Aba–nba Merger Puns

Per the ESPN Stats & Info Twitter (https://twitter.com/ESPNStatsInfo/status/1469493988679983107?t=CZrf9Jb9zgtW2s6I2vVJVQ&s=19)

> Trae Young joins Russell Westbrook (2x) and Michael Jordan as the only players with 25 points & 10 assists in 5 straight games since the NBA-ABA merger (1976-77).

> Since entering the league in 2018, Young has the most games of 25 points & 10 assists with 56.

Trae Young is very good at passing the basketball and scoring, and he continues to prove it this season with arguably his most efficient campaign yet when it comes to both aspects of the game.

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Nikola Jokic last night: 24/6/6 in 15min. No other player since the ABA-NBA merger has recorded at least 20p/5r/5a in a game in which they played 15 or fewer minutes.

Unsurprising, coming from the owner of the fastest triple double of all time

Steph passes Wilt as the oldest to ever hit the statline.

Stephen Curry Once

Kevin Porter Jr. Once

Damian Lillard Three times

Nikola Jokic Once

James Harden Eight times.

Russell Westbrook Three times.

LeBron James Twice.

Tony Parker Once.

Stephon Marbury Once.

Michael Jordan Once.

Worth noting that Rick Barry, Elgin Baylor, Kareem, and Nate Archibald hit the line before the merger too, but they're not on statmuse. Wilt probably did it another 20 times.

https://www.statmuse.com/nba/ask/most-games-with-50-points-and-10-assists-in-nba-history-by-players

The Hawks lost 6 on the bounce but beating their ECF rivals from last year at home, though hobbled, should feel good. Trae put on a playoff-level show yesterday. Ray Young is a proud dad.

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Before the late-70s merger, who were the league’s best perimeter defenders?

Who are some notable names?

Those two teams were the Spurs(07,13,14) and the Warriors (15-18). He also has a losing record against those teams going 2-5. A really pointless stat but who cares. Sue me.

>Players to average 30+ PPG in back-to-back seasons since the NBA-ABA merger in 1976:
>
>Adrian Dantley
>
>Michael Jordan - seven straight
>
>Allen Iverson - twice
>
>Kobe Bryant
>
>James Harden - three straight
>
>Bradley Beal

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Pretty historic company here for Beal. He's improved his PPG every year since he's been in the league, and he's been very good this year playing with Russ. Excited to see what he does with the next couple of years in his prime.

Per Clippers PR: According to ESPN Stats & Info, Paul George and Kawhi Leonard are the 5th duo since the 1976-77 NBA-ABA merger with 30 points each in back-to-back playoff games. https://twitter.com/FlyByKnite/status/1404676488545202180?s=20

they both had back to back 30+ point games in their game 3 and 4 victories against the jazz

Here's the list of teams:

• Milwaukee, 2021 - 46-26 (.639)
• Miami, 2006 - 52-30 (.634)
• Detroit, 2004 - 54-28 (.659)
• Houston, 1995 - 47-35 (.573)
• Seattle, 1979 - 52-30 (.634)
• Washington, 1978 - 44-38 (.537)
• Portland, 1977 - 49-33 (.598)

Prior to this, Boston ('76, '69, '68, '57), Golden State ('75 and '56 in Philly), St. Louis ('58), and Syracuse ('55) had pulled off the accomplishment in the shot clock era.

What's interesting about this is that it has only happened 4 teams in the three point era

Since 1980, only 4 teams in the NBA have a roster of cumulative 41 All-Star appearances: '03 Lakers, '10-'11 Celtics & the '13-'14 Heat. Only the Boston Celtics in 2010-11 (56) and 2011-12 (43) have surpassed that total since the NBA-ABA merger.

None of those 4 teams won the NBA championship

The NBA & ABA merged in 1976, and considering how diluted basketball was before then with all of those franchises, plus how different the play-styles were of the two leagues, a lot of players became irrelevant right after the merger if their skills were rather specific to one league or the other and didn't translate as universally. Not only that, there were some big stars whose careers or stats took a big hit after the merger. Here are a few, but I'd love to hear any others you know of.

