schtevie wrote:Mike G wrote:Russell and Magic, while distinctly separated from the rest of the pack, seemingly owe their popularity to their success via their teams. The purpose of the poll is to rank the player, not the team(s) they were on. There's obviously some interaction; but we're here in a stats forum, and player stats are available. We've seen no actual arguments that Magic or Russell were solely or primarily responsible for many championships. They were primary members of teams that had multiple star players. Let's get quantitative in the next round.
Ai yi yi yi yi yi! Mike, are you trolling your own poll?
No actual arguments that Russell might have had something significant to do with all those championships? Not sure about this particular string, but I have been posting them for years, decades, centuries, millennia! Inadvertently perhaps you have exposed the offensive bias in this whole exercise (what Philosopher alludes to).
With Russell, the primary evidence (discounting every story, the conventional wisdom, and the fact that defense was the only true calling card of the Celtics'/Russell dynasty) is the before and after: prior to him joining the Celtics, they were mediocre (slightly below average) on defense, and afterwards, they were the best in the NBA (an estimated swing of about 4.6 points per 100 possessions, compared to NBA average). Similarly, immediately after his retirement, the Celtics got a lot worse (4.4 worse on the same score - despite maintaining a couple, future HOFers on the roster).
We can go into greater detail here on this very question if you wish. We can identify the star (HOF) players who joined contemporaneously, only to see their net effect being a decrease in offensive productivity (the Celtics really were all about the defense). And all that might be interesting. But the argument that there is no argument that Russell was not solely or primarily responsible for many championships is rather amazing. (And Magic's is a related and not-dissimilar story).
On Russell, the “before after” story posited with him is missing a number of salient points. The first being Boston’s increase in performance came with him missing a significant portion of the season and winning a better percentage of games with him away. Then when he left it coincided with the leaving of Sam Jones and the rapid falling off of Bailey Howell, one of the “couple, future hall of famers” who they retained (more on this shortly).
The loss of Russell and Jones meant Boston went from a “win now” team to a “build for the future” team. Thus Don Chaney, then shooting 36% started taking a portion of Larry Siegfried (competent playmaker and another of those Russell teammates with a strong defensive reputation)’s minutes.
Howell’s falloff is a major issue in the drop off too. Whether it was age, the less competitive situation, inferior playmaking or the absence of Russell we can’t be absolutely certain, but I’d credit them in roughly that order with Russell’s absence having minimal direct impact (indirectly influencing through worse playmaking a little, and competitiveness significantly).
You acknowledge that Boston got worse on offense Russell’s arrival, but suggest that it implies Heinsohn and Ramsey likely a negative impact. Let’s say we ignore that Boston got off to a tremendous start without Russell. And that Russell played fifth most minutes on the team. Let’s say, voters who thought Cousy and Heinsohn provided value were wrong, let’s say Russell provided ALL the value. Ramsey, fresh off national service probably wasn’t much help that year because of limited total minutes (though from a swing position he provided an uncommon degree of shooting accuracy). But the fall off in offense comes from Macauley to Russell (and Risen), it is entirely possible that Heinsohn and Ramsey cushioned that fall from being worse. Is that not likely? That a team would be significantly hurt on offense by going from a .510 ts% 19 points per 36 (17.5 per game) to a center that shoots .450 ts%, 15 points per 36 (14.7 per game)
Then as league shooting percentages raise and offensive stalwarts such as Sharman and Ramsey go, Boston win increasingly more with defense. But given how far Russell is off the median (never mind the Wilt inflated mean) production from centers in terms of scoring production (usage and efficiency) in this era, and given that Boston added/increased minutes for a number of defensive stalwarts (K.C., Sanders and Havlicek) why would Russell wholly cover the positive differential between Boston and .500.
“Again, this does not mean that there weren't one or more individual standouts, even, very likely, HoF-worthy (in the meritocratic sense) teammates. But, no, they cannot have been collectively above average (in a +/- sense) unless you are prepared to say that Russell wasn't what we think he was on defense and that he was a distinctly bad offensive player. That's just the way it is.”
You’re saying if someone thinks Boston’s supporting cast was above average (above .500, given an average center?) then we have to be saying Russell is worse than what “we think he is”? Which we? Previous thought? Has all credit for Boston’s dynasty previously been wholly upon Bill Russell?
As for being a bad offensive player we don’t know offensive boards or turnovers but compared to other 30mpg centers he looked like a significant drag in terms of “usage” (shots taken) and efficiency (ts%). See a previous post for how consistently Russell was the worst such center in these areas.
jbrocato23 wrote:Mike G wrote:but we're here in a stats forum, and player stats are available. We've seen no actual arguments that Magic or Russell were solely or primarily responsible for many championships. They were primary members of teams that had multiple star players. Let's get quantitative in the next round.
