Street and Smith's Basketball Yearbooks

[fpliii]

Are they any good?

My knowledge of the 70s and 80s is sorely lacking so I'm looking to learn more, and the covers advertise scouting reports. Are they legit? How do they compare to the breakdowns in say, Rick Barry's Scouting Bibles?

[PHILA]

I would assume so, most basketball discussion and older articles are generally more detailed with proper analysis as opposed to the modern day gossip we see on ESPN. I am also wondering if the other teams annual yearbook guides also have this plus/minus data, or just the Sixers. In the RealGM thread, you mentioned Pollack saying the NBA has hard copies of the play-by-play data in storage. Perhaps another one of these teams printed the data in their guides.

[fpliii]

I would assume so, most basketball discussion and older articles are generally more detailed with proper analysis as opposed to the modern day gossip we see on ESPN. I am also wondering if the other teams annual yearbook guides also have this plus/minus data, or just the Sixers. In the RealGM thread, you mentioned Pollack saying the NBA has hard copies of the play-by-play data in storage. Perhaps another one of these teams printed the data in their guides.

From my understanding the Celtics did by the mid 80s:

http://www.apbr.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=3282

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The Lakers were using some sort of plus/minus by 84-85 as well:

ONLY SO MUCH FITS IN BOX SCORE Defense Left Out Michael Cooper, Other Specialists Are Overlooked

The standard National Basketball Assn. box score, required reading for almost all players, seemingly provides enough pertinent statistical information to satisfy anyone.

It chronicles, in detail, everything from field-goal percentage to blocked shots to assists to offensive and defensive rebounds. But that doesn't tell Laker guard Michael Cooper, voted onto the NBA's All-Defensive team the last two seasons, what he really wants to know about the game. If Cooper could devise his own box score, one emphasizing defensive skills, it would include a wide range of categories, some rather unusual.

"They should come up with a statistic for taking the charge," Cooper said. "Call it CF (charging foul) in the box. It takes a lot of guts to step in front of Charles Barkley or Moses (Malone). You also should have a stat called FB-floor burns."

Cooper, of course, realizes that such unconventional statistics will never appear in any NBA box score. But he believes that there should be some tangible way to gauge the expertise of such defensive specialists as Boston's Dennis Johnson, Milwaukee's Sidney Moncrief and Utah's Mark Eaton.

"Defensive players are like garbage collectors," Cooper said, laughing. "You don't notice them unless they don't do their job. You handle the messes and the stinky stuff. Defense is dirty work."

Too dirty, or maybe just too unappreciated, to appear in a box score. Steals and blocked shots are the only two official NBA statistics that deal exclusively with defense, but those are not accurate barometers in determining which players are the most skilled defensively.

The pursuit of judging individual defensive skills has led many NBA teams to devise statistical systems. The Lakers, for instance, keep charts focusing on the players' effort in offensive and defensive rebounding, and have others that emphasize areas such as steals, forced turnovers and limiting an opponent's number of layups. They also have plus-minus ratings-points for and against the team when certain players are on the court.

But Coach Pat Riley said that finding statistics to judge individual defensive performance is very difficult.

"We're trying to come up with a scheme about how we can determine effort on defense," Riley said. "We've tried a few things, but it's hard to chart. You've got guys helping in the lane and things like that. We play such a switching, man-to-man defense that the responsibility, individually, is more to the team. We haven't come up with a fool-proof way." Richard Steinlauf says he has found a way. Steinlauf, a securities analyst for First Investors Corporation in New York, has developed what he calls a defensive box score, which basically is a complete reversal of a standard box score.

Using the teams' individual defensive assignments, Steinlauf's system provides a defensive field-goal percentage, based on the shots attempted and made against a player. There also are categories for defensive free-throw percentages, reverse figures on rebounds and turnovers, and a plus-minus category similar to the one used by the Lakers.

Again, based on the individual's defensive assignment, Steinlauf also charts the points per minute for and against a player and points per game for and against.

In short, there are enough statistic breakdowns to make any statistician ecstatic.

