The Best of the Best

The best player in the history of every NBA franchise, plus a FIBA update.

Good morning! We’re almost to September, which means NBA basketball is around the corner. A month from now, we’ll be preparing for the opening of training camp. In the meantime, I’m using this week to tackle a fun NBA question I’ve always wanted to dive into. That, plus an update from the FIBA World Championships, coming your way right now…

🗣️ News & Notes ✍️

🏀 One weekend is in the books at the FIBA World Championships, and so far, so good for the most prominent Knicks in the tournament.

It didn’t take long for RJ Barrett and Team Canada to make their mark.

Two days after blowing open a close game at halftime and throttling Team France by a final score of 95-65, the Canadians set a World Cup record with 44 assists against Team Lebanon, who they beat by a modest 55 points. Barrett led the team in scoring in that game with 17 points on 12 shots, shaking off a poor shooting performance in Friday’s opener.

As for Team USA, it took them a little while to get going against New Zealand in their first match, but they ended up marching to a 99-72 victory. Jalen Brunson did a little bit of everything in the win, finishing with 10, 4 & 4. Josh Hart scored five points in 15 minutes and was part of several big American pushes with the rest of the bench unit.

The news wasn’t as good for Evan Fournier and Team France. Even though Fournier has put up good individual numbers, the Frenchmen followed up their loss to Canada with an 88-86 loss to a Latvian squad missing former Knick Kristaps Porzingis. They’ve been eliminated from contention, but will nonetheless go to the 2024 Olympics by virtue of being the host country.

Next up: the Americans play Greece today at 8:40 am.

The Best of the Best

Every summer, I allow myself one (or two) newsletters to dive deep into an NBA thing that isn’t really Knicks related at all, but I’m too excited to pass up.

This summer, that glorious idea comes courtesy of John Reynolds:

File this one away for the dog days of summer: Which NBA team has the worst best player in franchise history?

You could take this a few ways. For example, Kawhi is probably the best individual player to play for the Raptors, but is Kyle Lowry the GROAT given the length of his tenure and quality of play while he was there? I lean towards the second definition, just because it feels more true to the spirit of what that should mean.

(This might secretly be a ploy to get Reggie Miller crowned the official “Worst” Best Player in Franchise History.)

A quick Google search reveals that this topic has already been tackled several times, but it’s too up my alley to pass up. Plus, any excuse to further sully Reggie Miller’s reputation is worth tackling.

I also want to give the exercise a bit of a different spin, so before I rank the best players in for each franchise and figure out who is indeed the worst, I’m going to break down the BPIFH’s into five separate categories:

No Thought Required, No Doubt About It

No Doubt About It (but a moment’s thought required)

Debatable

Highly Debatable (two candidates)

Highly Debatable (three candidates)

As for criteria, I don’t want to set any hard and fast rules. I thought of a few possibilities, like making player ineligible for multiple franchises, or requiring that they’ve played more games for their BPIFH team than any other team in their career, but these seem arbitrary, and thus, against the spirit of the exercise. So let’s just use the golden rule when it comes to silly lists like this: you know it when you see it.

Some logistical notes: I’m considering all old locations and/or team names. For instance, the Thunder and Sonics will be considered together. The only place this gets really confusing is with Charlotte and New Orleans, because for 11 years before they became the Pelicans, the New Orleans franchise was known as the Hornets. For our purposes, the Charlotte franchise will be one entity and the New Orleans franchise will be another. Lastly, ABA days won’t count for the Spurs, Nets, Nuggets and Pacers.

As always, this is just one humble man’s opinion…

No Thought Required, No Doubt About It

Michael Jordan, Bulls; LeBron James, Cavs; Bill Russell, Celtics; Tim Duncan, Spurs; Oscar Robertson, Kings/Royals; Kevin Garnett, Timberwolves; Dirk Nowitzki, Mavs; Dwyane Wade, Heat; Isiah Thomas, Pistons; Reggie Miller, Pacers

Well, shit…the whole point of the thing was to bash Reggie, and look who shows up in the first category. Sadly, there really isn’t any debate.

Oh well. At least Reggie is the worst “No Thought Required” guy by a comfortable margin. We’ll see where he ranks on the overall list a bit later.

No Doubt About It (but a moment’s thought required)

Steph Curry, Warriors: Wilt Chamberlain spent the first five and a half years of his career with the Warriors, averaging a ho-hum 41 points over that time. Not bad. Even so, he’s no match for Curry, at least when it comes to accomplishments for this franchise. Steph bests him in MVP’s (2 to 1), Finals appearances (6 to 1), titles (4 to 0) and total points (21,712 to 17,783). Hat tip to Rick Barry, who at least deserves a mention.

