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Analyze This
Joined: 17 May 2005
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 Posted: Tue Dec 26, 2006 1:42 pm Post subject: |
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| Mike G wrote: | | Wilt wasn't entirely 'forced' into changing his role, but was eccentric enough that he would go after an assist title one year, an unbreakable FG% in another. |
And that of course is bullshit. When his apg went up his role changed because what was expected from him changed. His coach was right that he would be more effective by playing that way (better balance between scoring and passing got him the title in 1967 and best record ever at that moment). When his fg% was skyhigh he was in the last season(s) of his career (and he could not do anymore offensively what he once did), and he concentrated almost entirely on defense/rebounding (the few shots that he took were almost all high % ones). The eccentric Wilt went after records and Russell was a teamplayer myth makes me go ballistic. It's simply not true.
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deepak
Joined: 26 Apr 2006
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| Posted: Tue Dec 26, 2006 3:49 pm Post subject: |
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| Analyze This wrote: | | The eccentric Wilt went after records and Russell was a teamplayer myth makes me go ballistic. It's simply not true. |
Have you read any of Wilt's books? He was obsessed with his numbers and records. That's a well known fact. |
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Analyze This
Joined: 17 May 2005
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| Posted: Tue Dec 26, 2006 5:35 pm Post subject: |
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| deepak_e wrote: | | Have you read any of Wilt's books? He was obsessed with his numbers and records. That's a well known fact. |
Yeah, I have them all. Signed. And of course I have read and posses all the other books that have been written about him. And I think it's save to say that I posses every game of Chamberlain that has survived the test of time and is available for the public. It took me years and a lot of money to collect them. I would go even a step further and say that I probably posses one of the biggest collections in the word of nba games (that is in private hands) since the beginning of the nba untill 1975. Wilt Chamberlain was certainly not obsessed by stats. In my opinion he is the most misunderstood basketball figure in nba history. This has for a big part to do with how the media of that time labelled him and Bill Russell. Some of the myths that have been created then are seen now as facts (and not as myths) And even today this misinformation directly and also indirectly continues. I will give you a simple example from a collector standpoint. If you start to search for Chamberlain play off games against the Celtics you will first find famous losses before you will find wins (that is almost impossible although a lot of them have been put on tv). Don't forget that some series have gone to 7 games (and a couple of points would have given 3 Philly finals more). So in some years there are almost as much Philly wins as losses against Boston. And sometimes more. Even in 1967, when the Sixers destroyed the Celtics with 4-1, the one game that you will find easily is the one Boston win. To get your hands on one of the 4 Philly wins is almost impossible. Although the end of al those back to back titles is something special and the games exist they are nor replayed. Why? Because they do not fit the image that you have about Russell and Chamberlain. The first is the winner and the second the loser, not the other way around. NBA tv showed the 1 Philly loss of that year, but none of the 4 Boston losses. So even today the image that the media of the past made continues. As an historian that can make me very angree. History is of course an interpretation of the facts. It is colored by the historian who writes it. But we should at least try to be objective and base ourself on facts and not try to ignore everything that contrasts with popular belief.
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Last edited by Analyze This on Tue Dec 26, 2006 5:58 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Chicago76
Joined: 06 Nov 2005
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| Posted: Tue Dec 26, 2006 5:53 pm Post subject: |
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I think the truth on Chamberlain lies somewhere in between. Chamberlain wouldn't have changed without direction from the coaching staff. He was tremendously proud of his statistical achievements and to his credit, he did defer to the good of the team on those Sixer teams. However, he took it to an extreme. If he bought into the system, he knew he couldn't lead the league in scoring, so he sought to lead the league in assists. From 66 to the 67 and 68 seasons on a per 40 basis, Wilt's rebound rate went up about 5%, his field goal attempts declined by 35% and his FG% went up from 54% to 63+%. He surrendered 8 FGA per 40 minutes and lost 3 FGs in the process.
Had he not been on the cusp of leading the league in assists, Wilt may have taken an extra two shots per game (still buying into Hannum's system), not led the league in Assists, and had 3 more ppg.
I think the Chamberlain case shows us that usage vs. efficiency depends a lot on where a player plays on the court. A good offensive rebounder is going to get a steady diet of easy baskets. If he takes fewer turnaround jumpshots (but still enough to keep the defense honest) his efficiency should increase quite a bit. A perimeter scorer's efficency may not change at all within a range of FGA.
