penbeast0 wrote:
(b) I had thought Arizin won an MVP but I was wrong, he has a 2nd and 3rd place finish. He did, however, win a title in 1956 (2nd place MVP finish) as the probably best player on his team (Neil Johnston had an even better offensive year but was a weak defender while Arizin was a good one). Cousy never won a title until Russell came into the league and for most of the Russell years, he was the weak spot on this playoff juggernaut. Nor did his high assist totals lead to strong offenses (unlike the other great assist generators like Oscar, Magic, Stockton, Nash). Let me make this clear (league ts% in paratheses):
1957 playoff ts% .409 (.459) Team Offensive rank (5/8)
1959 ts% .408 (.457) Ranked (5/8)
1960 ts% .350 (.463) Ranked (5/8)
1961 ts% .450 (.469) Ranked (8/8)
1962 ts% .408 (.479) Ranked (7/9)
1963 ts% .407 (493) RAnked (9/9)
So, his volume scoring was consistently almost 50 points below league average and his volume assists were leading to below average offenses EVERY YEAR of the title runs. And, unlike Bill Sharman, he was a notoriously bad defender; even Red Auerbach said so. It's not reasonable to give Cousy much (if any) credit for Boston's titles. He was a wonderful entertainer and probably a good overall offensive player in the period from 1950-1956 when the Celtics were consistently a middle of the pack NBA team. Good enough that he is a reasonable top 100 candidate for that early NBA era. He was not a significant positive factor in the NBA titles -- unlike Paul Arizin who was at worst 1B on his Warrior title team.
You're relatively critical of Bob Cousy [I think you would allow this is true, yes?]. So I'm going to make a bit of a counterpoint, though it's really just presenting some [fairly objective] information, with a few "suggestions" of how to interpret it.
Take it for what it's worth [though do please take the time to read it]......
First off, I agree Bob Cousy did not deserve his MVP award in '57, and that he's generally a bit overrated by counting All-NBA honours (particularly across all positions: guard was probably the weakest competition [compared to other positions] for 1st/2nd team nods during his career). He did deserve a considerable amount of media recognition in his day for how good he was at basketball, though.
And I agree he was a wonderful entertainer. In fact, prior to prime Elgin Baylor and the Russell/Wilt rivalry, he was probably the league's premier entertainer and box-office draw [at least AFTER Mikan and BEFORE the Baylor/Russell/Wilt combo]........and that's not meaningless.
We talk about the rise in competitiveness in the league and player pool size and international scouting, etc......well, the single-largest factor driving global player pool size is the popularity of the game.
Boys and young men need to be excited or attracted to the game to take it up in the first place. The potentially lucrative financial gains to be had as a high-level basketball player [as a motivating factor]---whether we're talking going pro, or even just earning a scholarship---is also directly related to the popularity of the game. You need fans [and lots of them] willing to buy tickets and watch on TV and buy merchandise, etc to fuel the immense global business that is the game of basketball today.
And it's the game's entertainers that drive that popularity.
Re: "Celtics were middle of the pack" before Russell
This may be [more or less??] true, pending some semantic clarity. Nonetheless, I'm going to speak to this point because "middle of the pack", semantically, is a phrase that generally suggests "average". And I don't think that's a fully fair or accurate characterization of the Cousy/pre-Russell Celtics [outside of a couple of years]. Here's why....
*They didn't have a single losing record in six years: they were .500 ONCE, winning record the rest of the time.
**Their average win% in those six seasons was .571 (that pro-rates to about 47 wins in an 82-game schedule). And that's in a league with greater parity [more on that to follow].
***Their average rs SRS was +1.30 (which doesn't sound like a lot by today's standards, but again there was A LOT more parity at that time: +1.30 was likely to be 3rd or 4th in a 9-11 team league [would have been 2nd both years it was just 8 teams]).
****In terms of average league rank: they averaged out as being 3.58th of 9.33rd teams in wins, and 4.17th of 9.33rd in SRS.
It's still middle-of-the-pack(ish), but not exactly average. Their typical finish is a clear firm nudge above the absolute middle; just wanted that pointed out.
