Speaker 1: This episode is brought to you by All State. Some
Speaker 1: people just know they could save hundreds on car insurance
Speaker 1: by checking all State first. Like you know to check
Speaker 1: the date of the Big Game first before you accidentally
Speaker 1: buy tickets on your twentieth wedding anniversary and have to
Speaker 1: spend the next twenty years of your marriage making up
Speaker 1: for it. Yeah, checking first is smart, So check all
Speaker 1: State first for a quote that could save you hundreds.
Speaker 1: You're in good hands with All States Savings. Ferry terms
Speaker 1: apply All State Fire and Casualty Insurance Company and Affiliates, Northbrook, Illinois.
Speaker 2: This episode is brought to you by Unstoppable. Discover the
Speaker 2: inspiring true story about Anthony Roebliss, who defined every expectation
Speaker 2: to become a national wrestling champion and Unstoppable, a new
Speaker 2: original movie from Amazon MGM Studios and director William Goldenberg.
Speaker 2: Evoking the excitement and camaraderie of classic sports dramas and
Speaker 2: thrilling wrestling matches. Unstoppable features an all star ensemble cast
Speaker 2: including Jurelle Jerome, Jennifer Lopez, Don Cheadle, Michael Pania, and
Speaker 2: Bobby Knavali. Watch Unstoppable now exclusively on Amazon Prime Video.
Speaker 3: Welcome in to another special edition of the What's Right
Speaker 3: with Nick Wright's podcast and YouTube show, the fourth part
Speaker 3: of our continuing series the fifty Greatest Players of the
Speaker 3: last fifty years in the NBA. We get to players
Speaker 3: thirty nine through thirty five today. If you haven't listened
Speaker 3: or watched the previous episodes, I highly recommend you do so.
Speaker 3: The first episode we lay out the rules, the parameters,
Speaker 3: who was too old to make the cut, and the
Speaker 3: honorable mention to the guys who just missed. And then
Speaker 3: the next few episodes we get through players fifty through forty.
Speaker 3: As I said, today are players thirty nine through thirty five,
Speaker 3: and it's a perfect little quintet of players because player
Speaker 3: thirty nine is not a controversial inclusion, but incredibly difficult
Speaker 3: to rank, and player thirty five also I don't believe
Speaker 3: to be a controversial inclusion, but maybe the single most
Speaker 3: difficult player to rank. But they are difficult to rank
Speaker 3: for very different reasons. So we will start with number
Speaker 3: with player number thirty nine. One of the older players
Speaker 3: on the entire list, Player thirty nine is none other
Speaker 3: than Bill.
Speaker 4: Walton, Number thirty nine, Bill Walton, Bill Walton.
Speaker 3: Is a two time NBA champion. He won the nineteen
Speaker 3: seventy eight NBA MVP and finished.
Speaker 5: Second the previous year.
Speaker 3: However, he is only one time first Team All NBA
Speaker 3: only one time second.
Speaker 5: Team All NBA. He did win a rebounding.
Speaker 3: Title of Blocks title and later in his career a
Speaker 3: sixth Man of the Year and as you can see,
Speaker 3: two time All Defense. So he started his career as
Speaker 3: the way he finished his college career as one of
Speaker 3: the greatest players ever. Unfortunately for him, a foot in
Speaker 3: he derailed everything. But at the beginning of his career
Speaker 3: he walked into the league and was instantly dominant, as
Speaker 3: you can see not only from the MVP in the
Speaker 3: second place the previous year, but what he did in
Speaker 3: those NBA Finals in nineteen seventy seven, the year before
Speaker 3: he won league MVP. He won Finals MVP twenty eight
Speaker 3: and twenty in his first finals game ever twenty twenty three,
Speaker 3: seven and eight to win the title game six, closeout game.
Speaker 3: He averaged nineteen nineteen five and four for this series,
Speaker 3: and at that point it looked like, Okay, Bill Walton
Speaker 3: is going to be one of the ten twelve greatest
Speaker 3: players in basketball history. Unfortunately for him, it never came
Speaker 3: close to that again. For that entire championship run, he
Speaker 3: was eighteen, fifteen, six and three and then the injuries
Speaker 3: ruined him.
Speaker 5: Now, to his credit, he was a valuable role.
Speaker 3: Player for what some people believe the greatest team ever,
Speaker 3: the eighty six Celtics. He averaged eighteen minutes per game
Speaker 3: for them in their playoff run. So he was a
Speaker 3: part of that, but he was not even close to
Speaker 3: a leading part of that. And so Walton is incredibly
Speaker 3: tough because we know how hot the fire burned in
Speaker 3: the beginning. We know it wasn't an outlier because of
Speaker 3: what he did in college. And by the way, like
Speaker 3: college doesn't matter for these lists, but it adds context
Speaker 3: for Bill Walton and Demons's going to join me in
Speaker 3: a moment for some of Bill Walton question. But I
Speaker 3: you know, I know you don't know much about Walton.
