70sFan wrote:penbeast0 wrote:70sFan wrote:What are your thoughts on Pettit vs Mikan? Was George much better at his peak than Bob?
More dominant on the defensive end, certainly. Pettit was a good defender, Mikan was the dominant defender of his era. ON the offensive end, it's less clear; Pettit was probably the most efficient and prolific scorer of the mid 50s, a great rebounder, and he lived at the foul line. Mikan for his era also drew the most fouls, was probably a better post passer than Pettit, and was also a prolific scorer and rebounder. I would say offensively it is close.
Are there any evidences of Mikan being strong defender? I know that Lakers were dominant defensively, but I've also heard that his supporting cast was the main reason for that - not him. I don't have any strong opinion about it, so if anyone could explain that I'd highly appreciate that.
Here is (almost) full Mikan game for anyone who'd like to watch him:
So first, thanks for sharing!
Second, the idea that Mikan wasn't a dominant defender is not what my impression was. I'm not saying you're wrong in your assessment and it's possible that I let my expectation that a superstar big man would largely be dominating through defense make me stop looking too soon when I noted that the Lakers won with defense rather than offense, and that the great defense basically lasted for the duration of Mikan's time.
Alright, my observations from the game:
The Pistons are absolutely terrified of trying to score on the interior with the exception of their big bruiser Larry Foust, who repeatedly gets his shot blocked by Mikan whenever he tries to score on the interior in the first half, even when he has time and space. When he scores with Mikan in position, he's doing a fadeaway.
I also note that Mikan has quick hands causing multiple deflections to go along with his blocks.
The Pistons were fortunate to have strong shooting from the perimeter early on to build up that lead. It didn't hold up all game, and doesn't seem to be something they could typically count on. Schaus I see scored twice as many points as he averaged that year and my impression wasn't that the Lakers were doing a bad job on the shooters (hard for me to tell which was which), shots were just being made early on.
I think it's interesting to note that Mikan doesn't actually seem that quick with his body, and he doesn't seem to have a glaring advantage when it comes to rebounding over Foust, and that Foust seemed like he was more explosive. Now Foust was arguably the 2nd best center in the game at the time and was younger than Mikan, so this isn't exactly crazy, but the main thing Mikan seems to have over Foust is length. Mikan can get his shot off against Foust, Foust cannot get his shot off against Mikan unless he really does that fade away. That's no small thing, but I was hoping to see an unusual body-quickness from Mikan for his size, and I don't really.
I'll add that after Mikan blocks a few of Foust's shots, it seems like Foust give up. He gets the ball in a position where he could easily go for the shot and he doesn't even try, just passes back out. Lesson learned I suppose.
I think you can really see how Vern Mikkelsen blended with Mikan. Between the two of them the control the interior on offense (Mikan controls the interior basically by himself on defense), and this results in scrappy rebounds, put backs, and a ton of free throws. As I say that, when I look at the data for the year, the Lakers don't appear to be getting tons of free throws and I'm not sure what to make of that. I'd have thought that the jungle ball edge they had here would have given them a free throw edge in general.
On Mikan's offense I note that the idea of gaining grown through physical strength (as in backing your man down) seems completely absent from his game. Maybe he just couldn't back down Foust? Regardless, the Laker offense is clearly trying to do everything possible to get the ball for Mikan to shoot, and often he shoots it right where he gets it and misses.
So I have to say, with all concern about confirmation bias, much of what I saw here is about what I expected in terms of Mikan's strengths and weaknesses. If Mikan played other teams the way he did the Pistons, I wouldn't expect him to be able to dominate as a scorer against guys who better approximate his own size. On the other hand, if he was able to shut down Foust like that, then yeah, the rest of his contemporaries wouldn't likely fair any better.
And when I project Mikan into the future - which I know not everyone does, but I feel I need to to try to get a sense of competition levels across eras - I do see him as a solid defensive anchor for any era, but as someone who I'd likely be looking to focus in a support, non-volume capacity on offense.
Last note, the strategy on the perimeter seems pretty flawed on both ends, which makes sense and isn't meant as a shot on the BBIQ of the players themselves who I think showed plenty of ability to think quickly.
But on offense you see a lot of excess passing that doesn't serve any purpose. I'm not just talking about the tendency to run the same type of hand off repeatedly on the same play, but literally two guys just pass the ball back and forth while their defensive man just catches a breather. I'd imagine that this is a relic of times when dribbling just wasn't a part of the game for equipment reasons combined with a philosophy of getting others involved, but in terms of direct possession impact, doesn't seem like it's doing much.
As I say that, when the offenses run those hand off passes, they do seem to bait defenders into going for steals which opens up spacing. The Lakers seem to do this more and then feed the ball into Mikan for the quick shot. Can quibble about this being the best strategy, but it's doing some work for them. The funny thing to me is that in the modern game space manipulation is done almost entirely through shooting threat, but in this game it seems more about giving defenders the chance to steal the ball and then take advantage when the steals don't come. It works when it works...but there's also a ton of turnovers, so dubious approach overall.
