because you are so level-headed, reasonable, and always back up your statements with solid evidence.

[trex_8063]

Call for David Robinson supporters to address

Also you mention his faceup game being deadly? Couldn't be further from the truth. It was useful in the regular season but in a 7 game series against great defenders its not trustworthy. His performances against good defenses in the playoffs are historically disappointing outside of his rookie season.

From 93-96 he played 8 series. He played good defenses 3 times (Portland in 93, Utah in 94 and 96). Outside of that he also played 2 ATG Cs (Hakeem and Mutombo in 95) and here's how he performed:

vs Portland 93 (4th ranked defense): 19.3 ppg, 2.3 orpg, 4.8 apg, 2.0 topg, 48.7 TS%, 107 ORTG. This 4 game series included a 6/20 performance and a 4/11 performance in games 1 and 2.

vs Utah 94 (7th ranked defense): 20 ppg, 3.3 orpg, 3.5 apg, 2.3 topg, 47.1 TS%, 104 ORTG. Again they lost in 4. This time lost games 2 and 3 (in a best to 3) with Robinson shooting 10-35 for 28 points in those games combined.

vs Denver 95 (with Deke): 19 ppg, 1.7 orpg, 3.3 apg, 2.0 topg, 49.3 TS%, 105 ORTG. They swept but he did struggle against Deke and they won mostly due to the offense which was flourishing despite bad performances from Robinson.

vs Houston 95 (with Hakeem) has been a topic of conversation for a minute now so I won't list the numbers totally (23.8 ppg for DR). I'd just like to mention again that he shot under 40% 3 games in this series and had under a 90 ORTG in all 3 games.

vs Utah 96 (8th ranked defense): 19.3 ppg, 3.7 orpg, 2.0 apg, 2.3 topg, 52.6 TS%, 107 ORTG. Looks better than the rest on paper but he had under a 50 TS% in 4 games and the other 2 games were blowout losses (73 TS% in a game 1 20 point loss and 74 TS% in only 24 minutes of a game 4 15 point loss). Honestly outside of games 1 and 2 he was flat out bad.

I don't think a player like him can really be relied on in the postseason offensively. Now defensively there's another issue: in series where he disappointed offensively (is the 5 above) more often than not his team also underperformed defensively. In 93 they held Portland better than expected (-2.5) but Clyde missed game 1 (Portland's worst offensive performance of the series with a 95.0 ORTG). Take out that game and San Antonio performed worse than expected defensively. San Antonio also performed well against Denver (-4.2) but they were led by rookie Jalen Rose offensively by the time the playoffs came.

In 95 Houston performed better than expected (+3.0) mainly because of Hakeem's play and Utah killed them in 94 and 96 with the PNR (+4.0 in 94 and +5.7 in 96). TBH I'm not sure if I trust his defense to stand when he's taken out of the game offensively. I want to say its a small sample but 23 games is a pretty large postseason sample for Robinson to look so unspectacular in during his "peak" years.

This, in a nutshell, is the type of post that always puts me back on my heels in these projects. I come into each one thinking that Robinson has a case to move up a level, but every time someone puts a post like this together that I can't ignore.

2) The defense. The main argument for Robinson's offensive struggles not being so damning, for me, is that even with just solid offense you'd still be getting one of the best defenders of all time with him. I've seen the question of Robinson's team defensive efforts in the playoffs raised, including in this project, but Spaceman and others have raised enough doubts about the methodology and that the questionable series might average out with the better-than-expected series to not matter so much. But again, here, E-balla is specifically arguing that it is the series in which Robinson is struggling offensively that the team's defense underperforms. And he makes the case that 4 of these 5 series (if you correct for Drexler's 1 game absence) match up with 4 of the series where Robinson's team defenses under-achieved expectation. And again, the 4 series that he amplifies as the team's defense struggling include: all three series that Robinson's teams were eliminated in his 3 peak 94 - 96 seasons, each of which marked a match-up with another ATG big, each of which also corresponded to lower than usual offensive output.

I'll answer to the implication that his team's defense semi-consistently under-performs in the playoffs.

