I agree. Great energy and team ethic. This thread is a blast from the past. Hadnt thought about Ricky Blanton in years, another great team player.
Would have been more rings, maybe a lot more rings, but for Nick the Brick Anderson being unable to make a single free throw in 4 attempts in the last 10 seconds of the first game against Houston. Shaq had a monkey on his back after that loss that took many years to overcome. If they'd won that first year I have to believe Orlando would have run off a string of them.
The Shaq, Stanley Roberts, CJ team could run and gun with anybody. 148-141 over Loyola-LA, 125-124 over UNLV. But they were unable to beat good teams who could slow things down and control the tempo. Hey, I am a big fan of Shaq and I only vaguely remember seeing Bob Pettit play in the NBA on TV when I was a little kid. There is no way to compare who was the better player. Where would Shaq be rated on the alltime list if he had been drafted by a disfunctional franchise like the LA Clippers? Where would Maravich be rated if he had been 24 instead of 35 when he played for the Celtics with rookie Larry Bird the year before they acquired Robert Parish and Kevin McHale. He would have been the point guard instead of Danny Ainge for those great teams of the 80's. Would Archie Manning be in the Hall of Fame if he had been drafted by the Steelers instead if the Saints? Would Terry Bradshaw be there if the Saints had picked him?
I see this as a college career question. In that case its all Pistol. LSU does put together one hell of an all time team. Although I think John Williams was one of the most overrated players ever. He came in as a very highly touted player but I dont think ever really materialized. I see no love for the Ice Man Jerry Reynolds.
whats so different about these NBA team photos? besides, pettit didnt play forward in college. always back to the basket. even brandon bass and jaime lloreda would have swatted his crap (i picked those two because they are the least likely to leave their feet). sure pettit was an awesome player. there is no denying that, but the game was very different in the 50s.
Making excuses for Shaq . . . Are you kidding me? :lol: Pettit played against the best two centers of all time . . . and outscored them. Shaq doesn't have to be bad for Pettit to be good, you know. You are completely missing the point. Yeah, I get the point. You know very little about Bob Pettit but you love you some Shaq.
Who? :lol: :lol: That's what we're talking about here . . . MVP's, championships, the Hall of Fame. Real basketball accomplishments that Bass and Lloreda only dream about. It was still professional basketball and played at a far higher level than many imagine.
Bob Pettit was a superstar in an era when there were only 8 teams in the NBA. If the teams had 12 man rosters like they do today that means that only the best 96 players in the world played in the NBA. If you were the 97th or 98th best player in the world you didn't even have a job. Every team had at least one player on its roster who was no worse than the 15th to 30 best basketball player in the world. Today, if you are the 360th best player in the world you have a job in the NBA. If you are the 100th to 150th best player you are a starter and you make at least a couple of $ Million a year. I'm not downgrading Shaq or anybody else but it must have been tougher going up against opponents who were a lot more equal to you in ability night after night
Todays athletes would mop the floor with most players from decades past. Look at the Olympic records and how all the old records have been shattered by modern athletes. Put a Shaq or MJ back in the 50s or 60s and everybody else could go home. Russell would have been like a power forward trying to guard Shaq. Roadkill. But you have to figure that a Petit growing up in the modern era and training in the modern era, would have fully benefited and been a correspondingly better athlete.