"What I do during a game is keep an alignment chart by jersey number," Steinlauf said. "It wasn't something I could do easily at first, but with practice, anyone could do it. I think the sport has a statistical gap when it comes to defense. My system is something that can be used by the league, the individual teams or the media."

So far, though, the NBA and its teams have expressed little interest in adopting Steinlauf's system. He has approached several newspapers with his system and traveled from New York at his expense to chart the Lakers' playoff series with Portland.

During the series, Steinlauf contacted Portland Coach Jack Ramsay, who did take time to briefly study the system.

"I'm surprised he didn't contact me," Riley said. "People will send me all sorts of computer systems that rate players. All these systems are broken down from the box score and you just can't judge accurately from that."

Riley immediately found a major flaw in Steinlauf's defensive box score. Basically, Riley said the Lakers switch defensive matchups with such regularity that it would be nearly impossible to chart individual assignments.

Riley offered the following scenario:

"Let's say a Portland player drives to the basket and the guy guarding Jim Paxson does his job and drops into the lane to help out and stop the drive. The player then kicks the ball to Paxson for an open jumper. Who's to blame for the basket? It's usually the guy playing the ball, not the guy playing Paxson. The guy playing Paxson was doing his job, but this chart would put the blame on him."

Steinlauf admits his system is somewhat subjective.

"But it's the best way I've seen to chart one-on-one matchups," he said.

Steinlauf's defensive box score from the five-game playoff series between the Lakers and Portland provided some interesting and puzzling statistics.

For instance, Portland's Kiki Vandeweghe, strong offensively but weak defensively, was clearly a liability in the series, according to Steinlauf's statistics. Although Vandeweghe shot 50% from the field, the Lakers he was guarding shot 57%. He averaged 19.8 points a game, but gave up 17.8 points. In rebounding, Vandeweghe had only 11 and his opponents had 29. His overall plus-minus figure was minus 79.

Michael Cooper's impressive defensive skills were evident in Steinlauf's figures. Opponents shot only 35% against Cooper and he gave up only 10.2 points a game. But he had 13 turnovers-seven in Game 4 in Portland-and forced only seven in five games.

More than any other of Steinlauf's statistics, Riley took exception to the ones concerning Magic Johnson. According to Steinlauf, the players guarded by Johnson scored 102 points for a 20.4 average.

"He (Steinlauf) doesn't know where we are coming from with Magic," Riley said. "We almost have Magic as a roamer, a free safety. We put him on the point guard most of the time. We had him on (Portland's Darnell) Valentine. We told him to play Valentine only from 17 feet on in. His responsibility was to entice Valentine into shooting the ball.

"Secondly, once Valentine gives it up to a post player, Magic goes and doubles wherever he is. So, that let's Valentine roam free, but Magic is doing his job. You can't chart us like that because we're always trapping or switching.

"This is all too subjective. Kareem (Abdul-Jabbar) may block five shots but he changes the direction of five other shots. To me, that's as good as a block. A guy forces a turnover but the guy who picks up the ball gets the credit for the steal. Who should get credit? Maybe each should get half."

Although Cooper appreciates the efforts of those trying to give defensive players credit, he is wary of the defensive box score.

"If you get into all this, you may have too many stats."

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So it seems the Lakers, Celtics, and possibly Sixers were all using it by then. Not coincidentally, they were perhaps the three premier franchises of the early 80s.

I wonder if the Bulls, Pistons, and Rockets used something similar in their runs?

[PHILA]

From my understanding the Celtics did by the mid 80s:

http://www.apbr.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=3282

I knew about Riley and the Lakers, but not Boston. It would be nice to see the data for Bird.

I wonder if the Bulls, Pistons, and Rockets used something similar in their runs?

Probably, given the potential thousands of pages of play-by play data in storage. Somebody had to be going through these games consistently? But the way you referenced of your conversation with Pollack was that the NBA has the data for all teams going back at least to the late 1980's. I suspected that the NBA has been keeping this data (and older game footage) from the public.

