Duncan vs Garnett

Some dialogue:

Josh Markovic (Mimmiville): Can we finally come the realization the KG is much better than Tim Duncan?

John Hollinger: That annoying 4-0 deficit in championship rings is putting a bit of a dent in your case.

I don't think either player is "much" better than the other by any reasonable definition, and this sort of ring-based argument (by which logic Robert Horry is better than KG or Charles Barkley) gets tossed around all the time, but is this really what we need from ESPN's stats specialist? Couldn't Hollinger at least have made a reference to PER? Well, since I want to try out my new copy of Numbers here's a PER comparison:

The striking thing is that Hollinger's arbitrary formula actually backs up his rather silly line of argument. Out of the ten seasons Garnett and Duncan have both been in the league, Duncan has been better than Garnett six times and Duncan has won the championship four times, and Duncan was better than Garnett in all four of his championship seasons. Of course, Hollinger's same formula says Garnett 2006 was better than Duncan 2006, Duncan 1999, or Duncan 2001 and it didn't get Garnett a ring. Indeed, Hollinger's formula says Garnett reached a level of excellence in 2004 and 2005 that Duncan's never reached. Now that's hardly the last word in this debate, but since it's Hollinger's own formula you'd think he could make some reference to it.

Comments

Interesting graph...maybe we can arrange for an NBA finals involving both of them this year?

The argument about championship rings makes a lot of sense...if you think Trent Dilfer was a better QB than Dan Marino. If, say, the Pats win the Super Bowl this year and Junior Seau finally gets a championship ring, does this season somehow outweigh the decade he had with the Chargers when he was the dominant LB in the NFL?

I know basketball is a bit more individual-driven than football, but still, even Kareem by himself only won one ring before he hooked up with Magic. Even Jordan by himself could not get past the first round until a supporting cast came along.

Or...to put it yet another way: Dennis Rodman has five rings. Is he more accomplished than KG? OR, since 5 > 4, is his career more impressive than Tim Duncan's?

Posted by Whispers | November 14, 2007 7:39 AM

Wally Walker, president and general manager of the Sonics, nailed 2 (count 'em) 2 rings in his first three seasons, the first as a deep bench rookie in Portland, and the second with Seattle while putting in at least some court time.

Joining the elite ranks of those with more than one NBA ring, based on the luck of the draft and a fortuitous trade. 'Wally Wonderful' is, as you will confess, not a hall of famer. He is a lucky guy.

Number of rings is so often based on such fortune. More significant is the player's more subjective role in in taking those rings, on which scale, whatever else you think, Tim Duncan is among the all-time elite.

Posted by drinkof | November 14, 2007 8:51 AM

Hollinger's argument here, of course, implicitly accepts the undeniable fact that his PER statistic is a rough measure at best with little to no experimental backing indicating that it means much of anything.

It's like the QB rating in the NFL--it's a rough measure that arbitraily combines a bunch of disparate statistics into a single number, but there's no real justification for the different weighting values used. Since it correlates positivle with all the good statistics, better players generally have a better PER, but there's no reason to think PER is a good way to distinguish between the values provided by two particular players.

Posted by Doug T | November 14, 2007 8:53 AM

Should have referred to Walker as 'former' in his job with the Sonics.

Posted by drinkof | November 14, 2007 8:55 AM

This argument is much like the argument of 30 years ago as to who was the better center, Bill Russell or Wilt Chamberlain. In terms of statistics, the latter was obviously superior. In terms of winning, which after all is the purpose of competing in any sport, the former was superior. The fact is that one of the prerequisites for judging a basketball player is an assessment of whether his presence on the court makes the other players on the team perform better. This is a concept that is extremely difficult to judge, based on statistics. In this regard, Chamberlain only became Russells' equal late in his career (as I recall, the year that Chamberlain averaged more then 50 ppg, the Philadelphia team lost most of their games).

Posted by SLC | November 14, 2007 9:00 AM

based on statistics.

Or, you know, period. Hollinger's argument makes a certain sense if he's first limiting the pool of compared players to the "roughly equals" as identified by other means. And I think that's what's usually meant by such arguments.

That said, I think it's still a pretty bad argument. It's just that it's not clear to me what would be a better argument.

Posted by SomeCallMeTim | November 14, 2007 9:06 AM

To isolate a player's performance from his teammates' contribution, how about some sort of the difference between his team's net score per minute with him in the game vs him sitting on the bench?

I realize that this isn't readily calculated using the usual compiled stats, but the official game accounts should have all the info and converting them into a machine-readible format should be doable.

Posted by Matt B | November 14, 2007 9:15 AM

"The argument about championship rings makes a lot of sense...if you think Trent Dilfer was a better QB than Dan Marino. "

While I agree with the sarcasm here to some extent, there is more of a difference between playoff and regular season basketball than football. Rather than looking at regular season PER numbers, comparing playoff game PER numbers would be more illuminating.

Posted by Njorl | November 14, 2007 9:22 AM

I think some people have toyed with the plus/minus stat you mention, Matt B. (It's a major stat in hockey.) I think there are two main problems with applying it to basketball. First is the fact that the star players tend to play the great majority of minutes in a game (unlike hockey.)

When all of your starters are playing 30-36 minutes per night out of a possible 48, then untangling the contributions of each of them individually based on the 12 minutes they're not playing is tricky, I think.

The second main problem is that minutes played aren't distributed randomly. good coaches tend to have fairly fixed rotations, with the same players subbing out at at roughly the same times. So there's a further complication is trying to analyze individual contributions. Further, coaches will work match-ups so that their starters tend to play against the opposition starters, while the subs are all in at the same time as well.

A related point is the problem of accounting for minutes in blowout games. Subs will get a lot of minutes in games like this, but the quality of play tends to be a lot sloppier. If you have a 20 point lead and are coasting at the end of the game, and it gets cut to 10 points in the last 2 minutes, it screws up the plus/minue stat for guys on both sides, without meaning anything.

Posted by Doug T | November 14, 2007 9:24 AM

and Duncan was better than Garnett in all four of his championship seasons

Um, no. The Spurs won in 2005, when Garnett had a better PER than Duncan.

More importantly, though, the "ring-based argument" doesn't say that a scrub with a ring is better than a star without a ring. Rather, it forms part of the argument given two players of approximately equal ability. Hakeem vs. Patrick. Or Wilt vs. Russell. Not Patrick vs. Luc Longley. Can we get a little nuance here and dispense with the straw-based argument?

Posted by Al | November 14, 2007 9:59 AM

What Al Said.

Posted by Armando | November 14, 2007 10:02 AM

The real question, it seems to me, is if you switched Garnett and Duncan's teams for their entire careers, how many championships would each have?

My sense is Duncan and the T-wolves would have won in 2004, while Garnett probably doesn't have 4 with the Spurs, but that's just hopeless speculation.

Posted by right | November 14, 2007 10:03 AM

As Hollinger often reminds his readers, PER doesn't measure defensive value. Duncan is generally considered to be among the best 2 or 3 defenders in the league.

Posted by Sam Penrose | November 14, 2007 10:11 AM

Duncan is not necessarily better, but he is more valuable becasue he is a back-to-the-basket low post player, which helps a team more than a face up jumper guy like Garnett. In fact, a dominant back-to-the-basket low post player is probably the #1 most important factor in winning NBA titles. Not that you can't win without one, but if you have one your odds increase. Why? Becasue a BTTBLPP sucks defenders close to the basket, creating all kinds of room for the other 4 to operate. They also shoot a high percentage, get a lot of offensive rebounds and get fouled a lot.

