By NICK SLOAN,
NJSloan212@gmail.com
There are a few different versions of the term "underrated."
Among them is the obvious definition we think of - guys who get little credit for being good.
These are athletes or coaches who simply slip under the radar and barely get noticed.
These athletes don't make all-star games or don't get the proper respect from the media dedicated to covering the sport.
To put it in KCK terms, I've always considered Davonte Cheney (from Sumner Academy) and Myles Hibler (Washington) to fall in this area. In my opinion, they were good players who never received the proper due from fans in the city for how good they were. Cheney is one of the single best defenders I've seen in KCK basketball the past five years and Hibler could be dominant at times. Hibler had not one but two 20-rebound games during his career. That's not bad, especially for someone who was just 6'6" on a good day.
There's another type of underrated - one that's tougher to explain.
This "underrated" is for stars who were simply forgotten for whatever reason - whether it was the era they played in, the lack of team success or the fact other super-stars just took over the era.
To try and make another KCK connection, I think of Schlagle's Rozell Nunn when it comes to being great, but still underrated. Nunn, who was my co-player of the year with Tra'Vaughn White in the 2010-11 season, was just a great player. Nunn was the only player I've covered in my career who could get a triple-double anyday of the week. He had four during his career at Schlagle. However, he never received even an honorable mention designation from other media outlets. Had he remained healthy, who knows. He's in the argument for the most talented player KCK's had at the high school level in the past five to six years.
Looking at the NBA, there are five players who have fallen between the cracks in terms of being forgotten in all-time position debates.
The five players were great, but for some reason, are not household names when it comes to being considered great.
5. Gary Payton (1990-2007)
I touched on Payton in
my Top 10 Point Guards piece a few weeks ago, but let me expand on how good he really was. He's the only point guard in NBA history to win the NBA Defensive Player of the Year Award. Outside of a brief prime for Shawn Kemp, he never played with an NBA Hall of Famer as John Stockton did. He's the best defender the point guard position has seen, with only Walt Frazier having an argument of being better defensively. Despite this, he's rarely considered as Top 5 point guard material. In a panel of experts from ESPN, Payton was ranked #9 on the list, behind guys like Jason Kidd, Steve Nash and John Stockton. Having seen all of these guards in their prime, I always thought Payton was a little bit better and the better overall point guard. At the age of 33, Payton averaged 22.1 points, 9.0 assists, 4.8 rebounds and 1.7 steals a game. Payton is a great point guard who has become criminally underrated in a time when the point guard position is among the best it's been in the NBA recently. I'm convinced one of those Utah teams beats the Jordan Bulls teams if you switch Stockton for Payton. Payton's a great player and quite frankly, deserves more attention and respect for his career.
4. Alex English (1976-1992)
Fun fact - in a decade that featured Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, Moses Malone, Larry Bird, Isiah Thomas and a host of other great players in their primes, it was Alex English who scored the most points during the 1980s. English is forgotten because he played for teams that had nothing around him. Still, he led Denver to nine straight playoff seasons, culminating in a 1985 Western Conference appearance where they lost to a great Los Angeles Lakers team. English was the first player in NBA history to score 2,000 points in his first eight seasons as a professional. For nine seasons in a row, English averaged over 23 points a game. Even though he's been out of the league for 20 years, English still ranks #9 in all-time scoring. He was also a decent rebounder - averaging 5.5 a game during his career, peaking with a 9.4 average in 1980. He's a great shooting forward who's become forgotten for simply playing in the same decade as Larry Bird, the greatest shooting forward ever.
McAdoo was the last NBA player to average 30 points and 15 rebounds in a single season. He averaged an absurd 34.5 points and 14.1 rebounds a game in 1974-75. Playing in the same league at the same time as Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Bill Walton hurt him in terms of perception. Plus, he played for some average Buffalo Braves teams in the 1970s. Yet, as good as he was, he did not make the NBA's Best 50 Players Ever list that came out years ago. He averaged 22.1 points and 9.4 rebounds a game during his career.
2. Moses Malone (1974-1995)
Here's all Malone did - he was the first player in NBA history to win four straight rebounding titles, a three-time NBA Most Valuable Player, the only player in NBA history to average 20 points and 10 rebounds for four separate teams and he had the longest professional basketball career ever. He's still #7 all-time in points scored in the NBA and is the all-time leader in offensive rebounds going back to the time when the NBA started separating out offensive and defensive rebounds as stats. He's rarely mentioned as an all-time great center by most NBA fans though. A few weeks ago, I tweeted out a take about how Malone was a better NBA center than Shaquille O'Neal. Based on the tweets I received back, I was clearly nuts for even suggesting this. Shaq had only one rebounding title to Moses' six. Shaq's free-throw shooting was pathetic and 25-points less than Malone's free-throw shooting percentage and Malone had more longevity. He's an all-time great center and one of the best 11 or 12 basketball players in league history. He's very underrated.
1. Dominique Wilkins (1982-1999)
Like McAdoo, Wilkins did not make that "Top 50 Players" list the NBA published years back and I would like to know why. Wilkins is one of just six players in NBA history to average at least 25 points in 10 straight seasons, joining guys like Michael Jordan, Jerry West and Shaquille O'Neal. That's not bad company. Wilkins also has the most points in a Game 7 in NBA history with 47. He was an underrated rebounder, averaging just a shade under seven a game during his career. He peaked with a 9.0 average during the 1990-91 season. Wilkins never had a surrounding cast around him in Atlanta and his best teams were knocked off in the playoffs by those great Detroit and Boston teams in the late 1980s - teams with three or four potential all-stars on them. Wilkins' best supporting cast included Kevin Willis and Doc Rivers, a team that somehow won 57 games in 1987, a time when the NBA's Eastern Conference was absolutely loaded. On a less important but still worthy side-note, him and Michael Jordan brought dunking into the mainstream and really put the NBA Dunk Contest on the map during their two showdowns in the late 1980s. Wilkins is the best in-game dunker in NBA history - and I don't care what Jordan or Vince Carter fans have to say. He didn't play on perennial losers, but never had the supporting cast a Larry Bird or Magic Johnson did during that decade. That's not saying Wilkins is better than Bird or Johnson - just saying he was without the talent those players had.
