1965-66 C&D, or Why I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love the Fast Break

Hey guys, welcome to another edition of ‘Stache Talk! I am replaying the entire 1965-66 season with cards and dice. I created the cards using a template from the old somhoops site and data from the card image view for the computer game. I believe the card image view has the exact same data SOM would use if they created real cards for the season, as I compared cards with the card image view for a few players from a recent season, and they were the same.

Making the cards is a very tedious process. There is always a mistake, a comma where it doesn’t belong, an extra space, an incorrect number; it takes multiple edits to get it just right. It is painstaking but worthwhile in the end. 

I chose the 1965-66 season to replay for two reasons: (1) it features some of the all-time greats, Wilt, Russell, Oscar, the Logo, etc, and (2) with only 9 teams, and an 80 game season, it is doable to complete the entire season. Sure, it will take a me a few years to play 360 games (80 games  per team x 9 teams divided by ½), but it will get done. The other day, I played Game 72, getting me through 20% of the season. I am playing the games in the order of the schedule, so teams haven’t played the exact number of games (Baltimore has played the most, 19, and St. Louis the least, 13). Here are the current standings:

EAST

Cincinnati 11-4

Philadelphia 10-4

Boston 9-6

New York 5-12

 

WEST

Los Angeles 13-4

Baltimore 10-9

St. Louis 5-8

San Francisco 5-12

Detroit 4-14

 

In real life, the Sixers were 55-25, one game better than the Celtics, who were 9 games better than the Royals and Lakers. The Pistons were easily the worst team with the Knicks the next worst. So the replay is kinda playing out like that, though the Royals and Lakers are overachieving and the Celtics underachieving.

I do play with injuries, but I use my own system where real life injuries that occurred at the beginning or end of the season are replicated AND I roll before each game for additional injuries, and that roll is based on how many games a player missed in real life. That is a long way of explaining that the Celtics were short-handed and without key bench players early on. I think they will recover. Let me just point out how AWESOME the Celtics Defense is. I only use the Normal defense, and I don’t double-team. The Outside shooting column is all blanks except for 2 (T), 4 (X) and 12 (X, 1-19). Inside 8 and 10 are blanks. On the FB 4, 6, 7 and 8 are misses. Good luck scoring on the Cs!

Wilt Chamberlain is the top scorer, averaging 37 points per game. Jerry West is right behind him with 36 ppg. Each had a 55-point game. Oscar Robertson is averaging 34.2 ppg. Next are Sam Jones (29.4), Rick Barry (29.1), Eddie Miles ( 28.1), Dick Barnett (27.8) and Walt Bellamy (26). They are all averaging a few more points than in real life but that is basically the order for the real life scoring leaders, except for Eddie Miles, who was 12^th on the list in reality.

Rebounding was something I was concerned about before beginning the replay. I didn’t think that the top guys would be able to achieve their numbers. In the 1990’s SOM had to implement the Rodman Rule to get Dennis his share of boards. How could I do that when 3 players average 20+ and another averaged 18 rebounds per game? Russell is leading the league with 23.9 rpg, about 1 more than real life. Nate Thurmond is 2^nd with 21.1, 3 more than real life. Wilt is 3^rd with “only” 20.8, almost 4 less than he did in actuality. Jerry Lucas grabbed 21 rbs per game in reality but only 17.1 for me. We shall see how this plays out over the course of an entire season.

Two teams I want to focus on are the Detroit Pistons and the Cincinnati Royals. Detroit was bad in real life and they are worse here. Do you know who coached them that season? I will give you a hint, and if you know the answer, you either were alive and remember or you are a real historian. They had a player-coach. It was NOT a grizzled veteran with a ton of experience. It was 25-year old Dave DeBusschere! I am not sure whether it was the NBA in its entirety or just the Pistons, but to appoint a 25 year old coach, someone was not taking this game seriously!

For our purposes, the problem with Detroit is that they don’t have a single Dazzler on the entire team; not in the half court and not on the break. A related problem is the lack of a point guard. They have 4 possibilities, varying from a 4-11 Open position shot passer in the half court to 4-15 Open, and 10-20 to 12-20 FB shot on the break. Three of the four are right at or below 40% shooters in real life, and the one that isn’t, Donnie Butcher, misses the final ¾ of the season (and will have played his last NBA game very soon in my replay). They have a center, Joe Strawder, who doesn’t score (8.8 ppg), a small forward and his backup, DeBusschere and Don Kojis, who shot around 40% in real life, and a second leading scorer, power forward Ray Scott, who is shooting 41% from the floor. Eddie Miles (who had the James Bond-like nickname, the Man with the Golden Arm) has been carrying the team scoring 28.1 ppg on 47%.