Posted by cw | November 14, 2007 10:14 AM

I have seen KG's supposed "plus/minus" and if memory serves in 2006 he was well into negative territory. Which only shifts the argument, because the whole team was well into negative territory. To say "Duncan is generally considered to be among the 2 or 3 best defenders in the league" is true. So is KG. On numerous occasions in head-to-head competition Duncan's numbers have been better than KG's.

Posted by Edward, the mad shirt grinder | November 14, 2007 10:27 AM

It is pretty unfair to look at the rings argument in this case, especially as the Spurs front office is at the cutting edge and the Wolves front office managed to lose itself every first round pick for several years for a role player. Garnett never got to play with another post player anything close to big Dave, nor with a coach as competent as Pop, nor with a cast as talented and versatile as the Spurs have now.

Duncan and Garnett met in the first round in 1999, and the Spurs were wiping the floor with them in game three or four, and Garnett got lose and unleashed a beautiful dunk right in Duncan's face. And KG yelled and screamed all the way up the floor. Duncan looked at him bemused, looked at the scoreboard, and smiled.

In 2003, on the last play of game five against the Lakers, series tied 2-2, Lakers were down two. Horry inbounds to Kobe in the corner, and Bowen has him locked up in the corner. Robinson inexplicably rotates off Shaq in the post to trap Kobe, forcing Duncan to rotate to the post to prevent the easy dunk, leaving Horry wide open for the wing three, which bricked. Spurs win, go to LA and crush the Lakers, win the title, all is good.

As they are walking off the floor, the sideline reporter asks to talk to Duncan. Robinson screwed up on the defense, and Duncan made the correct play and got lucky. The reporter asks Tim what he was thinking leaving Big Shot Rob wide open, and Tim says, "I can't believe I did that. It was totally my fault."

I don't think there can be much debate that Garnett is the freakier specimen. Duncan is the consummate team player. He finds a way to be effective whatever the situation. He understands the strengths and weaknesses of every teammate on the roster, and all he ever cares about is winning the game. When your best player is that team-first, that uninterested in personal stats or glory, then the rest of the team has to fall in line.

So Garnett can get the nod in terms of the big man with most basketball skills. But Duncan brings so much more to the table than basketball skills that really, the statistics will never be able to capture his contribution.

Posted by Curtis | November 14, 2007 10:43 AM

I'd like to see dirk nowitzki included in this discussion. In the past 3 seasons, Dirk's PER average has been better than either Garnett or Duncan.

Dirk- 27.2
Duncan- 25.3
Garnett 26.3

Furthermore, Dirk outplayed Duncan in the most recent Mavs-Spurs playoff series.

Posted by mathias b | November 14, 2007 10:51 AM

What is it about online chats that makes reporters and analysts express themselves like complete idiots? Are they really all so dumb without time to edit? I mean, really, even though there is a germ of a point there (KG and Duncan aren't just random players, they've been the leaders and best players on their respective teams* for close to a decade each, which implies that their leadership is implicated by the ring stat), it's a terrible response to the question.

* Minnesota in the case of KG, of course.

Posted by Aaron S. Veenstra | November 14, 2007 11:12 AM

Will Fennis Dembo come on down?

Posted by JW | November 14, 2007 12:07 PM

No, Duncan on the Wolves in 2004 would not have resulted in a championship. That team had mediocre depth at best, and would have been just as doomed with Duncan, the moment Cassell was injured in the playoffs.

People who make ring arguments when debating the virtues of individual players are being idiotic, although it has a little more validity in basketball than it does in football or baseball. Having said that, I might have a very small preference for Duncan, because as was noted above, there are some strategic advantages in having a player who is absolutely dominant with his back to the basket. I am still rooting hard for the Celtics this year.

Posted by Will Allen | November 14, 2007 12:08 PM

Wilt Chamberlain was a much better basketball player than Bill Russell. The "ultimate winner" had quite a team behind him and the best coach.

Posted by Freddie | November 14, 2007 12:18 PM

Duncan is generally considered to be among the best 2 or 3 defenders in the league.

Wow. Doubt that. He's a very good defender in a very good defensive scheme. But he regularly plays the crappier of the offensive bigs. To save foul trouble, I think.

As cw and will allen noted, Duncan's a genuine post player on offense and that's a decent reason to favor him.

Posted by SomeCallMeTim | November 14, 2007 12:31 PM

Wilt Chamberlain was a much better basketball player than Bill Russell.

Wilt was a much better offensive player than Russell. I think the latter has to be given the edge on defense, however, and defense, as we all know, wins championships. I think if your offense is significantly better than your opponent's, and your defense is not quite as good, you're the better player. But not a "much" better player. Also, remember, while no doubt Russell usually had more talented teammates surrounding him, this fact also, quite naturally, affected his numbers. In other words, Wilt's numbers were inflated -- and Russel's deflated -- by the talent surrounding them. Bottom line: Bill Russell was the best player in each of his twelve seasons on a squad that won ten banners. I'm willing to give Wilt the edge -- he truly was magnificent -- but I don't think that edge is a big one.

Posted by Jasper | November 14, 2007 1:19 PM

as for the straw man, i agree. we're talking whether two guys who play roughly the same position in the same conference and are their team's superstars can be compared on the basis of playoff success in a game with only 5 players, where centers/forwards tend to dominate. the answer is yes, obviously.

you really think tmac is just the same as kobe, aside from the unfortunate happenstance of not having played with shaq? or that dirk really is just as valuable as duncan, just unfortunately hasn't been surrounded by the right players? heck, i even fault garnett for not getting out of minnie sooner.

i suppose it's fun to fight the obvious, but why does everyone credit jordan's will/desure to win as what made him the GOAT, effectively saying that intangibles are what made him the best, that he was a winner/clutch, while ignoring the same logic for a player like duncan, who just keeps on winning, despite being in the hardest conference, against shaq/kobe for years, w/o help near bird/magic level, and giving kg a pass for failing to do same?

and rings are a stat too, right? i mean, is there really a more valuable stat than winning if you're the superstar/key guy on a team? do you really think starbury is as good as his stats indicate? or do you consider that his teams go nowhere?

related: do you really deny that horry's rings signify he really, really knows how to play? cause he wasn't just on the bench in those games, he was changing them (he effectively won the detroit series for the spurs in game 5). same thing for rodman. neither is the key guy on those championship teams, but they're real contributors, this should give them the edge over people with similar stats/roles.

ps. as for the comment that duncan's not considered one of the 3 best defenders in league? really? have you checked the votes on DPOY? have you seen him play D?

Posted by dj superflat | November 14, 2007 1:51 PM

First of all, I'd choose Duncan by a narrow margin over KG if starting a team today. Please don't hit me - I'll 'splain.

It's funny and fascinating when arguing about these two. Because even though they play technically the same position (PF), they actually don't have much in common in playing styles at all.

They are both basically the Model 2.0 and 3.0 of the Modern Power Forward. If you assume, for example, that Karl Malone was the prototype Old World Dominant PF, KG is the 2.0 model (the mobile havoc-raiser with a freakish combo of strength and guard-like speed). And TD is the 3.0 model, which really in some ways is a return to the classic control-tower center model on both ends of the floor, even though he doesn't technically PLAY center. He's clearly the literal man in the middle of his team's offensive and defensive scheme.

Additionally, they are two of the four best players, period, of the post-Jordan era. (Shaq and Lebron are the other two - yes, all 4 began their careers when MJ was still playing, but hit their primes after he left. Iverson, Nash, and Kidd come very, very close)

So me saying I'd choose Duncan to start my team rather than KG should not be
taken as an insult to KG. I have always loved KG and love him 100-fold more now as a longtime Celtics fan. But Duncan is, to me, a legit Top 10 all-timer. (Wilt, Russell, and Kareem; Bird, Magic, and Jordan; West, Baylor, and Robertson round it out)This is because
of where he plays, how he plays, and the impact he has had. KG is likely Top 20,
maybe even Top 15. No slouch by any means.

