RealGM 2017 Top 100 List: #35

[pandrade83]

2. Wrt McCaulley, guys improve from year 1 to year 2 - you're trying to attribute that all to Cousy. And I'd rather have the guy who gets me 20-9-4 on 55% TS (2nd in the league) over the guy who gets me 16-7-5 on 42% TS. The former is going to have a bigger impact. Cousy had a better career than big Ed obviously - but for this one year, the big guy had a better season.

3. Wrt Schayes v. Cousy playoffs: '
'53 - Boston won & Cousy played great, Schayes didn't.
'54 - Syracuse wins - Schayes not only outscores Cousy - he anchors a defense that holds Boston 8 ppg below their average.
'55 - Syracuse wins - Schayes outscores Cousy again (albeit 19 to 18) and anchors a defense that holds Boston below their average.
'56 - Syracuse wins. Cousy gets 26 ppg, Schayes gets 20. Schayes again anchors a defense that holds Boston below their average - this time 5 ppg below. I think it's fair to say that Cousy played really well and didn't get any help - but ultimately Schayes overall defensive impact probably prevails.
'57 - Boston wins (Russell on team now). Cousy gets 19 & 10 reb (no assist data), Schayes gets 25 & 15 and had an absurd 46 FTA in 3 games. Given that it was a sweep, Syracuse was held WAY below their average & Boston was held below their average, we can infer that Schayes played really well and got no help. Cousy played strong as well.
'59 - Boston wins in 7. Schayes is a monster - 28 ppg - maybe outplayed Russell? Cousy plays well again - 21 & 10.
'61 - Boston wins. Schayes gets 23-10-3 on 46% TS. Cousy gets 14-?-8 on 44% TS.

Taking into account box score stats + Schayes' defensive impact, I think I take Schayes decisively in '54, '55, '59 & '61. You take Cousy in '53. If we call '56 & '57 pushes (did Cousy average a Triple Double in that series? Maybe) that's still a clear edge for Schayes.

4. TS/Schayes Defensive Impact - this more than washes out the box score advantage you give Cousy from the regular season - which ignores the fact that Schayes has one more high quality year than Cousy.

Relative to league average TS%

Year Schayes Diff Cousy Diff
1950 7
1951 4 -1.3
1952 3 0.7
1953 5 0.1
1954 5.6 2.2
1955 3.5 2.5
1956 3.9 0.3
1957 5.3 0.3
1958 5.9 -3.4
1959 3.1 -0.3
1960 3.3 -2.4
1961 1.3 -3.3
1962 -1.8 -3.6
1963 -2.2 -4.5

Boston's offensive slow-down in general coincides with the drop-off in Cousy's shooting dropping off - that probably has a lot to do with why their offensive ratings suffered.

So, Schayes' defensive impact:

Immediately on entering the league, he's the anchor of a 51-13 team in 1950. Syracuse is 1st in Defensive efficiency in '54 & '55 and TOp 3 in '52, '56, '58 '59, 60.

Offensively, Schayes isn't that far behind Cousy if at all.

He's scoring the same at MUCH greater efficiency and he's having a defensive impact that far outstrips any gap offensively.

2. This is your opinion - but unsubstantiated by facts. If a player is improving, they don't do so suddenly and only once in their career with absolutely no change in playstyle except a new floor general feeding them assists.

3. Cousy's strength is as a floor general, not as a scorer. You are completely ignoring Cousy's assists and making inferences about Schayes defense. Cousy leading the offense in the RS against worse defenses will, of course, decrease in the playoffs vs a better defense that can gameplan for them. That's standard, and shouldn't be credited to Schayes.

I don't only take Cousy in 53. I just say 53 because it's a joke to even compare them. 35ppg on 55% TS and likely 10apg 5rpg - find a season where Schayes (or anyone) was 35/leading his team in asissts. That player is already off the board, or is tiny archibald.

You saying 28ppg is radically better than 21ppg with 10apg is just nonsense. Cousy every year is either very competitive or crushing Schayes, excepting the end of his career and his rookie year. Cousy has far more first-team all-nba, and won an MVP. Macauley joined the hawks, with Cliff Hagan, but nobody mentions Macauley anymore after that. That hawks team was all Pettit and nobody from a few threads ago.

Cousy's offensive impact lifted his team 20 games. Schayes never came close to that on offense or defense. Not only that, Cousy impacted the whole league's offensive strategies, with everyone copying him and studying his passing. Judging Russell/Oscar vs Cousy with their advantage in studying his game - that's like judging players 7 years after Mikan and saying 'wow, look at these skilled Centers - they're so much better than him!'