Detroit does have some players who can score on the break. All four of the aforementioned point guards plus Miles, DeBusschere and Kojis are all capable fast break finishers. I had not been running the break at all with them, mainly because of the poor passing and lack of possible Dazzlers. I recently looked up the team FB ratings in the computer game. SOM gives teams a ranking of 3, 2 or 1 in the computer game, which is equivalent to the 2 asterisks (**), no asterisks ( ) and single asterisk (*), respectively, that are on the card and dice rosters. Why SOM didn’t make it **, * and blank, in that order, I don’t know. The teams rated 3 or ** should FB as much as possible, the teams rated 2 or blank 2/3rds of the time, and the teams rated 1 or * 1/3^rd of the time. Detroit has a 1 rating.

Five of the nine teams are rated 3, Boston, San Francisco, Baltimore, Los Angeles and Philadelphia. I was only breaking often with the Celtics and Warriors, breaking sometimes with the Bullets and Sixers, and wasn’t breaking at all with the Lakers. Cincinnati was the only team rated 2, and I wasn’t breaking with them. St. Louis, New York and Detroit were rated 1 and I wasn’t breaking at all with them. I am not including when a player steals the ball off his defensive card and breaks in the above (if a good FB players steals the ball off his card, then I have him take a FB shot generally).

Cincinnati is very interesting. Oscar is a beast on the FB, a 5-20 Dazzler, and his FB column has baskets or fouls on all but 2, 3, 6 AND 12. He will score some points ¾ of the time you roll his card for a FB shot. The problem is EVERYONE ELSE. Adrian Smith is the starting shooting guard, playing 37 minutes per game in reality, and his FB column has blanks on rolls of 3, 5, 7, 8, 9, and 12. He scores on about 38% of rolls on his FB column. I have been starting Tom Hawkins at RF. He played 27 mins per game in reality, the most of any of the options. He is a replay guy, a rebounder and defender. His FB column is poor, with blanks on 3, 4 5, 7, 8, 9, and 11. Other wing players such as Happy Hairston, Jon McGlocklin and Jack Twyman are no better. Tom Thacker is a little better, scoring on 39% of chances, but not much, and he has been hurt. Like I said, I haven’t been breaking at all with the Royals, but in real life they did break a good amount.

The factors I usually consider when deciding whether to break are the RG passing column, the RG, LG and RF FB shooting columns, and how good the team is in the half court. But perhaps with a RG as lethal as Oscar, that should be enough. If you examine the Action Cards, the RG has 20 Dazzler opportunities in the FB column. And there are 9 readings of “FB shot for RG.” That is almost half the deck. When you throw in the completed passes to RG from RF and LG, that may tip it in favor of running the break, especially if the team is struggling in the half court.

I like a combination of playing how I think a team should play and playing how they played in real life. I think I was doing too much of the former. Chris has a post regarding the system he uses. I like it a lot. But it takes the break entirely out of your hands, and I like to have some control. So what I decided to do in Game 72 was implement a system where you (1) choose whether you want the team to run the break as much as possible, or as little as possible, then (2) roll the 20-sided die for every fast break opportunity, and (3) consult the following chart.

If the team wants to fast break as much as possible, the break is on for

3 rating – a roll of 1-17

2 rating – a roll of 1-15

1 rating – a roll of 1-13

If the team wants to fast break minimally, the fast break is on for

3 rating – a roll of 1-9

2 rating – a roll of 1-7

1 rating – a roll of 1-5

This system makes teams perform a little more like real life. Detroit is going to have to break sometimes. A team that wants to break as often as possible like the Warriors or Celtics will be prevented on occasion (think Thurmond grabs the board, but the defenders block the outlet pass and Guy Rodgers has to come back for the ball). Just like in real life, some decisions are taken out of the coach’s hands. But the coach has some influence by deciding how often she wants the team to run. For a team like Cincinnati, when the Big O is out of the game, you are going to take the break off. But even then, sometimes the players do what the players want to do. It's like how in today's NBA coaches tell players not to take long 2-pt shots, but they still do it. 

I really enjoyed the game I played with this system. I will use it going forward not only with the 1965-66 season but any SOM season.

One final point. Chris has already talked about when a fast break opportunity occurs. I agree with him. Basically, a team can break when it gathers a defensive rebound, other than a team rebound, after a missed field goal attempt, and when a player gets a steal from his defensive card, but not when the steal occurs from the opposition player’s passing column. So when Bill Russell grabs a defensive board of a Billy Cunningham missed jumper, I am rolling the 20-sided die to see whether the Celtics break, and if the coach has the break on, they will break on rolls of 1-17, and if the coach does not have the break on, then will break on rolls of 1-9. When a player does get a steal from his defensive column, if you want him to take a FB shot, no roll is necessary and he can automatically take it. If you don’t want him to take the shot, then I am rolling the 20-sided die to see if the team is fast breaking, and if they are you look to FB Control, and if not the Normal Control. 

I think that covers it. If you like controlling when a team breaks, then keep doing it. If you want to let the game control when to break and be more realistic, use Chris’s system. If you want to combine the two, use mine. Until next time, keep rolling the X +!