APBRmetrics

[Chronz1]

Sorry if its been asked to death but the argument came up today and I have my beliefs but want to know where you all stand.

[tHe_pEsTiLeNcE]

Since we don't have turnover, offensive rebound, etc numbers from Oscar's heyday, we just have to use a primitive estimate of a pace adjustment based on a team's field goal attempts for points and assists and missed shots for rebounds.

During his triple-double season, the Royals took 8414 shots, nearly 2000 more shots than the average team in the 2006-2007 season. One could logically (if crudely and with a large margin of error) then conclude that at an average 2007 pace he'd average about 23.9 points and 8.86 assists. There were approximately 9216 available rebounds for the '62 royals (we know this number to be untrue, but B-R lacks opponent fg numbers back then) and 7082 average rebounds available for a 2007 team, so figuring that he'd get proportionally less, he'd be left averaging 9.6 rebounds per game in today's game.

An important caveat, however, is that there is no way any coach would play him 44.3 minutes per game in today's game. A player that good would probably be playing somewhere along the lines of 40 minutes per game today. That would move him to the figures of 21.6 ppg, 8 apg, and 8.7 rpg. This, of course, is assuming you transported the players from 1962 to today's league.

Personally I think his rebounds number would be significantly lower than that. I know Jason Kidd is getting around that many rebounds at 6'4" but generally players are taller and more athletic now and even Kidd wouldn't be getting 8 rebounds per game on 90% of the teams in the league. I think the Big O would realistically get more like 6 or 7 boards per game.

I am of the personal opinion that the quality of the league has greatly improved since the sixties, and that legends from the sixties can be seen as basketball equivalents of Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington: Great players and innovators for their time but not able to compete in today's game. But if, as many statistical models I've seen suggest, the '60s level of play was indeed as good as the current level of play then I think that about 21-8-7 would be the Big O's peak in the modern day pace (this, of course, is assuming he played for the average team. I'm sure as a guard for the Golden State Warriors or Detroit Pistons this number would obviously vary)
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[Chronz1]

Great post pestilence it was very insightful, if you can I would greatly appreciate understanding how you accomplished standardizing his numbers, when you have the time of course. Ive seen other posters models but never figured out how to do this myself. At least as far as scoring and assisting go, Im pretty set on rebounding.

[tpryan]

Bill Russell once commented on the comparison of Big O and Michael Jordan. Russell stated that someone could possibly tie the Big O but not be rated better than him. Of course Russell was biased because Oscar played in his era, but Oscar was truly outstanding when he was in his prime. Oscar and his skill level would not be blown away by today's players. I say that as someone who watched him play on TV.

[Mike G]

Bill Russell also has explained the old players' great rebounding as having to do with the roles being defined differently. He failed to mention that there were 30-40% more rebounds to be gotten.

Wilt once claimed that a 90 PPG league only proved a lack of scorers these days. If he were playing today ('90s), he would therefore average 60.

Then Oscar himself likes to remind us that his running mates shot about .100 lower than he did. And if he'd been in Magic's shoes, he too would have averaged 13-14 assists.

It's true that in the early '60s, fewer FG were counted as assisted: about 50% compared to 60% in later eras. You might boost his projected Ast by 10-20%.
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There's no I in analysys.

[Analyze This]

If the big O would play today, or The Big Dipper, or Russell they would not be the same players. 1) Because if they would play today, they for example would have gone to college in the late 90's and not in the 50's. They would have had another bball "education" and they would play different. They simply would be other basketball players. So only adjusting for pace will not do it. That's false. A player does not equal talent. How he could develop his talents is also important. The context in which they learned bball formed them for a big part as basketball players. Perhaps the big o would have been a deadly 3p shooter. We can not know because there was no 3p shot when he played. And if Nash would have played in the 40's how would he do? Well he probably had never heard of a jump shot and shot two handers because that's what they learned him in college. 2) And the difference between the nba now and then also had an influence on the result. The rules are different. The interpretation of rules is different(look what a big influence the stricter interpretation, on first look a small thing, of the no hand check rules has had). The number of teams/rosterspots/ times teams meet each other/ is different. The position of the nba itself and its teams is different. Philadelphia does not need a player to score 50 p to make sure enough people come so they don't go bankrupt. The scouting has evolved in such a way that Auerbach would not have had the same advantage in locating talent and he could not have assembled all that talent in one team. If Russell would have came in a less talented team with not enough scorers how would that have affected his play. And so on. The players are partly a product of their time/context. You can not take them out of that. You should take the context/time with them (and not only their talent) when you place them in the current game or the comparison is false. But that is not possible. That's why I don't agree with the Pestilence.
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[Chronz1]

Im not trying to change history, or bring players through time. Just trying to get an idea of what Big O's level of play would be like in this era. I know its impossible to get a very accurate description but its better than looking at the raw averages.

The reason I asked this question is because I argued that the current season Lebron is experiencing is greater than any perimeter player not named MJ, and Big O's name came up. The idea was that because he averaged a triple double and scored more that Big O was a no brainer but I saw no logic in that assumption. Since turnovers werent tracked then we may never know who was truly more effective. But we can still make logical deductions.

[jkubatko]

I have been playing around with a standardization method off and on (mostly off) for the last few months. I take into account things like pace and the distribution of league events (e.g., assists). I'm not going to go into any detail at this point because it's still pretty rough, but here is what I get if I take Oscar Roberton's 1961-1962 season and translate it to the modern day:

[jkubatko]

Just for kicks, here are LeBron James's numbers from the 2005-06 season translated to the early 1960s:

[Chronz1]

So are assists the least effected translated stat?

[tHe_pEsTiLeNcE]

[jkubatko]

[Mike G]

Pace and scorekeepers' tendencies are not the only factors in the awarding of assists. This year, the league rate is .586 (Ast/FG); yet the range among teams is from almost 70% (NJ) to just 48% (NY).

I'd have to guess that style of play has changed greatly in 40 years; so even if modern scorekeepers were shipped back to the '60s, they'd come up with yet another Ast/FG ratio. Interpretation of rules (officiating), even, would affect the rate at which assists are created and granted.
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There's no I in analysys.

[deepak_e]

[jkubatko]