Rather than starting off with some conjecture, I'll merely present the data. fwiw, my figures differ from E-Balla's (at times by a pretty drastic amount); so I fear we've differed in method somehow. For the record, the method I utilized takes the rDRTG of the Spurs vs. the rORTG of their opponent to determine the expectation. For example, if the Spurs DRtg were -2.0 to league avg and the opponent's ORtg was +3.0 to league avg, then the expected result would be for the opponent to perform +1.0 to league avg. Make sense?
Anyway, here's what I found:

'93
1st round (only scrutinizing the 3 games where Drexler played): Portland offense was +1.4 over expecation
WCSF: Phoenix offense was -2.2 below expectation

'94
1st round: Utah was +3.7 over expectation

'95
1st round: Denver was -13.2 below expectation
WCSF: Lakers were -17.4 below expectation
WCF: Rockets were +3.8 above expectation

'96
1st round: Phoenix was -7.4 below expecation
WCSF: Utah was +4.9 above expectation


So I don't know what to make of the discrepancies between my data and E-Balla's. Has to be something in the method, you can let me know if you disagree with mine.
We have an apparent under-achieving in 4 of 8 playoff series (IF we only consider the three games Drexler was around for in the Portland series), and apparent over-achieving in 4 of 8. But the magnitude by which they under-achieved ranged from 1.4 to 4.9 (avg of 3.45), whereas the magnitude by which they OVER-achieved ranged from 2.2 to 17.4 (avg of 10.05).

So by my method it appears that overall the Spurs defense marginally OVER-achieved in the playoffs during this span.


As to Robinson's offensive failures in the playoffs.....like drza, I don't have a good answer. He appeared to fall short of expectation in that regard semi-consistently in the playoffs. I can't deny that. How big a deal I want to make of it is more the question I'm asking myself. There's no one left on the table who doesn't have weaknesses.

[trex_8063]

And yet he's still got a significantly lower eFG%

That's not true. Bird indeed has the edge in terms of eFG%, but it's an extremely small difference.

RS:

Bird - 52.1%
Erving - 51.6%

PS:

Bird - 55.1%
Erving 54.0%

Very small gap. I don't see how Erving's eFG% is "significantly" lower.

You've again assumed I'm taking '86 as Bird's peak. (eFG% in '87 and '88 are 55.5% and 55.6% respectively).

Also, you're assuming I consider '86 Bird's peak year (actually, I'm undecided). I noted two seasons ('87 and '88) where Bird's scoring numbers trump that of '76 Erving. Accounting for pace differences and league avg shooting:

'76 Erving: 34.4 pts/100 @ +5.14% rTS in 38.6 mpg
'87 Bird: 33.6 pts/100 @ +7.37% rTS in 40.6 mpg
'88 Bird: 37.6 pts/100 @ +7.00% rTS in 39.0 mpg
Now even if I did consider '86 Bird's best year (again: undecided), the scoring profile of '87 and '88 are still relevant imo, because it's not as though Bird was a vastly different player in these years. The major shift going from '86 to '87 to '88 isn't in Bird himself, but rather in his situation/supporting cast. So to me, these years hint at what he was capable of (as drza's indicated, it's not just about what they're capable of within the the specifics of a given year, but how that player might translate across a broad array of situations).

You conveniently ignored the playoffs, where '76 Erving owns '87 and '88 Bird as a scorer.

I admit I tend to give the playoffs less focus than most people. Though between '88 anyway and Dr. J's run, I'd note the following:
Erving's defensive opposition in '76....
1st round: -0.5 rDRTG team where George Gervin (notoriously mediocre---if not bad---defender) is his primary defender; Billy Paultz cleaning up underneath
Finals: -0.7 rDRTG team where Bobby Jones (good) and rookie David Thompson (giving up 3".....not so good) are splitting time guarding him. No relevant shot-blocker underneath.

Bird's defensive opposition in '88....
1st round: -1.6 rDRTG team where Kenny Walker and Sidney Green split time guarding him (Ewing cleaning up underneath)
ECSF: -0.4 rDRTG team where Dominique Wilkins and I believe Cliff Levingston are the primaries guarding him (Tree Rollins cleaning up underneath).
ECF: -2.7 rDRTG team where the primaries guarding him are Adrian Dantley (in the one playoff run where he was reportedly giving solid defensive effort) and Dennis Rodman. John Salley to clean up underneath, fwiw.

So I certainly feel as though Bird had the tougher road, at least by a small margin.

And with regard to usage and primacy, I'll put it to you this way: how much offensive primacy do you think Erving would have received if playing next to McHale, Parish, and DJ? idk, but his scoring numbers never quite hit that zenith again ('82 is really the only year that was close). Or how much primacy would Bird have received if his best teammates were Brian Taylor, John Williamson, and Rich Jones? I'd wager Bird's usage (and thus scoring) would go up substantially with that cast. Could he handle it while still maintaining efficiency? Well, I'd note Bird was shouldering 30.2% usage in '88 (higher than '76 Erving), with the roles of DJ, Parish, and McHale (who would miss 18 games) all in decline, and his scoring numbers were as indicated above.

That's a fair point, but again, we are talking about what actually happened, not what could have happened.