There is an added difficulty in evaluating pre-1970s players using individual stats because the information we have is so limited. I made a post earlier that I think demonstrated the significance of Russell's impact by showing the HUGE defensive leap the Celtics made in 1957 despite having generally the same players besides Russell. Those Celtics continued to get better defensively, reaching historically great levels as Russell entered his prime and began do decline as he started to exit his prime, then took a huge hit in 1970, after he retired.
But if you want individual stats, ok. Bill Russell rates as having the 8th best career rating (which takes rs, playoffs, and longevity into account) and the 10th highest impact (per 100 possessions) according to my box score rating. And that's not even accounting for blocks and steals (which weren't recorded yet). Thus, I'm nearly certain that Russell is very underrated defensively by the metric (and should be closer, perhaps to +1 better). In that case, he'd be a top 5 per 100 poss and very likely a top 3-4 career rating.
Re: Magic - did he have
that much more help than the other guys we have in our top 5?
I think as a group we may be overrating Kareem. And this goes back to the reasons bchaikin illustrated in his post: his teams only made the playoffs once in the bridge between Oscar and Magic, a somewhat shocking revelation considering a) of the people we have voted for here, only Wilt (once), Oscar (twice), Iverson (twice), and Kareem (twice) failed to make the playoffs in injury-free seasons during their prime, and b) could you imagine a scenario where Lebron or Jordan fail to make the playoffs in their mid-20s?? Additionally, Kareem was unstoppable on offense yes, but is there evidence he had the defensive impact of other great centers? He was also a relatively poor rebounder and wasn't really willing to bang down low.
What's more, you simply can't overlook that Magic played with Kareem when Kareem was past his prime. The youngest version Magic got to play with was 32. He was still a terrific big, but 1980 (magic's rookie year)
may have been the only year Kareem was the best big in the league in the Magic era and the Lakers didn't really miss a beat after Kareem's retirement in 1989.
Additionally, Magic is one of two players in league history that, in his prime, would have been a top 5 player in the league at four positions. He has the sixth highest ast% of all time (4 of the top 5 haven't retired yet, btw and could move down), he's one of the best rebounding guards of all time, and he had a sky high ts%, averaged over 20 multiple times and though his primary skill was creating scoring opportunities for his teammates, he proved time and again that he could take over games scoring when he needed to.
His effect was also seen at a team level. In '79 the Lakers were a +2.9 (and +2.3 of offense). Their starting lineup was Nixon-Hudson-Dantley-Wilkes-Kareem. In 1980, they replaced a young Dantley, aging-star Hudson, and Jim Price off the bench with rookie Magic, servicable big Jim Chones, and aging-star Spencer Haywood off the bench. And voila - the team is a +5.6 (and +4.2 on offense). But Magic wasn't near his prime yet. Luckily for us, and luckily for AIDS awareness, but not luckily for Lakers fans or the league, Magic abruptly left his team during his prime and thus we get to see the effect: in 1991 the Lakers, whose starting lineup was Magic-Scott-Worthy-Perkins-Divac, were a +7.1. In 1992, the Lakers' starting lineup was Threatt-Scott-Worthy-Perkins-Campbell (yes Divac missed substantial time, but Elden Campbell was a very good center, specifically on defense), and before Worthy went down with a late season injury, they were a -1.5. Spin that how you want but Magic's success to the Lakers was HUGELY important.
Re Kareem (and Magic’s help): Kareem regardless of his age, was plausibly the best Laker into the mid-80s. Yes they “didn’t miss a beat” when he retired, because by the last year Kareem was nothing special and they got Divac to pair with Thompson. LA still had Worthy, Scott, Green, Cooper, Thompson, Divac and Woolridge. A solid supporting cast. But yes he certainly did well to make that team a very serious contender. But he didn’t play up to that standard throughout his career. Magic 79-86 and 86-91 (single year fluctuations aside) are different players (usage up, turnovers down, assist% up, shooting %s at least stable whilst I believe percentages were falling league wide and despite the uptick in usage and, towards the end, slowing pace). And I’d be uncomfortable taking a team’s with/without a certain player as a clear indication of their value when the team doesn’t have a chance to replace them (e.g. player is injured/suspended, or in this case Magic’s sudden retirement). It was a team built around having a Magic like player. Now yes in some ways that seems like “Well, Magic made those players valuable”. But if a team loses its pg of over a decade, has to change its offense, loses its first option and a huge matchup headache; if a team built on continuity (Scott and Worthy had started on three champs with Magic) loses all that, with no proper chance to figure out how to replace it can we say Magic provided all that value? Or just that his presence in that particular situation was of roughly that value. That’s assuming the psychology of losing him in that manner did nothing, too. Not to say he wasn’t great. But I wouldn’t credit his ability for the full fall off because of so much chemistry-lineup stuff. And I couldn’t put him top 5 because he was an, at best, average defender, he didn’t have the greatest longevity in an era when he could have and honestly I just think Oscar was better.
