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Criteria: Take into account both peak and career play, era dominance, impact on the game of basketball, and how well their style of play and skills would transcend onto different eras. To be more exact, how great they were at playing the game of basketball.

Voting Will End In 2 Days -- Please vote and nominate

NOTE: PEOPLE HAVE NOT BEEN POSTING DISCUSSION FOR THEIR CHOICES RECENTLY. LISTS WITHOUT DISCUSSION WILL NOT BE COUNTED IN THE FINALS VOTE

Dave DeBusschere

Hall of Fame 1983
1x All-NBA 2nd Team
2x NBA Champion
6x All-Defense 1st Team
8x All-Star

Tim Hardaway

1x 1st Team All-NBA
3x 2nd Team All-NBA
1x 3rd Team All-NBA
5x All-Star

Carmelo Anthony

1x All-NBA 2nd
3x All-NBA 3rd
4x All-Star


Gus Williams

1x 1st team All-NBA
1x 2nd team All-NBA
NBA Champion 1979
2x All-Star

Bill Laimbeer

2x NBA Champion
4x All-Star


Brad Daugherty

1x NBA 3rd Team
5x All-Star


Jerry Lucas

3x All-NBA 1st team
2x All-NBA 2nd team
1 NBA Championship 1973
Rookie of the Year 1964
7x All-Star


NOTE: PEOPLE HAVE NOT BEEN POSTING DISCUSSION FOR THEIR CHOICES RECENTLY. LISTS WITHOUT DISCUSSION WILL NOT BE COUNTED IN THE FINALS VOTE

VOTE:

The best scorer is Carmelo. Lots of good second option types such as Lucas, Daugherty, and Gus Williams; possibly even Timbug though his poorer efficiency probably drops him behind all the others but Daugherty. None of these guys have any defensive chops though.

Defensively, DeBusschere and Laimbeer stand out but they are way behind any of the other players offensively; well behind guys like Shawn Marion too.

Secondary attributes, you have Jerry Lucas who is a near GOAT level PF rebounder and Tim Hardaway who is a very good distributor. Laimbeer, DeBusschere, and Carmelo are solid rebounders but not on the Lucas level; Gus Williams was an average distributor for a PG.

I think Lucas is one of those guys who you may not like much. Like Michael Jordan or Wilt, he was focused on his own stats and unlike them, he wasn’t a good defender, but his numbers are so much more dominant than any of his competition here, I think you have to accept his limitations and vote him in. He’s Kevin Love with a long prime of years like last year – that’s a HOF player.

VOTE JERRY LUCAS

Among the nominees, Shawn Marion is pretty clearly the cream of the crop. Amare was/is a better offensive player but Marion was much more important to those Suns teams providing great rebounding and defense as well as good offense -- notice that when Amare went out for a year, Nash and Marion kept the Suns at the same high level. Nash got an MVP; Marion's contribution gets ignored for some reason. For that matter I'd favor Terry Cummings over Amare too though I could see a stronger argument the other way.

On the wings, Hudson and Mullin were both pure shooters, Mullin also a good passer, but both were poor defenders and neither were the kind of first option you can build around. As a second option, Marion is far superior; providing a level of scoring not that much below (3 point shooting is almost even actually -- 0.7 out of 2.3 attempts for Marion; 0.8 out of 2.2 attempts for Mullin) and Marion provides outstanding defense and rebounding where both Hudson and Mullin were below average.

NOMINATE SHAWN MARION

Wow down to 5 votes last time

Vote Gus Williams

Nominate Chris Mullin

Been voting Williams for a number of threads. Elite penetrator, big in the playoffs - followed Billups career path as the offensive driving force of a title team and then statistically took it up after

Will switch to Mullin who I have close to level with Hudson but whom seems like he'll get more support. Shooting, good fit with teammates, high basketball IQ for both

Vote: Gus Williams

Nominate: Amar'e Stoudemire

Exact same reasons as before.

I might be willing to change to somebody else for the nomination, but I do think Amar'e is deserving. All-NBA first team guy, made a few Western Conference Finals, great playoff performer. He's proven himself to be effective as the lone gun.

I'm going to vote Gus WIlliams for aforementioned reasons.

I'm going to nominate Chris Mullin again. Great player as cited in the #91 topic.

Pretty tough to get worked up about any of these candidates in a good way to be honest. I'll go with:

Vote: Jerry Lucas

Lucas is a guy whose level of legend-ness seems completely overblown. "How can he be Top 50 when he was never a serious MVP candidate and only made All-NBA 1st team 3 times?"

That resume though still puts him well ahead of the rest of these guys. I'm honestly just shocked that a two-time all-star who was never a serious MVP candidate is about to go in over him.

Nominate: Chris Mullin

I'll jump back on the Mullin bandwagon. Tons of respect for the guy. Might even vote him in over anyone listed above.

Well, Manu is a 2x all-star who was never an MVP candidate and he went 60th... Miller was a 3x all-star who was never an MVP candidate and he went 42nd... Nance, Brand, Deron, etc. among recent players didn't ge thigher... Gus Williams' accolades are above all of those players in pretty much an indisputable way... So it's not inconsistent with the way we've (rightly) bypassed accolades in some cases...

I'm taking Brad Daugherty here. He was the Pau Gasol of his time a career 19 ppg and 9.5 rpg player who was arguably the best player on the Cavs teams especially in 1989 when they led the league in SRS rating and Expected W-L record. Also was a 5x allstar

Nominate: Mitch Richmond

He was a 6x allstar who made the all nba 2nd team a few times in the 90's.