Here's where I (and apparently drza, at least) disagree somewhat on what a peak is about: we're trying to determine "how good they were"; not just "how good they were within a very specific set of circumstances".

Bird's reb/100 possession ranged from 11.0 to 12.3 in '86-'88 (ALL higher marks than Erving ever achieved in 11 NBA seasons, despite slightly higher shooting %'s--->which mean marginally fewer missed shots), and his TRB% ranged from 12.8-14.2% (again: ALL higher than Erving ever achieved in 11 NBA seasons).

Right, but we are talking about '76 Doc, specifically, so my point stands. Doc averaged 10.5 rebounds per 100 possessions in '77, and 10.6 in '81, when he was already over 30 years old, and he was having serious knee problems in the late 70s.

Well, if your position is that his abrupt (and permanent) decline in rebounding numbers was the result of significant physical decline which, by coincidence, occurred at exactly the time of the merger, then I'll not be able to convince you. I simply don't believe that is the case, though.

Point I'm making is that a straight-up statistical comparison---and taking the results at face value---assumes that all circumstances are equal; which clearly they are not. If they were, we'd likely come to the conclusion that George Mikan was the GOAT peak.

ABA was still much stronger, and basketball was far more developed/advanced in the '76 ABA, than it was in Mikan's era, so I don't think it's a good analogy.

It's an exaggerated analogy used to drive a point home. The basic principle I'm alluding to still applies.

Was this coincidence? Was he suddenly a significantly changed player?

No, it was not a coincidence, but believe it or not, be DID become a significantly changed player. He publicly mentioned that a lot of times, in interviews, and Gene Shue, as well as any member of the Sixers organization at that time, would confirm that. Sixers had three offensive stars right after the merger - Erving, McGinnis and Collins. They decided to run a balanced offense, with all of them scoring about 20 ppg. I'm not sure if you've seen Doc's interview with Bill Simmons, but he mentioned it there. He also said that he had already won championships, scoring titles and MVPs in the ABA, so he didn't feel motivated to prove that he could be a dominant individual player, he bought into the team concept (if you watch The Doctor documentary, you can see that the people from the Sixers organization were even a little surprised that he didn't demand a bigger role for himself).

But, here's something that should help you decide whether Erving all of a sudden declined so much in the NBA, compared to the ABA, or not - look at regular season numbers, then his playoff numbers, and finally his NBA finals numbers in '77 - you can see there's a pretty big increase in terms of his scoring, in the postseason. Not only that, but his efficiency improved simultaneously, as well.

In the '76-'77 regular season, Erving averaged 21.6 ppg on 55.3% TS.

For the entire '77 playoffs, he averaged 27.3 ppg on 57.7% TS.

In the '77 finals against Portland, he averaged 30.3 ppg on 60.4% TS.

The worse his team was playing, the more Erving was stepping up his own game, at least in terms of scoring. To me, it clearly seems like he was saving something for the playoffs. You can appreciate him even more if you see how much of McGinnis's sorely lacking offensive production he made up for with his own play.

Fair points. And perhaps I'm not giving Doc enough credit here. You've provided me with some food for thought.

I respect your opinion, I just don't agree with it here.

Same with me. Always appreciate your insight, and you are fun to debate with, because you are so level-headed, reasonable, and always back up your statements with solid evidence.

I'm on a movie meme kick, I guess.

[E-Balla]

Call for David Robinson supporters to address

Also you mention his faceup game being deadly? Couldn't be further from the truth. It was useful in the regular season but in a 7 game series against great defenders its not trustworthy. His performances against good defenses in the playoffs are historically disappointing outside of his rookie season.

From 93-96 he played 8 series. He played good defenses 3 times (Portland in 93, Utah in 94 and 96). Outside of that he also played 2 ATG Cs (Hakeem and Mutombo in 95) and here's how he performed:

vs Portland 93 (4th ranked defense): 19.3 ppg, 2.3 orpg, 4.8 apg, 2.0 topg, 48.7 TS%, 107 ORTG. This 4 game series included a 6/20 performance and a 4/11 performance in games 1 and 2.

vs Utah 94 (7th ranked defense): 20 ppg, 3.3 orpg, 3.5 apg, 2.3 topg, 47.1 TS%, 104 ORTG. Again they lost in 4. This time lost games 2 and 3 (in a best to 3) with Robinson shooting 10-35 for 28 points in those games combined.

vs Denver 95 (with Deke): 19 ppg, 1.7 orpg, 3.3 apg, 2.0 topg, 49.3 TS%, 105 ORTG. They swept but he did struggle against Deke and they won mostly due to the offense which was flourishing despite bad performances from Robinson.

vs Houston 95 (with Hakeem) has been a topic of conversation for a minute now so I won't list the numbers totally (23.8 ppg for DR). I'd just like to mention again that he shot under 40% 3 games in this series and had under a 90 ORTG in all 3 games.

vs Utah 96 (8th ranked defense): 19.3 ppg, 3.7 orpg, 2.0 apg, 2.3 topg, 52.6 TS%, 107 ORTG. Looks better than the rest on paper but he had under a 50 TS% in 4 games and the other 2 games were blowout losses (73 TS% in a game 1 20 point loss and 74 TS% in only 24 minutes of a game 4 15 point loss). Honestly outside of games 1 and 2 he was flat out bad.

