How To Undermine Your Own Point (part one), by Bill Simmons

     Page 157 of The Book of Basketball is the first page of a chapter called "The What-If Game." This book is 701 pages long; couldn't it have survived without sixty pages of pure conjecture? It's not like TBOB was so weighed down with dispassionate analysis to necessitate a chapter like this.
     Bill's number one choice for the greatest What-If in NBA history is: What if the 1984 draft turned out differently? That question is so broad as to render it almost meaningless. Differently for who? Which player? Which franchise?
   But Bill Simmons is far too smart to box himself in. "Oh, and you thought #1 would simply be 'What if Portland had taken MJ over Bowie?'" Bill must have anticipated that question because it's the most natural one to ask. But he explains his reasoning behind his lack of specificity:

     This draft was so complicated (emphasis mine) that it inspired Houston and Chicago to create the concept of "tanking" during the regular season.

     What exactly was complicated about the 1984 draft? Is he referring to the strategy of tanking, which is only as complicated as "You got a game tonight? Good, go lose it."? Is the famous depth of that draft the complicating factor? Because I would think a low-talent draft would be more complicated than a high talent draft. No larger point; I just thought it was a very poor choice of word.
     As usual, Bill Simmons is confused. He says from the outset that he's not focusing on Portland's failure to draft MJ; but that's almost entirely what he does with this question. In laying out the back story, Bill makes the following enumerated points:

The highlighted numbered points in dark blue bold are my paraphrasing of Simmons. Some of what he wrote was just imprecise enough to allow for some confusion. I'm still putting Simmons' verbatim quotes in bold and quotation marks.

1. Portland and Chicago were each willing to swap their pick for Ralph Sampson. Not about Jordan, but Bill can't resist devoting part of this paragraph to Jordan. And there's something else I need to point out here.

Remember that our theme is that Bill Simmons undermines his points or outright contradicts himself frequently. And in this #1, Bill sets the stage for one of many self-contradictions in just this What-If alone. After quoting Dr. Jack Ramsay of Portland saying that they had to have a center and would have made the Sampson trade, Simmons' comment is "I sure hope so." This tells me that Simmons' agrees with the idea that Portland needed a center. Keep this in mind, and refer back to it as you need to.

2. Many teams offered deals for Chicago's #3 pick, which lends weight to the idea that Portland screwed up by taking Bowie. "Eventually, the Bulls started feeling like they were sitting on a winning lottery ticket. And they were."

Uh, Bill? You know that it was no lock that Jordan would fall to #3, right? Teams were offering deals because it was a very deep draft. If Olajuwon or Jordan were off the board by #3, they could take Barkley or Stockton. Or even Kevin Willis, Otis Thorpe, or Alvin Robertson. My point is that teams were not out there saying, "If we get that number three pick, we'll get to draft the best player in NBA history!"

3. Patrick Ewing almost declared for the draft. "...Bulls GM Rod Thorn told Filip Bondy that Chicago had rated Jordan higher than Bowie because they were afraid of his injury track record." (Boy, what a horrible sentence) What's not clear is whether Thorn told Bondy this before or after the draft. I'm guessing after based on how teams typically operate, but who knows?

***THIS IS WHERE IT ALL GOES TO SHIT FOR BILL SIMMONS***

Just another reminder: We're discussing Bill's truly impressive ability to contradict himself, and boy does he.
(The next highlight is a verbatim quote)

"4. Jordan's potential was unclear because he played for Dean Smith in the pre-shot-clock era."
Okay, thesis established. First supporting sentence: "Everyone knew he was good, but how good?" We're all with you so far.

Then Bill starts the contradiction process.

"...Bobby Knight [Jordan's coach in the 1984 Olympics] called his buddy Stu Inman (Portland's GM) and implored (emphasis Bill's) him to take Michael. When Inman demurred and said that Portland needed a center, Knight reportedly screamed, 'Well, play him at center, then!'"

