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Amazing considering Sheed wasn't in training camp and the small sample size causes strength of schedule: clearly a bad example to compare to the Bullets and Lakers
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And what about last year's Pistons? 54 wins. Were they better or worse than this year's team?
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This sort of relativism is amazing. By making it to the Finals is every Finals team a great team then? The New Jersey Nets a few years back are great team because they beat the 2 and 3 seeds in there conference. The Bullets for a Finals team were not that good: it's not like 80's Lakers going against the Celtics or even the Bulls going against the Sonics.
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Every finals team is at least a worthy opponent. They arent all the 80s Celtics and Lakers, but they are all good.
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In prior posts you have made it clear you think the Lakers were better in part because they did so well the next year. They had a whole new philosophy with a much better coach and a whole season to figure out what do with Wilt: the fact remains the Lakers were an OK playoff team in 1971 and not the same level of competition that Other teams have faced in the playoffs. Again you have not made a compelling case with either the Bullets or the Lakers to say that they were much better then there records implied - the bucks faced mediocre competition compared to other great team and is a big reason there point differential in the playoffs was so big. Teams are very different from year to year
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I wouldnt say they had a MUCH better coach. I mean the coach from 1971 went on to win the coach of the year award in the ABA (which Bill Sharman also did) and Bill Sharman wasnt exactly a coaching genius. Both were good coaches. Sharman may have been a bit better.
And what do you mean by 'they had a full season to figure out what to do with Wilt?' The Lakers had had him for a full season back in 1969.
They were not only an OK team. They had Wilt, West, and Goodrich and a good solid bench. Thats not just ok.
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That Celtics team had no bench and were terrible after the 4 guys you mentioned - I wonder what that team would have done if the league wasn't diluted by the NBA expansion and ABA? Plus that was Cowens ROOKIE year: bad example. JJ White and Don Nelson were simply above average players. The only guy on that team who had a typical great year was Havlicek who carried that team.
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They were not exactly terrible after those guys. Don Chaney was a solid player and they had 3 decent guys off the bench who missed a combined 10 games in the year. Any bench with 3 decent guys who arent injured at all is not a terrible bench.
Jo Jo White was only an average player? He was an all star that year. And Don Nelson is at least an above average starter. Hes not gonna be a beast, but he put up numbers similar to Josh Howard on the Mavs.
And Cowens may have been a rookie but he put up numbers that were pretty much in line with what he did the rest of his career. He became a better passer later I guess, but he was basically a very similar player the next year when they won like 12 more games.
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Plus 8 out of 17 teams made the playoffs in 1971: 47%. In 1996, 16 out of 28 teams made so 57 % of teams made it: so judging who and who didn't make the playoffs to judge a strength of the year doesn't make sense.
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THe hawks also won 2 more games. Did I not also mention that?
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No the Lakers weren't that great: they had to deal with Baylor getting hurt which through off there game plan and had a coach who didn't have control of his players. That Lakers team also had Eddie Jones, Vlade Divac and so really had a strong starting 5 plus a good bench in Sedale Threat, Lynch, and Peeler. No great singular talent but that was a solid team
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The 1971 team had Wilt Chamberlain, Gail Goodrich, Jerry West, and Happy Hairston. The 1996 team had some borderline all stars but basically was not that great of a team. You can mention the names of the guys on their team as if they were good as much as you want but none of those guys were ever more than mildly above average players except for Eddie Jones, and that was his second year, he hadnt gotten to his peak yet in any way shape or form. Are you really gonna tell me that that 1996 team would beat the 1971 one, cause thats just a pile of crap.
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It's amazing you keep bringing up 1996 to help prove my point:
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I knew youd say that so I brought up other years later, and purposely had them be in the 80s when the NBA was at its peak.
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But in any case I think you didn't watch the Cavs that year and I did: Terrell Brandon IMO had one of the great seasons of any PG I've seen (he got on the cover of SI because of the season which is remarkable because he played for the most boring team ever): his PER of 25 for example is on par with a typical Magic year and more then what Steven Nash produced the last two years. Terrell Brandon of 96 was better then anybody on the 71 76ers team
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Terrell Brandom put up 19/6/3 numbers. Are you seriously going to tell me that he was better than a prime Bill Cunningham, one of the 50 greatest players ever who was putting up 23/11/5 and made the All NBA first team? That is the most ridiculous thing anyone has said in this entire thread. Terrell Brandon had a very good year but he didnt even make All NBA third team.
