Readers have a chance to win a $100 prize just for voting in a bracket of the greatest 64 basketball players from the past 64 years
In my three previous columns I ran down the list of players in the lower half of the brackets, from 33 to 64. Here are the eight players from 25 to 32.
In my personal countdown of the best players to ever lace them up, there were three league MVPs that are considered underdogs in the first round — Bob Pettit, Russell Westbrook and Allen Iverson. How is that possible? Well, the competition is THAT fierce.
At 32 is a guy who won MVP twice (although I’d say Shaq probably deserved one of those).
32. Steve Nash, 8-time All-Star, 7-time All-NBA, 5-time assist champ, 2-time MVP.
He very nearly averaged that elusive unicorn of a career 50-40-90 — he shot 49% overall, 43% from deep and 90% from the foul line.
After a slow start his first four years, Nash’s career took off with 12 straight seasons of at least 7.8 assists, with seven of those seasons in double digits.
He is 3rd in assists, 5th in assist percentage, 2nd in foul shooting, 11th in 3-point shooting, 20th in true shooting, 16th in offensive rating, 41st in win shares (how much a player contributes to a win over an average player), 37th in VORP (value over a replacement player).
Based just off of offense, he’d be higher, but you have to play both ends of the court, and there are other guys who did it better both ways. One of those is up next.
31. Dwyane Wade, 13-time All-Star, 8-time All-NBA, 3-time all-defensive, once scoring champ, 3 titles, 1 Finals MVP.
Shooting guards are expected to score a lot, so that part alone didn’t get him on the list as he is “just” 34th in career points.
However, he also shared the ball as he is 41st in assists; he put pressure on the defense by constantly looking to drive and is 27th in free throws earned; he played defense and is 31st in steals.
Put all his traits together and he is 22nd in PER (player efficiency rating), 49th in win shares, 23rd in box plus/minus (how many points scored offensively and saved defensively compared to an average player) and 25th in VORP.
30. Scottie Pippen, 7-time All-Star, 7-time All-NBA, 10-time all-defensive, once steals champ, 6 titles.
When you talk defense, few did it better than Pippen. Nobody cares that he is only 64th in career points because we know he could have scored more if he hadn’t been deferring to His Airness for most of his career.
Pippen is 6th in steals, 33rd in assists, 97th in rebounds (as a small forward), 20th in defensive win shares, 45th in total win shares, 35th in box plus/minus, and 24th in VORP.
He might also lead the NBA in one unofficial category: missed dunks. Scottie loved to dunk on people and tried it all the time. Often it worked and sometimes not so much. I once saw him miss a dunk, hit the back of the rim with the ball and manage to ricochet the ball up into the air all the way back to midcourt.
29. Jason Kidd, 10-time All-Star, 6-time All-NBA, 9-time all-defensive, 5-time assist champ, 1 title, rookie of the year.
Kidd was a great player, but I fear he won’t be remembered as well as others on this list because he didn’t look to score.
He is 2nd to only John Stockton in assists and steals. He is the leading rebounder among guards at a remarkable 64th place overall, just ahead of big men like Dale Davis, Willis Reed, P.J. Brown, Carlos Boozer and Chris Webber.
He is 33rd in win shares and 18th in VORP. That’s right, top 20 in value over a replacement player.
In 2002 and 2003 he led the Nets to back-to-back appearances in the finals, losing to the Lakers and Spurs. He averaged nearly 20 points per game and about 8.6 assists in those two playoff runs. He outplayed Tony Parker and Derek Fisher, but his big men couldn’t contain Shaq and Tim Duncan. Otherwise we’d be talking about his two titles.
28. Elvin Hayes, 12-time All-Star, 6-time All-NBA, 2-time rebound champ, once scoring champ, 2-time all-defensive, 1 title.
Admittedly, Elvin was before my time and I haven’t seen him play on ESPN Classic, but his peers spoke very highly of him.
He is 12th in points, 6th in rebounds, 28th in blocks, 6th in minutes played, 8th in defensive win shares. When a guy is in the top 12 in three important categories like points, rebounds and defensive win shares, then he’s got my vote — sight unseen.
27. John Havlicek, 13-time All-Star, 11-time All-NBA, 8-time scoring champ, 8-time all-defensive, 8 titles, one Finals MVP.
Somebody had to score for the Celtics while Bill Russell played defense, and Havlicek could do it himself or assist to a teammate. Despite shooting outside, he hit the same career shooting rate as Russell (44%) as well as 81.5% at the line.
He is 19th in points, 35th in assists, 36th in free throws earned, 83rd in rebounds (impressive for a shooting guard), and 39th in win shares.
Some old-school Celtics are overrated because they played beside Russell, but Havlicek was not one of them.
26. Stephen Curry, 6-time All-Star, 6-time All-NBA, 1 scoring champ, 1 steals champ, 2-time MVP, 3 titles.
Ankle problems slowed the start of his career, but already he is 3rd in 3’s made. He is 1st in foul shooting percentage and 6th in 3-point shooting. He is 4th in true shooting percentage.
His career totals will continue to climb, but as for how he’s done on a per-game basis: he is 37th in assists per game, 44th in steals per game, 17th in PER, 20th in win shares per minute, and 33rd in VORP.
As I said with Nash and the 50-40-90 talk, Curry currently is there, unless he slips in his later seasons. He is at 51.5% on 2’s, 43.5% on 3’s and 90.6% at the line.
If I revisit this column in a few years, I expect he will be a few spots higher.
25. David Robinson, 10-time All-Star, 10-time All-NBA, 8-time all-defensive, 1 scoring champ, 1 rebound champ, 1 blocks champ, 1 defensive player of the year, 1 MVP, 2 titles, rookie of the year.
He started late (age 24) because of a commitment to the Navy, which hurts his career totals. Then he only played six games in the 1996-97 season because of an injury.
He still finished 44th in points, 7th in blocks, 36th in boards, 62nd in steals. He is 4th in blocks per game and 9th in block percentage. He is 5th in PER, 4th in defensive rating, 2nd in win shares per minute, 5th in box plus/minus, and 10th in VORP.
If he was so tremendous per game, then why isn’t he higher? It is probably unfair to say so, but he didn’t make it to the NBA Finals until he was 33 and playing second fiddle to Tim Duncan.
Well, that and the Dream Team. There was a story that came out of the 1992 Olympics that Jordan and Magic said that they knew which team would lose in practice scrimmages — it would be the one with two or more of Robinson, Karl Malone and Clyde Drexler. They said those three just couldn’t rise to the challenge of playing the best of the best.
Find the voting brackets on our website at bit.ly/2x81WkG. Check out my previous bracket columns on our sports home page at bit.ly/2JLLtVS.
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