REDOING THE NBA HALL OF FAME (retired in 1965 or earlier)

[penbeast0]

Of course

[Ryoga Hibiki]

Pettit, Sharman, Arizin, Schayes, Heinson are easy, I guess.
I assume Cousy we must wait, as he played a few games in 1970.

Not really expert enough of those times, soon the interesting part will start.
Curious to see if there's any non first ballot...

[penbeast0]

...

Larry Costello - strong point guard for a good long time, I find myself surprised he isn't getting more love
...

Costello was still playing as late as 1968.

[70sFan]

Bob Pettit
Paul Arizin
Dolph Schayes

These are clear choice of the best player of their generarion and definite superstars.

Bill Sharman
Clyde Lovelette
Larry Foust

These are also locks to me, as they were very good players in their primes with successful careers.

Then we move into more debatable candidates. I think right now here are my choices:

Tommy Heinsohn - a bit overrated in my opinion, but nevertheless he was a huge part of Celtics success.
Carl Braun - I've seen more from Braun than from most 1950s players and I like what he did on the court. Big, athletic guard with good skillset and his stats are also good.
Kenny Sears - I believe that he was better than Heinsohn, so I have to put him there.
Arnie Risen - I don't know as much about him as about the rest, but he seems to be good candidate.
Frank Ramsey or Maurice Stokes - can't decide yet, I think I need a bit more time to re-evaluate both.

[Doctor MJ]

Could we add the amount of votes to the spreadsheet? It's nice to see some context to the difference between locks and guys who barely made it in.

Sure, will update it later today.

[penbeast0]

Tommy Heinsohn v. Maurice Stokes

I don't want to seem like I am picking on Heinsohn (although I am!), but he just seems to me to be the Joe Fulks of this group, only Fulks was the main man on his teams where Heinsohn was never the most important or even the second most important Celtics over a season (probably never even third as either Sharman or Sam Jones were always more valuable scorers in addition to Russell and either Cousy or Havlicek). Maurice Stokes played less time than Heinsohn due to his falling into a coma but lets look at an average of one of Stokes's 3 seasons v. an average year of Heinsohn. Note that they were both basically PF types and that both were very consistent over their careers in terms of performance.

Stokes average year: 37.3 minutes, 17.3 rebounds, 5.3 assists, 16.4 point on .406 ts%
Stokes led the NBA in rebounds once, was among the leaders in big man assists, and was considered one of the best defensive forwards in the game. Weak team around him, poor shooting efficiency (even compared to Heinsohn), only 1 playoff game during those years. Short career but definitely HOF type numbers. IF you think Bill Walton belongs, I can't see how you can vote some of these guys over Stokes.

Heinsohn's average year: 29.4 minutes (peaked at 32), 8.8 reb, 2.0 ast, 18.6 pts (peaked at 22.1) on .460 ts%
Heinsohn was a good playoff performer upping his raw numbers slightly while his efficiency fell slightly but pretty much the same guy. A slightly higher volume scorer on slightly below league average efficiency who was a slightly below average rebounder and below average passer with (from what I've heard) below average defense. Heinsohn's numbers also benefited from the highest pace in the league.

Again, Stokes seems a legit HOF player whose career was cut short by tragedy. Heinsohn seems a dime a dozen scorer who got lucky to be drafted by Boston.

[penbeast0]

Next one I will do if I have the time and energy is Heinsohn v. Frank Ramsey unless someone else wants to take it. That is a comparison that I am less certain of.

I'd like to see Joe Fulks v. Heinsohn from one of last round's Fulks voters too.

[Doctor MJ]

...

Larry Costello - strong point guard for a good long time, I find myself surprised he isn't getting more love
...

Costello was still playing as late as 1968.

Oh duh. I keep making that mistake.

Alright then, my Top 8 of the new candidates then looks like:

Sharman
Arizin
Schayes
Foust
Lovellette
Ramsey
Pettit
Heinsohn

Other guys on my mind: Braun, Shue, Sears...none of whom seem worthy to me.