So I come not to diss my man KG, perhaps the most exciting big man in the
history of the game. But Duncan seems to give us everything we never got to see longterm from Bill Walton because of the injuries - he's the greatest passing big man ever (along with the Red Head) and is the most ferocious help defender I have ever watched play (there are times in the postseason where he is so dominating on the defensive end it is almost unfair). When you combine with the best low-post defense of his generation and a penchant for making everyone around him better, you have a pretty amazing package.

So if TD is, say, Willie Mays, KG is Frank Robinson. Pretty damn good either way you cut it.

Posted by DT | November 14, 2007 2:08 PM

Wilt Chamberlain was a much better basketball player than Bill Russell. The "ultimate winner" had quite a team behind him and the best coach.

This isn't really true. Wilt, at least once he got away from the Warriors, was on great teams. With the '76'ers, he was surrounded by Lucious Jackson (so good they named an all-girl indie band after him), Chet Walker, Hal Greer, etc. Then he went to the Lakers and they had Jerry West, Elgin Baylor, Gail Goodrich, etc.

Similarly, Wilt was coached by at least 2 great coaches, Bill Sharman and Alex Hannum (both teammates of Phil Jackson's assistant Tex Winter under Sam Berry at USC, interestingly enough), and one very good one, Butch Van Breda Kopff.

Meanwhile, the Celtics were only coached by Auerbach for the first 9 titles. The last two were coached by Russell himself. And the team-- allegedly filled with such huge talent, MISSED THE PLAYOFFS with a losing record the year after Russell retired.

The truth is, Russell is actually a lesson about intangibles. Wilt was a very good basketball player, but he lacked the intangibles that Russell had. Russell went after loose balls, tipped balls to teammates, started fast breaks off blocked shots, set picks from the high posts, and did all sorts of other things that helped win games but which didn't show up in the statistics.

Wilt didn't have those intangibles-- or at least not until very late in his career when he deemphasized scoring and changed his game. And because of that, despite all of his statistical achievements, he was actually not even close to the player Russell was.

Posted by Dilan Esper | November 14, 2007 2:31 PM

DT, an interesting thought experiment is how Spurs management would have built their roster differently if Garnett and Duncan had switched where and when they started their pro careers. I have no doubt that McHale and ownership would likely have managed to foul the situation up if they had been allowed to draft Duncan (although there is an element of bad luck in the Timberwolves history), but I wonder if Spurs management would have done things differently if they had Garnett's skills in place, instead of Duncan's.

Posted by Will Allen | November 14, 2007 2:44 PM

Can we just agree that saying Wilt was "much better" than Russell is just as wrong as saying Wilt was "not even close" to Russell? There's a reason people have been arguing about this for 40-something years. They're very close.

As far as Duncan vs. KG, they're both awesome. I would probably say Duncan gets the slight edge. He's the best PF ever, but that's a cop-out, because he's really a center. He hasn't been a PF since Robinson retired. As a center, Duncan is in the 2nd tier, the Shaq-Hakeem class.

Posted by too many steves | November 14, 2007 2:46 PM

Wilt Chamberlain was a much better basketball player than Bill Russell.

Oh, God. I knew it was a mistake to bring that up. I hereby refer to my comments on the last three or four threads we've had discussing this over the years. And also to Howard's remarks on the subject (as he is probably one of the few here who saw them play).

As to TD-KG, I don't know that TD is a legitimate top 10 all time player with the like of Bird and Magic and Russell and Oscar. But he's pretty darned close. I would certainly put him above Garnett now, even given the graph Matthew posted, on the basis of the intangibles he brings - things that cw talks about in terms of the style of play, as well as other intangibles like leadership.

Posted by Al | November 14, 2007 3:02 PM

I think it exremely likley that people say that Duncan is superior to Garnett in the intangible area of leadership purley because Duncan has had far superior players to lead. Let's see Duncan lead the untrainable canine that is Stephan Marbury, to pick an egregious example.

Posted by Will Allen | November 14, 2007 3:25 PM

I give you all adjusted +/-, which attempts to measure individual contributions, independent of teammates. KG was #1 last year, TD #3, Dirk #11, worse then both by more than the combined margins of error...

Posted by Pooh | November 14, 2007 3:31 PM

As many commentators here have said, or implied: this is something of a ridiculous argument. But then, why else have comment threads?

I have watched KG since his first season, from row 9 of the Target Center. There is no other player in the NBA with his level of intensity or freakish body/skills. If he plays for six or seven more years (that is, approximately as long as Malone or Kareem), he's going to end up in the top 5 or 10 in Points, Rebounds, and Assists. No other player in NBA history has done so: that's just an astonishing achievement.

That said, even if you take away the fact that he's always been surrounded by scrap here in Minnesota, his lack of a low-post game and similar disinclination to drive the lane has killed him. During that Lakers series we lost in the WCF, many of those games came down to the T-wolves just not getting enough free throws. In the series, both teams got 108 points from free throws--but the Lakers got 61 more FT attempts (ten a game--so it's not Hack-a-Shaq run-up). That's what you get when you're only jacking up fifteen-foot jump shots.

So, and sadly, TDs complete dominance on both sides of the floor, and especially in the playoffs, give him the edge in the "who's better?" discussion.

But really: they're both in the top 5 post-MJ list and both will, I think, be top 10/top 20 all-time players when they retire.

Posted by joel turnipseed | November 14, 2007 3:36 PM

What about Stephen Jackson, who was an untrainable canine, to borrow the phrase, before and after his Spurs days, but no trouble at all in San Antonio?

There is something to what you say, but there is also something to this - veteran players want to come to San Antonio to play with Duncan, especially since the second title in 2003. Brent Barry, Michael Finley, Charlie Ward, Robert Horry (though there were family reasons why he wanted to come to Texas, so this isn't the best example), Fab Oberto are just a few examples of the glue-guys that have made their way here that could have gone to play with KG.

Yes, Duncan has had superior players to lead. But that is because those superior players are clammoring to play with him.

Posted by Curtis | November 14, 2007 3:39 PM

Kwame ranks higher than Shaq on the adjusted +/- scale. I knew it.

ps. as for the comment that duncan's not considered one of the 3 best defenders in league? really? have you checked the votes on DPOY? have you seen him play D?

You've got to be kidding me. Someone else said it better than I did: he's an excellent help defender. But c'mon. It's not even clear he's the best defender on his team.

Posted by SomeCallMeTim | November 14, 2007 3:45 PM

al, thank you for the setup: as i was scrolling down this thread, i was saying "do i get involved on wilt v. russell?"

so to sum up what i've said previously, i think all other things being equal, you swap russell and wilt and keep the rosters around them the same, and wilt's team wins more titles than wilt actually won in his career, but not as many as russ did, and vice versa.

and yes, i'm old enough to have seen them both play (hell, i'm old enough to remember the headlines when wilt scored 100).

this does give me a chance to send all the hard-core basketball fanatics over to the nba.com "red on roundball" collection from the 1970s (http://www.nba.com/roundball/index.html), which includes two episodes with red and russ: defensive intimidation and russ's approach to shot-blocking (we also get the likes of moses malone on offensive rebounding, larry bird on shooting techniques, julius erving on finishing a dunk, and many other swell moments, which ran at halftime during 1970s nba broadcasts).

as for garnett and duncan, from my standpoint, garnett is an elongated 3, duncan a 4/5, and both are terrific players whom i'd be happy to have on my team without getting hung up on which is "better."