Speaker 3: I'm certain you don't know much about his college career.
Speaker 3: It should be noted Bill Walton started his college career
Speaker 3: going seventy three and um a seventy three game winning
Speaker 3: streak for UCLA to start his college career. He played
Speaker 3: three years because back then you couldn't play as a freshman.
Speaker 3: He was Player of the Year all three years, the
Speaker 3: first two years when he won the national championship. Well,
Speaker 3: the first two years he won the national championship, he
Speaker 3: was Final four MVP both years, and the one year
Speaker 3: he didn't win the national championship, he lost in double
Speaker 3: overtime to NC State by two points, so he really
Speaker 3: could have gone three for three. In college, he's the
Speaker 3: second greatest college player ever, and for his second national championship,
Speaker 3: he went twenty one of twenty two in the National Championship,
Speaker 3: twenty one of twenty two from the field for forty
Speaker 3: four points. So he was that player in college. Then
Speaker 3: in the pros he almost immediately was an MVP caliber player.
Speaker 3: Won a title with the Blazers, the finals MVP. The
Speaker 3: numbers were insane again twenty twenty three seven assists, eight
Speaker 3: blocks to win his first championship, and then put injuries
Speaker 3: ruined it. So he's hard to rank. I have to
Speaker 3: use full context. I have him at number thirty nine.
Speaker 5: What's your bill, Walton blest Hey, let me eat this straight, okay?
Speaker 4: Yeah, at thirty nine, you've got a cinner with one Yeah.
Speaker 5: Known for his passing and creativity. Yeah, sounds a lot
Speaker 5: like Jokic to me. You know, how can you like
Speaker 5: Walton so much? But I hate Joki so much?
Speaker 3: Okay, I don't hate Jokic. I just thought he shouldn't
Speaker 3: have won MVP last year. And by the way, by
Speaker 3: the time you guys hear this, Jokic might have two MVPs.
Speaker 3: And if he does end up winning this year's MVP,
Speaker 3: then he probably deserves a spot somewhere in the lower
Speaker 3: forties on this list. But the reason that I can
Speaker 3: justify it is because Jokic doesn't have anything close to
Speaker 3: the finals, MVP and the championship.
Speaker 5: Forget Walton's second championship. If Jokic had had.
Speaker 3: Carried a team to the NBA Finals, had it carried
Speaker 3: a team to a championship, it's a totally different ball game.
Speaker 5: Instead, Jokic has had.
Speaker 3: One career playoff run where he went past round two
Speaker 3: and he got annihilated by Anthony Davis. And so because
Speaker 3: of that, I don't yes, Jokic is the best passing
Speaker 3: center since Walt and Jokicic is building a resume that
Speaker 3: if I were to do this in twenty five years
Speaker 3: and I did the twenty five best player or the
Speaker 3: seventy five best players of the last seventy five years.
Speaker 3: Then Jokicic is building a resume to be on that.
Speaker 3: But as of this moment we're recording this, he has
Speaker 3: one MVP, no super deep playoff runs, and hasn't done enough. Walton,
Speaker 3: to my eye, had done more. And Walton was a
Speaker 3: better player. I mean Walton, the injuries kill him, which
Speaker 3: is why he's as low as he is. But Walton
Speaker 3: deserves me number thirty nine. If you didn't know much
Speaker 3: about number thirty nine, you definitely don't know anything about
Speaker 3: number thirty eight.
Speaker 4: Number thirty eight. Bob McAdoo.
Speaker 3: All right, some respect for the old timers in Bob McAdoo.
Speaker 3: So here's what Bob McAdoo was able to do. He also,
Speaker 3: by the way, like Walton, was only one time first
Speaker 3: team All NBA and one time second team All NBA. However,
Speaker 3: he came into the league and by year three, I'm sorry,
Speaker 3: by year two he had a three year stretch where
Speaker 3: either won the MVP year came in second. He went
Speaker 3: MVP in seventy five, second place in seventy four, second
Speaker 3: place in seventy six, and Rookie of the Year in
Speaker 3: seventy three. He was a three time scoring champ, averaging
Speaker 3: thirty two per game years two through four, and as
Speaker 3: you can see, from nineteen seventy four to nineteen seventy
Speaker 3: nine average twenty nine and thirteen. The problem for McAdoo
Speaker 3: is the lack of championships as the best guy, but
Speaker 3: it doesn't kill him that much because of what he
Speaker 3: was able.
Speaker 5: To do in the postseason.
Speaker 3: His first playoff series ever, which is in year two,
Speaker 3: he has two forty point games he averaged. The year
Speaker 3: he won MVP nineteen seventy five, which was his third year,
Speaker 3: he averaged thirty seven and fourteen in a playoff series
Speaker 3: against Elvin Hayes and the bullet It's an excellent Bullets
Speaker 3: team that a few years later would go on and
Speaker 3: win a championship. He averaged thirty seven and fourteen against him.