On the old guys:

Risen - I really think he should get in. Fun note: I was going through Ramsey vs Heinsohn in the Celtics runs and noticed how vital Risen was to that first championship as a 33 year old guy who was brought in I'm sure in part to give the team championship DNA. That Celtics run alone would not put him in conversation, but the fact that he was a key person on the Royals from their NBL days and arguably the MVP of their victory over the Mikan Lakers leading to the Royals grabbing the lone non-Laker championship of the era made him a strong contender. The fact that he kept finding a way to be relevant as an old due quite frankly makes him more impressive than some of the guys in the Top 8 above.

Fulks - my urgency to put him in has dropped. It was important to me to put trailblazers in with the first class, and he was the main guy I was thinking about, but the more we talked about it, the more guys from his generation I put ahead of him (Mikan, Davies, Pollard, Risen, Wanzer). I think it was eminence who talked about the first couple years of the BAA as a minor league. I'm tending to feel that way and I'll note that Fulks' Warriors were below .500 by the time the Lakers & Royals came over.

None of this is to say I've utterly decided to reject him - because frankly competition in 1965 seems possibly even weaker than 1960 and I'm honestly not sure who to pick after the 8 guys above and Risen - but I'm starting to feel like Fulks being the star of the first BAA champion is the case in point for how bad that BAA should be viewed compared to the NBL.

McGuire - he was the next guy on my list in 1960. Worth perhaps doing an All-Knick comparison with Zaslofsky, Simmons, Braun, Sears, Guerin, and Naulls (along with the voted in Gallatin). I don't know if any more Knicks of the bunch should be in, but there are a bunch of 'em that seem reasonable to discuss.

Stokes - definitely still thinking about him. It's getting easier to see voting for him over Fulks, but I'm not sure about picking him over guys with actual longevity. I'm torn on this. I do see the HOF value in being a new type of player who was better when he played than those he's being debated against. I also understand the argument about basketball tragedy. But I struggle voting for a guy who played only 3 years and never once played for a winning team.

[Doctor MJ]

Next one I will do if I have the time and energy is Heinsohn v. Frank Ramsey unless someone else wants to take it. That is a comparison that I am less certain of.

I'd like to see Joe Fulks v. Heinsohn from one of last round's Fulks voters too.

I looked more into Ramsey & Heinsohn and came away feeling like the superficial comparison is the same as the deeper comparison.

Heinsohn played the bigger role, Ramsey played in a way that's more modern in terms of not taking bad shots.

Ramsey's early playoff runs are noteworthy compared to his regular season, but so are some of Heinsohn's years, and neither one really keeps it up.

One point that isn't necessarily obvious:

Hard to play Ramsey more when first you have Sharman and later you have Sam Jones. So Heinsohn played the bigger role, but not necessarily because he was chosen over Ramsey. Sharman was already ahead of Ramsey, and then Jones' surpassed him, but both of those guys are way more worthy than Heinsohn.

In the end I couldn't make myself have a strong opinion, and part of that was that they both seemed more deserving of one of the 10 spots than the guys on the borderline.

On the specific point of Heinsohn playing in a style that wouldn't be used today and perhaps the clear cut place where Auerbach's coach was just wrong - it's true, but if you look at Heinsohn's efficiency compared to someone like Braun, you see he really isn't that bad for that time period, and while Ramsey had some hot playoff streaks, in general he wasn't exactly an efficient guy himself.

Re: Heinsohn vs Fulks. Yeah like I said, it's hard for me to keep fighting for Fulks. While Heinsohn feels like a guy who perhaps has gradually become sub-NBA as the decades of progressed since his retirement, that obsolesce happened to Fulks in real-time in the '50s.

I still might give the nod to Fulks over guys who just don't seem important at all to the telling of the NBA story (Braun, Shue, Sears, perhaps), but anyone who is actually a part of the story we have to tell (like Heinsohn) is almost by definition a much better player as well.

