All-time NBA Players #69 - #61. Kyrie and AD headline this group

The countdown continues

Eric Apricot says: This is an original series written by a friend of DubNationHQ.com. This analyzes and ranks the Top 75ish NBA players of all time. Some of you will be angered, some will think you can do better, but hopefully everyone can find something to enjoy in this journey appreciating the great historical achievements by past and present players.

• The Top 75ish NBA Players series index with full details on the ranking process

We intend for the series pieces to come out each week, covering approximately 10 players per piece.

Notation: * Means active player. 77= means tied for #77.

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69= Horace Grant (120 BEAST points)

Honors

• 3x Championships (3rd banana on Chicago Bulls) - (60)

• Threepeat (3rd banana) - (10)

• Championship (role player on Lakers) - (10)

• Runner-up - (5)

• 4x All-Defense - (8)

• All Star - (1)

Individual career stats

• top 30 rebounds Finals (3)

• top 20 blocks Finals (5)

• top 30 blocks per game Finals (2)

• top 75 Win Shares regular season (1)

• top 30 Win Shares playoffs (15)

Let’s kick off this next batch with some real controversy. Horace Grant?? The man isn’t even in the Hall of Fame! Yet our beastly master would roar - so what does that tell you about the Hall of Fame! More like the Hall of Shame. They some straight-up b.. No wait let’s not use Mr Grant’s infamous quote from the Last Dance.

In all seriousness this is another really interesting case. He made an All Star team with Orlando so he passes that threshold. Should that really count? I say yes! I am glad he made an All Star team. Horace Grant was a beast for the threepeat Chicago Bulls. Yes he was third banana to Jordan and Pippen but he brought the toughness, physicality and interior defense that they needed to get past the Bad Boy Pistons. They’re not a dynasty without him. Then he took that experience to a young Magic team and was the key piece that they needed to get to the NBA Finals. Late in his career he teamed up with Shaq again and played the veteran contributing role as the starting power forward on the Lakers second title of their threepeat. 

Finally, I’d like to point out that Win Shares has him in the top 30 for the playoffs. So it’s not just our beast that loves a career track record of defense, winning, and championship intangibles. And if you still don’t agree here are some dunks for your face. I advise some protective eye-wear.

69= Chris Bosh (120 BEAST points)

Honors 

• 2x Championships (60)

• Repeat champion (15)

• 2x Runner-up (10)

• 1x All NBA (2)

• All Star (11)

• Olympic Gold (3)

Individual career stats

• top 30 total steals Finals (3)

• top 30 total blocks Finals (3)

Bonus points

• 4 consecutive Finals post-merger (10)

• 27-win streak (3)

This feels about right for a player who was a multiple All Star and Redeem Team Olympic gold medallist who decided to team up with Lebron and Wade in Miami, knowing this would mean fewer shots and less individual glory but a greater chance of team success. Some might wonder if he should be considered a third banana, but in our beast that’s used very sparingly to avoid underplaying the achievements of the main players who drive a team to success. Most championship teams need at least three great players, and Bosh was a great player. His athleticism and skill meant he would have continued to be a leading star on any other team, and his versatility allowed the Heat to play without a true center for good chunks of their 4 consecutive runs to the Finals. And he did grab that offensive rebound that led to Ray Allen’s series saving shot…

We might have seen even more of that star quality if it hadn’t been for that awful blood clot situation which ended his career early just as LeBron bolted and Wade started to age out. 

 

*68 Kyrie Irving (121 BEAST points)

Honors

• Championship (30)

• 3x Runner-up (15)

• 3x All NBA (6)

• All Star (8)

• Rookie of the Year (1)

• Olympic Gold (3)

• FIBA World Cup Gold (1)

• FIBA World Cup MVP (1)

• FIBA World Cup All-Tournament Team (1)

Individual career stats

• top 30 threes total (3)

• top 30 total steals finals (3)

• top 20 total threes finals (5)

• top 30 points per game regular season (1)

• top 20 threes per game regular season (2)

• top 20 threes per game playoffs (3)

• top 10 points per game Finals (5)

• top 20 steals per game Finals (3)

• top 10 threes per game Finals (5)

• top 50 TS% regular season (1)

• top 50 TS% playoffs

• top 30 TS% Finals (5)

Bonus points

• 50-40-90 on 25ppg (below 60 games) (10)

• 1 x 60 point game (1)

• 3x consecutive Finals modern NBA (5)

Kyrie can ball. There’s no doubt about that. It’s everything else that comes with a question mark. But when he’s available and not tanking the chemistry, he’s generally delivered the goods on the big stage. I’d rather not recall some of those moments on a Warriors blog so let’s just leave it there and move on. 

