20 Second Timeout

Classless Chicago Fans Tarnish Bulls' Inaugural Ring of Honor Ceremony by Booing Jerry Krause

On Friday night, the Chicago Bulls held their inaugural Ring of Honor ceremony, inducting Artis Gilmore, Johnny "Red" Kerr, Dick Klein (the team's first owner and general manager), Bob "Butterbean" Love, Jerry Sloan, Chet "The Jet" Walker, Jerry Krause, Tex Winter, Phil Jackson, Toni Kukoc, Dennis Rodman, Scottie Pippen, and Michael Jordan. What should have been an event brimming with joyful nostalgia was tarnished when Chicago fans booed lustily after Krause's name was announced. Krause's widow Thelma, in attendance to accept the honor, cried at the disrespect, and was immediately comforted by other honorees and retired Bulls players. 

There is a proper time and place to express displeasure regarding Krause's role in ending the Bulls' dynasty, but a ceremony honoring him for his significant contributions to building the Bulls' dynasty is not that time or place, particularly considering that Krause died several years ago and thus his widow felt the brunt of the fans' senseless hatred. I don't want to hear excuses about fans being too young to remember Krause, or fans booing without knowing why just because other fans booed. If other people jumped off of a cliff would you follow them, or would you assess the situation and draw conclusions? Of course, that question presumes that the people who booed have functioning brains, which is far from certain. 

When your team honors the people who gave their blood, sweat, and tears to make your team great, you cheer. This is not complicated.

I have written about Krause many times. I am not his biggest fan, but I respect what he accomplished--and anyone who has any knowledge of basketball history respects what he accomplished. An objective, detached take on Krause's legacy is that he deserves a lot of credit for building the Bulls' dynasty, and a lot of blame for breaking up the Bulls' dynasty, as I explained in my obituary for Krause:  

In 1998, I was furious at Krause for destroying something so beautifully artistic and so competitively fierce.

Nearly 20 years later, I am still puzzled and saddened by what Krause did but I also appreciate what he accomplished--not just with the Bulls but over the span of his life. Those who knew him well say that he was a loyal friend with a good heart. Ultimately, that is how he should be remembered--and, despite his gruff demeanor at times and despite his mistake in breaking up the Bulls, there is no doubt that Krause belongs in the Basketball Hall of Fame. It is a shame that if he ever is inducted he will not be around to enjoy that most deserved honor.

After Krause was inducted posthumously in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2017, I assessed his legacy: 

I was as baffled and upset as anyone by Krause's haste and glee to break up the Bulls so that he could try to build another championship team from scratch but Krause deserves a lot of credit for hiring Phil Jackson as coach and for acquiring key players Scottie Pippen, Horace Grant, B.J. Armstrong, Bill Cartwright, Toni Kukoc, Ron Harper and Dennis Rodman. An NBA executive's job is to win games and championships; by that standard, Krause is one of the most accomplished executives in pro basketball history.

"The Last Dance" told the story of the Chicago Bulls' dynasty from Michael Jordan's perspective, and to a large extent made Krause a villain for a generation of fans too young to remember the 1990s. Krause resigned from the Bulls in 2003 after his post-dynasty plan failed woefully, but it should never be diminished or forgotten that Krause's Chicago teams won six NBA titles (1991-93, 1996-98). Jordan did not win a playoff series as a player before Krause arrived in Chicago, and Jordan did not win a playoff series in his two years playing for the Washington Wizards; in 18 years as an owner/executive, Jordan's teams only made the playoffs three times, and did not win a single series. Jordan's 2011-12 Hornets went 7-59, setting the NBA record for worst single season winning percentage. Obviously, being a successful NBA executive is not quite as easy as Jordan thought when he mocked Krause during the Bulls' glory years. Krause's critics say that anyone could have built a championship team around Jordan, but Jordan himself proved for nearly two decades that he was neither capable of finding a great player nor capable of even putting together a team that consistently qualified for the playoffs.

The Bulls' classless fans should be ashamed of booing Krause and tarnishing what should have been a great moment.

Labels: Artis Gilmore, Bob Love, Chet Walker, Chicago Bulls, Dennis Rodman, Dick Klein, Jerry Krause, Jerry Sloan, Johnny "Red" Kerr, Michael Jordan, Phil Jackson, Scottie Pippen, Tex Winter, Toni Kukoc

posted by David Friedman @ 11:17 PM

9 comments

The 1997-98 Chicago Bulls' "Last Dance"

"We could have won seven." Michael Jordan, with the last word on the Chicago Bulls' "Last Dance"

A major reason that Michael Jordan came back to the NBA in 2001 is that, as he later put it, he still had an "itch to scratch." That itch, that burr in Jordan's saddle, developed because the Chicago Bulls' dynasty did not reach its natural conclusion--the Bulls were not dethroned, nor did the principal figures who created that dynasty collectively agree to leave the game; the dynasty screeched to a halt because Jerry Krause's oversized ego convinced him that it made more sense to run off the game's greatest player, the game's best coach and the game's best second option in order to build a team from the bottom up and install his fishing buddy Tim Floyd as the team's coach. It should be emphasized that while Krause is most often mentioned as the villain in this drama, team owner Jerry Reinsdorf--Krause's boss--could have stepped in and stopped Krause, so Krause should not receive all of the blame.

After winning six championships in an eight season stretch, Phil Jackson, Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen earned the right to dictate their terms of departure--and they each would rather have either kept the run going until someone beat them, or win some more rings before riding off into the sunset. That is how the movie is supposed to end; the gunslinger hero either wins that last battle or he dies a noble death.

When Rick Telander asked Jordan why he would come back and risk ruining the "perfect ending" he forged by hitting the game-winning shot in the 1998 Finals, Jordan snarled, "What perfect ending? Who said it was a perfect ending? If you listened properly for that whole year, I said if Phil Jackson would be there, I would keep playing."

ESPN's much-anticipated 10 part series titled "The Last Dance"--which is what Phil Jackson labeled the upcoming 1997-98 season after Krause made public his team demolition plans--provided context, background, and behind the scenes footage from not only the Bulls' sixth championship run, but also the events that led up to that season. In the final episode, Jordan reiterated the point that he had made to Telander: Jordan did not feel happy about leaving at his peak, and in fact he would have signed a one year deal to go for his seventh championship.

I have addressed the breakup of the Bulls in depth twice, and that history is worth reviewing before turning our attention to "The Last Dance."

My December 14, 2015 article titled Terri-Bull: Premature Breakup of the Jordan-Pippen Bulls Demonstrated Why Tanking Does Not Work analyzed how difficult it is to build a championship team from scratch--which is one reason why a championship team should not be prematurely dismantled--and corrected some of the revisionist history that had been asserted about how Krause broke up the Bulls:

In November 2004 Colangelo was the chairman and CEO of the Phoenix Suns, who went into Chicago and drilled Krause's hapless Bulls 94-74. Colangelo said, "The concept of taking your championship run and then going all the way back and starting over again? There's no guarantees. You gotta be lucky. You can't afford any mistakes, bad drafts. Your picks don't turn out to be big time-players? You've got a problem. So, in my opinion, you stay as competitive as possible for as long as possible. If you back up the truck, you never know. Look, in my almost four decades in sport, I never had the pleasure of having that (Jordan-style) dynasty. Knowing me as I do? I couldn't break it up."

Becoming really bad in order to become really good is not just counterintuitive; it does not work. Colangelo is right: in any endeavor, "you stay as competitive as possible for as long as possible." Krause's demolition of the Bulls' dynasty is a cautionary tale that should be taught in business schools and should be mandatory homework for anyone who becomes a sports executive.

It is easy to refute the revisionist history--propagated by none other than Krause and Bulls' owner Jerry Reinsdorf--that Krause had to do something because Jackson, Jordan and Pippen did not intend to stay around. In a July 24, 1998 Chicago Sun-Times article by Jim O'Donnell titled "Phil's agent has fill of Reinsdorf tactics," Phil Jackson's agent Todd Musburger reminded the world who broke up the Bulls and how he did it:

"Phil's not coming back. That has long been clearly understood. It's been understood since last July, when Jerry Krause told Phil, 'You can go 82-and-bleeping-0 and you're not coming back. This is it for you and the Chicago Bulls."

Think about that. I have heard of an owner or a GM threatening to fire a coach if he does not win a certain number of games but who tells a coach that he will be fired even if the coach wins every game? Krause was so eager to prove that he was the brains behind the Bulls' championships that he ripped apart a dynasty in order to build a championship team from scratch in his own image--and the aftermath of that foolish decision was so disastrous that it lent a lot of credence to the speculation that instead of being a brilliant talent evaluator he was a solid GM who lucked into having Michael Jordan and then put some good pieces around Jordan.

What prompted Musburger to speak out to O'Donnell on that particular day? During the Bulls' televised press conference announcing the hiring of Tim Floyd as director of basketball operations, Reinsdorf said that the path was still open for Jackson to return as coach and that Floyd would only be the coach if Jackson decided not to return. In other words, one year after telling Jackson he was fired no matter how well the team did in the next season, Reinsdorf and Krause tried to act like the hatchet job never happened.

Musburger declared, "That's why what I heard on the TV Thursday from Reinsdorf was incredible. And what really made my blood boil was that, if nothing else, Phil left in dignity. After all he went through in his final 12 months around that team, all he did was win one last championship, and then fulfilling the expressly stated wishes of Jerry Krause and Jerry Reinsdorf, he left. No final cheap shots, no besmirching of any reputations, nothing. Simple, quiet dignity. And now they were going to dredge his good name back up to rewrite history once again and drag him through this."

Musburger called it "obscene" that Reinsdorf hijacked a day that should have belonged to Floyd and concluded, "I guess as the work day ended, the thing I was most happy about is that the more dimensional members of the media no longer need a road map when it comes to any of the convoluted paths chairman Reinsdorf and his associates may lead them down. The chairman's ways and means are too well-known by now. But why he couldn't allow Tim Floyd to have his moment without having once again flail at Phil's wonderful legacy with the Bulls remains beyond my comprehension. Thursday simply should have belonged to Tim Floyd."

In his July 24, 1998 Chicago Tribune column titled "Jackson should've called their bluff," Bernie Lincicome wrote that the press conference announcing Floyd's hiring "is so hollow it echoes." Lincicome urged Jackson, "Hey, Phil, you should have called their bluff. Asked for $12 million and demanded they exile Tim Floyd to the Corn Palace in Mitchell, S.D. for the duration. I have a map. And a floor plan."

Lincicome continued, "Is this any way to kill a dynasty? There never is a good way, but I'll take the end of the Celtics over this. Larry Bird lying on the floor in a back plaster. Kevin McHale hobbling on one foot. Robert Parish rooted like a lamp post. How is this ending? With lies and dares, and, to use Reinsdorf's own words, 'fairy tales.'"

In Jerry Krause Built (and broke up) the Bulls' Dynasty, I eulogized the man who helped build the Bulls' dynasty before he inexplicably destroyed it:

"Few GMs have enjoyed the success that Jerry Krause did. 6 rings says it all. To me, his track record is absolutely Hoophall worthy."--Scottie Pippen, after learning of Jerry Krause's death

"He's been around a long time and won championships. They had a dynasty, now they have a coffee shop."--Charles Oakley, speaking of Krause in 2002, when the post-dynasty Chicago Bulls went a league-worst 21-61

Two quotes by two players who knew firsthand what it felt like to be signed--and shipped off--by Jerry Krause serve as fitting epigraphs for Krause's life and career. Krause, who passed away at the age of 77 on Tuesday, deserves more credit than he often receives for building the Chicago Bulls' 1990s dynasty; he assembled all of the pieces around Michael Jordan for the first three-peat (including a marvelous coaching staff) and then when Jordan came back from his baseball hiatus Krause built an entirely new supporting cast (other than Pippen) for the second three-peat.

Sadly, Krause also deserves the blame (along with owner Jerry Reinsdorf) for breaking up the Bulls' dynasty. I have heard of coaches being told "Win (x amount of games) this year or you are fired" but, until Krause, I had never heard of an executive telling his coach that even if the team went 82-0 and won the championship he was gone--but that is exactly the message that Krause delivered to Phil Jackson prior to the Bulls' "Last Dance" championship in 1998.

Krause relished the challenge of proving that he could win without Jordan but that was foolish pride; the Bulls deserved the opportunity to, as the saying goes, come back "with their shields or on them" in 1999, as opposed to Jordan, Pippen and Jackson being exiled from the city that they had placed on the basketball map. Jackson would go on to win five more championships as a coach, Jordan came out of retirement to be an All-Star during the season that he turned 40 and Pippen recovered sufficiently from back surgery to be a key member of a Portland team that came within one bad fourth quarter in game seven of the 2000 Western Conference Finals of perhaps derailing Jackson's budding Lakers' dynasty before the Lakers won three titles in a row.

