Why is Bob Cousy so underrated all the time in ATG PG rankings?

[tsherkin]

Mikan, Cousy, Pettit and Schayes were the face of the league until Russell and Chamberlain arrived. You could take every NBA player before 1956-57 and they look mediocre using modern statistical methods-- PER and all of that. It was a different game.

Yes, unless you constrain yourself to using those numbers only from their peers in-era.

[TheBobster]

Cousy's not the only one who gets overlooked when discussing all-time greats. So do the other members of the Silver Anniversary team - Mikan, Pettit, Schayes, Arizin, Fulks, Jones, Davies and Sharman (Russell is the only one who gets his due, Mikan is sometimes mentioned as an afterthought).

[70sFan]

Wait, Baylor played off-ball just like any other 1960s star. It was a different era and players shared the ball far more frequently than now. There was no heliocentric offense concept during that time.

I have one game from Baylor's sophomore season. In that game, Elgin played a lot without the ball - running off screens and trying to rebound the ball. It was before Lakers had any notable creator outside of Baylor (no West yet).

I think people are overly harsh on Baylor. He wasn't hyper efficient like West, but he was efficient and saying that some roleplayers were more efficient than him, so he should share his scoring duties sounds quite strange to me. He also had a playoff mode like few other players had. His 1960-63 postseason scoring peak was just absurd and he didn't face a single weak team during that period.

Another thing is that West/Baylor Lakers were always elite on offense, so although maybe Baylor didn't play optimized basketball later in his career, something had to work with their approach. I kind of like Westbrook/Durant comparison, except that Westbrook and Durant peaked at the same time (around 2016), while Baylor started to slow down around 1964, before West reached next level. It wasn't ideal pairing, but they made it work better than most superstars duos and their offense was never concerning.

[tsherkin]

I think people are overly harsh on Baylor. He wasn't hyper efficient like West, but he was efficient and saying that some roleplayers were more efficient than him, so he should share his scoring duties sounds quite strange to me.

Offensive distribution is a thing. He was, for example, far worse than Wilt and Chamberlain's offense was only so valuable to a team.

TBF to Baylor, his relative efficiency was Kobe-ish through 63. Not great, not bad, not a super hot reason to rock that volume, but again, he wasnt Jerry Stackhouse or something. Not an incredible playmaker but pretty good for his position in-era. Baylor does sometimes get the shaft for his raw TS% but yeah, it's more that West was a notably superior offensive focus from basically the word go, but certainly by year two.

[Gooner]

He is underrated because nobody watched him. I mean most of the NBA fan base now consists of people born in late 90's and 2000's. Twitter is the driving force of NBA culture I would say, and mainstream media has adapted to that. That kind of crowd just doesn't give a *** about Bob Cousy.

[Owly]

I don't particularly have a dog in this but that's only one framing ...

I was speaking specifically in the context of Baylor v West and their efficiencies. He only hit 50%+ TS once prior to 68, so it seemed appropriate to look at that as more of an outlier than anything else. Meantime, his FTr dropped every year after his rookie year until 66, so we can kind of see why one part of why that FTr+ was tailing off.

63 was also a notable outlier in his FG% and FT%, which you discussed some.

Baylor's career is more nuanced than just discussion of his scoring efficiency, of course, but that's all I was discussing in that post because it was a specific response to one of 70sFan's posts. Which itself is still only treating a very narrow aspect of both West and Baylor, by design. As you say, the volume was different and we know that extreme volume has an effect on efficiency, for sure. I'm inclined to say he was shooting too much to begin with, which would make sense given prevailing thoughts in-era, but again, it goes beyond all that.

Can't agree that it's an outlier in fg%, it's substantially higher in '70 and adjacent in '69. Going back the above, versus league norms he'd been in that position or slightly better for FG+ for those first three years (and would again be in '70). I'm not even saying you can't argue '63 (overall shooting-wise) as an outlier going from the back of the career (62-72), but nor so that you couldn't argue '62 as a negative outlier on the front end (59-63). It's viable either way.

He didn't hit TS% above 50 in the 50s because he's not an efficiency monster like a Robertson which is a known but also because he was in a lower era. But 107, 106, 106, 103, 105 TS+ ... it's year 4 that looks like the outlier and year 1 would have been well over .500 ts% adjusted and I think it would be over in year three given how close a slightly weaker efficiency year was.

[tsherkin]

Can't agree that it's an outlier in fg%, it's substantially higher in '70 and adjacent in '69.

Yeah, 7 years later on 9 fewer FGA/g in a 54-game season, he shot better. His FG% in 63 is still a marked deviation from his performance over the bulk of his first decade and coupled to the best FT shooting season of his career as well. It's a peak season, not the norm for the player. It wasn't the norm for him during his high-volume seasons. His FG% of course rose as he shot less, that's pretty normal.

He didn't hit TS% above 50 in the 50s because he's not an efficiency monster like a Robertson which is a known but also because he was in a lower era. But 107, 106, 106, 103, 105 TS+ ... it's year 4 that looks like the outlier and year 1 would have been well over .500 ts% adjusted and I think it would be over in year three given how close a slightly weaker efficiency year was.

Yeah but you can't JUST adjust for league-average TS%. His specific role matters a lot, and volume shooting was not his bag. He got better about it when he shot less during the back third of his career, for sure, but that doesn't really translate to the discussion of Baylor v West earlier in his career when he was merrily bombing away at high volume, you know? That's the concern. It's not that Baylor was incapable of playing efficient basketball, it's about him not adapting effectively earlier on with West.

[Owly]

Can't agree that it's an outlier in fg%, it's substantially higher in '70 and adjacent in '69.