We're not there yet, but in passing this anecdote along Bill seems to think that Bobby Knight was a supreme judge of NBA talent. This is funny for two reasons: 1) In a footnote, Bill lists some of the players that were cut and some that were kept on the 1984 US men's team. The cut players? Karl Malone, John Stockton, Charles Barkley, Joe Dumars, and Terry Porter. The kept players? Jeff Turner, Joe Kleine, Steve Alford, and Jon Koncak. Bill makes a joke about David Duke being involved in the selection process, but I'm certain that most/all of the power rested with Bobby Knight. (Would a maniac like Knight even bother with coaching the Olympic team without that power?) 2) Bobby Knight coached Isiah Thomas, Calbert Chaney, a few guys who played a season or two in the NBA, and a zillion guys who were lucky if they made it to the CBA. Bobby Knight won national championships, but he wasn't doing it with future All-Stars the way Dean Smith did. So to appeal to Bobby Knight's authority on this matter just isn't true.

(Did that last sentence end poorly? It was on purpose and you'll soon see why)

"We also know that Nike (based in Portland) built an entire sneaker line around Jordan before he played an NBA game."

And you know, no one ever gave out a bad shoe deal before.

"So for anyone to play the 'We didn't know how good Jordan would be' card just isn't true." (emphasis mine)

See what I did there?

Oh, how badly I wished that was the biggest problem with this whole paragraph. The biggest problem was...well, I'll put the first sentence of the paragraph and the last sentence of the paragraph together and you tell me what's wrong:

"Jordan's potential was unclear because he played for Dean Smith in the pre-shot-clock era."
"So for anyone to play the 'We didn't know how good Jordan would be' card just isn't true."

Part two comes later.

Sim Bit #19: Bill Simmons, Condescending Prick, vol. 1

This Sim Bit may be even more insignificant than usual, but it just pissed me off enough that I couldn't let it pass without comment. From page 51, referring to the 2007-08 Celtics:

"Bench guys pulled for starters like they were the whitest, dorkiest tenth-graders..."

Ha ha ha, we white people are so dorky and stupid!

"...[Kevin Garnett] placed third in the MVP balloting because of subpar-for-him numbers;"

Or maybe Kobe finished ahead of KG because he didn't have Paul Pierce and Ray Allen playing alongside him. Yes, he did have Pau Gasol for half a season, but even if he's better than either Pierce or Allen, he's not better than both of them. Who ran the point for the Lakers? It wasn't a passing/defensive ace/future All-Star, that's for sure. And maybe Chris Paul finished ahead because he was the best player in basketball in 2008. The award is for the most valuable player, not "A" valuable player who plays for the best team. Of course, team success does (and should) play a role in the award, but Kobe and CP3 played for pretty good teams themselves.

"...meanwhile, the Celtics jumped from the worst record in 2007 to the best record in 2008."

Because Kevin Garnett, and only Kevin Garnett, joined the Celtics.

Here are your top eight in minutes played for the 2008 Celtics:

Paul Pierce, Ray Allen, Kevin Garnett, Rajon Rondo, Kendrick Perkins, James Posey, Eddie House, Tony Allen

And the top eight for the 2007 Celtics:

Al Jefferson, Ryan Gomes, Delonte West, Rajon Rondo, Gerald Green, Paul Pierce, Sebastian Telfair, Kendrick Perkins

The names in red bold appeared on both Celtics teams.

"Where's the statistic for that? (Shit, I forgot: it's called wins)"

Take that, stat nerds! But Bill isn't done with you yet:

"But that's what makes basketball so great: You have to watch the games. You have to pay attention. You cannot get seduced by numbers and stats." (emphasis his)

What a colossal prick. I am Bill Simmons. I see things others do not see. I understand basketball as the legends do. I am...The Hoops Whisperer.

"...I couldn't help noticing LeBron's '09 Cavaliers developing Ubuntu-like chemistry..."

Players enjoying playing for a winning team apparently only began in 2007.

I don't know for a fact that there will be more instances of Condescending Prick-behavior elsewhere in the book, but it seems like a safe bet.

Debunking the Debunking: Finishing Up Myth #3

     I’m still not done with Myth #3. Let’s go back to the quote about playoff production:

“Hmmmmmmm. Russell’s numbers jumped and Wilt’s numbers dipped dramatically when there was money on the line, even though Wilt was routinely his team’s number one scoring option and Russ was number four or five.”

