When looking at PER for guys that played especially in the 50's and 60's and even into the early 70's, you have to understand that some of the data is incomplete. We don't have solid numbers for every statistical category dating back 40-50 years ago. So, that could help some players and hurt others.
Some opinions of mine..
1. If you were a good big man in the 50-60's, you probably put up insane numbers that would not hold up in the game today.
2. In the 80's, scoring was typically much higher as was rebounding. Realize that the game was more up tempo and scoring, shooting percentages, assists, total rebounds and even turnovers are all inflated with compared to the era that we're currently in. A 25 point scorer today would probably project to closer to 28 points back in the 80's.
3. Guards in today's game have the luxury of ridiculous advantages on the offensive side of the ball when it comes to officiating.
4. It was not uncommon for ABA teams to AVERAGE more than 120 points a game. That happened a handful of times during it's short existence. 115 points a game was not remotely rare at all. Some years, it was common. Again, you have to factor in what type of impact that would have had on a player's performance.
5. Again, the NBA was a much faster paced league back in the day of Magic and Bird. Offensive numbers are rather inflated in my opinion. There were times in which the game resembled what we see during All-Star weekend more than what we saw back in the early 90's..
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