MisterWestside wrote:All told, at EVERY step of the way we see evidence that continues to suggest that Chamberlain, despite putting up big Raw Box numbers, was not helping the team's offense to a large degree.
I always enjoy reading your posts, but do you think that this is necessarily a flaw with Wilt, or team strategy and construct?
I could be a good basketball player. But if I play alongside someone who at least appears to be a better scorer than I am, I'd probably feed him the ball more often too, and tend to do more ball-watching instead of playing as I usually would. In a world of perfect game theory, this should allow other players to pick their spots on the floor and become more efficient (and there's ample evidence for that), but of course the ways in which teams work with their stars can be a factor in offensive output.
Well, if you are suggesting that in the 1960's, people were more prone to ball-watching because one guy was so good one-on-one, you might have some traction to work with. I have no idea if that's more plausible than today, but I can see an era argument to be made.
In general, it's clearly a flaw with the player though. "Goodness" is application of skillset and how that impacts the Global Offense and Defense. Basketball isn't a 1-on-1 game. This is EXACTLY why everyone should be thinking about the way in which in a volume scorer impacts the game (not all volume scorers are created equal). Portability is key -- how well can you IMPACT a variety of good teams -- and volume scorers often aren't that Portable, especially The Isolationists.
Carmelo Anthony is a great example today. Or Adrian Dantley in the 80's.
These are great 1 on 1 players, but the Global impact isn't there because they can't elevate their teammate scoring opportunities. So what you'll see is something like this from many volume scorers-- what I've referred to as Iverson's Law in the past:
-volume scorer joins bad offense that has no shot creators
-volume scorer helps make bad offense roughly average
-same volume scorer joins average offense
-same volume scorer does not improve average offense by much, or any, at all
(Look at this study http://www.basketball-reference.com/blog/?p=9497 -- you can note that on 150 sub 107 ORTG teams, losing the inefficient volume scorer hurts the offense by an average of 2.8 points/100. On the 56 107+ ORTG teams, the team got BETTER by 3.7 points/100.)
Why does this happen?
Because there is only one ball; Offensive success in basketball isn't a summation of all 5 player's abilities to win a 1-on-1 game. On bad teams, having someone who can score 1-on-1 gives the team a reliable scoring option, but that scoring option often alone isn't enough to bolster efficiency through the roof. In other words, great 1-on-1 scorers don't shoot 70% while bad ones shoot 30%. The differences are much smaller. This means in the team dynamic, adding such a player will help a bad club. But on teams where they are already at that level of scoring, adding such a player might not help much at all, because to get to that level, players need to be helping other players score in some way.
I'll provide an example here to illustrate this...
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Bad Team
-Other 4 players barely help each other score more because they aren't very good.
-Add 5th player who is the same.
Let's say the team's overall TS% gets to 52% with all 5. With 3 and 2 super scrubs, it's 51%. With 4 and a super scrub, it's 51.5%. All 5 hit 52%. Offensive Rating -- assuming constant LA TOV% and OREB% rates -- is 103.8 (-3.4 in 2011).
--Now replace 5th player with a volume scorer who has no impact on what the other players do because he just plays 1-on-1. He shoots 58% TS and takes 25 True shots a game.
Team's overall ORtg would then jump to to 106.3 (-0.9) by adding this 29 ppg 58% TS player if that player had no impact on his teammate's getting good shots.
No volume scorer: 103.8 ORtg (-3.4)
Add volume scorer: 106.3 ORtg (-0.9)
Good Team
-Other 4 players shoot 55% TS and each help each other get open shots, marginally
-Add 5th player who is exactly the same
Let's say that makes the overall TS% 55%. To get to above average, these players are helping each other get good shots. 3 of them and 2 scrubs might shoot 52%. 4 and 1 scrub 53.5% and all 5 hit 55%. Each uses his marginal ability to score to help his teammates score.
--Now replace 5th player with a volume scorer who has no impact on what the other players do because he just plays 1-on-1. He shoots 58% TS and takes 25 True shots a game.
This might make the other 4 players shoot 53.5%, as it did with the scrub on the court. It also could quite easily make them shoot worse, because while the scrub didn't score or create, he also didn't touch the basketball much. He didn't occupy possessions the way the volume scorer does. Nonetheless, let's assume the number stays at 53.5% for the other 4 players.
No volume scorer: 109.7 ORtg (+2.5)
Add volume scorer: 109.2 ORtg (+2.0)
Voila. The exact same, 29 ppg 58% TS player that so clearly helped a bad offense team by not impacting his teammates one bit will actually hurt a good offensive team by not impacting his teammates one bit.
Note, this would never happen if the volume scorer was good enough. He could play 1-on-1, and impact any team basically. Take the exact same scenario above but make the volume scorer a 70% TSer (would average 35 ppg). Even at still 25 TSA's per game, the numbers would then go:
Bad team new ORtg: 112.8 (+5.6)
Good team new ORtg: 115.7 (+8.5)
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So coming back to Wilt, (1) I don't see evidence that he created well. (2) There is NO evidence that he volume scored like the video game I just described, despite pace inflating the numbers for people to gawk at for decades. And it's most certainly a problem with the player that he doesn't get better shots for his teammates -- that's his own lack of understanding of playing -- and it's something that doesn't plague great offensive players, like Larry Bird.
I was simply thinking of what Bunum or Howard would be like if they had Wilt's ability. Can anyone honestly imagine how that player would 