Post#4 » by JoeMalburg » Fri Jul 28, 2017 2:52 am
The players I will be considering here are Rick Barry, Elgin Baylor, Kevin Durant, Moses Malone, George Mikan, Bob Pettit and Dwyane Wade.
These are the players I have remaining in the second of four tiers of legit franchise players in NBA history. These are guys you could build a title contender around. These are players who elevated their team to Championship contender while proving themselves an elite individual player and frequent MVP contender.
I won't be going for Baylor, Barry or Wade in this round and I will briefly touch on why. With Baylor, there seemed to be diminishing returns to his high volume scoring and non-discerning shot selection. Though he questionably helped revolutionize basketball with his vertical game and instantly made the lowly Lakers a threat once again, he never took the team over the hump and as the 1960's progressed and likewise Jerry West's game did the same, it seems more likely Baylor was holding the Lakers back than holding them up as Championship caliber. Still a decade of all-NBA first teams are too much to ignore. That kind of respect is truly reserved for the elite all-time.
Barry is also a fabulous but flawed superstar. His professionalism and perfectionism helped him lead the Warriors to the 1975 NBA Championship, but his pride and petulance may have just as likely cost them a shot a repeating in 1976 when Barry all but threw the crucial series clinching game against the modest and mediocre 1976 Phoenix Suns. Barry was an instant star in the mid-sixties, but never one to concede to contentedness, he balked partnering with Nate Thurmond in San Francisco to instead play for his father in-law in the fledgling ABA for the short-lived Oakland Oaks franchise, (later the Washington Capitols and finally the Virginia Squires) and then the New York Nets, pre-Doctor J. Injuries and inaccessibility sort of hang a dark cloud over the five years Barry spent from age 23-27 in a basketballs Bermuda triangle, he was good, but in a league finding it's footing it is hard to tell how good. When he returned to the NBA, there was an adjustment period, but soon it became clear he was one of basketballs best all-around players. A dead-eye shooter, fundamentally sound and periodically astounding player-maker and a solid rebounder for his position and size. He made five all-NBA first teams and four in the ABA, but he benefited from basketballs stars being spread across two leagues and 20-27 teams, far too many for the sport at that stage of it's development. At this point there are still guys with more complete resumes and more dynamic peaks on the board. Not time for Barry yet.
Wade is a tougher case for me. In some ways he seems like a perfect fit in a group with guys like Barkley and Dirk who were almost always alphas on their teams and had some memorable moments in the postseason. On the other hand maybe he fits better with guys like Hondo and Pippen who won more, but spent more of their most competitive years in terms of team success as a 1B or second option. There is no doubt that in 2006 he showed he could carry a team to a title, but how many years in his career was he physcially able to be that guy? That's my main concern with putting Wade on the board with the other guys already selected, durability as a franchise guy.
So now for the decision among the four remaining players.
I might be as high on Durant as anyone here. Winning a title this season as his teams best player and putting together the finals he did really demonstrates the realization of his full potential and puts him into rare air in terms of his accomplishments career-wise already. The list of guys with a title and Finals MVP as the best player on the team, an MVP and five all-NBA first teams is pretty short: Jordan, Bird, Magic, LeBron, Wilt, Duncan, Kobe, Shaq, Hakeem, Kareem, Pettit and Kevin Durant. Pretty good company.
Durant's teams have already won more playoff series than Barkley, Nowitzki or Garnett's did during their entire careers.
He's surpassed, Olajuwon, Barkley, Garnett, Dirk, Pettit, Oscar and West already in terms of career MVP shares.
Anytime you look at Durant in a historical context, the names that come up are the guys we are voting for now, already have, and will be shortly. He belongs in the discussion. But he doesn't get my vote yet.
I want to vote for Bob Pettit. He checks all the basic boxes I look for when putting players into the second tier of franchise elites. Pettit had a five year run ('55-'59) as arguably the best player in basketball. He won two MVP's, had a game for the ages dropping fifty on the sans-Russell Celtics in the closeout sixth contest of the '58 Finals. Remained relevant in a top 4-6 player kind of way for half of the sixties as the league got bigger, faster, stronger and he got slower, whiter and balder. Pettit would have made Charles Darwin smile as he was always evolving to survive and thrive. His hallmark toughness and his 12 foot pet shot were adequate to cover the chasm that athleticism had left him burdened with in relation to his all-time great contemporaries, Russell, Wilt, Oscar, West and Baylor. There is a lot to be said for that and perhaps his lack of longevity by today's standards can be oh so easily explained by putting in the context of his day. Pettit played 11 seasons, was an all-star in everyone of them and walked away just shy of his 33rd birthday. That's just a few years less than those other five guys, none of whom made it to 15 seasons. I could be persuaded to put him on the board very soon, but for now.
