Look how skewed that list is to recent players. Ray Allen has the earliest career, starting in '96, and he and Peja barely made the cut. Jordan may or may not have been eclipsed 40%, but just as I don't believe players before 1996 were physically incapable of shooting 3-pointers efficiently, there is no doubt in my mind that Jordan's FG3% would have benefited greatly from playing in an era which placed emphasis on shooting from behind the arc.
If modern players got to play laughable 80s defense their offensive numbers would go through the roof. Especially as they’d get to bomb away from three.
The HoF values peak, so Walton at his absolute best was a near-transcendent player. He didn't score that much (although you could go to him if you need a bucket late) but did everything else at an elite level. Elite rebounder, elite playmaker, elite rim protector. When he was healthy his teams won; not only was he an MVP, he was the best player on a championship team, a pretty exclusive class of players. And it wasn't like that was a loaded Portland team, it was centered completely on Walton's defense, rebounding and outlet passing to trigger Dr. Jack's fast-break. They took out a Philadelphia team that had a lot more star power, and also swept Kareem in the WCF. The following season, Portland raced off to a 50-10 start before Walton went down and the team completely fell apart.
"Was going to be..." being the key phrase. It's totally unfortunate that injuries robbed him, because he was a great player. But the HOF should be about what you actually accomplished, not what you COULD have accomplished. I mean, Len Bias probably would have been a transcendent player. And Reggie Lewis could have had a HOF career. But, well, things happened and they didn't get to achieve all that they could have achieved. So they're not in. Unfortunate, but that's how it goes.
That's a fair rebuttal of Kliq's 2nd paragraph. The first paragraph, otoh...
Yeah I get his first paragraph. But let's say you had a player that in his rookie year led his team to an NBA title while winning the MVP, and then he had a second good year after that, and then got killed in a car crash. Should that player make the HOF? Yes while he played he was elite but he played (in this example) for SUCH a short period of time that it's very difficult, IMO, to argue that that career deserved to be in the HOF.
I think it’s totally fair to say that Walton is not a HoF player because his career was too short. I think the issue becomes the HoF standard that has been a established is pretty low; so if you compare Walton to other guys who are in, his candidacy almost feels like a lock.
It’s literally not the NBA Hall of Fame. College and international players abound. So even if Walton’s NBA career doesn’t look like Mike’s, his NCAA one gets him the nod.
Yeah that makes sense. I alluded to that in my first post on the subject.
Great question. I don't know. Longevity and durability are important. But so is elite impact.
I think you are underselling how good peak Walton was. The one year he was fully-healthy he won the title, with a pretty ho-hum supporting cast for an NBA Champion. Maurice Lucas was a good, occasional All-Star player, kind of like a David West type. The rest of the roster was full of solid, capable role players, but no one really noteworthy. Lionel Hollins, Bob Gross, Dave Twardzik. Walton led the team in points, rebounds, blocks, basically tied for assists (3.8 apg to Hollins' 4.1 apg) and every advanced metric you can think of. In an era where everything went through your center, Walton was the focal point on both ends of the floor. He anchored the defense, blocked a ton of shots and rebounded, and then threw the best outlet passes perhaps of all-time, to get the Portland fast break going, an offensive system designed to mask the fact that most of the guys on the floor couldn''t create their own shot.
Shaq missed 473 free throws in 00/01 (499/972, 51.3%), the most of his career. The league shot nearly 60k free throws that year, at 74.7%. Take out Shaq's numbers and it would have been...75.1%
I also wonder how much of this is a function of minutes shifting towards big men potentially. Like, maybe the skilled players were just as skilled but the minutes shifted to the hulking big guys. Hard to say looking at overall FT%, there are a lot of other factors.
Shaq and Duncan did, hilariously enough, drive the league wide FT% down by around 4% during one of their “peak” years. But even without them FT% was below its historical norm.
Walton certainly benefits from an exceptional career at UCLA. I also think 'peak value' is a pretty common way for elite players to make halls of fame----Sandy Koufax is a prominent example. Walton was the best player in the game for a couple years, and that is worth something.
Football is different because the average career is so short. Gayle Sayers would also be an example of this.
Walton also won California state championships his junior and senior years. He actually went about 5 years without losing a game - from the middle of his junior year of high school to his senior year of college. From ages 16 to 25, he won 63% of his games and 5 championships. The foot injuries robbed everyone of witnessing a legendary career.
I was thinking about this, and its generally spot-on. The closest comps I thought of were 1) Connie Hawkins, NYC playground legend who was black-balled from college and the NBA for years for being involved (probably) tangentially with a gambling scandal. He finally got to the NBA ~1970 (Phoenix) and he was good but IMO not a HoF player, and only had a few AS years. IMO he probably got in because of his lost (stolen) years out of the league (Harlem Globetrotters and ABA). He might have been a stud in the 60s, but we'll never really know.
Stokes is a great call as a clear HoF guy that lost his career early on due to injury. Even then though, he still didn't dominate the way Walton did, winning an MVP and leading his team to the title. Walton's injuries really left a lot on the table, because the following year Portland got off to that 50-10 start before he got injured. Portland I think is clearly better than the Washington/Seattle teams that would meet in the next two Finals, so it is realistic to believe that if he hadn't gotten hurt, Portland could have won three straight titles before Magic and Bird show up. People would be talking about Walton the way they talk about Bird if that was the case.
It's been discussed, but I also think people have maybe even undersold Walton as a pre-NBA player he's one of the best High School players ever, he was probably one of the 5 best players in the history of college basketball, not just the ridiculous team record, he was a consensus All-American and won at least one of the major player of the year awards all 3 years he was eligible (and he swept them in 2 of the 3) As a pro he won an MVP and finished second for another, was the best player on a title team.
Yeah I said in my first post that his unbelievable college career has to be a huge part of the consideration. I didn't even think about his high school career.
I suppose the best measure of skill distribution then is not to take total FT / FTA leaguewide, but rather the average of averages: Average FT% of each player, with some threshold of say 30 FTs as a minimum to be included.
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I agree. His lines are eye roll inducing, but i foundbhin very entertaining.
Only pair of brothers to appear in an NBA Finals & Super Bowl!
It's impossible to say. Some observations:
The differences between Olajuwon and Robinson came between the ears. I'd argue that on paper, Robinson was a better, more skilled player, but Olajuwon had a level of dog in him that Robinson just never got to, which is why Olajuwon was more successful as a winner than Robinson. It's more of a compliment to Olajuwon than a knock on Robinson, Olajuwon had the rare ability to just go nuclear in a playoff game and just slap up a 40-20 and single-handily will his team to win; very few guys in NBA history have had THAT.
I feel like Robinson never gets his full due in these legacy conversations. Mid 90s DRob was such a force. In 1994, he averaged 30/11/5/2/3, yet, people just remember the Olajuwon pantsing in that 1995 playoff series. As you mentioned, he never really played with an elite group. Elliott, Johnson, etc. were nice players but not stars. And Elliott’s knees went to shit fast, if I recall correctly. Basically, DRob had the same supporting cast issue that KG had in Minny. Once he was paired up with a stud like Duncan, the titles came. The NBA is lucky that this pairing didn’t occur earlier in Robinson’s career.