He didnt put up Magic like numbers. I dont know how his PER got that high (PER is odd sometimes, like how D-Rob gets ridiculously high numbers. I cant always figure out why) but he wasnt more than an above average borderline all star player that year in every way except that he turned the ball over very little. But to say he was better than Billy Cunningham that year is outrageous.
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You neglect to mention that the Pacers also had Marc Jackson, Dale Davis, Ricky Pierce, Antonio Davis, Travis Best, AND Derrick McKey. The 71 Knick are not clearly a better team.
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You say that as if I should be impressed. None of those guys you mentioned are that great of players first off. Secondly Ricky Pierce was 36 then and not that good. Marc Jackson had an off year. Dale Davis has never been more than an average center. Antonio Davis took another 5 years to become pretty good, and that year didnt play all that many minutes. Travis Best is just an average player at best, was a rookie, and was out for 23 games that year. Oh and I forgot to mention that their second best player, Rik Smits missed 19 games.
How in the world could you EVER tell me the 71 Knicks are not clearly a better team. That is patently ridiculous. They had two of the 50 greatest players ever playing in their prime. They had two other hall of famers playing around their peak. They had two other players who made an all star game in their careers. I struggle to find a starting position where the Knicks dont have the better player. Maybe SG but thats only if you count Frazier as a PG.
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The Blazers also had a young Aaron Mckie Sabonis, and a prime Rod Strickland : did you watch the NBA in the 90's?
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Wow Aaron Mckie...in his second year...not a player worth mentioning. I like Sabonis a lot and he put up some very efficient numbers and was a great player that year but he played less than half the minutes that year (23.8 minutes per game). Rod Strickland was good but not even ever an all star in his career.
The Bullets had Earl Monroe and Wes Unseld, who are both I believe in the top 50 players ever and if they arent they are still hall of famers. Gus Johnson was all NBA 2nd team that year. Jack Marin was an all star level player. Kevin Loughery was very good. They had a solid bench. They were a better team than those Blazers. Its that simple. The Blazers are just outclassed.
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In fact you mentioned so far 5 of the playoff teams from 1971. Let's see who you forgot to mention from 1996: Orlando with a loaded team, Seattle with loaded team, the Spurs, and Utah. Hmm sure looks to me that 1996 not only had just as strong team but had MORE of them
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Why would I mention those teams? I am comparing teams with similar records. No team besides the Bucks in 1971 had a similar record to those teams.
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You also clearly are not understanding my point of expansion With loss of talent all teams would be negatively affected so the majority of teams wouldn't be affected as there competition gets worse as well. The teams on the extremes would be affected however so a really really good team i.e the Bucks who were better just because Jabbar was a year older would face weaker competition and the bad teams would be really bad. The teams near the median of the Guassian curve would be least affected while teams at the extremes would differentiate. So on one side you have the Bucks who were great (6 games better then the best team in 1970) and teams like the Cavs and Braves were also far worse then any team in 1970.
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That makes very little sense. I would say the Knicks were on the extreme as they were very good but their records went down. Furthermore, with the Bucks there were three expansion teams in the league but none of them were in their division and the Blazers were the only one even in their conference (and they still won 29 games so they werent ridiculously bad). The Bucks played a total of 8 games against the Cavs and Braves. It is hardly what changed their record as you imply. Their record changed cause they got Oscar Robertson.
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And you keep mentioning the same core which is not the case. Cowens was a rookie in 1971 and clearly got better and they added Pual Silas in 1972. The Lakers I explained got Phil Jackson err Bill Sharman which made a huge difference and chemistry was far better as Elgin Baylor was gone. What happened in the years after 1971 was the league adjusted to expansion by the bad teams getting even worse and the good teams got better. The 1971 Bucks were lucky to have there team set in 1971 by having Kareem get older adn trading for Oscar
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They didnt get Silas in 1972. They got him in 1973. Elgin played as little in 71 as 72. He was not a factor in either year. And maybe thats what happened after 1971 but its not what was going on in the actual year 1971 because clearly the good teams werent posting amazing records.