Posted by howard | November 14, 2007 3:46 PM

riddle me how bird is better than duncan. he's got fewer rings, he had a waaaaaaaaaaay better supporting cast, he clearly couldn't play nearly the D duncan does, etc. so you're saying he shots better from outside? doesn't sound like much in his favor.

i'm not saying duncan's better, but i think he's clearly in the same tier/conversation, particularly where he seems likely to get a few more rings.

Posted by dj superflat | November 14, 2007 3:47 PM

Curtis, if you're asserting that guys have ended up in San Antonio instead of Minnesota purely because they thought it better to play with Duncan than Garnett, we'll just have to disagree. Come now, Jackson played one full season in San Antonio, during which he averaged 28 minutes a game. He was hardly relied upon to be a critical component in the way that Marbury was.

Duncan arrived on a team with a Hall of Fame center, and then later had players drafted like Tony Parker, while Garnett was on a team which no draft 1st round picks for several years.

If I were to be critical of Garnett in a substantial way, I would say that his insistence on being the league's highest paid player did limit his team's personnel flexibility somewhat. I can't say for sure that any player in his shoes, in that particular window in time, however, would have acted much differently.

Posted by Will Allen | November 14, 2007 4:16 PM

"Yes, Duncan has had superior players to lead. But that is because those superior players are clammoring to play with him."

Impossible to separate from management. What makes the TD / KG debate even more impossible than usual is factoring in that TD played for one of the best run teams, KG one of the worst.

"riddle me how bird is better than duncan. he's got fewer rings, he had a waaaaaaaaaaay better supporting cast ..."

Duncan belongs in the conversation, to be sure, but I don't think it's at all clear that, overall, Bird had a better supporting cast. Recall, for starters, that Parrish was thought of as close to castoff material when they landed him, while DJ was thought of as locker room poison. Turned out both of them were allergic to playing for sorry teams, but still ...

All these Spurs teams have more depth than the Bird Celtic teams, don't they?

Posted by drinkof | November 14, 2007 4:23 PM

duncan had a very old, creaky admiral, plus some new guys who grew into stars years later (parker only recently became money in the playoffs, manu's been great for a while, who else gave consistent production?).

bird had mchale, parrish, DJ, ainge, walton, etc. that's generally considered to be a better lineup than duncan's generally had, the 85/86 celtics generally listed as one of best teams of all time.

as for depth, i dunno. this is all pretty silly, i know that much. i just never get when some folk get mad props, others don't. since i usually believe in the wisdom/madness of crowds, it makes me doubt what i think i know, wonder what i'm missing that's so obvious to others (not a rhetocial question).

Posted by dj superflat | November 14, 2007 4:34 PM

so to sum up what i've said previously, i think all other things being equal, you swap russell and wilt and keep the rosters around them the same, and wilt's team wins more titles than wilt actually won in his career, but not as many as russ did, and vice versa.

The problem I have with this is that Russell's rosters did change. He won 11 titles in 13 years (which, along with UCLA's 10 titles in 12 years, is one of the two greatest team accomplishments in the history of American sports), and the only thing that was constant was Russell. The coach changed, every position player changed, etc. And then Russell leaves and they miss the playoffs.

Meanwhile, Wilt's shifting to different rosters did help-- but even with the spectacular '76er roster, he was 1 for 3 against Russell, and with the even more spectacular Laker roster, he was 0 for 2.

So Wilt with better rosters went 1-4 against Russell. Perhaps that means that Wilt would have won 3 championships against Russell (plus the one won after Russell's retirement) and lost 8, instead of winning 1 and losing 10, had Wilt played with superior rosters throughout his career instead of for those five years.

That would still mean that Wilt couldn't carry Russell's jockstrap. And the only reason people disagree is because they are so addicted to statistics that they don't pay attention to all the things Russell did that didn't show up in the statistics. As Pete Carrill, the former coach at Princeton, said in explaining why Russell was the best player of all time: "how many picks did he set in his career?".

Posted by Dilan Esper | November 14, 2007 4:38 PM

Holy crap, Duncan vs. Bird? Bird is an unquestioned top-5-all-time guy. Yeah, Duncan has more rings. Bird's Celtics also happened to peak at the same time as this other team you may have heard of, out in L.A. Duncan is, indeed, a better defender than Larry Bird, but Bird is so much better in every other aspect of the game (except rebounding, where Duncan's a little better, but christ, he's a 4/5 and Bird was a 3).

Posted by too many steves | November 14, 2007 4:38 PM

The truth is, Russell is actually a lesson about intangibles.

Intangibles are bullshit. They are religion. They're supposedly empirical claims that are utterly immune to evaluation by evidence or critical examination. You can simply assert that something is true by virtue of intangibles and hey presto, you have an argument that is irrefutable. You offer no evidence so your evidence can't be contradicted.

Whats more, it is utterly untrue that Russell beat Wilt in their head-to-head matchups. Both the statistics from those games and actually watching them show over and over again Chamberlain winning by any objective standard. Russell is just one of those players who will forever be graced with the nonsensical designations "a hustle player", "a leader" or "a winner."

Posted by Freddie | November 14, 2007 4:39 PM

Admiral was neither old nor creaky during Duncan's first few years (Robinson averaged 15/10/2.5bks in Duncan's rookie year, 17/19/2.25bks in his second)

Posted by Pooh | November 14, 2007 4:39 PM

dilan, since you and i are basically on the same page, let's be clear: the only way to really judge any two comparable players in a team sport like basketball would be to switch them and hold all other things constant. yes, wilt had that great '67 team (in my book, the greatest single-year team ever), but generally speaking, russ did have better teammates.

but even so, russ makes a difference in my estimation, which is what i'm trying to say.

as for freddie, let's put it this way: i'm not much for talking about "intangibles" because they are - well - "intangible," but here's a tangible example of the kinds of things people are talking about: russ didn't believe in blocking a shot unless he could block it in such a way as to launch a fast break. call that what you will: it's part of the explanation why russ's team never (i mean never, going back to ncaa and olympics) lost a knockout game.

Posted by howard | November 14, 2007 4:45 PM

One problem with this whole "intangibles" thing is that basketball has no good way to measure something that is, actually, very tangible: defense (apart from blocks and steals, and those weren't measured in the Russell/Wilt years). So we have to rely on our own obserrvations or the opinions of experts and contemporaries. There seems to be pretty wide agreement that Russell was an amazingly good defensive player, maybe the best ever. There's also lots of evvidence (and here, we have #s) that Wilt was one of the best offensive players ever. When Howard says Russell was better than his stats indicate, he's not asking us to believe some mumbo-jumbo bullshit about him being a "winner," like he's Robert Horry or some other scrub. He's saying that Russell's dominance on defense wasn't adequately measured. Right?

Posted by too many steves | November 14, 2007 4:53 PM

compared to the admiral's prior numbers, he was creaky even by the first ring, but particularly by the second ring with duncan.

Posted by dj superflat | November 14, 2007 4:57 PM

too many steves, i think you've put it pretty well, although i wouldn't say that russ is "better" than his stats, in that his stats are pretty damn impressive on their own.

but yes, defense, passing out on the fast break (walton and bird being the two comparables to russ, although admittedly, no one fast breaks these days the way the '60s celts did), setting picks, switching correctly - these are not "stats" and recordable, but they are most assuredly part of "winning," which is the whole point (and if you think it's tough to pick up this kind of data for basketball, imagine how hard it is to evaluate soccer players!).

btw, in terms of russ on defense, i've said in this space before that if you want a sense of what he was like, imagine combining the best attributes of rodman, mourning, and ben wallace, and you've got russell....

