RealGM 2017 Top 100 #98 (Bill Walton)

[euroleague]

Hmm, I may keep after you to provide a link, because I truly think you're mistaken/mis-remembering. I've done a bunch of google searches:

Connie Hawkins addiction
Connie Hawkins drugs
Connie Hawkins drug abuse
Connie Hawkins alcohol
Connie Hawkins cocaine

.....And I have turned up exactly zero indication or evidence of drug abuse. Not even an unsubstantiated accusation (outside of yours, that is). In my searches I turned up this thread about cocaine addicts in the ABA/NBA, and no one else mentions Hawkins within the context of drug abuse. So among all the well-read and knowledgeable posters in the RealGM community, you're the only one who has suggested it.

And though Hawkins is dead, this is a pretty slanderous accusation if it's not true.

It's literally the first result on google. If you read the biography and not just titles... this 'accusation' of a 70s player doing drugs is not slander at all even if I were mistaken.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nba.com/amp/league/article/2017/10/10/despite-interrupted-nba-career-connie-hawkins-fondly-remembered-peers

Apologies. fwiw, I WAS reading thru articles a bit, not just the titles. Not sure if I saw that one and just missed it (only seems to come up anywhere on the first page with the "Connie Hawkins drugs" search).

Still, this is a relatively brief and ambiguous mention of problems:

".......But Hawkins, due to knee surgery and drug and drinking habits, “had some mileage on him” by age 31, Colangelo said."

This vague mention of "habits" is a potentially a far cry from "he came into the NBA a coke addict".

The abrupt [and SEVERE] drop-off seen in the latter 11 rs games and playoffs of the '69 ABA season----just back from knee surgery----have me leaning more toward the injury/surgery as the primary cause of drop off.

Either way, the cause of decline isn't much of a factor in my criteria anyway; his career is what it is, and that's what I look at. I just wanted to make sure the accusation had some basis. Thank you for providing the link.

http://www.thegazette.com/2011/02/24/the-hawk-that-never-was
"Hawkins had a rough upbringing in the 1950’s in New York, 1 of 5 children to a blind mother, he would become a fixture on the street corner, smoking marijuana and drinking wine at the age of 13(ESPN Classic). Other than the street corner, Hawkins’ other sanctuary was the basketball court. Smaller as a kid he didn’t play organized basketball until he was a sophomore in high scool. With a growth spurt he quickly became dominant and made a name for himself."

[trex_8063]

http://www.thegazette.com/2011/02/24/the-hawk-that-never-was
"Hawkins had a rough upbringing in the 1950’s in New York, 1 of 5 children to a blind mother, he would become a fixture on the street corner, smoking marijuana and drinking wine at the age of 13(ESPN Classic). Other than the street corner, Hawkins’ other sanctuary was the basketball court. Smaller as a kid he didn’t play organized basketball until he was a sophomore in high scool. With a growth spurt he quickly became dominant and made a name for himself."

And?

I've a cousin who was drinking and smoking pot by age 15-16, and briefly forayed into cocaine in college. He's a grown professional who doesn't do any of that now (other than the occasional drink or two like most people).

Was a guy on my highschool basketball team who got drunk for the first time around age 14, and drank regularly all thru highschool (infrequently smoked pot too). He's part of the highschool faculty now, married, has kids, no addiction issues that I'm aware of.


If we assume everyone who dabbled in alcohol and/or pot as a teenager is an addict as an adult, I'd wager ~90% of North America are "addicts".

[penbeast0]

I think Euroleague has legitimately established a reasonable basis for comments about Hawkins . . . and ones I didn't know. (Unlike when I mixed up McAdoo and Haywood and made similar comments and rightfully got cut off at the knees)

[dhsilv2]

65 IQ? At that level, I can't imagine a player could be an elite basketball player. There's too much spacial awareness, timing...that can't be right.

[trex_8063]

Thru post #44:

Bill Walton - 4 (pandrade83, Outside, HeartBreakKid, euroleague)
Mel Daniels - 1 (penbeast0)
Tiny Archibald - 1 (Clyde Frazier)
Walt Bellamy - 1 (trex_8063)
Connie Hawkins - 1 (Doctor MJ)

About 10-11 hours until runoff. dhsilv2? SactoKingsFan?