As for Kareem’s D and rebounding, considering his considerable all-defense awards, 4 blocks titles (plus 6 playoff bpg titles by basketball-reference’s reckoning, for what that’s worth) plus all the blocks that weren’t counted at his athletic apex, and his early career rebounds and 3rd place in NBA career rebounds, well, they’re hardly to be sniffed at.
schtevie wrote:Mike, for some reason I am now strangely optimistic that we can reach a common understanding, if not agreement. How I am approaching this matter is from the most general +/- perspective: seeing how the Celtics performed over time, both offensively and defensively, both before and after the Russell tenure, and trying to draw the most reasonable inferences from the information at hand, both statistical and "anecdotal" (e.g. Russell was understood to be a great defensive player, but on offense, not so much.)
If you do this, the clear picture you get is as has been described:
(1) Coincident with Russell's arrival and departure, the Celtics took a discrete and large step up and down in defensive performance.
(2) Team defensive performance approximates the typical arc of a player aging curve.
(3) Team offensive performance throughout the dynasty was strictly mediocre and showed no obvious correlation with the passage of time.
(4) Bill Russell was the only constant of the era.
From these facts, Occam's razor sez to me that, yup, it really was "all" Bill Russell. Now, by this I absolutely do not mean that there weren't other great players on the Celtics during their run. For relatively recent years, where the empirical record is fullest, it is clear that no NBA team has ever won a championship without more than one well above average player. So it was likely with the Russell-led Celtics.
What I am stating, however, is that it is very likely that Bill Russell's +/- profile fully "explains" the Celtics' performance in each and every year of the dynasty. Specifically, I am supposing that his overall "true" +/- (were it known) would be approximately equal to or larger than the overall Celtics ORtg - DRtg. And second, that this would also be true for the defensive component in each and every year.
Do we agree?
But responding to your specific points, you raise the issue of why the Celtics would dedicate so many player minutes to apparent non-scorers if these players weren't also providing value on defense. And my answer is now as expected. I am not saying that in a +/- world that other players on the Celtics weren't positive contributors. To the contrary, and a pretty good guess could be made as to who those were. Similarly, I am not saying that there weren't positive contributors on offense. In assembling a team you do the best with the talent pool that is available.
What I am saying is that whatever the other positive contributions on defense, when summed with the negative ones of other teammates, they were incidental to team defensive success (i.e. Russell's contribution was sufficient). And I am also saying that on offense, the positive contributions, summing with the negative ones (what quite probably included those of Bill Russell), averaged a bit less than zero over the dynasty.
And nothing I write should be considered that controversial. To make the matter less abstract, let's consider the NBA champion most akin to the Celtics dynasty in its prime, as previously alluded to, the 2004 Detroit Pistons. There you had the defensive anchor, a specialist, whose +/- contributions fully "explain" the team's success. Using Jeremias' numbers, Ben Wallace's contributions, prorating for minutes played (what approximates possession weights), were -0.8 on offense and +7.6 on defense, essentially equalling the team difference from the NBA averages of -0.9 and +7.5.
But on that team as well were several good to great defensive players. Rasheed Wallace, who should be in the HoF one day on the merits but probably won't, came in at the end (hence limited minutes) and brought 0.6, Elden Campbell and Mehmet Okur also didn't play major minutes but their contributions were positive (0.5 and 0.4). However, these defensive contributions were cancelled out by the greater minutes played by the likes of Richard Hamilton (-1.3), Corliss Williamson (-0.6) and Chauncey Billups (-0.5). (And I am not stipulating that these particular contributions are "exact".)
But this is not to pick on Chauncey. He too is HoF worthy, and almost surely will be a first ballot inductee. If not for him and his +2.4 on offense, Detroit would have been in big trouble. Still, on net, Detroit's offense was mediocre, just as was the Celtics, averaged over Russell's 13 years.
So, I hope my argument is now clear. The Celtics dynasty was the Russell dynasty. And on the same terms the 2004 Pistons is owed to (accounted for by) Ben Wallace alone.
Wait, Ben Wallace fully explained Detroit’s above-averageness in ‘04?
Any reason why Detroit with the four other starters in place (admittedly Sheed for a full season), in 07-08 were (+)6.67 SRS without Ben Wallace. That is to say with the same core they remained about the same (substantial) distance above average and previously that was all provided by Big Ben, and later it was from the players who played most of the minutes that brought no net value above .500?
I’m not unsympathetic to the idea that some of the members of the Boston Dynasty have been overrated, or that defense is underrated in compiling these sort of rankings. But when we’re hypothesizing that Ben Wallace’s negative impact on an offense, whilst offering a .441 ts% on 15.3% usage, was marginal, I’m not convinced. And then taking that approach back to an era where a lot of data is missing to conclude that Russell won all Boston’s titles single-handed.
