Speaking of Sports

By John Fragodt, Sports Reporter

It seems like I’m constantly hearing something about an NBA player being the greatest basketball player of all time, or that they should be on the best group of five players of all time, etc.  The latest comments I heard was that LeBron James should be the greatest of all time, or that Steph Curry should be considered the best guard of all time.  It’s easy to make those assertions, because we tend to focus on the current players playing in front of us and forget about some of the best players from the past.

I was thinking about my top players of all time, and despite a few tough picks, I was able to come up with a top-15 player list, breaking the players down by position.  There is absolutely no way a person can pick just one NBA player as the Greatest Player of All-Time.

At point guard, it’s pretty hard not to pick Magic Johnson as the top one, although I’d also add Oscar Robertson and Steph Curry to give me my top three point guards of all time.  These top three were pretty cut-and-dry for me.  Who didn’t make my list?  Well, how about Walt Frazier, John Stockton, Bob Cousy, Jerry West, Steve Nash, Isaiah Thomas, Allen Iverson, Chris Paul, Kyrie Irving and Russell Westbrook, among others.

At shooting guard, you have to give the top nod to Michael Jordan with Kobe Bryant making the top-3 for sure.  The third pick is a little harder with David Thompson, Clyde Drexler, Reggie Miller, George Gervin, Dwayne Wade and Klay Thompson among the possible selections.  It’s amazing to think that Klay Thompson owns the NBA record of 37 points in one quarter.  I’d probably have to give the third spot to Reggie Miller, although I’m tempted to put Curry at shooting guard and move an old-timer like Walt Frazier, Jerry West or Allen Iverson into the third spot at point guard.  

Miller once scored eight points in the final nine seconds of a playoff game against New York and Patrick Ewing.  That’s nothing though, when compared to Tracy McGrady, who once scored 13 points in the final 35 seconds of a game for Houston against San Antonio to rally his team for the win.  If you get a chance, go to YouTube and watch the final minute of that game.

The center position is another pretty straight-forward position with Bill Russell, Wilt Chamberlain and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar as the top three, but not necessarily in that order.  Among those not making my top three at center are Bill Walton, possibly one of the top three best college players of all time, Moses Malone, Hakeem Olajuwon, Patrick Ewing, George Mikan and Shaquille O’Neal.

The forward position is where I ran into a little trouble.  At small forward, I had to include Larry Bird and Julius Erving, two of my personal favorite players of all time, while Elgin Baylor, Kevin Durant, Scottie Pippen, Dominique Wilkins, John Havlicek and Rick Barry were among my possible third picks.

And, at power forward, I included LeBron James, Karl Malone and Tim Duncan as a possible top-3, but there was also Kevin Garnett, Elvin Hayes, Dave DeBusschere, Kevin McHale, Bob Pettit, Charles Barkley, Dennis Rodman, Dirk Nowitzki and David Robinson to consider.

In the end, I called LaBron to see what he thought and he said he was a small forward.  And, if you haven’t figured it out by now, LaBron gets what he wants so I moved him back to small forward for the top pick there and went with Kevin Garnett as the third pick at power forward, giving me my top 15 NBA players of all time.

A team of Magic-Jordan-Russell-LaBron and Karl Malone would be tough to beat, but a team of Oscar-Kobe-Wilt-Bird-Duncan, or a team of Curry-Miller-Kareem-Dr. J-Duncan would give them a run for their money, for sure.

•  Overall, it’s interesting to note the unbelievable career of Lew Alcindor, or Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, as he’s now known by.  Kareem helped his parochial high school Power Memorial, in New York City, win 71 consecutive games.  In college, at UCLA, he won three-straight national college championships and was a record three-time MVP of the NCAA Tournament.  At the time, freshmen were not allowed to play in college games until 1972.  His freshmen team became the first freshmen group to beat the UCLA varsity team when they played during the annual freshmen vs. varsity game and the Bruins were the defending national champions.

Kareem went 88-2 in college, losing only one game when he had an eye injury and another when USC played stall-ball against UCLA and Kareem was held to only four shots and 10 points.  He was also the main reason the dunk was disallowed in college basketball until the 1976-77 season.

In the pros, he was drafted first by the Milwaukee Buck in 1969.  He won one title with the Bucks in six seasons and five more title with the Lakers in 14 years.  In 20 seasons of NBA basketball, he earned six MVP awards and was selected to the All-Star team 19 times and All-Defensive team 11 times.  Wow!