|
| View previous topic :: View next topic |
| Author |
Message |
Lakers2015
Star Player
Joined: 16 Feb 2015
Posts: 2315
|
 Posted: Sat Jul 23, 2016 7:10 pm Post subject: |
|
|
Oscar. He was the better all around player.
_________________
#CowboysNation
#LakeShow |
|
| Back to top |
|
 |
JUST-MING
Retired Number
Joined: 23 Jun 2005
Posts: 43995
|
| Posted: Sat Jul 23, 2016 8:00 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| Lakers2015 wrote: | | Oscar. He was the better all around player. |
Except, he wasn't. Logo was an elite shooter and an elite defender. If there was a defensive team award, he would have been first team for a decade. One of the most iconic plays in NBA finals history was his steal and length of the court game winning layup in 2 seconds. He had a near 7' wingspan (closer to 6'10"), which was elite even by today's standards. He told Lazenby that he practiced dribbling a deflated basketball on uneven dirt so his hard dribble one motion pull-up jumper off the dribble was unblockable. If you look at footage, he would pull up right in his defender's face and there was nothing his defender can do. He could get his shot off in today's game. He also had range on his jumper.
Oscar, on the other hand, posted up. He used his big ass to back down smaller guards to get to his spots. It worked for him back then, but he wouldn't be as successful doing that today. His teams were also more talented. His '64 team was stacked. Locus was a stud. 20 points and 20 rebounds. His teams missed the playoffs just about as many times as they made it. When Oscar finally won with Kareem in '71 he was a role player averaging fewer than 20 points. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
JUST-MING
Retired Number
Joined: 23 Jun 2005
Posts: 43995
|
| Posted: Sat Jul 23, 2016 8:35 pm Post subject: |
|
|
Oscar was shut down by K.C. Jones.
| April 20, 1964 wrote: | While the Celtics were lucky to catch Cincinnati hurt and playing its worst, Boston won this series, and defense won for Boston. Russell, of course, was magnificent, but K. C. Jones gave the best performance by a supporting actor. K. C. is a polite man of 31 whose idea of getting tough off the court is to grow a mustache even if his wife does not like it. In green-and-white trunks, however, his demeanor is more that of the pro football player he almost became. Jones feels he must do many things because he cannot shoot; he has not, in fact, had a good shot, he says, since high school. But against the Royals it was unimportant whether he shot at all. What K. C. did was to make the plays (seven assists a game), move the ball and stop Oscar Robertson from getting, moving and shooting the ball. K. C. had help from his teammates, who switched beautifully on the few occasions Oscar got a good pick. And John Havlicek did well while Jones was rested. But K. C. was superb when it counted. Most of Robertson's scoring came in the second half of each game, after it was safely decided for the Celtics.
Robertson did average 28.2, which is not exactly negligible. However, during the regular season he had 12 baskets a game against Boston. In the playoffs, averaging the same number of shots, he had only nine baskets. He also made only 5.6 assists as against 9.1 in regular games. In plain language, Robertson was about 12 points down, and it is no coincidence that Boston was an average of 14 points better each game.
K. C. pressed Robertson all over the court, staying between him and the ball. The Royals struggled to get it to Oscar, and whenever they finally did, they just stood around in relief, watching him maneuver for scoring position. They did not pick for him, or work for their own good shots. The whole team was upset by the successful harassment of the one key man.