[Doctor MJ]

Stokes average year: 37.3 minutes, 17.3 rebounds, 5.3 assists, 16.4 point on .406 ts%
Stokes led the NBA in rebounds once, was among the leaders in big man assists, and was considered one of the best defensive forwards in the game. Weak team around him, poor shooting efficiency (even compared to Heinsohn), only 1 playoff game during those years. Short career but definitely HOF type numbers. IF you think Bill Walton belongs, I can't see how you can vote some of these guys over Stokes.
.

Re: Walton comparison. If Walton had only ever played for losing teams, no one would talk about him as a HOF guy. The best he could hope for would be as a world-class talent who was one of the best college guys in history but injury kept him from having a real NBA career. (And let's note, Walton's college career >>> Stoke's, based on Walton being the clear cut best player in college his entire college career and Stoke's playing for a non-major school.)

And I realize that team context is a thing, but when we see what Portland was in '78 with Walton and compare that to what they were and would become without him, to me there was a qualitative magic to his impact that we just don't see from Stokes. And more specifically, I'd say that the difference seems to be in the way Walton kickstarted the offense with his rebounding and passing. Stokes by contrast seems to have an offensive impact more akin to a lead balloon.

No denying though that Stokes seems to have been the best defensive player in between Mikan & Russell. He was on his way to a worthy HOF career before tragedy struck if he simply had a normal decade-ish run.

[Owly]

Tommy Heinsohn v. Maurice Stokes

I don't want to seem like I am picking on Heinsohn (although I am!), but he just seems to me to be the Joe Fulks of this group, only Fulks was the main man on his teams where Heinsohn was never the most important or even the second most important Celtics over a season (probably never even third as either Sharman or Sam Jones were always more valuable scorers in addition to Russell and either Cousy or Havlicek). Maurice Stokes played less time than Heinsohn due to his falling into a coma but lets look at an average of one of Stokes's 3 seasons v. an average year of Heinsohn. Note that they were both basically PF types and that both were very consistent over their careers in terms of performance.

Stokes average year: 37.3 minutes, 17.3 rebounds, 5.3 assists, 16.4 point on .406 ts%
Stokes led the NBA in rebounds once, was among the leaders in big man assists, and was considered one of the best defensive forwards in the game. Weak team around him, poor shooting efficiency (even compared to Heinsohn), only 1 playoff game during those years. Short career but definitely HOF type numbers. IF you think Bill Walton belongs, I can't see how you can vote some of these guys over Stokes.

Heinsohn's average year: 29.4 minutes (peaked at 32), 8.8 reb, 2.0 ast, 18.6 pts (peaked at 22.1) on .460 ts%
Heinsohn was a good playoff performer upping his raw numbers slightly while his efficiency fell slightly but pretty much the same guy. A slightly higher volume scorer on slightly below league average efficiency who was a slightly below average rebounder and below average passer with (from what I've heard) below average defense. Heinsohn's numbers also benefited from the highest pace in the league.

Again, Stokes seems a legit HOF player whose career was cut short by tragedy. Heinsohn seems a dime a dozen scorer who got lucky to be drafted by Boston.

Whilst I do lean cynical on Heinsohn, 3 mitigating factors:
1) fg% may be harmed by what may have been a Boston "pressure offense" taking quick shots to force a high pace, exhaust opponents (+ invisibly reduces turnovers). Though even if so his shot selection is oft questioned.
2) Arrival/departure "impact" looks quite favorably on him. Including without Russell/Ramsey on arrival. Moreso if you are high on Macauley circa '56.
3) re: "Slightly below average rebounder", if purely numbers based, might be touch harsh on a player next to Russell, who saw his job as to box out. You may already have such considerations "baked in".

Don't know if I'd vote for him though.


I think Stokes has quite a broad plausible range for how good he was.

[Owly]

Ramsey's early playoff runs are noteworthy compared to his regular season, but so are some of Heinsohn's years, and neither one really keeps it up.

Otoh, I think Ramsey elevates himself more and, more pertinently, reaches a higher absolute standard.