Yeah, 7 years later on 9 fewer FGA/g in a 54-game season, he shot better. His FG% in 63 is still a marked deviation from his performance over the bulk of his first decade and coupled to the best FT shooting season of his career as well. It's a peak season, not the norm for the player. It wasn't the norm for him during his high-volume seasons. His FG% of course rose as he shot less, that's pretty normal.

63 was also a notable outlier in his FG%

Yes it's a different role (though 9 fewer FGA/g ... there's more than 4 more possessions per game, are you really wedded to raw numbers?). But the statement wasn't this was a clear high amongst his early career highest primacy seasons or any variation thereof.

I've already said FT%.

He didn't hit TS% above 50 in the 50s because he's not an efficiency monster like a Robertson which is a known but also because he was in a lower era. But 107, 106, 106, 103, 105 TS+ ... it's year 4 that looks like the outlier and year 1 would have been well over .500 ts% adjusted and I think it would be over in year three given how close a slightly weaker efficiency year was.

Yeah but you can't JUST adjust for league-average TS%. His specific role matters a lot, and volume shooting was not his bag. He got better about it when he shot less during the back third of his career, for sure, but that doesn't really translate to the discussion of Baylor v West earlier in his career when he was merrily bombing away at high volume, you know? That's the concern. It's not that Baylor was incapable of playing efficient basketball, it's about him not adapting effectively earlier on with West.[/quote]
One could just as well say "You can't JUST use raw percentages". And I think whilst there's some truth in both depending on the context in which it is used, nuances etc, I think the latter generally the better statement. I can say Bob Feerick is a bad shooter because of his FG% or say that he was dominant within his era and I'd argue the latter is a lot more relevant, pertinent and perhaps accurate. It's possible Baylor was already being left behind and then had a fluke year. But it's possible that he remained a solid efficiency high volume scorer (arguably a playoff resilient one) through '63 who got slowed after by wear and injuries.

On "volume shooting was not his bag" ... look I'm a lower playoff weighter than the vast majority, the West was bad, Baylor was once overrated ... Baylor has 4 straight playoff runs with a playoff TS% above .500, at high volume, two of those featuring extended series with Boston (which at a first eyeball don't look bad). One can question whether his scoring value was as great as it may have been perceived or whether mid 60s roles were always properly commensurate with his skill relative to teammates (again, I haven't seen these offenses) but in his prime I think scoring very much was one of Baylor's bags.

I don't know how the injuries line up with Baylor's decline, I haven't read the biographies on him yet and footage is limited ... there's a lot missing to my knowledge of his career arc. But you seem to be pushing debates had with others regarding West (I don't know how there offense work or how it could have optimally worked) and reiterated free throw accuracy point I made but there does still seem to be still a defense of this year ('63) is the outlier and I think '62 (when Baylor is, let us not forget, playing at weekends and on leave whilst having been called up to active duty at Fort Lewis and players a smaller number and percentage of games to the amount you chose to mention contextualizing '70 [this is not to mention the impact on loss of practice etc]) is also viable.

[tsherkin]

Yes it's a different role (though 9 fewer FGA/g ... there's more than 4 more possessions per game, are you really wedded to raw numbers?). But the statement wasn't this was a clear high amongst his early career highest primacy seasons or any variation thereof.

I think it's relevant because of the effort which goes into generating that many more shots per game. Efficiency changes with volume, so I think 9 FGA matter a fair bit, yes.

in his prime I think scoring very much was one of Baylor's bags.

It was certainly his focal role. And yes, his PS efficiency mostly inversely correlates with his regular season efficiency. But West was more efficient from the word go in the playoffs and of course a better playmaker, and largely a better postseason scorer as well.

Ultimately this comes down to the idea others stated about Baylor not really adjusting his role early enough to adapt to having West around. Now, you can argue some of the finer details of exactly when would have been appropriate and all that, for sure, but I think it's reasonably clear that West was a much better offensive player, and pretty quickly. More specifically to our discussion, I think it's pretty clear that 63 stands out rather noticeably relative to his whole first decade. I don't consider that much of a contestable point. It's the second-highest TS% of his career on the third-highest volume of his career during the only 80-game season he ever played while he shot the highest FG% he ever managed a dramatic reduction in volume in an injury-shortened season...

That's one hell of a run-on sentence, but the number of things which lined up for him really clicked that year. It was a fantastic season, really.

Baylor was good. He gets a bunch of grief for being so far back, and here for his raw TS% and stuff, but he was clearly pretty good in-era. My comments come specifically on the heels of Doc and 70sFan going back and forth about Baylor's efficacy and not adapting on West's arrival.

[SinceGatlingWasARookie]

Most rankings have Magic/Curry/Oscar/West/IT/John Stockton/CP3/Nash/Kidd... but where do people put Bob Cousy? He is not a SG and his personal/team accolades and longevity are too great to be not in top 5.

Is he discredited because of the Celtics super team or people think Bill Russell should take all the credit?

Bob Cousy: 6x Championships, 1x MVP, 13x all star, 10x 1st team all-nba, 2x 2nd team all-nba, 8x Assist champion...

Cousy might bee a top 10 of all time passer.

Cousy can’t shoot at all. Horrible shooter who did not know to stop shooting when the Celtics and the league became better shooters than he was. In the 1950s Cousy’s horrible shooting might have been normal. The 1960s NBA still shot horrible but not as horrible as Cousy. Do we give Cousy a pass for his horrible shooting because of the era?

I am not a rings guy. I don’t put Robert Horry above Karl Malone for rings so I don’t care about Cousy’s championships.

I don’t think Cousy’s speed and athleticism would be good by modern standards.