Sunday, August 6, 2017

SECTION 31 - The 1970s: The Weakest Decade of the NBA's Post-Infancy


Amongst NBA fans, the 1970s is perhaps the least-talked about era of the NBA's post-infancy. Some may assume the 1960s would be discussed less often, but from my personal experience most basketball fans have some understanding of the Wilt-Russell rivalry as well as the other great stars of the 1960s such as West, Baylor, and Oscar. With the 1970s, however, not nearly as many people discuss the championship teams of that decade such as the 1974 and 1976 Celtics, 1975 Warriors, 1977 Blazers, 1978 Bullets or 1979 Sonics like they do with Russell's Celtics or even Wilt's 1967 Sixers.


Considering that the likes of Oscar, West, Baylor, and Wilt's primes took place in the 1960s, most of the 1970s stars other than Kareem don't receive nearly as much recognition as the stars of other decades. 
We don't hear about the leaders of most 1970s Title teams; Willis Reed, Dave Cowens, Rick Barry, Bill Walton, Elvin Hayes, Gus Williams, etc. like we do with Magic, Bird, Jordan, Hakeem, all the way to the most recent championship-leading players such as Shaq, Kobe, Duncan, or LeBron. After comparing the former list of names to the latter, perhaps one can get a good idea of why that is the case.

My assumption is that the general lack of discussion of the 1970s is at least partially attributable to a lack of interest due to the much weaker quality of the 1970s, whether fans are aware of this weakness or not. There is no doubt about the fact that the 1970s is unquestionably the weakest era of the NBA's post-infancy (1960-present) years. There was a severe lack of quality competition on both the team and individual levels, for a multitude of reasons that will be explored in this section.


1. Statistical Evidence


It is a statistical fact that the 1970s had the weakest team competition of any post-infancy decade. In 1973/74 and 4 consecutive seasons from 1975/76 to 1978/79, the league failed to produce even one 60-win team in those 5 seasons. For comparison, from 1980 onwards, the 2000/01 season is the only year in which the league did not produce a 60-win team; the Spurs had the best record at 58-24. The league failed to produce a 60-win team for half of the 1970s, yet this has only occurred once in 35+ seasons since then. Even in 2001, however, the Lakers had to beat 4 50+ win teams to win the title. No title team in the 1970s faced a path remotely comparable to the 2001 Lakers' stacked overall competition. 


It is also worth noting that the 1970s produced 8 of the 17 sub-50 win teams to make the NBA Finals from 1960-present. 


Sub-50 Win Finals Teams from 1960-present

  1. 1965 Lakers - 49-31 - 80 game season
  2. 1977 Blazers - 49-33
  3. 2003 Nets - 49-33 - the last sub-50 team to make the NBA Finals
  4. 1964 Warriors - 48-32 - 80 game season
  5. 1969 Celtics - 48-34
  6. 1972 Knicks - 48-34
  7. 1975 Warriors - 48-34
  8. 1978 Sonics - 47-35
  9. 1995 Rockets - 47-35
  10. 1970 Lakers - 46-36
  11. 1966 Lakers - 45-35 - 80 game season
  12. 1967 Warriors - 44-37 - 81 game season
  13. 1978 Bullets - 44-38 
  14. 1999 Knicks - 44-38 - win% adjusted for 82 games (27-23)
  15. 1971 Bullets - 42-40
  16. 1976 Suns - 42-40
  17. 1981 Rockets - 40-42 - only losing Finals team since 1959
Also worth noting is that the 1978 NBA Finals is the only time since 1958 that both Finals teams had under 50 wins, and in 1958 the season only lasted 72 games.

Since 1960, nearly half of the sub-50 win Finals teams came in the incredibly weak 1970s. As has been stated on this site multiple times, Jordan (10-0), Duncan (13-1), Kobe (6-0 as a starter), and LeBron (19-0) are a combined 49-1 in playoff series against sub-50 win teams, proving that 50-wins is an accurate cutoff for weaker competition. Duncan's lone loss against a sub-50 win team came at age 34 against the 2011 Grizzlies.

