He wasn't great, but he could hit the open one occaisonally. He had about ten years when he was shooting at least 20%, and at least two seasons where he shot more than 30%. From 91 to 97 he was shooting like 28%. That doesn't sound like much, but it served him well to keep the defense honest. Actually, in the Olympics in '92, where the line is in 3 feet, or something like that, he shot 7/8 3s. Hmm... He also shot 71% from the floor.
I know it's all really subjective and everything, but I'm a big Jazz fan, especially those Finals teams, and I didn't see Malone playing defense. Some of it is hype: did Jordan deserve all those defensive awards over Pippen? I don't think so, Pippen always had the tougher assignment. But because Jordan was Jordan, he got the votes. To me there were people far more deserving than Malone in those years. If you need a stop, who do you take, Outlaw or Malone? That's not a tough one. But let me be more specific with what I consider Malone's defensive problems. He can certainly steal the ball, he has good footspeed for a 260 pound PF, and he can body anyone up. So what's wrong? This: Malone does not contest shots. Jump-shooters kill him every time, because 40% of the time he just stays flat-footed with both hands in the air, another 40% he takes a half-hearted lurch which carries him a whole two inches, and 20% he actually goes for a block. This didn't matter so much back in the day, when PF were mostly post players. Now all those face-the-basket 4's destroy him simply by shooting right over him. I guess part of that is just lack of adjustment. MALONE DOES NOT CHANGE SHOTS, he merely stays in front of his man and gets ready to rebound. To me, a PF that makes the all-defensive team needs to have better shot-blocking than Malone ever had. Then again, maybe I'm just being too harsh . As for Barkely... he didn't play great defense, but he was OK, and that's saying something when most of the guys you're guarding are 4-6 inches taller.
Did you ever see Kevin McHale play? His low post game is just the kind of attack that the Rockets need. I gave McHale a close nod over Malone, though.
It's a draw between Malone and Pettit. I'm saddened to note that Pettit, the only person besides Wilt to take down Russell, hasn't taken in a vote yet. McHale could have been the greatest, but he didn't apply himself.
Bird is the best of all those players, but if you had to choose 1 position he was (and in fact he played most of his minutes there) it was the 3, not the 4. Thus I exclude him from this. Malone is the best PF in history if you go by consistency, stats and sustained production. But then if you use this as your criteria you MUST then say Kareem was the greatist player ever (over Wilt, MJ or whoever else). For me, I kind of weight their dominance in their peak years slightly more than sustained production--though both are components for being the greatist at their position. For example, I don't discount Bird to much in the greatist of all players list because his back problems cut into a few more monster stat years. IMO Malone was great, but I have never seen him single handly wreck defenses the way Barkley could in his prime. If fact I have never seen another PF control a game the way Barkley could in his best years without a step up man and to me this sets him apart. To tell you the truth, I would also take TD in his peak over Malone for a different reason, TD is nearly as good offensively (though not that close to Barkley in his heyday) as Malone and the strongest defensive presence of the bunch. So in the last 20 years I have the greatist PFs as Barkley, Malone and Duncan in that order--and I expect Duncan to eclipse Malone in time. I don't feel qualified to vote on Petit one way or the other--no knock on him I just don't know.
Do you guys realize that this is actually a fairly even vote, we're having a great debate, and no one's been nasty yet? What a nice thing! I didn't list Duncan as a choice because he hasn't played for long, at least relatively. But you're right, he deserves serious consideration; he could be at the top of our lists if he keeps going the way he has been. By the way, is it just me, or is Duncan sort of boring to watch? I mean, he is the 'Big Fundamental.' He's really good, but why see him? He destroys the competition in a very unexciting way . About Pettit... as KellyDwyer said, he was the leader of one of only two teams to beat Russell... a big accomplishment. He's also one of (4?) people, I believe, to average 20 points and 20 rebounds in a season. The others are Chamberlain, Thurmond, and Jerry Lucas (who, by the way, was the second player, after Wilt, to be drafted out of High School). He has the third-highest rebounding average in history (16 point something), and that's first among humans, since Wilt (22.9) and Russell (22.5) seem to be freaks of nature, or gods, or something . The other thing Pettit was known for was shooting a lot of free-throws. In the end, 30% of his career points scored were on free-throws. Anyway, I know you can't vote for a player if you haven't seen him play, but that's just to give you an idea.