I don't think a player like him can really be relied on in the postseason offensively. Now defensively there's another issue: in series where he disappointed offensively (is the 5 above) more often than not his team also underperformed defensively. In 93 they held Portland better than expected (-2.5) but Clyde missed game 1 (Portland's worst offensive performance of the series with a 95.0 ORTG). Take out that game and San Antonio performed worse than expected defensively. San Antonio also performed well against Denver (-4.2) but they were led by rookie Jalen Rose offensively by the time the playoffs came.

In 95 Houston performed better than expected (+3.0) mainly because of Hakeem's play and Utah killed them in 94 and 96 with the PNR (+4.0 in 94 and +5.7 in 96). TBH I'm not sure if I trust his defense to stand when he's taken out of the game offensively. I want to say its a small sample but 23 games is a pretty large postseason sample for Robinson to look so unspectacular in during his "peak" years.

This, in a nutshell, is the type of post that always puts me back on my heels in these projects. I come into each one thinking that Robinson has a case to move up a level, but every time someone puts a post like this together that I can't ignore.

2) The defense. The main argument for Robinson's offensive struggles not being so damning, for me, is that even with just solid offense you'd still be getting one of the best defenders of all time with him. I've seen the question of Robinson's team defensive efforts in the playoffs raised, including in this project, but Spaceman and others have raised enough doubts about the methodology and that the questionable series might average out with the better-than-expected series to not matter so much. But again, here, E-balla is specifically arguing that it is the series in which Robinson is struggling offensively that the team's defense underperforms. And he makes the case that 4 of these 5 series (if you correct for Drexler's 1 game absence) match up with 4 of the series where Robinson's team defenses under-achieved expectation. And again, the 4 series that he amplifies as the team's defense struggling include: all three series that Robinson's teams were eliminated in his 3 peak 94 - 96 seasons, each of which marked a match-up with another ATG big, each of which also corresponded to lower than usual offensive output.

I'll answer to the implication that his team's defense semi-consistently under-performs in the playoffs.

Rather than starting off with some conjecture, I'll merely present the data. fwiw, my figures differ from E-Balla's (at times by a pretty drastic amount); so I fear we've differed in method somehow. For the record, the method I utilized takes the rDRTG of the Spurs vs. the rORTG of their opponent to determine the expectation. For example, if the Spurs DRtg were -2.0 to league avg and the opponent's ORtg was +3.0 to league avg, then the expected result would be for the opponent to perform +1.0 to league avg. Make sense?
Anyway, here's what I found:

'93
1st round (only scrutinizing the 3 games where Drexler played): Portland offense was +1.4 over expecation
WCSF: Phoenix offense was -2.2 below expectation

'94
1st round: Utah was +3.7 over expectation

'95
1st round: Denver was -13.2 below expectation
WCSF: Lakers were -17.4 below expectation
WCF: Rockets were +3.8 above expectation

'96
1st round: Phoenix was -7.4 below expecation
WCSF: Utah was +4.9 above expectation


So I don't know what to make of the discrepancies between my data and E-Balla's. Has to be something in the method, you can let me know if you disagree with mine.
We have an apparent under-achieving in 4 of 8 playoff series (IF we only consider the three games Drexler was around for in the Portland series), and apparent over-achieving in 4 of 8. But the magnitude by which they under-achieved ranged from 1.4 to 4.9 (avg of 3.45), whereas the magnitude by which they OVER-achieved ranged from 2.2 to 17.4 (avg of 10.05).

So by my method it appears that overall the Spurs defense marginally OVER-achieved in the playoffs during this span.


As to Robinson's offensive failures in the playoffs.....like drza, I don't have a good answer. He appeared to fall short of expectation in that regard semi-consistently in the playoffs. I can't deny that. How big a deal I want to make of it is more the question I'm asking myself. There's no one left on the table who doesn't have weaknesses.

Not at home now but I'll go back and check my calculations and redo them. FWIW my numbers said he over performed 3 times, met his expected level once, and underperformed 4 times but I'll definitely check I could always have messed up.