You will want to skip ahead at about 7 minutes of this highlight video:

67 Chauncey Billups (123 BEAST points) 

Honors

• Championship (30)

• Runner-up (5)

• Finals MVP (20)

• MVP runner-up points (1)

• 3x All NBA (6)

• 2x All Defense (4)

• All Star (5)

• FIBA World Cup Gold (1)

Individual career stats

• top 30 total threes (3)

• top 30 total threes Finals (3)

• top 20 threes per game Finals (3)

• top 30 TS% playoffs (5)

• top 5 TS% Finals (20)

• top 50 Win Shares regular season (2)

• top 30 Win Shares playoffs (15) 

Mr Big Shot deserves a place on the Top 75. Those Pistons teams were beasts themselves and despite having no one recognised superstar made sure that the road to the Eastern Conference went through Detroit for a good half-decade. Their demolition of the Shaq-Kobe era in Los Angeles was delightful - a demonstration of the power of the collective over the individual, and how if we truly buy into each other we can be stronger than the sum of our parts and achieve amazing things.

As for Billups himself, check out how his True Shooting % exploded on the biggest stage of all. A big jump in Win Shares too from the regular season to playoffs shows that moniker wasn’t misplaced.

 

 

66 Ben Wallace (124 BEAST points) 

Honors

• Championship (30)

• Runner-up (5)

• 4x Defensive Player of the Year (20)

• 6x All Defense (12)

• 5x All NBA (10)

• 2x rebounding season leader (4)

• blocks season leader (2)

• All Star (4)

Individual career stats

• top 20 total blocks (5)

• top 20 total blocks Finals (5)

• top 30 total steals Finals (3)

• top 30 blocks per game regular season (1)

• top 30 blocks per game playoffs (2)

• top 10 blocks per game Finals (5)

• top 20 steals per game Finals (3)

• top 20 rebounds per game Finals (3)

• top 50 Win Shares playoffs (10)

Well this worked out quite neatly. Billups hitting the big shots and Big Ben battling in the paint were the core of that Pistons era. Undrafted, undersized, unheralded, Ben Wallace went on to stuff the defensive stat sheets like they were some weak-ass junk brought into the Palace paint, capture four Defensive Player of the Year awards, and secure two rebounding titles and lead the league in blocks one season too. No surprise Win Shares has him in the top 50 for the playoffs either - anchoring a team that went to six straight conference finals is mighty impressive. It’s a very short list that could match up with Shaq and Tim Duncan in their primes but Wallace is on that list. So he’s on ours. Good beastie!

65 Wes Unseld (125 BEAST points) 

Honors

• Championship (25)

• MVP (20)

• Finals MVP (15)

• 3x Runner-up (15)

• 1x All NBA (First Team) (3)

• Rebounding season leader (2)

• Rookie of the Year (1)

Individual career stats

• top 15 total rebounds career (10) 

• top 20 total rebounds Finals (5)

• top 10 rebounds per game regular season (3)

• top 5 rebounds per game playoffs (10)

• top ten rebounds per game Finals (5)

• top 75 Win Shares regular season (1)

• top 75 Win Shares playoffs (5)

I won’t front I don’t have a lot to add on Wes Unseld. Famed for his toughness, defense, and love of the outlet pass, his achievements speak for themselves- 4 finals appearances throughout the 70s as the anchor for the Bullets, one ring where he was named Finals MVP over Elvin Hayes, the pretty unique achievement of MVP and rookie of the year in the same season, and a ton of rebounds, but not that many points. He was on the NBAs top 75 list deservedly so perhaps it takes the NBA’s committee a little longer after retirement to recognise defense than offensive exploits, which tend to get seen in the moment? 