ESPN's "The Last Dance" pulled back the curtain to provide a fascinating look at what life was like for the Bulls at the top of the mountain when they simultaneously basked in the success of winning two titles in a row (and five in seven years for Phil Jackson, Michael Jordan, and Scottie Pippen) while also chasing a sixth title amidst the turmoil of realizing that their run would end even if they won the championship. "The Last Dance" not only covered the 1997-98 season, but it also examined the background and history of the Chicago Bulls franchise, as well as the background and history of Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen, Dennis Rodman, and Phil Jackson.

The first two episodes of the series traced Michael Jordan's development from a lanky 5-10 player cut from his high school varsity team to the North Carolina freshman who hit the game-winning shot in the NCAA Championship game to the NBA Rookie of the Year to a championship-winning iconic figure. One constant with Jordan was his work ethic; at every stage of his life, at every stage of his development as a player, he outworked his teammates, and he outworked his competitors.

Jordan's resentment toward Krause and the Bulls' front office began during Jordan's second season. Jordan had suffered a broken foot that caused him to miss most of the 1985-86 campaign. By the time he felt ready to return, the organization was content to sit him out the rest of the way, miss the playoffs, and collect a Draft Lottery pick. Jordan wanted to play. He had vowed to reach the playoffs every season, and he aimed to fulfill that vow. The organization applied a strict minutes restriction on Jordan down the stretch, the Bulls barely qualified for the playoffs, and then the organization lifted the minutes restriction. Jordan responded by hitting the soon-to-be NBA champion Boston Celtics with a 49 point outing and then a playoff record 63 point game. The Celtics won the series 3-0, but Jordan had staked his claim as the best player in the league. The musical selection of L.L. Cool J's "I'm Bad" to be the soundtrack for Jordan's 63 point masterpiece was quite fitting; when the song begins with the voiceover saying "Calling all cars" you can picture Larry Bird, Kevin McHale, Robert Parish, Dennis Johnson, Danny Ainge, and Bill Walton expressing a similar sentiment while facing the daunting task of guarding the player who Bird referred to as "God disguised as Michael Jordan." The media may have been slow to concede the point that Jordan was the NBA's best player, but--as Magic Johnson and Larry Bird made clear during "The Last Dance"--the players who shared the court with Jordan understood exactly how great he was.

Keep in mind that if Jerry Reinsdorf and Jerry Krause had gotten their way, fans would have been robbed of Jordan's 63 point playoff game the same way that Reinsdorf and Krause robbed fans of seeing whether or not the Bulls could have won the 1999 championship.

It is very instructive to watch how Jordan scored in the 63 point game, or in any of the vintage highlights for that matter. Jordan attacked the hoop from all angles, his footwork was impeccable, he had a deadly jump shot out to about 20 feet, and he was a very good free throw shooter. Jordan did not need a "Eurostep"/travel move to get open, he did not hook his arm around the defender's arm to try to trick referees, and he rarely shot three pointers--yet he was as efficient as he was unguardable. Seeing Jordan score like that in a more physical era and at a time when the court was not spread out with three point shooters is a vivid reminder of how unstoppable Jordan would be in today's softer era with little defensive paint presence and the court spread out with three point shooters. A team shooting 20-60 from three point range may be more mathematically efficient than a team shooting 29-60 from two point range but the latter is more fun to watch, and is more likely to be part of an overall championship equation (which includes not only shooting efficiency but also floor balance, defense, team chemistry, and other elements that are not valued by many "stat gurus").

All of that being said, it is important to remember that Jordan posted a 1-9 record in playoff games without Scottie Pippen. "The Last Dance" details how Pippen emerged from humble beginnings in Hamburg, Arkansas to become one of the greatest players in NBA history. Viewers who are too young to remember the 1990s may be surprised to see and hear just how important Pippen was. That point was reinforced at the start of the 1997-98 season when Pippen was out of action as he recovered from foot surgery. In the previous season with a healthy Pippen, the Bulls started out 34-5, finished 69-13, and won their second title in a row; the Bulls sans Pippen for the first portion of the 1997-98 season started out 6-5, and they were 24-11 when he returned to action. The Bulls went 36-8 the rest of the way with Pippen in the starting lineup (they went 2-1 in games that he missed), and they won their sixth title before Krause accomplished his goal of dismantling the team of the 90s. Pippen was not as great as Jordan, but Jordan would not have become who he became without having Pippen by his side. Jordan is the first to admit that, even if Pippen's critics are reluctant to give Pippen his due.

"The Last Dance" provided a great reminder that these players are not just numbers on a stat sheet or a salary cap spreadsheet; they are immensely skilled, sensitive human beings who gave their blood, sweat, and tears to the pursuit of excellence. Any executive and/or "stat guru" who thinks that there is a formula that can enable one to move around players like chess pieces or poker chips and thus achieve championship success misunderstands not just sports but life. Maybe the Bulls saved some money in the short term by not renegotiating Scottie Pippen's contract when he was the second best player in the league but not even one of the top 100 paid players in the NBA. The Bulls organization won that battle. How many championships has that Bulls organization won since getting rid of Jordan, Pippen, and crew? How many free agents are eager to play for a franchise that disrespected the players who built such a wonderful championship legacy?

Episode three focused on Dennis Rodman, who won two titles with the Detroit Pistons--beating Jordan's Bulls in the playoffs along the way--before playing a vital role for the Bulls' 1996-98 championship teams. Rodman was an introverted student of the game who wanted everyone to think that he was an extroverted person who just ran around the court like a crazed fool. Jackson termed Rodman a "heyoka"--a Native American term for a "backward walking" person who is a kind of jester or contrarian--and the two bonded as fellow maverick non-comformists. It is beautiful to see the way that Jackson provided structure for Rodman while also giving Rodman a lot of freedom and leeway. Jackson understands that all people have value, and that not everyone can or should be expected to fit in with the so-called "normal" way of doing things.

Jordan said, "Dennis is one of the smartest guys I played with. He understood defensive strategy with all the rotations and he had no limits in terms of what he does." In Rebounding tips from Dennis Rodman, Larry Miller and Ollie Taylor, I described Rodman as "a Phi Beta Kappa student of basketball who seemingly wants everyone to believe that he is the class clown." Rodman does not like to publicly talk about his rebounding techniques, and his autobiography I Should Be Dead By Now devotes little space to that subject, other than noting that Rodman applied judo concepts to rebounding: as I paraphrased Rodman's explanation in the aforementioned article, Rodman "would interlock his arms and legs with his opponents until he could determine where the ball was going to go and then he would use his quickness and agility to untangle himself and get to the ball." During a one on one interview many years ago, Steve Kerr confirmed to me that Rodman spent a lot of time studying game film/video, but that Rodman did not want the public to know about this.

"The Last Dance" provided a well-balanced portrayal of the Chicago Bulls-Detroit Pistons rivalry. Most reports about the Pistons' infamous 1991 "walkoff" after being swept by the Bulls neglect to point out that the Boston Celtics did the same thing after losing to the Pistons in 1988; you may be familiar with the oft-shown footage of Kevin McHale slapping hands with Isiah Thomas, but it was Thomas who approached McHale while the Celtics--including Larry Bird and Robert Parish--fled to the locker room before the game ended without congratulating the Pistons. "The Last Dance" noted that the Bulls had shaken hands with the Pistons after losing to the Pistons in 1989 and 1990, but there is a weird double standard applied against the Pistons for their 1991 "walkoff" because the Celtics are never criticized for poor sportsmanship regarding their 1988 "walkoff" after the Pistons dethroned them. The double standard goes much deeper than just the two "walkoffs," though. As I mentioned in The Celtics Were the First Bad Boys, the Pistons built their roster and formed their attitude in order to overcome a very physical Boston team:

The Pistons were not the NBA's first "Bad Boys" or even the baddest of the bad. The Larry Bird-Kevin McHale-Robert Parish Boston Celtics were a brutally physical team--think back to McHale clotheslining Kurt Rambis in the 1984 NBA Finals and M.L. Carr undercutting Julius Erving in the 1980 Eastern Conference Finals and the way that their whole frontcourt mauled the Philadelphia 76ers' frontcourt in game seven of the 1981 Eastern Conference Finals while the officials swallowed their whistles. Erving was one of the classiest players in pro basketball history, someone who rarely received technical fouls and never got into fights--but during a November 1984 regular season game he took a swing at Bird after getting frustrated by Bird's roughhousing tactics (and verbal taunting, something that Erving never did on the many occasions that he outplayed Bird and other players). James Worthy put it best during "Bad Boys": "We knew that they (the Pistons) were a good team, a very physical team, but 'Bad Boys' was something that, nah, they didn't get much respect from us. Playing against the Celtics--it didn't get any tougher, no one got any badder. You could call the Celtics 'Bad Boys' back in the early '80s."

Erving's 76ers overcame the Celtics in the Eastern Conference Finals in 1980 and 1982 despite the Celtics' rough tactics and then in 1983 the 76ers brought in Moses Malone as the final piece to their championship puzzle; although the 76ers had proven that they could circumvent the Celtics' physical tactics without changing their own style, they needed Malone to match up with the Lakers' Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.

The Pistons followed a similar path in the mid to late 1980s, adding Rick Mahorn, John Salley and Dennis Rodman in order to match up with the size, strength and physicality of the Celtics' frontcourt--but the idea that the Pistons did something fundamentally different from what the Celtics had been doing for years is nonsense. The Celtics taught the Pistons how to use physicality to gain an edge and win championships but then the Celtics got mad and lost their composure when they received a dose of their own medicine.

This narrative does not fit the narrative that the NBA and many media members portray, but it is nevertheless the truth. As a fan, I prefer the way that the 76ers and the Bulls played to the way that the Celtics and the Pistons played, but I understand why Isiah Thomas and other Pistons still feel disrespected more than 30 years later. Thomas is a vastly underrated player who was the central figure as the Pistons rose from being a 21-61 doormat in 1980-81 (the season before he joined the team) to being back to back champions in 1989-90, and Thomas' teams beat the Celtics, the Bulls, and the Lakers in the playoffs during that era. You do not have to like the Pistons, but the Pistons deserve respect as a championship team built from the ground up that more than held their own against some of the greatest teams in NBA history.

After the Bulls dethroned the Pistons in the 1991 Eastern Conference Finals, they beat Magic Johnson and the L.A. Lakers to win the NBA title. The Lakers won game one on a Sam Perkins three pointer, but then the Bulls took four straight victories. Pippen's smothering defense against Johnson was a major factor, foreshadowing the significant role that Pippen's defense would play throughout the Bulls' subsequent title runs.

Episode four focused on Jackson, who was the perfect coach for this group of talented individuals. He knew how to push Jordan without alienating Jordan, and he knew how to get the most out of everyone else, from a Top 50 player like Pippen to an eccentric Hall of Famer like Rodman to role players who he prepared mentally, emotionally, and physically to provide support to the team's superstars at key moments. Great players want to be coached, and they respect coaches who push them to new heights. The respect and loyalty that Jordan, Pippen, and Rodman feel toward Jackson stems from the way that Jackson treated them. As Red Auerbach once said after being asked about how to handle certain players, "You handle animals, but you deal with people."

Episodes five and six explored several topics, starting with some glimpses of the beginning of the Michael Jordan-Kobe Bryant friendship, a friendship whose extent the general public did not know about or understand until Jordan gave a powerful eulogy for Bryant at the public memorial service for Bryant. Jordan and Bryant faced off in the 1998 All-Star Game, with Jordan winning the MVP, and giving Bryant an open invitation to reach out to him if he ever needed advice or help; as Jordan memorably recounted during his eulogy for Bryant, Bryant accepted Jordan's offer, and often sought out Jordan for advice not just on basketball but on other matters as well. Bryant was interviewed for "The Last Dance," and he explained that he dislikes the comparisons that are often made about him and Jordan. Bryant said, "What you get from me is from him. I don't get five championships here without him, because he guided me so much and gave me so much great advice."

"The Last Dance" examined Jordan's role on the 1992 Dream Team. It has often been reported that Jordan refused to join the team if Isiah Thomas was on the roster. Jordan denies issuing that ultimatum, but he also makes it clear that he and other players would not have felt comfortable with Thomas being included. It is unfortunate that Thomas was denied an opportunity that he had earned based on his performance; as Thomas has often said, "I fit the criteria": at the time the Dream Team was selected, Thomas had led the Detroit Pistons to two championships, trailing only Magic Johnson (five titles) and Larry Bird (three titles) among his active peers. Jordan had won one title, and he won his second title just prior to the 1992 Olympics.

During the Dream Team's intense practices, Jordan showed that even among alpha males he was the "alpha alpha male," leaving no doubt that he had supplanted Johnson and Bird as the sport's top player.

Jordan and Pippen resented that during the early 1990s Krause was pursuing young Croatian player Toni Kukoc. As Jordan put it, Krause was placing Kukoc "ahead of his own kids," meaning the Bulls players who had performed at such a high level, eventually winning three straight NBA titles. Pippen shut Kukoc down during Team USA's first game versus Croatia. Kukoc performed better in the gold medal game against Team USA, but Team USA still dominated, and Jordan and Pippen had more than made their point. Kukoc was interviewed for "The Last Dance," and he said that prior to the 1992 Olympics he had no idea that Jordan and Pippen felt such resentment toward Krause about him. After Kukoc joined the Bulls in 1993 and proved his worth, Pippen and Jordan (after he returned from his first NBA retirement) welcomed him as a valuable contributor.

