Top 100 NBA Players: #36

Bob Cousy

(Kalb: #10, Simmons: #21, BBR: #42)

Bob Cousy was one of the greatest guards in the early days of the NBA, a man who held the record for most consecutive seasons leading the league in assists for over 30 years, and a proven winner who needs to use both hands in order to wear all of his championship rings.

Many people try to say that Cousy would have had more assists in today's NBA, where assists are supposedly easier to come by, but I showed in my profile on John Stockton (#60) that this was not true. The average assists per team per game has been largely unchanged over the past 60 years, with the only dry period for assists coming in the league's first 5 seasons. The fact is that the average in 1953, Cousy's first season leading the league in assists, was 21.1 per game, while today that average has skyrocketed to 21.5.

The real reason that Cousy did not get more assists during all those seasons he was leading the league is that there was no position called point guard back then, just guards. Because of this, there was no designated ballhandler on any certain team, which makes it even more impressive that Cousy led the league for 8 straight seasons.

Another thing that makes Cousy one of the greats is that he was the best player in the entire league for two seasons early in his career. In 1954 and 1955, before the MVP award had been created, Cousy was arguably the league's elite star, with Neil Johnston as his nearest competitor. Here are their stats from those two seasons:

Cousy (1954) - 19.2 pts, 5.5 reb, 7.2 ast, .385 FG%, .787 FT%, 42-30 record
Johnston (1954) - 24.4 pts, 11.1 reb, 2.8 ast, .449 FG%, .747 FT%, 29-43 record

Cousy (1955) - 21.2 pts, 6.0 reb, 7.8 ast, .397 FG%, .807 FT%, 36-36 record
Johnston (1955) - 22.7 pts, 15.1 reb, 3.0 ast, .440 FG%, .766 FT%, 33-39 record

Both players were great scorers for the time (ranked #1 and #2 in both seasons), and both were great at their areas of specialty (assists for Cousy and rebounds for Johnston), but Cousy was also a very good rebounder, while Johnston was not known for passing the ball much. Cousy's teams were also much better then Johnston's and made the playoffs both years, something Johnston's Warriors teams didn't.

Some people will say that Cousy won all those championships because of Bill Russell, but the truth is that without Cousy, they may not have won the first four of those titles. In fact, during Russell's rookie season of 1956-57, Cousy was still the best player on the Celtics' title team, and he was still the best player the next year when they lost in the Finals. That's when Russell took over as the star, but Cousy was still #2 in Boston for three more seasons, and was still an important player on the next two title teams, retiring after winning his sixth title. Before Russell even arrived, Cousy had led Boston to three straight Eastern Conference Finals, so there is no doubt that he was a winner, but the combination of Russell and Cousy was what made them unstoppable.

Cousy and Worthy were actually quite similar, both being known as the sidekick on great championship dynasties. Both played in at least 6 NBA Finals, with Cousy winning twice as many titles as Worthy (6 to 3). Cousy had the distinction of being the best player in the NBA for a couple years, while Worthy never approached that level. All in all, it seems quite obvious that Cousy has to be ranked higher on this list.