NBA trivia thread

[Owly]

Who was the player who led his championship team in scoring during the regular season and didn't make the all star game that year but had 3 teammates who did?

I first thought it was a team from the 1950s and then I remembered a player who was a great scorer but never an all-star.

Byron Scott

Scott was the right answer in 88.
My bad for not knowing any C's from the 60s but I believe Hondo was the first 6th man of a team to make an all star team. I think he even started. 2nd one was Kobe in 98.

Assume this is clunky phrasing (I initially and I think would naturally refer "2nd one was" in 3rd sentence back to "was the first" in first sentence [make the team]) and intended meaning is Kobe is 2nd AS starter [2nd sentence].

Otherwise we'd have to note the likes of '84 McHale, '91 Pierce ('93 Schrempf could be mentioned as a fringe case wrt starts up to the point of ASG).

[Ginoboleee]

Not a question.
Just a few (well-known?) factoids about The Mailman.

*In his 19 year career, he played in 1,476 RS games... and started every single one of them except for 5 during his rookie year (the first two games of the season, and then a few around New Year's). He also started all 193 playoff games as well.

*In his 18 years on the Jazz (so here we are leaving out his last year when he was on the Lakers and got hurt), he played in all but 10 games. I knew he "delivered" practically all the time, but I didn't remember how extreme the availability/durability/consistency/reliability actually was. Cat missed basically 1 game every other season for 18 years. Incredible. No wonder he had a shot at Kareem's record until Father Time made a late comeback and finally got to the Mailman in year 19.

*One more thing about that last year on the Lakers. We all know (well, many of us vividly remember lol) how Mailman took the Jazz to 2 Finals against MJ. In each of those runs, the Jazz played 20 playoff games total. But in that final season on the Lakers, the one where he missed half the season with injury, a Lakers season that has to a degree faded from the collective memory... yeah well he actually played in 21 playoff games total in that run, so the Mailman went out with another reliable run!

*Though it is true they got Gentleman Swept by the Juggernaut Detroit Pistons that were themselves stacked with 4 Future Hall of Famers themselves. Oh wait, hold on now, I'm hearing from the Control Room that there was an error in what I was reading from. This is the right draft now? Geez. Yes, got it. Ok, here we go. Correction: got Gentleman Swept by the Pistons who had No Legit Hall of Famers Whatsoever.

(We can talk about the Wallaces and Chauncey some other time. They took OUT Shaq, Kobe, Karl, Glove. Gosh, I wonder if there are qualitative/morale/comradery/personality factors that might be just a WEE bit more important than a bunch of stats on paper. Nah. That would mean we need to study history a whole lot more, forget that, what a hassle.)