Championship teams have benefited from opposing teams' injuries across every era, as has been noted here, but the best teams of the 1970s benefited from injuries on top of already playing in the weakest post-infancy era of the NBA to begin with. The 1971 Bucks and 1972 Lakers are generally considered the best teams of the 1970s. The Bucks had a 66-16 record, led by Oscar and Kareem, and have the best SRS of any team in history (though I do not consider SRS a credible measurement). The 1972 Lakers are tied for the 3rd-best regular season record in history at 69-13 with the 1997 Bulls and have the longest win streak in NBA history of 33 games.


The 1971 Bucks, however, faced a sub-50 win team in each of the 3 rounds in their title run including the Lakers without Jerry West and the 42-40 Bullets with Gus Johnson missing half the NBA Finals. The 1972 Lakers defeated the Bucks with an injured Oscar averaging 9 ppg for the series and the sub-50 win Knicks without Willis Reed, who won Finals MVP in both 1970 and 1973 while defeating the Lakers both times. When the two teams that are generally considered the "best" of that era played such weak competition, that says it all about the quality of the era as a whole.


2. Weak MVP Competition 


The 1970s had the weakest MVP competition of any post-infancy era. The likes of Dave Cowens, Bob McAdoo, and Bill Walton won MVP in the 1970s. Bob McAdoo is the only player from an eligible decade to not make the 50 Greatest in 1996. Derrick Rose is likely the only player since 1996 who would not make the 50 Greatest List, and he has been plagued with injuries since his MVP season. The likes of Cowens, McAdoo, and Walton would certainly not sniff an MVP if they were to compete against the likes of prime Moses Malone, Magic, Bird, Jordan, Hakeem, Duncan, Shaq, Kobe, LeBron, etc.


The competition was so poor in 1976 that Kareem became the only MVP in NBA history to win the award despite missing the playoffs. When the best player in the league can't even make the playoffs, that says a lot about the quality of the league as a whole for that particular season. In fact, Kareem is the only consensus top 10 player to miss the playoffs twice in his prime, doing so in 1975 and 1976. Likewise, when the best player of that era missed the playoffs twice in his prime, that says a lot about the quality of the NBA in the 1970s as a whole.


3. Diluted Talent Pool due to the ABA


The NBA was competing with another professional league in the ABA for the majority of the  1970s, and this led to an incredibly diluted talent pool. Jordan detractors often erroneously state that expansion watered down the league, a myth that is debunked here, but expansion doesn't completely remove the top competition in the league like the ABA did. 

The following players were amongst the best of the 1970s, but spent a good amount of time in the ABA during that timespan, leaving a much weaker and watered down NBA for other players to compete in.
  • Rick Barry - 1968/69 - 1971/72, did not play in 1967/68
  • Artis Gilmore - 1971/72 - 1975/76
  • Billy Cunningham - 1972/73 - 1973/74
  • George Gervin - 1972/73 - 1975/76
  • Julius Erving - 1971/72 - 1975/76
  • David Thompson - 1975/76
This would be akin to Jordan competing in a league without Isiah, Magic, Drexler, Barkley, Payton, Stockton or Malone for a large chunk of his career, except for the fact that Jordan's group of competition was of far higher quality overall to begin with. The 1970s had a severe dearth of quality NBA competition to begin with, and having to compete with the ABA weakened it even further.

4. No Great Dynasty

The 1970s is the only decade without a dominant dynasty in NBA history. Every other decade featured an all-time great level dynasty. The 1960s had Russell's Celtics, the 1980s had the Lakers and Celtics, the 1990s had the Bulls, the 2000s had the Lakers and Spurs, and the 2010s looks to be the decade of the Warriors. This is the same decade that failed to produce a 60-win team in half of its seasons and features nearly half of the sub-50 win Finals teams from 1960-present, so it shouldn't come as a surprise that the 1970s is the only one that failed to produce a truly great dynasty. The Knicks and Celtics were the only two teams that won multiple championships in the 1970s with two apiece, but the Reed-led Knicks and Cowens-led Celtics do not compare at all to the great dynasties of other decades. Two-time champions such as the Bad Boy Pistons and Hakeem's Rockets were far greater than either than the 1970s Knicks or Celtics.

