Evolution of NBA Championship Teams

Per Sam's request and in collaboration with the other thread of similar thought, I'll pose the question of which championship teams have most impacted (or how they impacted) the league and the evolution of the NBA game?

Each year's championship team is very different along with each era from which they came. Looking forward to the responses. I'll chime in somewhere down the way. db

I'll take a stab at the Russell Celtics. Unfortunately, they probably have not impacted the league as much as one might expect based on their record. For one thing, their teams were assembled in ways that are not now possible.

Their most lasting legacy is probably the philosophy that defense and teamwork win championships. Two-way players have great value today, but they were commonplace in those days. There still exist some vestiges of Red's sixth man philosophy, although I think today's versions are watered down from Red's focus on a player who could be a catalyst from multiple positions as well as possessing an intellect that made him an instant floor leader as well as an instant practitioner of the game.

Pretty much gone are the constant motion offense (oh how I lament the loss of the weave), the volume offense, the full-court press, the conditioning that made 48-minute performances ho hum occurrences, the doctrine that a passed ball can travel faster than a dribbled ball.

It's harder for today's teams to build in the most desired ways, because they have to take their shots at a potential franchise player on the rare instances when when he's available to them, almost regardless of the position he plays. So some of today's teams build from the inside out, while others build from the outside in, very often by default. In the Russell Years, Red had the advantage of doing both simultaneously and just filling in the rest.

I don't know whether this is what you have in mind, dbrown. But I can add more if it's not sufficient.

Sam

Yeah, the defensive philosophy observations made me think about somewhere over the last 3 years, commentators would say the Celtic defense reminds them of a college game when they were full-court pressing (ala UNC down this way). Can't remember the specific games but evidently running that regularly must wear the troops out beyond belief, otherwise with just 24 seconds to shoot and only 8 seconds to cross the line, it would appear turning up the D upon inbounding would make perfect sense to take the O out of sequence. Just don't see a lot if any teams trying that these days.

Good points, Sam. I forgot about the 6th Man. Was Red responsible for that as well? Once again, announcers bring that up every once in a while, but it doesn't stick. Do they still have the 6th Man award? Seems to mean about as much today as Russell presenting the MVP award annually to the uninformed. Once again, no respect for the roots of the tree.

Some college teams run the weave but they call it the Princeton Offense I think. NCSU and Herb Sendek were notorious for running it. Defense would fall asleep resulting in layups mostly. Current Celtics have run it a couple of times but not with any consistency.

By volume offense do you mean shooting with less than 5-8 seconds ticking off the clock and rebounding the heck out of it until you score? Sorry, you're talking to a tweener!!

Dbrown,

Yes, the sixth man concept was definitely Red's, and Frank Ramsey was the first sixth man—well before Havlicek came along. Jamal Crawford won the award this past season.

Yes, my term for the offense in the Russell years is "volume offense." It involved shooting early and often, with more emphasis on inundating the opponent with high-paced offense (including offensive rebounding and shooting early in the clock) than worrying about shot selectivity and accuracy. I talk some about it in my personal history of the Russell Years, which you can find by going to this forum's home page and looking for the sub-forum that includes my writings.

To elaborate a bit, even beyond what I wrote, I believe the tandem of Bob Cousy and Sam Jones was the epitome of what volume offense was all about. Cousy shot .375 over his career, but he was a great shooter. He just never worried about stats. He'd pass the ball off the backboard (which would probably be recorded as a miss), take a long running hook shot, or whatever it took for either himself or a teammate to get the ball up there. And a host of teammates like Russell, Sanders, Heinsohn, and Ramsey would block out and crash the offensive boards on both sides of the basket.

Sam shot .456 for his career, which was nothing short of incredible because he, too, focused on getting the ball up there from almost any angle. He was just an amazing shooter who wasn't afraid to lower his shooting percentage by playing volume basketball. Moreover, Sam was probably the fastest great finisher in the league, and he had great hands—all of which accelerated the volume offense.

I don't really follow college ball very much, so I wouldn't know about their use of the weave. In the past two years, I've seen very brief vestiges of the weave from the Celtics three separate times. Each time, I practically needed therapy to get over the emotional shock. I know they used it throughout the Russell Years, because I remember the signal given by Havlicek for the weave. He'd be bringing the ball upcourt (which he frequently did), and he'd wave one hand in a circle over his head. We all knew what was coming. The opponent knew what was coming. And it didn't matter a bit that they knew. Much more often than not, they were still flummoxed by the weave.

I realize times change, as do strategies. But I seriously wonder why the weave couldn't still be a viable element in a team's offense. Is there something about the size of the players, the way games are called, the IQs of the players, the caliber of today's defenses (perhaps freedom to use the zone?), or some other factors that militate against using the weave today? Beats the heck out of me. In my eyes, it would be perfect for end-of-quarter plays. Keep the opponent moving and wondering rather than pounding the ball into the floor while the opponent gains more of an advantage with every bounce.

Sam