     I already knocked over the first part of that quote, but the second part deserves discussion as well. You see, I’ve watched a lot of playoff basketball, and the number one option actually has a hard job. Yes, he’s going to see the ball more, but the defenses are tougher than they are in the regular season, and those defenses are all game-planning to stop that guy. True, sometimes the game plan is to let the primary scorer get his while clamping down on everyone else, but Wilt Chamberlain was double and triple-teamed practically his whole life. I’m only guessing here, but I don’t think playoff teams were letting Wilt get his. (I’m also guessing here that “don’t let the other guys beat you” is a relatively recent strategy) If my conjecture is accurate, then options two, three, and four should have an easier time of things, and I have witnessed this happen in playoff games. One example from my favorite team: Avery Johnson. A left-hander from Louisiana, undersized for his position (sound familiar?), Johnson was basically dared to shoot open jumpers in playoff games.
     Simmons seems to think Russell had a tougher job getting his numbers in the playoffs than Chamberlain did because of their respective roles. I think it’s a push because secondary offensive options often end up with open looks that primary scorers don’t usually get.
     Let us recall that this Myth #3 is: “Statistically, Wilt crushed Russell”. But just a page and a half into it, Simmons says, “So yeah, by any statistical calculation, Wilt Chamberlain is the greatest season player in NBA history. I concede this fact. For the playoffs? Not so great.”
     So why did we do this? Why did Simmons shoehorn this myth into chapter two?
     Then, as if out of nowhere, Simmons' breakdown of Myth #3 drifts into strange waters. It was one thing when Russell and Chamberlain were getting all the credit/blame for their teams wins and losses, but at least Simmons was assigning hard data to each man. But starting on paragraph two of page 69 through page 74, Simmons genuflects at the Altar of Anecdotes. Which is baffling, since, wasn't Bill trying to debunk the myth that Wilt crushed Russell statistically?
     Here now, your Anecdote Typhoon:

• "…Wilt famously swatted shots like volleyball spikes for dramatic effect, Russell deflected blocks to teammates for instant fast breaks…"

How the hell did Boston ever lose a game if Russell could do this at will? The implication here: Wilt always blocked the ball out of bounds, and Russell and the Celtics always recovered Russell's blocks. The second implication: Wilt's blocks were meaningless. Let's pretend Wilt always did spike the ball out of bounds. Okay, but he probably blocked at least a few shots with the shot clock run down under three seconds. It's often hard to get a score in that situation.

• "Opponents eventually gave up challenging Russell and settled for outside shots…"

Then how did Russell block so very many shots? You'd think that if they really did give up, Russell would have been blocking a lot fewer after a couple of years in the league.

• "Boston's scorers…found themselves in the dream situation of worrying about scoring and that's it."

I'm sure that's it. Whenever Boston played Cincinnati, Cousy or Sam Jones just said, "Hell with this. I don't have to do shit to this Oscar guy, Bill will just block the shot." Johnny Havlicek just let Elgin Baylor go wherever he wanted because, fuck it, Bill's got him. Because pro basketball players are just that stupid and, apparently, eager to piss off their head coach by not making an effort.

• "[Wilt] wasn't a natural jumper like Russell (emphasis mine)…[and] many opponents learned to time those jumps and float shots over his considerable reach."

Are you getting the idea that Simmons wants us to believe that Russell blocked many more shots than Chamberlain? I am. Never mind that in Tall Tales - a book cited by Simmons in TBOB - Earl Strom, who officiated during that era, says that Russell and Chamberlain were averaging "8 to 10 blocks a night for most of their careers." In the same book, legendary statistician Harvey Pollack estimated that Russell and Chamberlain averaged over five blocks per night in their peak seasons, and over four per game for their careers. If Russell did block more shots than Chamberlain, he didn't do it by much. If some players did learn to beat Chamberlain's shot blocking, they didn't do it too often if Strom and Pollack are to be believed.

• "[Wilt would] stop challenging shots with four or five fouls even if he was hurting his team in the process. I'm not making this up. (Seriously, I'm not making this up.)"

We're going to discuss this in greater detail coming up, but you know how Bill Simmons proves that he's not making it up? He offers a quote by John Havlicek. Simmons then footnotes this quote with another Havlicek quote, this one gushing about Russell's awesomeness on defense. Bill seems to believe that the old Celtics can be counted on to provide honest, sober, unbiased evaluations on the Russell/Chamberlain debate. It's really sad, honestly.