As ever not something I weigh heavily myself.

[Doctor MJ]

Ramsey's early playoff runs are noteworthy compared to his regular season, but so are some of Heinsohn's years, and neither one really keeps it up.

Otoh, I think Ramsey elevates himself more and, more pertinently, reaches a higher absolute standard.

As ever not something I weigh heavily myself.

I don't know. If you look at the '61 finals, Heinsohn is both the lead scorer and has a considerably higher FG% than the other main scorers. I know it's one series and small sample size, etc, but we're inherently talking about small sample size with Ramsey's runs.

I'm a bit reluctant to grab on to the "Ramsey was doing it right, Heinsohn doing it wrong" with great force because I really wonder how much noise is involved in all of that. What we absolutely know is that Heinsohn played the bigger role and sometimes came up big for the Celtics at big moments too.

[Dr Positivity]

If they gave Finals MVP from the start and Heinsohn won in 57 would it affect your votes?

[penbeast0]

I've never been as enamored of Finals MVP as some; the sample sizes are so very small.

The other thing with Heinsohn getting hurt in his rebounding by playing next to Russell; shouldn't he also have been helped in his shooting efficiency by playing with the PG everyone says is the greatest of the early NBA in Cousy (one reason I'm very cynical on Cousy). Even more, isn't both his rebounding AND his volume scoring helped by playing in the fastest paced offense in the league? Is that effect bigger than playing next to Russell in terms of affecting rebounding? I don't know but it would be interesting to set up a statistical test to answer the question.

[Dutchball97]

To me, the significant role Heinsohn and Ramsey played in the greatest dynasty ever should be enough to put them in as locks. Especially since the guys they are being discussed with for those final few spots here weren't much better, if at all, and weren't as important to the history of the NBA. If we're including Pollard, Mikkelsen and Slater from the MNL dynasty I don't see why we shouldn't include Heinsohn and Ramsey as well.

[penbeast0]

My problem with the Heinsohn is important and Sear isn't argument is simple. There is about a 2.5 ppg difference between them (with Heinsohn's volume being inflated by the Celtics' pace) and a 100 point efficiency difference (with Heinsohn's efficiency arguably being hurt by the Celtics' pace).

That's a HUGE swing in Sears' favor. Against that I'm hearing that Heinsohn is important because he was able to play on the Celtics who won titles of which he was a rotation piece with some good playoffs and Sears played on lesser teams that didn't. The issue is that his playoff numbers overall are about what his regular season numbers would indicate so if his regular season numbers aren't that valuable, as I think, his playoff numbers average out to about the same. This whole "Heinsohn was part of the NBA story but Sear wasn't" comes across like arguing that Tony Parker wis more deserving of the HOF than Chris Paul despite it being clear that Paul was a better PG because their scoring volumes are similar and Paul's massive playmaking advantages didn't win championships while Parker did. It just comes across wrong.

IN answer to Dutchball97, there weren't clearly better guys than Mikkelsen and Pollard (though I didn't vote for Pollard). Sears is clearly better than Heinsohn (and probably so are a couple of other guys).

[trex_8063]

Because I screwed up and misread the numbers. What else?

Ignore that. You have two scorers. Neither provides much else above average. One averages 18+ppg on poor efficiency but is on multiple championship teams, albeit not as one of their top 3 players (I'd rate him 4th to 8th depending on the year). One averages 16+ppg on extremely good efficiency but plays for weak teams.

Is Heinsohn really a better or even more valuable player or just one that was lucky to get drafted by the Celtics. If the Celtics trade for Ken Sears the way they did for Bailey Howell, is Sears the HOF player and Heinsohn the forgotten one? I just don't see Heinsohn as being even arguably better than Sears (then I will look at him v. other players for a lower spot on my list).

Since you're providing the pro-Sears argumentation, I'll play devil's advocate and provide a pro-Heinsohn counterpoint.....