Winning an NBA championship in 1991 forever silenced any talk that Jordan was a high scoring individual talent who could not lead a team to ultimate success. Jordan relished prevailing in the head to head Finals battle against Magic Johnson's L.A. Lakers. After the 1991 season, Jordan's carefully crafted public image took a hit because of the publication of Sam Smith's book The Jordan Rules. The book painted a picture of Jordan as someone who could at times be selfish, be a bully toward his teammates, and be an intimidating presence to both teammates and foes. In "The Last Dance," Jordan insisted that a disgruntled Horace Grant was Sam Smith's source for information from inside the locker room, but Grant denied this. As B.J. Armstrong said, there was likely more than one single source. Further, it has already been established that Phil Jackson was a primary source.

The Bulls won a second championship in 1992, as Jordan took his Finals matchup with Portland's Clyde Drexler very personally; Jordan aimed to obliterate the notion that Drexler might be ranked on par with Jordan. Back to back titles put Jordan in the conversation with Johnson and Bird, but Jordan wanted to lift himself above them, and the best way to do that would be to win a third consecutive title. Up to that time, only George Mikan's Lakers and Bill Russell's Celtics had won at least three NBA championships in a row.

During the 1990s, the Bulls often had to get past a very physical New York team in the East before advancing the Finals. The Knicks were similar to the "Bad Boys" Pistons in terms of the mental and physical challenges that they posed for the Bulls, but the Knicks did not capture the public's imagination the way that the Pistons did, probably because the Knicks did not win a title during that era.

The 1993 championship drive wore Jordan down mentally and physically. He was criticized for going to Atlantic City to gamble the night before the Bulls lost a playoff game to the Knicks. Information about some of the seedy characters who Jordan had been gambling with--and losing money to--over the years became public knowledge, most notably when Jordan had to testify in court to explain a $57,000 check he wrote to Slim Bouler to pay off a gambling debt. Bouler was later sentenced to nine years in prison on unrelated money laundering and conspiracy charges. Jordan claimed that he had a "competition" problem, not a gambling problem, and he admitted that, in retrospect, he should have been more careful about associating with certain people. Jordan was offended by what he felt to be the media's attempt to bring him down, and for a time he refused to speak to the media at all.

None of this had any visible impact on Jordan's level of play. The Bulls won four straight playoff games versus the Knicks after falling into an 0-2 hole in the 1993 Eastern Conference Finals, and the Bulls then defeated Charles Barkley's Phoenix Suns 4-2 in the NBA Finals. Jordan, indignant that Barkley had been voted the regular season MVP by the media, made a point of asserting his individual superiority over Barkley, much as Jordan had done in the 1992 Finals versus Drexler.

B.J. Armstrong declared, "Michael Jordan didn't even really play basketball anymore. He just figured out how to win the game. He knew how to steer momentum. He knew how to get guys going. Not only was he that good on the offensive end, he was that good on the defensive end. He was just playing a different game than the rest of us. He let us play, but he was there to win the game."

Episodes seven and eight covered some of the most emotionally gripping and wrenching territory, including the murder of Jordan's father James, and Jordan's strong feelings about why his harsh, confrontational leadership style was necessary.

Jordan was already considering retirement prior to his father's July 1993 murder. After the murder, Jordan decided that he not only had nothing left to prove, but also that he wanted to be sure that his father saw his last basketball game. Jordan's father had encouraged him to play baseball, and after Jordan retired from the NBA he pursued that childhood dream, signing a contract to play minor league baseball in the Chicago White Sox system. Reinsdorf owned both the Bulls and the White Sox, and during the documentary he stated that he paid Jordan's NBA salary during Jordan's retirement because Jordan had been underpaid in previous seasons.

Jordan is understandably displeased with the media coverage of his father's murder, his first retirement, and his minor league baseball career. Without any evidence or factual basis, many media members speculated that the murder of Jordan's father might somehow be connected with Jordan's gambling. Also, without any evidence or factual basis, many media members speculated that Jordan had not retired but rather had been secretly suspended by the NBA as punishment for his gambling. Many media members also mocked Jordan's baseball career by suggesting that he was somehow embarrassing the sport. In fact, Jordan's Birmingham Barons teammates, manager, and coaches said that Jordan had an incredible work ethic, and that he possessed sufficient talent to reach the major leagues provided that he had enough practice.

Basketball fans can be thankful that Major League Baseball was foolish enough to have a work stoppage that canceled the 1994 World Series, and extended into the 1995 season; Jordan refused to cross the picket line, started working out for basketball again, and officially rejoined the Bulls on March 18, 1995 by sending out this press release: "I'm back."

Without Jordan, the Bulls had lost to the New York Knicks in the seventh game of the 1994 Eastern Conference semifinals before losing Horace Grant to free agency, and Bill Cartwright and John Paxson to retirement. Pippen had an MVP-caliber season in 1993-94, but Pippen was also heavily criticized for sitting out the final 1.8 seconds of game three versus the Knicks after Phil Jackson designed the final play for Toni Kukoc. Kuckoc hit the game-winning shot, Pippen's teammates accepted Pippen's apology, and Pippen dominated in a game four win--25 points, eight rebounds, six assists--as the Bulls surprised the basketball world by remaining a contender without Jordan. The substance of Pippen's career adds up to much more than "1.8," but just as Jordan never won a title without Pippen it was evident that it would be challenging for Pippen to win a title without Jordan.

The Bulls had been gathering momentum prior to Jordan's return--winning eight of their previous 10 games--and they went 13-4 down the stretch after Jordan came back. Jordan had some great moments--including the famous "double nickel" game at Madison Square Garden--but all you need to know about the difference between playing pro basketball and playing pro baseball is that Jordan got out of shape playing pro baseball. Yes, there are different muscle groups involved in each sport, and he had to retrain his body, but it is also clear that basketball requires a greater and broader overall level of fitness than baseball does. As a result, Jordan could not sustain the highest level of energy over a 48 minute game, or over the duration of a playoff series. He was still an elite player, but he was not the best player in the league; a good case could be made that he was not even the best player on the team, and at that time Jordan was quick to acknowledge that he needed to catch up with Pippen.

The Bulls won their first round series versus Charlotte--with Jordan deriving some inspiration to lift his game after ex-teammate B.J. Armstrong hit the game-winning shot in game two--but Jordan came up short in several clutch moments as the Orlando Magic eliminated the Bulls 4-2 in the Eastern Conference semifinals. Jordan with Pippen had not been able to advance any further in 1995 than Pippen had advanced without Jordan in 1994.

Jordan rebuilt his body during the summer of 1995, playing pickup games on the set of the movie "Space Jam." Jordan not only fine-tuned his game but also made mental notes about the NBA players who participated in the games. TNT's Kenny Smith once said, half-jokingly, that the NBA players made a mistake helping Jordan get back in shape.

Even with Jordan back to his full powers, the Bulls still needed someone to fill Horace Grant's old role, and they needed the supporting cast--an entirely different group from the 1993 team--to provide enough help for Jordan and Pippen, who would be the only two players who played for all six Bulls championship teams.

"The Last Dance" showed many examples of Jordan's famous competitive fire, and the way that he manufactured motivation out of slights real and imagined; one gets the sense that many of the slights were imagined, and that Jordan--much like the comic book hero The Incredible Hulk--was driven by rage. There should be no doubt, though, that Jordan loved the game, and that he loved winning. He sought to perfect his craft, and he pushed his teammates to perfect their craft.

Jordan explained during one of "The Last Dance" interviews, "My mentality was to go out and win at any cost. If you don't want to live that regimented mentality, then you don't need to be alongside of me because I'm going to ridicule you until you get on the same level with me. And if you don't get on the same level, then it's going to be hell for you." Jordan added, "Winning has a price. And leadership has a price. So I pulled people along when they didn't want to be pulled. I challenged people when they didn't want to be challenged. And I earned that right because [other] teammates came after me. They didn't endure all the things that I endured. Once you joined the team, you lived at a certain standard that I played the game. And I wasn't going to take anything less."

During "The Last Dance," Jordan showed the greatest amount of emotion when discussing two situations: (1) the murder of his father, and (2) explaining why he pushed his teammates so hard. Jordan's love of the game fueled his competitive anger, and Jordan did whatever he had to do to make sure that his teammates would do everything possible to win championships. Jordan declared during one of "The Last Dance" interviews that he never asked a teammate to do something that he did not do.

It is an interesting quirk of media coverage that the competitive fire that is considered such an admirable aspect of Jordan's legacy has been so often criticized as a detriment to Kobe Bryant's legacy. If anything, Jordan's verbal taunts and physically aggressive behavior toward his teammates seems worse than any known behavior that Bryant displayed toward his teammates. It should also be noted that Bryant carried the Lakers to two titles and three straight Finals appearances in the second act of his career with a lot less talent around him than Jordan had during any of his championship runs. Other great players have won multiple titles without being as overtly demanding of their teammates as Jordan and Bryant were, but no great player has won multiple titles without setting a standard of excellence for himself and then demanding--in one way or another--that his teammates match his work ethic, focus, and toughness even if they cannot match his skill level.

The final two episodes of "The Last Dance" began by focusing in general on the Chicago Bulls' rivalry with the Indiana Pacers, and specifically on Michael Jordan's rivalry with Reggie Miller. Miller noted that he did not fear Jordan the way that many NBA players did--Miller respected Jordan, but he did not fear him. Jordan and Miller came to blows in a 1993 regular season game, and Jordan conceded that--other than the Detroit Pistons--Miller's Pacers posed the biggest challenge that he faced. Jordan played in just two game sevens during the Bulls' six championship runs: a 110-81 win versus the New York Knicks in 1992, and an 88-83 win versus the Pacers in 1998. Jordan shot just 9-25 from the field in game seven against the Pacers, but he chased down five offensive rebounds as the Bulls grabbed 22 offensive rebounds and outrebounded the Pacers 50-34. Jordan--like Kobe Bryant after him--understood what so many of today's players--and so many "stat gurus"--do not: championship basketball is about not just numbers, but about heart, and about doing what needs to be done when it most needs to be done. If you are not shooting well, then play defense, and grab rebounds. Those who rely on analytics will never believe or understand it, but I would take Jordan's performance in that game seven over a gaudy, but empty stat line resulting from a player chasing numbers that make him look good as opposed to focusing on doing whatever needed to be done to win the game.

It is also worth noting that in a high stakes game during which rebounds mattered the most, Scottie Pippen had the most rebounds (12), and the most offensive rebounds (six). Jordan and Pippen each had more offensive rebounds than Indiana's entire team (four). If you understand how special Jordan and Pippen were in that game, then you also understand Kobe Bryant's value in game seven of the 2010 NBA Finals, when Bryant grabbed 15 rebounds--five more than any Boston Celtic--to lead his Lakers to an 83-79 win.

The last two episodes also revisited one the the core themes running throughout the series: Jordan's motivational fire was stoked by slights real and imagined. Objective reality took a back seat in Jordan's mind to framing situations in ways that enabled Jordan to develop anger, and then direct that anger at his opponents while he dominated them. Jordan said that one time during his first retirement Utah's Bryon Russell made a comment to Jordan that Jordan retired because he knew that Russell could shut him down. Maybe this was an offhand or lighthearted comment, maybe Russell never even said it; what Russell actually said is secondary in this context to what Jordan heard: he felt disrespected by Russell, and after that Russell was "on my list," as Jordan put it. Jordan made sure that Russell will forever be known as the futile defender flailing at Jordan's final shot as a Chicago Bull, the shot that clinched Chicago's sixth title.

Jordan understandably felt slighted when the media gave the 1997 regular season MVP to Karl Malone. Jordan won the MVP while leading the 1996 Bulls to a then-record 72 wins, and yet the media did not select Jordan as the MVP when he led the Bulls to 69 wins--equaling the previous record--the next season. Selecting Malone as MVP over four-time--and eventual six-time--champion Jordan made no sense. Malone is a consummate playoff choker who never won a title and who shot .463 from the field in the playoffs compared to his .516 regular season field goal percentage. Yes, we are talking about a regular season award and not a playoff award, but how "valuable" is a player like Malone who cannot be relied upon when the games matter most?

As was usually the case, Jordan got the last word with Russell, Malone, and the media. Jordan's Bulls beat Malone's Jazz in the Finals in 1997 and 1998. In the clinching game six of the 1998 Finals, Pippen suffered a serious back injury that ultimately required offseason surgery. He had ruptured two disks in his back. During "The Last Dance," Bulls' trainer Chip Schaeffer explained, "He was in such pain. So disabled. He had continued loss of function. He was losing mobility and his pain was increasing. It was spiraling." That kind of severe back injury not only causes excruciating back pain, but it leads to radiculopathy--pain down one or both legs as a result of the disk material pressing on a nerve. At first, Pippen did not think that he could return to the game, but ultimately he came back and--despite modest box score statistics--he made an impact, posting a game-high +16 plus/minus number. Jordan's plus/minus number was +2, but of course he shared many of his minutes with Pippen; during the 22 minutes that Pippen did not play, the Bulls struggled mightily. Phil Jackson recalled of game six, "When Scottie left, we were just kind of holding on."

