flaco wrote:Snakebites wrote:JimmyPlopper wrote:Jack Sikma also has a pretty efficient 1989 season that doesn't often get used
That's another guy. He played much of his career post 3 point line but nobody was shooting them.
I definitely think he'd have had a 3 point range in the modern NBA, even in his earlier seasons.
There is an issue here- only so many FGA to go around. Even if you can argue some of these guys would transfer better than we give them credit for, but are you going to start taking them OVER modern players?
We already have inefficient modern guys who rarely get picked for this reason.
I'd take him over modern stiffs like Ayton, Vucevic, Nurkic, Valanciunas, etc, but these guys hardly ever get selected anyway. If I could choose between Sikma and a modern stretch 5, I'd probably go with the modern player. Not saying the modern player is necessarily better, just that I'm more familiar with his game.
Was watching Shaq talk about all-time great Centers. Was surprised to hear Sikma's name in the same convo with DRob and Robert Parish. Especially coming from Shaq who generally favors old school bruisers over stretch bigs.
go at 5:17 for the Sikma reference
;t=7s
He revolutionized the reverse pivot. Much of the 1990s face-up bigs utilized this--Hakeem, Shaq, DRob, KMalone to name a few.
In fact, watching a lot of Pacers games growing up, Rik Smits utilized this same reverse pivot a lot. In fact, Rik Smits was one of the first players I remember who would reverse pivot into quick shot fake to get the defender shifting baseline and then go to work.
Another player who was historically underrated but also fits the bill as a 3P shooting Center in the current age. We only have Play-By-Play data for his final 4 seasons but it paints him as a terrific shooter--47% from long-2 and 77% from the FT Line. At 7' 4", he would get his shot off over anyone, even easier than Brook Lopez. Lopez is a career 39% shooter from long-2.
It also goes to show you how misleading FG% is. Rik Smits was a sub-50% FG% shooter his final 4 seasons, but shot less than 15% of his shots at the Rim. Talk about providing spacing--a Center who rarely shoots at the Rim is incredibly valuable.
It's actually hilarious to think about how the answers to all the evolution in the NBA was staring us right in the face. My 1998 Pacers were one of the best teams to never win a title. They took the Bulls to 7 games and, had Jordan played like he did in the Finals against them, they would have easily won the series against the Bulls. But the starting line-up for the Pacers were all +10 or better Net-Rtg. They had Mullin, Reggie and Smits all providing incredibly valuable spacing around a playmaker (Mark Jackson) which allowed them to play two center line-ups to bolster their defense (they finished Top 5 in both Ortg and Drtg for the season).
Still bummed about us not winning a title with Reggie.
