Which "Ringless" All-time Great had the worst luck?

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Which "Ringless" All-time Great had the worst luck?

Charles Barkley
8
13%
Elgin Baylor
16
27%
James Harden
0
No votes
George Gervin
0
No votes
Patrick Ewing
7
12%
Karl Malone/John Stockton
14
23%
Reggie Miller
1
2%
Steve Nash
11
18%
Chris Webber
3
5%
Dominique Wilkins
0
No votes
 
Total votes: 60

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Re: Which "Ringless" All-time Great had the worst luck? 

Post#21 » by ardee » Tue Aug 13, 2019 1:09 pm

Colbinii wrote:
ardee wrote:
Colbinii wrote:Where is Chris Paul?

2008 - Game 7 puts up 18/8/14 with 5 steals and Peja/Mo Pete/Pargo combine 11/35 (4/15 from deep) losing to the Spurs.

Trash teams in 2010 and 2011

2012 - Chauncey Billups out for season

2013 - Griffin gets injured

2014 - Runs into peak KD while arguably being the best player on the floor.

2015 - Injured, I think they win it all if healthy this season

2016 - Griffin and CP3 injured

2017 - Griffin Injured

2018 - Injured after being up 3-2 against the cheat codes

2019 -Injured during regular season

On top of that the league VETOS A TRADE that would send him to the Lakers. What!


It's brutal when you put it like that. 2015 and 2018 were his two best chances and WHAM.


Yeah and he does get some flack for underperforming at times but a lot of it makes you go "Holy ****!".

Especially the Lakers trade.


Even the underperforming meme is overrated. The way I see it:

2008, 2011, 2014, 2015, 2017: Elite Playoffs
2013, 2018: Very good years
2016: Played well but good injured
2009, 2012: Played badly/injured

When he was clicking, Paul was a very high level Playoff performer. I remember that 2011 series like it was yesterday, he eviscerated us.
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Re: Which "Ringless" All-time Great had the worst luck? 

Post#22 » by Doctor MJ » Tue Aug 13, 2019 4:52 pm

JoeMalburg wrote:Thinking about Charles Barkley and the bad breaks he and his team caught in 1993, 1994, 1995 and 1997 calls to mind a tired sports talk radio question, but one I haven't seen discussed here by the very knowledgeable basketball community that occupies this board.

Which All-Time Great player has the best case for "bad luck" costing them a Championship?


Nash for me.

1. Had a delayed superstar arrival because people didn't understand what he could do.
2. When he finally gets the chance he does on Sarver's team as he began his reign of incompetence. Traded away the pick that would be Luol Deng to save a buck, replaced half the Suns starting lineup after they miraculously won 60 games.
3. Injury to key co-star in their second year together.
4. League refereeing incompetence during the key series against their main competition for the title in the 3rd year on a level I've never witnessed before. Similar circumstances have occurred since, every time, the NBA makes the reasonable choice they should have made with the Suns.
5. In the 4th year the Suns decide to blow up the pace & space strategy stunningly unaware that they had invented THE dominant strategy of the 2010s they are instead convinced by obsolete basketball minds that they merely had a gimmick that was destined to fail.

Nash could have very easily led a team to a title.

Responding to what I see in the poll people are saying Baylor.

People clearly think "What are the odds the Lakers finally win a championship after Baylor retires?", to which I'd say that the Lakers may well have won a title if Baylor had adapted to a more reasonable role after West emerged as the better player circa 1963. The way the Lakers let Baylor continue to take primacy over West as a scorer through 1969 held the Lakers back in ways I can't even imagine the Kings or Hornets being fool enough to mistake nowadays.

Baylor is not a case of a top tier all-time great getting unlucky with competition, it's a case where Jerry West got unlucky because his franchise didn't have the courage or whatever to say "Hey, Jerry's a better scorer and playmaker than Elgin now, we should at least make sure that both guys know that Jerry is the primary scoring option each time we go down the court".
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Re: Which "Ringless" All-time Great had the worst luck? 

Post#23 » by eminence » Tue Aug 13, 2019 4:59 pm

Think it falls on West as much as anyone. He appears to have always had a ton of sway with the organization (hired his college coach his rookie season).
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Re: Which "Ringless" All-time Great had the worst luck? 

