Honorable Mentions

[trex_8063]

I know everyone's glad to be at the end of the project, but I wondered if I could get just a tiny bit more participation from you for something new [from the last project]. I'm notifying only those who [at least sporadically] participated in the late stages of the project (though any of our registered panel is free to be heard).
There are so many great players ultimately left off the list, I'd like to hear from everyone their TOP TEN honorable mentions (in no particular order). Feel free to mention as many as you like, but please clearly stipulate who the TOP TEN are for you. You can provide as little or as much arguments as you like (or none at all, since this is an "extra effort" I'm asking of you).

Then I'm going to make a weighted top 10 HM's based on the number of mentions each player gets (this will be sort of like an unofficial #101-110).

Spoiler:

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

3/19/18 UPDATE:

OK, 10 of us provided his top 10 HM's. As an implication of how close it is this far out on an all-time list, there were thirty-three players who received at least one top-10 mention (plus at least a handful of others who were name-dropped conversationally). Here's the break-down......

Dave DeBusschere
Joe Dumars
^^^^7 mentions each

Shawn Kemp
Chris Mullin
^^^^6 mentions each

Marques Johnson
Mark Price
^^^^5 mentions each

Tiny Archibald
Jeff Hornacek
Dennis Johnson
Bernard King
Jerry Lucas
Bill Laimbeer
Bill Sharman
^^^^4 mentions each

LaMarcus Aldridge
Walt Bellamy
Cliff Hagan
Eddie Jones
George McGinnis
Mitch Richmond
^^^^3 mentions each

Anthony Davis
Penny Hardaway
Arvydas Sabonis
Buck Williams
^^^^2 mentions each

Zelmo Beaty
Draymond Green
Blake Griffin
Bailey Howell
Lou Hudson
Andre Iguodala
Yao Ming
Detlef Schrempf
David Thompson
Lenny Wilkens
^^^^1 mention each

[trex_8063]

For me, I'm tentatively going with the following 10 guys as my top HM's....

Walt Bellamy
Dave DeBusschere
Joe Dumars
Shawn Kemp
Marques Johnson
George McGinnis
Jeff Hornacek
Jerry Lucas
Cliff Hagan
Dennis Johnson


There are certainly several others who deserve a mention and who you can make a fair top 100 argument for: Chris Mullin, Neil Johnston, Bailey Howell, Bill Sharman, Bill Laimbeer, Amar'e Stoudemire, Bob Dandridge, Mitch Richmond, Zelmo Beaty, Yao Ming, Tiny Archibald, Buck Williams (and perhaps still others worth mentioning: Gus Williams, Lenny Wilkens, Sam Cassell, LaMarcus Aldridge, etc........there's just so many players worthy of consideration here, imo).

[penbeast0]

Bill Sharman, Cliff Hagan, Marques Johnson, Jerry Lucas, Zelmo Beaty...

Adding: DeBusschere, Dumars, DJ, Tiny, and Mitch Richmond

[pandrade83]

Anthony Davis
Buck Williams
Chris Mullin
Shawn Kemp
Mark Price
Anfernee Hardaway
George McGinnis
Dennis Johnson
Bill Laimbeer
Jeff Horancek

[HeartBreakKid]

Bernard King
Cliff Hagan
Chris Mullin
Blake Griffin
Arvydas Sabonis
Yao Ming
Mark Price
Penny Hardaway
Shawn Kemp
Anthony Davis

Edit: Replaced Bellamy with King.

[trex_8063]

Bill Sharman, Cliff Hagan, Marques Johnson, Jerry Lucas, Zelmo Beaty...

Will have to think about going further

Drop and gimme ten! Wouldn't be fair to include your mentions in a weighted amalgamation if everyone picks ten except you, so give it some thought and get back to me.

penbeast0 said (I think you meant to quote, and not edit my post ):
"Watching for ideas . . . Mark Price wasn't in your list for example. I will get it to you by whenever your deadline is."

[Clyde Frazier]

-

Great idea! Busy day, but will get my 10 in as soon as I can.

[Outside]

Thank you, Trex, for doing this, on top of all the thanks you deserve for your work on the project. Moderating and tabulating on top of the in-depth posts -- I don't know where you found the time, but I appreciate that you did.

Whittling it down to 10 was hard. I started with a list of 25.

My 10
Walt Bellamy
Bernard King
Dave DeBusschere
Jerry Lucas
Joe Dumars
Nate Archibald
Buck Williams
Marques Johnson
Lenny Wilkens
Lou Hudson

It pains me to leave these guys out of the 10, please use quantum mechanics to fit them in
Dennis Johnson
Bob Dandridge

Honorable mentions for honorable mention
Gail Goodrich
Bill Sharman
Earl Monroe
Chris Mullin
Gus Williams
Gus Johnson
Tom Heinsohn
Jamaal Wilkes
Mitch Richmond
Guy Rodgers
JoJo White
Yao Ming
Paul Westphal

We've been blessed with so many good players.

[HeartBreakKid]

Bernard King
Cliff Hagen
Chris Mullin
Blake Griffin
Arvydas Sabonis
Yao Ming
Mark Price
Penny Hardaway
Shawn Kemp
Anthony Davis

Edited, I replaced Bellamy with Bernard King.

[SactoKingsFan]

Dave DeBusschere
Shawn Kemp
Mitch Richmond
Marques Johnson
Jeff Hornacek
Chris Mullin
LaMarcus Aldridge
Bill Laimbeer
Joe Dumars
Eddie Jones



Sent from my Essential PH-1 using Tapatalk

[dhsilv2]

Numbers are for my counting needs not ranking

Biggest omission from this project is Aldridge, I don't think he got mentioned once, thanks to SactoKingsFan for adding him.