Speaker 3: He in that series, he had thirty four points in
Speaker 3: every single game and put up a fifty to twenty
Speaker 3: one Again.
Speaker 5: This is year three to the ear he won the MVP.
Speaker 3: During that three year peak, while his team never won
Speaker 3: a championship never made the finals, he averaged in the
Speaker 3: playoffs thirty two and fourteen in forty six minutes per
Speaker 3: game in his first and then he changes teams, goes
Speaker 3: to the Knicks, first playoff game ever with the Knicks
Speaker 3: forty one points, and then he eventually goes to the
Speaker 3: Lakers eighty two Lakers. Nobody thinks about Bob mcadee, but
Speaker 3: he was important, so he ends up winning two titles
Speaker 3: with the Lakers. One could argue the reason they didn't
Speaker 3: win the eighty four title was because McAdoo got hurt.
Speaker 3: He gets hurt in Game six of the eighty four finals,
Speaker 3: or else maybe they win that series. But in eighty
Speaker 3: six he was just a role player, but in eighty
Speaker 3: two he was an important player for that team. Magic
Speaker 3: wins finals MVP, but to get into the finals to
Speaker 3: clinch his first career Finals birth as a not a
Speaker 3: role player, but not the leading guy on the team
Speaker 3: with Magic and Kream, He's twenty six to eight in
Speaker 3: the Western Conference Finals in the final game to clinch
Speaker 3: the finals.
Speaker 5: Birth.
Speaker 3: In those finals he averaged sixteen to five, So an
Speaker 3: important piece on a championship team. And if we want
Speaker 3: to add a little bonus after the winning the title
Speaker 3: in eighty six as a role player, he went to
Speaker 3: Europe and won two EuroLeague titles. A true professional scorer
Speaker 3: who again walked into the league and by year two
Speaker 3: was a top two MVP candidate for three straight years
Speaker 3: and a scoring champion for three straight years. Player number
Speaker 3: thirty eight is Bob McAdoo. I believe you have a
Speaker 3: question about Bob McAdoo.
Speaker 6: Let's hear it, Nick, you know, as the wise elder
Speaker 6: statesman at first things first, your tutor. Oftentimes I'm glad
Speaker 6: to see you give us some love to my man,
Speaker 6: Bob McAdoo. McAdoo can do. That's what we used to
Speaker 6: say back in the day, kind of a precursor to
Speaker 6: Kevin Durant, to be honest, obviously not as good as Durant,
Speaker 6: but very much of six ' nine at that time.
Speaker 6: Stepping out, hitting the jump shot could take you off
Speaker 6: the bounce as well. But I gotta be honest, I
Speaker 6: don't think i'd have him ahead of Dwight Howard and
Speaker 6: Anthony Davis, especially Dwight who obviously led a team to
Speaker 6: the finals twenty six and thirteen against Lebron, beating Lebron
Speaker 6: when they had I believe the best record of the league.
Speaker 6: But outside of that, I love you giving love to
Speaker 6: McAdoo can do.
Speaker 3: All right, Brew, Listen, those are fair points, and Brew
Speaker 3: obviously knows his NBA history, and I love that he's
Speaker 3: being a part of this with us. And I don't
Speaker 3: have McAdoo a far ahead of Dwight n ad It's like
Speaker 3: four or five spots ahead of them. My argument would
Speaker 3: be Dwight nade have both come close to winning league
Speaker 3: in DP Bob McAdoo won it and finished second two
Speaker 3: other times, and as dominant as their peaks were, I
Speaker 3: think mcadow's was a touch more dominant, certainly on the
Speaker 3: offensive end, not obviously not on the defensive end. But
Speaker 3: it's not a bad argument that he's making. But I
Speaker 3: think McAdoo was a had a touch more impressive career
Speaker 3: than Dwight Howard Dida. Assuming Dwight's crew is basically over
Speaker 3: and then Anthony Davis has up to this point.
Speaker 5: If Anthony Davis.
Speaker 3: Doesn't eventually pass Bob McAdoo, something went terribly wrong.
Speaker 5: But there's player number thirty eight.
Speaker 3: Bob mcadee, come right back with player thirty seven, who's
Speaker 3: someone all of you remember for a finals loss, But
Speaker 3: do you remember how important he was in a Finals victory.
Speaker 5: We'll do that next.
Speaker 3: All right, Welcome back into What's Right with Nick Wright
Speaker 3: Podcast Special fifty Best Players of the Last fifty Years edition.
Speaker 5: This is our fourth episode in this edition.