Post#24 » by Colbinii » Tue Aug 13, 2019 5:02 pm

eminence wrote:Think it falls on West as much as anyone. He appears to have always had a ton of sway with the organization (hired his college coach his rookie season).


Another thing we could focus on was West's demeanor (extremely humble) and wanted to avoid friction to a fault. He was never going to call out Baylor and part of that is on him.
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Re: Which "Ringless" All-time Great had the worst luck? 

Post#25 » by Dr Positivity » Tue Aug 13, 2019 5:19 pm

Baylor between the close calls and retiring during the championship season

Nash because of the injuries and suspensions. And they would have won in 07 if they beat Spurs so can't hold the lack of finals against him too much.
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Charles not in Charge 

Post#26 » by JoeMalburg » Tue Aug 13, 2019 5:58 pm

The case for Charles Barkley is one I'd try to make if I had more time right now, but I do think the fact that three complimentary scorers hit huge shots that cost his team series is important.





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Re: Which "Ringless" All-time Great had the worst luck? 

Post#27 » by 70sFan » Tue Aug 13, 2019 6:11 pm

If the Lakers would have won the title in 1962, Baylor season would be still remebered as one of the most impressive ever. Maybe not rightfully, but that would be the case. Instead, they lost in last seconds of the finals and he's called overrated because he prevented West from being the main scorer.

The truth is that West averaged more ppg in every season since 1963, so that's far from the truth. It's also important to note that (outside of 1967) Lakers were always elite offensively even with Baylor taking many shots, even when he became less efficienct later in his career. In 1967 he had probably the worst season in his career which is also visible in Lakers success. In that particular season, maybe he should have been more conservative with his scoring load but in other seasons nothing suggests that he was a negative player.

Baylor is not the best player in this thread, but he came so close to win the title so many times that I can't see any other candidate here. He also played well in the playoffs more times than not, so it's not only his fault that he's ringless. Not to mention that terrible 1972 situation...

Great, great player who's vastly underrated now because he's ringless and has low TS% (even though he was a monster scorer at his best - 1960-63).
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Re: Which "Ringless" All-time Great had the worst luck? 

Post#28 » by Owly » Tue Aug 13, 2019 6:16 pm

eminence wrote:Think it falls on West as much as anyone. He appears to have always had a ton of sway with the organization (hired his college coach his rookie season).

If West had had "a ton of sway" from day 1, as in choosing the coach he would picked a coach that started him from the off (and probably got Schaus fired when he didn't). His autobiography (iirc) made it very clear that West resented this (not starting, and Schaus for making that choice), more than 50 years on.
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Re: Which "Ringless" All-time Great had the worst luck? 

Post#29 » by eminence » Tue Aug 13, 2019 7:00 pm

Owly wrote:
eminence wrote:Think it falls on West as much as anyone. He appears to have always had a ton of sway with the organization (hired his college coach his rookie season).

If West had had "a ton of sway" from day 1, as in choosing the coach he would picked a coach that started him from the off (and probably got Schaus fired when he didn't). His autobiography (iirc) made it very clear that West resented this (not starting, and Schaus for making that choice), more than 50 years on.


I didn't mean to imply he had coach picking powers, but that he was highly valued and at the very least I'm sure he was consulted on the hiring. He finished 2nd on the team in minutes his rookie season and then Elgin was back and forth to the Army next season. West had opportunity to step up and really seize that #1 spot and didn't do so.

On his biography - the West in West by West, his own characterization of himself just seems radically different from what we see of him nowadays and how others speak of him. I'm very unsure what to think of that book.
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Re: Which "Ringless" All-time Great had the worst luck? 

Post#30 » by Owly » Tue Aug 13, 2019 8:36 pm

eminence wrote:
Owly wrote:
eminence wrote:Think it falls on West as much as anyone. He appears to have always had a ton of sway with the organization (hired his college coach his rookie season).

If West had had "a ton of sway" from day 1, as in choosing the coach he would picked a coach that started him from the off (and probably got Schaus fired when he didn't). His autobiography (iirc) made it very clear that West resented this (not starting, and Schaus for making that choice), more than 50 years on.


