by Simmons Bill
Unselds. Let’s name it after Big Wes! Think of it like a hockey assist—any outlet pass past the opposing three-point line that creates an instant fast break (and ultimately a layup or dunk) counts as an Unseld. We’ll use Kevin Love as our test case over the next few years; if you’re a T-Wolves fan who watches every game, please, keep track of this for us. How many Unselds can Love come up with? 89
ll of this sounds great, right? Just one problem: our statistical community is more obsessed with comparing players, chasing impossible-to-prove-objectively stats like “adjusted plus-minus” and pushing marketable formulas like PER or wages of wins. That mind-set works in baseball, an individual sport in which your teammates don’t matter unless they can help you get PEDs. (Sorry, I had to.) Every conceivable diamond talent can be measured objectively. I thought Derek Jeter was a great shortstop until the defensive stats told me otherwise. I thought Wade Boggs was wrong for a leadoff hitter; turns out that an OBP machine who drags pitch counts along is just what you want. But basketball isn’t baseball. When John Hollinger’s PER metric decides that Marreese Speights is the 30th most efficient offensive player in basketball while Shane Battier is 284th, obviously I’m dubious. 90 So while the statistical community is trying to clone cows, NBA front offices are only worried about gourmet cheeseburgers. They spend millions figuring out hyperintelligent stats to measure defensive stops, shooting percentages from various offensive zones, Russells, Unselds and everything else, then hoard that information for themselves like it’s the Cold War or something. Fans like you and me could have a better idea of what we’re watching
… only we don’t.
In my opinion, there’s no ironclad way to assign statistical value to every player when so much of an individual’s success (as well as his numbers) hinges on situations and team success, as well as his willingness to put the team ahead of himself. Look at the four-year effect Unseld had on Kevin Loughery, a starting guard in his late twenties when Wes joined the Bullets:
As Loughery told Elliott Kalb, “When Wes came to the Bullets, my scoring average jumped from 14 to 22, all because of him91 … He could grab a rebound and throw it all the way downcourt before it hit the ground. All of a sudden, I became Paul Warfield—a wide receiver catching passes ahead of the field.” Couldn’t we measure that impact in a tangible way? Instead of unearthing complicated formulas to evaluate seasons or careers, we should spend our energies making hyperspecific stats better (the gourmet cheeseburger analogy), then using that enhanced information and combining it with team success, our own educated opinions, and thoughts from players and coaches to piece together a complete picture. Basketball is an objective sport and a subjective sport, dammit. That’s what makes it so much fun to follow. So on the surface, yeah, it seems peculiar that Unseld cracked the top forty-five, or even that he took home the ’78 Finals MVP by averaging a piddling 9–12–4. But as teammate Mitch Kupchak explained to Ken Shouler,
“Unseld was the consummate team basketball player; his only objective was to win. Statistics were never important to him. You can’t begin to imagine what he did to make his teammates better—set picks, made outlet passes, guarded the bigger center. He was the MVP of the [’79 Finals].” Wes Unseld earned this spot. But if I could have pointed to stats like “led the league in Unselds for 10
straight years” or “career leader in Unselds,” this section would have been a helluva lot easier to write. 92
40. GARY PAYTON
Resume: 17 years, 10 quality, 9 All-Stars … top 5 (’98, ’00), top 10 (’95, ’96, ’97, ’99, ’02), top 15 (’94, ’01) … All-Defense (9× 1st team) … Defensive Player of the Year (’96) … leader: steals (1x), threes (1x) … 3-year peak: 23–5–9 … best player on runner-up (’96 Sonics), 21–5–7 (21 G) … five top-6 MVP finishes … career: assists (7th), steals (3rd) … 20K Point Club.