The Bulls may have been a good team without Pippen, but they were not a great team without him--as we saw during the first part of the 1998 season when Pippen was out of action while recovering from offseason foot surgery. Pippen later told me with pride about his game six contribution, "I was productive. I could have been more productive, could have done a lot more if I had been healthy." Schaeffer declared, "Anybody that would have a notion that Scottie Pippen was a soft player, that is patently absurd. He is as tough a player and as tested of a competitor as anybody I've ever worked with. What he did in game six was extraordinary. I know so many players who would have tapped out without hesitation. He was just going to throw it out there and finish no matter what."

Jordan deserves a lot of credit for scoring 45 points on 15-35 field goal shooting in that 87-86 series-clinching win, but no one should forget Pippen's contributions not only throughout the series and throughout the season, but especially in that last game.

During the locker room celebration, Jordan said, "Now, you all say whatever you want, they can't win until we quit."

Sadly, the Bulls organization had made the decision before the season to quit. They broke up this team for the ages. In Blood on the Horns--perhaps the definitive book-length examination of the Bulls' 1998 season--Roland Lazenby concluded with these words:

Did Krause actually think that he could go back and start all over again? Conjure up all this magic again?

The answer to that lay in a simple, hubris-filled comment the GM made after Jordan hit the shot in Salt Lake City to win the sixth championship. "Jerry and I have done it six times now," Krause told Phil Rosenthal of the Sun-Times.

It was one final sour note on his theme from October. Organizations do win championships.

He was wrong, of course. These were and are Michael Jordan's Chicago Bulls. Always have been. Always will be.

Labels: Chicago Bulls, Dennis Rodman, Jerry Krause, Jerry Reinsdorf, Last Dance, Michael Jordan, Phil Jackson, Scottie Pippen

posted by David Friedman @ 4:13 AM

6 comments

Revising the NBA's 50 Greatest Players List, Part III

In late 2015, the Boston Globe published a list of the Top 50 NBA Players of All-Time, ranking the players in order and providing a brief bio of each player written by Gary Washburn. Here is the Boston Globe's list (an asterisk indicates that the player was not on the NBA's 50 Greatest Players List):

1) Michael Jordan
2) Bill Russell
3) Wilt Chamberlain
4) Magic Johnson
5) Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
6) Jerry West
7) LeBron James*
8) Oscar Robertson
9) Larry Bird
10) Kobe Bryant*
11) Shaquille O'Neal
12) Elgin Baylor
13) Julius Erving
14) Bob Pettit
15) Karl Malone
16) Tim Duncan*
17) John Havlicek
18) Hakeem Olajuwon
19) Rick Barry
20) John Stockton
21) Bob Cousy
22) Kevin Garnett*
23) Elvin Hayes
24) Moses Malone
25) Charles Barkley
26) Isiah Thomas
27) Jerry Lucas
28) George Gervin
29) George Mikan
30) Dirk Nowitzki*
31) Patrick Ewing
32) Kevin McHale
33) Kevin Durant*
34) Scottie Pippen
35) Nate Archibald
36) David Robinson
37) Robert Parish
38) Allen Iverson*
39) Walt Frazier
40) Dwyane Wade*
41) Hal Greer
42) Dennis Rodman*
43) Paul Arizin
44) Clyde Drexler
45) Steve Nash*
46) Lenny Wilkens
47) Reggie Miller*
48) Gary Payton*
49) Paul Pierce*
50) Dolph Schayes

Thus, the Boston Globe added LeBron James, Kobe Bryant, Tim Duncan, Kevin Garnett, Dirk Nowitzki, Kevin Durant, Allen Iverson, Dwyane Wade, Dennis Rodman, Steve Nash, Reggie Miller, Gary Payton and Paul Pierce to the list and did not include Dave Bing, Dave Cowens, Billy Cunningham, Dave DeBusschere, Sam Jones, Pete Maravich, Earl Monroe, Willis Reed, Bill Sharman, Nate Thurmond, Wes Unseld, Bill Walton and James Worthy.

Similar to Part II in this series--which examined the 50 Greatest Players List compiled by Athlon Sports in 2008--this article will not reconsider the entire 1996 NBA list but instead will focus on comparing the 13 players added by the Boston Globe to the 13 players that the Boston Globe did not include. Thus, a player who made the cut in my estimation when examining Athlon Sports' choices may not make the cut when examining the selections made by the Boston Globe.

In Part II, I called the inclusion of Kobe Bryant and Tim Duncan "obvious and indisputable." Similarly, Kevin Garnett is a worthy choice and Allen Iverson's selection should not be controversial, though some may disagree. By 2015, it was also obvious and indisputable that LeBron James, Dirk Nowitzki, Kevin Durant and Dwyane Wade had earned their way on to the list.

Capsule resumes are provided in Part II for Bryant, Duncan, Garnett and Iverson.

James is still adding to his long list of accomplishments but at this writing he has won four regular season MVPs (2009-10, 2012-13; he has ranked in the top five in MVP balloting 13 times), three Finals MVPs (2012-13, 2016), three All-Star Game MVPs (2006, 2008, 2018) and the 2004 Rookie of the Year award. James won the 2008 regular season scoring title and he has led the league in playoff scoring average three times (2009, 2012, 2018). He has made the All-NBA Team 14 times, including 12 First Team selections to break the record of 11 held until last season by Kobe Bryant and Karl Malone. He has made the All-Defensive Team six times, including five First Team selections. He has made the All-Star team 15 times, tied for fourth on the all-time list with Tim Duncan, Kevin Garnett and Shaquille O'Neal. Only Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (19), Kobe Bryant (18) and Julius Erving (16, including 11 NBA and five ABA) have made the All-Star more than 15 times.

James ranks fourth all-time in ABA/NBA regular season scoring (32,543 points), first all-time in ABA/NBA playoff scoring (6911 points) and third all-time in ABA/NBA playoff assists (1687).

Early in his career, James had a few skill set weaknesses--free throw shooting, midrange shooting, three point shooting, post up game--but he has worked hard to minimize, if not eliminate, those weaknesses. James has a power forward's body (he is approximately the same height and weight as Karl Malone) but the scoring skill set of a small forward and the passing/ballhandling skill set of a point guard. No other player in pro basketball history has the combination of size, speed, jumping ability and diverse skill set that James has. Magic Johnson had the height, the passing and the ballhandling but not the same scoring ability and jumping prowess; the (few) others who could compete with James as a scorer and jumper lacked James' passing and ballhandling skills. James has the necessary physical attributes and basketball skills to be on the short list in the greatest player of all-time discussion. James has been the best player on three championship teams (2012-13, 2016) but his teams are just 3-6 overall in the NBA Finals. James falls short of being the greatest player of all-time for reasons that are outside the scope of this article, but there is no question that he has earned a place not only among the top 50 players but among the top 10.

Dirk Nowitzki won the 2007 regular season MVP and he has ranked in the top five in MVP balloting three times. He won the 2011 Finals MVP and he has made the All-NBA Team 12 times, including four First Team selections. Nowitzki has made the All-Star team 14 times, including 2019 when NBA Commissioner Adam Silver tapped him and Dwyane Wade as "special team roster additions." He ranks third all-time in ABA/NBA regular season minutes played, behind only Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (57,446) and Karl Malone (54,852), neither of whom Nowitzki will catch as this is almost certainly his last season. Nowitzki ranks fourth all-time in ABA/NBA regular season games played, trailing only Robert Parish (1611), Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (1560) and John Stockton (1504). Nowitzki needs to play 34 games this season to pass Stockton. Nowitzki is one of just eight players in ABA/NBA history to score at least 30,000 career regular season points.

Nowitzki entered the NBA as a 20 year old with no U.S. playing experience, though he had played professionally in Germany. During his rookie season he had a rough adjustment to the speed and physicality of the NBA game, but by his second season he was already a solid player (17.5 ppg, 6.5 rpg, .379 3FG%) and by his third season he was a member of the All-NBA Third Team (oddly, he did not make the All-Star team until his fourth season).

Nowitzki is perhaps best known for his shooting prowess, both from three point range and with his unstoppable turnaround in the post/midpost area, but during his prime he was an elite rebounder--especially during the postseason; he averaged at least 20 ppg and at least 10 rpg for seven different playoff years and he is one of just four players in pro basketball history to have career playoff averages of at least 25 ppg and at least 10 rpg (Bob Pettit, Elgin Baylor and Hakeem Olajuwon are the other three). Nowitzki had four straight playoff games with at least 30 points and at least 15 rebounds, a feat that had not been accomplished since Kareem Abdul-Jabbar had done it three decades earlier. Nowitzki ranks ninth all-time with 29 playoff games during which he scored at least 30 points and grabbed at least 10 rebounds; that is four more such games than Larry Bird had and Nowitzki only trails Elgin Baylor (the all-time leader with 56), Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Shaquille O'Neal, Karl Malone, Wilt Chamberlain, Hakeem Olajuwon, Bob Pettit and Tim Duncan in this category. That combination of scoring and rebounding prowess in a playoff setting probably is a surprise to casual fans and maybe even to some NBA commentators.

Nowitzki was never a great individual defender but he used his length to contest shots and he made an important contribution as a defensive rebounder. Nowitzki was never a playmaker but he developed into a reasonably effective passer; he was never a ball-stopper or a player who interfered with the effective operation of the team's offense.

He led the Dallas Mavericks to the 2006 NBA Finals and the Mavericks went up 2-0 on the Miami Heat before losing four straight games. Next season, the Mavericks won an NBA-best 67 games and Nowitzki was given the regular season MVP but his reputation took a hit after the Mavericks lost in the first round of the playoffs to the eighth seeded Golden State Warriors. Nowitkzi and the Mavericks avenged the Finals collapse and the first round upset by upsetting the star-studded Miami Heat in the 2011 NBA Finals. Outdueling LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh in that series eliminated any doubt--real or imagined--that Nowitzki is an all-time great. During the fourth quarters in that Finals, Nowitzki duplicated the scoring output of James and Wade combined. The Mavericks became just the fourth team in NBA history led by one current All-Star to win the Finals against a team that had three current All-Stars.

While Nowitzki is rapidly approaching the end of the road, Kevin Durant is in his prime and has already put together an impressive resume. Durant won the 2014 regular season MVP and he has ranked in the top five in MVP balloting six times, including three second place finishes. Durant won the Finals MVP in 2017 and 2018, plus the 2012 and 2019 All-Star Game MVPs and the 2008 Rookie of the Year award. Durant has led the league in regular season scoring four times (2010-12, 2014) and he has led the league in playoff scoring average four times (2011, 2013-14, 2016). He has made the All-NBA Team eight times, including six First Team selections. He is a 10-time All-Star.

Durant's NBA career had a bumpy start largely because Coach P.J. Carlesimo played him out of position at guard but after Carlesimo was fired his replacement Scott Brooks moved Durant back to his natural forward position and the rest is history. Durant is not a great post up player but other than that he has a complete repertoire as a scorer, from the three point shot to the midrange shot to the ability to drive/finish in traffic to the ability to draw fouls and then convert free throws at a high percentage. Durant has led three teams to the NBA Finals (Oklahoma City in 2012, Golden State in 2017 and 2018) and won two championships (2017-18).

Dwyane Wade ranked in the top five in regular season MVP voting twice. He won the 2006 Finals MVP and the 2010 All-Star Game MVP. Wade won the 2009 NBA scoring title and he led the league in playoff scoring in 2010. He made the All-NBA Team eight times, including two First Team selections, and he was chosen for the All-Defensive Team three times. Wade made the All-Star team 13 times, including when he joined Nowitzki in 2019 as a "special team roster addition" selected by NBA Commissioner Adam Silver. Wade has played in the NBA Finals five times, winning titles in 2006, 2012 and 2013.

Wade never developed a reliable three point shot; he never shot better than .320 from three point range for a full season, and in 10 of his 15 full seasons he shot worse than .300 from three point range. Wade is a solid free throw shooter whose seasonal free throw percentages range from .714 to .807. His main offensive weapons are (1) driving to the hoop, (2) drawing fouls (he averaged at least 9 FTA/g for six straight seasons) and (3) his midrange jump shot. He played exceptionally well during Miami's run to the 2006 title--culminating in a Finals performance during which he earned MVP honors--and he was very solid during Miami's 2012 title run but he averaged just 15.9 ppg during the 2013 playoffs as the Heat secured back to back championships and he has averaged less than 20 ppg in five of his 13 playoff appearances. Wade is an excellent shotblocking guard, and he has amassed the second most career regular season blocked shots for any guard since that statistic has been officially recorded (1972-73 for the ABA, 1973-74 for the NBA).

Capsule resumes are provided in Part II for Rodman and Payton.

