sidney wicks and what could have been

miltk · Post #1 » by **miltk** » Mon Jul 9, 2012 10:28 am

generally i don't play these "what could have been" games, but sidney and bill happen to be my two favorite bruins.

imo, sidney was a player ahead of his time by 20 years. he was a harbinger of pf's to come. he was lebron before lebron. his end to end speed was matchless. he was a t&f athlete in high school who long jumped over 20'. he blocked future hof'er artis gilmore 6 times, something even lebron hasn't done. he was a 5 position player. he was a PF with guard speed and skillset. he had an outside shot.

but his numbers also deteriorated after '74, and as i perused the portland stats it was interesting to note that the following year petrie took over as assist leader by a landslide. iirc, that there was a problem between petrie and wicks. and being an assist leader means having the ball all the time, and if sidney gave up that then he gave up control of the rock.

it seems like sidney couldn't rectify this and it was the end of him. he definitely didn't take John Robert Wooden's teachings about team play to heart. too bad. what could have been is that sidney could have been one of the greats.

does anyone have something to add? thx

Post #2 » by **mojomarc** » Mon Jul 9, 2012 4:25 pm

Of course Lebron hasn't blocked Artis Gilmore 6 times--Gilmore was retired before Lebron was even five years old! It's sort of silly to think a five year old can block a 7'3" guy.

In terms of Sidney, his issue was he was a complete headcase. He couldn't stand not being the better scorer than petrie, so he would refuse to pass him the ball at times. It was very selfish play, and he and Petrie were constantly bickering with each other, dragging down the chemistry of the team. Wicks basically was a good assist man one season (his second), but other than that he wasn't tremendous passer by the standards of the day (no one considered Dr. J a great passer or assist man, but he was putting up more than 5apg in the ABA at that time, a time where the ABA talent level was probably on par with the NBA, and averaged 3.9apg over the entire NBA portion of his career). So I'm not sure where you're going with Wicks. He was a very good player but he wasn't elite, and his passing was never really any better than other score-first players of the era (Petrie included).