There's no audio for this game, except for when the video's author provides his own commentary/opinion.......which early on I had to mute because his ignorance was irritating.
My apologies for being so blunt and critical if this author is a forum member [or maybe he was being deliberately provocative], but I'll elaborate below on why I think this criticism is warranted.
It was an interesting watch, and I really enjoyed logging this game. Although some continuity is missing [game is about 80-85% complete], the video quality was really outstanding: among the best I've seen within the entire game-log project [which was surprising because it's BY FAR the oldest game I've yet logged].
So I'm truly grateful to this author/channel for providing this video, and thus feel bad being so harsh in my opinion of his comments, but......they truly did reflect a certain lack of critical thinking about what he's watching, and at times don't even track [logically].
There are three comments [two which sort of go together] of his I'm going to focus on [paraphrased slightly]:
"I would think even an average high-school team from today would demolish these guys."
And....
"This was more or less the competition Bill Russell was up against when he was dominating the league and grabbing 40 rebounds in a game."
And....
"I don't think Russell would have been as effective as we progress thru the 70's; and probably by the early-mid 80's he wouldn't be able to compete at all."
I'm going to reply to the 2nd/3rd comments first. These are the ones that really don't logically track, especially if I tentatively extrapolate some other opinions that I suspect this author holds.
His comments are so much the run-of-the-mill reaction [which lacks critical thought] that most casual fans have when shown what the game looked like 70 years ago; so I'm going to assume he is more or less a mainstream casual fan himself.
I am thus going to further assume that he likely hasn't seriously considered that anyone other than Michael Jordan has a case as the GOAT [obv I cannot be sure, but of the mainstream there's at least a 60-70% chance I'm right].
IF he firmly believe MJ is the GOAT, I'd further assume he believes the NBA of the mid-late 80s and 90s to be at least as good as [if not better than] the present NBA in terms of quality/competitiveness.........it's hard to maintain the MJ as GOAT argument otherwise; it begins to crumble without that assumption.
Thus, in terms of the quality of NBA-level play, this ocean of difference between 1950 and today---if you're saying an average highschool team of today would "demolish" a good pro team of 1950, I think that semantically qualifies as an ocean of difference---was actually already in existence by 1985.
^^This supposition about his opinion is further supported by his comment that Russell would have been ineffective by the early 80's, btw.
So let's call the 1949-50 season "Year 0" and 1984-85 "Year 35".
Bill Russell's rookie season was in "Year 7" in this timeline; his final season [where he was still having star-level impact at age 35] was "Year 19".
Do you see where I'm going with this?
If an OCEAN of change occurred during this 35-year span, and Russell's career doesn't even start until 7 years into it, and ends a little past the halfway point........declaring that the level of play during Year 0 was "more or less the competition Russell was up against [in years 7-19]" is highly dubious if we assume the change occurred at even a REMOTELY linear rate.
Even if change did accelerate toward the latter-half of this timeline, the statement would still be more than a bit questionable. And if, otoh, the majority of the change occurred EARLY in the timeline, the statement becomes laughably ridiculous.
Unless his contention is that the game was more or less stagnant for nearly two decades, then [quite suddenly] EXPLODED in quality/competition thru the 70s/early 80s only…...the statement otherwise clearly cannot be sustained.
And fwiw, to anyone who has scrutinized the years in question, I would think it's very easy to see A TON of difference between in the look of the game in 1950 and the look of it in the late 60s......I would say [by my eye-test, anyway] that difference is larger than the change that occurred between 1970 and 1985.
We can also look at some measurable indicators. Let's take a look at '63 (the exact middle of Russell's career) vs '50.....
Size
The average-sized player in the NBA of '63 was 6'6" [same as today] and 205 lbs [12 lbs lighter than the NBA today, noting weight-training was not facilitated [or even encouraged] in the early 60s].
We don't know for certain the average player size in '50, but two years later in '52 it was 6'4" and 195 lbs; I'd assume '50 was more or less the same (or negligibly smaller, if any different).
Integration
There were precisely zero black players in the NBA of '50. By '63, the league was just over one-third black.
Major rule [and other] alterations
*The lane was widened TWICE between '50 and '63 (from 6' to '12 [before Russell even arrived in the league], then again from '12 to '16 [where it remains today]).
**A shotclock was instituted before Russell's arrival.
***Other potentially significant rule-changes [such as getting rid of the jump-ball between fouler/foulee after a made FT for 1-shot fouls late in the game].