It was after the second game that Jones candidly wondered aloud why the Royals didn't lob the ball to Oscar. "They could just toss it over my head," he said. K. C. was right, of course, and in the second half of the fourth game the Royals used just that strategy. That was their only good half and it was the only game they won. "I don't know why they didn't do it more," K. C. said after it was all over. Then, still thinking of Robertson, he added, "I don't like to play a man like that—all over the court when he doesn't have the ball. It's like cheating. It isn't fair to him." |
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
JUST-MING
Retired Number
Joined: 23 Jun 2005
Posts: 43995
|
| Posted: Sat Jul 23, 2016 8:44 pm Post subject: |
|
|
Scourting Reports
| October 28, 1963 wrote: | CINCINNATI
If prospects win championships, the Royals are in. They have, in Jerry Lucas, the game's most sought-after rookie. Preseason ticket sales have set a record. Sell-out crowds are waiting. The team has a new coach, Jack McMahon, who brought in some good new ideas and found an important old roommate waiting for him. The ex-roomie is Jack Twyman, the respected sharpshooter (19.8) and local favorite who was disgruntled all last season under Coach Charley Wolf. McMahon takes over a team that perennially sets shooting records (.459 last year), only to cancel this advantage by making excessive mistakes. He is teaching it a number of set plays in order to limit the dribbling and free-lancing that leads to such errors. The Royals also had a tendency to lose too many close games. When the seconds dwindled down to a precious few, everybody knew the ball was going to wondrous Oscar Robertson. New plays will now break other men open for a clutch basket. Lucas will relieve Oscar of considerable rebounding responsibilities and help him on the fast break with that crucial first pass. Lucas also should serve as the defensive stopper that Forwards Twyman, Tom Hawkins and Bob Boozer have not been, and McMahon will get further use of him in the pivot, where he can spell Team Captain Wayne Embry (18.6), one of the NBA's most underrated players. Another rookie, Jay Arnette, is fast and can jump. He may move ahead of Adrian Smith and Arlen Bockhorn in the backcourt. This adds up to just enough talent for the Royals to upset the Celtics in the East. Look for the Celtics to start fast, for the Royals to be stronger late in the season and, above all, look for a very close race. |
| October 25, 1965 wrote: | CINCINNATI
Five days before the season opened the Cincinnati team came to contract terms with management, the Cincinnati team—and franchise, if you will—being Oscar Robertson. "Listen," one Royal had said during the holdout, "they can cut me 25% and give it to Oscar if it means bringing him back. That's how important he is to us." Wisely, the player did not make this statement within earshot of the front office or he might have had a deal. As it was, the Cincinnati team finally signed for about $70,000 cash, various bonuses based on the gate, and the use of a car.
Not that all the Royals admire Oscar's personality, on or off the court, but he means so much to the team that the weeks spent practicing without him might just as well have been spent playing amiable games of horse. This year, however, even with Oscar, the Royals are going to have to struggle to make .500—which is all they managed the second half of last year anyway. Perhaps this is why Oscar wanted more of that cold-cash guarantee, for since the dream of threatening the Celtics faded, so has the gate. The Royals have not exactly been Auerbachs in the draft, their only good choices in the last few years being Oscar and Jerry Lucas—territorial picks that hardly required much acumen. This year the draft disaster was not management's fault, however. The first two choices—Nate Bowman of Wichita and Flynn Robinson of Wyoming—were clipped by injury and illness. But the third choice, Jon McGlocklin of Indiana, not only seems to be a real sleeper but also precisely what the team needed, the big guard to replace retired Arlen Bockhorn behind Robertson and Adrian Smith. McGlocklin, a dedicated young man, is 6 feet 5 and 205, but he was pretty much overlooked at Indiana, where the Van Arsdales outnumbered him. On campus, though, he was referred to with respect as "The Third Twin," and quietly managed to average 17.2, hit 54% and become something of a legend as a free-throw shooter. He hit 91 for 100 in practice and left the line muttering deep disappointment. McGlocklin has the advantage of having played guard as a collegian, which few kids 6 feet 5 ever do. The Royals need height most everywhere. Coach Jack Mc-Mahon had counted on Bowman to bring some to center, where Wayne Embry glares up at the monsters. Embry suddenly became injury-prone last year, Forward Jack Twyman is only 6 feet 6 and all of 31, and All-Star Lucas—though he has never looked better—has the maximum possible number of bad knees. McMahon has three good bench forwards—Tom Hawkins, Happy Hairston and Bud Olsen—which gives him some option there, but Oscar must carry this team more than ever.