Steve Nash won two regular season MVPs (2005-06) and he ranked in the top five in MVP voting three times. He led the league in regular season assists five times (2005-07, 2010-11) and he led the league in playoff assists four times (2004-07). He won two regular season free throw percentage titles (2006, 2010). Nash made the All-NBA Team seven times, including three First Team selections. He made the All-Star team eight times.

Nash had four 50/40/90 seasons (FG% of at least 50, 3FG% of at least 40 and FT% of at least 90), ranking first on the all-time list. Larry Bird did it twice and only five other players have accomplished the feat one time each since the NBA started using the three point shot in the 1979-80 season. Nash's career regular season shooting percentages are .490, .428 and .904 respectively, meaning that he was nearly a 50/40/90 player for his entire career.

Nash ranks third all-time in ABA/NBA regular season assists (10,335), second all-time in ABA/NBA regular season free throw percentage (.904) and ninth all-time in ABA/NBA regular season assists average (8.5 apg). He also ranks seventh all-time in ABA/NBA playoff assists (1061), is tied for sixth all-time in ABA/NBA playoff free throw percentage (.900) and ranks eighth in ABA/NBA playoff assists average (8.8 apg).

Nash is one of the greatest shooters of all-time and also one of the greatest passers. He was a below average defensive player and the regular season numbers that he put up in 2005-06 would not historically have been sufficient to win MVP honors. Nash's MVP awards are very anomalous when examined in the wider context of pro basketball history, both in terms of his individual productivity and also in terms of his lack of team success compared to other multiple MVP winners. Nash's numbers through his first 12 seasons are very similar to Mark Price's numbers for his 12 year career (15.2 ppg, 6.7 apg, .472 FG%, .402 3Pt FG%, .904 FT% for Price, 14.3 ppg, 7.9 apg, .485 FG%, .431 3Pt FG%, .897 FT% for Nash) and Nash did not do anything in his last six seasons to materially add to his legacy (Nash's career numbers are 14.3 ppg, 8.5 apg, .490 FG%, .428 3Pt FG%, .904 FT%). Mark Price was a very good player, an underrated player and a player who perhaps could have been a Hall of Famer had his career not been shortened by injury--but, even at his best, he was never a serious MVP candidate, nor a player who would be considered among the 50 greatest players of all-time.

Nash's teams advanced to the Conference Finals four times in his 18 seasons and he never made it to the NBA Finals; his former team, the Dallas Mavericks, made it to two NBA Finals after he left, winning the 2011 title. While it is true that the Mavericks made many roster changes after Nash's departure, it is unusual for a team to lose a future multiple MVP winner and still be a serious contender. For instance, the Boston Celtics won 11 championships in Bill Russell's 13 seasons but then missed the playoffs two years in a row after he retired and did not reemerge as a contender until adding Dave Cowens--a future MVP and Top 50 player in his own right--to the roster. The Philadelphia 76ers posted the worst record in NBA history shortly after Wilt Chamberlain's departure. The Nets were awful after losing Julius Erving, as were the Chicago Bulls after Michael Jordan's final retirement. The struggles of LeBron James' ex-teams in recent years have been well documented. This was not the case with Nash in Dallas. In Phoenix, the Suns were declining from contender status as Nash aged--they went 40-42 in Nash's last full Phoenix season, then they went 33-33 the next year with Nash in the lockout shortened campaign--and they dropped to 25-57 in their first full season without him (albeit with other roster changes as well).

Nash is one of 15 players in ABA/NBA history to win at least two regular season MVPs. Other than Karl Malone, each of those players won at least one championship. Of those 13 championship winners, 11 of them won at least two championships and 10 of those 11 won at least one of their MVPs during a season in which their team won a championship.

Reggie Miller never finished in the top 12 in regular season MVP voting and he never made the All-NBA First Team or the All-NBA Second Team, though he did make the All-NBA Third Team (which did not exist prior to 1989) three times. Miller made the All-Star team five times in 18 seasons. He is one of just 26 members of the exclusive ABA/NBA 25,000 point club.

He led the NBA in regular season free throw percentage five times and he ranks 11th in ABA/NBA regular season free throw percentage (.888). Miller is most famous for being a three point shooter but, while he did at one time hold the regular season career record for most three pointers made (2560, now second to Ray Allen and soon to be third behind Stephen Curry), he ranks just 58th in ABA/NBA regular season career three point field goal percentage (.395). Miller ranks even lower in ABA/NBA playoff three point field goal percentage (67th, .390). Miller averaged at least 20 ppg in just six of his 18 regular seasons, but he averaged at least 20 ppg in 11 of his 15 playoff runs (seven of those 11 postseason appearances lasted six games or less). Miller played in the NBA Finals one time (2000), as his Indiana Pacers lost to the L.A. Lakers.

Miller's primary skill set strength was shooting. He was not much better than average at any other aspect of the game such as rebounding, passing, ballhandling and defense. Early in his career, he ranked in the top 10 in free throw attempts in three different seasons, an indication of his ability to draw fouls, but later in his career he did not excel at that, though he did flop to the extent that the league made a rule against players who kick out their legs unnaturally while attempting a shot in an attempt to draw a foul; such a play was not only against the spirit of the rules--before it was formally outlawed--but it was dangerous as well.

In a 1998 interview, Miller told Dan Patrick that there were only a few great players in the NBA, including Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen, Grant Hill and Shaquille O'Neal on that list. Miller included himself among some "very good" players who are in a separate category underneath the great players. Patrick asked Miller why he was not great and Miller replied that he did not have the same athletic gifts and that he worked very hard just to establish himself as a very good player. That is a more objective assessment of Miller's ranking than one generally sees in the media. Miller was a great shooter, he was very durable--remarkably so, considering his slight frame--and he had some memorable playoff moments but there is no way he should be seriously considered for listing among the top 50 players of all-time.

Paul Pierce never ranked in the top five in regular season MVP voting and he only finished in the top 10 once (seventh place, 2009), He won the 2008 Finals MVP. Pierce never made the All-NBA First Team but he earned Second Team honors once and made the Third Team three times. He made the All-Star team 10 times. He averaged at least 20 ppg in eight of his 19 regular seasons and, like Miller, he is a member of the ABA/NBA 25,000 point club.

Pierce's greatest skill set strength was his ability to create his own shot in a variety of different ways; he could drive, he could post up and he was a deadly shooter out to three point range. He was a solid rebounder, playmaker and defender. Pierce was the leading regular season scorer for Boston's 2008 championship team and for the 2010 Boston team that lost in the NBA Finals. 

The players from the original 50 Greatest Players List who the Boston Globe did not include have impressive accomplishments worthy of recognition and acknowledgment. As I wrote in Part II, "Players from earlier eras should not be judged based solely or primarily on numbers, at least not without placing those numbers in the context of the vast differences between eras." Capsule resumes are provided in Part II for DeBusschere, Jones, Monroe, Thurmond, Unseld, Walton and Worthy.

Dave Bing ranked in the top five in MVP voting twice, he won the 1976 All-Star Game MVP and he was selected as the 1967 Rookie of the Year. Bing led the league in scoring in 1968 when the scoring title was determined by total points and not by scoring average; he ranked second in scoring average that season. Bing averaged at least 20 ppg in each of his first seven seasons. He ranked in the top five in assists five times, including the year that he won the scoring title. He made the All-NBA First Team twice and the All-NBA Second Team once. Bing was a seven-time All-Star.

Bing was a top notch scorer and playmaker for a decade and he was still a solid player in his final two seasons. He also rebounded well from the point guard position and he was a decent defensive player, who improved at that end of the court as his career progressed.

Dave Cowens won the 1973 regular season MVP, the first of four straight years that he finished in the top five in MVP voting, including second place in 1975. He also won the 1973 All-Star Game MVP and he was the 1971 NBA Rookie of the Year. Cowens made the All-NBA Team three times. He made the All-Defensive Team three times, including a First Team selection in 1976. He was an eight-time All-Star.

Although Cowens never led the league in rebounding, he averaged at least 13.9 rpg in each of his first eight seasons, finishing second for three straight years (1974-76) and never ranking below seventh. He ranks ninth all-time in ABA/NBA career regular season rebounding average (13.6 rpg). Cowens led the NBA in playoff rebounding in 1975 (16.5 rpg) and 1976 (16.4 rpg). He ranks seventh in ABA/NBA playoff rebounding average (14.4 rpg).

Cowens was an undersized center but he was fast and agile. He had a good shooting touch and he also could drive to the hoop. He was a first rate rebounder and passer. Cowens was a key member of Boston teams that advanced to the Eastern Conference Finals for five straight years (1972-76). Boston's 1973 team went 68-14, which was the third best winning percentage at that time and which still ranks as the sixth best winning percentage. The 1973 Celtics lost to the New York Knicks in the Eastern Conference Finals after John Havlicek suffered a shoulder injury. Boston won the 1974 championship, tied for the best record in the NBA (60-22) before losing to the 60-22 Washington Bullets in the 1975 Eastern Conference Finals and then bounced back to capture the 1976 title.

Billy Cunningham won the 1973 ABA regular season MVP and he ranked in the top five in MVP voting three times, including third in 1969 in the NBA and fifth in 1970 in the NBA. Cunningham was an All-League selection five times, including three straight All-NBA First Team selections (1969-71) and one All-ABA First Team selection (1973). Cunningham made the All-Star team five times--four times in the NBA and once in the ABA. He led the ABA in steals in 1972-73 (the first season that either league officially recorded that statistic).

Cunningham began his career as the sixth man for a Philadelphia 76ers team that featured fellow future Hall of Famers Wilt Chamberlain, Hal Greer and Chet Walker, plus other talented players such as Luke Jackson and Wali Jones. Cunningham was the fourth leading scorer (18.5 ppg) for the 1967 76ers, who set the record--since broken--for best regular season winning percentage (68-13, .840). The 76ers routed Boston 4-1 in the Eastern Division Finals (ending the Celtics' run of eight straight NBA titles) and then beat the San Francisco Warriors to win the NBA title.

Cunningham jumped to the ABA's Carolina Cougars in 1972 and won his only MVP award after leading the team to the best record in the league, 57-27. The Cougars lost to the 56-28 Kentucky Colonels in game seven of the Eastern Division Finals, denying Cunningham the opportunity to win a championship in both leagues. Cunningham was just 29 years old and seemed poised to be an elite player for years to come, but injuries and health problems limited him to just 132 more games before he retired at age 32.

Cunningham was a left-handed player known for his jumping ability, stamina and quickness. He was a top level scorer, rebounder and playmaker; Cunningham averaged at least 23 ppg for five straight seasons, at least 10 rpg for five straight seasons and at least 4.9 apg for three straight seasons. Each of those streaks ended in 1973-74, when kidney problems (which ultimately required two surgeries) limited Cunningham to just 32 games.

Pete Maravich finished in the top five in MVP voting once (third in 1977 behind Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Bill Walton). He made the All-NBA Team four times, including First Team selections in 1976 and 1977. Maravich led the league in scoring in 1976-77 and was leading the league in scoring more than halfway through the 1977-78 season before suffering a season-ending knee injury from which he never fully recovered. He averaged at least 21.5 ppg in eight of his first nine regular seasons (though he missed at least 30 games in two of those eight seasons) and he ranked in the top five in scoring four times. Maravich ranked in the top 10 in assists twice and he finished in the top 10 in free throws made five times, including first one time and second two times. He was a five-time All-Star. He averaged 25.5 ppg during the playoffs while leading the Hawks to the postseason in each of his first three campaigns but Maravich's career playoff scoring average took a hit after his final season, when he scored 6.0 ppg in just 11.6 mpg for the Boston Celtics during their run to the 1980 Eastern Conference Finals.

In Part I of this series, I mentioned a set of criteria (in no particular order) for comparing great players from different eras:

1) How great was a particular player in his own era?

2) How highly does a player rank overall in key statistical categories?

3) Based on a skill set evaluation, how well would a player have performed in a different era when facing different rules and circumstances?

4) Did the player have a historical impact on the game, in terms of forcing rules changes and/or influencing shifts in style of play?

Maravich was not blessed with great longevity, which negatively impacted his ability to post high rankings in key statistical categories. However, Maravich does very well by the other three criteria. He made the All-NBA Team four times despite having just five seasons during which he played at least 70 games.When healthy, he was an elite guard for a significant portion of his career, a player who could score in a variety of ways, draw fouls, create shots for his teammates and rebound well for his position. Maravich's skill set would fit in perfectly with today's game; the rules changes and the rules interpretations heavily favor offense, particularly for perimeter players, and it is reasonable to suggest that a healthy Maravich would easily average more than 30 ppg and at least 8-10 apg under today's conditions. Regarding historical impact, Maravich's legacy is indisputable; many of the great players who followed him, including Magic Johnson and Isiah Thomas, have credited Maravich as a primary influence.

Willis Reed is the first player to win the All-Star Game MVP, regular season MVP and Finals MVP in the same season (1970). Michael Jordan (1996 and 1998) and Shaquille O'Neal (2000) are the only other players who accomplished this feat. Reed also finished second in the 1969 regular season MVP voting and fourth in the 1971 regular season MVP voting. His trophy case includes the 1973 Finals MVP and the 1965 Rookie of the Year award. Reed made the All-NBA Team five times, including one First Team selection (1970, the year he earned his only All-Defensive Team selection, also to the First Team). His New York teams advanced to the NBA Finals three times (1970, 1972-73) and won two titles (1970, 1973).