[drza]

And that's not where conversation ended, because my response back then was:

And if you would like to continue, your stance isn't reasonable. (Edit: deleted my rant on my track credentials, and ceding the point after Mischievous' last point. I've always been taught that the Flop was clearly better. Perhaps I'm mistaken. Either way, though, the point stands. Russell would clearly, conservatively be a 7-foot-plus jumper today, and whatever his actual number is, the overall point is that he'd be absurdly athletic for a big man, even today).

Plus, modern day athletes have technology advantages that are just as huge and fundamental as the technique approaches. The modern-day track is WAY faster than the track materials of the 50s. The shoes are way different. The training regiments are way different. If Russell was jumping 6-10 in the 50s, he would absolutely be expected to be well into the mid-7s, conservatively, now.

And ALL OF THIS is besides the point. The point is that Russell was a near 7-footer that could high-jump 7+feet and sprint at the rate of the best sprinters. Whether he would actively compete in the current Olympics or not doesn't matter...the fact that no CURRENT near 7-footer in the NBA has that kind of athletic ability IS the point.

So the point is wrong, because here's actually no proof Russell was as athletic as for example Amare (pre injuries) or Kemp or Griffin (all also 6-10 who are "near 7 footers"...). I guess Russell goes the same "tall tales" road as Wilt. Kind of sad, because he doesn't need such exaggerations, especially as athlete, because his greatness comes from different aspects of basketball.

Amare pre-injuries barely existed, and he wasn't the lateral athlete that Russell nor did he have Russell's motor was nor was he as long. Kemp was not the lateral athlete that Russell was. Griffin is likely both, but doesn't have Russell's length nor his defensive timing. There's more to athletic ability than just leaping...and even if we just are talking leaping, your counter-example is to list four of the greatest leaping bigs of modern times? I have no idea what your point is here anymore. Russell was an athletic freak of a big man. Then or now. Do you deny that, or are you arguing for the sake of arguing?

[drza]

Call for David Robinson supporters to address

A

Spoiler:

lso you mention his faceup game being deadly? Couldn't be further from the truth. It was useful in the regular season but in a 7 game series against great defenders its not trustworthy. His performances against good defenses in the playoffs are historically disappointing outside of his rookie season.

From 93-96 he played 8 series. He played good defenses 3 times (Portland in 93, Utah in 94 and 96). Outside of that he also played 2 ATG Cs (Hakeem and Mutombo in 95) and here's how he performed:

vs Portland 93 (4th ranked defense): 19.3 ppg, 2.3 orpg, 4.8 apg, 2.0 topg, 48.7 TS%, 107 ORTG. This 4 game series included a 6/20 performance and a 4/11 performance in games 1 and 2.

vs Utah 94 (7th ranked defense): 20 ppg, 3.3 orpg, 3.5 apg, 2.3 topg, 47.1 TS%, 104 ORTG. Again they lost in 4. This time lost games 2 and 3 (in a best to 3) with Robinson shooting 10-35 for 28 points in those games combined.

vs Denver 95 (with Deke): 19 ppg, 1.7 orpg, 3.3 apg, 2.0 topg, 49.3 TS%, 105 ORTG. They swept but he did struggle against Deke and they won mostly due to the offense which was flourishing despite bad performances from Robinson.

vs Houston 95 (with Hakeem) has been a topic of conversation for a minute now so I won't list the numbers totally (23.8 ppg for DR). I'd just like to mention again that he shot under 40% 3 games in this series and had under a 90 ORTG in all 3 games.

vs Utah 96 (8th ranked defense): 19.3 ppg, 3.7 orpg, 2.0 apg, 2.3 topg, 52.6 TS%, 107 ORTG. Looks better than the rest on paper but he had under a 50 TS% in 4 games and the other 2 games were blowout losses (73 TS% in a game 1 20 point loss and 74 TS% in only 24 minutes of a game 4 15 point loss). Honestly outside of games 1 and 2 he was flat out bad.

I don't think a player like him can really be relied on in the postseason offensively. Now defensively there's another issue: in series where he disappointed offensively (is the 5 above) more often than not his team also underperformed defensively. In 93 they held Portland better than expected (-2.5) but Clyde missed game 1 (Portland's worst offensive performance of the series with a 95.0 ORTG). Take out that game and San Antonio performed worse than expected defensively. San Antonio also performed well against Denver (-4.2) but they were led by rookie Jalen Rose offensively by the time the playoffs came.