 

63= Patrick Ewing (127 BEAST points) 

Honors

• 2x Runner-up (10)

• MVP Runner-up points (6)

• 7x All NBA (1x First Team) (15)

• 3x All Defense (6)

• All Star (11)

• Rookie of the Year (1)

• NCAA Championship (2)

• College Player of the Year (1)

• NCAA Final Four MVP (1)

• 2x Olympic Gold (6)

Individual career stats

• top 30 total points (10)

• top 30 total rebounds (3)

• top ten in blocks (15)

• Bonus for three top totals (10)

• third most blocks per game in a Finals series (3)

• top 20 blocks per game regular season (2)

• top 20 blocks per game playoffs (3)

• top 20 total blocks Finals (5)

• top 50 Win Shares regular season (2)

• top 75 Win Shares playoffs (5)

Bonus points

• 8 seed Finals run (10) 

Oh cruel beastie! Foul fiend! What terrors are you inflicting on my basketball soul? Patrick Ewing was hands down the greatest New York Knick of the modern era and came mighty close to leading them to a championship. He patrolled the paint, or rather the turnaround mid-range area, for over a decade as one of the great big men of a golden era of great big men. Throughout the 1990s Ewing’s Knicks were probably the team in the East that consistently gave Jordan and the Bulls the toughest ride. He also gave us an epic big beast match-up with Hakeem in the 1994 Finals. And it definitely feels like we were robbed of an all-time big beast sequel when Ewing was injured ahead of the 1999 Finals and couldn’t bang with David Robinson and a young Tim Duncan.

 

So has the beast shamed it’s creator? Should Ewing really be punished because his teammate went 0-for-1 billion in a critical Game 7? Or another teammate couldn’t make a layup on the fifth attempt? 

Interestingly this is about dead-on where Win Shares has Ewing. His prime was just the wrong side of the RAPM cut-off so he does get done over a bit there. Ewing is firmly on the list though. He just doesn’t quite get over the hump statistically in comparison to some of his peers to make up for that lack of that elusive ring and get a bit higher up. 

That said at this stage of proceedings the differences are pretty minimal so I’m not going to get too hung up on one or two specific rankings. The important thing is he is undoubtedly recognised one of the top 75 players of all time.

63= Reggie Miller (127 BEAST points) 

Honors

• Runner-up (5)

• 3x All NBA (6)

• All Star (5)

• 2x season three point leader (4)

• Olympic Gold (3)

• FIBA World Cup Gold (1)

• FIBA World Cup All-Tournament Team (1)

• NIT championship (1)

• NIT MVP (1)

Individual career stats

• top 30 total points (10)

• top 5 total threes (20)

• top 30 total threes Finals (3)

• top 30 threes per game regular season (1)

• top 20 threes per game playoffs (1)

• top 10 TS% regular season (10)

• top 10 TS% playoffs (15)

• top 30 Win Shares regular season (5)

• top 30 Win Shares playoffs (15)

• top 50 RAPM (3)

Bonus points

• 50-40-90 club at 20ppg (10)

• three point record holder pre three-point era (5)

It is a rare creature that can cause the good fans of Indiana and New York to take up their pitchforks and roam the countryside for it’s head. Yet here I am with Ewing and Miller in the 60s. Now you know why I’m writing this under a nom de plume. 

Would Reggie Miller get more points if he played in this era? Presumably, but he’s still in the top 5 for total threes, gets plenty of points for efficiency, and still is on the charts for threes per game, and gets a bonus for being the 3-point GOAT before Steph Curry shattered everything. Win Shares likes him a bit more than RAPM, whose 96-97 dataset covers his late prime so that might account for the difference there. 

Reggie’s teams were always a tough out in the playoffs, and he did finally get over the Knicks/ Bulls hump only to face Shaq and Kobe at the start of their threepeat journey. The missing ring is one thing, but the truth of the matter is somehow he only made 5 All Star teams and 3 All NBA teams (all third team) in the entirety of his 18-year career, and no all-defense teams to boot. So there’s not actually a lot for the beast to feast on there. I must say that did take me by surprise.