• "In the end, Russell's teams won championships and Wilt's teams lost them."

I give Simmons credit for finally noting that Russell and Chamberlain actually have teammates, but Wilt won championships, too. His 1967 76ers and 1972 Lakers went 68-13 and 69-13, respectively. Chamberlain was on one team that won during the Russell era; Bob Pettit was on the other one, and Pettit's Hawks beat an injured Russell.

Here is a list of awesome basketball players who won fewer championships than Wilt Chamberlain:

Neil Johnston, Dolph Schayes, Paul Arizin, Bob Pettit, Jerry West, Elgin Baylor, Oscar Robertson, Earl Monroe, Elvin Hayes, Bob Lanier, Pete Maravich, Artis Gilmore, Julius Erving, George Gervin, Alex English, Adrian Dantley, Bernard King, Moses Malone, Dominique Wilkins, Clyde Drexler, John Stockton, Karl Malone, Charles Barkley, Patrick Ewing, Reggie Miller, Allen Iverson

Here is a second list of awesome basketball players who won as many championships as Wilt Chamberlain:

Walt Frazier, Willis Reed, Dave Cowens, Bill Walton, Hakeem Olajuwon, David Robinson

These lists, while not comprehensive, illustrate that while Wilt certainly could have won more championships, achieved a hell of a lot on an individual AND team level.

Sim Bit #3 and #3.1

A Sim-Bits double header!

p. 331 - "I'd rather have the [Dennis] Rodman from '87 to '91…and '96 to '98."

Ummm, by that logic, I'd rather have the 68-74 Ford Mustang and the 94-98. I mean, if your argument is that you'd rather have "A" Dennis Rodman, shouldn't you narrow it down more than this? Shit, my favorite team was when Tim Duncan played for the Spurs.

Plus, in the parenthetical to the "96-98 Rodman", Simmons claims: "…[Rodman] played Karl Malone so effectively in back-to-back Finals." Okay, let's check:

Malone, 1997 regular season: 37 MPG, 27 PPG, 10 RPG, FG 55%/FT 76%, 28.9 PER, .268 WS/48
Malone, 1997 playoffs:           41 MPG, 26 PPG, 11 RPG, FG 44%/FT 72%, 22.2 PER, .127 WS/48
Malone, 1997 Finals:              41 MPG, 24 PPG, 10 RPG, FG 44%/FT 60%

I guess it was Rodman's effective free throw defense that kept Malone's points down, because Malone's shooting percentage was the same in the Finals as it was during the rest of the playoffs. Maybe 1998 is what Simmons was thinking of:

Malone, 1998 regular season: 37 MPG, 27 PPG, 10 RPG, FG 53%/FT 76%, 27.9 PER, .259 WS/48
 Malone, 1998 playoffs:           40 MPG, 26 PPG, 11 RPG, FG 47%/FT 79%, 24.2 PER, .184 WS/48
 Malone, 1998 Finals:              41 MPG, 25 PPG, 11 RPG, FG 50%/FT 79%

There is no evidence here to suggest that Dennis Rodman defended Karl Malone any more effectively than anyone else.

and now...

How long did Reggie Miller play basketball? Well, Miller was drafted in 1987 and didn't sit out or retire at any point during his career, which ended after the 2004-05 season. So…let's work this out on paper:

01. 1987-88
02. 1988-89
03. 1989-90
04. 1990-91
05. 1991-92
06. 1992-93
07. 1993-94
08. 1994-95
09. 1995-96
10. 1996-97
11. 1997-98
12. 1998-99
13. 1999-2000
14. 2000-01
15. 2001-02
16. 2002-03
17. 2003-04
18. 2004-05

By my count, Reggie Miller played eighteen seasons. (If you disagree, I refer you to the list above and invite you to point out where I went wrong) How many seasons did Reggie Miller play, according to Bill Simmons?

Sadly, it depends on which page of the book you read.

p. 343 - "[Pyramid number] 63. Reggie Miller…Resume: 15 years" 
p. 344 - "Reggie [Miller] played for sixteen seasons (1988-2005)…" (emphasis mine in both cases)

One figure is a typo, unless the other one is. Neither one are right.

Summary - The Story So Far

I'm a long-winded bastard who will never say in five words what I can say in twenty. But I have good news for you: I'm going to use this post to summarize everything that's happened on Bill Simmons' Bogus Book so far.