In 95 Houston performed better than expected (+3.0) mainly because of Hakeem's play and Utah killed them in 94 and 96 with the PNR (+4.0 in 94 and +5.7 in 96). TBH I'm not sure if I trust his defense to stand when he's taken out of the game offensively. I want to say its a small sample but 23 games is a pretty large postseason sample for Robinson to look so unspectacular in during his "peak" years.

This, in a nutshell, is the type of post that always puts me back on my heels in these projects. I come into each one thinking that Robinson has a case to move up a level, but every time someone puts a post like this together that I can't ignore.

2) The defense. The main argument for Robinson's offensive struggles not being so damning, for me, is that even with just solid offense you'd still be getting one of the best defenders of all time with him. I've seen the question of Robinson's team defensive efforts in the playoffs raised, including in this project, but Spaceman and others have raised enough doubts about the methodology and that the questionable series might average out with the better-than-expected series to not matter so much. But again, here, E-balla is specifically arguing that it is the series in which Robinson is struggling offensively that the team's defense underperforms. And he makes the case that 4 of these 5 series (if you correct for Drexler's 1 game absence) match up with 4 of the series where Robinson's team defenses under-achieved expectation. And again, the 4 series that he amplifies as the team's defense struggling include: all three series that Robinson's teams were eliminated in his 3 peak 94 - 96 seasons, each of which marked a match-up with another ATG big, each of which also corresponded to lower than usual offensive output.

I'll answer to the implication that his team's defense semi-consistently under-performs in the playoffs.

Rather than starting off with some conjecture, I'll merely present the data. fwiw, my figures differ from E-Balla's (at times by a pretty drastic amount); so I fear we've differed in method somehow. For the record, the method I utilized takes the rDRTG of the Spurs vs. the rORTG of their opponent to determine the expectation. For example, if the Spurs DRtg were -2.0 to league avg and the opponent's ORtg was +3.0 to league avg, then the expected result would be for the opponent to perform +1.0 to league avg. Make sense?
Anyway, here's what I found:

'93
1st round (only scrutinizing the 3 games where Drexler played): Portland offense was +1.4 over expecation
WCSF: Phoenix offense was -2.2 below expectation

'94
1st round: Utah was +3.7 over expectation

'95
1st round: Denver was -13.2 below expectation
WCSF: Lakers were -17.4 below expectation
WCF: Rockets were +3.8 above expectation

'96
1st round: Phoenix was -7.4 below expecation
WCSF: Utah was +4.9 above expectation


So I don't know what to make of the discrepancies between my data and E-Balla's. Has to be something in the method, you can let me know if you disagree with mine.
We have an apparent under-achieving in 4 of 8 playoff series (IF we only consider the three games Drexler was around for in the Portland series), and apparent over-achieving in 4 of 8. But the magnitude by which they under-achieved ranged from 1.4 to 4.9 (avg of 3.45), whereas the magnitude by which they OVER-achieved ranged from 2.2 to 17.4 (avg of 10.05).

So by my method it appears that overall the Spurs defense marginally OVER-achieved in the playoffs during this span.


As to Robinson's offensive failures in the playoffs.....like drza, I don't have a good answer. He appeared to fall short of expectation in that regard semi-consistently in the playoffs. I can't deny that. How big a deal I want to make of it is more the question I'm asking myself. There's no one left on the table who doesn't have weaknesses.

With the caveat that I haven't done any of the number calculations, on first blush I don't see where your two's numbers really disagree much. Both of you agree that the Spurs' defense underperformed against four of the opponents during those peak years: the Rockets, the Jazz (twice), and the Trail Blazers (when Drexler played). The main difference is that Trex lists all of the series (8 series), while EBalla listed only the series in which Robinson was facing either a strong team defense or a strong 1-on-1 defender (5 series, instead of 8).

Another way to look at it is that E-Balla focused on the difficult series instead of also including the easier ones. Which (putting devil's advocate hat on) still fits the narrative that Robinson was a bottom-feeder, capable of dominating easier opponents and the regular season but with a fatal flaw that only showed up against good teams in the postseason. That's the narrative that I'm hoping that one of Robinson's supporters can find a way to address and overcome, as right now the usual pattern is that once the narrative is brought up and supported Robinson's supporters kind of shy away from it.

And as for not having weaknesses...respectfully, I don't think that's the "charge" against Robinson. The way I see it, on an individual SRS or impact-like scale, regular season Robinson (the boxscore stat stuffer) had an impact similar to the best that we've seen measured, to the best of our ability to compare. He put up on/off +/- scores similar but just beneath the best that we saw from LeBron and Garnett, slightly above but in the mix with what we saw from the best of Duncan, Shaq or Dirk (from this generation). Peak Walton broke ElGee's in/out measure, indicating that his measured impact is likely on the same top tier. West and Oscar measured out similarly outstanding in those types of approaches. Less specific but similar approaches suggest that Russell, Bird and Magic were also having similar top tier impact in their eras.