VOTE

Jerry Lucas – penbeast0, Doctor MJ

Gus Williams – Dr Mufasa

Brad Daugherty -- JordansBulls


NOMINATE

Shawn Marion – penbeast0

Chris Mullin – Dr Mufasa, Doctor MJ

Amare Stoudamire – ronnymac2

Mitch Richmond – JordansBulls



No argument presented – lukekarts, ronnymac2 (voting)

I am going to leave this open for a bit to see if lukekars or ronnymac2 justify their votes but as I said in the OP, votes without justification do not count.

Vote: Melo

Excellent scorer, very good rebounder, not so great as a passer, and a pretty poor defender (one of those "he could if he wanted to" guys, which just bothers me). I'm not a fan of his game really, but out of the candidates, I think he's clearly the best player here. If covered by a great defensive big man, his offensive value would make him a very valuable player to have, as his skillset allows him to score in any situation.

Nominate: Dandridge

Compared many times throughout the project to guys like Worthy and Marion. I brought him up a few times before, which was a probably a little early, but it's a probably a little late now. He was actually more of a 2nd option than Marion or Worthy, who were more 3rd option players than Dandridge was. Dandridge begins as a 3rd option behind Kareem and Oscar on some fantastic Bucks teams, including the 71 championship team. In fact, he's the 2nd leading scorer on the team in the 71 playoffs.

After Kareem leaves in 75, Dandridge takes over as best player on the team, and he actually leads them to an identical record from the previous season, and a playoff berth. Then in 78 and 79, when Dandridge is in Washington, he plays 2nd option to Elvin Hayes, and the Bullets win the championship in 78. You could actually make the argument that Dandridge is the best scorer on the team. In fact, in the 79 playoffs, Dandridge goes for 23/7/6 on 53% TS (the Bullets make the Finals this year), compared to Hayes's 23/14/2 on 47% TS, and Unseld's 10/13/3 on 52% TS.

Overall, Dandridge is a very good scorer and rebounder (around 10% TRB as a swingman), and he proved throughout his career that he can fit on excellent teams and give them a legitimate 2nd/3rd option scorer, and he was even the 1st option scorer on a playoff team.

^ I was actually thinking about Dandridge.

This would have been an awesome time to bring out Omar Little's "Boy, you got me confused with a man who repeat himself" quote.

Vote: Gus Williams

Just to defend Gus a little bit...he was on successful teams, that apparently were defense-first teams. Defense is "how they won." Some see this as a glaring back mark on a player- that he's primarily just an offensive piece on a successful team that yields it's success through elite defense with average offense.

Gus was a home run-hitter on offense, the guy who creates and allows his teams to A.) play that defensive style and/or B.) give enough offense to score more than the other team.

You still need to score more points than the other team. If Gus the Lynchpin was replaced by an average guard, Seattle is much less successful. DJ and SIkma likely can't elevate that team to strong defensive ratings if they need to anchor the offense, and they'd lose out offensively as well. You're looking at a team in the bottom quarter of the league without Gus. DJ was a solid offensive player- a great fit on Boston later in his career, when he was basically the fourth option, sometimes the fifth option- but he could never do the important function that Gus performed.

Also, Seattle had better SRSs after they won their title. That also coincided with Gus having a bigger role on the team.

Dr Mufasa wrote:Well, Manu is a 2x all-star who was never an MVP candidate and he went 60th... Miller was a 3x all-star who was never an MVP candidate and he went 42nd... Nance, Brand, Deron, etc. among recent players didn't ge thigher... Gus Williams' accolades are above all of those players in pretty much an indisputable way... So it's not inconsistent with the way we've (rightly) bypassed accolades in some cases...

A good response to the argument I made.

To elaborate on Gus - he was the primary offensive player on a team that won with good D... I don't think that should count against him, because without his scoring, Sikma and DJ would've really struggled to get over the hump. His performances were also stronger in the playoffs, including their 79 winning year. Although both his team-mates also feature on this list, none of them were dominant players - this is a relatively weak title winning big 3 which was built on good balance and team-play.

For Mullin - he was an insanely efficient scorer and good at most aspects of the game - a deserved Hall of Famer. Was a deserved All Star and 1st/2nd teamer - I fail to see what separates him from a guy like Reggie Miller who was selected 50 spots earlier.

Thanks, I realize you have to repeat yourself but for about 10 threads we had been getting closer and closer to zero debate and this isn't really about creating a list, it's about creating a framework to discuss great players and how they compare.

As for Melo, he's on my radar; just rather have great rebounding and defense than good rebounding and average defense even at the cost of 3-5ppg.

lukekarts wrote:To elaborate on Gus - he was the primary offensive player on a team that won with good D... I don't think that should count against him, because without his scoring, Sikma and DJ would've really struggled to get over the hump. His performances were also stronger in the playoffs, including their 79 winning year. Although both his team-mates also feature on this list, none of them were dominant players - this is a relatively weak title winning big 3 which was built on good balance and team-play.

For Mullin - he was an insanely efficient scorer and good at most aspects of the game - a deserved Hall of Famer. Was a deserved All Star and 1st/2nd teamer - I fail to see what separates him from a guy like Reggie Miller who was selected 50 spots earlier.

Reggie was more efficient, shot 3's at a high rate, a weapon Mullin used at times in his career but not throughout it, and Reggie had more famous playoff serieses. Reggie was like a Mullin plus.

I'll vote for Jerry Lucas. Tough as nails player, 4th all time in rebounds per game, made 3 all-nba first teams and one second. Beat that Carmello. I just think we're too early into Melo's career still. He'll move up the list when it's all said and done, but for now, Lucas.

I Nominate Gus Johnson. Can't believe he's not already on this list. Career averages of 17.1 ppg and 12.7 rebounds. Dude was an athletic beast and a great defender. 2 time all NBA defensive team.