Posted by howard | November 14, 2007 5:13 PM

too many steves, you remind me of a version of this discussion that broke out last year, concerning bird's stealing the thomas pass and feeding dj for the winning hoop in that playoff game 20 years ago.

bird stealing the pass was a reflection of his passion to compete for 48 full minutes.

dj knowing to cut to the hole as soon as bird stole the pass and bird finding and hitting him were reflections of their smarts as ballplayers.

some people would call all of that "intangibles." while i'm not one of them, i understand what they are trying to express.

Posted by howard | November 14, 2007 5:18 PM

If I were to be critical of Garnett in a substantial way, I would say that his insistence on being the league's highest paid player did limit his team's personnel flexibility somewhat. I can't say for sure that any player in his shoes, in that particular window in time, however, would have acted much differently.

Well, what's the difference between that particular window in time and this particular window in time right now? Because Duncan just too less money on his extension in order to give the Spurs future salary cap flexibility.

Posted by Al | November 14, 2007 6:06 PM

Whats more, it is utterly untrue that Russell beat Wilt in their head-to-head matchups. Both the statistics from those games and actually watching them show over and over again Chamberlain winning by any objective standard.

Here's an objective standard:
1960: 4 games to 2, Boston
1961: didn't meet, because Wilt was swept 3-0 by Syracuse in the first round; Boston wins title
1962: 4 games to 3, Boston
1963: didn't meet, because Philadelphia missed the playoffs; Boston wins title
1964: 4 games to 1, Boston
1965: 4 games to 3, Boston
1966: 4 games to 1, Boston
1967: 4 games to 1, Philadelphia (Wilt's only playoff series victory over Boston)
1968: 4 games to 3, Boston
1969: 4 games to 3, Boston

In the games that mattered most, where it was all on the line, Russell had a decisive 29-20 edge. In deciding games of those series, Russell's edge was 6-1.

I'd say that not only did Russell "won" by an "objective standard", he killed him.

Posted by Dilan Esper | November 14, 2007 6:16 PM

Al, you remind me that i meant to say something to will allen as well, namely, that this is an example of why i hate the salary cap. why should duncan have to receive less than his market value just to help ownership (in general) turn a profit?

Posted by howard | November 14, 2007 6:16 PM

Because Duncan just too less money on his extension in order to give the Spurs future salary cap flexibility.

My recollection is that KG's extension is in that range, and that he did something about his trade kicker. That's pure recollection, though.

Posted by SomeCallMeTim | November 14, 2007 6:17 PM

Dilan, they weren't playing 1-on-1. Yes, the fact that Russell's team won is a pretty strong indication that Russell outplayed Wilt, but it's not a 100% correlation. That's the whole point of the Russell-vs-Wilt argument.

Posted by too many steves | November 14, 2007 6:32 PM

Good off-topic post from Kevin over at Clipperblog on sitting courtside at an NBA game.

Posted by Petey | November 14, 2007 6:32 PM

Oh, I think the salary cap in basketball has been terribly harmful to the quality of the overall product, howard. You won't see me write a word in support of it.

Posted by Will Allen | November 14, 2007 6:38 PM

Dilan, they weren't playing 1-on-1. Yes, the fact that Russell's team won is a pretty strong indication that Russell outplayed Wilt, but it's not a 100% correlation. That's the whole point of the Russell-vs-Wilt argument.

I know, but what I was responding to was the claim that there was no objective evidence that Russell was better. There certainly was.

In any event, as mentioned above, the evidence is pretty strong that it wasn't just that Russell played on "better teams" or for a "better coach"; Russell still had his number when those factors are eliminated.

Posted by Dilan Esper | November 14, 2007 6:40 PM

"Oh, I think the salary cap in basketball has been terribly harmful to the quality of the overall product, howard. You won't see me write a word in support of it."

I'm very panglossian about the cap and tax system the NBA has in place.

Union members get paid decently, and a small market team like San Antonio can compete.

What's not to like?

At the very least, it's far more conducive to producing a good product than what football or baseball has in place.

Posted by Petey | November 14, 2007 6:47 PM

Petey,

I've learned to live with the cap, and the things you mention are good. But don't forget the bad: (1) it keeps the league from developing truly awesome, epochally great teams; and (2) it forces basketball fans to care about how much the players make, which is a topic that many of us find inherently uninteresting.

Posted by too many steves | November 14, 2007 6:50 PM

Al, you remind me that i meant to say something to will allen as well, namely, that this is an example of why i hate the salary cap. why should duncan have to receive less than his market value just to help ownership (in general) turn a profit?

Because without the salary cap, Duncan would now be a Knick by virtue of the $300 million contract Jim Dolan would have thrown at him, and San Antonio would be a perennial losing franchise. Yes, in some respects it is unfair for the players to be paid less than their market value (if there was no salary cap). But is it more fair for the league as a whole, and thus better off for the players as a whole, to have a salary cap thereby leveling the playing field among franchises.

Posted by Al | November 14, 2007 6:55 PM

"it forces basketball fans to care about how much the players make, which is a topic that many of us find inherently uninteresting."

If you're a hardcore fan of any pro sport, salary aspects are going to be part of the discussion.

"it keeps the league from developing truly awesome, epochally great teams"

Y'know, 3 teams have won 13 of the last 17 titles. Those 3 teams have been truly awesome, epochally great teams, no?

Posted by Petey | November 14, 2007 7:01 PM

"Yes, in some respects it is unfair for the players to be paid less than their market value (if there was no salary cap). But is it more fair for the league as a whole, and thus better off for the players as a whole, to have a salary cap thereby leveling the playing field among franchises."

The NBA is a nice balance between the Union Uber Alles of MLB and the Management Uber Alles of the NFL.

Unlike the NFL, the players get paid reasonably fairly and treated reasonably decently. Unlike MLB, player movement is constrained for the good of the sport.

Posted by Petey | November 14, 2007 7:07 PM

You're right, Petey, I think the NBA has the best system, too. The NFL also tons of player movement, but for the opposite reason baseball does -- teams have to dump good players to stay under the cap. In football more than any other sport, you're just rooting for a uniform, because the faces change so much.

Posted by too many steves | November 14, 2007 7:23 PM

The NBA is the worst of all worlds because a bad signing is most costly. In the NFL, since the money is typically the least guaranteed, a bad signing can be written off in a couple years, even with a very hard cap. In baseball, some teams can't tolerate a bad signing, but more than a few can, because there is no cap. In basketball, with only five starters, a 100% guaranteed horrible contract really does the most long-lasting damage, and there is a huge element of luck in any of these large contracts.

For all the talk of the uneven playing field in baseball, the last labor contract solved a lot of the problem.

Posted by Will Allen | November 14, 2007 7:27 PM

will, trust me, i would have been shocked had you anything but hated the salary cap; i didn't mean to comment on it to critique you but to note that your example of why garnett's salary helped keep the twolves from winning is why i hate the salary cap.

that all said, petey has brought us to the salient point: the salary cap has been sold as a means of achieving competitive balance. quite obviously, it has not.

in terms of the greatness of the multi-championship teams, they have (like the patriots in the nfl) been great for their times and under the constraints of the salary cap, but i don't think they measure up (and obviously, we enter here into the imponderable of different eras) of the very greatest teams (in my book, the russ-era celts, the '67 warriors, the holzman knicks, and the showtime lakers, although some would argue that the best of the bulls squads could compete with any of those teams).

baseball, for example, with no salary cap, has had, over the same last 17 titles, had 11 different champs and had one team (the 4 wins in 5 years yanks) as great as any in baseball history.

and Al, i'm willing to bet you that even had dolan thrown $300M at tim duncan, he'd have found a way to screw it up, management smarts remaining the most important variable in team performance. if the highest payroll guaranteed championship performance, then the yankees would be working on their 33rd consecutive title of the steinbrenner era....