So for me, without the ability to compare in a more granular way, I put Robinson's regular season impact on a similar tier with anyone left of the list.

However.

Among those still left to be voted in, Russell, Magic, Bird, Walton, Oscar, West...they all performed in the postseason(s) around their peaks in a manner that seemingly would have allowed their postseason impacts to match their regular season impacts. The narrative against Robinson is that his skill set has fundamental weaknesses that are exploited by tough competition that dramatically lowers (by both volume and efficiency) his ability to score, and possibly also affects his defense. The problem is that the numbers seem to really support the former (that his offense can be sharply curtailed, consistently) and at least murkily offer some support to the latter.

At this point it's not about finding a perfect player...it's about finding the player that gives my generic team the best chance at titles. Peak Robinson, even if the narrative were true, could still be put on any number of teams and lead them to a title. But if the narrative is true, does peak Robinson require more special circumstances to lead his team to a title than Russell? Or Magic? Or Bird? Or Walton? Unless someone can help me get a different perspective on what was going on in those playoffs, and the impact that Robinson was ACTUALLY delivering that runs counter to what the box scores say, then I'd have to lean towards that being the case. In which case I'm more likely to vote in the other guys, first.

[trex_8063]

OK, I'm going to lay out my tentative ballots....

1st ballot: David Robinson '95
I'm still of the opinion that Robinson is arguably the greatest defender of his generation. His defense come playoff time was called into question, with some suggestion that the Spurs under-performed defensively during his prime/peak years. I scrutinized the data (see post #53), and as far as team defense is concerned, they actually [at least marginally] EXCEEDED expectation. And specifically within '95, although their DRtg fell 3.8 short of expectation in the series against the Rockets, they FAR exceeded expectation in both of the series' that came before that (by 13.2 and 17.4, respectively).

wrt Robinson's drops in offensive production and efficiency in the playoffs: I don't have an answer. Frankly, his limited post-game perhaps combined with some degree of mental weakness may have contributed to the decline. That said, a "declined Robinson" was still a top 10 offensive player in the playoffs (note, for instance, that his playoff PER was still 8th in the league in '95, and his WS/48 was still 9th).
And when I'm considering peaks, I'm trying to determine just how good this player is/what is he truly capable of. To me, that means considering how he might fit in various scenarios. Within these various scenarios, he doesn't always have to be the #1 offensive option (or at least where the 2nd option is better than Sean Elliott, and third option better than Avery Johnson)......i.e. his offensive and playoff weaknesses don't always have to be such a forefront problem.

Ultimately, I still feel as though peak Robinson is a guy who will be the #1 defensive player in the league (or #2 at worst) in both rs and playoffs, while also giving you a top 3-4 offensive player in the rs, and top 10 offensive player in the playoffs. And that's still quite a lot.


And now I'm going to surprise even myself with my next pick.....
2nd ballot: Bill Russell '65
I really didn't think I'd be bringing him up this quickly. Reservations regarding his defensive impact in other eras/situations, as well as luke-warm opinion about his offensive game initially had him a bit down on my list of candidates.

But when it comes down to it, I do consider him the greatest defensive player of all-time. And I don't just mean that for in-era dominance (which is kind of a no-brainer, really); but even in the modern era, I think he has all the tools to at least be AS impactful defensively as guys like Garnett, Robinson, and Mutombo.

As to offense, I don't quite think he could as easily shift focus and become a good scorer the way drza has implied. And fwiw, I don't think pointing out that he scored 21 ppg in college is sufficient proof of this. I would point out, for example, that Ben Wallace averaged 13.4 ppg in college (averaged 15.5 pts/36 minutes in his 2nd year, despite the slow pace of college ball); and Tyler Hansbrough averaged 20.2 ppg for his college career (as high as 22.6)......it simply doesn't mean they're going to translate into scorers in the NBA.
However, he was a fairly good finisher who could also run in transition. I'd also expect him to be quite effective (though not like Moses Malone or anything) on the offensive glass, and he was one of the best passing big men, too. Could you run an elite offensive thru him and his facilitating, a la Walton and the Blazers? idk, I somewhat doubt that. I've been watching some video, and Walton was quite phenomenal in working the pick-n-roll; I don't quite see Russell working it quite as well. And if forced to pop, Walton had range out to at least 12-14 feet, anyway (Russell can't claim that). But I think Russell could be worked into a lot of different offensive schemes with adequate (though never stellar individual) results; and he basically NEVER takes anything off the table for others.
Meanwhile you're also getting a top-notch rebounder, leader, and locker-room/practice guy. Super-durable, too.

