lessthanjake

I have come to the conclusion that Oscar Robertson was probably the greatest offensive weapon the NBA has ever seen. His production and efficiency in his first ten years are just simply unmatched by any other player in history. Let me list the things that go into an offensive attack.

1. Scoring
During the Big Os first ten years in the league, he scored 29.27 points per game. Total for those years he scored 22009 points. Both of those make him second in the league during that time, behind Wilt Chamberlain, who no one was gonna outscore in those days. And in fact NO OTHER player has had more points total and more PPG in a ten year span than Oscar did in those ten years. NO ONE. Karl Malone scored more points in certain ten year spans because he played in like every game but hes never close in PPG. Kareem scored like 100 more total points in his first ten years than Oscar did but his PPG are lower. Jordan scored more PPG in ten year periods but because he kept retiring he never put together enough years in a row to have the total points. And other than that, no one even beats the Big O in total points OR PPG for a decade. He was simply one of the greatest scorers of all time, and easily the second best scorer of his era.

2. Efficiency in Scoring
Oscar lead the league only once in TS%, in his first year in the league. However, the man was in the top 3 in the league EVERY one of his first ten years. In those ten years he was 1st once, 2nd 6 times, and 3rd 3 times. Two of the times he was second, he trailed only Jerry Lucas, who was on his team and the beneficiary of HIS passes. The fact is that Oscar was EASILY the most efficient scorer of the first ten years of his career. Its probably not even all that close either, because no one else was able to sustain their efficiency for more than a few years.

3. Passing
Oscar lead the league in assists per game 7 of his first 10 years. He got 10.28 assists per game during that period. The next highest person had 7.93 assists. No one was close to him. I mean he got twice the APG of the person with the fifth most APG of the decade. He just dominated this catagory.

So let me recap where the Big O stands in these three catagories in comparison to his peers of his era.

Scoring - 2nd
True Shooting % - 1st
Assists - 1st

Wow, the man was mighty close to scoring the most, at the most efficient clip, and helping his teammates score more than ANY other player in the entire decade. Let me just quickly show how rare it is for someone to excel so much in all three of these. Only once has a player lead the league in points and assists (Tiny Archibald in 1973). Only once has a player lead the league in points and TS% (Bob McAdoo in 1974). Only once has a player lead the league in TS% and assists (John Stockton in 1995). Oscar ALMOST did all of those for an entire decade (and DID do the last one), and he wouldve done it if he hadnt been playing in an era with the most prolific scorer in the history of the game. The man quite simply was an offensive beast that gave you big time points at a really efficient clip while giving his teammates the best opportunities to be really efficient too. And for that reason, I gotta say he was the best offensive weapon of all time.
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As a side note though, there are some offensive stats that I am not able to look into because they werent kept in his era. These would be offensive rebounds and turnovers.


- Offensive Rebounds
However, I gotta think the Big O wouldve fared rather well with both of those too. Let me start with offensive rebounds. He got a boatload of rebounds back then, even breaking into the top 10 in rebounds in the league in 1962. And being a guard, we can assume his rebounds involved a lot of offensive rebounds. This is backed up by the fact that in the one year in his career when Orebs were kept, 25.44% of his rebounds were offensive. Now that was when he was 35 and obviously less athletic than in his peak years. Offensive rebounds take athleticism so you gotta think that he'd have had a higher % of his rebounds being offensive when he was more athletic. So lets just say like 27%. He got 8.48 RPG in his peak 10 years. 27% of that is 2.3. That means that the guy was easily pulling down WAY more offensive rebounds than a guard would normally pull down, once again being a huge asset to his team. Just looking at the stats of other top rebounders during that time who also played into 1974 so I can see how many of their rebounds were offensive, I would wager that the Big O was probably top 10 in the league in offensive rebounds during that decade. Insane for a guard.

- Turnovers
I got no stats to substantiate this but the guy had a reputation as a very good decision maker who didnt lose the ball a lot so you gotta think that he made very few turnovers. And I think it can be assumed that he didnt turn it over a lot at least.
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So heres my complete conclusion.
For an entire decade Oscar Robertson was 2nd in scoring, 1st in scoring efficiency, 1st in assists, probably top 10 in offensive rebounds, and a player known for not turning the ball over much.

Has there ever been a more efficient and productive offensive player? I dont think so.

different_13

that's pretty damn impressive.

Obviously he did face less impressive opposition (in that he was playing PG at 6'5, same size as most small forwards back then), but i still think he's the best PG ever (i know that's debatable, but i don't see any other PG in common top 10's who has his combination of scoring, rebounding, defence, efficiency or accuracy).
and then taking into account there was no 3point line...

If there was no wilt Chamberlain he would be recognised as the best player from the 60's.

neoxsupreme

In terms of do everything, he was the greatest offensive weapon of all time but Wilt & Jordan are still the most superior scorers of all time.

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white360

I would have to go with CAP on this one (Abdul-Jabbar) and say that nothing beats his sky-hook and no body could stop it. (also he is the lead scorer of all time)

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kflo

it's interesting that his PER isn't that great. i know there's data limitations on stats back then, but his top season still ranks only 49th (whereas wilt ranks 1&2).

neoxsupreme

You hit it right on the nail. It's pretty amazing that Wilt & Jordan hold the top 7 spots on the all time PER. Those 2 guys are my candidates for best offensive weapons in history.

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lessthanjake

It has been said on here before that comparing PER across eras is mostly useless and that is especially true when comparing others with an era that didnt keep some of the stats involved in it. PER in my opinion, is only useful in comparing people in the same era. And in that case, Oscar would easily be ranked second in PER to Wilt in his era. Without Wilt he wouldve lead the league in PER from 1964-1968.

However, there are reasons that Oscar's PER isnt as high as it otherwise should be. One of them is that when adjusting for team pace in the era before it was calculated, PER uses 2*lgPPG / (tmPPG + oppPPG). You would think that would work. However, if you notice, Oscar's teams regularly were tops in the league in points but also bottom of the league in FGA (for instance look at 1964). This means that PER thinks that hes playing at a higher pace than everyone else when in fact he was just playing more efficient basketball with his team. Obviously this slightly lowers the value of all of his statistical achievements in terms of PER.

kflo

i guess i was questioning what in the formula was leading to his per being so low. not sure the ppg adjustment has that big of an impact. could be.

lessthanjake

Well besides that it looks like hes playing at a really high pace when in fact his team played at a slower pace than most other teams, I cant think of anything totally conclusive. Playmakers in general have a lower PER than their real value is (think Magic).

lessthanjake

I adjusted Oscar's True Shooting % to make it how it would be in this year's terms. The way I did that was by dividing his TS% each year by the TS% of the NBA in those years then multiplying that by this year's TS% (which is .536). So here it is year by year.

1961: .634
1962: .620
1963: .640
1964: .637
1965: .628
1966: .620
1967: .633
1968: .633
1969: .632
1970: .605
1971: .603
1972: .574
1973: .550
1974: .543

So his TS% in this year's terms for his career would be .612. And for his years with the Royals only (first ten years of his career) it was .628.

lw32