Sports Illustrated: COULD COUSY PLAY IN TODAY'S NBA? [October 16th, 1991]

[Im Still Ballin]

With the "we done with the '90s!" meme going around on social media, I thought I'd share this great SI article from 1991. About 32.5 years ago. I quoted some of the best parts.

https://vault.si.com/vault/1991/10/1...ame-of-the-90s

COULD COUSY PLAY IN TODAY'S NBA?

BOB COUSY WAS BRILLIANT IN HIS DAY. BUT WOULD HE AND HIS PEERS SUCCEED IN THE GAME OF THE '90S?

ALEXANDER WOLFF

...

"If you're talking about Hall of Famers, yes, we could play," he says. "There are guys today making a million dollars a year who go to applaud and miss their hands. [Bill] Russell, Oscar [Robertson], guys like that—we would function today, and quite effectively, if not actually dominate. Russ would still be effective. I would be one of the premier point guards. Point guards are at much more of a premium. I don't think there are five or six now who can really run a team."

Cousy is unusual among basketball old-timers in this regard: There is actually a current NBA player, an All-Star, no less, who reminds people of him. Watch John Stockton, the floor leader of the Utah Jazz, and it's not hard to imagine Cousy prospering in the NBA today. Indeed, Jazz forward Karl Malone calls Stockton "Bob Cousy without the accent." Stockton is virtually the same height (6'1") and weight (175) as Cousy, with the same strong legs and the same feel for his teammates. If Stockton somehow doesn't seem as sensational as Cousy once did, it's because the evolution of the game into an aerial ballet has established new standards for the sensational.

How does one determine whether other stars from the NBA's past could play today? It isn't as easy as pairing them off with contemporary counterparts. There is no latter-day equivalent for Wilt Chamberlain, for instance, yet there's no doubt that Chamberlain would be a dominant force in the NBA of any era. As for players like Robertson, Russell, Elgin Baylor and Jerry West, they were all, like their forerunner Cousy, either Promethean in the way they interpreted the game or unique in the physical equipment they were blessed with—or both. They would all be stars today, even if they might no longer stand out as such singular specimens.

But what about the half generation before them, men like George Mikan, Bob Pettit and Dolph Schayes? The 6'10", 245-pound Mikan was so slow that people around the league called the Minneapolis Laker offense "waiting for Mikan," which is what the rest of the Lakers did until Mikan finally took up his position in the low post so the team could initiate its half-court set. In today's NBA, with its 24-second clock and 21st-century athlete, the only waiting around that's done is for Michael Jordan to return to earth. Could someone with Mikan's size, pluck, intelligence and coordination play out the forthcoming 1991-92 NBA season respectably?

Well, so long as the likes of the Orlando Magic's Greg Kite and the New Jersey Nets' Chris Dudley draw professional salaries, the point really isn't worth arguing. But it's safe to say that Mikan, who in 1950 was Noted the greatest player of the first half of the 20th century, is fortunate that he had a chance to earn his place in the Hall of Fame when big men were relatively scarce and coaches were so grateful to have one that they would happily overhaul their systems to accommodate him.

With such prototypes as Patrick Ewing, David Robinson and Hakeem Olajuwon, today's NBA center is so sleek and active that even Kareem Abdul-Jabbar's low-post style seemed quaint by the time he retired two years ago. Guards now sometimes go 6'8" and 6'9". Forwards are similarly large, only they can jump, too. Even the curiosities, the sub-6-foot guys like Spud Webb, have mastered the art of throwing the ball downward through the hoop—the skill that in Mikan's day was known as the duffer shot.

The point here is that, if asked to be more than a role player, many of the players of yore might have blossomed into all-arounders. The same knack around the basket that made Silas a peerless rebounder at 6'7", for instance, might have served him as a scorer, a la Adrian Dantley. Says Schayes's son Danny, a 6'11" center with the Milwaukee Bucks, "A lot of players from that era could have adjusted. Even my dad at six-foot-eight—he was very strong and a good rebounder. The biggest problem would be that the guys were slower, and overall they weren't that big. The guys who would have trouble today would be the six-foot-eight centers."

We will resist the temptation to settle this matter by summoning Dolph and Danny out to the driveway for a little one-on-one and instead take up Danny's point. As recently as the '70s, teams not only started and won with centers in the 6'8" range (such as Boston's Dave Cowens and Washington's Wes Unseld) but also started and won with 6'4" small forwards (for instance, Jim McMillian of the 1971-72 NBA champion Lakers) and 6'6" power forwards (e.g., Dave DeBusschere of the 1969-70 and 1972-73 NBA champion Knicks). Now players of any enormous dimension can cover the distance between points A and B in an instant, even with the ball. "The skill that has made the biggest jump is the ball handling," says West, who's now general manager of the Lakers. "There are just more kinds of players who can handle the ball."

The old-timers have noted all this with an admiration that sometimes verges on awe. But they still stick up for themselves. "Players from my era would be totally different types of athletes today," says Pettit, a two-time MVP in the late '50s as a center-forward for the St. Louis Hawks. "I didn't play until I was a junior in high school. I didn't play AAU ball or in summer leagues. My coach in high school was an assistant football coach. If I played today I'd start at 10 years old. I'd participate in weight programs, clinics, the Nike camp. I'd be much stronger and weigh about 265. [Pettit played at 215.] Who would I relate to today? Someone like Karl Malone. Strong. Pounding the boards. I'd have a three-point shot, everything. I wouldn't have any more drive or desire, though. Every second I played on the court, I was ready to play and wanted to play."

