RealGM

It's my understanding that offense-oriented perimeter players tend to be overrated in the mainstream, while defense-oriented bigs are sometimes underrated. In your opinion, is the inverse ever true?

Since, say, 1980, have there been any offensive perimeter players that are significantly underrated in the mainstream? What about defensive bigs being overrated?

For offensive players, Reggie Miller is the main one. Steve Nash was treated pretty fairly when he was playing but suffered once removed from public perception.

To the same extent Reggie is the poster-child for contemporaneously under-appreciated offensive stars, Marcus Camby is the poster-child for contemporaneously over-appreciated defensive bigs — but even there, it is not as if Camby became some beloved figure, and he never even made an all-NBA team. More typically, the love for perimetre players extends to exaggerated defensive assessments as well.

I'll add Mark Price as a very underrated offense perimeter player. Largely forgotten in the mainstream media but will get occasional mentions from ex players or nerdier experts. 50-40-90 club shooter while being a lead PG, incredible playmaker, and known for some P&R play pioneering. Kind of ahead of his time.

Roy Hibbert/Jamal Murray
Jamaal Magloire/Kevin Martin

I always thought Gus Williams was one of the most uniquely underrated players of all time considering the history of hyping up best offensive players on a title team.

The overrated defensive big archetype would be Camby or Deandre but my hot take would be that Dwight was overrated on D, his case was made iron clad for most people by how Orlando was a great defensive team with guys like Nelson, Hedo and Rashard, but he falls right in line with the type of big defender that gets overrated which is being mostly blocks instead of superior IQ, I think it's plausible guys in his generation like Bogut and Noah were better defenders and Orlando's defensive results are kind of a weird fluke. And as soon as he left Orlando I'm not really buying his defensive impact.

Perimeter players?

Under: West, Nash, Miller, Frazier

Overrated: Stockton

Under Offense: Manu Ginobili, Reggie Miller, Baron Davis
Under Defense: P.J. Brown, Rasheed Wallace, Elton Brand, LaMarcus Aldridge

I've always thought that Sidney Moncrief and Manu Ginobili were strongly underrated as offensive engines at the 2 guard (mainstream, Manu gets a lot of love here). Sid because everyone focused on his defensive reputation and didn't seem to care much that he was providing 20 ppg at outstanding efficiency. Manu because his limited minutes meant his points per game were not as high as his peers.

Guys like Camby and DeAndre are as good as anyone I could come up with. Elmore Smith would be the poster boy for overrated shotblocker if you are going back in time. I always thought Mark Eaton's defensive rep was overblown but the available impact stats from that era generally seem to support it.

Underrated Offensive Players:

Paul Pierce. He was a better Offensive player than most of his contemporaries that includes Tracy Mcgrady & Allen Iverson, he was better than Paul George Offensively but Pierce as a player gets placed in conversations with Carmelo Anthony within the mainstream partly because of the extremely unappealing aesthetics of Pierce's Offensive game.

Overrated Defensive Players:

Dennis Rodman. 100% Overvalued as a defender, he was a Positional Defender who had essentially zero value as a High Volume Rim Protector. Most of his contemporaries (Mark Eaton, Alonzo Mourning, Ewing, Mutombo, David Robinson, Pippen) were better defensively than him. Defensive Rebounding as a statistics from an individual standpoint is incredibly overvalued. His inclusion in NBA Top 75 over Dwight Howard was ridiculous.

Draymond Green is somewhat underrated by mainstream. There still alot of people who think Klay>Green in their primes