Re: Luck (titles)
It's true Heinsohn was flat lucky to arrive where he arrived. Do they win the same titles they won from '57-'61 with Sears instead of Heinsohn? Yes, I imagine they do.
However, I note Sears appears to face some sudden [probably injury-related (misses 20 games)] decline as early as '61......and then he's gone in '62, and not remotely the same player by the time he comes back in '63 (even though he's only 29). Do the Celtics continue to win the same titles from '61-'65 with that version of Sears? idk, I'm less confident in saying sure they do. It's not like the Celtics destroyed the competition each of those years; they barely escaped with a title in '62 [with a bit of luck, no less], for example. Do they pull that with Heinsohn/Sears totally absent? I'm sort of skeptical.

And ultimately, though we try to play the "if and but" hypotheticals to remove luck from the equation, we'll never know for sure; to some small degree the actual record of what happened has to count for at least A LITTLE, imo.


Re: scoring efficiency
I want to again point out that the Russell Celtics prior to the mid-60's were playing at a strategy that fairly intentionally sacrificed offensive efficiency, by pushing the pace to such historic extremes. I recall reading that Red thought they had the depth to just run teams into the ground [fatigue wise], and so that was part of the plan.
I did a study some years back that found that there was some correlation in years where league-avg pace was >107 [and a fairly strong correlation in years that it was >115] between increasing rPace and decreasing rORTG. The Celtics, during Heinsohn's career pushed the pace to such a degree that any notion of shot-selection pretty much went right out the window.
If you watch some of these early Celtic teams, there are TONS of bad shots going up; not just Heinsohn (and not just Heinsohn and Cousy). I recall watching the '62 Finals and seeing Tom Sanders [in one game] take TWO awkward (one of them off of one foot) 18-20 footers when there was still like 10-15 seconds on the shot-clock. Why?? Because they didn't want to sit on the ball; Red wanted either transition, or shots going up in a hurry.....run the other team down.

So low efficiency was almost by design.

Now I'm not saying that if you put Sears in Boston at that time, his efficiency is going to look identical to Heinsohn's (or vice versa). But in the same way you question whether so much of Heinsohn's "success" is tied to his location/team, I think some of his [relatively] lowish efficiency is also related to location/team.


Re: Defense
Who is better here? I truly am asking, I don't really know. I've got no eye-test on Sears. On the limited amount I have on Heinsohn, I never thought he was terrible (just not good). His presence (playing starter minutes) didn't seem to prevent them from achieving all-time level team defenses anyway. And fwiw, their team defense worsens (by +2.8 rDRTG) in the first year without him. Not trying to imply direct causation there, but take it for what it's worth.

Sears played for consistently bad defenses. Not saying it's all his fault, though it would perhaps damage any notion that he was a good defender (not good enough to lift them out of the basement of the league in DRtg). And when Sears leaves in '62 [his minutes mostly replaced by Johnny Green], their rDRTG improves by -3.6; which is at least somewhat suggestive that Green was a substantial defensive upgrade over Sears (though their offense worsens).

While Sears has much higher peak reb/100 poss estimate, their avg rebounding estimates over their best 6-years are pretty similar (despite Heinsohn playing next to the veritable rebound sponge that is Russell), fwiw.

So even though Heinsohn is far from a prize defensively, I'm sort of wondering if he wasn't at least marginally better than Sears.


Re: How much offensive lift did Sears provide?
I'm again asking because I don't know. They had some pretty good offenses with him there, but he had a lot of notable offensive teammates, too......
'57: Sears + at PG was Slater Martin (and Dick McGuire backing him up), Carl Braun at SG, Harry Gallatin at PF, rookies Richie Guerin and Willie Naulls getting significant minutes too. +1.7 rORTG (2nd of 8)

'58-'59: Sears + Braun/prime Guerin backcourt, Willie Naulls starting SF, prime Ray Felix at C. +2.9 rORTG and +2.8 rORTG, respectively (1st of 8, 2nd of 8)

'60: Felix is mostly replaced by Charlie Tyra. Braun misses a little time, though they've added Dick Garmaker AND Jack George in the backcourt, also rookie Johnny Green; Guerin and Naulls still accompany Sears. +1.9 rORTG (3rd of 8)

'61: Sears a little banged up/declined, misses some time; Carl Braun basically gone. Otherwise same basic cast as previous year. -0.2 rORTG (4th of 8).