Posted by howard | November 14, 2007 7:51 PM

since we're getting in the weeds here, i should note that i should have mentioned wes unseld as the other great fast-break outlet passer, and the '84 - '86 celts as worthy of the other historically great teams....

Posted by howard | November 14, 2007 7:55 PM

i like caps, because they create the meta-game of management. yes, management matters w/o a cap, but it's not so clearly a meta-game with its own rules, etc. and you still get some pretty historicly great teams (you really saying the pats aren't historicly great if they win this year, or the spurs if they win this year?).

what's awesome is a team like the knicks, willing to spend to opt out of the meta-game and still lousy, or the yanks, willing to spend insanely and still not getting close to getting it done.

Posted by dj superflat | November 14, 2007 7:59 PM

dj superflat, look, i knew when i said "historically great" it would raise questions, so let me comment briefly.

obviously on one level, all you can ask a team to do is to be the best of its time. in that sense, the pats and spurs certainly qualify.

in another sense, though, we can look back at the historically great teams and see how dotted they were with hall of famers. now admittedly, some of this is horse-and-cart stuff (certainly some of russ's celts teammates, for instance, are in the hall of fame because of their good fortune in employer), but when i look at the pats and the spurs, i don't see that kind of hall of fame dotted roster, and that's really what i'm referencing.

PS. fwiw, coach belichick was a year behind me at college - we played against each other in intramural softball, not that he would remember me! - and i'd love, for purposes of alma mater pride, to claim that his team is right up there (certainly he is), but rightly or wrongly, that's my metric....

Posted by howard | November 14, 2007 8:06 PM

I just look at the cap as part of the rules of the game. It's jsut another level. It mostly prevents someone from spending their way to at title. It makes the GM part of the game. A team from a city like San Antonio can win titles over teams from NY or LA becasue they can put together a good organization, the same way you can put together a good team. It's more democratic: anyone can outspend (granted the Knicks are an exception here) their way to a title. Having a bunch of money is not a virture or a talent. But being smart about who you hire and how you run your business, is a virtue. Not only that, like all virtue, making good decisions is--in theory--available to everyone, as opposed to possesing a huge wad (or in Dolans case, inheriting a huge wad.

Posted by cw | November 14, 2007 8:08 PM

Dwyane!

Posted by Petey | November 14, 2007 8:08 PM

Did Belichick steal signs in intramural softball?

Posted by too many steves | November 14, 2007 8:10 PM

DJ Superflat beat me to the punch. Excellent comment, DJ.

Posted by cw | November 14, 2007 8:10 PM

"your example of why garnett's salary helped keep the twolves from winning is why i hate the salary cap."

But, of course, a cap deforming contract like Garnett's wouldn't be possible under current rules. Max money is a good adjustment to make the tax and cap system work well.

Posted by Petey | November 14, 2007 8:15 PM

dj, I think caps increase the importance of luck, because it makes the bad luck that much more costly, especially in the NBA.

howard, my one regret from the 80s NBA is that the best Celtic team, '86 with a fairly healthy Walton off the bench, never met the best Lakers team in the finals. That would have been a lot of fun. I remember Bird pretty much foretelling the future, after they somewhat easily dispatched the Rockets, that injuries, or lack thereof, would play a huge role in what would happen to that Celtic team.

Actually, my other regret is that the Rockets management of the '80s didn't have a crystal ball, and thus did not know they should trade Ralph Sampson to the Bulls for their draft pick, and thus put Jordan together with Olajuwon. That might've been fun to see.

Posted by Will Allen | November 14, 2007 8:16 PM

the salary cap has been sold as a means of achieving competitive balance. quite obviously, it has not.

I know. There are arguments both ways - why haven't the Yankees won since 2000? Maybe because the playoffs are a crapshoot. But the Yankees are the only team to make the playoffs 12 years in a row. For another example - take the EPL. High spending teams like ManU and Chelsea are consistently at the top of the table. As I've said before, I'd like to see a regression in various sports analyzing the linkage between spending and winning percentage.

Regardless of the competitive balance issue, I've raised the argument in earlier threads that, for me, fairness is more important than competitive balance. In sports (which is different that the business world), level playing fields are important. I think competition based on the smarts of the teams' respective GMs is fair; competition on the size of the owners' wallets is not. If a league is not competitively balanced - i.e., has a tendency toward dynasties and loser franchises - that's fine for me, so long as that tendency results from what I think are factors that are fair among the franchises.

But I'm ideosyncratic in that way.

Posted by Al | November 14, 2007 8:22 PM

Oh, there is no way the Pats of this decade are as good as some previous great NFL teams; depth is more important in football than any other sport, and it is impossible to stockpile depth in the NFL today like it was done in the past. I'd also argue that even the most recent Yankee dynasty does not match that of the Yankee dynasties of the 50s. Prior to the draft in MLB, the Yankees could stockpile talent in the minor leagues which was good enough to start on most other major league teams. Those days are gone for good, and I 'd say it is a good thing. People who complain that free agent baseball marked the worst of times for imbalance between teams don't know their baseball history.

Posted by Will Allen | November 14, 2007 8:24 PM

howard, that story about Belichik is kind of funny to me, because I played intermural softball against Kevin McHale. He'd play center field pretty shallow, and you'd think you could easily hit a line drive over his head, and just like he deceived at lot of guys not named Magic Johnson that they could loft a shot over him, he'd reach out with those uber-elongated appendages at the last moment and snag the ball.

Posted by Will Allen | November 14, 2007 8:32 PM

will, we're on the same page.

al, yes, you've noted this "fairness" viewpoint before, and i find it completely befuddling in comparison to your normal political views: i like my sports free market.

you raise the soccer issue, and of course, it's true that you get certain high-revenue clubs in soccer dominate their leagues over time. Of course, as you know, soccer's partial solution to this is to create parallel cup tournaments and the challenge of avoiding relegation, and i personally think the blend works fine: you can see the finest teams money can buy, but the little guys can and do pull wins off and maintain interest and every so often break through to a title of one sort or another.

of course, i should note that in addition to hating the salary cap, i also think there are too many teams in all 3 major american team sports and that i regard that as an equal (if not greater) factor than the limitations of the cap in making it very hard to build a historically great team (as i'm using the term in this thread).

Posted by howard | November 14, 2007 8:34 PM

"the salary cap has been sold as a means of achieving competitive balance."

I think this is pretty much untrue.

The years before the cap was introduced was the great era of parity in the NBA. The current system has almost certainly reduced parity.

And FWIW, I don't think the current system has really been sold to the fans at all.

If the NBA were to try to market the CBA to the fans, they'd do so on the basis of small market competitiveness, not competitive balance.

Posted by Petey | November 14, 2007 8:36 PM

will, the reason i hold the 4-in-5 yank champions up with the other handful of great teams is that they did it in a salary cap free environment and therefore, in a sense, represent the best team that could (theoretically) have been assembled and it did dominate.

however, by my own metric of hall-of-fameness, it doesn't quite measure up, and i suspect your 8:24 and my "too many teams" are making the same point on that front.

funny about mchale, and too many steves, funny question but let me put it this way: coach played for what passed for a jock team at our little three school, and i played for the hippie team. they didn't need to steal our signals!

Posted by howard | November 14, 2007 8:38 PM

howard, my one regret from the 80s NBA is that the best Celtic team, '86 with a fairly healthy Walton off the bench, never met the best Lakers team in the finals.

It's funny - while I remember the '86 team and some earlier NBA back to about '81, my most vivid memory of that era is of the '87 series. And yet I don't recall what happened to Walton that year - the ankle again, I assume?

