I must say, I have grown even more confused now. I was skeptical of players like Dwight Howard and Tracy McGrady at 61-70, but geez, compared to many of these guys, 61-70 are "no doubters". Should quickly note, this is the dumping ground for "worst ever League MVP players" with McAdoo, Cowens and Unseld in this group of 10).
ESPN's list
51. Reggie Miller
52. Bob McAdoo
53. Wes Unseld
54. Bernard King
55. Dave Cowens
56. Pau Gasol
57. Robert Parish
58. Tony Parker
59. Carmelo Anthony
60. Earl Monroe
The biggest head scratchers? I had Reggie Miller at #34 on my list. They have him 17 spots lower. Reggie Miller has more WS and a better WS/48 than Kobe. He is #2 all-time in Offensive Rating. If you have Reggie Miller at #51, you are stating that you give NO value to longevity, offensive ability and clutch playoff performances and only care about whether the guy was first-team all-NBA or MVP of the league. Will be interesting to see what wing scorers they put ahead of him.
Terrible injustice.
Second most terrible -- Earl Monroe. Take a good long hard look at Earl Monroe's stats. basketball-reference has him ranked objectively as the #150 most qualified Hall of Fame candidate. So, just move him up say 90 spots because he was flashy and had a cool nickname? Sure, why not.
Moving on -- love Bob McAdoo and Bernard King, but they each had less than 5 outstanding years.
Wes Unseld was a key cog on a constantly winning team, but after his rookie year (where he was ROY and MVP) he really wasn't that great of a player.
Regarding Pau Gasol - probably a tad too low.
Robert Parish -- I am stunned to learn that he is a much better player than Artis Gilmore (as I am sure he is)
Tony Parker - too low, when Tony was going well he was an unstoppable force for a championship club.
Carmelo -- I get a little queasy thinking about him being this high because he is a badly overrated player who has wasted his talent a lot. But is he a WAY better player than Earl Monroe? Sure. He probably deserves to be down below Vince and TMac and CWebb, but is it the end of the world that he is up here at 59 when his physical talent should have had him at around 25? Yeah, it probably still is awful, but not the worst thing ever.
Re-doing the list. if I am stuck with this list:
51. Reggie Miller (same, but should be 34th)
52. Tony Parker (+6)
53. Dave Cowens (+2)
54. Pau Gasol (+2)
55. Carmelo Anthony (+4)
56. Bob McAdoo (-4)
57. Bernard King.(-3)
58. Robert Parish (-1)
59. Wes Unseld (-6)
60. Earl Monroe (same, but should be down in the 70s or 80s).
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
If we are to live with terrible injustice, we can at least let it befall Reggie Miller.
Go Knicks.
I note that no member of your vast readership has stepped forward to offer any support for Reggie Miller, perhaps confirming my observation that injustice befits Mr. Miller.
Or, perhaps the ESPN rankings incorporated a "personality" component -- something that would readily explain the precipitous drop in Mr. Miller's ESPN rank. I'm picturing every one of ESPN's staff offering a collective "choke" in any voting regarding Miller's personality score.
Post a Comment