When I'm expecting his defensive impact in other eras to be similar in magnitude to the offensive impact of guys like Magic and Nash, while also expecting a small positive offensively.......well, that's quite a lot.
Additionally (and this is a factor which almost had me giving him top billing on this ballot), he's a guy who typically scales UP his performance in the playoffs.

So yeah, not where I was expecting to go, but I'm giving him my 2nd ballot.
Why '65? Because I think it's pretty close to his statistical peak (particularly when you factor in the playoffs, where he ramped it up, even offensively: 16.5 ppg @ 54.0% TS (+7.1% rTS) and 6.3 apg; 20.9 PER and .286 WS/48 in a whopping 46.8 mpg). Also note that the team DRtg was not only -9.4 to league avg that year, but -7.6 to the 2nd-place team!


3rd ballot: Magic Johnson '87
I couldn't find enough of a reason to alter my third pick. Magic is probably the GOAT transition passer, and certainly one of the best half-court passers ever (maybe GOAT there, too??). He just seemed to see angles others didn't.
Arguably the GOAT rebounding PG (Kidd is the only other with a good case, imo), and an amazing scorer in his own right.
After the reins to the team had definitively been turned over to Magic, he had his biggest individual statistical year while leading a cast containing prime versions of James Worthy, Byron Scott, Michael Cooper, and Kurt Rambis, post-prime Kareem, and 2nd-year AC Green to a fairly historic offense (+7.4 to league avg, which is the 6th-best on record, as far as I can tell---->incidentally, I was interested to find that one of the five ahead of them was the '98 Jazz at +7.7).
Per 100 possessions that year, Magic was going for 31.1 pts @ 60.2% TS (+6.4% rTS), along with 8.2 reb and 15.9 ast (with a 3.26 ast:TO ratio).
In the playoffs per 100 possessions (championship run): 28.1 pts @ 60.7% TS, 10.0 reb, 15.7 ast (with 4.29 ast:TO ratio). Went for 26.2 ppg/8.0 rpg/13.0 apg/2.2 topg @ 59.0% TS in the finals .
That's an amazing year.

[drza]

Vote

1) 1965 Bill Russell

2) 1987 Magic Johnson

3) 1986 Larry Bird

Russell gets my vote here. I'm still not convinced that peak Russell shouldn't already have been voted in. His impact was defense-centric, but it was MASSIVE. And portable. And scaleable. And I think he had both the physical and (more importantly) the mental tools to modify his game to fit the circumstances, so I believe his impact in 2015 would be very similar to what it was in 1965...still at the top of the league.

Second, I decided to go with Magic. Magic is a nice symmetrical vote to Russell. He is, in my opinion, arguably the best offensive player of all-time. He's also an incredible mismatch, which works much more to his favor than to his detriment. He had the ability to completely control his team offensively from multiple different locations on the floor, which just gave him a huge number of ways to create his huge offensive impact. In +/- studies, on offense, floor generals always tend to have higher offensive impacts than the boxscores would suggest...but in Magic's case, the boxscores already suggested that his offensive production was huge. His rebounding and post-game also gives a team plenty of options for how to build around him...big men could be chosen who were more either stretch-4 or pure defensive types (think Theo Ratliff or Serge Ibaka) that weren't necessarily good rebounders and/or didn't necessarily have a good post game on offense. In all, he was just a brilliant offensive player whose offensive impact may be the closest analog that we have to Russell's defensive impact.

Third, here, went with Bird. Not convinced of this...Walton is knocking on the door pretty hard. But I don't think this decision has to be made just yet, and there's such a razor margin between Magic and Bird that it seems difficult to fit someone else in. Will explore this more in the next thread or two, I'm sure

HM: Robinson, Walton, Oscar, Dr. J

[Owly]

Celtics with and without Russell (my post, data from nbastats.net)

In 28 regular season games Russell missed from 57-58 to 68-69, Boston went 10-18 (29 win pace...) and allowed 123.2 points a game which would have been dead last in the league in any season! In the games in which Russell played they allowed a league best 108.6. That's a differential of 14.6 points a game! Best with him, worst without him.

The question there would be why leave out the single largest "without" sample 56-57. It's large enouth to change the look of those stats significantly. It's the largest sample, and arguably the only one in which the Celtics constructed a gameplan for "without Russell" rather than, "he's coming back in a couple of games, let's not change things and then change back", so it's difficult to understand why it should be excluded. It's obviously imperfect (rookie Russell, arrival of Ramsey creates noise), but then so are two and three game absensces.