Reed never led the league in a major statistical category but he averaged at least 11.6 rpg in each of his first seven seasons and his career average of 12.9 rpg ranks 13th in ABA/NBA history. While Reed could post up and he had a good hook shot, his New York Knicks often ran an inverted offense featuring guards Walt Frazier and Earl Monroe attacking the hoop while Reed and forwards Dave DeBusschere and Jerry Lucas bombed away from outside. Reed did not display three point range--which, of course, was not necessary or desirable at a time that the NBA had not adopted the three point shot from the ABA--but he had a reliable shot in the 15-18 foot range. Reed was an excellent defensive player and he had great physical presence. He was not a great passer but he contributed offensively not only as a scorer but also as a screen setter.

While Reed put up impressive statistics during his prime, he is most famous for a game during which he scored just four points: in game seven of the 1970 NBA Finals versus the L.A. Lakers, a hobbled Reed limped on to the court after missing game six due to a hip injury and he made his first two shots from the field, providing inspiration as the Knicks rolled to a 113-99 victory. Walt Frazier had 36 points, 19 assists and seven rebounds in game seven but Reed received the Finals MVP after averaging a team-high 23.0 ppg plus 10.5 rpg during the series (Reed averaged 26.8 ppg during the first five games of the series before suffering the injury).

Bill Sharman ranked in the top five in MVP voting once (fifth in 1956; he also finished seventh in 1958) and he won the 1955 All-Star Game MVP. He made the All-NBA Team seven times, including four straight First Team selections (1956-59), and he was a seven-time All-Star. The All-Defensive Team had not been created at that time, but Sharman was a physical player despite being just 6-1, 190 pounds, and he was considered a tenacious and pugnacious defensive player. Jerry West once said that Sharman had more fights than Mike Tyson!

Sharman's .426 career field goal percentage may not look impressive at first glance but that is deceptive. Field goal percentages during his era were lower than in subsequent eras for a variety of reasons. Sharman was one of the greatest shooters of all-time. He not only ranked in the top 10 in field goal percentage five times during his 11 seasons but he also led the NBA in free throw percentage for five straight seasons (1953-57) and seven times overall; the only other player who led the league in free throw percentage seven times is Rick Barry (six times in the NBA, once in the ABA). Sharman's .883 career free throw percentage ranked first all-time when he retired and is still 14th in ABA/NBA history.

Sharman played on four championship teams (1957, 1959-61) as a member of the Boston Celtics, for whom he played 10 of his 11 NBA seasons.

Although not relevant to his worthiness for inclusion on the 50 Greatest Players List, it should be noted that Sharman is the first North American professional sports figure to win a championship as a player, as a coach and as an executive. He coached a championship team in the ABL, the ABA and the NBA. Sharman personified championship level success throughout his career and he is on the short list of people who have been inducted in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame as both a player and a coach (John Wooden, Lenny Wilkens and Tommy Heinsohn are the others).

Before providing my take on the Boston Globe's list, I must emphasize that all of the players discussed above had great careers and made a significant impact on the sport. There is not one definitive top 50 list or only one correct way to construct such a list. All of these players deserve tremendous respect and appreciation.

I agree with nine of the additions made by the Boston Globe: LeBron James, Kobe Bryant, Tim Duncan, Kevin Garnett, Dirk Nowitzki, Kevin Durant, Allen Iverson, Dwyane Wade and Gary Payton. However, instead of adding Dennis Rodman, Steve Nash, Reggie Miller and Paul Pierce, I would keep Dave Cowens, Willis Reed, Billy Cunningham and Pete Maravich. Cowens and Reed were dominant MVP centers who were strong contributors to multiple championship teams. Cunningham and Maravich both had careers cut short by injury/illness but here I am looking at peak value and, particularly in Maravich's case, historical impact on the game. Nash was a great passer and shooter but he was a reluctant scorer who had significant defensive liabilities. Pierce was an excellent player who had a long career but he was never an elite player like Cunningham and Maravich were in their primes. Rodman, as discussed in Part II, was a great rebounder and defender but I cannot place him on the list ahead of power forwards who not only rebounded and defended but also were top notch scorers.

In Part II, I discussed my reasons for not including Sam Jones, Earl Monroe, Nate Thurmond, Wes Unseld, Bill Walton, Lenny Wilkens and James Worthy.

In Part II, I rejected the notion of removing Dave DeBusschere from the 50 Greatest Players List--but that was in the context of a list published by Athlon Sports in 2008. By 2015, several more all-time greats had emerged and had earned a place on the list, which requires removing players who still would have made the cut just a few years earlier. DeBusschere was a tremendous player who was a key contributor for two championship teams, but he was never an MVP level player--let alone a perennial MVP candidate--so when you start adding players like LeBron James, Kevin Durant, and Dirk Nowitzki to the list you end up cutting players who were not MVP level performers.

As for Dave Bing and Bill Sharman, it is particularly difficult to leave out Sharman. He was a great two-way player on four championship teams and he is one of the best shooters of all-time. However, I just cannot quite rank him ahead of the players who the Boston Globe added whose careers took place subsequent to the creation of the original list; if the list remains limited to 50 players then this becomes a numbers game and it is inevitable that some great players will not make the cut. Bing did not have quite the two-way impact that Sharman did but he was a worthy member of the initial list who, like Sharman, is just not as good as some of the all-time great players who have come along in the past two decades or so.

---

Further Reading:

Part I of this series can be found here.

Part II of this series can be found here.

Labels: Allen Iverson, Dennis Rodman, Dirk Nowitzki, Dwyane Wade, Gary Payton, Kevin Durant, Kevin Garnett, Kobe Bryant, LeBron James, Paul Pierce, Reggie Miller, Steve Nash, Tim Duncan

posted by David Friedman @ 5:51 PM

15 comments

Revising the NBA's 50 Greatest Players List, Part II

In 2008, Athlon Sports published a list of the 50 Greatest Pro Basketball Players, ranking each player in order and providing a one sentence summary of each player's accomplishments. Here is Athlon Sports' list (an asterisk indicates that the player was not on the NBA's 50 Greatest Players List):

1) Michael Jordan
2) Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
3) Bill Russell
4) Wilt Chamberlain
5) Oscar Robertson
6) Magic Johnson
7) Larry Bird
8) Jerry West
9) Karl Malone
10) Elgin Baylor
11) Bob Pettit
12) John Havlicek
13) Shaquille O'Neal
14) Hakeem Olajuwon
15) Tim Duncan*
16) George Mikan
17) Kobe Bryant*
18) Julius Erving
19) Moses Malone
20) Bob Cousy
21) John Stockton
22) Kevin Garnett*
23) Charles Barkley
24) Dolph Schayes
25) Rick Barry
26) Scottie Pippen
27) Isiah Thomas
28) David Robinson
29) Elvin Hayes
30) Allen Iverson*
31) Bob McAdoo*
32) Nate Archibald
33) Dave Bing
34) Bill Sharman
35) Billy Cunningham
36) Kevin McHale
37) Dave Cowens
38) Walt Frazier
39) Jason Kidd*
40) George Gervin
41) Patrick Ewing
42) Clyde Drexler
43) Willis Reed
44) Pete Maravich
45) Gary Payton*
46) George McGinnis*
47) Connie Hawkins*
48) Paul Arizin
49) Dennis Rodman*
50) Walt Bellamy*

Thus, Athlon Sports added Tim Duncan, Kobe Bryant, Kevin Garnett, Allen Iverson, Bob McAdoo, Jason Kidd, Gary Payton, George McGinnis, Connie Hawkins, Dennis Rodman and Walt Bellamy to the list and did not include Dave DeBusschere, Hal Greer, Sam Jones, Jerry Lucas, Earl Monroe, Robert Parish, Nate Thurmond, Wes Unseld, Bill Walton, James Worthy and Lenny Wilkens from the NBA's 1996 list.

This article will not reevaluate the entire 50 Greatest Players List but will only compare the 11 players Athlon Sports added to the 11 players Athlon Sports did not include. Keep in mind that Athlon Sports' list is from 10 years ago, before LeBron James, Kevin Durant, Stephen Curry or Russell Westbrook had won a single MVP or championship. The Top 50 candidacies of those players--and other players of more recent vintage, including Dirk Nowitzki and Dwyane Wade--will be discussed in a future article in this series.

Duncan and Bryant had not entered the NBA when the original list was selected. Garnett had just completed his rookie season and Iverson was just starting his rookie season. This raises an interesting question: Is there some "magic" number of players who should be included on a greatest players list or should the list’s size continue to grow as the league gets older and more great players complete their careers?

This is a subjective question and my subjective answer is that any greatest players list that is larger than 100 is a bit too large to wrap one's mind around as a fan and probably a bit too large to properly construct as an analyst. My inclination is that 50 is not a "magic number"--it was only chosen originally because the NBA was celebrating its 50^th anniversary--but it is a good number and that there is nothing wrong with Pantheon-level players like Duncan and Bryant knocking some players off of the list. However, I also do not have a serious problem with pushing the list to 75 or even 100.

In Part I of this series, I listed four methodologies that should be used in no particular order to compare players from different eras:

1) How great was a particular player in his own era?
2) How highly does a player rank overall in key statistical categories?
3) Based on a skill set evaluation, how well would a player have performed in a different era when facing different rules and circumstances?
4) Did the player have a historical impact on the game, in terms of forcing rules changes and/or influencing shifts in style of play?

Using those standards (or just about any other standards, for that matter), the inclusion of Duncan and Bryant is obvious and indisputable.  

Duncan won two regular season MVPs (2002-03; he ranked in the top five in MVP balloting nine times), three Finals MVPs (1999, 2003, 2005), one All-Star Game MVP (2000) and the 1998 Rookie of the Year award. He made the All-NBA Team 15 times (tied with Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Kobe Bryant for the most all-time), including 10 First Team selections. Duncan made the All-Defensive Team a record 15 times, including eight First Team selections. He also made the All-Star team 15 times.

Duncan ranks seventh all-time in ABA/NBA regular season rebounds (15,091), sixth all-time in ABA/NBA regular season blocked shots (3020), sixth all-time in ABA/NBA playoff points scored (5172), third all-time in ABA/NBA playoff rebounds (2859) and first all-time in ABA/NBA playoff blocked shots (568). Blocked shots have only been an official statistic for the NBA since 1973-74; the ABA began tracking blocked shots in 1972-73.

Duncan could score in the post or facing the basket within 15-18 feet. He was an excellent screener and a very good passer. Duncan was a top notch defender and rebounder. Perhaps his only skill set weakness was free throw shooting (.696 career free throw percentage, including four seasons below .640).

Duncan did not force rules changes or influence shifts in style of play but he was the centerpiece of one of pro basketball’s most dominant franchises for nearly two decades, playing a major role on five San Antonio championship teams (1999, 2003, 2005, 2007, 2014).

Bryant won one regular season MVP (2008; he ranked in the top five in MVP balloting 11 times), two Finals MVPs (2009-10) and a record-tying four All-Star Game MVPs (2002, 2007, 2009, 2011). He won two regular season scoring titles (2006-07) and he led the league in playoff scoring average three times (2003, 2007-08). Bryant made the All-NBA Team 15 times (tied for the most all-time), including 11 First Team selections (tied for the most all-time with Karl Malone and LeBron James). Bryant made the All-Defensive Team 12 times, including nine First Team selections (tied for the most all-time with Michael Jordan, Gary Payton and Kevin Garnett). He made the All-Star team 18 times, second only to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (19).

Bryant ranks third all-time in ABA/NBA regular season scoring (33,643 points), fourth all-time in ABA/NBA playoff points (5640), ninth all-time in ABA/NBA playoff assists (1040) and sixth all-time in ABA/NBA playoff steals (310). Steals have only been an official statistic for the NBA since 1973-74; the ABA began tracking steals in 1972-73.

Bryant also ranks sixth all-time in ABA/NBA regular season field goals made (11,719), third all-time in ABA/NBA regular season free throws made (8378) and eighth all-time in ABA/NBA regular season minutes played (48,637)

Bryant is one of the few players in pro basketball history who had no skill set weaknesses. He could
score in the post, facing the basket or off the dribble. He was an excellent free throw shooter and a great passer who excelled at drawing double teams; even when he did not make the pass that led directly to the basket, his presence often tilted the defense to create the scoring opportunity. Bryant was an elite defender for most of his career and he was an excellent rebounder for his position.

Bryant's combination of high level athleticism grounded in solid fundamentals emulated Michael Jordan. Some people criticized Bryant for copying Jordan but why not copy someone who has a similar body type and is the greatest ever at that position (and arguably the greatest player of all-time)? Bryant was an All-NBA level performer for five championship teams (2000-02, 2009-10), plus two other teams that advanced to the NBA Finals (2004, 2008).