The car the Royals gave him won't help for that kind of portage. |
| October 24, 1966 wrote: | CINCINNATI
The pick-and-roll is a simple play, even used by the kids at the YMCA in half-court games. With somewhat better personnel, the Royals dare you to stop it. Oscar Robertson gets the pick, and Jerry Lucas takes the roll (right). Lucas, guarded by a big forward, picks Oscar's man, or slows him down, to make the forward commit himself. If the big man switches to Robertson, Lucas has a smaller defender and rolls for the basket and a pass from Oscar. If there is no switch. Robertson zips past with at least a half-step advantage and a one-on-one situation with a guard down near the baseline. "If I can get him to that spot," says Coach Jack McMahon, "he's unstoppable." Blessed with such a pair, any team ought to win at least an occasional title, but in the East the Celtics are the real royalty and Philadelphia is the chief pretender. Staffing the middle is Cincy's big headache. As a result of an unhappy season, Wayne Embry quit to work for Pepsi-Cola, then was dealt to the Celtics. That left McMahon with 6-foot-11 Walt Wesley from Kansas, his No. 1 draft choice, and 6-foot-10 Connie Dierking. Wesley is quick and has a fair touch for a man his size, but he lacks drive. Dierking, a better player than most people realize, nevertheless is no All-Star candidate. Guard Adrian Smith averaged 18.4 points last season, his finest as a pro, and drove off with a new car as Most Valuable Player in the All-Star Game. Jon McGlocklin should be an improved sub at either forward or guard (he is 6 feet 5), and so-called "Supersub" Happy Hairston is a good rebounder and one of the most accurate shooters in the league. Two rookie guards have looked promising, but six-footer Freddie Lewis from Arizona State may be too small and Flynn Robinson of Wyoming has trouble on defense.
Cincy's five rookies are part of their biggest turnover in personnel since 1958. The Royals will again score lots of points, but it is hard to see how they can help giving up almost as many as they hit, as happened last year. |
| October 23, 1967 wrote: | CINCINNATI
Frustrated for so long in their pursuit of Boston and Philadelphia, the Royals developed some sloppy habits, especially on defense. They have a new coach, Ed Jucker, who appears intent on correcting those habits, but this is essentially the same team as last year's, while Detroit and New York have strengthened themselves immensely. If Jerry Lucas has another so-so year—his knees were very bad during the exhibitions—and the caliber of play at center doesn't improve, Cincy may well be chasing five Eastern teams instead of two. The middle will continue to be a headache no matter who coaches. Connie Dierking, a six-year veteran, is as good as he ever will be, which is decently competent but not in a class with the supercenters. Walt Wesley has a tendency, to use Jucker's kind word, to play "spasmodically." Others say he is simply indifferent. Something of a surprise in the Royal camp is Jim Fox, who played center at South Carolina and spent two years in Europe's pro leagues. He is 6'10" and fast for his size, and Jucker used him in a corner during exhibitions. But he may well end up in the pivot. Opposite Lucas up front, Happy Hairston seemed a changed man for a while, but he is back to sulking and may never realize his potential. Defense is Jucker's specialty, of course. He won two NCAA championships at the University of Cincinnati chiefly with his defense and with a deliberate, cautious offense to complement it. In the pros the offense will have to be scrapped in favor of a running game, which is fine with Jucker. "If I had had Oscar," he says, referring to his college-coaching days, "we would have run then, too." For a while, it looked as if the Royals would not have Oscar Robertson this season, either. He held out for more than 5100,000 and probably got it, despite the fact that no one believed Oscar would try to jump to the ABA. His strong bargaining position stemmed simply from his immense talent. As his backcourt partner Adrian Smith said, "Oscar doesn't pick up a ball all summer, and then he comes in and kills you." Jucker hopes to relieve Oscar of some of the ball-handling responsibility he has assumed over the years. "I'd rather he finished a play than started it," Jucker says, but then he would have to find someone else to do the starting. He won't find his man on the bench; as a matter of fact, he won't find much help there at any position. |