I don't understand all the votes for McHale. Bird made that guy. Imagine any of the other guys on the list on the same team as Bird, and then think about whether you want to vote for McHale or not.
With all due respect to Larry Bird, I don't think Bird made McHale. It's hard to make a guy when he showed most of his scoring isolated on the low post. On the defensive end, it was McHale making Bird look good, not the other way around. Sure, McHale benefitted from some wicked passes, but he's still one of the best PFs ever.
In the post but single-covered and not given full defensive attention thanks to Bird. btw Drex and anyone else -- any ideas on why Pettit and Hayes had FG percentages in the low to mid-40s, while the other guys on the list shot in the 50s, high 50s, and some even the 60s? What is it, shot selection? Inability to shoot? Something else? Since you seem to have some knowledge of these older guys, I'm sure you can provide some good insight on that.
On Hayes/Pettit having low FG%... First of all, your point about McHale sort of leads into that. The other four guys all had opportunities to play with other prolific scorers, all except Malone, but he had the best pure point that ever played. Hayes especially played on some awful teams. Even when he won with the bullets, his best teammate was Unseld, not a scorer by any stretch of the imagination, although Bob Dandrige did draw some attention. Both were asked to do it all, and I think they may have suffered from Iverson syndrome... throw up ill-advised shots and the rest of the team get ready to rebound. But then again, these were guys that were getting 16 reb/game. Hmm... I think the underlying factor lies in weight training. You must have noticed that Hayes and Pettit are the oldest of the six. Back then, coaches told players NOT to lift weights, because it would screw up their shots. That, of course, is ridiculous, but they didn't know any better. These guys could run because of training camps and just playing games, but lack of upper-body strength hurt them at the end of games. It was a lot to ask to have somebody carry your scoring and jack up so many shots every night and not let him bulk up. I think that that is where the low FG% comes from more than anything. Also, back when those guys played, especially Pettit, dunking was not accepted. Part of it was that the hoops were not yet built to be hung on. But most of all, dunking was an insult; it was just bad form to dunk. Bill Russell was one of the very first to dunk consistently, because everyone knew he couldn't shoot, and he tried to do it in an inoffensive way. Pettit and Hayes had great jumpers, so they had no reason to be 'hot-dogging.' No dunking tends to lower FG%. Lastly, the pace of the game was actually faster back in the day. I seem to remember the Celtics leading the league in scoring one year, with something insane like 125-130 points/game. That pace tends to lead to inaccuracy.
Drexlerfan, that's correct. Back in the 50's (after the advent of the shotclock, of course) and 60's team shots without a conscience- they did not walk the ball up the floor, they ran! in 1960 the average field goal shot per game was 108.68. 1970, 99.4 shots were hoisted per game. 1980, the number drops to 90.65 per game. in 1990, the drop-off is less precarious: 87.2 FG were attempted per game. Last season the Rockets shot only 80.8 times a game. There has been a decline in shots per game, and consequently, each possesions were valued higher. The 3 point shot added to the steady decline as well. Thanks to Daly's Bad Boys, who introduced a bruising sort of defense, the NBA, in its traditional "emulate-the-champion" habit, drastically transformed from a offensive show to a walk-it-up slowtime dance. This came at the cost of offensive coaches such as Moe, and defensive coaches became the rage. Low field goal percentages of individual playas back in the day could be adjusted according to the average statistics of the average team in both eras. ~the Absolute~
Round Mound of Rebound my vote goes to the big fundamental, T-Dunk. Outside of highlight clips, I haven't seen Pettit and Hayes play, and can't really comment on McHale, cuz i only saw him play at the tail end of his career, hobblin' on bad feet. Ergo i would go with the Chuckster. Sir Charles is deserving, because he routinely destroyed Malone head-to-head in the early 90's, but a "matador" defense bumps him off the list. ~the Absolute~
Mainly because they spend most of the time dribbling and dribbling and dribbling... Good stuff Fichte, welcome to the board
I hate Karl Malone, but he is my pick. I hate em'. I hate em'. I hate em'. Unfortunately, I respect his basketball skills. ] I hate em'.