Still, like Ewing, he’s firmly in the list as he should be demonstrating again that while our beast does love winners, you don’t have to have actually got that championship ring to get some love. Sometimes circumstances conspire against the greats and that’s ok. It doesn’t mean they weren’t winners.

 

But for a moment let’s enrage both fanbases even further by musing on what might this list look like if Reggie had joined Ewing and the Knicks in the summer of 1996 in the wake of the Chicago Bulls “72-win and a ring season”. There was certainly plenty of speculation at the time, but Reggie chose to remain the main man in Indiana, rather than be a co-star on a team that might actually have given Jordan’s epic Bulls team a run for their money. For what it’s worth that same summer Shaq went to the Lakers (after Kobe had forced a draft-day trade to Los Angeles) sowing the seeds of the outcome of Reggie’s only Finals appearance. Ultimately that was Reggie’s choice. I guess he’d have had to become besties with Spike Lee and maybe after all their jawing that was one step too far.

*62 Anthony Davis (128 BEAST points) 

Honors

• Championship (30)

• MVP Runner-up points (4)

• 5x All NBA (4x First Team) (14)

• 5x All Defense (10) 

• All Star (10)

• 3x blocks season leader (6)

• NCAA championship (2)

• NCAA awards (50% of eligible awards) (1)

• NCAA Final Four MVP (1)

• 2x Olympic Gold (6)

• FIBA World Cup Gold (1)

Individual career stats

• top 30 total blocks finals (3)

• top 30 points per game regular season (1)

• top 20 points per game career average playoffs (3)

• top 20 blocks per game regular season (2)

• top 20 blocks per game playoffs (3) 

• top 30 rebounds per game playoffs (2)

• top 5 TS% playoffs (25)

• top 30 TS% regular season (3)

• Top 75 Win Shares regular season (1)

AD burst onto the scene an absolute monster stuffing the stat sheet in every category in New Orleans. Was he the best player on the Lakers bubble championship? Possibly, though none of those Finals MVP voters would ever confer said award to a teammate of Lebron.

Since then have things tailed off a bit? We got a glimpse of what AD’s talents can still deliver in the Olympics but somehow the Lakers haven’t quite delivered since 2020, even if he was a riddle the Warriors couldn’t solve in 2023. 

For the purposes of beast, he’s got something from everywhere (except totals but that will come with time) but it’s notable he sports the top playoff true shooting % for anyone taking over 10 attempts a game, while still racking up the defensive accolades. In truth he probably should have had at least one DPOY trophy in there at some point as well if in recent years it had actually been awarded to the best defender.

 

61 Dennis Johnson (130 BEAST points) 

• Championship (Sonics) (25)

• 2x Championships (Celtics - not top 3 player) (20)

• Finals MVP (15)

• Runner-up (Sonics) (5)

• 2x Runner-up modern (Celtics - not top 3 player) (6)

• 2x All NBA (1x First Team) (5)

• 9x All Defense (18)

• All Star (5)

Individual career stats

• Top 30 total points in Finals (3)

• Top 20 total steals in Finals (5)

• Top 10 total blocks in Finals (10)

• Top 20 assists per game finals (3)

• Top 75 Win Shares playoffs (5)

Bonus points

• four consecutive finals post-merger (not top 3) (5)

Are you sure beast? ROAR!! I’ll take that as a yes then. Think not of DJ as the 4th wheel on the Celtics, setting the table and locking up opposing guards, though that is definitely part of his appeal. 

But just as much as he sacrificed for the greater good in his second act, his first act was pretty damn good. The star of Seattle’s only championship team for the gentlemen (the ladies have fared much better) DJ led his team to two NBA Finals, made 4 straight all star teams and two All NBA appearances (almost as much as Reggie…). Then Boston, 2 more rings as a contributor, another all star appearance, and racking up plenty of finals stats along the way. Overall he made 9 all-defense teams and Win Shares has him in the top 75 for the playoffs as well.

It’s a deceptively solid and deep resume for a player often only remembered as a footnote to one of the great dynasties of the NBA.