The Book of Basketball
     Obviously, these are posts dealing with Bill's bestseller.

Bill Simmons' Basketball Hall of Fame

• It's a pyramid with all the best players on the top floor. Which is great, because people love to crowd into the top floor of a building that only gets smaller as it rises. Not to worry, though: There are more players at the top level than at the next level down. You know, pyramids.
• There are ninety-six players in the BSHOF. And that number will never change, says Bill. And we'll have to throw players out when new players make a greater impact than the previous honorees.

Russell versus Chamberlain

• Simmons says he can prove - yes, prove - that Bill Russell was better than Wilt Chamberlain.
• Despite having such an ironclad argument, Bill Simmons engages in what I call "Simmons' Steps to Subterfuge". They are:
1. Frame Issue With Negative Emotion - comparing the pro-Wilt argument to the OJ Simpson defense team
2. Gloss Over Relevant Facts - his claim that everyone had a good supporting cast in the old days because the NBA was so small. Never mind that the sport wasn't fully integrated when Bill Russell entered the league. Never mind that the shot clock had only been around for two years at that time. Never mind that NBA basketball was only in its eleventh season, that the jump shot was still a pretty new concept, that the lane was narrow, that dunking was frowned upon. The league was small, so every team was good.
3. Muddy The Waters - despite claiming to compare Russell and Chamberlain, Simmons examines Russell's first three seasons and throws out a bunch of names and resumes. The aim here is to build his credibility by mentioning a bunch of players his audience knows nothing about.
4. Never Define, Never Explain - Bill's modus operandi, and really the foundation of the entire book. His arguments basically rest upon the phrase "Because I said so". There are more Simmons's Steps to Subterfuge, but I don't want to spoil anything.
• According to Bill, there are six common myths about the Russell-Chamberlain debate. The ones we've looked at so far are:
• Bill Russell had a better supporting cast
• He really, really did
• Bill Russell wasn't a very good offensive player
• This myth doesn't exist, and
• Simmons thinks "offense" = "passing"
• Statistically, Wilt crushed Russell
• This is true on an individual level, but Simmons apparently thinks all stats - wins, losses, championships - are individual stats.

Sim Bits

• These are small portions of The Book of Basketball that didn't merit a long post, but needed to be addressed anyway:

Shaq and Shaq Alone
Gloss over relevant facts, indeed.

Shower Rape is a Gold Mine For Comedy
Commentary is superfluous.

No One Is Better Qualified To Comment on Racial Matters Than A Privileged White Kid From Boston
.

Off-Topic

• If all I did was write about The Book of Basketball, I'd go freaking mad.

The 2011 NBA Finals
Nailed it.

Still Alive!
I went eighteen months without posting. What the hell, I'm poor. When the computer crashes, it can take some time to get a new one when you're not made of money. And if you've forgotten your old password...well, the point is, BSBB is back.

Catching Up
All the comments I missed in those eighteen months.

Bill Simmons on the Baseball Hall of Fame*
*From 2007. George W. Bush was still president when Bill Simmons had something to say about the Baseball Hall of Fame, but: since the BBHOF was in the news, Bill couldn't let it go without saying something. For those of you who think, "Bill Simmons used to be good", this column proves: no. No he did not.

...and that's where we're at now. I swear I'll finish this Wilt v. Russell business very soon, and we'll move on to other parts of this stupid book. And I'll go off-topic more often because it is a very stupid book. Although, for the sake of balance, I'll write a post about the stuff in the book that I liked. It wasn't all bad. Only mostly.

Debunking the Debunking: Myth #3 of the Russell-Chamberlain Debate

“Russell’s career offensive numbers can’t compare except for REBOUNDS (emphasis mine).”

     We’re moving on to the next myth Simmons looks to debunk: “Myth no. 3: Statistically, Wilt crushed Russell.” And the quote above appears in the first paragraph of this myth-busting; how’s that for an inaccurate start? I’ll meet Bill halfway: a rebound can trigger the fast-break (especially with a rebounder who can pass the ball well), and of course, offensive rebounds can be directly put back for points. I will grant that we didn’t track offensive rebounds back then, but I’d wager good money that even in the sixties, 1) the great majority of rebounds were defensive and 2) most of those didn’t trigger a fast-break. I have nothing to bolster this opinion with, so draw your own conclusions on this point. My larger point is that rebounds aren’t offensive stats, which I assumed even casual fans knew.