And where you seem to be pushing this idea that Cousy wasn't all that special of an offensive player----and perhaps was even holding the Celtics back [?] by the time Russell arrived----I want to point out something about the '51-'56 Celtics specifically on offense (and which I'm going to link forward to the Russell years):
The '51-'56 teams were actually REALLY good on offense for the time-period.
Again, bear in mind there was greater parity in this era AND note that being [for example] a +3.5 rORTG is sort of a bigger deal [proportionally] when league avg is like 90 than it is when league avg is like 110.....
Celtic rORTG (league rank)
'51: +2.2 (3rd of 11)
'52: +3.5 (2nd of 10)
'53: +3.7 (1st of 9)
'54: +5.0 (1st of 9)
'55: +3.2 (1st of 9)
'56: +1.9 (3rd of 8)
The 6-year AVERAGE offense by the Cousy Celtics was +3.25 rORTG. Off the cuff, I'd hazard a guess this might be analogous to like a +4 or so rORTG today. Again, that's the AVERAGE over a 6-year span.
For narrative flow that I've decided upon I'm going to circle back to this excellent stretch of offensive seasons later.
But first....
....Where these offenses are concerned, I've heard it suggested that it had as much [or more] to do with either one of Ed Macauley or Bill Sharman as it did with Cousy.
To that I'll note that in '57, Ed Macauley teamed up with Bob Pettit and produced a +0.1 rORTG. Admittedly this was a big improvement over '56 for the Hawks, when they [again: with Bob Pettit] produced only a -2.7 rORTG (7th of 8), the same year Cousy/Sharman/Macauley were pumping out a +1.9 rORTG.
Although it should perhaps be noted the '57 Hawks also picked up [for most of the year] Slater Martin (All-NBA 2nd Team that year).
Macauley in '57 had his WORST rFG% [to that point in his career] by a *significant margin (*+3.9%; his previous worst was +5.8% in his rookie season) and his WORST FTAr, despite also having the lowest pts/36 since they began recording minutes [suggesting lesser load].
The difference between Cousy and Martin as playmakers???
I'd also note that Macauley had played his rookie year in St. Louis, and while we don't have ORtg or pace, I'll note that team was 15th of 17 teams in ppg.
At any rate, it doesn't seem Macauley was quite as "weaponized" during either stint in St. Louis as he'd been in Boston.
As to Bill Sharman.....
His team [the Capitals] was a -1.9 rORTG (9th of 11) during his rookie season, while rookie Cousy's Celtics were a 3rd-ranked +2.2 rORTG (Capitals were dead-last defensively too, fwiw).
The Celtics rORTG does jump +1.3 on Sharman's arrival in '52. fwiw, his rFG% increases +0.9% and his FTAr improves from .283 to .339 upon joining Cousy (rest of his box numbers similar; doesn't really look like he "made the jump" as a player yet). Take that information how you will...
When Sharman retires from the Celtics [Cousy still around], their rORTG.......improves by +1.9???
How do some of these trends compare to what happens when [an old, post-prime] Cousy retired? Well, in losing an old/washed-up Cousy and replacing his role primarily with K.C. Jones their rORTG fell by -1.6 to the single-worst mark in franchise history.
And that's in raw terms, not even going into a proportional or StDev-based assessment of just how bad their offense was in that first year without him.
Let's now circle back to the transition from that excellent stretch of offense ['51-'56] and the Russell years. Their rORTG immediately drops by -2.3 (from +1.9 to -0.4) upon Russell's arrival [even though he's only there for 2/3 of the season, and even though he's no doubt a FAR better offensive rebounder compared to Macauley].
So what happened there?
In terms of replacements: they lose Macauley, but gain Russell and Heinsohn (who pushes Jack Nichols to a supporting bench role).
Cousy plays almost the same amount of minutes in '57 as he had in '56. His ast/100 go down somewhat (9.7 to 8.2), while his pts/100 possessions goes up (from 20.5 to 22.7) while maintaining the basically EXACT same rTS% (+0.29% in '56, +0.28% in '57). The slight trends in his statline perhaps partially explained by replacing Macauley with Russell [lower usage center]; doesn't seem to be any decline on Cousy's part overall (his PER and WS/48 both go up a little).
In short, I'm suggesting the abrupt decline had little to do with Cousy.
So what happened to their rORTG? What happened between those two years?
