Bob Cousy vs Bob Davies | PG Duel in 1952

[70sFan]

Watch on YouTube

Very rare duel between the best PGs of the earliest era of the NBA.

More highlights from that game coming soon!

[tsherkin]

Some thoughts.

1) This clip really reinforces how challenging it is to make rational, fair evaluations across eras of the game too far distant from one another in time.
2) Cousy could pass really well, and did a lot of what we might consider more contemporary-type passing, which must have been wild to see when few others were doing anything like it. And while his scoring was, for me, not his best trait, you can see some interesting floaters and the like which he pops like a more modern player.
3) Ever getting a layup with ALL the action in that close is actually kind of impressive
4) The cardio these guys had was pretty impressive too, because they were basically doing wind sprints through that entire clip



Ball this far back into the past isn't my jam for various reasons, but it's interesting to see those flashes of the future even 70-some years ago, you know? Precursors of what was to come.

[GSWFan1994]

How many plumbers and firemen were on the court?

Thanks for your work.

[Curmudgeon]

How many plumbers and firemen were on the court?

Thanks for your work.

What stand out to me is that there isn't a single jump shot in that clip.

[babyjax13]

Thanks for posting this. Really fun to see - for some reason - Cousy going into a triple threat position and jab-stepping just after 1:48.

[tsherkin]

How many plumbers and firemen were on the court?

Thanks for your work.

What stand out to me is that there isn't a single jump shot in that clip.

And how close they were to the basket.

[Statlanta]

The touch passes, jump passes and layups were very athletic, the jumpshot(s)/free throws however definitely look like a bygone era.

[Duke4life831]

Honestly, compared to today's NBA that looks like small unathletic and unskilled guys, even when you consider the traveling and carrying rules.

I also want to be clear, this isnt me taking a shot at these guys. The sport just wasn't that evolved at the time. 1952 is just 5-6 years into the NBA. The sport has just drastically evolved since then.

Im a massive MMA fan and the same can be said about the early UFC days compared to now. Royce Gracie would get worked over in today's MMA. The sport just wasn't that evolved back then.

Same goes for early NBA guys. This is just a drastically different sport than what it is now. The sport and everything around it has evolved so much, which should be expected.

[tsherkin]

Honestly, compared to today's NBA that looks like small unathletic and unskilled guys, even when you consider the traveling and carrying rules.

Yeah, it looks like the over-40 league with less jumpers, to be honest. But it was also three quarters of a century ago. Totally radical difference in the amount of money in the sport, the amount of training which goes into it, the age at which players start training. The intensity of that training. The advancements in gear, medical science, even the way the court is built. Draft selection over decades and decades for players with certain traits. Decades worth of video and intense scrutiny and examination for maximum efficiency. Other players upon whose game to build. Totally different rules, spaces on the court being occupied differently, etc, etc.

Royce Gracie would get worked over in today's MMA. The sport just wasn't that evolved back then.

TBF to Gracie, all the horrible things he did to his opponents are now decidedly illegal, lmao.

[PizzaSteve]

Some thoughts.

1) This clip really reinforces how challenging it is to make rational, fair evaluations across eras of the game too far distant from one another in time.
2) Cousy could pass really well, and did a lot of what we might consider more contemporary-type passing, which must have been wild to see when few others were doing anything like it. And while his scoring was, for me, not his best trait, you can see some interesting floaters and the like which he pops like a more modern player.
3) Ever getting a layup with ALL the action in that close is actually kind of impressive
4) The cardio these guys had was pretty impressive too, because they were basically doing wind sprints through that entire clip



Ball this far back into the past isn't my jam for various reasons, but it's interesting to see those flashes of the future even 70-some years ago, you know? Precursors of what was to come.

Nice take. It was interesting how many vollyball-esc tip passes and tip out rebounds there were. Wonder if vollyball type tip passing skills were an impactful trend or considered a flambouant show off play at the time. It also seemed a style to sort of throw the butt out or push legs back a bit like a ballet move, to guard the ball with ones body on layups. In the super short shorts it looks a little dorky, but perhaps was effective.

[tsherkin]

Nice take. It was interwsting how many vollyball-esc tip passes and tip out rebounds there were. Wonder if vollyball type tip passing skills were an impactful trend or considered a flambouant show off play at the time.

I mean, we see tap passes and stuff off of rebounds now as well, and routinely discuss the utility of keeping the ball alive.

[Duke4life831]

Honestly, compared to today's NBA that looks like small unathletic and unskilled guys, even when you consider the traveling and carrying rules.

Yeah, it looks like the over-40 league with less jumpers, to be honest. But it was also three quarters of a century ago. Totally radical difference in the amount of money in the sport, the amount of training which goes into it, the age at which players start training. The intensity of that training. The advancements in gear, medical science, even the way the court is built. Draft selection over decades and decades for players with certain traits. Decades worth of video and intense scrutiny and examination for maximum efficiency. Other players upon whose game to build. Totally different rules, spaces on the court being occupied differently, etc, etc.