An outside shooter may need to "feel" the ball more to maintain some shooting touch. When I played, I didn't feel comfortable shooting an 18 footer straight off the bench. I also didn't feel comfortable chucking up 16 to 20 shots per game, but with any fewer than 8 or so, the ball felt a little more "foreign" when it left my hands and my FG% dipped. Pros obviously should overcome this better, but I suspect they feel it too. Take the same outside shooter, lower his touches, but feed him passes off back screens and I would expect his efficiency to increase.
HOW a player's usage is limited/increased says more to me than HOW MUCH a player's usage is limited/increased.
With Iverson, I expect his efficiency to go up for two reasons:
1-he will not be forced to make something happen at the end of the shot clock.
2-when he penetrates, he has more offensive weapons to kick to. No more going to the rim and not kicking unless he knows he will get fouled or have a better chance at converting. |
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Analyze This
Joined: 17 May 2005
Posts: 364
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| Posted: Tue Dec 26, 2006 6:18 pm Post subject: |
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| Chicago76 wrote: | I think the truth on Chamberlain lies somewhere in between. Chamberlain wouldn't have changed without direction from the coaching staff. He was tremendously proud of his statistical achievements and to his credit, he did defer to the good of the team on those Sixer teams. However, he took it to an extreme. If he bought into the system, he knew he couldn't lead the league in scoring, so he sought to lead the league in assists. From 66 to the 67 and 68 seasons on a per 40 basis, Wilt's rebound rate went up about 5%, his field goal attempts declined by 35% and his FG% went up from 54% to 63+%. He surrendered 8 FGA per 40 minutes and lost 3 FGs in the process.
Had he not been on the cusp of leading the league in assists, Wilt may have taken an extra two shots per game (still buying into Hannum's system), not led the league in Assists, and had 3 more ppg.
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I think that every player in a certain degree thinks about statistics. The same will be the case for Chamberlain. The reason that he was proud of his stats after his career is that they are partly proof of his greatness/ a way to defend himself against the way the media labelled him. Russell has the most titles. That is his proof and it is not contested (Russel has been labelled as the winner over and over again) If Chamberlain wants to show some facts the stats are there. They show partly that he was not a loser. He felt like he needed to defend himself against the way the media labelled him (as a loser) and the stats are his munition. For example in the past we had two guys who got into a scoring battle (with the help of their teammates) late in the season to get the scoring title. It is a factor for every player. I have read a lot that Chamberlain really passed on good scoring opportunities and waited for some of his teammates to get an extra assist. I even read that he ignored some of his teammates in the year of his assist title because they were not acccurate enough (and the chance he would get an assist was too small) and he only passed to his more talented scoring players (bigger chance of getting an assist). The conclusion is that he lived for his stats, and was obsessed with them. And what these statements also say beneath the lines is that he puts personal stats before team wins/succes. This fits the Russel is a team player and that's why the Celtics won, and Chamberlain only thought about himself and is the loser myth. I have seen several games of the year he won the assist title, and I never have seen something that would give such claims credibility. It seems to be based on absolutely nothing. So I have a problem with such claims who are presented as facts, especially when they find their way into books and on tv. People of other generations who read a book or watch tv without much other knowledge of the Russell-Chamberlain era their interpretation of the history will be polutted. I can't stand that.