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[LA Bird]

I am unsure about these picks since my list doesn't go this far but I might as well get a vote in before the project ends

1. Walt Bellamy
A highly efficient big man with good longevity. From the limited footage of the 60s, Bellamy looked pretty nice in terms of his fluidity on offense and passing. His pace-adjusted production outside the first 4 seasons was fairly consistent throughout his career which to me suggests his statistical declines may have more to do with the lane widening in 1965 and the increased competition at the center position from the mid 60s onward rather than from him getting lazy and overweight (like Shawn Kemp). It's quite worrying Bellamy was on trash defensive teams almost every year of the 60s as he moved from team to team but even with a negative defense, I think his offensive production was long enough to justify a vote here. His career box score stats is probably the best of anybody left and his WOWYR is solid.

2. Jeff Hornacek
One of the best shooters in history with the playmaking ability to play point guard if necessary. Maintains his offensive production well in the postseason and was consistently on great playoff teams even though he never won a title.

[SactoKingsFan]

Primary: Mel Daniels

Daniels has a very good resume at this point in the project. He was a 2x MVP, the most impactful player for 2 championship runs and a key contributor on another championship team. Known as an excellent defender, good efficient scorer and one of the leading rebounders. Longevity was problematic earlier in the project but his prime longevity doesn't look that bad compared to some of the other top candidates.


Alt: Dave DeBusschere

Sent from my Essential PH-1 using Tapatalk

[dhsilv2]

Vote Tiny

Sometimes great players are on bad teams. I keep hearing about how watered down the leagues were due to ABA and NBA competing and nobody thinks that possibly that also means we had stars on teams with guys unworthy of professional ball? Lets take a bit more of a look at the 73 KCO team.

Sam Lacey 2930 minutes 13.8 PER .044 WS/48
Matt Guokas 2846 MP 11.2 PER .044 WS/48
Nate Williams 1979 MP 12.9 PER .087 WS/48
Ron Riley 1634 MP 11.7 PER .000 WS/48
Tom Van Arsdale 1282 MP 13.0 PER 0.57 WS/48
Johnny Green 1245 MP 14.6 PER .141 WS/48
Don Kojis 1240 MP 14.8 PER 0.84 WS/48

Look at that group again and tell me how that group was the number 1 offense in the NBA? Now Arsdale who was traded had been an allstar prior. Lacey would have a long and ok career. But no matter how you slice it, this was a complete carry job.

1973 back when we had a prime Kareem, we had the tail end of Wilt, and here was a point guard leading the NBA in scoring and assists. Meanwhile AD is getting votes when he had no more success in the playoffs than Tiny did during his peak, and unlike AD, Tiny has quality years on a title contender post prime. Same for Walton.

Alt Joe Dumars

This is hard. AD as others have voted is interesting and I could go with him if we count this year. We aren't and I can't see a 49 WS with really 2015 as the only great season. I still saw too many defensive blunders that year. Then 16 he had to go and start shooting 3's, he got hurt a lot. 17 wasn't much better though e missed less games. Walton I've reviewed and I'm just not sold on that being a top 10 peak so the rest of his career really doesn't move the needle for me. Daniels dominated a bad ABA. Hawkins is based on at least the 1 article posted here mildly (Please Use More Appropriate Word) (65 IQ would fall into that range) which I have to question, but if true I can't even begin to question how simple and awful the offensive and defensive systems must have been in the ABA. Sure basketball isn't an IQ test but wow. Anyway 30 of his career 75 WS all came in 2 seasons in the ABA.

Honestly then we get into some guys like DeBusschere and Bellamy who I think are worthy of a place here, but I'm not sold on either being good defenders. If I just want longevity and a nice WS i'd rather go with Eddie Jones to a degree, less peak but a better defender.

So i'm just going with Dumars here, a throw away vote but maybe we can get some traction on the next round. I've said before I'm a peak guy, but at this point the peaks aren't that impressive or the player only had a peak. I'm willing to believe Dumar's defense isn't captured in the box score metrics as guard defense is harder to capture. I think Dumars was as big a factor in leadership and reliability as Isiah was on those Detroit title years (one of the reasons I think we have Thomas too high is likely that I give more credit to Dumars than some).

My next alt would be DJ for whatever that's worth.

[penbeast0]

...

Honestly then we get into some guys like DeBusschere and Bellamy who I think are worthy of a place here, but I'm not sold on either being good defenders. If I just want longevity and a nice WS i'd rather go with Eddie Jones to a degree, less peak but a better defender. ....