Kevin Garnett did not dominate to the same extent that Duncan or Bryant did but he is a worthy addition to the 50 Greatest Players List. Garnett won the 2004 regular season MVP and he ranked in the top five in MVP balloting five times. He won the 2003 All-Star Game MVP and was selected as the 2008 Defensive Player of the Year. Garnett made the All-NBA Team nine times, including four First Team selections. He made the All-Defensive Team 12 times, including a record-tying nine First Team selections. Garnett was a 15-time All-Star. He won four regular season rebounding titles (2004-07).

Garnett ranks 10^th all-time in ABA/NBA regular season rebounds (14,662) and fourth all-time in ABA/NBA regular season minutes played (50,418).

Garnett's greatest skill set strengths were defense and rebounding. He also had a very high motor and his energy/enthusiasm could be contagious. Garnett had a reliable face up jumper out to 15-18 feet. He could score in the post but he was not a dominant post player and he preferred to face the basket. Garnett was an outstanding screener and a good passer. Garnett needed more help around him to win a championship than Duncan or Bryant did but when Garnett had that help his Boston Celtics won the 2008 NBA title and advanced to the 2010 NBA Finals.

Although Garnett was not a three point shooter, his versatility and his preference to play facing the basket from the power forward position presaged to some extent the “stretch four” role that has now become prevalent in the NBA.

Allen Iverson should not be a controversial selection but some people may balk at adding him to the list because of his off-court controversies and/or because his playing style did not translate well in terms of "advanced basketball statistics." Iverson won the 2001 regular season MVP, he ranked in the top five in MVP balloting three times and he won two All-Star Game MVPs (2001, 2005). Iverson won the 1997 Rookie of the Year award. He captured four regular season scoring titles (1999, 2001-02, 05) and he ranks seventh in ABA/NBA regular season scoring average (26.7 ppg). Iverson also led the league in playoff scoring twice (1999, 2005) and he ranks second to Michael Jordan in ABA/NBA playoff scoring average (29.7 ppg). Iverson made the All-NBA Team seven times, including three First Team selections. Iverson was an 11-time All-Star.

Perhaps the most remarkable aspect of Iverson's career is his durability, which is even more incredible considering that he was listed at 6-0, 165 pounds. Iverson ranks fourth in ABA/NBA regular season mpg (41.1) behind only Wilt Chamberlain, Bill Russell and Oscar Robertson. Iverson led the NBA in regular season mpg seven times (1999, 2002-04, 06-08), a mark exceeded only by Chamberlain’s nine. Iverson averaged 45.1 mpg in the playoffs, third behind Chamberlain and Russell, and he led the NBA in playoff mpg three times (1999, 2001, 05).

In addition to his durability, Iverson's greatest skill set strength was his ability to relentlessly attack the basket to score, get fouled or draw so much defensive attention that his missed shots were--as Doug Collins astutely pointed out--essentially assists that enabled his teammates to have easy putbacks. He was not a great three point shooter but he could hit them in the clutch at times. Iverson was an underrated passer who averaged 6.2 apg during his career and who four times ranked in the top 10 in assists. Iverson was not a great one on one defender but he excelled in playing the passing lanes; he ranks 10^th all-time in ABA/NBA regular season steals per game (2.2). Iverson was a solid rebounder considering his size and the other responsibilities that he shouldered.

Iverson's personal style and attitude carried significant cultural influence, plus his ability to excel in the NBA at his size inspired many of the players who came after him. He would thrive even more in today's era of drive and kick basketball during which handchecking is not permitted.

Bob McAdoo won the 1975 NBA regular season MVP and he finished in the top five in MVP balloting three times. He was the only player who had won an NBA regular season MVP as of 1996 who was not selected to the NBA's 50 Greatest Players List. I would not say that winning a regular season MVP should automatically qualify a player for top 50 status but I would say that a player who was the best player in the league during a given season should probably make the cut provided that he sustained excellence for a reasonable period of time; McAdoo certainly fits that description and he should have been on the original list.

McAdoo was an elite player in the mid-1970s, winning three straight scoring titles (1974-76) and making the All-Star team five consecutive times (1974-78). He won the 1973 Rookie of the Year Award and he earned two All-NBA selections, including a First Team nod in 1975.

He bounced around to a few different teams in the middle of his career before becoming a valuable sixth man for two L.A. Lakers' championship teams (1982, 85). Pat Riley, who coached the Lakers to five championships during the Showtime era, has stated that the Lakers would not have won the 1982 and 1985 titles without McAdoo’s contributions at both ends of the court.

Stylistically, McAdoo was a hybrid big forward/small center who had tremendous shooting range. The NBA did not adopt the three point shot until midway through his career and the trey did not feature as a prominent weapon in the league until after McAdoo retired but his ability to operate facing the basket on offense combined with his mobility and his ability to defend multiple positions mean that he would be a prototype "stretch four" in the modern game.

Jason Kidd shared the 1995 Rookie of the Year award with Grant Hill. He never won a regular season MVP but he placed in the top five twice, including a second place finish to Duncan in 2002. Kidd made the All-NBA Team six times, including five First Team selections. He made the All-Defensive Team nine times, including four First Team selections. Kidd was a 10-time All-Star.

Kidd led the NBA in assists five times (1999-01, 2003-04) and he ranks eighth in ABA/NBA regular season apg (8.7). He also ranks second in ABA/NBA regular season assists (12,091). Kidd ranks fourth all-time in ABA/NBA playoff assists (1263), trailing only Magic Johnson, John Stockton and LeBron James. He is second in ABA/NBA regular season steals (2684) and seventh in ABA/NBA playoff steals (302).

Kidd resurrected a moribund Nets franchise, leading the team to consecutive NBA Finals (2002, 03). He was a key contributor for the 2011 Dallas Mavericks team that upset the favored Miami Heat in the Finals.

Kidd showed remarkable skill set development during his career. The player who was derisively called "Ason" because he had no "J" transformed himself into a very good three point shooter while also elevating his free throw percentage from the high .600s to the high .700s/low .800s. Kidd was always a superb playmaker and top notch defensive player. Above all, Kidd was a winner who consistently helped his teams improve, while teams that he left consistently got worse.

Gary Payton's career largely overlapped Kidd's and for several years they battled for the unofficial title as the league's best point guard. Payton never won a regular season MVP but he placed in the top five once and he finished sixth five times. Payton made the All-NBA Team nine times, including two First Team selections. He made the All-Defensive Team nine times, each time receiving First Team honors (tied for the most all-time First Team selections). Payton won the 1996 Defensive Player of the Year award, the same season that he led the league in steals for the only time. Payton made the All-Star team nine times.

Payton ranks eighth in ABA/NBA regular season assists (8966) and he finished in the top 10 in apg in seven seasons. He ranks fourth in ABA/NBA regular season steals (2445).

He was a below average free throw shooter and outside shooter. Payton's main strength was his tremendous defense. He was also a good playmaker and a capable scorer who was an outstanding postup player at 6-4. Payton was a solid rebounder who averaged a career-high 6.5 rpg in 1999-00 but never averaged more than 5 rpg in any other season. He helped lead Seattle to the 1996 Finals. He started--but did not play well--for the Lakers team that lost in the 2004 Finals. Payton rode Dwyane Wade and Shaquille O'Neal to the 2006 title, averaging just 5.8 ppg on .422 field goal shooting during Miami's playoff run that season (though Payton did make a couple big plays).

Payton was a flashier player than Kidd and a more explosive scorer but Kidd was the superior all-around player and he had a bigger impact on winning. A valid case could be made to add Payton to the 50 Greatest Players List but a valid case could also be made to not include him; Athlon Sports ranked Payton 45^th and I would not place him any higher than that.

George McGinnis shared the 1975 ABA regular season MVP with Julius Erving and he finished in the top five in MVP balloting three times. McGinnis won the 1973 ABA Playoff MVP award. He made the All-ABA or All-NBA Team five times, including three First Team selections. McGinnis made the ABA or NBA All-Star team six times and he won the 1975 ABA regular season scoring title (29.8 ppg).

McGinnis played a major role on two Indiana ABA championship teams (1972-73) and on the Philadelphia team that advanced to the 1977 NBA Finals. He was a dominant player in the ABA and a very good player for several NBA seasons but his performance level dropped dramatically at the age of 29. By the age of 31 he was out of the league. In terms of peak value, a credible Top 50 case can be made for McGinnis but his overall body of work is not quite good enough to make the cut.

Connie Hawkins had Top 50 talent without question but he was blackballed from the NBA during a significant portion of his prime. He began his professional career with the Harlem Globetrotters and then he enjoyed a brief but very successful run in the ABA, winning the 1968 regular season and Playoff MVP awards while leading the Pittsburgh Pipers to the league's inaugural championship. Hawkins won the regular season scoring title (26.8 ppg) that year and he also led the league in playoff scoring (29.9 ppg).

An injury limited Hawkins to 47 games in his second ABA season, by which time he had settled a lawsuit that enabled him to jump to the NBA. Hawkins made a sensational NBA debut in 1969-70, earning All-NBA First Team honors and finishing fifth in MVP balloting. The years and the mileage soon caught up with Hawkins. He finished his career with three top five MVP finishes, three All-ABA/All-NBA First Team selections and five All-Star Game appearances.

Hawkins was a flashy player whose huge hands and tremendous leaping ability foreshadowed the brilliant moves made more famous by Julius Erving and Michael Jordan. In terms of peak value and overall impact on the sport Hawkins deserves a spot on the 50 Greatest Players List but in terms of long term sustained excellence he falls short of the mark.

Dennis Rodman was a rebounding machine and a ferocious defender who could guard any position in his prime. He captured seven straight regular season rebounding titles (1992-98) with some rpg averages that had not been seen since Chamberlain and Russell patrolled the paint. Rodman's off court antics seem to have cost him a bit in terms of receiving awards/recognition but he made the All-NBA Team twice and he was a two-time All-Star. Rodman made the All-Defensive Team eight times, including seven First Team selections, and he won back to back Defensive Player of the Year awards (1990-91).

Rodman only averaged 10-plus ppg once during his career but he was a valuable offensive player not only because of his prodigious offensive rebounding but also because he was an excellent screener and an intelligent passer.

Rodman was a key member of two Detroit championship teams (1989-90) and three Chicago championship teams (1996-98). His personal style and his playing style were both unorthodox but his impact on winning is unquestionable.

Walt Bellamy never made the All-NBA Team and never finished in the top 10 in MVP voting. He won the 1962 Rookie of the Year Award and he made the All-Star team four times. Just based on those facts, one might wonder why he is in the Hall of Fame, let alone being potentially considered as one of the 50 greatest players--but Bellamy's career is not so simply summarized. His rookie campaign is one of the most dominant ever: 31.6 ppg, 19.0 rpg, league-best .519 field goal percentage. As I noted in my 2013 obituary for "Big Bells," "Bellamy averaged at least 22.8 ppg and at least 14.6 rpg in each of his first five NBA seasons...Just seven players other than Bellamy have had multiple 22.8 ppg/14.6 rpg seasons and only 18 players in NBA/ABA history accomplished this feat even once." Bellamy ranks eighth in ABA/NBA career regular season rpg average (13.7) and he also averaged 20.1 ppg during his regular season career. No matter how one accounts for pace/style of play/era/level of competition, those numbers are impressive. If Bellamy had not played in the same era as Wilt Chamberlain and Bill Russell, he would probably have been a perennial All-NBA Team member.

The players who Athlon Sports removed from the list have impressive accomplishments worthy of recognition and acknowledgment. Players from earlier eras should not be judged based solely or primarily on numbers, at least not without placing those numbers in the context of the vast differences between eras.

Dave DeBusschere never received serious MVP consideration and he made the All-NBA team just once but he made the All-Star team eight times and he earned six straight All-Defensive First Team selections. DeBusschere was an elite defender, so when looking at his career honors it is important to remember that the All-Defensive Team was first selected in 1969--the seventh season of his 12 year NBA career--and he thus received First Team recognition every season that he could have possibly done so. The Defensive Player of the Year award did not exist during his career and neither steals nor blocked shot became official NBA statistics until his final season.

Field goal percentages were lower and pace was higher during DeBusschere's career, so more rebounds were available than in later eras, but by any standard he was a very good rebounder: he averaged 11.0 rpg during his career and after his first two seasons he never had a season during which he averaged less than 10 rpg.

DeBusschere was a key member of two New York championship teams (1970, 1973). Although he was a rugged defender and rebounder, on offense he often played outside of the paint, spreading the floor by firing long jumpers. The NBA did not have a three point shot during that era but if he played in the current era he would have easily added that weapon to his repertoire.

Hal Greer was the third best guard during an era when two of the best guards in pro basketball history played: Oscar Robertson and Jerry West. Thus, Greer made the All-NBA Second Team for seven straight seasons but he never received a First Team nod. Greer also earned 10 All-Star selections and he won the 1968 All-Star Game MVP.