During the 2008 Finals, I wrote that Rajon Rondo brought a ton of stuff to the table and took a good share of stuff off it; in other words, he was bringing forks and plates and removing the knives and spoons, but you could still eat a decent meal with him because you had forks and plates. Well, Gary Payton was the all-time table test guy. He brought you sterling-silver forks and knives from Hoagland’s, with some gorgeous plates to match, only you didn’t have spoons for dessert and you had to drink wine out of paper cups because he broke all the glasses. Could you have a memorable meal with him? Absolutely. But you also left the meal saying, “Man, I wish we’d had spoons and wineglasses.” Here’s everything he brought to the table and took away from it:
Forks/knives/plates. The best all-around point guard of the nineties … top player on a 64-win Seattle team that grabbed two Finals wins from the ’96 Bulls … one of the legendary trash-talkers of all time … one of the five best defensive guards ever … his 1999–2000 season (24–9–7, 153
steals, 45% FG, 82 games, 3,425 minutes) ranks in the pantheon of Greatest Point Guard Seasons Ever … helped make the shaved-head thing popular in the early nineties, then stuck with it through thick and thin … probably should have been nominated for an Oscar for his turn in Eddie as an unnamed street player who battled the late Malik Sealy 93… other than Oscar and Magic, the only superstar guard who developed a killer low-post game and punished smaller guards … defended MJ as well as anyone ever, holding him to 23.7 points in the last half of the ’96 Finals and a 5-for-19 performance in Game 6 94… GP and John Malkovich would have been been my all-time favorite cross-ethnic look-alikes if not for Britney Spears/Pedro Martinez and Harry Carson/Glenn Close … if Shawn Kemp hadn’t self-destructed, GP would have won at least one title … on a personal note, I watched Kidd, Stockton and GP in their absolute primes and thought GP was the most talented all-around player of the three (he just had no holes) … and you have to love anyone with an ego large enough to name his sons Gary Payton Jr. and Gary Payton II.
Missing spoons/glasses. Only played at a high level for ten years, a curiously low number for a modern superstar … traded by Seattle in 2002, strange because franchises normally don’t trade signature guys, right?… his last few seasons for the Lakers, Celtics and Heat were shamefully bad; I even suggested changing the name of “jumping the shark” to “pulling a GP” after the ’04 Finals
… developed a well-earned reputation as a coach-killer and locker room lawyer, someone who fought or nearly came to blows with multiple teammates and had a knack for selling teammates out in times of crisis 95… played with a volatile, trash-talking swagger that seemed to derail the Sonics almost as much as it helped them … definitely described by a few teammates like this: “What can I say? Gary is Gary” … nobody in the top fifty vacillated more times between “totally untradeable”
and “we are definitely receptive to a trade.”
o yeah, GP was more talented than someone like Stockton, as we witnessed in the ’96
Conference Finals when Payton did everything but stick a red ball in Stockton’s mouth, duct-tape him to a chair and introduce him to the Gimp. But ask anyone from that era whom they’d rather have as a teammate and nearly all would pick Stockton, simply because they wouldn’t have wanted to deal with Payton’s bullshit. Can you win a championship when your point guard has a gigantic ego and cares more about making himself look good than his teammates? Apparently not—Payton never won anything. Switch Payton and Stockton in ’92 and it’s hard to imagine Karl Malone having the same type of career; the first time he folded in a playoff game, Payton would have ripped him to shreds publicly and privately. As the years pass, nobody will remember this delightful trait: they’ll see his offensive numbers and defensive honors and assume Payton was his generation’s best two-way guard. And in a way, that was true. But Stockton gave his team a better chance to win, taking care of everyone, never rocking the boat, coming through in the clutch and always putting the team above himself. So I’d pick him. It’s not even close, actually. On the other hand, I remember betting the Phoenix money line for their first-round series against the heavi
ly favored ’97 Sonics, nearly pulling off an upset, then losing simply because Payton played out of his freaking mind. I specifically remember making up a “Never bet against GP” rule right then and there. Stockton was good, but he was never that good.
One subplot with Payton’s career needs to be mentioned: after he bombed with the Lakers and Celtics and landed in Miami, his mini-renaissance as a role player was riveting because he figured out that he wasn’t good anymore and adjusted accordingly. That never happens, right? In Boston, a washed-up Payton was still trying to beat guys off the dribble, posting up, demanding to cover top scorers and sulking when he didn’t get the ball. It was like watching Jason Alexander order people around on the set of some crappy sitcom (“Don’t you realize who I am? I’m Jason Alexander!”) and failing to realize his time had come and gone. In Miami, Payton willingly took a backseat to Wade—with the exception of one “Don’t you do that to me, I’m Gary Payton!” blowup in the Chicago series where he flipped out on Wade on national TV—treating us to roughly 900 plays that started with a resigned GP flipping the ball to Wade in crunch time, then trudging up the court to stand in his spot near the corner, like a Wimbledon ball boy getting back into position between serves. When they needed his experience in the Finals, he dusted off the cobwebs and delivered two of the biggest plays of the series: an off-balance jumper that beat the shot clock and won Game 3, and an old-school lefty banker in the final 30 seconds of overtime in Game 5. The second one was funny because GP reacted to the chest bumps and high fives afterward with one of those “See, you guys forgot, I used to be pretty good!” looks on his face. Like he belted out the retro swagger.
