How does Reggie's legacy gets viewed nowadays if he wins in 1998 and 2000.

[coastalmarker99]

In this hypothetical scenario he now would have 2 rings to go along with 2 final's MVP's.


While also being known as the superstar that ended the Bulls dynasty and stopped Shaq and Kobe from three peating.


As a result, nowadays I think he would be viewed by most people as a top 35 to 30 player of all time.

[MyUniBroDavis]

In this hypothetical scenario he now would have 2 rings to go along with 2 final's MVP's.


While also being known as the superstar that ended the Bulls dynasty and stopped Shaq and Kobe from three peating.


As a result, nowadays I think he would be viewed by most people as a top 35 to 30 player of all time.

Legacy wise rings matter a lot, him getting two and beating Jordan would have been pretty lit narratives

If he beats the Lakers in 2000 he didn’t stop a their threepeat because they didn’t start it yet though lol

[LAL1947]

If Reggie Miller won these 2 titles... he would have done so without a 2nd star... and when you consider the players he would have beat to those 2 titles (MJ-Pippen, Kobe-Shaq)... well, he'd have to be in the Top 15 at the least.

[penbeast0]

Assuming Reggie doesn't suddenly get significantly better in those playoffs, then who steps up on his team to get him the wins or do the opposing teams have awful series over and over (in which case we would be looking at Pacer defensive stars and Reggie might have a Sam Jones rep)?

[Homer38]

If the pacers would beat the Bulls in 1998,it would been so big for Miller!

[JulesWinnfield]

Their best chance was 99 when they entered the season as the odds on favorite and he wet himself against the Knicks in the playoffs with a horrible eastern conference finals. Just stupefyingly bad. Doesn’t get mentioned enough for a guy who has a reputation as the ultimate Knick killer that an injury ravaged Knicks team beat him down in a series where they were overwhelming favorites and he was horrible beyond belief. 16 ppg on 36% shooting, 3 for 18 in the elimination game while getting roasted by Allan Houston. 3 different Knicks outscored Reggie in that series and none of them were named Patrick Ewing because he didn’t play

Yea I’m a Knicks fan and Reggie hater but it doesn’t make it any less true. That was his moment. That was the year with the expectations. Winning in 98 or 00 would have been seen as an upset. 98 they fought valiantly and had Chicago on the ropes but that would have still been seen as a major upset. 99 the basketball world saw Indiana winning an nba title as a highly possible outcome. He crapped himself

[f4p]

Their best chance was 99 when they entered the season as the odds on favorite and he wet himself against the Knicks in the playoffs with a horrible eastern conference finals. Just stupefyingly bad. Doesn’t get mentioned enough for a guy who has a reputation as the ultimate Knick killer that an injury ravaged Knicks team beat him down in a series where they were overwhelming favorites and he was horrible beyond belief. 16 ppg on 36% shooting, 3 for 18 in the elimination game while getting roasted by Allan Houston. 3 different Knicks outscored Reggie in that series and none of them were named Patrick Ewing because he didn’t play

Yea I’m a Knicks fan and Reggie hater but it doesn’t make it any less true. That was his moment. That was the year with the expectations. Winning in 98 or 00 would have been seen as an upset. 98 they fought valiantly and had Chicago on the ropes but that would have still been seen as a major upset. 99 the basketball world saw Indiana winning an nba title as a highly possible outcome. He crapped himself

reggie is weird because he has a reputation as an amazing playoff performer and actually has stats that indicate he really was a very good playoff performer, at least in terms of his numbers going up or staying the same in the playoffs. and yet his famous "choke sign" game against the knicks was from a series he lost. he had the bad series you just mentioned. i watched game 7 against the bulls a year ago or so. reggie basically couldn't get a shot off in the 4th because 35 year old jordan hounded him so much. i'm not saying he should be expected to win, but he had his legacy there for the taking with a good 4th quarter and i believe he didn't make a shot in the 4th and only took 2 field goal attempts (edit: he had a good 22 points on 75 TS% in a ridiculous 79.5 pace game, but in the 4th he actually just went 0-1 with 1 assist, basically doing nothing in an eventual 5 point game).