I didn't mean to imply he had coach picking powers, but that he was highly valued and at the very least I'm sure he was consulted on the hiring. He finished 2nd on the team in minutes his rookie season and then Elgin was back and forth to the Army next season. West had opportunity to step up and really seize that #1 spot and didn't do so.

On his biography - the West in West by West, his own characterization of himself just seems radically different from what we see of him nowadays and how others speak of him. I'm very unsure what to think of that book.

Lazenby biog has:
- Lakers wanted Schaus in '59
- Lakers wanted Sharman first in '60
(above indicates a lack of correlation with West)
- West found out about the hire via magazine around Olympics time
- getting Schaus probably was a positive in making sure he didn't go to an AAU (not sure how likely this was by this point)
- West did resent playing less than [he felt] he deserved and resented Schaus, but didn't let on until later in life.

Haven't reread the autobiog since getting it around release ... recollection is is of tortured soul from his childhood, hyper-competitive perfectionist. Maybe Schauss comments are more assertive, less diplomatic than he'd have been comfortable with at the time ... though again the sentiments are there and quoted (from later) by Lazenby.
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Re: Which "Ringless" All-time Great had the worst luck? 

Post#31 » by Dr Positivity » Wed Aug 14, 2019 2:08 am

Colbinii wrote:Where is Chris Paul?

2008 - Game 7 puts up 18/8/14 with 5 steals and Peja/Mo Pete/Pargo combine 11/35 (4/15 from deep) losing to the Spurs.

Trash teams in 2010 and 2011

2012 - Chauncey Billups out for season

2013 - Griffin gets injured

2014 - Runs into peak KD while arguably being the best player on the floor.

2015 - Injured, I think they win it all if healthy this season

2016 - Griffin and CP3 injured

2017 - Griffin Injured

2018 - Injured after being up 3-2 against the cheat codes

2019 -Injured during regular season

On top of that the league VETOS A TRADE that would send him to the Lakers. What!


He had some bad luck but most of these teams weren't winning the title in my opinion.

The Hornets best chance was 08, but the loss has little to do with luck, he didn't play especially well (8 for 18) and Chandler had a great game to make up for poor shooting of some other opponents. There are a hundred games as unlucky as this. I don't think the Hornets really had it after this season even when he was healthy.

For Clippers I'm not counting 2012 as a real contending year, they played at 50 W pace and were a 5 seed, and the depth was not as good with no Crawford, Bledsoe wasn't ready, etc. Billups was washed so his injury doesn't matter that much. They got swept by the Spurs, they were not contention material.

13 - Griffin injury is bad luck, but the favorites were clearly MIA, OKC, SAS
14 - Healthy year, they just got beat due to having bad perimeter and transition defense. My memory is this was a series where everything was "too easy" for Durant and Westbrook
15 - The Clippers got a split in Houston without Paul, and were up 3-1 with him healthy. I do not blame Paul's injury much for this. I also think their chances of beating GSW gets overblown, GSW had been the best team all year and were far deeper which is a problem for a Clippers team that had 6 real players. I mean they beat a flawed Rockets team easily that the Clips lost to.
16 and 17 - bad luck with injuries, but I think there's reason to believe the Clippers were fading from real contention at that point anyways and would have been in tough against GSW either year, especially 17
18 - Obviously bad injury luck, but Paul isn't a durable player and D'Antoni was forced to push him with a team with no depth

Mainly I see the Clippers as one of the greatest pretenders of all time. They were a team that had a good defensive rank in the regular season but in the playoffs were obviously flawed as guys like Blake, Redick, Crawford were not giving them a lot on that end, and Deandre is a box score guy only on D. They never were a top 2 seed, unlike the Suns there was never a year where they killed the regular season to 60 + Ws and went in as the favorite only to lose. Blake Griffin was overrated as a 2nd banana, I don't think he should even make the HOF at this rate. He would have less hype if he played now as people began to realize a big star who doesn't space the floor and doesn't defend is hard to build a contender around. This team is everything the phrase pretender is meant for, good enough in the regular season to pretend they're a big boy, but they were going to go down in the playoffs for being too soft on defense and physically/emotionally and we all knew it

However, 2018 alone is enough to put someone up there for bad luck, I guess. The Rockets legitimately did come close to being champion
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Re: Which "Ringless" All-time Great had the worst luck? 

