20 Second Timeout

Identical Numbers Are Not Always Equivalent

The Philadelphia 76ers recently added Dolph Schayes to their Legends Walk. For five years, Schayes was the NBA's career scoring leader, and when he retired in 1964 he ranked second in career scoring. Currently, Schayes ranks 75th in career ABA/NBA scoring. Zach Randolph is slightly ahead of Schayes in career scoring and Glen Rice is slightly behind Schayes in career scoring.

Randolph and Rice had excellent careers. However, Schayes was an all-time great who was selected to the NBA's 10 player 25th Anniversary Team in 1971 plus the 50th Anniversary Team (1996) and the 75th Anniversary Team (2021). In other words, when Schayes scored more than 18,000 career points that was an elite level total. Subsequent players who scored more than 18,000 career points were not as far ahead of most of their peers as Schayes was ahead of his peers. When comparing statistics of NBA players who competed in different eras, identical numbers are not always equivalent: it is more impressive to be the all-time leading scorer--even when the league had not existed for a long time--than to peak as the 70th or 80th leading scorer of all-time. 

Contextual factors impact statistics. For example, during Schayes' career the NBA season was shorter, and in his early seasons all of the teams did not even play the same number of games. In 1949-50, his Syracuse Nationals played 64 games, but some teams played as many as 68 games while other teams played as few as 62 games. The NBA season schedule did not become standardized at 82 games for all teams until 1967-68. During Schayes' era, the scheduling provided fewer breaks, the traveling conditions were harsher (no private team planes, no luxury hotels), and the game was much more physical. Schayes' Syracuse Nationals started 1961 by playing games on January 1, January 2, January 3, January 4, and January 5. They had one day off, and then they played on January 7 and January 8. "Load management" might have described how cargo was placed on trucks or trains, but it did not exist in terms of healthy players missing games or playing with minutes restrictions.

Scoring opportunities for both teams and individuals increased in the 1954-55 season when the NBA first began using the 24 second shot clock, an innovation that prevented the stalling tactics that threatened to destroy the league. 

The points that Schayes scored under the conditions that he scored those points cannot be equated to the points scored by later players under different conditions.

Contextual factors have a similar impact on NFL statistics. When Ozzie Newsome retired in 1990, he held the career record for most receptions by a tight end (662), and he ranked fourth overall, trailing only Steve Largent (819), Charlie Joiner (750), and Art Monk (730). Now, Newsome barely cracks the top 10 all-time for tight ends (Tony Gonzalez is the current record holder with 1325 receptions), and Newsome ranks 66th overall. With all due respect, Ricky Proehl and Amani Toomer--the players who are currently just ahead of Newsome on the all-time receptions list--are not in the same class as Newsome, a Hall of Famer who still is on the short list of all-time great tight ends more than 30 years after he played his final game. Why are 662 receptions accumulated in recent years not equivalent to 662 receptions accumulated from 1979-90? Rules changes regarding permissible downfield contact, blocking at the line of scrimmage, and enhanced protection for quarterbacks have led to an explosion in the productivity and efficiency of the passing game. The NFL in 2022 is very much a different game than the NFL in 1982.

Although context is important, I am not a fan of so-called "pace adjusted" statistics, a topic that I discussed in my profile of Wilt Chamberlain in my Pantheon series:

There is a reason that someone once suggested that the NBA Record Book should be renamed "The Wilt Chamberlain Story." Chamberlain posted the top four single season scoring averages in NBA history. The non-Chamberlain record is Michael Jordan's 37.1 ppg in 1986-87. Chamberlain's 1961-62 Philadelphia Warriors scored 125.4 ppg in a league in which teams averaged 118.8 ppg, while Jordan's 1986-87 Bulls produced 104.8 ppg when teams averaged 109.9 ppg. Some observers suggest that Chamberlain's scoring average is inflated by the faster "pace" of his era. Mathematically, this makes some sense; after all, the more shot attempts there are per game, the more opportunities a player will have to score. To cite an extreme example, when the NBA did not have a shot clock and teams routinely scored less than 85 points there was very little chance that someone would average 50 ppg for a season.

Yet, to simply crunch a few numbers and declare that Jordan's 37.1 ppg is somehow approximately equal to Chamberlain's 50.4 ppg flies in the face of logic. Regardless of the overall pace of the game, Chamberlain still had to continue to keep pace, so to speak, to average 50.4 ppg. No one else in his era—or any other time—has come close to doing this. Jordan’s 37.1 ppg may "project" to a higher average in 1961-62, but who is to say that the faster pace would not have fatigued Jordan or led to wear and tear that would have predisposed him to injury? Maybe the slower pace in 1986-87 would have suited Chamberlain even better and made it harder for teams to defend him. Without having to run up and down the court so frequently to get back on defense perhaps Chamberlain would have been more energized, while his opponents would have been worn down by the pounding they took trying to stop him in the paint; maybe a young Chamberlain would have scored 55 or 60 ppg in 1986-87. Let's be clear—I'm not saying that this is what would have happened; I'm saying that I don't know and neither does anyone else. It makes just as much sense to hypothesize that a slower pace would help Chamberlain as it does to "standardize" his numbers downward. All that we know for a fact is that Chamberlain scored 50.4 ppg and in nearly six decades of NBA action no one else has come close to matching that. Showing that Chamberlain and Jordan's scoring production is mathematically equivalent when pace is considered is not the same as proving that Jordan would have in fact scored 50.4 ppg in 1961-62 or that Chamberlain would have been "held" to 37.1 ppg in 1986-87.

I don't know if Schayes would have scored more, less, or about the same in today's NBA as he did in the 1950s NBA, but I strongly believe that his 18,000-plus points are more impressive than 18,000-plus points scored in a later era when reaching the 18,000 point club was no longer a milestone event--and I strongly disagree with anyone who thinks that "pace adjustment" is a meaningful way to compare the statistics of players from different eras. 

What I do know is that Schayes was a dominant scorer in his era. I also know that he could score with either hand, that he could drive to the hoop, and that he was known for his long range shooting touch. He was a rugged rebounder and a good passer. Schayes was 6-8, so in today's game his size and skill set would enable him to play inside or outside. Improved playing conditions, improved training, and the league's increased focus on efficiency/shooting percentages would likely have resulted in Schayes shooting a better field goal percentage now than he did during his career; he led the league in free throw percentage three times, and his career free throw percentage of .849 demonstrates that he was an excellent shooter. 

I respect great players from all eras, and it disappoints me any time I read or hear someone make disrespectful comments about the game's pioneering legends.

Labels: Dolph Schayes, Glen Rice, Ozzie Newsome, Wilt Chamberlain, Zach Randolph

posted by David Friedman @ 11:29 PM

4 comments