The 1970s may have had the most parity of any decade due to the lack of a dynasty, but more parity does not necessarily mean better competition. Parity can be due to competition from several weak teams competing with one another, as was the case in the 1970s, rather than several stacked teams battling it out. The Western and Eastern Conference of the early 2000s is a good representation of this. From 1999 to 2005, the Lakers and Spurs were the only two teams to represent the West in the Finals, winning 6 of the 7 championships in that timespan. 

On the other hand, from 1999 to 2003 there were 4 different teams that represented the East in 5 NBA Finals (2004 and 2005 are excluded, because the East actually had good competition in the Pistons, Pacers, and Heat in those years). The 1999-2003 East had far more parity than the 1999-2005 West, but the West still had far more stacked overall competition, hence why the West won all but one championship from 1999 to 2005. The parity of the Eastern Conference in the early 2000s was due to even competition amongst several weak teams, and that's what we saw in the 1970s as a whole.

Looking at how the Jordan Era players had an easier time in the modern era
- Looking at how a 38-40 year old Jordan himself schooled the 2000s defenders

SECTION 3 - Jordan's "Weak" Defensive Competition Compared to Lebron/Kobe's "Advanced" Competition

- Proving the vast superiority of individual defenders of Jordan's era compared to the 2000s
- Destroying the myth that Jordan never played zone defense
- Proof that 80s/90s players would still have success guarding 2000s players without the 80s/90s rules
- Looking at how Jordan did against the 80s teams and why expansion did not make it easier to win championships
- Proof that Jordan's Competition was 80s-quality and far better than the 2000s era
- Looking at the truth of how the Bulls did without Jordan, and how other great teams did without their stars.
- Did Jordan really get any more special treatment than other superstars? Nope.
- Exposing the myths behind the great, but misunderstood, Wilt Chamberlain
- Looking at how Lebron got locked down by defenders of the 2000s era and comparing them to the vastly superior 80s/90s
- Destroying one of the media's biggest misconceptions regarding Lebron's solid but vastly overrated defense
- Lebron fans think no player in history could succeed if their teammates don't step up, and that Lebron is the only one who has carried a team on his back. Is that really the case?
- The real Jordan vs Lebron comparison
- The real Jordan vs Kobe comparison
- Kareem is great, but he is not even the greatest center of all-time, let alone the greatest of all-time.
- The full context behind Jordan's struggles without Pippen
- A look at how Jordan turned the Wizards around before his knee injury caught up to him

- Looking at Jordan's defensive impact in detail, both as a team player and 1 on 1 defender

- Looking at the strong evidence supporting that Jordan would have achieved more than what LeBron has in Cleveland and Miami 

SECTION 21 - Hakeem Olajuwon: The Greatest Center of All-Time
- Hakeem Olajuwon is the best center of all-time, and there is strong evidence to prove it
- Chris Paul is an extremely overrated playoff performer and defender, and isn't even a top 5 PG of his own era, let alone all-time
- Kevin Johnson is an extremely underrated and under-appreciated point guard, who should have been a first-ballot Hall of Famer and considered a top-10 point guard of all-time

- Analyzing the three greatest individual playoff runs in NBA history
- Analyzing the worst performances in NBA Finals history
- Comparing the two players who won the most championships as the best player on their team
- Taking a look at the greatest coaches in NBA history
- Taking a look at the players who least deserved to win their Finals MVPs

SECTION 29 - Refuting 10 Myths About Michael Jordan
- Refuting certain myths about Jordan, as well as abridging of some of the main points in earlier sections for easier reference.

SECTION 30 - The 20 Greatest Conference Finals Runs of All-Time
- Ranking the 20 greatest playoff runs in which a player played 3 rounds before losing prior to the NBA Finals


SECTION 31 - The 1970s: The Weakest Decade of the NBA's Post-Infancy
- Why the 1970s was the weakest decade of any era from 1960-present

SECTION 32 - The 10 Worst Supporting Casts on NBA Finals Teams (1960-Present)
- Examining the worst supporting casts on teams that reached the NBA Finals


SECTION 33 - The 10 Greatest Rookie Playoff Runs of All-Time
- The most impressive playoff runs in which rookies led their team to at least one series win

2 comments:

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  2. I totally agree 1970s is a horrible NBA Decade. I mean all MVPs in 1990s-present are great (Derrick Rose would've been great in career if not for injuries). Championship teams are better. More teams in NBA so more competition (expansion imo helped competition and talent pool).

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