Obviously the Russell for Macauley swap likely played a big part.
Another big part of it [imo] was the coaching scheme. I think Red completely shifted the team focus with the arrival of Russell.
And part of that "scheme" which [imo] contributed to the offensive decline was that their pace has increased well beyond an optimal point. They're now playing at a fully frantic 118 pace (which is a full +13.1 to league average). And for the rest of Cousy's career pace [both Boston's individual pace, and the league avg] basically only get faster from there.
I did a study looking at the correlation between increasing rPace and a team's rORTG in seasons where the league avg pace was >115. I'll summarize findings with some bullet-point observations from these seasons:
*There are 19 total teams in this sample with a rORTG of +3.0 or greater......only ONE of 19 had a rPace >0 (at +1.3).
**There are four teams with rORTG -5.0 or worse......THREE of the four are rPace >+2.0 (the other is barely slower than avg at -0.1).
***Of the 13 fastest rPaces in this sample [that is: in NBA history], ALL 13 had a rORTG below 0.
****Of the seven slowest rPaces in this sample, ALL SEVEN had a rORTG >0.
......all of the above indicating it is disadvantageous to your offense to being gunning away at >115 pace.
For me, this is not hard to conceptualize why this might be. People want to think of fast-paced teams as teams that are fast-breaking constantly. But you can't just conjure a fast-break out of thin air whenever you want.
How these excessive paces are engineered is often thru how you handle your half-court play: kicking up shots early [whether they're good ones or not].
This was Red's mandate on offense: pace first, pace second, and pace last. Run the opponent off the court, don't linger. To get those shots up early on in the shotclock, that means whomever has the ball: shoot the damn thing!
Can you guess who would frequently be the one with the ball in his hands, btw?
Just as an example of this mandate in practice, observe the following from the '62 Finals. On the 2nd and 3rd Celtic possessions shown, Tom Sanders is seen taking these very awkward looking 20-22' shots early in the shotclock:
Personally, I'm of the opinion that Tom Sanders should taking shots from 20+ feet EARLY in the shotclock precisely never.
But there we see it happen on two possessions [consecutive possessions, no less].
Why? Because: pace, pace, pace.
That was Red's game-plan.....but it was detrimental to their offense.
Side-note: Even with what we know today, I'm not necessarily saying Red was wrong, btw. Bill Russell in that particular era provided such a unique circumstance to him. Sure they could have slowed down by 10-15 possessions per game, put a little more focus on offense, and maybe had an ORtg that was 1-2 better than what it was.
But that's basically the option of outscoring opponents by 8 pts/100 possessions while playing 130 possessions/game, or outscoring them by 9 pts/100 while playing 115-120 poss/game. Kinda six in one hand, half-dozen in the other.
But still, this all is just speaking to this idea that Cousy can't lead good offenses. For six years that was basically ALL he did; right up until the very moment Russell arrived, and the entire game-plan changed.
As to the all-around quality of the Russell teams WITH Cousy vs the Russell teams WITHOUT Cousy.....
*The single-best rs StdDev scaled SRS of any Russell team---in fact, is the best scaled rs SRS of all-time was the '57 Celtics (with just 2/3 of a season of rookie Russell and a decidedly prime Cousy [his MVP season, in fact]).
**3 of the top 4 rs scaled SRS's occurred while Cousy was still around ('57, '60, and '62).
***2 of the top 3 [and 3 of the top 5] playoff SRS's were Russell teams that contained Cousy.
****The single-best playoff SRS was the '61 Celtics (with late-prime/early post-prime Cousy)
*****Looking at sansterre's Top 100 Teams project (which utilizes both rs and ps SRS, and the standard deviations from mean based on parity in league), the best Russell Celtic team was the '61 Celtics.
******4 of the top 6 Russell teams on sansterre's list had Bob Cousy starting at PG.
So if he's someone who's holding the Celtic's back [particularly in the playoffs], it's odd the the majority of the best/most successful Celtic teams feature him.
I'll stop there. Again, take it for what it's worth to you.
Cousy is overrated in mainstream esteem, but the shooting efficiency-centric push-back here is excessive [and narrow focus], imo. Although I'm not voting for him here, I'd not be upset to see him voted in any time now.