     While we’re on the subject of rebounds, Russell was a great rebounder of course and, as Simmons suggests, in the same zip code as Chamberlain. But Wilt was in a much nicer house.
     Both men averaged 22 rebounds per game; Wilt 22.9, Russell 22.5. I don’t think they were this close in reality. Let’s consider a few things:

• Wilt played four seasons after Russell retired, from 1970-73. While Russell started his entire career in a very inaccurate shooting era, Wilt played three plus seasons (just 12 games in 1970) when teams shot the ball more accurately. Compare 57-59 with 70-73 to see what I’m getting at:

     This table doesn’t account for some things, but this is just to give you an idea. From 1957-59, there were 62, 72, and 69 rebounds to be had per game – Russell’s three years without Wilt in the league. From 1970-73, Wilt’s three-plus seasons without Russell in the league, there were 53, 49, and 50 rebounds to be had. Anyone else think Wilt would have had more rebounds if he was exactly the same age as Russell?

• Russell was 0.1 rebounds better than his career average (22.6 from 22.5) from 1960-69, Wilt’s first ten seasons. During that same period, Wilt was 1.4 rebounds better (24.3 from 22.9).
• You have seen how really big guys don’t always make the best rebounders, right? Where they have a size and strength advantage on one hand, they are slower to react and move on the other, right? The best rebounders I’ve watched are Moses Malone, Larry Bird, Lafayette Lever, Dennis Rodman, Charles Oakley, Charles Barkley, Hakeem Olajuwon, Jayson Williams, Ben Wallace, and Zach Randolph. Not one of these guys was seven feet tall (despite Hakeem’s height listing), but they all had quick feet and reaction time to the ball. They were usually the first player off the floor when the shot rebounded and could jump repeatedly in one spot, like a jump rope exercise. In the films I’ve seen, Bill Russell looks bodily like Dennis Rodman – same height, same long arms – and it’s easy to imagine him dominating the glass in the way that Rodman often did. But in the games they played against each other, the larger and presumably slower Chamberlain was five rebounds better than Russell in 142 matchups. (28.7 RPG for Wilt, 23.7 RPG for Russell)

“At this point, you are thinking, ‘Come on Simmons, this is crazy. You have no case.’ Well, here are some more stats for you:”

     This came after Bill mentioned Russell’s and Wilt’s head-to-head points/rebounds averages. But Bill came ready with a devastating counter:

Wilt’s record against Russell: 58-84
Russell’s record against Wilt: 84-58

     You see, in Simmonsland, all stats are player stats. Points, rebounds, assists, blocks, wins, losses, championships – these can all be achieved by individual players. But the hilarious part of the W/L stat above: it’s listed twice. All Simmons had to do was run the stat out there like this:

Russell’s record against Wilt: 84-58

     And it means exactly the same thing as listing it twice. Was he trying to give Russell credit twice? (actually, he probably was)

     But Simmons hasn’t emptied his pistol yet. Next, he urges us to check out their playoff numbers:

Wilt: 160 games, 22.5 points, 24.5 rebounds, 4.2 assists, 47% FT, 52% FG
Russ: 165 games, 16.2 points, 24.9 rebounds, 4.7 assists, 60% FT, 43% FG

     And after showing these lines off, Simmons says:

“Hmmmmmmm. Russell’s numbers jumped and Wilt’s numbers dipped dramatically when there was money on the line, even though Wilt was routinely his team’s number one scoring option and Russ was number four or five.”

     That passage is chock full of wrong. Let's start with the first part of that quote:

Russell’s numbers jumped and Wilt’s numbers dipped dramatically

     That is one (highly skewed) way to look at it. If Bill was talking about only scoring average, he’d be right about Wilt’s dipping dramatically (as far as it goes), but it’s just wrong to say Russell’s numbers jumped. We’ll start with Russell:

16.2 points (up from career average of 15.1)
24.9 rebounds (up from career average of 22.5)
4.7 assists (up from career average of 4.3)
60% FT (up from career mark of 56%)
43% FG (down from career mark of 44%)

     Does this look like numbers jumping up to you? Yes, Russell did improve in all but one category, but the only mark which looks like a big jump was rebounds, and basketball fans are well aware that shooting accuracy goes down in the playoffs; why wouldn’t Russell’s rebounds go up?