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar: His 7 highest scoring seasons were during his first 7 seasons, from '70-76. Although those numbers didn't get way worse, they did drop. More notably, he averaged 15.6 rpg during his first 7 seasons, including an NBA-best 16.9 rpg in '76 right before the merger. Right after the merger, he averaged a consistent 13.0 rpg over his next 3 seasons (17% drop), and that dropped off quite a bit more over his next 8 seasons that were all still super relevant ('80-87), including averaging only 6.1 rpg in '86 when he was the 1st-team All-NBA center. It just seems odd how quickly and significantly his rebounding fell off after the merger, but the ABA did bring an influx of more athletic forwards into the league.

Julius Erving: Dr. J absolutely owned the ABA, winning multiple MVP's and titles while almost single-handedly providing legitimacy to that league leading up to the merger. That being said, his other-worldly ABA stats did not hold up all that well in the NBA. Over his 5-year ABA career, he averaged 28.7 ppg, 12.1 rpg, 4.8 apg, 2.4 spg, 2.0 bpg. In his first 3 years in the NBA (peak career ages of 26-28), he averaged 21.8 ppg, 7.4 rpg, 4.0 apg, 1.8 spg, 1.3 bpg. Whoa - that's like a 25% drop-off in production during what should be his peak. He up-ticked some for a few years after that, but he never came close to matching what he did in the defensively-optional ABA.

Walt Frazier: Frazier cranked out 8 straight great seasons in the NBA before the merger ('69-76), including 7 straight ASG's before that point. He was averaging 20.7 ppg, 6.6 rpg, 6.7 apg, and 2.1 spg. Not only that, he was 1st-team All-NBA and 1st-team All-Defense as late as '75, 1 year before the merger. He was also the ASG MVP that season, plus he was pulling MVP votes in '75 and '76 right be

This is an impressive stat line to get, and if you go before 1976, Bill Russel and Wes Unseld also join the list too, insane how these players did not need to score to be great, especially Steve Nash, because arguably, he was in the hardest era out of all

The list is:

Bill Walton, 1976-77

Moses Malone, 1981-82

Kevin Love, 2011-12

Giannis Antetokounmpo, 2019-20

Nikola Jokic, 2020-21

Domantas Sabonis, 2020-21

Souce: https://twitter.com/Pacers/status/1352319793853042688

Meanwhile, 48-34 (.585) teams like 2007-08 Warriors and 2013-14 Suns missed the playoffs and a 1992-1993 Magic team went 41-41 (.500), missed the playoffs, and won the lottery with the first pick being Shaquille O'Neal.

LaMelo Ball has recorded 128 points, 63 rebounds, and 59 assists this season. Only three rookies since the ABA-NBA merger have matched or exceeded all three of those totals through their first 10 games:

✅ Magic Johnson, 1979-80

✅ LeBron James, 2003-04

✅ Ben Simmons, 2017-18

Lamelo is more impressive , as he scored 0 points his first game and is doing this OFF THE BENCH

Since the merger, eight 1-seeds have been swept:

• Lakers, 1977, WCF
• Lakers, 1983, Finals
• Lakers, 1989, Finals
• Magic, 1995, Finals
• Spurs, 2001, WCF
• Nets, 2002, Finals
• Pistons, 2003, ECF
• Raptors, 2018, ECS

Source via http://nbasweep.com/nba-season-history/

Source: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/fivethirtyeight/data/master/nba-raptor/historical_RAPTOR_by_player.csv README: https://github.com/fivethirtyeight/data/blob/master/nba-raptor/README.md

When sorting by 'war_total' (wins above replacement between regular season and playoffs), last year's Collin Sextion is dead last out of 17,484 total seasons. It seems this is a cumulative metric, so really bad players who don't get many minutes wouldn't be that far down the list. I'm not too hot on this new metric and Sexton has plenty of time to improve, but I thought this was pretty interesting.