Posted by Al | November 14, 2007 8:39 PM

i also think there are too many teams in all 3 major american team sports and that i regard that as an equal (if not greater) factor than the limitations of the cap in making it very hard to build a historically great team (as i'm using the term in this thread).

Agreed.

Posted by Al | November 14, 2007 8:44 PM

Would someone please explain to me why in a 1000 channel cable universe that NBA league pass can't wrangle enough stations so that they don't have to share one channel between tonight's 7pm Atlanta-Charlotte game and tonight's 9pm Powder Blues Extravaganza?

If Atlanta and Charlotte are equally bad enough to go into overtime, I'm going to miss the entire first half of Denver-Portland. I demand a recount.

Posted by Petey | November 14, 2007 8:45 PM

Yeah, Walton's foot problems came back big time in '87, and given that Walton, when healthy, was as hard on Jabbar as anybody, that was huge.

Think of it. Walton, when healthy, was among the very elite of big men in NBA history. The Celtics in '86 had that player as first guy off the bench. That was some team.

Posted by Will Allen | November 14, 2007 8:47 PM

well, petey, let's phrase it this way, then: the formal purpose of the cap is to ensure labor peace through a pre-arranged distribution of revenues.

the justification for this restraint of trade, so to speak, is that the league is one entity and that as one entity, it is entitled to act in the interests of all of its members.

Cost predictability and a set of rules about player compensation enable the members to plan rationally and concentrate on growing the revenue pie.

And the circle is then closed because the argument is made that otherwise, small market cities wouldn't be able to compete. (As opposed to if basketball teams were really individual entities, where driving some of your smaller competitors out of business is a legitimate strategic choice!)

So they have as good as said that competitive balance - being sure that small market teams have an equally good chance at winning - is the point here (football, of course, doesn't bother to disguise this at all: they simply promote parity).

That all said, listen, i've said before that life is short, cranial capacity is limited, and spending either of them on the salary caps rules and wherefores isn't for me, so i'm perfectly willing to believe you when you say that as caps go, the nba, with its optout clause, is a good one.

i still hate it....

Posted by howard | November 14, 2007 8:48 PM

"i also think there are too many teams in all 3 major american team sports"

3?

I agree with the Eastern Conference and the Western Conference, but what's the third? I don't think the NBDL qualifies as a "major american team sport".

Posted by Petey | November 14, 2007 8:50 PM

well, we're really strolling down memory lane now, but i've mentioned before i was there, at game 5, in the balcony, when magic johnson hit that little baby hook.

damn straight walton would have made a difference (and his trailblazer team, had he stayed healthy, would have been right up there, and as it is, is, with the holzman knicks and reed's knee injuries, the two that got away)....

Posted by howard | November 14, 2007 8:51 PM

"That all said, listen, i've said before that life is short, cranial capacity is limited, and spending either of them on the salary caps rules and wherefores isn't for me, so i'm perfectly willing to believe you when you say that as caps go, the nba, with its optout clause, is a good one."

The current tax and cap system with max money modification is best thought of as being like the French economic model: there are a thousand valid complaints one could lodge against them, but they're actually quite close to being optimal real-world systems.

Posted by Petey | November 14, 2007 8:55 PM

petey, first professional basketball i ever saw was the Allentown Jets in the Eastern League in the early '60s!

noted net fan Al may know that former Jets Walt Simon and Hank Whitney both played in the very first couple of nets seasons....

and of course, there must be too many teams in the eastern league, assuming some version of it still exists....

Posted by howard | November 14, 2007 8:55 PM

Gosh, Howard, there are times when I think that baby hook was greatest shot in basketball history, given who was defending it. I mean, Kevin freakin' McHale is doing everything he can to disrupt the shot without sending Johnson to the line, and Johnson just stones it. The only thing that would have topped it is if Bird had been about an inch more accurate on the ensuing desperation 50 footer he put up as the buzzer sounded. If that had gone in, I may have stopped watching the game, because there would have been zero chance to see anything that topped it.

Posted by Will Allen | November 14, 2007 9:00 PM

i was just looking back, and obviously i've been typing too much tonight. that would be "i was there at game 4 when magic hit that baby hook."

Game 5 was when greg kite dominated kareem one quarter, greatest quarter of kite's career (kite being who was playing the minutes that bill walton wasn't).

Posted by howard | November 14, 2007 9:01 PM

OK. I've finally reached a conclusion: the tight 4th quarter of Utah-Toronto is more compelling than the tight 4th quarter of Orlando-Cleveland.

Posted by Petey | November 14, 2007 9:04 PM

well, will, while we're going on about it, bird, of course, had michael cooper on him. my balcony seats were directly above the basket on the laker's end and i can tell you that everyone was sure it was going in. at the time i felt that cooper had caught his arm just a touch, but i've never really picked that up when i've seen highlights of the game turn up.

it was an amazing silence when magic dropped that baby in, since everyone knew that a 3-1 laker lead was going to be insurmountable.

Posted by howard | November 14, 2007 9:05 PM

All of Kirilenko's summer bellyaching has helped his game.

Posted by Petey | November 14, 2007 9:06 PM

Revenue sharing does more to allow small market teams to exist than a salary cap, and the NFL had significant revenue sharing long before it had a salary cap. Of course, the nature of the NFL's t.v.ontract makes revenue sharing easier to negotiate among owners.

The NFL is like an economy with a good bankruptcy law; mistakes, even huge mistakes, can be written off quickly, which helps makes things more dynamic. MLB is like an economy with significant wealth disparity but a high degree of innovation. The NBA is like a sclerotic economy in which bad luck or a single bad mistake is so sorely punished as to make further sclerosis likely.

Posted by Will Allen | November 14, 2007 9:09 PM

I'd be interested to know which of the big three sports has more movement of free agents (especially quality free agents). The flipside of "dynamism" is a lack of continuity for your team. Good or bad? In many ways, I'm tempted to say that the best situation would be to have only 1-year contracts. That way there's no mistakes that can't be written off after one season. But that's bad for continuity's sake and continuity is a lot of the attraction of the sport.

PS - Petey, it's all well and good that you're commenting on tonight's games, but fercrissakes, I'm still at work and TiVoing the Nets-Celtics game.

Posted by Al | November 14, 2007 9:25 PM

"Petey, it's all well and good that you're commenting on tonight's games, but fercrissakes, I'm still at work and TiVoing the Nets-Celtics game."

Noted. I fully respect the TiVo.

Posted by Petey | November 14, 2007 9:26 PM

At the moment, the Powder Blues are on target for a 55 win season, which would get them the 8th seed in the West. WTF? The competition for the right to play Boston is going to be fierce.

And what a night in the NBA. Both Dwyane and Starbury see action.

Posted by Petey | November 15, 2007 12:27 AM

" ... which, along with UCLA's 10 titles in 12 years, is one of the two greatest team accomplishments in the history of American sports ..."

Footnote. All but one of the UCLA titles were won under the regional seeding system, at a time when almost all the best teams, excepting UCLA, were in the East and Mideast. UCLA was allowed to tune up against the likes of Long Beach State, finally meeting the exhausted winner from the East / Mideast in the finals.

As if to prove the point, the Walton - led Bruins lost in the semis in the first tournament fully seeded in which they participated (to the David Thompson / Tommy Burleson NC State Wolfpack). To their credit, a much inferior team led by Dave Meyers took the tournament the following year in Wooden's last season.

Those were great, great teams, but no way do they win that many if they're in tournaments which are fairly seeded, top to bottom. My guess? They still take 5 or 6 in that frame.

"russ didn't believe in blocking a shot unless he could block it in such a way as to launch a fast break."