Speaker 3: We are already to player number thirty, so let's waste
Speaker 3: no more time an all time player who I think
Speaker 3: it gets a couple moments of his career have been
Speaker 3: forgotten to history by many people that even consider themselves
Speaker 3: NBA fans.
Speaker 4: Number thirty seven, Clyde Drexley.
Speaker 3: So he's one time first team All NBA, two times
Speaker 3: second Team All NBA, two time.
Speaker 5: Third Team All NBA.
Speaker 3: He almost won MVP in nineteen ninety two, but Michael
Speaker 3: Jordan did that year. He also he also almost won
Speaker 3: the title, but Michael Jordan did more on that in
Speaker 3: the moment. He is one other top five MVP finished
Speaker 3: where I say people forget things about five People remember
Speaker 3: him losing to Jordan in the finals, and.
Speaker 5: They remember, ah, yeah, he was on one of those
Speaker 5: rockets champions. Okay.
Speaker 3: What I don't know if they remember is before he
Speaker 3: lost to Jordan the finals, he led the Portland Trailblazers
Speaker 3: to the nineteen ninety NBA Finals, where they lost to Detroit,
Speaker 3: you know, the bad boy Pistons who could have won
Speaker 3: three titles in a row.
Speaker 5: It lost Isaiah Thomas. No shame in that.
Speaker 3: So nineteen ninety Clyde to the best player on a finalist.
Speaker 3: Nineteen ninety two, Clyde is the best player on a finalist.
Speaker 3: And let's talk about how he did in those finals.
Speaker 3: In the finals, lost to Detroit, a Detroit team that
Speaker 3: up to that point in time had truly bedeviled Michael Jordan.
Speaker 3: Clyde averaged for those finals twenty six, eight and six. So, yeah,
Speaker 3: Detroit one in five, But it was not because Clyde
Speaker 3: didn't do his thing twenty six, eight and six against
Speaker 3: the bad Boy Pistons in the finals in nineteen ninety
Speaker 3: Then two years later against Chicago and Michael Jordan, the
Speaker 3: defending champion Chicago Bulls.
Speaker 5: What does Clyde do in those finals.
Speaker 3: Twenty five, eight and five in those finals to Chicago
Speaker 3: and that postseason he was twenty six, seven and seven.
Speaker 5: Now, du'll see throughout this series.
Speaker 3: Sometimes for postseason accomplishments, I talk about individual monster games.
Speaker 3: Clyde didn't have a ton of monster games in the postseason.
Speaker 3: He only had a handful of forty point games. He
Speaker 3: was just incredibly consistent. He had so few stinkers, if
Speaker 3: you will, that despite not having a bunch of the
Speaker 3: thirty eight, forty two to forty four point explosions, he
Speaker 3: still had a career playoff averages of twenty seven and six,
Speaker 3: which were all slightly better than his career regular season averages.
Speaker 3: So he's a guy who was actually better in the
Speaker 3: postseason than he was in the regular season. And as
Speaker 3: you saw earlier, in the regular season, he came you know,
Speaker 3: he was an MVP candidate, a legitimate MVP candidate for
Speaker 3: a few years. But I'm still leaving out one finals appearance.
Speaker 3: And before I talk about that finals appearance, let me
Speaker 3: bring in our friend Rick Huker, who wants to ask
Speaker 3: about Clyde Drex.
Speaker 7: Phenomenal athlete. Clyde on the level of Jordan, but Game
Speaker 7: five fndamentally was not as refined. I just wonder, Nick,
Speaker 7: if you would look at him the same way if
Speaker 7: he hadn't gone to Houston and won a championship with
Speaker 7: a Keeam, because that was a matter of being in
Speaker 7: the right place at the right time and had more
Speaker 7: to do with the Keeams ascension than Clyde's okay.
Speaker 3: So this is where with respect to Rick, he's just wrong.
Speaker 3: And it was so in those finals that if we're
Speaker 3: talking about the finals that he won against Shack and
Speaker 3: the young Orlando Magic, what could have been Orlando Magic
Speaker 3: in those finals Clyde averaged twenty two to ten and seven.
Speaker 3: He was the clear cut second best player for the Rockets.
Speaker 3: But that under sells how important was. It's not just
Speaker 3: that they were the sixth seed, in large part because
Speaker 3: they didn't get Clyde until later in the year and
Speaker 3: they went all the way to winning the title. But
Speaker 3: if you remember that Rockets team was they faced elimination
Speaker 3: a number of times throughout the postseason and then came through.
Speaker 3: So how did they come through? I mentioned before Clyde
Speaker 3: didn't have a bunch of monster playoff moments. Maybe his
Speaker 3: best playoff game ever. One could argue forty one, nine
Speaker 3: and six facing elimination in round one against Utah to
Speaker 3: keep the season alive. So Game five must win, facing
Speaker 3: elimination in Utah thirty one to ten in forty seven
Speaker 3: minutes in.