Greer was a vital member of the 1967 Philadelphia team that went 68-13 during the regular season--the best record ever at that time--and broke Boston's eight year stranglehold on the NBA championship; Greer averaged 22.1 ppg during that season and he increased his scoring to 27.7 ppg during that year's playoffs, best on a squad that included Hall of Famers Wilt Chamberlain, Billy Cunningham and Chet Walker. In 1980, this 76ers team was selected by the NBA as the greatest team in the league's first 35 years.

Greer's career regular season point total (21,586) currently ranks 39^th in ABA/NBA history but it must be noted that when he retired he was the fifth leading scorer in pro basketball history behind only Wilt Chamberlain, Oscar Robertson, Jerry West and Elgin Baylor. Greer currently ranks 82^nd in career regular season assists (4540) but he ranked seventh in career assists when he retired.

Sam Jones' legacy is defined by winning and by clutch performances. He won 10 championships (1959-66, 68-69), more than any player in pro basketball history other than his Boston teammate Bill Russell (11). Jones posted a 9-0 record in playoff game sevens with the Boston Celtics, averaging 27.1 ppg in those contests.

Jones twice finished in the top five in MVP voting but--like Greer--because he played in the same era as Robertson and West he never made the All-NBA First Team. Jones earned three All-NBA Second Team selections and he made the All-Star team five times.

Jones scored 15,411 career regular season points, which does not look like an eye-popping total now--but he ranked 12^th on the NBA’s career scoring list when he retired in 1969. He also ranked third on the NBA's career playoff scoring list when he retired, trailing only Jerry West and Elgin Baylor. In the context of his era, Sam Jones was a big-time scorer.

Jerry Lucas was one of the greatest rebounders in pro basketball history. His 15.6 career regular season rpg average ranks fourth in ABA/NBA history behind only Wilt Chamberlain, Bill Russell and Bob Pettit. Lucas' 12,492 career regular season rebounds ranked fourth all-time when he retired in 1974 (trailing only Chamberlain, Russell and Walt Bellamy) and Lucas still ranks 18^th all-time more than 40 years later. Lucas twice averaged at least 20 rpg during a season; the only other players who averaged at least 20 rpg during a season are Chamberlain (10 times), Russell (10 times), Nate Thurmond (two times) and Bob Pettit (one time).

Lucas won the 1964 Rookie of the Year award and the 1965 All-Star Game MVP. He finished fifth in the 1966 regular season MVP voting and he made the All-NBA Team five times, including three First Team selections. He was a seven-time All-Star. Lucas was a member of the 1973 New York Knicks' championship team.

Like his New York teammate DeBusschere, Lucas was a rugged player who also had an excellent outside shooting touch. Lucas shot .499 from the field during his regular season career, the fifth best mark in pro basketball history when he retired, and he led the NBA in that category in the 1963-64 season. Lucas ranked eighth in the NBA in free throw percentage in 1964-65 and he shot .783 from the charity stripe for his career, a very good mark for a big man in that era.

Earl Monroe won the 1968 NBA Rookie of the Year award. The next season, he earned his only All-NBA First Team selection and he made the first of his four All-Star Game appearances. He scored at least 21.9 ppg in each of his first four NBA seasons with the Baltimore Bullets. Monroe was traded to the New York Knicks early in the 1971-72 season and he blended his talents with fellow future Hall of Famer Walt Frazier to form the "Rolls Royce" backcourt that led the Knicks to the 1972 NBA Finals before winning the 1973 championship. Monroe's scoring dipped early in his Knicks tenure but then he averaged 20.9 ppg, 20.7 ppg and 19.9 ppg in the three seasons after he turned 30; this is one example of individual numbers not telling the whole story: Monroe sacrificed personal glory for the greater good of winning a championship and then when the Knicks needed more scoring after some of their other great players retired, Monroe stepped up.

Players should be evaluated on skill set and impact and not just on statistics. Monroe had a tremendous skill set as a scorer and ballhandler and he had an outsized impact on the sport that goes far beyond his numbers. Before becoming an NBA star, Monroe set many records at Winston-Salem State while leading the team to the 1967 NCAA College Division title. Monroe averaged 41.5 ppg and he earned the "Earl the Pearl" nickname after a newspaper published a list of his high scoring games titled "Earl's Pearls." On the playgrounds, Earl was already known as "Black Jesus."

Robert Parish finished in the top five in the regular season MVP voting once and he earned two All-NBA selections but his prime years overlapped with the careers of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Moses Malone so he never made the All-NBA First Team. Parish made the All-Star team nine times, including seven straight selections during the 1980s (1981-87). He never averaged 20 ppg in a season, nor did he ever average more than 12.5 rpg in a season; his career was defined by consistency and durability as opposed to dominance. Parish was a key member of three Boston championship teams (1981, 84, 86) and he formed the "Big Three" with Larry Bird and Kevin McHale, a trio that is perhaps the best frontcourt of all-time. Parish lasted in the NBA until he was 43 and he picked up a fourth championship ring as a little-used reserve for the 1997 Chicago Bulls. Parish never led the NBA in rebounding but he accumulated 10 top 10 finishes and he ranks ninth in ABA/NBA regular season rebounds (14,715).

Nate Thurmond finished second in the 1967 NBA regular season MVP voting but he never made the All-NBA Team while playing in an era dominated by Wilt Chamberlain and Bill Russell (the MVP voting was conducted by the players at that time, while the All-NBA Team was selected by the media). The All-Defensive Team was not created until Thurmond's sixth season but he still made the squad five times, including two First Team selections. Thurmond was a seven-time All-Star.

Thurmond specialized in defense and rebounding but he averaged at least 20 ppg in five straight seasons during his prime. He averaged at least 10.4 rpg in each of this first 12 seasons but despite twice averaging over 20 rpg he never won a rebounding title. Thurmond was a great center who was overshadowed by Chamberlain and Russell early in his career and then Wes Unseld, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Willis Reed and Dave Cowens later in his career; each of those centers won at least one regular season MVP.

Unseld won the 1969 NBA Rookie of the Year and the 1969 NBA regular season MVP; that dual feat has only been matched by Chamberlain (1960 NBA), Spencer Haywood (1970 ABA), and Artis Gilmore (1972 ABA). He also earned his only All-NBA First Team selection that season. Unseld had a very good career but he never made the All-NBA Team after his rookie season and he never again finished higher than eighth in regular season MVP voting, though he did win the 1978 Finals MVP after leading the Washington Bullets to the title. Unseld made the All-Star team five times.

Unseld averaged at least 10 rpg in 12 of his 13 seasons, falling short only in his injury-riddled 1973-74 campaign--but he bounced back to lead the league with 14.8 rpg in 1974-75 and he also led the NBA in field goal percentage in 1975-76 (.561). Unseld's strengths were rebounding, passing (particularly outlet passing) and screen-setting. He never averaged more than 16.2 ppg and he only averaged more than 10 ppg once in his final eight seasons.

Bill Walton is perhaps the most difficult Top 50 candidate to evaluate. He led the league in rebounding and blocked shots in 1976-77 before capturing the 1977 Finals MVP as his Portland Trailblazers defeated the favored Philadelphia 76ers 4-2. Walton won the 1978 regular season MVP despite being limited to 58 games due to injury; the Trailblazers began the season 50-10 when Walton was healthy before going 8-14 down the stretch without him. Injuries forced Walton to miss three of the next four seasons and he only played 14 games in 1979-80.

Walton played in just 33, 55 and 67 games in the 1983-85 seasons, with his minutes per game averages declining each year. He was a solid player when he was on the court but he was not an All-Star; Walton's only All-Star selections happened in 1977 and 1978 and those were the only years that he earned All-NBA and All-Defensive Team honors, making the All-Defensive First Team both seasons and the All-NBA First Team in 1978.

Walton joined the Boston Celtics for the 1985-86 season. Playing less than 20 mpg, he appeared in a career-high 80 games, shot a career-high .562 from the field and earned the Sixth Man of the Year Award as a key contributor to arguably the best of Larry Bird's three championship teams. Injuries limited Walton to 10 games in 1986-87 and he retired at 34 years of age after playing in just 468 regular season games.

Walton is a member of the Basketball Hall of Fame, but of course the Hall of Fame also recognizes a player's collegiate career--and Walton is one of the greatest college basketball players of all-time. Walton played the equivalent of less than six NBA seasons. When he was healthy he was an elite player but he was healthy for a very limited amount of time.

Lenny Wilkens finished second to Wilt Chamberlain in the 1968 NBA regular season MVP voting and he won the 1971 All-Star Game MVP. He made the All-Star team nine times and he led the league in assists in 1969-70 but he never was selected to the All-NBA team. Wilkens ranked in the top 10 in assists 12 times in his 15 seasons and he finished his career second on the all-time regular season assists list (he currently ranks 14^th). Wilkens was primarily a playmaker but he was also a first rate scorer: he averaged at least 20 ppg in three different seasons and he has a higher career regular season scoring average (16.5 ppg) than several guards who are perhaps more renowned for scoring, including Gary Payton, Joe Dumars and Tony Parker. Wilkens, John Wooden, Bill Sharman and Tommy Heinsohn are the only individuals inducted in the Basketball Hall of Fame as both a player and a coach; Wilkens was inducted a third time as a member of the coaching staff of the 1992 United States Olympic "Dream Team."

James Worthy made the All-NBA Team just twice (as a Third Team selection in 1990 and 1991) but he made the All-Star team seven times and he won the 1988 Finals MVP. He was a key contributor to three Lakers' championship teams (1985, 87-88). He shot at least .531 from the field in each of his first eight seasons, using a tremendous first step and an outstanding ability to finish above the rim to frustrate even the league's best defensive players. Worthy averaged at least 20 ppg in four different regular seasons but he could have scored more points if he had not been playing alongside fellow future Hall of Famers Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Magic Johnson. He earned the nickname "Big Game James" and he lived up to that by increasing his scoring average from 17.6 ppg in the regular season to 21.1 ppg in the playoffs. He was a below average rebounder considering his 6-9 size and his leaping ability; Worthy never averaged more than 6.4 rpg in a season and he finished his career with a 5.1 rpg average. He was a solid passer and a decent defensive player. 

Before evaluating Athlon Sports' choices, it is clear from the capsule biographies above that the 11 players Athlon Sports did not include each accomplished a lot and each played at a very high level. There is a lamentable tendency in many quarters to reflexively discount the meaning or significance of anything that happened more than 20 or 30 years ago.

That being said, if the size of the list is being kept at 50 then Duncan, Bryant, Garnett and Iverson--four players who had not achieved prominence as of 1996--clearly deserve inclusion. I also agree with Athlon Sports' inclusion of Bellamy, McAdoo, Payton and Kidd. Bellamy was one of the most dominant scorers/rebounders ever and he put up his numbers while having to regularly face Chamberlain and Russell. McAdoo also should have made the cut the first time. Kidd had such an impact on winning that I cannot leave him off of the list. Payton's longevity as a two-way player is noteworthy.

So, among the 22 players that Athlon Sports shuffled, I disagree about six of them: I would keep Greer, Lucas and DeBusschere in the Top 50 and I would thus decline to include Hawkins, McGinnis and Rodman. My reasoning is that Greer, Lucas and DeBusschere sustained a high level of play for longer than Hawkins and McGinnis, while Rodman was not quite multi-dimensional enough to move past Lucas or DeBusschere—two championship winning forwards who not only rebounded and defended but who also scored. It is tough to not include MVP winners Hawkins and McGinnis--who would each likely be on a list of the 50 most talented players of all-time--but sustained excellence is important.

Regarding the other players mentioned in this article, none of them quite measure up to their counterparts. Jones was a clutch performer but his individual resume does not stack up against his contemporary Greer and he was never in the running for best guard in the league like Kidd and Payton later were. Monroe had a short peak and was not as versatile as the guards ranked ahead of him.

Parish and Thurmond were great centers but they were never the best or even second best in the league at their position during their careers. Unseld had one great year and then many very good ones; if he had not won one MVP then he probably would not be considered at all, so that one outlier season does not outweigh the body of work produced by the players ranked ahead of him. If Walton had been healthy, he might have been a top 10 or top 20 player--but he was not healthy and thus we are forced to evaluate him based on what he actually accomplished, not what might have been.

Wilkens was a marvelous two-way player but in a 15 year career he never made the All-NBA First or Second Team and it is just hard to accept the notion that a player who was never ranked among the top four at his position during his career should be listed among the top 50 players of all-time. Wilkens did finish second in MVP voting once but he just was not quite as dominant as the some of the other all-time greats.

Worthy was never close to being the best forward in the NBA and--while it is possible that he would have posted gaudier individual numbers had he been a headliner for a less talented team--it must be noted that he benefited a lot from playing alongside many other great players. Worthy's resume is impressive and it is Hall of Fame caliber but he just did not accomplish enough to make this list; he should not have made it over, for instance, McAdoo back in 1996 and Athlon Sports was correct to leave him off in 2008.

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Further Reading:

Part I of this series can be found here.

Labels: Allen Iverson, Bob McAdoo, Connie Hawkins, Dennis Rodman, Gary Payton, George McGinnis, Jason Kidd, Kevin Garnett, Kobe Bryant, Tim Duncan, Walt Bellamy

posted by David Friedman @ 7:32 AM

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