Where do you all rank Reggie Miller as an all-time great?

[SlimShady83]

With the Pacers/Thunder series headed to game 7 as we speak, I love Reggie Millers passion towards his team as a Pacer, although in saying that being a Kobe/Laker fan always hated Reggie especially since a lot of my mates loved Reggie and I’d always go against my mates for fun haha – that’s another story and I’m drinking atm stay with me, cheers to all.

Reggie's Pacers I believe only reached the finals once and that was well, VS the Lakers in 2000 the start of Lakers 3peat Kudos and Lakers went 4-2 or 4-1 can’t remember exactly.

Vs Lakers Reggie averaged roughly 24pts, 4ast rounding off, 3 Reb all round.

But this thread isn’t just vs Lakers.

It’s about where Y’all rank Reggie Miller as an all-time great? so I’m leaving y’all with some videos and a poll, once again Cheers to all and happy Friday from an Aussie haha.

I want to see how biased or unbiased I am towards the poll as well, so choose wisley.

For The Poll: Yes, I see the double ups in 1-10 through to 10-20 etc. just comment on where you place him haha.

Watch on YouTube

;t=69s

Watch on YouTube

Watch on YouTube

[SunDevil]

Hard to properly rank him because he played in the wrong era for his playing style and skill set.

Could have been an all-time great in the modern era where he'd be encouraged to shoot as many 3 pointers as possible.

[FreeBird23]

20-30. I can't vote

[Braggins]

https://thinkingbasketball.net/2018/01/18/backpicks-goat-29-reggie-miller/

Watch on YouTube

[scrabbarista]

I don't have him top 50 and can't remember whether I even have him top 60 (voted 50-60), but I'm too big a fan of his game to be upset however high anyone wants to put him.

I'm pretty certain I at least have him top 70.

EDIT: I checked, and it looks like I have him 61st. But there's a big range available. You could put him top 50, and I wouldn't freak out.

[Deathray]

I don't have the energy to make a list but probably top 100 not top 70. All those years watching him I never felt like he had that big of an impact on games. His career VORP is high but he never had that stellar of a single season.

[2LeTTeRS]

Yeah all the choices are way too high. Reggie was a solid all-star who stepped up in big moments but his production was just too low. If he played now I imagine he'd take 7-10 more shots a game and be encouraged to spam 3s all game long, but he came along a few decades too early.

[rand]

Obviously an ATG shooter. An ATG off ball mover too. Scores high on longevity and intangibles (clutch, consistency, leadership). Playoff riser which is a big plus in my book. Has a truly iconic moment to his name with the 8 points in 9 seconds to pull a pivotal playoff game from the jaws of defeat (and of course the famous choke sign).

Low peak -- never Top-10 in MVP voting. Relatively weak accolades: only three 3rd Team All-NBA and five All-Star selections. Low offensive creativity. Not a plus playmaker. More reliant than the average ATG on teammates to get good scoring opportunities. Poor defender.

Around 50 sounds right to me. Too bad for Reggie he didn't play today, would have averaged 3-4 more PPG in his prime which would have supported more All-Star and All-NBA selections.

[dans1230]

I came here initially to say Reggie Miller is not an all time great, a very nice all star level player but maybe top 100 but probably a bit north of that. That was my gut instinct as someone who was watching basketball throughout Reggie's prime. However, after diving into his numbers a bit more, i may be ready to have him top 75. He played his entire 18 year career in Indy, leading the team in win shares 15 of those seasons. Just a 5 time all star where he scored a total of 40 points, but more importantly led his team to 144 playoff games where he averaged over 20ppg about 2 ppg above his career regular season. He rarely missed games and stayed controversy free.

[Percentsign]

I'd rank him about the same as Ray Allen

[jkvonny]

Pacers did good against the Lakers in 2000. Lost series 4-2. Could've won. Some close games and also lost one game in OT.

Reggie/Pacers teams were contenders during the '90s til mid '00s, many of those years. Lots of ECFs appearances.
Lost some tuff ECFs to the Bulls, Magic, Knicks, Pistons etc. Lot of them went 6/7 games. Pacers with Reggie should've went to the Finals more than once. Especially in 1995 (lost in 7 to Orlando), 1998 (lost to Bulls in 7), 1999 (lost to 8 seed Knicks in 6) , 2004 (lost to Pistons in 6).
1994 was close too (lost to Knicks in 7, led series 3-2).
1999 and 2004 they probably could've won it all.

2000, they finally broke through, beat Knicks in 6.
Indiana with Reggie were always competitive most years. Good teams. Smits, Workman, Davis brothers, Mullin, Travis Best, Austin Croshere, Metta, Steven Jackson, Jermaine O'Neal, Mark Jackson, coach Bird/Larry Brown/Carlisle , Jalen Rose, LaSalle Thompson, etc.
The Bulls were too tuff during the '90s , they would be in the Pacers way back then too.

Where is Reggie ranked? Maybe Top 20s/30s ish? Hard to say. He was Steph Curry like back then. Clutch player. Bullseye shooter from 3s and long range 2s.. Great FT shooter. Cocky player, Gritty defense. He would've fit in well in this modern era.
The Pacer teams would just come up short come playoff time tho. Unfortunately, couldn't win.a championship.

[xBulletproof]

He was so ahead of his time. He was one of the few at the time that would take open 3's on fast breaks.