You aren't sold on Dave DeBusschere being a good defender? I'm hoping you meant something else by that; he may not be top 100 but he could definitely play defense.

[Owly]

Vote Tiny

Sometimes great players are on bad teams. I keep hearing about how watered down the leagues were due to ABA and NBA competing and nobody thinks that possibly that also means we had stars on teams with guys unworthy of professional ball? Lets take a bit more of a look at the 73 KCO team.

Sam Lacey 2930 minutes 13.8 PER .044 WS/48
Matt Guokas 2846 MP 11.2 PER .044 WS/48
Nate Williams 1979 MP 12.9 PER .087 WS/48
Ron Riley 1634 MP 11.7 PER .000 WS/48
Tom Van Arsdale 1282 MP 13.0 PER 0.57 WS/48
Johnny Green 1245 MP 14.6 PER .141 WS/48
Don Kojis 1240 MP 14.8 PER 0.84 WS/48

Look at that group again and tell me how that group was the number 1 offense in the NBA? Now Arsdale who was traded had been an allstar prior. Lacey would have a long and ok career. But no matter how you slice it, this was a complete carry job.

1973 back when we had a prime Kareem, we had the tail end of Wilt, and here was a point guard leading the NBA in scoring and assists. Meanwhile AD is getting votes when he had no more success in the playoffs than Tiny did during his peak, and unlike AD, Tiny has quality years on a title contender post prime. Same for Walton.

Hmmm ....
His team didn't do any better in the playoffs but he played way, way better - Davis leading the league in playoff PER and showing strong in other categories, where Tiny's only playoff performance is below average by PER and sub-replacement level by BPM and contributes negative Wins by WS/48. Also Davis is playing versus +10.01 SRS eventual champ Warriors, Archibald's are versus a solid Bulls team (+2.88 SRS). I mean I'm not sure I'd weigh it much because it's tiny samples. But if you're going to mention prime playoffs [in what little there is] ... Davis crushes Archibald.

Then too, for me I'd question "quality years" in Boston. I can't be certain but most metrics rate out Archibald's Boston seasons as below league average, and he's not some great non-boxscore defender. I'd also quibble with the claim that Walton has "quality years" [plural] on a contender.

There's also somewhat of a non-sequitur mentioning Wilt in a league with "a point guard leading the league in scoring and assists" - is late model Wilt supposed to be competing for these honours?

Whilst I disagree with Doctor MJ brushing off Nate's offensive impact on the basis that it didn't even mitigate their defense (I'd only accept that criticism at the margins in terms of the possibility the team traded defense for offense - or somewhat in a criticism of Archibald as a whole - i.e. saying he's a bad defender) - I can't help but think you simply do the same thing with Davis ...

Finally I'd note that where a "league leading" offense is being used as a big part of a case for Archibald ...
1) It was an outlier: the season prior with Archibald similarly productive, they were 0.1 Ortg above league average (and, fwiw, ranking 9th in a 17 team league); in Archibald's next best year, 1975, the team were 96.8 Ortg in a 97.7 average league. This might then be considered somewhat flukey.
2) At 2.9 Ortg above league average, an equivalent lead would not ordinarily get you the top offense. Such a gap would place you
tied for third in '69 (14 teams in the league, or 15 if you count the hypothetically inserted team)
third in '70 (14 teams)
third in '71 (17 teams)
fifth in '72 (17 teams)
third in '74 (17 teams)
first in '75 (18 teams)
first in '76 (18 teams)
tied for fourth in '77 (22 teams).
And this includes the era of parity. In historical terms, though it happened to lead the league, it is not of the quality you might expect to associate with that label, or a noteworthily good team historically in this aspect.

[dhsilv2]

...

Honestly then we get into some guys like DeBusschere and Bellamy who I think are worthy of a place here, but I'm not sold on either being good defenders. If I just want longevity and a nice WS i'd rather go with Eddie Jones to a degree, less peak but a better defender. ....

You aren't sold on Dave DeBusschere being a good defender? I'm hoping you meant something else by that; he may not be top 100 but he could definitely play defense.

Hmm, that is an incorrect statement. He was more a concern on offense. Most of my game film on him was later in his career where I wasn't a huge fan of what I was seeing.


But yeah wow....I was picturing a whole other player in my head with his hair and in a knicks jersey. Embarrassing...