I honestly don't know what to make of the above; if the results are underwhelming, overwhelming, or right at expectation. Just putting it out there. Worth noting that with these supporting casts around Sears, they didn't accomplish much overall. Their best 3-year stretch was '57-'59 (avg record was 37-35, avg SRS +0.64, only in the playoffs ONE of those years [EDSF loss]); they were a poor team every other year (kinda awful in '61).


Re: longevity and durability
This sort of circles back to questions I'd asked in the first section. Heinsohn played 9 seasons, Sears played 8. However, Heinsohn played 125 more games and 4,331 more minutes (because he missed less time than Sears). Heinsohn also didn't suffer a big [again, presumably injury-related] decline in the middle of his prime. EDIT: perhaps also worth noting that Heinsohn continued to be a solid contributor later [relevance I'm driving at is the rapidly increasing competitiveness of the league around this time].

I could buy that Sears may have peaked higher; I'm not sure I can go along with his career being better overall given this gap in durability/consistency and longevity, though, especially given some of the other considerations mentioned above.

[Owly]

Ramsey's early playoff runs are noteworthy compared to his regular season, but so are some of Heinsohn's years, and neither one really keeps it up.

Otoh, I think Ramsey elevates himself more and, more pertinently, reaches a higher absolute standard.

As ever not something I weigh heavily myself.

I don't know. If you look at the '61 finals, Heinsohn is both the lead scorer and has a considerably higher FG% than the other main scorers. I know it's one series and small sample size, etc, but we're inherently talking about small sample size with Ramsey's runs.

I'm a bit reluctant to grab on to the "Ramsey was doing it right, Heinsohn doing it wrong" with great force because I really wonder how much noise is involved in all of that. What we absolutely know is that Heinsohn played the bigger role and sometimes came up big for the Celtics at big moments too.

Don't see the need to prize the finals more than any other round, each is equally essential. If it were tougher competition ... maybe (though for the most part don' see most players as massively different in opponent elasticity, inclined to think variance in performance more likely to be noise if it does happen - could be wrong here) at the margins though you still need to beat the lesser teams. In this year ... Hawks are better than the Nats. Not massively so. If you were one for "importance" it's not like Boston's win is a tight margin so it's not like they "need" what he's bringing.

We're always talking small samples for playoffs (and usually uneven opposition, differing matchups, different duration) which along which make comparisons difficult (parsing through these differences) and less indicative of the player (noise, think it fluctuates too much, less predictive).

But for playoffs Ramsey seems to me better on average and especially higher peaking ('59 but probably any of the first 3 attempts over any Heinsohn year for standard of play (not looking at minutes at this point).

[Dutchball97]

Kenny Sears made 2 All-Star teams, never made an All-League team and his highest MVP ranking is 8th. Tom Heinsohn made 6 All-Star teams, 4 All-NBA 2nd teams and peaked at 7th in MVP voting. Accolades aren't everything but they're usually a good indication of how they are viewed by peers, fans and the media. You should also take into account Kenny Sears' prime was about 6 years, while Heinsohn was good for 9 years.

The biggest knock on Kenny Sears is his play-off record though. During his time with the Knicks he played exactly 2 play-off games in 1959 against the Nationals, obviously losing both times. He didn't see a play-off win untill he was an end of the bench guy with the Warriors.

I'd like to also use this argument to make a case for Gene Shue. How can someone not include him for his lack of play-off success but have no problem with Sears? Shue won two play-off series as the lead scorer and a whole bunch of other game wins in series as well. Sears was busy not even making the play-offs, while 5x All-Star and 2x All-NBA Gene Shue was a consistent presence in the post-season.

Comparing Kenny Sears with Chris Paul seems insane to me.