****Prior to the 1952-53 season, the basketball itself was literally a rubber bladder inside a leather casing with an actual raised sewn seam on one side [no doubt made for an unpredictable bounce at times].
Popularity of Game (as relates to Size of Player Pool)
In '50, the NBA's future as a professional league was far from certain, and almost none of its players earned enough from basketball alone to give up other jobs [which they mostly did in the off-season].
The league wouldn't have its first television contract until '54.......and it was a tiny limited-airing contract that cost just $39,000 [equivalent to ~$425,000 today]. The first nationally televised Finals game wasn't until 1956.
By '64 (just 1 year after the year we've selected), ABC paid $650,000 for the NBA's television contract [equivalent to ~$6.27M today]---->I just want to point out that the television contract got 14.5x bigger in the span of one decade here.
By around this same time the average player income was an actual decent living, too......iirc, even the bench warmers were making at least $7-8k annually [equivalent to $65-75k today] by circa-'64. Legit GOOD players made a GOOD living by the mid-60s.
And I have figures on average live attendance in '56 and '67......average attendance in '67 was up nearly 50% over what it was in '56 [I'd anticipate the difference between '50 and '63 is even a pinch larger].
So the popularity of the game [and presumably the size of player pool] clearly expanded quite dramatically from '50 to the middle of Russell's career.
Meanwhile the size of the league SHRUNK from 17 teams in '50 to just 8 in '63.
So in light of all this, would a reasonable person REALLY still try to say this [what we see in '50] was "more or less the competition Russell was up against"?
Jesus, I sincerely hope not.
So it’s clear: the “ocean of difference between ‘50 and ‘85” premise is not what I’m disputing; obviously there IS an ocean [or oceans] of difference between those eras.
However, I’m illustrating there was already a veritable “sea” of difference between 1950 and the mid-60s [middle of Russell’s career].
And I don’t mean that to sound disparaging of the 1950 pros, and I’d now like to turn my attention to the first quote above regarding the quality of these pros of '50 [and them getting "demolished" by an average highschool team from today].......
If we kidnapped one of the teams seen in this video and “time-machine” them to the present day, and force them---with no preparation---to play in their crappy 1950 shoes against a modern highschool team [who get modern shoes], with a modern basketball, and officiated by modern refs according to modern standards…...yeah. I suspect the modern highschool team probably would/could win there [“demolish”?.....that I’m a bit more skeptical about].
But let’s alter this scenario.
We’ll still allow the modern highschool team the advantage of modern coaching and mentoring [the average 9th-grade player today has already had better coaching and mentoring on things like shot mechanics, defensive footwork, and defensive scheming than a 1950 pro would have had]. BUT…..
*Let’s make the modern highschool team wear the same crappy 1950 Converse All-Stars that our old pros are wearing, instead of their modern shoes.
**Let's have the game played with the wonky basketball of 1950, and on the poorly-kept floors of 1950 that they’re not used to.
***Let’s now further take away the 3pt line, narrow the lane, and have the game officiated by the refs of 1950 according to the rules of that time.
NOW who wins?
Personally, my money’s on the pro team from 1950 [even still allowing the modern kids their modern skillset], and here’s why…..
Turnovers*
1) Although the refs of 1950 clearly allow A LOT of travelling by way of shuffling feet before taking off [Carl Braun shuffles his feet nearly every time he does that head-fake and drive move], they will NOT allow the 3-4 step “gather step”, or the 3-4 step step-back, or the Euro-step.
2) Even the standard slow paced straight-line dribble [like advancing the ball to the frontcourt]---to say nothing of things like cross-over dribbles, etc----that we all do today will not be allowed; it’s all going to be called a carry.
I’d thus anticipate the highschool team committing A LOT of turnovers early, until [or unless] they adjust and begin, well…….dribbling like the 1950 players dribble, basically.
And once they’ve started dribbling more or less like the 1950 pros [and while moving more tentatively with the crappy shoes and crappy floors and the crappy basketball], how much more effective than the pros are they going to be at getting into the interior of the defense? Not more effective at all, obviously.
*the one potential caveat in this is that I could see the modern highschool team doing a better job of on-ball pressure [a benefit of their modern mentoring advantage], and thus narrowing the turnover gap in this manner.