[dhsilv2]

Vote Tiny

Sometimes great players are on bad teams. I keep hearing about how watered down the leagues were due to ABA and NBA competing and nobody thinks that possibly that also means we had stars on teams with guys unworthy of professional ball? Lets take a bit more of a look at the 73 KCO team.

Sam Lacey 2930 minutes 13.8 PER .044 WS/48
Matt Guokas 2846 MP 11.2 PER .044 WS/48
Nate Williams 1979 MP 12.9 PER .087 WS/48
Ron Riley 1634 MP 11.7 PER .000 WS/48
Tom Van Arsdale 1282 MP 13.0 PER 0.57 WS/48
Johnny Green 1245 MP 14.6 PER .141 WS/48
Don Kojis 1240 MP 14.8 PER 0.84 WS/48

Look at that group again and tell me how that group was the number 1 offense in the NBA? Now Arsdale who was traded had been an allstar prior. Lacey would have a long and ok career. But no matter how you slice it, this was a complete carry job.

1973 back when we had a prime Kareem, we had the tail end of Wilt, and here was a point guard leading the NBA in scoring and assists. Meanwhile AD is getting votes when he had no more success in the playoffs than Tiny did during his peak, and unlike AD, Tiny has quality years on a title contender post prime. Same for Walton.

Hmmm ....
His team didn't do any better in the playoffs but he played way, way better - Davis leading the league in playoff PER and showing strong in other categories, where Tiny's only playoff performance is below average by PER and sub-replacement level by BPM and contributes negative Wins by WS/48. Also Davis is playing versus +10.01 SRS eventual champ Warriors, Archibald's are versus a solid Bulls team (+2.88 SRS). I mean I'm not sure I'd weigh it much because it's tiny samples. But if you're going to mention prime playoffs [in what little there is] ... Davis crushes Archibald.

Then too, for me I'd question "quality years" in Boston. I can't be certain but most metrics rate out Archibald's Boston seasons as below league average, and he's not some great non-boxscore defender. I'd also quibble with the claim that Walton has "quality years" [plural] on a contender.

There's also somewhat of a non-sequitur mentioning Wilt in a league with "a point guard leading the league in scoring and assists" - is late model Wilt supposed to be competing for these honours?

Whilst I disagree with Doctor MJ brushing off Nate's offensive impact on the basis that it didn't even mitigate their defense (I'd only accept that criticism at the margins in terms of the possibility the team traded defense for offense - or somewhat in a criticism of Archibald as a whole - i.e. saying he's a bad defender) - I can't help but think you simply do the same thing with Davis ...

Finally I'd note that where a "league leading" offense is being used as a big part of a case for Archibald ...
1) It was an outlier: the season prior with Archibald similarly productive, they were 0.1 Ortg above league average (and, fwiw, ranking 9th in a 17 team league); in Archibald's next best year, 1975, the team were 96.8 Ortg in a 97.7 average league. This might then be considered somewhat flukey.
2) At 2.9 Ortg above league average, an equivalent lead would not ordinarily get you the top offense. Such a gap would place you
tied for third in '69 (14 teams in the league, or 15 if you count the hypothetically inserted team)
third in '70 (14 teams)
third in '71 (17 teams)
fifth in '72 (17 teams)
third in '74 (17 teams)
first in '75 (18 teams)
first in '76 (18 teams)
tied for fourth in '77 (22 teams).
And this includes the era of parity. In historical terms, though it happened to lead the league, it is not of the quality you might expect to associate with that label, or a noteworthily good team historically in this aspect.

Wilt had an 18+ WS in 73, yes it was an old Wilt, but by no means was he not still a top tier player in the league. Given the WS alone I think I'm fine using wilt there, everyone here posting is aware of the year and unlike many fringe players at this level, most have a good idea of Wilt's career here. If this were a different group, I might have expanded on that more.

As for AD the point was more to show that there's no meaningful gap between AD and Tiny for their peaks, not to proclaim Tiny's is better. I think we can agree AD is the better defender, but the roles in positions are night and day different. It is interesting to consider if Tiny's best offense year was a fluke, but similarly AD making the playoffs was a fluke. The talent around Tiny to me looks worse, but I'm open for disagreement there, neither had talent around them. As for playoffs, the sample size is just too small for me to draw any conclusion whatsoever. Playoffs here would be a place for AD to get extra credit and for me, I can't draw any conclusion out of a sweep. My memory of that series was that the warriors weren't overly concerned about AD getting his as long as the rest of the team did nothing. But I have'nt rewatched that series since it happened so I might be way off base.