Post#32 » by Johnlac1 » Wed Aug 14, 2019 3:40 am

wojoaderge wrote:Elgin Baylor

I don't know if anybody will ever top going zero for eight in finals series.
About five or six points cost Baylor about three or four titles.
Frank Selvy's missed 12 foot shot at the buzzer in game seven of the '62 finals.
The two point loss in game seven of the '66 series.
Sam Jones heave at the top of the key that went in at the buzzer in game four of the '69 finals, (if Jones missed the shot, the Lakers win the series in five games.)
And Dave DeBusschere's closely guarded two pointer in game three of the '70 finals that went in seconds before West hit his fifty foot shot to tie the game which the Lakers lost in o.t. If DeBusschere missed the shot, the Lakers win the title in six games.
In one of the cruelest twists of fate in sports history, Baylor retired early in the '71-'72 season when the Lakers finally won a title.
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Re: Which "Ringless" All-time Great had the worst luck? 

Post#33 » by Snakebites » Wed Aug 14, 2019 4:30 am

Man, if KG hadn't gotten one in Boston after his peak he'd be such an easy pick here.
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Re: Which "Ringless" All-time Great had the worst luck? 

Post#34 » by picko » Wed Aug 14, 2019 11:06 am

Baylor by a country mile. Retires due to injury in the season they win after countless heartbreaks.
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Re: Which "Ringless" All-time Great had the worst luck? 

Post#35 » by Johnlac1 » Thu Aug 15, 2019 3:30 pm

Owly wrote:
eminence wrote:Think it falls on West as much as anyone. He appears to have always had a ton of sway with the organization (hired his college coach his rookie season).

If West had had "a ton of sway" from day 1, as in choosing the coach he would picked a coach that started him from the off (and probably got Schaus fired when he didn't). His autobiography (iirc) made it very clear that West resented this (not starting, and Schaus for making that choice), more than 50 years on.
Even Hot Rod Hundley, who started over West, said he couldn't carry West's shoes. It should have been obvious to Schaus that West should have started.
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Re: Which "Ringless" All-time Great had the worst luck? 

Post#36 » by SHAQ32 » Thu Aug 15, 2019 11:38 pm

Gotta be Round Mound..


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Re: Which "Ringless" All-time Great had the worst luck? 

Post#37 » by Jaivl » Fri Aug 16, 2019 12:20 am

Baylor is not the same caliber of ATG as some of the others, but he's the unluckiest by a clear margin.
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Re: Which "Ringless" All-time Great had the worst luck? 

Post#38 » by LKN » Fri Aug 16, 2019 3:20 am

Ewing is up there for me.... drafted the year after MJ and the Knicks became good right as MJ was taking a dump on the league. Then MJ retires, the knicks finally make the finals and Starks craps the bed in game 7. MJ comes back and the Bulls dominate for 3 more years. THEN, MJ retires again and the Knicks make it to the finals again, but he's hurt and they run into Duncan/Robinson.
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Re: Which "Ringless" All-time Great had the worst luck? 

Post#39 » by Yuri Vaultin » Fri Aug 16, 2019 5:08 am

Stockton?
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Re: Which "Ringless" All-time Great had the worst luck? 

Post#40 » by Mavericksfan » Fri Aug 16, 2019 12:07 pm

LKN wrote:Ewing is up there for me.... drafted the year after MJ and the Knicks became good right as MJ was taking a dump on the league. Then MJ retires, the knicks finally make the finals and Starks craps the bed in game 7. MJ comes back and the Bulls dominate for 3 more years. THEN, MJ retires again and the Knicks make it to the finals again, but he's hurt and they run into Duncan/Robinson.

Ewing himself crapped the bed in the Finals tho

Dunno if that’s bad luck.

I think CP3 is the choice. Injuries suck and it was him and Blake taking turns getting hurt during the playoffs during their peak run together

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