Speaker 5: A four point victory.
Speaker 3: The very next round, Houston falls down three to one
Speaker 3: to Phoenix and Berkley, What does Clyde do there? Game
Speaker 3: seven of that series twenty seven, twenty nine and eight
Speaker 3: in forty one minutes in a one point victory. So
Speaker 3: the idea that Clyde was his right place, right time,
Speaker 3: it's not true. And then in the finals, I told
Speaker 3: you he was twenty two, ten and seven, so he
Speaker 3: was incredibly important. So yeah, he wasn't as I mean
Speaker 3: Rick said he wasn't. Michael Jordan Again, I know Michael Jordan.
Speaker 3: I know this is gonna shock you. Michael Jordan's gonna
Speaker 3: show up in the top three on this thing. Now,
Speaker 3: where's he gonna be in the top three? Who knows
Speaker 3: he's gonna show up in the top three? I got Clyde?
Speaker 3: Where do I have Clyde at thirty seven? So yeah,
Speaker 3: there's a gap there. But the idea that Clyde was
Speaker 3: this right place, right time. If he's not on that
Speaker 3: Rockets team, they don't win the title. He absolutely deserves
Speaker 3: credit for it. And one other thing to my friend
Speaker 3: Rick Hucker, because Rick is contributing questions and Demons's contributing
Speaker 3: questions of course, also Chris Brussard's contributing questions in a
Speaker 3: clip we didn't end up using that was about a
Speaker 3: different player. Brew went on a little tangent about that
Speaker 3: player's ranking in comparison to Clyde the Glide Drexler. I
Speaker 3: echo everything you're about to hear from Chris Brussard. So
Speaker 3: in other word, Rick, it's two to one Nick and
Speaker 3: Brussard against you. So we're right, you're wrong. Here's Brew
Speaker 3: on Clyde before we move of.
Speaker 6: Clyde led the Blazers without a perennial All Star teammate
Speaker 6: to three straight troops of the Western Conference Finals and
Speaker 6: two appearances in the NBA Finals, lost to the great
Speaker 6: Isaiah Thomas. And of course Michael Jordan then goes in
Speaker 6: teams with Elijah Wan fits in plays well, is an
Speaker 6: All Star, twenty points.
Speaker 4: A game and a ring.
Speaker 6: Clyde don't get enough love, my man, including on your list.
Speaker 3: Now the player number thirty six who never sniffed the title,
Speaker 3: which is why he's not higher than.
Speaker 4: This number thirty six, George Gervin.
Speaker 3: So Gervin five times first Team All NBA, which is remarkable,
Speaker 3: two time second team All NBA, and he played in
Speaker 3: the ABA in the beginning of his career. Two time
Speaker 3: All ABA second team. You're seeing it right there. Four
Speaker 3: times he's top five MVPs and those happened all in
Speaker 3: a row. Four years in a row he's top five
Speaker 3: in MVP voting and two times he came in second.
Speaker 5: Four times scoring champ.
Speaker 3: And this is a fun one that the maybe I
Speaker 3: don't know if we'll ever see this again quite like this.
Speaker 5: George Gervin and David.
Speaker 3: Thompson, going into the final day of the season, were
Speaker 3: essentially virtually tied to the scoring title. David Thompson scored
Speaker 3: seventy two to try to win the scoring title.
Speaker 5: Gervin needed I think in the high fifties to win it.
Speaker 5: Did you see this game? Did I see this game? No,
Speaker 5: this is before I was born. This is well before
Speaker 5: I was won.
Speaker 3: So George Gervin sees Thompson scored seventy two, He goes
Speaker 3: out and scores sixty three points in only thirty three minutes,
Speaker 3: didn't even play in the fourth quarter. That was how
Speaker 3: he won his first scoring title for his career. George
Speaker 3: Iceman Gervin twenty five points per game. That is tenth
Speaker 3: all time. And you know our list is not all time,
Speaker 3: it's last fifty years of the last fifty years. It's
Speaker 3: fifth all time, behind only Jordan Lebron, Durant and Iverson.
Speaker 5: So why wouldn't he be higher. He's now higher because
Speaker 5: he never won in the playoffs. But when you.
Speaker 3: Dig into it, he's smeared with the ah, the guy
Speaker 3: never won. How much are we blaming it? So let's
Speaker 3: go into it. For his career, he averaged twenty seven
Speaker 3: points per game in the playoffs. In the playoffs, which
Speaker 3: is top ten all time in the ABA. Let's go
Speaker 3: to the ABA, facing elimination, drops a forty two and
Speaker 3: seventeen and then a thirties in nineteen seventy five to
Speaker 3: avoid elimination, but then they lose the next game and
Speaker 3: they're out. The next year, they're facing elimination again, drops
Speaker 3: a thirty seven and fourteen to avoid elimination, but then
Speaker 3: they lose the next game and they're out. He lost
Speaker 3: his first six career playoff series, but then finally gets
Speaker 3: a playoff series victory and then nineteen seventy nine y'ur
Speaker 3: in the Eastern Conference Semis against Doctor J. He puts
Speaker 3: up a thirty three, twelve and five to eliminate Doctor
Speaker 3: J put up the very next round forty two and
Speaker 3: six to get up three to one on the Bullets.