Cousy was the best ever floor general when he played. Schayes wasn't on that tier in defense.

To be continued later - people don't really read old threads I think.

[penbeast0]

...

Kidd was clearly the more effective floor general of the two, pushing into the historically elite in that area. He also developed into a good spot-up shooter, especially later in his prime and post-prime. While he wouldn't get the type of scoring/playmaking combo boost that Payton had, he likely would be expected to have the PG team offense initiating boost....

The trouble with giving Kidd the advantage based on his "PG team offense initiating boost" is that when you look at his team results, this so called boost is almost invisible. In fact, over his LONG career, Kidd's team offense ranged from mediocre to poor until his second stint in Dallas where he was basically a role player in a Dirk-centric offense. Prior to Dirk, Kidd NEVER had a team even in the top 10 in the league in Ortg (which is a better rating for teams than players). He was in the bottom 5 in the league 3 times though. Where is this magical passing?

The bolded isn't quite true, fwiw.
The '97 Suns (Kidd joined the team at mid-season) were 6th/29 at +2.6 rORTG. They obtained Kidd along with Richard Dumas and Loren Meyer and lost Sam Cassell, AC Green, and Michael Finley. They were a -3.2 rORTG prior to the trade; they were +6.3 rORTG after obtaining him.
The '99 Suns were a +3.6 rORTG (4th/29).

Thanks.

[euroleague]

And off the top of my head, the good/great white players in recent history (bolding the American ones).....

Steve Nash
Dirk Nowitzki
Manu Ginobili
Pau Gasol
Marc Gasol
Nikola Jokic
Kevin Love
Gordon Hayward
Nikola Vucevic
Jonas Valanciunas
Kristaps Porzingas
Jusuf Nurkic
Mason Plumlee
Miles Plumlee
Danilo Gallinari
Marcin Gortat
Joe Ingles
Matthew Dellavedova
Goran Dragic
Kirk Hinrich
Kyle Korver
JJ Redick
Cody Zeller
Steven Adams
Jose Calderon


.....I'll stop there. Granted this is mostly off the top of my head, but I'm seeing FAR more foreign (not just foreign-BORN, but actually grew up and cut their basketball chops in a foreign lands===>i.e. not like Tom Meschery) players than Americans; and most of the BEST ones (Dirk, Nash, Pau, etc) are not American.


I think pandrade83's point stands: he's talking about player pool size. It was MUCH smaller. One can counter that the league (in Cousy's day) was only ~a third the size as today.......but we're talking about a player pool that was maybe only 2-3% the size of the current pool the NBA draws from.

And while I'd not suggest that there's a perfectly linear relationship between player pool size and average quality of player; but there's certainly a relationship.

Steve Nash was Canadian, which was very common in the 1950s. Toronto is a team IN CANADA that's in the NBA. Vancouver was as well.

KLove was "the best PF" for many years. Should be considered better than Pau ever was. Pau never averaged 26/13 or led even a weak team as a first option (Minnesota would've been easily making playoffs in the East.)

Let's count half white players? Steph Curry, Kobe, Tim Duncan, etc?

I'm aware of Tom Meschery's history. However, he wasn't immediately naturalized, and was a foreigner when he was playing in the USA.

In the USA there are approximately 100 million white men. Of those white men, at least 80% played basketball at some point with relative regularity. 100% have watched basketball games, or played on some street court in middle school.

In Europe, there are approximately 400 million. But, the vast majority don't play and never watch basketball. There aren't basketball courts on the street in freezing cold nordic countries or Russia. French, German, and English youth aren't playing basketball - but they are all champions in football. Football stars are their bread and butter. They basketball leagues in England, France or Germany are dominated by American white guys.

The player pool was just as small in the 60s, only slightly enlarged. By that argument, all the 60s should be held in the same light - Russell should be in line with Mikan, not Tim Duncan.

The NBA wasn't huge until the 80s. That means, kids born in the 70s around 75 would gain the most exposure. However, it's not the player pool that matters.

Black society disproportionately values basketball compared to white. Just like Kenya and Ethiopia value running very highly, and beat all the other African countries very consistently despite their small populations.

We can infer that a pool of several million valuing something very highly is more important than mass exposure. One player training competitively from age 6 to age 18 will beat any player who has played only casually. In the 50s, players valued basketball just as much as in the 60s. Wilt was a 7'1 player who could run a 400m dash in elite NCAA times with little training. He was a unicorn in any era, and just absurd in the 60s. He just makes the 50s players look bad because nobody in that era had the physical training options to match that.