My votes are for Moses Malone and George Mikan. The last two of the great eight centers in NBA history as I see it left on the board. From 1979 to 1983 Moses won three MVP's, won a Championship as the star of one of the greatest and most dominant teams in NBA history and took another .500 otherwise rudderless Houston team to the Finals all while Kareem Abdul-Jabbar was still in his prime (though at the end), Doctor J was at the top of his game and Magic and Bird were ascending to greatness and taking the NBA writ large with them. All four of those players are already voted in and none of them can match the dominance of Moses during that period. When Moses won his first MVP at age 23, he was already a grizzled five-year veteran having gone from prep to pro in 1975 joining the ABA. The monotone often monosyllabic man-child would become quite the basketball vagabond during the first quarter score of his career 21 year career, being jettisoned between two ABA teams and four more NBA franchises before he was old enough to drink. And while that's unquestionably the path less taken when it comes to franchise stars, the moves were much more monetarily motivated than they were done for pure basketball reasons. Whatever the case, when Moses settled into Houston he became the leagues best and only answer to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and thus the 76ers ticket to the title they so desperately sought. When Moses became available in 1982, they made him the richest man in basketball and he thanked them by nearly backing up his Fo-Fo-Fo playoff prediction, with a Fo, Five, Fo, 12-1 playoff run that still ranks among the three most dominant ever.
Moses wasn't the same type of superstar ever again after 1983, but he remained a formidable force. He won his fifth and sixth rebounding titles in 1984 and '85 and remained an all-star and 20/10 force throughout the decade and would even continue to suit up until the 1994-95 season which means his career spanned from the days of the ABA until the Toronto Raptors. He started his career the same season as Kobe Bryant's Dad, and ended it a year before Kobe himself arrived in the NBA. If Malone and his career resume have a weakness, it's the staying power he lacked. The short peak, the relatively large drop off from peak to prime, the casual allegiance his teams seemed to hold for him, his unorthodox style and approach to dominating games. Had he not left such an indelible mark during those peak seasons, it'd be easy to drop Moses 30-40 spots in these rankings maybe more, but without balls, my uncle would be my aunt. Moses had serious balls.
Someone had to be first. Remember the first time you played basketball? The first time you rode your bike? The first time you had sex? It was probably pretty sloppy and ugly in retrospect, but it felt incredibly important and pretty freaking awesome at the time. This is George Mikan. The spectacled specter of the NBA's blue collar, bruised kneed, bloodied nose pre-shot clock era dominated a league in black and white, but first just white. Mikan should of been a chapter in Malcolm Gladwell's outliers. Like January born Canadian Hockey players, Mikan happened to arrive on earth at the precise moment that would allow his otherwise obstructing 6'10" frame to be an ideal asset in his ascension to basketball royalty in the entertainment and distraction starved post-war United States. Leaving DePaul for the pro game in 1946, Mikan would spend the next seasons, one with the Chicago American Gears and seven with the Minneapolis Lakers, as basketball's best player and a one way ticket to the title, provided his leg wasn't broken as it was in 1951. By the way, Mikan still played in the finals dragging that leg up and don't the court in the timeless world of the NBA prior to Biasone's brainstorm. Mikan used his imposing size, unrivaled strength, ahead of his time competitiveness and surprising ferocity to beat, batter and bruise opponents into submission. Leading the league in scoring and rebounding multiple times, Mikan became known as Mr. Basketball and was a driving force in the games early growth. In addition to his play in the pro leagues, which is what I am voting for him based on, he was instrumental in helping bring an end to segregation in basketball as the exhibition and World Series of Basketball games between Lakers and the all-black Harlem Globetrotters were bigger draws than the NBA playoffs.
If there is a downside to Mikan it's his lack of longevity. The game was passing him by fast and that became painfully evident when he attempted an ill-advised comeback in 1955-56. He was ideal for his era, but seems woeful inept to compete in any other on the basis of his principal skills and physical merits. And yes, though I am not one to be influenced by hypothetical that would need involve a flux-capacitor, he has very little generational or era mobility. And of course, longevity is lacking, and though that's common among stars of his era, it's less so among the all-time greats regardless of birth year. So to borrow a cliche from the third greatest player of all-time at the end of the day, I'll still with George and Moses, in that order.
First vote: George Mikan
Alternate: Moses Malone
I had him around 30th for the longest, recently moved him to 24th, but I guess he continues to be overrated...) 