Kevin Knox's 2018-19 season ranked 17,483rd (second-worst) all time as well.

• Trae is currently teammates with Vince Carter on the Hawks
• Vince Carter was teammates with Charles Oakley on the Raptors
• Charles Oakley was teammates with George Gervin on the Bulls
• George Gervin was on the Spurs during the inaugural season the NBA merged with the ABA

Bonus trivia: All 4 players have been NBA All Stars.

George Gervin (1978-1980)

Michael Jordan (1987-1993)

Michael Jordan (1996-98)

Kevin Durant (2010-2012)

James Harden (2018-2020)

I remember years ago I heard a broadcaster say that "an nba team has never won without drafting one of its top 2 players. Its something that always stuck with me and I think about it every year during playoffs, I'm surprised not more announcers have repeated this fun fact. I paid close attention to this years playoffs because there were so many contenders this year where the team had not drafted the top 2 players (lakers, rockets, clippers) Upon research I found only one exception to this rule: the 2004 Detroit Pistons, they did not draft chauncy billups, ben wallace, rasheed wallace, or richard hamilton, their top 4 players that year. But other than that the rule has been pretty steady since the merger.

Process: I counted draft day trades as drafting a player (eg Kawhi Leonard) and for some teams where you could argue who the second best player was I gave the benefit of the doubt to the drafted player, (eg 2013 heat, you could argue bosh or wade, I gave it to wade). For the players before my time I went to basketball reference which have very detailed stats for each teams roster during that time. I know "best" is pretty subjective, but I tried to do the best I could.

Here is my list:

2019 Raptors: Pascal Siakam

2018 Warriors: Steph Curry

2017 Warriors: Steph Curry

2016 Cavaliers: Lebron James

2015 Warriors: Steph Curry

2014 Spurs: Kawhi Leonard

2013 Heat: Dwayne Wade

2012 Heat: Dwayne Wade

2011 Mavericks: Dirk Nowitzki

2010 Lakers: Kobe Bryant

2009 Lakers: Kobe Bryant

2008: Celtics: Paul Pierce

2007 Spurs: Tony Parker

2006 Heat: Dwayne Wade

2005 Spurs: Tim Duncan

2004 Pistons: (EXCEPTION TO THE RULE)

2003 Spurs: Tim Duncan

2002: Lakers: Kobe Bryant

2001 Lakers: Kobe Bryant

2000 Lakers: Kobe Bryant

1999 Spurs: Tim Duncan

1998 Bulls: Michael Jordan

1997 Bulls: Michael Jordan

1996 Bulls: Michael Jordan

1995 Rockets: Hakeem Olajuwon

1994 Rockets: Hakeem Olajuwon

1993 Bulls: Michael Jordan

1992 Bulls: Michael Jordan

1991 Bulls: Michael Jordan

1990 Pistons: Isaiah Thomas

1989 Pistons: Isaiah Thomas

1988 Lakers: Magic Johnson

1987 Lakers: Magic Johnson

1986 Celtics: Larry Bird

1985 Lakers: Magic Johnson

1984 Celtics: Larry Bird

1983 76ers: Julius Erving

1982 Lakers: Magic Johnson

1981 Celtics: Larry Bird

1980 Lakers: Magic Johnson

1979 SuperSonics: Jack Sikma

1978 Bullets: Wes Unseld

1977 Trailblazers: Bill Walton

1976 Celtics: Jo Jo White

I dont know how important this stat is but I always found it fun and interes

Kareem, Bird, MJ, Hakeem, Duncan, Kobe, LeBron, and Steph combine for 32 of those championships.

It's rough out there when you don't have a generational superstar on your team.

Mashburn, who averaged 20.8 points per game in 2003–04, is one of only three players since 1976-77 to have averaged at least 20 points per game in before retirement.

The other two are Larry Bird (20.2 in 1991–92), and Michael Jordan (20.0 in 2002–03).