Royce Gracie would get worked over in today's MMA. The sport just wasn't that evolved back then.

TBF to Gracie, all the horrible things he did to his opponents are now decidedly illegal, lmao.

Ya that's the point Im trying to make. By the time current NBA players are probably 16 years old, they've probably done twice or three times the amount of ball handling drills than those guys did in their entire careers. Multiply that even more when it comes to just the amount of jumpers they've taken.

Its just a completely different sport. 1952 was still the infancy of the NBA. College basketball just really became a thing like 15 years before all of this. And when I say became a thing, the first college basketball championship was in 1937. Again we are talking the infancy of the sport.

I mean we're at the point now where players have motion capture on their jumpshots so they can work on the smallest of differences when it comes to arm angle and so on. Just two very different sports.

[PizzaSteve]

Nice take. It was interesting how many vollyball-esc tip passes and tip out rebounds there were. Wonder if vollyball type tip passing skills were an impactful trend or considered a flambouant show off play at the time.

I mean, we see tap passes and stuff off of rebounds now as well, and routinely discuss the utility of keeping the ball alive.

Since these were 'highlights' it seemed like there were quite a few times where the initial pass was tapped immediately to another player and wondered whether that was considered 'highlight guard play.'

[tsherkin]

Ya that's the point Im trying to make. By the time current NBA players are probably 16 years old, they've probably done twice or three times the amount of ball handling drills than those guys did in their entire careers. Multiply that even more when it comes to just the amount of jumpers they've taken.

Exactly. There's just a world of difference in how development goes these days.

I mean we're at the point now where players have motion capture on their jumpshots so they can work on the smallest of differences when it comes to arm angle and so on. Just two very different sports.

Yeah. We are at the stage where coaches on YouTube are better for skill development than anything seen prior the 90s, you know what I mean?

[Duke4life831]

Ya that's the point Im trying to make. By the time current NBA players are probably 16 years old, they've probably done twice or three times the amount of ball handling drills than those guys did in their entire careers. Multiply that even more when it comes to just the amount of jumpers they've taken.

Exactly. There's just a world of difference in how development goes these days.

I mean we're at the point now where players have motion capture on their jumpshots so they can work on the smallest of differences when it comes to arm angle and so on. Just two very different sports.

Yeah. We are at the stage where coaches on YouTube are better for skill development than anything seen prior the 90s, you know what I mean?

Yup, its just the evolution of the sport. And again to go back to my MMA analogy. Back in the 90s you could only find a specific martial art gym, there were no legit MMA gyms. Now you have gyms that teach MMA, the boxing, the wrestling, the BJJ and so on is different than what you would get from a straight up boxing gym or BJJ academy. All the specific martial arts have been tweaked to what works best in MMA and off of working with other martial arts. And UFC 1 was less than 30 years ago.

This is just what you should expect from a popular sport that lasts over time. It continues to evolve and the further and further away you get from the early ages, the early ages of the sport will look very limited and amateurish. Now at their time they weren't, but by today's standards they are. Again that's why I want to be clear that my initial post or any of my follow up posts weren't me taking shots at Cousy or anything like that. Just more along the lines of massive evolution of the athletes who play the game, and the skill that is shown and worked on.

[tsherkin]

Yup, its just the evolution of the sport. And again to go back to my MMA analogy. Back in the 90s you could only find a specific martial art gym, there were no legit MMA gyms. Now you have gyms that teach MMA, the boxing, the wrestling, the BJJ and so on is different than what you would get from a straight up boxing gym or BJJ academy. All the specific martial arts have been tweaked to what works best in MMA and off of working with other martial arts. And UFC 1 was less than 30 years ago.

Yeah, in the 60s and 70s, what Bruce Lee was doing in martial arts was revolutionary. It is now accepted baseline practice, cross-training in different arts, taking a little from everywhere to create a stronger whole, moving away from things which don't have utility and only emphasizing +EV types of actions.

As you say, same-same with basketball. Huge contextual differences, sometimes across individual decades. Like... integration alone, man. Then rules changes that happened because of Mikan and Wilt. The implementation of the 3pt line. Removal of illegal defense. There's just so much which has changed about the game. The baseline physical and skill expectations aren't the same. And 3/4s of a century is a loooooooong time to develop an industry.

EDIT: Hell, you can see the difference in soldiering as well over the same period. Look at the difference in approach from WWI to contemporary war. Same same root concepts.

[Loaded_Hollows]

[theforumblue]

Popularity means more money goes into it, more money means more athleticism goes into it, meaning more skills follow. Rinse, repeat. MMA really is a condensed look at how as more athletic people started taking to the sport and affected the competitiveness it started changing the skill sets.

[Fencer reregistered]

This is actually from before the shot clock, right? It doesn't seem as if that aspect made much difference.

I've also never seen so many Cousy turnovers before. We know it happened on bad passes, but they don't show up on the clips I see, and these strips are new to me as well.

[Fencer reregistered]

I agree with the theme about how dribbling is so different, with influences no doubt including rules, spacing, and practice growing up.