This is not exactly correct. Russell often swatted shots out of bounds; how could it have been otherwise for a shot blocker? What he was famous for in that regard was not doing so for effect or intimidation, but keeping the ball in play when feasible, thus setting the ball in play for a fast break. This was, in fact, pretty much a Russell innovation; the common practice at the time for shot blockers was to maximize the dramatics, no matter what.

"When Howard says Russell was better than his stats indicate, he's not asking us to believe some mumbo-jumbo bullshit about him being a "winner," like he's Robert Horry or some other scrub. He's saying that Russell's dominance on defense wasn't adequately measured. Right?"

That's clearly right; Russell allowed every other Celtic on the floor to play a different game, playing agressive defense and going for steals while rarely being penalized, running their man into Russell by purpose, and flying out on those fast breaks. His style (combined with the great good fortune of playing with great guards early, e.g., Cousy, KC Jones) really recreated the game.

Having said that, Dilan's chart overstates the difference; there were a number of years listed where the Celtics were just drop-dead better than Wilt's team. And re: "better teams" or for a "better coach"; Russell still had his number when those factors are eliminated"; those factors are never eliminated. The Celtics were a juggernaut. Russell gets the nod, but the margin is not nearly as great as you argue.

"Walton, when healthy, was as hard on Jabbar as anybody ..." Other than Moses M, of course. Viz the 1981 playoffs, where a less than .500 Rockets bowled over LA due to Kareem's complete inability to deal with Malone, and the 1982 Philly playoff run, where Riley wouldn't even let Kareem guard him.

Posted by drinkof | November 15, 2007 12:37 AM

drinkof, it's a fine point, i know, and i probably should have phrased it slightly differently, but russ has made it clear that his intent in blocking a shot was always to trigger a fast break, not to emphasize the dramatics. that doesn't mean he was always sucessful, of course, but as you note, that was the intent.

Posted by howard | November 15, 2007 1:01 AM

Howard:

Not to quibble, but you really can't say 'always' in that case. The intent in blocking a shot is to a) stop the shot, b) alter the shot, and/or c) put the thought in the head of the shooter / penetrator, so as to affect future shots, d) where feasible, to initiate a fast break. That has to be the order of priority, otherwise the defensive stop would be potentially sacrificed.

Making starting the fast break the #1 goal of the block would mean that any shotblocker would be sacrificing blocks, getting fewer in order to assure that the play led to offense. Even for Russell, fewer than 1/2 of his blocks would have led to fastbreaks; that would have been vastly more than for other shotblockers of the day, and in any event, he knew when and where he could do it.

In any event, a better way to look at it might be that Russell's technique led to more fast breaks; by literally blocking rather than slamming shots back, the ball tended to fall into play, with the defending Celtics being much more attuned to where and how the ball would fall. Where he could intentionally block into favorable spot (essentially making a block into an outlet pass), all the better, but it couldn't be every time.

By not reaching nearly so much (or, when reaching, doing so only when there was considerable spacing), Russell also maximized the effect of his considerable leaping ability and long arms. He was a for real 6'10", no taller, and gave up height to many of his peers.

Posted by drinkof | November 15, 2007 9:07 AM

drinkof, long ago and far away, russell did an article for SI entitled "the psych and my other tricks" (iirc). he mentioned, in discussing his approach to shot-blocking as a trigger for the fast break (and we're talking something like '65 here) that when he came in the league he discovered a fairly high scoring playing named neil johnston for the warriors who had a hook that russell could have blocked every single time.

and russ said - and i'm paraphrasing - if i blocked that hook every time he shot it, he would stop shooting it, and that would have interfered with my real purpose, which was to trigger a fast break, so i picked my spots very carefully.

so yes, unless you want to go call russell a liar, he has been very clear for 40+ years that he sacrificed blocks to do what he wanted to do.

Posted by howard | November 15, 2007 11:18 AM

i love how this thread has strayed. the interesting meta issue to me:

how do you compare teams/players across time? by their ability to dominate only their time? by their hypothetical ability to compete even against later, elevated standards? most sports (other than boxing) seem to have seen progress, whereby folks from 30 years back couldn't even get much playing time today, let alone be the superstars they were in their own time. but you obviously can't test whether wilt would dominate today, whether cousy could even play, etc.

so my time machine question for the day: if we get a time machine working, do we take (e.g.) duncan back to see how he does in the late60s/early70s NBA or do we bring russell or wilt forward to see how they do now? (really, this is an urgent question we need to resolve before they plug the machine in.)

Posted by dj superflat | November 15, 2007 12:14 PM

dj superflat, i love the problem, but in 45 years of pro basketball watching, i haven't come up with a solution.

in football it's easy: the guys are bigger and stronger today, so in terms of the lines - where the real action is - today's best players would probably dominate.

in baseball, it's relatively easy: the game hasn't changed that much! babe ruth would still be a great hitter, satchel paige would still be a great pitcher, and vice versa for today's stars.

i find basketball the toughest, because we have the improved athleticism vs. the declining fundamentals. i really don't know how to judge that.

PS. drinkof, i went back to the red on roundball link i noted earlier, and wrt our discussion, i'd suggest you look at shot-blocking II (http://www.nba.com/roundball/index.html).

Posted by howard | November 15, 2007 1:55 PM

I wonder if the fundamentals are really declining. When I started watching pro basketball, in the '80s, nobody played defense. When I watch video from the 60s or earlier, I'm struck by how poor the mechanics are on most of the guys' jump shots. Hell, the jump shot was only invented in the 30/40s!

Anyway, I don't think it's ever fair to do the time-machine thing. You have to consider the way a guy with Babe Ruth's incredible talents would develop today, with modern training and diet and such. He'd be bigger and stronger than everybody. But put 1921 Babe Ruth in the time machine and bring him to today, and he's not bigger and stronger than everybody. He'd still be awesome, because hitting a baseball is an inherent skill and he sure as hell possessed it, but I don't know that he'd be as super-dominant as he was.

One reason baseball is easier for these comparisons is the wealth of data. We know pretty well how Babe Ruth's 1921 numbers (or Frank Robinson's 1968 numbers, to take a pitcher's-era example) would translate to today's game. There's a formula to tell you that. There's no formula that will tell us whether Bob Cousy would be quick enough for today's game.

Posted by too many steves | November 15, 2007 2:49 PM

Howard:

What you're saying is that Russell sometimes withheld going after a blockable shot, essentially because he believed it wasn't that good a shot. That's not only believable, it's clear.

This is different: "russ didn't believe in blocking a shot unless he could block it in such a way as to launch a fast break."

Not to pick a nit, but 'didn't believe in' kinda means never. It's a far cry from recognizing that Russell _sometimes_ foreswore the block for strategic reasons, including (but not limited to) waiting on a prime opportunity to start the break. His take on Neil Johnston was clearly based in large part on the fact that he wasn't hitting a particularly high percentage of those hooks; "if i blocked that hook every time he shot it, he would stop shooting it" clearly implies that he's not hitting a particularly high percentage. Surely we can't say that the ferocious D of Mr. Russell ever tolerated, say, the likes of Johnston (or, really, any rival center) hitting 4-5 potentially blockable shots in a row, can we? After the first couple, the next one is going into the seats, fast break or no.

For that matter, while Russell's blocks are a particular and outstanding subset, it's a common defense strategy to fool a quick-trigger player into thinking he's 'gotten himself open' when, really, the goal is to keep him firing away while a better, higher percentage, scorer languishes.

You're clearly correct that blocking into a fastbreak opportunity was a Russell skill to the point of inovation. It's another leap to say that he always passed on blocking shots, especially high percentage shots, because all of those blocks didn't enhanced the chance for a fast break.

Posted by drinkof | November 15, 2007 3:19 PM