You can tell me that Russell was more effective in the role that he needed to play for the Celtics than Chamberlain was with his teams in his (mostly much bigger) changing role. But is has something to do with that different role and the different circumstances. Auerbach had a plan on how to play basketball and selected his players with that plan before his eyes. Russel was the final piece. You can give him credit that he did what Auerbach asked, namely play defense and rebound the ball (and was very good at it). That's ok, but don't forget that playing defense and rebounding was the only thing Russel could do effective (good passer also). Even if he wanted to be a big time scorer he could not do it. So perhaps it's easier to accept that role than when he would have had the talent to score big time. And don't forget that Russel had one team all his basketball life. He was always surrounded by other very good players who stayed their whole career with the Celtics, and generations of players were replaced by others who played the same roles in the same concept thanks to Auerbach, the same coach. And all of these players were selected to do certain things and because they possessed certain qualities. Auerbach selected them like you select pieces of a puzzle. It's not enough to put talented players together (Chamberlain had talented teammates but they changed a lot (in one year Russel played tgether with Sam Jones, KC Jones, Heinsohn, Havlicek, Cousy, Ramsey and Lovellette/ Chamberlain needs several years several teams and several coaches for getting a line up of for example Baylor, West, Arizin, Thurmond, Rodgers) just like the coaches, the teams, the concepts, and his role changed a lot) For Russel that's a very comfortable and stable situation to be in. Chamberlain was a very talented scorer, rebounder, shotblocker, passer, and if he wanted he could play good defense. It seems more difficult to do more things on a high level than to do a couple of things on a high level( limited versus bigger role)! He came not in a team were a coach selected all these players to complement each other with the same succes as Auerbach did. The stable factor, the one vision was not there (with the same succes). He got several coaches, several systems, didn't saw year in year out the same players, played for 4 teams (sometimes he wanted out, sometimes the franchise was sold) and got several roles. The expectations of his owners were different. In the first part he needed to score as much as possible, and also rebound, block shots and so on. Later his role changed because his coach and teammates changed (more talent that complemented each other) and the title became more important than getting fans in the stadium by scoring as much points as possible. And by going to the Lakers his role and his talented teammates changed again, and he was asked to become Russel (concentrate on rebounding and playing defense). If you look to his battle with Russell he won it big time (we don't have records of every aspect of the game though). And if you look to the confrontations wih the Celtics in the play-offs he played excellent and a handfull of points in the 7 games play off confrontations would have changed the history and the perception. It was in other words sometimes as close as it could be, even with the different circumstances (the handicap) I described above. So I believe that the offensive impact of Chamberlain in his prime combined with his smaller defensive impact was at least as big as the defensive impact of Russel on his teams (combined with his offensive impact). Russell was more effective in the (more limited) role (that was always the same) he played than Chamberlain was in the mostly much bigger role (that changed) he played. For Russell it was always the same role, for the same team that was put together better than Chamberlain his teams (to complement each other), with the same concept that was created by the same coach, and with the same players (and if players changed they were prepared by those who played before them). As a total basketball player it is no contest in my opinion. Chamberlain is much better than Russel. But the first has not been used as effective as the last and most of the time they have not played the same role.(defense/ rebounding versus a) do everything with the focus on reb and scoring b)do everything but with a better balance between scoring, rebounding, passing defense c) focus on defense and rebounding) The role and the circumstances were different! To put the above in other words; in the last part of his career (far after his prime) Chamberlain showed that he could be a devestating defensive (that was new) and rebounding (that was always the case) force for the Lakers. A bit like what Russell had done for the Celtics all his career. Perhaps Chamberlain was not as good as Russell, but it was close. If Chamberlain could get close in the last years of his career for the Lakers (after his prime), would it be so strange to think that he could have been as good as Russell in Russell his role in his prime when he was clearly much better. When he would have not put all that effort in doing everything and scoring, but only would have concentrated on defense, would it be so strange to think that he could have been as good as Russell in that limited role in his prime (when we think how good Chamberlain was in his defensive role after his prime in his last years of his career for the Lakers). An advantage of specialisation is that you can get much better in something than others when you have the same or less talent of a collegue who must do a bit of everything. And if we turn the tables, and Russell would have been drafted by the Philadelphia Warriors and would have been asked by the owner to do a bit of everything (score heaps of points because they were needed, rebound and play defense) would he have succeeded in that role? Think about the diffferent circumstances and the different roles and the consequences of that when you talk about Russel versus Chamberlain. All the myths of the team player/ the winner against the selfish stats player are just that.. myths.
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Mike G
Joined: 14 Jan 2005
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| Posted: Wed Dec 27, 2006 7:07 am Post subject: |
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Of course no one here has brought up Bill Russell as a way of analyzing Wilt Chamberlain.
I'm assuming no one operates on the basis of 'myths' here, but from numbers that are in the books. I took the liberty of stating that Wilt was chasing titles or records, because that's my hunch. It isn't based on what anyone has said or written.
Maybe 'eccentric' is too strong a word for Wilt ? I wouldn't have guessed so. One year he shot FT from about 17', off to one side of the circle.
However you look at the player's changing situation, his FG% is inversely correlated to his FGA. That's the only point I was making. It doesn't really matter (to me) what his motivations were. Unless you are saying there might be other conditions in which he could have shot 70% and taken much more than 7 shots per game?
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Chicago76
Joined: 06 Nov 2005
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| Posted: Wed Dec 27, 2006 8:16 pm Post subject: |
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A.T.-
I wasn't trying to upset with comments regarding Chamberlain. The thread wasn't intended to be a Russell vs. Chamberlain comparison (for the record, I'd take Chamberlain). The point of my post wasn't to belittle Chamberlain, but to try to explain why his FG% went up as much as it did. You don't see the same correlation with a perimeter player. The reasons are:
1-His shots were more limited to putbacks, tap ins, dunks, and close turnarounds.