[sp6r=underrated]

In this hypo world the 3 point revolution happens 5-10 years earlier. Seeing a team win a title built around an offensive talent like Reggie would have been eye opening and a lot of teams would have started stretching the floor much earlier. Especially the win in 2000 because it would show you could beat a team build around Shaq by long range bombing.

[LukaTheGOAT]

He gets revered as top 25-30 all-time universally...which he should be seen as anyways.

[Doctor MJ]

In this hypothetical scenario he now would have 2 rings to go along with 2 final's MVP's.


While also being known as the superstar that ended the Bulls dynasty and stopped Shaq and Kobe from three peating.


As a result, nowadays I think he would be viewed by most people as a top 35 to 30 player of all time.

Yup I agree. He'd be seen as an Isiah-like way.

Incidentally, I do have Reggie in the range you speak of anyway.

[Narigo]

He'll be the guy who a prime, non-rusty MJ in the playoffs and overthrew his dynasty

[Cavsfansince84]

In this hypothetical scenario he now would have 2 rings to go along with 2 final's MVP's.


While also being known as the superstar that ended the Bulls dynasty and stopped Shaq and Kobe from three peating.


As a result, nowadays I think he would be viewed by most people as a top 35 to 30 player of all time.

Yup I agree. He'd be seen as an Isiah-like way.

Incidentally, I do have Reggie in the range you speak of anyway.

Except with much better longevity and without the criticism of 'no 3 pt shot so he wouldn't be good today' but without the 1st team all league accolades. I think Reggie is one of the most polarizing players out there today in terms of how people rate him. I think most everyone who took part in the last top 100 had him in their top 40-45 while on the gb you had tons of people arguing against the idea of him being included in the top 75 list the league recently did. Two titles shifts that hugely especially being the only guy to knock off MJ after 1990(not including his 95 mulligan). Two fmvps puts him in very rare company.

[JulesWinnfield]

Just for the record… Reggie’s numbers in the 98 ECF vs the Bulls

17.4 ppg
1.6 Rebs
2.0 ast
.587 TS%

0 for 1 FG, 0 pts in the 4th quarter of game 7 in 9:27 of action when the game was right there for the taking. Could only get up 1 shot, getting his own looks was never his strength, it came up glaringly in the biggest quarter of his career. It required a symphony of screens to get him off.

If they won that game and the series it would have done wonders from a narrative perspective, but that performance simply doesn’t justify vaulting him up too many spots on an all time list. We remember the series went 7 and we remember Reggie hitting a big shot, but he was far from anything special in the series. Solid efficiency, underwhelming volume, a cardboard cutout could have posted comparable rebounds and assists in 38+ mpg. If they got more from him they may have won. If we want to talk about Reggie with the big boys let’s hold him to the standard we hold those guys to. Any other all time great we are talking about how he came up small when Chicago was vulnerable

They just weren’t beating the Lakers in 2000. This part of the hypothetical is a big stretch. On paper it says the series went 6 games, but that was greatly aided by the 2-3-2 format or they probably lose in 5. They had no answer at all for Shaq, no one during that time did. They won a home game down 3-1 to stave off elimination for a game. They lost game 4 when Shaq fouled out and young Kobe had his moment while playing that series on a badly injured ankle due to Jalen rose’s antics

Their shot came in 1999 and Reggie was simply dreadful against the Knicks. That was the year it was all there for the taking, at least on paper more than any year in his career. They were seen as favorites entering the year, although I doubt they would have been favored vs SA as it wound up. They had a legit shot though. They had it all set up for them against an injured Knick team in the eastern conference finals. They may have gotten a bad break on the Larry Johnson 4 point play but it doesn’t mask the fact that Reggie was horrifyingly bad

[SHAQ32]

I'm a Magic fan but I always rooted for Reggie and the Pacers too as I have family in Indianapolis. It's a shame they didn't win in 99. They had the talent and were coming off the 7-game series vs Chigago. I thought they were ready to ascend.