Stats are everything. Meh. Of course he led the greatest dynasty in team sports. A true pioneer of the game.
Are you talking about overrated for his Era or as an all time great? The reality is players on average get more skilled and athletic over time. When you're talking about guys from the 50s you just have to applaud those who were winners and beat what was in front of them. No, most could not compete with guys today and no, you don't have to be alive then to know that. We've all seen footage of what the game looked like then and many players just weren't very skilled. Even as recent as the 90s there were a bunch unskilled guys in the league. It's also a different game. You think Cousy's getting free throws because of a slight tap on the elbow or a swing through move in the 50's? Excellent contribution.
Cousy was as good as he could be in the time he played. No one that came before him was better. What more can you ask? Obviously, as time goes on players are going to get better.
those brehs kicked ass during the only-right-hand-dribble era. imagine if they grew up in the 2000s learning the game with both hands!
I actually think he's pretty fairly rate. Many still recognize him for his "way, ahead of its time" dribbling, but critics (rightfully so) often point to the Globetrotters were doing stuff, like that for decades. Some historians will also say some players were allowed to play, like that. Which is why I think alot of debates about NBA history are relative, but also very fantastical in speculation, because there are so many different factors you have to take into consideration for a proper debate. Most don't have a objective prism to do it. For Cousy, he was the king of assists in an era, where it was tougher to get assists and he weaponized dribbling and ball handling, which you don't really see again until Pistol Pete and Isiah Thomas show up in the NBA. Then, you had players, like AI and Marbury take it to another level. He's revolutionary in that aspect. Though, there was an interesting situation in Cincinnati, as coach, where he appeared in a few games, garnered alot of cheers and press for him to come back and even become the team's new point guard. There was suggestions that he could take over as the team's point guard, because the Royals were aging and needed a more exciting upbeat offense. He explicitly said he was seeking a younger team, being headed by a younger point guard, he tried to trade Big O for Gus Johnson (PF), which in turn would leave Van Lier as a starter, perhaps Cousy (though a 40 something, I sincerely doubt it). Oscar Robertson, at the time, probably should've take that trade, even though he did end up and Milwaukee and finally won a championship. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1969–70_Cincinnati_Royals_season Cousy still squarely and unanimous a top 10 point guard without question. Is he the best? ... Magic...West...Curry...Stockton...Kidd...Payton...Nash...CP3...and his own point guard... the "great" Oscar Robertson. Cousy was a magician on the court, but Oscar was a god. He was a superior player to Cousy, very easily, in almost every aspect of the game.
If Chris Paul played in Cousy's era he'd average 80 points and 30 assists a game. Stop it. Put Paul on Cousys teams, Paul is winning a championship. Put Cousy on Paul's teams, he isn't doing jack ****
I'll tell you who is overrated.... Bill Russell. Dude had no offensive skills, played on a stacked team, and gets this credit for being as good as monsters like Wilt, Kareem, Shaq, Hakeem etc
The issue here is trying to equate players from completely different eras playing completely different games. It is for that reason that whenever I try to compare players I do so starting from the post merger in 76-77 onwards. Its still not perfect (and really can never be perfect) as even back then there was no 3 pointer and even once we got that shot it was pretty much an afterthought until the 90s. But at least we closed the gap on items like competition and players only dedicated to basketball year round. I think its unfair to try and compare Cousy to Paul but it gets better when trying to compare Stockton, Thomas or even Magic as the gap in differences between eras started to shrink.
I've said this many times before, but, agreed, it's not all that useful to directly compare players in different eras. What you can do instead is compare how good those players were relative to the competition they faced in their own era. There are many stats that are normalized in this way, and that allows us to make more meaningful comparisons. Even the greatest player of all time -- Michael Jordan -- I'd argue would need time to adjust his game and refine some of his skills if he was teleported into the modern day. So "how good would this player be if he played in a different era" is not a very useful question to ask when doing these cross-era comparisons.
I don't really have a strong opinion on this, don't like Stephen A & co, but I just want to point out that this "attacking the speaker / ad hominem" logic rarely works. Plus in this case they're saying Cousy is overrated, so saying people are "still talking about him" isn't really defeating the point.
Reddick is being a douche. Yes athleticism is wildly different, but Cousy was a career 80% FT shooter. He likely would have been a good shooter in any era. For instance, Dolph Schayes shot 85% at the line for his career and had 2 high volume FT seasons above 90% but he only shot 38% from the field. What exactly was different with the rule set back then. Guys were roughly shooting the same FT% but FG% were drastically lower. FG% started to trend upward in the 59-60 season at 41% and getting to a somewhat more normal level at 44% in 62-63. Also for reference. In the 1956-57 season the average player was 6'5" 201 lbs 26.2 years old FG% 38.3% FT% 75.1% In the 2021-22 season the average player is 6'6" 215 lbs 26.1 years old FG% 46.1 FT% 77.5% Average American male was also about 2 inches shorter back then too
Sorry guys, I did forget about Walt Frazier and Isiah Thomas. I know a few newbies are frothing at me not listing Kyrie or WB, who are both fantastic players, but very flawed as point guards.
Of the top of my head my list is about this. I would have no idea where to short Cousy into this? Maybe around the Archibald/Nash area? But like most have been saying, I've never seen him live. I think I've seen one taped clip of finals game he was in and some highlights. Magic Isiah Curry Oscar Robertson CP3 Payton Stockton Frazier West Archibald Nash Kidd Iverson Lilliard Irving
He was roughly a league average shooter. I guess by good I wasn't trying to say he was anything special at shooting, but he wasn't as bad as the numbers look judged relative to the league. Do you have any insight on why leaguewide shooting percentages rapidly increased over about a 5 year period from the late 50's to early 60's?