[trex_8063]

Thru post #52:

Bill Walton - 4 (pandrade83, Outside, HeartBreakKid, euroleague)
Mel Daniels - 2 (SactoKingsFan, penbeast0)
Tiny Archibald - 2 (Clyde Frazier, dhsilv2)
Walt Bellamy - 2 (trex_8063, LABird)
Connie Hawkins - 1 (Doctor MJ)

Walton obv is in the runoff again. Going to the secondary votes to see if we can further narrow things down: among those with two votes, Mel Daniels also has a couple secondary votes, while Tiny and Walt have none. So we'll go to runoff between Daniels and Walton:

Bill Walton - 5 (Doctor MJ, pandrade83, Outside, HeartBreakKid, euroleague)
Mel Daniels - 3 (Clyde Frazier, SactoKingsFan, penbeast0)


If your name isn't shown here, please state your pick between Mel and Bill with reasons why.

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[penbeast0]

One season where the star center can make a pretty average team a championship contender v. 5 seasons where the star center can make a very good team a championship contender. Walton is clearly the more transcendent player; Daniels the consistent steady star.

[pandrade83]

A couple issues I've had with Daniels in this project:

1) The obvious - he peaked in a weaker league when pro-basketball was diluted by 27 total teams by the time Daniels won his final championship.
2) I haven't been that impressed with his tape against Gilmore - one of the reasons I'm not as high on him as others is that I'm dubious he would've been successful playing against the other elite centers of the era - i.e. - had the leagues been merged would he have held up against Wilt, Kareem, Cowens, Unseld, Lanier, etc. This is further reinforced in my mind by the massive leap that Beaty took in '71 after not playing in '70. It's not that the ABA didn't have good players - it's moreso that the positional distribution of the good players was different than the NBA.

If you don't have time to watch game tape - look at the playoff results which have more complete box scores.

https://www.basketball-reference.com/play-index/h2h_finder.cgi?request=1&player_id1_hint=Artis+Gilmore&player_id1_select=Artis+Gilmore&player_id1=gilmoar01&idx=players&player_id2_hint=Mel+Daniels&player_id2_select=Mel+Daniels&player_id2=danieme01&idx=players

[dhsilv2]

A couple issues I've had with Daniels in this project:

1) The obvious - he peaked in a weaker league when pro-basketball was diluted by 27 total teams by the time Daniels won his final championship.
2) I haven't been that impressed with his tape against Gilmore - one of the reasons I'm not as high on him as others is that I'm dubious he would've been successful playing against the other elite centers of the era - i.e. - had the leagues been merged would he have held up against Wilt, Kareem, Cowens, Unseld, Lanier, etc. This is further reinforced in my mind by the massive leap that Beaty took in '71 after not playing in '70. It's not that the ABA didn't have good players - it's moreso that the positional distribution of the good players was different than the NBA.

If you don't have time to watch game tape - look at the playoff results which have more complete box scores.

https://www.basketball-reference.com/play-index/h2h_finder.cgi?request=1&player_id1_hint=Artis+Gilmore&player_id1_select=Artis+Gilmore&player_id1=gilmoar01&idx=players&player_id2_hint=Mel+Daniels&player_id2_select=Mel+Daniels&player_id2=danieme01&idx=players

Would be more helpful if they had rebounds in there, what's up with that basketball reference?

[dhsilv2]

YUCK! Not upset with these choices, but that I have to make a choice. Not the first time, and I know we've all had to do it so I can't complain.

50% WS edge of Danials but in a lesser league. Huge playoff edge for daniels and 3 titles.

I'll vote later if it's needed, but I don't want to be the deciding vote here. Maybe I'll watch some film on Daniels and see if there's more there. On paper it's Daniels by an inch or two for me, but with Walton I at least kinda know his game. Daniels I've just seen like 2 highlight clips and then part of a really bad video of game play (and that was a while ago).

[trex_8063]

I'm going to go with Daniels in this runoff. Walton clearly peaked higher, but when we're talking about Walton's <2 prime seasons + perhaps 3-4 lesser years (where injuries were still problematic, except for '86), vs. Daniels and his 5-6 year prime and 2-3 additional non-prime years (all relatively injury-free), I think he edges out Walton in career value.