Hakeem Olajuwon, Rockets: Moses Malone was utterly dominant during his time in Houston, winning two MVP’s and leading a mediocre group to the NBA Finals, but he was only there for six seasons. Hakeem put in 17 years and was pretty good in his own right over that time.

Bob Pettit, Hawks: Dominique Wilkins may have passed Pettit in points scored and games played, but we can’t overlook his inability to lead the Hawks past the second round. The two-time MVP, on the other hand, joins Wilt as the only man ever to take down Bill Russell in the playoffs when he led St. Louis to the 1958 title.

Nikola Jokic, Nuggets: Not in the first category only because he still seems so young, but Jokic has already put in eight seasons - the same as Melo in Denver. Alex English is one of the most underrated players in NBA history, averaging 27, 5 & 5 over an eight-year stretch, but he doesn’t hold a candle to the Joker.

Karl Malone, Jazz: He’s so synonymous with his pick and roll partner that I suppose you could craft an argument for Stockton. I won’t.

Jason Kidd, Nets: Kidd was only with the Nets for six and a half of his 19 seasons, but without considering their ABA time, no one else is close to this designation (although I’ll give a shout out to Brook Lopez, the franchise’s all-time leader in points scored, by a mere four points over OAKAAK Buck Williams).

Kemba Walker, Charlotte: It’s probably not a great sign that this franchise has existed for 34 seasons and its best player never won a playoff series. Then again, Larry Johnson - the only other real consideration for this title - only won one playoff series, and Kemba beats him comfortably in every other metric.

Somewhat Debatable

Julius Erving, Sixers: At first glance, this feels like it should be in the next category, when the reality is that it should be in the last one, if anything. On one hand, no franchise outside of LA and Boston has seen more all time greats reach their peak than the Sixers. Wilt, Moses, Iverson, Barkley, Billy Cunningham, Hal Greer and Irving all made the NBA’s top 75 and all are arguably more synonymous with Philly than any other team. That said, Chamberlain (4) and Malone (5) combined were there for fewer seasons than Dr. J (11), and it’s not like Irving’s peak was far below those two, having won MVP as a Sixer and finishing top-five four more times. He also teamed up with Moses for that 1983 title and led Philadelphia to three Finals before Malone’s arrival. That postseason resume puts him comfortably ahead of Iverson, even if AI would be the Answer for many fans under 40.

Patrick Ewing, Knicks: I won’t rehash my debate between Ewing and Clyde from April of 2022, but feel free to go back and check it out. In short, this is a closer argument than its made out to be, to say nothing of the late, great Willis Reed, who many old heads wrote in and made a very convincing case for.

Steve Nash, Suns: He never made the Finals in Phoenix, is eighth on the team’s all-time scoring leaderboard, and his two MVP’s are now viewed by some as a product of league-wide exuberance over Phoenix’s revolutionary style of play than the monumental accomplishment they were. Even with the nitpicks though, it’s impossible to put anyone ahead of Nash, who led the Suns to three West Finals in his 10 seasons there. Barkley also won MVP and made it one round further, but he was only in Phoenix for four seasons - not nearly long enough to mount a serious challenge. Kevin Johnson was awesome, but not nearly on Nash’s level.

Dwight Howard, Magic: The most criminal omission from the NBA’s top 75 list, Dwight might not seem like a shoe in here when you consider his predecessor at center. But even though Shaq also led the Magic to a Finals and also finished runner up for MVP in Orlando, Howard had three other top-five MVP finished (O’Neal had one) and five All-NBA 1st team nods with the Magic to Shaq’s zero. Even factoring in the diminished nature of the center position when Dwight played, that’s too much to overcome, as are his eight seasons in Orlando to Shaq’s four.

Marc Gasol, Memphis: With all due respect to Pau Gasol, Shareef Abdur-Rahim, Zach Randolph and even Ja Morant, this is a two-man race between the pillars of the Grit & Grind era.

Mike Conley has the slightest of edges over Gasol in seasons (12 to 11), games (788 to 769) and points (11733 to 11684), but this isn’t really all that close. Pau’s little bro was named to three All-Star teams in Memphis, made two All-NBA teams (including a 1st Team selection in 2015) and was the Defensive Player of the Year in 2013. Conley has some rogue All-NBA votes on his resume but doesn’t come close to matching his teammate. Marc gets the win.

TOMORROW: Part II of Every Team’s Best Player (the final 8)

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