Speaker 3: Because this is a weird time when the Bullet when
Speaker 3: the San Antonio Spurs were in the Eastern Conference.
Speaker 5: They had play Philly and then the Bullets. They then
Speaker 5: moved to the Western That doesn't matter.
Speaker 3: He puts up forty two and six to go three
Speaker 3: to one on the Bullets in the Eastern Conference Finals.
Speaker 3: He puts up another forty two and six in Game seven,
Speaker 3: but they lose by two and he never makes the finals.
Speaker 3: For that series, he averaged thirty one and six. They
Speaker 3: lose to the Bullets again. A Bullets team that we
Speaker 3: mentioned earlier would go to back to back NBA Finals
Speaker 3: and win one championship.
Speaker 5: Eighty two gets back to the conference finals.
Speaker 3: This time he's in the Western Conference Finals against those
Speaker 3: eighty two Lakers we were just talking about a few
Speaker 3: minutes ago that at Magic in Kareem and Bob McAdoo.
Speaker 3: He averages in those Western Govermends finals thirty two, eight
Speaker 3: and six, and he swept, swept, And then the very
Speaker 3: next year he loses to the Lakers in the Western
Speaker 3: Reverends Finals again and that's it. So got to the
Speaker 3: Western Conference finals a few times, never got passed there.
Speaker 5: But how much are we putting on him?
Speaker 3: Yes, he blew a three to one league with a
Speaker 3: chance to get to the finals, probably his best chance ever.
Speaker 3: But he put up forty two and six in game
Speaker 3: seven and lost by two, and so I think he's
Speaker 3: slightly underrated historically. Let's see what our caller has or
Speaker 3: our questioner has on George Iceman Gervin.
Speaker 7: Who George Iceman Gervin at thirty fourth? Are we given
Speaker 7: extra credit for all time great posters because the one
Speaker 7: with him sitting on the ice blocks is one of
Speaker 7: the best of all time? But my goodness, he was
Speaker 7: a scorer and that's all.
Speaker 5: He was.
Speaker 7: Phenomenal scorer. Finger roll beautiful, but just a scorer.
Speaker 5: Yeah, But the scoring is important, That's the thing. I agree.
Speaker 5: He was mostly just a scorer. But scoring when you score.
Speaker 3: At that level, when you are one of the of
Speaker 3: the last fifty years, one could ARDU ten greatest scorers. Ever,
Speaker 3: it at least gets you firmly in the top forty
Speaker 3: of players. So I mean, he was Rick's not wrong
Speaker 3: there that he was a pure scorer, but scoring is
Speaker 3: the most important part of the game. He did it
Speaker 3: better than just about anybody ever, aside from a dozen
Speaker 3: or so guys, so he absolutely deserves his spot at
Speaker 3: number thirty six. Now number thirty five is a player
Speaker 3: that some people would swear must be in the top twenty,
Speaker 3: and some people will swear has to be outside of
Speaker 3: the top one hundred, and will do him as our
Speaker 3: final player on this installment of the fifty Greatest Players
Speaker 3: of the Last fifty years.
Speaker 5: He's next.
Speaker 3: All right, Welcome back in final segment of today's edition
Speaker 3: of the fifty Greatest Players of the last fifty years
Speaker 3: in the NBA on the What's Right with Nick Wright podcast,
Speaker 3: Now we are here, Player number thirty.
Speaker 4: Five, Number thirty five, Russell Westbrook.
Speaker 3: Russ was maybe the single hardest player to reign of
Speaker 3: this entire enterprise because so Russ's regular season accomplishments are
Speaker 3: up there with the twelve to fifteen greatest players up.
Speaker 3: Two time first Team All NBA, five time second Team
Speaker 3: All NBA, two time third Team All NBA, so he's
Speaker 3: nine time All NBA. He won an MVP three other
Speaker 3: times he came in top five. He has two scoring
Speaker 3: titles and three assists titles. One of the only players
Speaker 3: in League history, Tiny Archibald, Oscar Robertson, Lebron James, and
Speaker 3: Russell Watsbrook are the only guys to ever do it once.
Speaker 3: Russ has done it two scoring doules, three assists, titles
Speaker 3: average a triple averaging a triple level hadn't been done.
Speaker 5: In fifty years.
Speaker 3: Russ did it three straight seasons, then took a year off,
Speaker 3: did it a fourth straight season.