Looked at in terms of rs minutes played, Daniels played literally 70% more minutes than Walton, a gap which is arguably wider in practical terms, given they came in just over 8 seasons, whereas Walton's came in 10 seasons (spread out over 13 years in which he was drawing salary). To illustrate what I mean, I'd present an exaggerated hypothetical.....

Suppose we have two players (Player A and Player B) who each played 75 games, for the exact same number of minutes, with the exact same box-stats to show for it, for similar teams and similar impact profiles (let's say we have RAPM for them)........but Player A's 75 games all happened in the same season, while Player B played 5 games per year for 15 years (drawing salary all 15).

Who helped his team more? I would say clearly Player A, as 5 games is just a drop in the bucket in an 82-game season. No matter how good Player B is, he's not really shifting the needle for the team in any given season. Now obv Walton wasn't so injured that he was just playing 5 games per year (though sadly, much of his career is not far off of this hypothetical!). To me, that somewhat accentuates the minute gap.

I feel bad for Walton's supporters; he was a phenomenal player for just under two seasons, and I can totally see where people are coming from wanting to include him in the top 100. But I just can't value those two years (missing 41 rs games and basically all of one playoffs) over Daniels' FIVE healthy prime years.

Runoff vote: Mel Daniels

[pandrade83]

A couple issues I've had with Daniels in this project:

1) The obvious - he peaked in a weaker league when pro-basketball was diluted by 27 total teams by the time Daniels won his final championship.
2) I haven't been that impressed with his tape against Gilmore - one of the reasons I'm not as high on him as others is that I'm dubious he would've been successful playing against the other elite centers of the era - i.e. - had the leagues been merged would he have held up against Wilt, Kareem, Cowens, Unseld, Lanier, etc. This is further reinforced in my mind by the massive leap that Beaty took in '71 after not playing in '70. It's not that the ABA didn't have good players - it's moreso that the positional distribution of the good players was different than the NBA.

If you don't have time to watch game tape - look at the playoff results which have more complete box scores.

https://www.basketball-reference.com/play-index/h2h_finder.cgi?request=1&player_id1_hint=Artis+Gilmore&player_id1_select=Artis+Gilmore&player_id1=gilmoar01&idx=players&player_id2_hint=Mel+Daniels&player_id2_select=Mel+Daniels&player_id2=danieme01&idx=players

Would be more helpful if they had rebounds in there, what's up with that basketball reference?

I summed the playoff games with detailed box scores from the '73 Finals (won by Indy in 7).

Daniels: 16.1 ppg, 13.3 rpg, 2.4 apg, 1.9 tovpg, 4 fouls per game, 2 bpg, 0.3 spg, 44.5% TS
Gilmore: 22.1 ppg, 17.3 rpg, 5.3 apg, 3.4 tovpg, 4.4 fouls per game, 4 bpg, 0.3 spg, 56% TS

That's pretty ugly for Daniels on the offensive end. It looks like he held up well defensively despite getting in foul trouble.

Still - had he had to play his whole career in the NBA, I think we see his offensive #'s take a big dive and he certainly isn't winning any MVP's.

This tape quality is really bad but it gives you a glimpse of what the two were like going up against each other. Daniels strikes me as overmatched.

Watch on YouTube

[Clyde Frazier]

Mel was the workhorse on that team. Mel just put the fear in people.

-- Julius Erving

Per Pat Cosgrove via Remember The ABA:

During Game 5 of the 1971-72 ABA Finals against the Nets, Daniels made a couple of plays (in succession) that I'll never forget. As I recall, the series was tied 2-2 and the Nets jumped out to a huge lead on the Pacers home court. The Pacers staged a wild rally -- mainly due to a 3-point barrage by Billy Keller. However, the Nets looked like they would hold on for the upset. Rick Barry hit a couple of big hoops and then made a spectacular move to get past Roger Brown. He seemed to be cruising in for an easy left-handed layup. But Daniels came out of nowhere to reject the shot right into the hands of Freddie Lewis. Lewis then led the break and dished off to a hard-charging Daniels -- who dunked and was fouled.

The momentum reverted to the Pacers and they won that crucial contest. If this sequence had occurred in the NBA Finals, you can be sure that we would have seen the film replayed as much as Willie Mays' catch in the '54 World Series.

Watch on YouTube

Watch on YouTube