Now let’s look at Wilt:

22.5 points (down from career average of 30.1)
24.5 rebounds (up from career average of 22.9)
4.2 assists (down from career average of 4.4)
47% FT (down from career mark of 51%)
52% FG (down from career mark of 54%)

     Like Russell, Wilt’s numbers are in the same ballpark as his regular season numbers except for rebounds (which we just discussed) and points; but there is a very specific reason Wilt’s scoring didn’t drop as much as you might think.

     As Simmons himself points out, Wilt Chamberlain changed his style of play over time. He was receptive to this change as suggested by Coach Alex Hannum before the 1967 season. This style of play resulted in Wilt 2.0, the do-it-all center fixated (in often ludicrous fashion) on assisting teammates’ baskets. Wilt 1.0 was wired to score every point in sight. (Wilt 1.0 played in 52 playoff games, Wilt 2.0 played in 108) I have a better way to illustrate a player’s playoff contributions – focus on each season instead of the aggregate.

     I have a philosophical question here, and my frame of reference for it is the 1962 season and playoffs. This was the year Wilt averaged 50 points during the season and “only” 35 in the playoffs. And my question is this: is your team really hurting getting 35 per game as opposed to 50? I’m not asking people to break down the 1962 season and playoffs to look at the question exactly – I just mean in the general sense.
Let me explain the table. Numbers in red are stats that dropped significantly, numbers in green are the stats that rose significantly. The numbers in bold are the stats Wilt led the playoffs in, therefore sometimes a red or green stat will be in bold. (How I defined significant: 4+ PPG, 2+ RPG, 2+ APG, 2+ FG% points, 4+ FT% points)
      As you can see, Wilt’s scoring and FG shooting dropped significantly on six and nine occasions respectively. His rebounding only dropped significantly once, his assists four times. His FT% was all over the place: it dropped significantly six times and rose significantly three times. Not surprising that Wilt couldn’t maintain consistency at the line, of course. Other significant gains: rebounding six times, assists twice, and FG% twice. Wilt was, overall, a little worse in the playoffs than in the season, but again – in reference to my earlier question, Wilt was worse to the tune of: 33 PPG, 35 PPG, 29 PPG, 28 PPG, 23 RPG, 6.5 APG, 57.9 FG%, 54.5 FG%, 56.3 FG%, 55.2 FG%. The standards he created were so great that those numbers were all significant drops compared to his season stats that year. I’ll admit that my methods are by no means comprehensive, but they’re more detailed than Simmons’ methods.
     Let’s give Russell the same treatment:

     In general, Russell was a little better during the playoffs than he was during the season, and Wilt was a little worse (owing in part to some stratospheric regular season standards). Russell certainly deserves credit for his playoff performance, but it is inaccurate to say that Russell’s numbers “jumped” or that Wilt “dipped dramatically” in the playoffs.
     Next time: we'll discuss the second half of the "Russell's numbers jumped" quote.

Sim Bit #22: Bill Simmons, President of Race Relations, Part One

Unfortunately, there are a bunch Sim Bits on race. From a footnote on page 91:

“Pettit’s quadruple-printed card remains the easiest to find. Go figure, they quadruple-printed Pettit (white) and single-printed Russell (black). I’m sure this was a coincidence.”

Let’s look at this soberly:  In 1957, Bill Russell wasn’t Bill Russell yet. You’ll recall that it was Russell’s teammate Tommy Heinsohn who won the Rookie of the Year award over Russell. At the time, I’m certain that no one beyond Red Auerbach understood Russell’s real value. It’s a fact that Bob Cousy, not Russell, won the MVP award that season. Bob Pettit won the MVP and the NBA scoring title the season before. I have no doubt that Bob Pettit was a more important player than Russell was in 1957, but no, go on ahead Bill Simmons – just keep on casually making accusations of racism.

In fact, Simmons himself calls Bob Pettit the Alpha Dog of the 1957 season, but the people alive at the time who made the cards were racists for thinking the same thing?

Tomorrow: back to why we're here.