Top 5 to never win title?
- Thread starter murksiderock
- Start date
Y'all just forget Elgin Baylor existed cause he was from an earlier era?
Averaged 27-14-4 for his career. Had 35-20-5 and 38-19-5 seasons back-to-back. 1st-team All-NBA ten times. 7-time top-5 MVP candidate including four top-3 finishes. Repeatedly finished top-10 in points, rebounds, and assists. Played in 8 Finals.
Other than the fact that he's from the 1960s, hard to see how you keep him off this list.
No. My issue with Baylor is that his teams weren't good offensively before West came into his own, and he doesn't have much longevity as the anchor of a team as West usurped him in '64 and led the Lakers to top offensive outputs (even without Baylor in the lineup due to injury, West was clearly the driving force). The players I have above Baylor have some combination of superior longevity and serving as the primary anchor of elite units for a moderate-long stretch of time. I don't factor accolades into my rankings. So he doesn't get a boost for being a 7 time top 5 MVP candidate, first team all-NBA honors, etc. More so interested in longevity, influence on a team (not necessarily in terms of win/loss) and what their respective role on said team was.
Can't argue with that.
Still putting Baylor over Ewing. You saw the Knicks without Ewing too.
murksiderock
Superstar
Basically what @Consumed said. I haven't deep dived into Baylor but the reviewing I have done, I was always under the impression that West was the driving force of their success, which in the spirit of "influence on a team" that Consumed mentioned, has always made me look at Baylor as more of a #2 who played as an unsuccessful #1 when he had to...
I wasn't around to see him and I didn't do any deep diving even when I looked at him prior, so I could be wrong. That was just my perception...
That said, I was really only naming players I've seen personally. If I was naming guys just off my assessment of what I know about them, regardless of whether I saw them or not, my Top 5 would probably be, in no order:
Barkley
Baylor
Ewing
Malone
Iverson
Can't argue with that.
Still putting Baylor over Ewing. You saw the Knicks without Ewing too.
I do have issues with Ewing's reliability as a primary option. but he did have better longevity than Baylor and was the most important contributor to some of the best defenses ever. Whereas with Elgin we don't really have evidence of him being the anchor of a great offense or defense. In '99 Ewing was no longer in his prime and ate up way too many possessions at well below league average efficiency, still lacking good playmaking vision to make others better around him. Mobility was totally shot by then and it hurt his defensive consistency a lot. So that they performed well without him as better creators got more touches and that a younger Camby could replace his role did make sense. I chose to look at the prime of his career and influence on the Knicks more so than the tail end.
The God Poster
LWO representa
Solid points
1. Barkley
2. Iverson
3. Ewing
4. Mailman
5. Reggie Miller slightly over Dominique
2. Iverson
3. Ewing
4. Mailman
5. Reggie Miller slightly over Dominique
Reggie Miller over CP3?