Still, there was something distressing about Payton’s reincarnation as a middling supporting player, someone who could barely handle the likes of Jason Terry and surprised everyone with two clutch moments. Should we really have been surprised when Gary Payton made a clutch play?
This was one of the ten best point guards of all time! Things had fallen to that level? 96 Maybe we couldn’t blame GP for hanging on for a few more pay-checks or being unable to realize when it was over; after all, it’s his career and not ours, and most overcompetitive people have trouble determining the right time to call it quits. That’s part of what makes them overcompetitive in the first place. And since Payton earned crunch-time minutes for a championship team and contributed to its title, you couldn’t compare him to the ’89 version of Kareem or anything. But when I remember GP getting that ring that season, I always remember one thing: not the pair of clutch shots, but me being surprised when he made them. Was a championship ring worth sinking to that level of expectations? Only Gary Payton knows.
39. PATRICK EWING
Resume: 17 years, 11 quality, 12 All-Stars … ’86 Rookie of the Year … top 5 (’90), top 10
(’88, ’89, ’91, ’92, ’93, ’97) … best player on 1 runner-up (’94 Knicks) … 2-year peak: 28–11, 3.6 BPG, 53% FG … ’90 Playoffs: 29–11 (10 G) … ’94, ’95 playoffs: 20–11, 2.8 BPG, 45%
FG (36 G) … member of ’92 Dream Team … 20K-10K Club
Knicks fans did their damnedest to talk themselves into the Patrick Ewing era.97 Everyone believed Ewing was the Evolutionary Russell, a destructive defensive force who would own the league someday. Only it didn’t happen … and it didn’t happen … and then it seemed like it was happening, only it turned out to be a dick tease … and it didn’t happen … and at some point everyone except for the delusional Knicks fans realized that it was never going to happen. You know those movie scenes where a male character dies in a hospital bed and his wife stands over him talking like he didn’t die, and everyone else in the room feels awkward, and then finally someone comes over and says, “Honey, he’s gone” and tries to pull her away, so she starts screaming, “Nooooooo! Nooooo, he’s fine! He’s gonna wake up!” and then she collapses and has a crying seizure? That was every Knicks fan from 1995 to 1999. When Hakeem turned Ewing into ground beef in the ’94 Finals, Ewing dropped dead in a “This guy’s carrying us to a title someday”
sense. But the Knicks fans kept standing there over the hospital bed waiting for him to wake up.
Eventually they decided that Ewing’s career was either “frustrating” (the glass-half-full take) or
“phenomenally disappointing” (the glass-half-empty take). He peaked during the ’90 season, averaging a 29–11 with 4 blocks and 55 percent shooting for a 45-win Knicks team, saving the Knicks with a 44–13 in a must-win Game 4 against Boston, then leading them to a shocking upset in the decisive fifth game (31 points). Sitting in the Garden as Ewing took over and swished an improbable backbreaking three, I remember thinking, “Shit, he’s putting it all together; we’re in serious trouble.” But Detroit easily dispatched them in the second round and Ewing was never that good again. Why? Because of his knees. College Ewing prowled the paint like a tiger, jumped around like House of Pain and contested every shot within fifteen feet of the rim. NBA veteran Ewing picked his spots, jogged with huge strides and crouched before every jump. Never a great rebounder98 or passer, never someone with a treasure chest of low-post moves, that subtle erosion of athleticism turned him into an elite center who did everything well and nothing great. Actually, it was a little sad. Poor Ewing perfected his “intense” game face, bellowed at the MSG crowd, pounded his chest after big plays, played up the whole “I’m a warrior!” angle in interviews and even made a clumsy effort to become an intimidating enforcer. All of it kind of worked … but not really. The sophisticated Knicks fans saw right through him, endlessly debating his virtues and repeatedly coming back to the same conclusion: As long as this is our best guy, we probably can’t win the title.