Speaker 5: He is going to be known for the triple doubles,
Speaker 5: so let's dig in there for a moment.
Speaker 3: He has won one hundred and ninety four career regular
Speaker 3: season triple double as of this recording.
Speaker 5: That's not only the most all time. Only Lebron, Jason Kidd, Magic,
Speaker 5: and Oscar Robertson even have one hundred career playoff career
Speaker 5: regular season triple doubles. Russ is likely going to finish
Speaker 5: his career well north of two hundred career triple doubles
Speaker 5: in the playoffs. He's third all time in triple doubles. Okay,
Speaker 5: so that's the good of Russ. We'll get to the
Speaker 5: bad in a moment.
Speaker 3: But you guys know how much playoff stuff matters for
Speaker 3: me on this It's unfair and disingenuous to act like
Speaker 3: russ never had good playoff mantles.
Speaker 5: He did.
Speaker 3: So let's just we're gonna go in chronological order, and
Speaker 3: we're gonna need some time here.
Speaker 5: In the twenty twelve.
Speaker 3: Finals, the only game the thunder one in that series,
Speaker 3: he was twenty seven, eight and eleven as a kid
Speaker 3: in the finals. In that In game four of those finals,
Speaker 3: which they lost, he was the best player on seam
Speaker 3: by a mark with no dispector Duran. He was forty
Speaker 3: three seven and five on twenty of thirty two from
Speaker 3: the field in game four of those finals, forty three
Speaker 3: seven and five to try to stay alive instead of
Speaker 3: falling down three to one, but they end up losing.
Speaker 5: For that.
Speaker 3: For his first finals ever, he's twenty seven. His only
Speaker 3: finals twenty seven, six and seven. So we can't act
Speaker 3: like that that didn't happen. Now, let's move on to
Speaker 3: twenty fourteen. Twenty fourteen, he's twenty seven, ten and sixteen
Speaker 3: on just sixteen shots. In game seven of the first
Speaker 3: round against Memphis, helped them propel them what would have.
Speaker 5: Been a disastrous loss for them. In that same year,
Speaker 5: Western armog Semis.
Speaker 3: The next round, you guys, remember everyone remembers the CP
Speaker 3: three Meltdown game. Say the Clippers have the big lead
Speaker 3: CP three, try to draw the foul. He doesn't get it,
Speaker 3: but gets forgotten. Is Russ in that game? Went tottoe
Speaker 3: with Chris Paul and ate him up.
Speaker 5: He would was.
Speaker 3: Thirty eight, five and six and got fouled. At the
Speaker 3: very end of the games the Clipper from Melting Down
Speaker 3: hit all three free throws to.
Speaker 5: Win the game.
Speaker 3: That very next round Western Conference Finals, the Thunder down
Speaker 3: two to one to the Spurs.
Speaker 5: The Spurs were going to win the title.
Speaker 3: Russ was forty five, ten and five up to this point. Yes,
Speaker 3: he was a little inefficient, a little careless with the ball,
Speaker 3: but nobody was killing Russ.
Speaker 5: So that's twenty fourteen. Let's go to twenty sixteen.
Speaker 3: That's the year the seventy three win Warriors were down
Speaker 3: three to one to Russ's and Katie's thunder. Let's talk
Speaker 3: about what he did there in Round one against Dallas
Speaker 3: thirty six, twelve and nine to send Dallas home. Average
Speaker 3: for games five and six of the Western Garmend Semifinals
Speaker 3: against the Spurs to send them home average thirty two,
Speaker 3: seven and twelve in those two games.
Speaker 5: So again, it's all going good.
Speaker 3: To go up three to one on the Warriors in
Speaker 3: the Western ARMOURGS Finals average twenty seven, seven and twelve,
Speaker 3: including thirty six, eleven and eleven in Game four to
Speaker 3: go up three to one.
Speaker 5: The problem is since then, she's gone real sideways.
Speaker 3: Since then, since the Klay Thompson game, since that moment
Speaker 3: and then Katie leaves, it's been bad, and it's been bad.
Speaker 5: In the playoffs for five six years.
Speaker 3: So Round one versus Houston, the first year without Durant,
Speaker 3: he did have a fifty one, ten and thirteen sixty
Speaker 3: and fifty one tripled over in the playoffs average for
Speaker 3: the series thirty seven to twelve and eleven.
Speaker 5: But despite that, they lost in five. Why did they
Speaker 5: lose him five?
