Curmudgeon wrote:He was very, very good. He was a superstar in the ABA until age 27, when he moved to the NBA. Led the league in scoring in his rookie year, won a championship in 1975 playing pf alongside Artis Gilmore.
Issel was always a scorer, but the championship year was actually not a good one for him. They made him the 3rd option after Gilmore and Dampier and his scoring dropped to 17.7ppg (from an ABA average of 26.2) though when Gilmore sat, he moved into his more familiar 1st option role. It's never a good sign when you move a scorer from 1st option to 3rd option with the same personnel (Wil Jones was new but he was more a defensive specialist) and your team has its best year of your career.