| October 27, 1969 wrote: | CINCINNATI & PHILADELPHIA
The 76ers were the highest-scoring team in the league last year and the Royals were the best shooters, but both burned out early. Cincinnati lacked depth only less than discipline; often some players passed up team travel and flew about the country to games as it suited them. There was no trouble like that on the 76ers. Indeed, Jack Ramsay may be the most respected as well as the best coach in the sport today. Philadelphia failed to catch Baltimore and then lost to Boston in the playoffs because it was worn down, especially in the front court, where strong centers and offensive forwards beat the 76er big men. Now Luke Jackson is back at a slim 248, with a repaired Achilles' tendon, which should make the 76ers tougher in the pivot, and Ramsay thinks he has licked the other deficiencies by placing more emphasis on conditioning and by picking up Jim Washington from Chicago for Chet Walker. Washington has more stamina and mobility than Walker and better looks than anybody in the NBA, but for the 76ers to win on the deal he will have to attack the boards and do better against big forwards than he has in the past. With three top guards who, against some teams, are used together—Hal Greer moving up front—the 76ers will run more than ever. "About 15% of the time you get a natural break; maybe a quarter of the time you have no chance," Ramsay says. "It's that other 60% that we want to try to make the break as much as possible."
At the other extreme, the Royals set up patiently last year and on defense played what amounted to a passive, sloughing zone. A new, aggressive front office lured Bob Cousy in to coach and, in turn, he is making the team go hell-for-leather on the court, the way his Celtics did. Of course, the Celtics had a center to get them the ball. The Royals' center, Connie Dierking, improves with age, but he is better at the end of a break than starting it. Oscar Robertson and Jerry Lucas assured Cousy they would submerge their individual styles, and they have never worked better together at what O calls "fun basketball" than they did in preseason games. Oscar does not control play so much, and Lucas must set up on the weak side, away from the ball in Cousy's "single tandem" offense—Dierking and Forward Tom Van Arsdale (shifted from guard) placed side by side in a low post. The Royals and 76ers recently met across the river from Philly, in Camden. For Cousy, it was his first pro coaching test. For 76er All-League Forward Billy Cunningham, it was the first appearance before Philadelphia fans since he signed to play with the ABA in 1971. They cheered Billy lustily. Apparently fickle Philadelphians don't mind if you want to leave; they only get mad, as Joe Kuharich and Richie Allen know, if they decide before you do that they want you to leave. Cousy's Royals did not fare so well, as Philadelphia's guards forced mistakes. It was apparent why Cousy, at 41, wanted to come out of retirement: to rest Oscar a few minutes of each game, or even to give O occasional chances up front. (It would also have been a promotional coup, Cousy says candidly.) As rookie Guard Herm Gilliam was learning the ropes, Cousy could have kept the Royals moving, revving up the action that is mounting all over the NBA. "You don't see that boring one-on-one stuff much anymore, the big man just backing and muscling in," says Jack Ramsay. "It's a better game now than ever before." |
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
JUST-MING
Retired Number
Joined: 23 Jun 2005
Posts: 43995
|
| Posted: Sat Jul 23, 2016 9:03 pm Post subject: |
|
|
Oscar had a feud with Lucas
| Janurary 26, 1970 wrote: | | When Cousy traded Lucas to the San Francisco Warriors late last October it came as a shock to close followers of the sport everywhere, not just to those in Cincinnati. An Ohio hero, Lucas had just completed his best shooting year as a professional (.551) and led the club in rebounding with an 18.4 average per game. But it was Cousy's belief that Lucas did not add to the team's overall speed, and speed and defense were the things that Cousy wanted to incorporate into Cincinnati's attack immediately. Some people also suggested that the Royals had been suffering from the fact that they were split into two distinct groups—a Lucas camp and a Robertson camp. |
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
|
You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot vote in polls in this forum
|
|