Allen Iverson, Bernard King, Antawn Jamison, Kobe Bryant, Michael Jordan are the other names to have back-to-back 50+ games. But it's the 2nd time Harden did this. (The first one was nearly a year ago.)

Edit: Sorry for the blunder. I want to clear out that Kobe actually scored 50+ in 4 straight games in his series. But I'm not so sure about phrasing. Harden had 2 back-to-back games with 50+ points. Kobe had one series that lasted 4 games with 50+ points.

2014-2015

• Russell Westbrook - 28.1 ppg
• 34.4 minutes per game
• 67 games played

 

2012-2013

• Carmelo Anthony - 28.7 ppg
• 37.0 minutes per game
• 67 games played

 

2011-2012 (Lockout shortened season)

• Kevin Durant - 28.0 ppg
• 38.6 minutes per game
• 66 games played

 

2010-2011

• Kevin Durant - 27.7 ppg
• 38.9 minutes per game
• 78 games played

 

2003-2004

• Tracy McGrady - 28.0 ppg
• 39.9 minutes per game
• 67 games played

 

1999-2000

• Shaquille O’Neal - 29.7 ppg
• 40.0 minutes per game
• 79 games played

 

1998-1999 (Lockout shortened season)

• Allen Iverson - 26.8 ppg
• 41.5 minutes per game
• 48 games played

 

1997-1998

• Michael Jordan - 28.7 ppg
• 38.8 minutes per game
• 82 games played

 

1996-1997

• Michael Jordan - 29.6 ppg
• 37.9 minutes per game
• 82 games played

 

1994-1995

• Shaquille O’Neal - 29.3 ppg
• 37.0 minutes per game
• 79 games played

 

1993-1994

• David Robinson - 29.8 ppg
• 40.5 minutes per game
• 80 games played

 

1982-1983

• Alex English - 28.4 ppg
• 36.4 minutes per game
• 82 games played

 

1978-1979

• George Gervin - 29.6 ppg
• 36.1 minutes per game
• 80 games played

 

1977-1978

• George Gervin - 27.2 ppg
• 34.8 minutes per game
• 82 games played

NBA fans know that Andre Drummond is the game's premier rebounder in the NBA today. What many don't realize is that he's actually the greatest rebounder since the ABA-NBA merger in 1976.

This season, the 25-year-old Drummond will lead the league in rebounds per game for the third time in four seasons. His 15.4 RPG is nearly 2 RPG higher than second-place Joel Embiid (13.6). Drummond is a particularly effective offensive rebounder, and he's currently on track to lead the league in that category for the sixth consecutive season; in other words, every season of his career other than his 19-year-old rookie campaign.

But Drummond doesn't just outclass his contemporaries on the glass. He averages the most career RPG (13.6) of any player since the ABA-NBA merger.

For those that argue that per game numbers don't tell the whole story, Drummond is also the all-time leader in total rebound percentage.

Last night, Drummond recorded his 12th 20-20 game of the season, the 3rd-highest single-season total since the merger, and just 3 games behind Moses Malone's record of 15 such games, accomplished back in the 1981-1982 season. The Pistons have 12 games remaining this season, giving Drummond a chance to add yet another rebounding feat under his belt.

While Drummond has some limitations in his game, he's a *histori

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Our 65-win season that we took the Dubs to 7 is (only) ranked 13th. This season was ranked 5th behind only Magic's Lakers, 2 Dubs teams, and MJ's Bulls. And Harden did it all himself.

36.1 PPG on 62 TS%. Unbelievable.

It is an absolute travesty that the media gets to decide the MVP. They clearly can't recognize greatness even when it bitch slaps them in the face.

https://twitter.com/bball_ref/status/1224810035525701639

[Basketball Reference] Worst Road Win Percentage by Teams That Won 90%+ at Home Since NBA/ABA Merger (1976-77)

2020 Sixers .333

1977 Lakers .390

2008 Jazz .415

1995 Magic .439

1992 Jazz .439

1978 Sixers .439