That’s when Pat Riley nearly salvaged Ewing’s superstardom, remaking the Knicks into Bad Boys II, adopting thugball tactics to exact as much as he could from his secretly limited center (and nearly ruining basketball in the process). They lost back-to-back slugfests to Chicago before catching a break with Jordan’s “baseball sabbatical,” reaching the Finals behind a monster effort from Ewing in Game 7 (22–20–7 with 5 blocks and the winning tip against Indiana) before squandering a disheartening Finals. The following year, Reggie Miller ripped out their hearts in the Eastern Semis, with Ewing missing a series-deciding 6-foot bunny. And just like that the Ewing window had closed, although it took a few more years for everyone to realize it. 99 Before the 2001 season, the Knicks finally cut the cord (and inadvertently destroyed their future) by turning Ewing’s expiring deal into a slew of horrendous contracts; then we watched Ewing slog through the “fifteen-year-old poodle with cataracts who starts going to the bathroom in the house and needs to be put to sleep” stage. Did we ever figure out why centers age in dog years once they hit their late thirties? They always have one final season where they gain 20 pounds, lose all hand-eye coordination, run in slow motion, and jump like their shoes are loaded with razor blades; all they have left is their turnaround jumper. It’s like an automobile being completely stripped except for the radio, which is left behind for some reason. That’s the turnaround jumper. For Ewing, that season happened twice, in Seattle and Orlando. And then he was done.
He hasn’t endured for a few reasons. Ewing lacked charisma and may have been the most uncomfortable postmerger interview other than Moses Malone.100 He had some legitimate weaknesses—horrendous hands, shaky at crunch time, dubious rebounder, awful passer out of double-teams, couldn’t make his teammates better—and he lacked a fan-friendly game that wouldn’t exactly be remembered fondly. Even Ewing’s shining moment (the ’94 Finals) turned into a train wreck: Ewing averaged 18.9 points and shot 36 percent, while Hakeem averaged a 27–9 with 3.9 blocks and 50 percent shooting. And it wasn’t even THAT close. Ewing ranks this highly because you could build a contender around him in his prime, and because he absolutely could have won the ’94 championship playing with Richmond, Rice, Miller, or really any good two-guard other than John Starks. Much like fellow Dream Team players Drexler, Robinson and Malone, we’ll
remember Ewing as a second banana masquerading as a first banana, even if Knicks fans never wanted to admit it at the time. Now they do. 101
One last Ewing thought: When I was writing for my old website, a reader named Dave Cirilli sent in his elaborate Ewing Theory, which centered around the inexplicable phenomenon that both the Hoyas and Knicks seemed to play better every time Ewing was sitting on the bench. After tinkering with it and finding various examples,102 Dave emailed me and we honed the language over the next few weeks, eventually deciding that two crucial elements were needed for any situation to qualify for Ewing status: a star athlete receives an inordinate amount of media attention and fan interest, yet his teams never win anything substantial with him; and that same athlete leaves his team (either by injury, trade, graduation, free agency, or retirement) and both the media and fans immediately write off the team for the near future (for either the rest of the season or the following season). I wrote about the theory and had some fun with it. 103 A few months later, Ewing tore an Achilles tendon during Game 2 of the ’99 Eastern Finals. The heavily favored Pacers seemed like a mortal lock … only with Ewing himself involved, suddenly this had become the ultimate test of the Ewing Theory. Heading into Game 3, Dave was oozing with confidence and predicting in no uncertain terms, “Ewing’s injury is the best thing that ever could have happened to the Knicks; they’re definitely making the Finals now.” Incredibly, the Knicks won three of the next four and advanced to the Finals as I was playing up Dave’s Ewing theory prediction on my website! My three thousand readers at the time couldn’t have been more impressed. From there, Ewing Theory instances kept happening—Mo Vaughn (’99 Red Sox), Barry Sanders (’99 Lions), Trent Green (’99 Rams), Griffey and A-Rod (’00 and ’01 Mariners), Dan Marino (’00