2-There were times when he could have taken a few more shots. His game was a little too restricted. He wasn't necessarily selfish/selfless. Two more shots a game for Wilt might have added 3 pts (counting FTAs). It also might have lowered his FG% a bit and dropped his assist total slightly. Did he hurt his team through his actions? Not really. No more than any high usage player taking one ill-advised shot a game.
Either way, the point is, using Chamberlain as a comparison in the Usage vs. Efficiency debate isn't particularly useful unless you're restricting the player list to big men who can rebound.
For SFs on down, it's more of a crap shoot.
Why not use Oscar Robertson? His FGA declined from 19.1 to 15.6 per40 min from 68 to 69, but but his eFG dropped from .500 to .486.
Rick Barry? FGA attempts declined from 27.4 to 20.8 per 40 min from 75 to 76, but his eFG dropped from .464 to .435.
Erving? 80 and 81 were the two NBA years in which he took the most shots, yet they were two of his three best shooting years.
Dantley's FG% declined when he went to the Pistons and shot less
English's FGA jumped 3 per 40 min one year and he shot the best percentage of his career. |
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Analyze This
Joined: 17 May 2005
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| Posted: Thu Dec 28, 2006 3:54 am Post subject: |
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| Chicago76 wrote: | A.T.-
I wasn't trying to upset with comments regarding Chamberlain. The thread wasn't intended to be a Russell vs. Chamberlain comparison (for the record, I'd take Chamberlain). The point of my post wasn't to belittle Chamberlain, but to try to explain why his FG% went up as much as it did. |
Chicago76, I know that. I also know that Wilt versus Bill is not the point of discussion in this topic. But whenever I see pop up the Wilt is obsessed by stats and decides before the season which record he will get this time myth I react. I made my point in the blue post about what MikeG an deepak stated | Mike G wrote: | | Wilt wasn't entirely 'forced' into changing his role, but was eccentric enough that he would go after an assist title one year, an unbreakable FG% in another. |
| deepak_e wrote: | | Have you read any of Wilt's books? He was obsessed with his numbers and records. That's a well known fact. |
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Mike G
Joined: 14 Jan 2005
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| Posted: Fri Dec 29, 2006 10:40 am Post subject: |
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| Chicago76 wrote: | ...
Rick Barry? FGA attempts declined from 27.4 to 20.8 per 40 min from 75 to 76, but his eFG dropped from .464 to .435.
... |
The '75 Warriors used Barry for 40 mpg, and 9 other guys between 11 and 31 min. In order of mpg, here are the team Eff% (<TS%) and Sco rates:
| Code: | Barry .503 26.2
Beard .574 15.3
Ray .538 10.5
Wilkes .468 13.9
CJohnson .428 10.6
Dickey .496 9.8
GJohnson .499 7.1
Mullins .483 12.7
Smith .524 15.0
Dudley .516 9.4
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Note that Phil Smith is the 2nd or 3rd-best scorer but is only #9 in the rotation. The '76 lineup was essentially unchanged:
| Code: | Barry .478 18.1
Smith .517 20.4
Wilkes .493 17.7
Ray .543 8.9
Williams .466 14.8
GJohnson .509 7.0
CJohnson .482 13.5
Dudley .557 11.4
Dickey .490 11.2
Davis .461 8.3
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Note that Smith has moved to #2 in minutes; Wilkes' shooting has also improved. Williams is the rookie Gus. Suddenly, lots of firepower.
Do we suppose Rick Barry's FG% dropped due to his shooting less? Or was he just shooting badly enough -- particularly, relative to his team -- that he was asked to shoot less?
I don't find such an example to be any exception to any rule. Not even to any rule of thumb or supposed rule. In a stable lineup, players who shoot better should shoot more, and those who shoot worse should shoot less.
In '75, Barry was typically the 2nd or 3rd-most efficient shooter on the floor. In '76, he was usually the worst. By shifting the shots, GS got the best record in the league, by 5 games.
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Mike G
Joined: 14 Jan 2005
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| Posted: Fri Dec 29, 2006 11:08 am Post subject: |
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| Chicago76 wrote: | ...
English's FGA jumped 3 per 40 min one year and he shot the best percentage of his career. |
English's shooting % peaked in '82: .551 / .596 , when he was taking 20.6 FGA/40.
In '83, his FGA jumped to 24.9/40 , and his % dropped to .517 / .561 .