However, toss an entire team of yore into today's NBA and.... Well, even the 1961 Celtics—the team Cousy considers the best he played on, the one that featured the Cooz, Bill Sharman, K.C. Jones and Sam Jones (all of whom wound up in the Hall of Fame, and that was just the backcourt)—couldn't hope to replicate their 57-22 record and NBA title in the '90s. Says Cousy, "Only fools could look at basketball and not say that, physically at least, the jock today is far superior. We shot 40, 41 percent. That wouldn't get you by in a Division III college game today. Shooting skills have gone through the ceiling. I watch the All-Star Came and don't recognize the sport we played 20 or 25 years ago."

[Im Still Ballin]

Watching and reading about Cousy, it's apparent four unique qualities helped him succeed as a point guard:

- Exceptional peripheral vision to see the court
- Strong legs to maintain balance and coordination
- Big hands to control the ball when dribbling and passing
- Long arms to keep the ball low to the ground when dribbling and make for a greater passing radius

[Xiao Yao You]

scouts would still love the long arms

[Im Still Ballin]

scouts would still love the long arms

Long arms, indeed.

[dankok8]

Cousy sent through a time machine couldn't or at the very least wouldn't be a star.

But Cousy who grew up in this era? Of course. He would dominate because of the qualities Im Still Balling listed.

[Im Still Ballin]

Cousy sent through a time machine couldn't or at the very least wouldn't be a star.

But Cousy who grew up in this era? Of course. He would dominate because of the qualities Im Still Balling listed.

Absolutely. The biggest question would be the shooting but judging his free throw shooting and very limited clips of him taking jump shots/set shots/push shots, I'm sure he would've been good enough if not great.

John Havlicek played from 1962 all the way to 1978 and he said the most fun he had was during his rookie season because all you had to do was run; Cousy would hit you with dozens of easy layups.

[Xiao Yao You]

Absolutely. The biggest question would be the shooting but judging his free throw shooting and very limited clips of him taking jump shots/set shots/push shots, I'm sure he would've been good enough if not great.

John Havlicek played from 1962 all the way to 1978 and he said the most fun he had was during his rookie season because all you had to do was run; Cousy would hit you with dozens of easy layups.

I watched his last game. The finals of course and he looked like he had developed a shot through his career

[Im Still Ballin]

I watched his last game. The finals of course and he looked like he had developed a shot through his career

Bob Pettit was quoted in this video as saying Cousy had a "real good outside one-handed shot."



Judging by his career free-throw shooting percentage (80.3% FT) and volume (6.2 attempts per game), I'm sure he'd have developed a good outside shot. It's commonly accepted that free-throw shooting is a good predictor of perimeter shooting for draft prospects. There are of course outliers, but it generally rings true.

I looked at the FT% and mid-range and three-point shooting of a bunch of playmaking point guards from 1996-97 onwards. On the whole, they all seemed to be at worst average to above-average perimeter shooters.

[Im Still Ballin]

Some interesting Cousy quotes from a 1953 article:

The Celtics’ star doesn’t look the part of an athlete. He has a thin, bony face, out of which peer huge dark brown eyes. His hair is black and curly, and his shoulders slope sharply. Those sloping shoulders are part of the secret of his amazing success in manipulating a basketball, before they give him an inch or two of additional reach that he would not otherwise have. He wears a rather normal size 34 sleeve, yet his arms hang almost to his knees. Probably the most-significant characteristic about Cousy is the great strength in his wrists and the great size of his hands, which are so big that they seem out of proportion to the rest of his angular body.

With his wrists, he can flick his hands in almost any direction like a double-jointed baby. With his hands, he can grasp a basketball as if it were a baseball and handle it with as much facility. His ability to dribble behind his back is his favorite and most-effective trick on the court, and one of the few that Auerbach has allowed him to retain. Because of his build, he can do it so slickly that he doesn’t seem to bend his back a fraction of an inch.

“That’s what makes it click,” said Auerbach, as he stood beside his star, appraising him, physical point by physical point, as though he were a prize heifer. “Because of his shoulders, his wrists, and his hands, Cousy can dribble from the front, either side, or the back without breaking his stride, twisting his body or changing the cadence of his dribble. I’ve never before seen a basketball player who could do that. Everyone else has to tip off his intention somehow, usually by bending his back slightly or making a turn one way or the other.”

There are other characteristics that help. Bob has thick, powerful legs, and he runs like the wind on them. His terrific speed not only had to be controlled at Holy Cross, but he had to cut it down in the pro league, too. He is one of the fastest sprinters in basketball and, indeed, he might have made a reputation for himself as a track athlete if he had cared to try. He didn’t care to try, either that or anything else. Cousy is a basketball player, and that’s all. The only time he ever deviated from a 12-month-a-year hoop regimen was when he gave golf the briefest kind of whirl right after he graduated from college. The first time he played, he got a hole-in-one. Then, he dropped the sport.