Speaker 3: Because even though Russ was averaging all those points and
Speaker 3: assists and rebounds, he shot thirty nine percent from the
Speaker 3: field and twenty seven percent from three, and he was
Speaker 3: shooting ten threes a game. The next year in the
Speaker 3: first round against I think it was Utah with Paul George,
Speaker 3: he had a forty five to fifteen and seven to
Speaker 3: stay alive and a forty six, ten and five in
Speaker 3: game six, And if you go back and look at it,
Speaker 3: that forty six, ten and five where they lost, he
Speaker 3: wasn't good and that was with Paul George, and then
Speaker 3: the next year Dames sends him home and then Paul
Speaker 3: George leasing. So his career averages for the playoffs are
Speaker 3: twenty five, seven and eight, which are exceptional, and his
Speaker 3: career playoff percentages are forty percent from the field and
Speaker 3: thirty percent from three, which are awful.
Speaker 5: So what do you do with Russell Westbrook?
Speaker 3: I still feel like because it's been so bad as
Speaker 3: of late, and this last year with the Lakers, with
Speaker 3: such a disaster, people forget how dominant he was at
Speaker 3: his peak.
Speaker 5: Flawed but dominant. The MVP's got a matter.
Speaker 3: The triple doubles might have been slightly overrated, but they
Speaker 3: have to matter to a degree. He was the single
Speaker 3: hardest player to rank in this entire enterprise. He's player
Speaker 3: a number thirty five from Russell Westbrook. And now we
Speaker 3: have a surprise questionaire. No one has told me who
Speaker 3: this is. Let's see what the Russell Westbrook question is.
Speaker 8: Hey, Nick, your old buddy el we're out of akl
Speaker 8: from White Plains here Russell Westbrook at thirty five. We
Speaker 8: love the effort, We love mister triple double. But Russ
Speaker 8: at thirty five. Come on, neck, You've got James Worthy.
Speaker 8: Big Game James ten spots down the list. At forty five,
Speaker 8: you have George Gervin, never been to an NBA final.
Speaker 8: Ahead of Big Game James. You have Gary Payton, who
Speaker 8: won a NBA title. Is a parting gift. I had
Speaker 8: a big game, James. You have Sidney Mokrieve, who I
Speaker 8: loved one of the triple tremarkets.
Speaker 4: I had a big game James. But Russ at thirty five.
Speaker 4: Big Game James at forty five.
Speaker 8: One Finals appearance for Russ. Big Game James, three titles,
Speaker 8: most valuable player in one of the great game seven
Speaker 8: performances in the history of the National Basketball Association. His
Speaker 8: numbers in the postseason leaps and bounds the regular season.
Speaker 8: This guy got it done when it was the most
Speaker 8: important time to get it done. While Russ has been
Speaker 8: a shrieking Violet moved that camera up a little closer.
Speaker 8: In words that I know only you could understand this
Speaker 8: old man. He ain't lying, all right.
Speaker 5: That's the greatest sports radio caller ever. My friend Alan
Speaker 5: white Planes.
Speaker 3: Unfortunately, Alan white Planes instead of really asking me Russell
Speaker 3: Westbrook question, he used his time to really just make
Speaker 3: the case for James Worthy. James Worthy was a hard
Speaker 3: one to rank as well as we talked about it.
Speaker 3: If you want to go back and listen to the episodes,
Speaker 3: James Worthy doesn't have the all nbas and the MVP
Speaker 3: votes and all that stuff because of the team he
Speaker 3: was on, but he was unbelievable in the biggest moments.
Speaker 3: So I do understand the kind of reversal there. So
Speaker 3: you have one guy who has all the regular season stuff,
Speaker 3: all of it, and not a lot of the playoff
Speaker 3: stuff in Russ, and another guy who has all the
Speaker 3: playoff stuff but not a whole lot of the regular
Speaker 3: season stuff in James.
Speaker 5: So am I overvaluing the regular season?
Speaker 3: I would agree, possibly if a Russ didn't have any
Speaker 3: substantial playoff moments. But I think I laid out that
Speaker 3: early in his career. Up until Game five of the
Speaker 3: twenty sixteen playoffs forward game five of the Western Urbans Finals,
Speaker 3: I should say, basically from the moment Katie left to now,
Speaker 3: up until then, he was actually a very valuable playoff performance.
Speaker 5: So I think that, so I think Russe.
Speaker 3: Let me put it like this, Russ's playoff resume, one
Speaker 3: can make a strong case, is heftier than James Worthy's
Speaker 3: regular season resumes, and Russ's regular season resume is eye
Speaker 3: to eye with James Worthy's playoff resume. Russ's regular season
Speaker 3: resume is that of an all time guy. So again,
Speaker 3: though I said at the beginning that Russ was maybe
Speaker 3: the hardest player to the rank, I'm comfortable with Russell Westbrook
Speaker 3: being the thirty fifth best player of the last fifty years.
Speaker 5: My god, this thing's going by fast.
Speaker 3: We're going to finish off or at least come close
Speaker 3: to it the top thirty next week at this time
Speaker 3: for the fifty greatest players of the last fifty years.
Speaker 3: Part of What's right with the Great podcast series. We'll
Speaker 3: see you next week.