1968 NBA Finals (BOS vs LAL) Retroactive Finals MVP Thread

[B][SIZE="7"]1968 NBA FINALS (BOS vs LAL)[/SIZE][/B]
[I][SIZE="5"]Retroactive Finals MVP Project[/SIZE][/I]

[IMG]http://cdn.wbur.org/media/special/2010/wbur_0602_celtics-lakers/images/celtics-lakers-1968.jpg[/IMG]

I've been exchanging PMs with a few members for a couple of weeks now about my interest in holding a vote for Finals MVPs for the years prior to the award's inception. Initially, this project was going to involve a handful of members who I thought might be interested, but I figured more posters might be interested.

Some of you out there might be wondering how exactly you can participate if you weren't able to watch the games live, or weren't even born at the time. Fortunately, I've got you covered—I've downloaded the articles from each game, for both sides of the fire. These are written by beat writers (not AP reports), each piece containing some unique information absent from the other.

[URL="http://www.filehosting.org/file/details/368244/1968_Finals.zip"]Here is the download (14.1MB)[/URL]. The file includes 6 folders, each with 4 files: TBG1, TBG2, LAT1, LAT2. The files named TBG are PDFs of the articles from The Boston Globe, while the others come from the LA Times. Box Scores are on the second page of each article (files of the form xxx2.pdf).

Once you've read as much as you like of the synopses, feel free to respond in this thread with your vote (as well as any other thoughts). If you want your vote to remain private you can send me a PM instead.

I'm not sure how far back I'll take this project, but my goal is to cover all Finals series back to the beginning of the shot clock era (1954-55 season).

EDIT: There was interest in the 1969 articles and box scores, so I found those as well. [URL="http://www.filehosting.org/file/details/368288/1969_Finals.zip"]Here they are (14.3 MB)[/URL].

EDIT 2: Petroslav from APBR has generously donated some of the fruits of his own labor to future editions this project. Here are the complete box scores from 66 and 67:

[url]http://www39.zippyshare.com/v/81758012/file.html[/url]
[url]http://www17.zippyshare.com/v/43744816/file.html[/url]

I'll add the articles from the LA Times and Boston Globe to add to the package, but this contribution has greatly reduced my work and has afforded everyone a sneak peak.

(reserved)

Slightly off-topic, but the game footage I really want to watch is the 1969 Finals, a 7 game classic btw the Celtics and the Lakers, or the 1967 Finals between the Sixers and the Warriors. :cheers:

Great stuff, but I'm having trouble downloading the file. I got a link sent to my e-mail address, which I clicked, but I'm not sure that any thing happened. Perhaps I did download it but can't locate the file on my comp (I'm not very computer literate). Do u know where/how I could access it? Thanks....

[QUOTE=oolalaa]Great stuff, but I'm having trouble downloading the file. I got a link sent to my e-mail address, which I clicked, but I'm not sure that any thing happened. Perhaps I did download it but can't locate the file on my comp (I'm not very computer literate). Do u know where/how I could access it? Thanks....[/QUOTE]

so when you enter this in your URL bar, it should send a link to your e-mail address (which may be filtered as spam)

it should send you a message with a download link, click that and in the window that pops up, click the 'Download' button and you should be good

kinda halfassed, but I can't seem to find any other better sites to host (if somebody has a rec, I'll try somewhere else)

Fpliii I just downloaded the file and plan on reading it later...But right now I want to ask you if you know what the total average of Wilts VS Russell is?

And then

How many 60, 50 and 40 point games he had against him

[QUOTE=fpliii]so when you enter this in your URL bar, it should send a link to your e-mail address (which may be filtered as spam)

it should send you a message with a download link, click that and in the window that pops up, click the 'Download' button and you should be good

kinda halfassed, but I can't seem to find any other better sites to host (if somebody has a rec, I'll try somewhere else)[/QUOTE]

Sorted. Thanks :cheers:

Before I check anything out I've read plenty of the old Boston/LA battles and i think Russell is gonna be my choice, he had a few monster games from what I can remember,especially defensively but I'll get back to you.