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Mike G
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| Posted: Fri Dec 29, 2006 11:19 am Post subject: |
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| Chicago76 wrote: |
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Erving? 80 and 81 were the two NBA years in which he took the most shots, yet they were two of his three best shooting years. ..
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Erving's years between McGinnis and Malone:
| Code: | yr mpg eff%
79 35.9 .529
80 36.1 .558
81 35.0 .562
82 34.4 .581
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What do we make of this anti-correlation? Scoring was only one of the jobs of this most versatile player. Also rebounding, passing, and generally being The Man seemed to suit him. Yet by modern standards, he did not play superstar minutes.
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penbeast0
Joined: 11 Aug 2005
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| Posted: Wed Jan 03, 2007 9:42 am Post subject: |
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Fun discussion though it's getting off track a bit. I'm not as convinced by the "players tend to gravitate toward a usage rate they feel comfortable with." I'm more in the lines of Dan Issel's quote about taking the last shot, "Of course I want to take the last shot, I want to take all the shots." Except for a few unusual role players, mainly big men, most players in the NBA were the first option in HS and College (and when they play summer/pickup ball) and are comfortable taking a lot of shots. So, increasing the usage rate of most players won't take them out of their comfort zones though it might take them out of their coach's comfort zone.
As for Iverson, I haven't seen any sign so far in his career that he will adjust his game to his teammates, his only success was when they adjusted the whole team to defend and rebound for him (ok, that's a bit strong but not by that much). I'd like to see him increase efficiency but think it's more likely he drops back from last year's higher efficiency toward his career numbers unless the no handchecking rule was the reason for his better numbers last year.
And, one last point on Wilt. Reading Wilt's books, I got the feeling he was more than a bit insecure and if anything, too coachable. The greatest scorer in NBA history turns himself into a defensive specialist . . . still hard to believe that this was the best use of his talents even with that loaded 76er team and pretty sure that his teams later would have been better off with a more offensively aggressive Wilt. But, he took the Hannum critique to heart and having won with it, pushed it too far I believe. |
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Mountain
Joined: 13 Mar 2007
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| Posted: Mon Dec 17, 2007 9:14 pm Post subject: |
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| Brian M wrote: | As a foundational point, I'm not sure it's best to frame this in terms of usage vs. efficiency per se. The debate seems to be about how efficiency changes as a function of one's role in an offense, and so the thing being related to efficiency seems more qualitative-- what are you doing in the offense-- than quantitative-- how much are you doing in the offense. For instance, Scott Padgett might get a lot more shots than usual against a team that decides to double Yao every time he touches the ball in the post, but the nature of the shots he'd be taking-- open 3s off of kick outs from the post-- would be the same as usual. The crux of the issue, I think, wouldn't turn on how Padgett's efficiency changes as a function of how many open 3s he takes, but rather how it changes as a function of the type of shots he takes-- e.g., if he's asked to create the shot himself.
Assuming that is indeed the spirit of the argument, it would seem to me that assisted FG% is indeed a pretty good proxy for what is at issue. It seems a pretty safe bet that on average, assisted and unassisted FGs are of a qualitatively different nature, differing primarily in terms of who gets credit for creating the shot.
One way of assessing the issue, then, would be to look at how offensive effiency varies as a function of assisted FG% on the level of individual players. Intuitively, it seems likely that higher assisted FG% would always yield higher efficiency. The hypothesis, though, would just be that efficiency drops more precipitously as unassisted FG% rises for low-usage players than it does for high-usage players, i.e. there should be a usage x efficiency x assited FG% interaction. Such an analysis would involve looking at efficiency and assisted FG% on a game-by-game basis, though, making it tough to actually do the analysis (looks like a job for 82games.com?)
One complicating issue is that the semi-qualitative information given by the assist stat only applies for field goal makes. It would really be helpful if we could have access to counterfactual assist information (eg that pass would have counted as an assist, had the basket been made). |
This post's discussion of usage x efficiency x assited FG% interaction seemed like it might be worth recalling.
But is assisted rate fixed or variable? If Rockets specifically looked at getting more shots for Padgett (instead of doing so in reaction to defense of Yao) would the assisted field goal rate decline, stay the same or perhaps increase? Wouldn't this likely vary from player to player? In addition to the variability in the ability to get more of the shots a player takes frequently and can make vs lesser familar, less efficient shots?
How much of the usage/efficiency tradeoff is about the shooter and how much is about the rest of team's passing ability and frequency of making effort to pass to him? |
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