[fpliii]

I knew about Riley and the Lakers, but not Boston. It would be nice to see the data for Bird.



Probably, given the potential thousands of pages of play-by play data in storage. Somebody had to be going through these games consistently? But the way you referenced of your conversation with Pollack was that the NBA has the data for all teams going back at least to the late 1980's. I suspected that the NBA has been keeping this data (and older game footage) from the public.

Correct. Though the way he presented it to me, he had to request copies of the play-by-play data from the league office. I don't know if every team had the data handy though, or if it was something unique that he did.

EDIT: That is to say he had to request copies of the play-by-play for other teams from the league office. The Sixers already had copies of their own play-by-plays before Pollack started requesting the sheets for the rest of the league, from the way he conveyed it to me.

[fpliii]

I knew about Riley and the Lakers, but not Boston. It would be nice to see the data for Bird.



Probably, given the potential thousands of pages of play-by play data in storage. Somebody had to be going through these games consistently? But the way you referenced of your conversation with Pollack was that the NBA has the data for all teams going back at least to the late 1980's. I suspected that the NBA has been keeping this data (and older game footage) from the public.

Plot twist!

I messaged a seller on eBay for this item:

http://rover.ebay.com/rover/0/e11051...TQ%3AUS%3A1123

asking this question:

Hello,

Do any of these books contain plus/minus numbers for the Sixers players? I have the 88-89 guide which does, just wondering if any of these do as well.

Thanks

got this response:

Yes - all three guides contain stats on plus/minus. As you may know, Harvey Pollack was an amazing publicist and kept all kinds of stats. Thanks.

Hmmmmm...

[PHILA]

^Not only would it be interesting to see the '83 Sixers plus/minus data, but also the 1981 team (particularly on defense).



Nov 23, 2005

The 1980-81 Sixers were really one of the great defensive teams of all-time. That gets a little overlooked because of what happened in the playoffs (losing to Boston in the Eastern Conference finals). Talk a little about how great that team was defensively.

Billy Cunningham: I think something that I carried over from all of the coaches that I played under is that you have to remain consistent at the defensive end of the court. Offense is always going to be a situation where you are playing in spurts. That was an exceptional team defensively because we had Maurice Cheeks playing on the ball and he would pick up the point guard full court and pressure the ball. We had such quick forwards in Bobby Jones and Julius Erving that we would look to create turnovers with their great quickness and speed. Physically we weren’t as intimidating as a lot of teams but we relied a great deal on our quickness and our overall team concept on defense in terms of helping each other. With Caldwell Jones and Darryl Dawkins being back there – especially Caldwell, who had the ability to block shots and was such a smart defensive player – we were just a smart defensive team. We played the Boston Celtics 13 times that year between the regular season and the playoffs (splitting the regular season series 3-3 and losing the seventh game of the playoff series by one point).

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So now we have a timeline...

65-66 - No plus/minus.
79-80 - Four-point plays (confirmed first season).
80-81 - Plus/minus for Sixers.
87-88 - Dunks for entire league (confirmed first season).
93-94 - Plus/minus for entire league (confirmed first season).

At some point between 66-67 and 80-81 Pollack first started using plus/minus. I might message some sellers of Sixers guides from the 70s and see if I can pinpoint the exact year.

[PHILA]

At some point between 66-67 and 80-81 Pollack first started using plus/minus.

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I'm going to message this seller next:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/1977-78-NBA-...item27eabc71a4

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Just heard back about the 77-78 guide (for 76-77 season, Doc's first in Philly and the NBA):

Hi-
I just checked and this book does include the plus/minus numbers who were asking about. Hope that helps. Have a good weekend!

So I ordered it, since I found a copy for pretty cheap. I already have the 66-67 guide so plus/minus doesn't go all the way back, but I'm gonna ask about guides from earlier seasons on eBay and see if they have plus/minus as well, or if the 77-78 guide was first.

Pretty cool stuff. Assuming every guide after has plus/minus as well, we can get complete numbers for Dr. J's, Moses's, and Barkley's tenures.