Growing up watching Reggie and idolizing him, I remember in high school getting a steal and I was so ahead of everyone that I was by myself. Nobody in front of me, the team was caught flat footed and knew it was an easy layup, so they hadn't even crossed half court when I pulled up from 3, nothing but net. Still ... I could hear everyone in the crowd gasp and freak out. I can still pick out a couple of comments I heard trotting back down the floor .... "OMG that was lucky" .... "How stupid" .... "Well I guess that's confidence" ....

Now it's such a normal thing.

As far as the question, I'm not sure. I'd have to really sit and make a list to be sure, and I don't know if I have that kind of time to do that. But I'd assume 50-60. Maybe a little higher. Not sure.

[dhsilv2]

For a long time I was of the view that we overrated Reggie in that era. All the big games against the Knicks lead to this media thing that didn't match reality.

5x allstar
3x all nba

How did this guy make the hall with that? And the 75 team? Are we joking?

But then he had 7 top 15 VORP seasons. Why did he just make 3 all nba's?
9 top 20's...how did he only make 5 allstar teams?

Add to that 7 top 10 WS seasons...really 5x allstar and 3x all nba? With 7 top 10 finishes in WS? 11 total top 15 WS seasons...dude that alone is a top 50 career kinda thing.

But advanced box only metrics...maybe I'm missing something.

We only have the plus minus stuff back to 97 but maybe we can find an issue here.

1997 - xRAPM 4.0 and it shows he was a plus defender
1998 - 5.0 and even a stronger defensive season (BTW 11th)
1999 - 3.2 and here the defense dropped to where he was a slight negative still a stop all nbaish type XRAPM
2000 - 3.9 and we're right back up there to an ok to neutral defender and still top 20
2001 - Offense is still solid but yes 2.9 and the defense is dragging him down finally.
2002-05 - Reggie remained in the 90th or higher percentile for offense and his defense seemed to move from about 50th to 80th and generally wasn't a plus

OK to advanced box scores look really strong for Reggie given we're only seeing the end of his career.

Team results get harder but we see Miller leading the best offense in the league in 99 with a number of top 5 offenses. I certainly don't see many of his teammates as huge factors here.

While only 1 finals appearance he made a lot of conference finals.

Next his PER, WS/48, and BPM all went up in the playoffs. So he was a strong playoff performer which isn't normal.

I want to try and say well he was super efficient but he didn't shoot enough. I mean he only averaged 18.2 points per game. But back to the last point he averaged 20.6 points per game over an impressive 144 playoff games and he started his career with the shorter first rounds. And don't say those stats are because he missed the playoffs as he got older. Nope...he had 3 pretty poor scoring playoff runs to end his career. From 1990 to 2002 he averaged 23.5 points per game in the playoffs. He only had one season where he averaged that, so again...Miller absolutely dominated in the playoffs compared to the regular season.

So just recap.

11 - seasons where he played at least an allstar level.
7 - seasons i think we can fairly say he should have made the all nba team

Elite in terms of stepping up in the playoffs, he's on the Horry level with this only he's starting out as an allstar + level player.

Team success - while he doesn't have the rings, once you get outside the top 25 or so players, rings aren't as common anyway. He made 6 conference finals.

So yes, Reggie is clearly a top 50 player imo. While you might rank him a bit lower if you're focus is on peak and you don't lean into playoff stats. If you value longevity you could make a case for him near the top 30 mark. AT the end of the day 40ish feels right give or take 5 spots.

Pretty darn good for a guy I used to think was a step behind Ray Allen who I think is closer to 60th all time.

[SHAQ32]

Reggie over LeBron, offensively

[bledredwine]

Reggie is severely underrated simply because youngsters here will glance at his stats and think they aren't impressive since they aren't inflated.

He was a beast. I chose 30-40, as one should.

[Yoshun]

20-30. I can't vote

Yea, I have him at 21-29....

[Stan]

The guy never made an All-NBA 2nd Team and never finished top 10 in MVP voting. I appreciate he has plenty of clutch moments in the playoffs and helped lead Indy on several deep playoff runs, but I just don't see anyway you can put a player with that resume in the top 50, let alone top 30-40 like the majority believes.

[dhsilv2]

Reggie is severely underrated simply because youngsters here will glance at his stats and think they aren't impressive since they aren't inflated.

He was a beast. I chose 30-40, as one should.

He's 20th all time in WS and 24th all time in VORP. Youngers are far more likely to look at those metrics than anything else. The issue is his lack of allstar selections and all nba selections. But if any group "underrates" him, it's the people who watched him live. The younger generation will see his stats and think he's a top 20 guy.

[dhsilv2]

The guy never made an All-NBA 2nd Team and never finished top 10 in MVP voting. I appreciate he has plenty of clutch moments in the playoffs and helped lead Indy on several deep playoff runs, but I just don't see anyway you can put a player with that resume in the top 50, let alone top 30-40 like the majority believes.

So if sports writers were just wrong...we can't look back and see the stats, the games, and the results and correct their obviously wrong votes?

[nate33]

The guy never made an All-NBA 2nd Team and never finished top 10 in MVP voting. I appreciate he has plenty of clutch moments in the playoffs and helped lead Indy on several deep playoff runs, but I just don't see anyway you can put a player with that resume in the top 50, let alone top 30-40 like the majority believes.

Advanced stats weren't developed then, and Indiana was a small market team. Even the sports writers who made the MVP votes only saw him a few times a year on TNT. Frankly, it's much easier to argue that the MVP voters underrated him than to argue that the stats overrated him.

Finally, I would argue that Reggie Miller had a Curry-esque effect on his team's offensive spacing. The gravity he provided likely helped his teammates even more than his box score stats suggest. If we had the on/off data, I'd bet good money that Miller was among the best in the league at on/off differential.