Most underrated NBA player of last 20 years

[Bill Murphy]

[ QUOTE ]
I like the recognition of Arvydas Sabonis, definitely has to be mentioned not just in terms of most underrated but in terms of unknown to casual fans. I lived in Portland during his tenure with the Blazers and that guy was amazing to watch, even when he had 30% of his original mobility. The guy really did pass the ball like Magic, and a very soft touch around the basket and out to like 12 feet.

Swede

[/ QUOTE ]

Two of my great what-if's are Sabonis defecting after the '88 Olympics & Teofilo Stevenson defecting after the '72 ones.

[Aloysius]

Without really looking at stats these are the 3 that always come to mind for me:

Mark Price
Bernard King
Adrian Dantley

-Al

[Aloysius]

Oh and if you look at Sabonis' NBA career I don't see how he was underrated per se.

And every other word out of color commentator's mouths wrt to Sabonis was how he might be the best big man to have ever played in his prime (Bill Walton alone put this guy on the map). His Blazer teams had deep playoff runs and got a lot of national attention.

-Al

[69sofine]

Smits, and greg kelser

[Hornacek]

Al-

Who is your avatar

Where is the love for Hornacek

wtf

[fingokra]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Well it depends on who is doing the ranking, but for the common fan, I'll go with Moses Malone. One of the top 15 players ever in the NBA and probably most everyone under 30 has either never heard of him or would barely know who he is.


[/ QUOTE ]

fyp. underrated? he won 3 MVP's!!

I think there is a difference between "unknown b/c he's old" and "underrated"

[/ QUOTE ]

Well I can't really argue because I am not seeing the difference between "unknown" for whatever the reason and "underrated." To me the fact that Moses Malone (3 MVPs and earned the rebounding title 5 years in a row) would be (and I think you are correct) "unknown" to most shows that he is currently underrated.

In his prime (early 80's) this very well may not have been the case (although he is the only player ever to be traded following an MVP season or to average 20 pts and 10 rebounds for four different teams), but it definetly seems the case now. You do know he played all the way to 1995 so we are only talking 12 years ago. He retired after Bird and Magic and MJs first retirements. He was still averaging almost a double-double as late as 1992.

[sam h]

ok, larry nance is getting so little love here that i will try to make the case more explicitly.

he was a great two-way forward, an efficient scorer (55% career fg%) and very good passer (almost 1.5:1 assist/to ratio) and also a great help and man defender (routinely >3 blocks+steals per game). he averaged a 20 PER over a 13 year career. for sake of comparison with some other forwards of that time, that is about the same as kevin mchale and far better than james worthy, tom chambers, or chris mullin. but he only made 3 all-star teams, far less than any of those guys. if nance was on the celtics or lakers, he would probably be in the hall of fame and maybe would have made the top fifty players of all time list.

[ClassicBob]

All,

Most of those listed here are only "underrated" or "unknown" to people who know slim to none about the NBA and its history.

Sam h,

Nice stats on Nance. I had no idea he was that awesome, I just knew about the dunk contest. He's my pick now, I guess.

[Seadood228]

I forgot about Larry Nance.. There's a good choice.

As far as Pippen, he'd probably get my vote if it weren't for the outbursts, off the field trouble, and basically sucking it up once he left the bulls. In the one season as a bull with no Jordan, he averaged <25 IIRC.

I always thought he was the second best player in the NBA when the Bulls were winning titles, though.

[NozeCandy]

MORRIS PETERSON