Rebounding (and possession advantage)
Even in 1950, pro basketball players were kinda big. Again, using ‘52 as a proxy, we’re looking at guys who are on average 6’4” and about 195 lbs.
The SMALLEST guy in this game [for either team] is Piston guard Curly Armstrong at 5’11” and 170 lbs (or by weight it’s Richie Niemiera at 6’1” and 165 lbs). The smallest guy to take the court for New York is Dick McGuire at 6’0” and 180 lbs.
The biggest guy for Fort Wayne was Bill Henry at 6’9” and 215 lbs.
The biggest guy for New York was Connie Simmons, listed on bbref as 6’8” and 222 lbs [though Bill Henry actually looks bigger in build to me].
That’s kinda big compared to the AVERAGE highschool team of today. Player-for-player, they're probably 2-3” taller and 15-20 lbs heavier, on average, than a typical highschool team.
So I’d be expecting the 1950 pros to win the battle of the boards.
Additionally, there’s that strange rule of doing a jump-ball between the fouler and the fouled after a made FT on a 1-shot foul late in the game to consider. Given the size difference as noted above, I think there’s the distinct possibility that the 1950 pros disproportionately win those jump-balls.
Free Throws
The game was called much different then. I saw at least a few outright dirty fouls/shoves that are just called common fouls in this game…...but on the other hand there’s a ton of what looks like very incidental “legal” contact [that I’d think nothing of if it happened to me in a pick-up game] that is called for a foul back in 1950.
That’s something that I’d expect to work against the modern highschool team. I’d anticipate them getting into foul-trouble as they struggle to navigate this differently-officiated game.
And what’s more, the average NBA team in ‘50 shot 71.4% from the FT-line (the Knicks and Pistons were actually a couple of the more poor FT-shooting teams, at 70.1% and 71.1% respectively)........that’s probably a pinch better than the truly average highschool team [which I’d estimate would typically hover more in the 66-69% range].
So I’d anticipate the 1950 pros getting to the line at least a little more often, AND making their FT’s more reliably.
In summary, I see the 1950 pros having a possession advantage [due to rebounding and/or jump-ball advantage, +/- turnovers), getting to the FT-line more, and making those FT’s better.
The only other area I see the modern highschool team having a distinct advantage in is shooting from the mid-range [again: they’ve been mentored much better shot mechanics, and probably a higher proportion have a legit jump-shot]. But I’m skeptical that would be enough to off-set all the other advantages going to the 1950 pros, especially when they’ll have to shoot over guys who are [again] about 2-3” taller on average. EDIT: I'd also expect the kids needing to rely on the mid and long range shots more [i.e. getting fewer shots at the rim and/or converting them less efficiently], because I expect they'll struggle at the rim again due to the size disadvantage [+/- shying away from the often dirty fouls that occurred there].
So I see the pros winning; and that’s WITH still allowing the modern kids their modern skillset.
If we completely level the playing field and attempt to consider what these modern kids would play like if they were simply born in the early 1930s…….well, obviously the vast majority of them would not even be as good as the players seen in this video.
They’d then only have received similar coaching/mentoring that these pros have received [with no other visual references to model their game after].......while most of them will also be smaller [and potentially lesser natural athletes] than these pros.
Because let’s face it: the AVERAGE highschool team isn’t going to have many/any elite athletes or potentially elite players.
The 1950 pros may have only been the biggest fish in a very small pond, but the average highschool player is barely a minnow in a giant lake…...it’s no better [and probably a little worse], in other words.
So in this scenario, those same kids get soundly whipped by the pros.
The game was just SO different then, and the circumstances that made it that way were SO different…….you really need to take some time for thoughtful reflection upon what you’re watching in order to have any sort of relevant opinion about it.
If you simply look at this and say “Gee, they don’t look very good” [as this video author did], well….frankly, you’re doing it wrong.
Am I saying that if you gave these players the same advantages of modern mentoring that today’s players get, they could ALL be pros? No, certainly not. There are some of them for whom the quality/competitiveness of the professional game has clearly left them behind some time ago.
Could maybe a few of the stars of 1950 be respectable pros today? Yes, I believe they could. Could they be stars today? Probably not [except maybe Mikan], but respectable players nonetheless.
I don’t think speculating that Carl Braun could potentially be something like a Furkan Korkmaz level player today takes too much imagination, for example.
Anyway….tl;dr, so I’ll stop now.