Cheers.

[QUOTE=jongib369]Fpliii I just downloaded the file and plan on reading it later...But right now I want to ask you if you know what the total average of Wilts VS Russell is?

And then

How many 60, 50 and 40 point games he had against him[/QUOTE]

here's the link to the spreadsheet in case you don't have it:

[url]http://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Aoy3YD7IdypTdEpOeFRwY29NRTUtWVlFWVJ5TkFDY3c[/url]

this is the extent of our knowledge of the matchups as it currently stands...we have all the point and rebound numbers, but we're missing some info (the averages are around 28.7/28.7 I believe)

I don't really want to make this a Wilt vs Russell thread though, since Wilt didn't play in the Finals that season (though the next season we're going to do, 1967, he obviously did)

[QUOTE=fpliii]I've downloaded the articles from each game, for both sides of the fire. These are written by beat writers (not AP reports), each piece containing some unique information absent from the other.
[/QUOTE]

Just a quick question: Are the newspaper articles you've provided available on the standard goolge news newspaper search? If not, where can I, or any one else, find them? If you don't mind me asking, of course :D

[QUOTE=oolalaa]Just a quick question: Are the newspaper articles you've provided available on the standard goolge news newspaper search? If not, where can I, or any one else, find them? If you don't mind me asking, of course :oldlol:[/QUOTE]

some of them might be, but I got mine from ProQuest (a subscription service that I got free from my university...finished up my MS in June, but I believe I have access until early January); I'm sure you could sign up, but I think it's much more expensive for an individual than for an institution

they have complete archives for the Boston Globe, Chicago Tribune, LA Times, Washington Post, NY Times, though I think only the last two are available on Google

if you have a topic of interest I can do some research for you though (the turnaround time depends on whether you have exact dates or not, and the extent of the data you need)

[QUOTE=fpliii]some of them might be, but I got mine from ProQuest (a subscription service that I got free from my university...finished up my MS in June, but I believe I have access until early January); I'm sure you could sign up, but I think it's much more expensive for an individual than for an institution

they have complete archives for the Boston Globe, Chicago Tribune, LA Times, Washington Post, NY Times, though I think only the last two are available on Google
[/QUOTE]

Okay, I'll definitely check out proquest. If I remember rightly, the price of $3.95 always comes up next to Boston Globe, L.A times articles etc whenever I'm browsing newspapers. I'm not sure if that's the price to view that single article (I friggin hope not :eek: ), or it's some sort of monthly fee. I'll do some investigating.

[QUOTE]if you have a topic of interest I can do some research for you though (the turnaround time depends on whether you have exact dates or not, and the extent of the data you need)[/QUOTE]

Thanks a lot. I'll bare that in mind.

[QUOTE=oolalaa]Okay, I'll definitely check out proquest. If I remember rightly, the price of $3.95 always comes up next to Boston Globe, L.A times articles etc whenever I'm browsing newspapers. I'm not sure if that's the price to view that single article (I friggin hope not :eek: ), or it's some sort of monthly fee. I'll do some investigating.



Thanks a lot. I'll bare that in mind.[/QUOTE]

:cheers:

newspaperarchive.com is another alternative (iirc their plans start at 19.95 per month, though I think you need to sign up for three months at a time), and they offer unlimited bandwith (brutal user interface though)

Btw, I actually have a particular interest in the '66, '68 and '69 Finals (Jerry West has become my favourite past player). I've been lightly researching them, but was finding full box scores in particular impossible to locate. It looks like you're going to be my saviour :oldlol: (For 2 of them, at least)

[QUOTE=oolalaa]Btw, I actually have a particular interest in the '66, '68 and '69 Finals (Jerry West has become my favourite past player). I've been lightly researching them, but was finding full box scores in particular impossible to locate. It looks like you're going to be my saviour :oldlol: (For 2 of them, at least)[/QUOTE]

I'm going to get to 68 and 66 in successive threads...do you want the complete box scores for 69? if you're only interested in box scores and not the articles I could probably find them pretty quickly (one minor issue with the LA Times is they tend to omit minutes played)