1 Tiny
2 Dumars
3 Dennis Johnson
4 Laimbeer
5 Sharman
6 Kemp
7 Mullin
8 Eddie Jones
9 LaMarcus Aldridge (I feel bad I didn't mention him vs Davis, no question he should be over AD looking their careers) Playoff choker perhaps though...still really great career to not have even gotten a mention.
10 Mark Price (massively underrated offensive player imo)

I feel bad not listing King, Penny (he's got a better case than I originally was thinking), Richmond (overrated often but he shouldn't get ignored), buck williams (not my kinda player but unquestionably a quality choice), Bellamy another very worthy guy, and gosh so many.

I honestly wish we had more people interested in getting this list to 200. I'm somewhat glad I wasn't part of the top 15 or so, as that's when everyone posts and everyone gets so worried about getting the right rank for that group and then we lack enough people debating the more interesting groupings in the 50-100 range.

Anyway thanks to everyone who was a part of this, I really feel I gained some great knowledge of the history of the game. Hope to be a part of the next one and hope to only gain more knowledge.

[LA Bird]

Top 10 honorable mentions:

Walt Bellamy
Jeff Hornacek
Bill Laimbeer
Detlef Schrempf
Lamarcus Aldridge
Eddie Jones
Andre Iguodala
Dave DeBusschere
Bailey Howell
Shawn Kemp?

[dhsilv2]

damn schrempf is a good call

[Doctor MJ]

Totally edited this after thinking about it more:

Bernard King
Bill Sharman
Joe Dumars
Chris Mullin
Mitch Richmond
Dave DeBusschere
Mark Price
Marques Johnson
Draymond Green
Arvydas Sabonis

Not going to explain everything, but a few thoughts:

Bernard King was the guy I hadn't realize didn't make the Top 100. I just assumed he was in.

Bill Sharman is the oldtimer most worthy of inclusion. His brain and his shot were a marvel.

Originally had Dennis Johnson instead of Mark Price. The more I thought about it, the more I'd take Price ahead.

Originally had Andre Iguodala instead of Draymond Green. I'll start with Iguodala which I expected to be seen as an odd pick. I think though that the reality is that if you compared Iguodala to any other current player not in our 100, he's accomplished more.

Thing is though, Draymond is already an icon who really could make the Hall right now.

I'll note some reluctance in having either of those two ahead of Anthony Davis. Green in particular seems absurd because I'd draft Davis over him again without any hesitation. But '17-18 doesn't count, and '17-18 has really re-shaped the previously discouraging arc of Davis' career.

One other note: Obviously I'm not taking the order that seriously. I'm not refusing to order them, it's just not fun to me if I have to worry too much about that.

[dhsilv2]

For the Sabonis fans, any thoughts on why? Love the guy myself but 470 games, 9.7 vs and 3.8 VORP as a peak seems a bit weak for a top 125 pick.

I debated him and decided he was a bit too short careered and didn't peak that high. Plus I love me some Sabonis talk

[Doctor MJ]

For the Sabonis fans, any thoughts on why? Love the guy myself but 470 games, 9.7 vs and 3.8 VORP as a peak seems a bit weak for a top 125 pick.

I debated him and decided he was a bit too short careered and didn't peak that high. Plus I love me some Sabonis talk

Well he is someone with 45+ Win Shares who was almost certainly considerably more valuable than his box score stats indicate.

Realistically though I'm including him because he deserves an Honorable Mention as the guy not on the list who actually might've been the GOAT had we seen him play in the NBA his whole career.

[dhsilv2]

For the Sabonis fans, any thoughts on why? Love the guy myself but 470 games, 9.7 vs and 3.8 VORP as a peak seems a bit weak for a top 125 pick.

I debated him and decided he was a bit too short careered and didn't peak that high. Plus I love me some Sabonis talk

Well he is someone with 45+ Win Shares who was almost certainly considerably more valuable than his box score stats indicate.

Realistically though I'm including him because he deserves an Honorable Mention as the guy not on the list who actually might've been the GOAT had we seen him play in the NBA his whole career.

Fair enough. Seems wrong given those who did, but I get that.

[HeartBreakKid]

Is the list supposed to be NBA exclusive?

[trex_8063]

Is the list supposed to be NBA exclusive?

NBA/ABA/BAA (and NBL back as far as '47). Technically, pro ball outside of North America (or any pro ball pre-'47) was not to be considered.

[Doctor MJ]

For the Sabonis fans, any thoughts on why? Love the guy myself but 470 games, 9.7 vs and 3.8 VORP as a peak seems a bit weak for a top 125 pick.

I debated him and decided he was a bit too short careered and didn't peak that high. Plus I love me some Sabonis talk

Well he is someone with 45+ Win Shares who was almost certainly considerably more valuable than his box score stats indicate.

Realistically though I'm including him because he deserves an Honorable Mention as the guy not on the list who actually might've been the GOAT had we seen him play in the NBA his whole career.

Fair enough. Seems wrong given those who did, but I get that.

Well look, if people want me to take him off my list, I will.

I'll say one other thing:

When I was first in one of these projects on the PC board, Sabonis was in our Top 50. Since then Top 100 projects have been more restrictive - including a time when Mikan wasn't included on the project. Literally no one doubts that Sabonis was a Top 100 player though, so while I wasn't going to advocate for Sabonis in the project, he was the first player who came to mind when I thought about "Honorable Mention". In terms of which of the guys on our HM lists are worth spending words discussing, the answer is Sabonis and then a massive chasm before anyone else.

But I'll take him off my list if people want. Probably put Dennis Johnson back on my list.