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Welcome in to another special episode of the What's Try with Nick Wright podcast and YouTube show. This is part of our series the fifty Greatest Players of the last fifty years in the NBA. Today we will reveal players forty three through forty. There are some very familiar names on this list we are, I mean, we're already getting to the real meat of the list. But the person we are going to start with I feel was the single most glaring omission from the NBA's just released top
seventy five list. Now, we've had a few people already on my list that didn't make the top seventy five. Sidney Moncreef, who we discussed, Bernard King, who we discussed who I felt were unfairly excluded. After this name, we're about to reveal, there's only one more person on my list that is not on the NBA's list, and that will be contrab And we will get to him of probably a couple months from now, because he is very high on my list despite not making the top seventy five.
But this person right here, in my opinion, his absence of being on the top seventy five list nearly invalidated that list in its entirety. This person is, of course, the forty third best player of the last fifty years in the NBA Dwight Howard.
For forty three Dwight Howard.
The fact that he was not included on the top seventy five list made that more about popularity than about credibility. Dwight Howard, let's go over his resume five times. We're gonna go slow on this. By the way, five times All NBA First Team for context, that is more than Dark Novitzky, Chris Paul, Kevin Garnett or as of this moment, Steph Curry. None of those guys have as many first teams as Dwight Howard.
He is a three.
Time Defensive Player of the Year APEX Dwight in Orlando was so far and away the best defensive player in the league there was not even a debate or.
A discussion about it.
Career top fifteen all time and rebounds and blocks, and now I want to talk about the MVPs because yes, he's five time First Team All NBA plus one time second team, two time thirteen. But the MVP part of it is really the biggest part of his case. There's a five year stretch where he was a consensus top five player.
You saw it right there.
He finished second MVP voting once and he finished top five three other times, so he has four top five MVP finishes. And when he was at his apex, we will go to the postseason. He was the best player on a finalist. A finalist by the way that if not for the courtney Lee missed putback, maybe maybe takes that Lakers series not only to seven, maybe they win it. But how did Dwight peak? Dwight before his bat gave out?
For he had real issues. And again some of this is his own doing because his game never matured, and some would argue he never matured. I understand that, but you can't hold the potential against him when what he realized was so great. Peak Dwight not only beat Lebron in a series, but the series that the Magic beat the Cats. Lebron in that series averaged thirty nine, eight and eight. It might be the single best series Lebron's ever played, one could argue, and Dwight beat him in six.
With Jamir Nelson, Hadu Turklou and Rashard Lewis as his key contributors, Dwight in that series averaged a humble twenty six and thirteen and in the deciding game six to go to Dwight's first career NBA Finals, He put up a forty and fourteen forty and fourteen to send Lebron home to go to the finals, and then they lost in six to Kobe obviously, So then was Dwight's career
over there? No, everyone kills him for the Lakers year, even though that was one of the what five years he led the NBA in rebounding his first year in Houston, you guys remember the playoff series that was Dame's first career walk off the Dame where he waves goodbye to everybody and he beats Houston in round one. In that series, Dwight averaged twenty six and fourteen with three blocks for a series again that his team loses in six.
For in the playoffs from.
Two thousand and eight to twenty fifteen, so the entirety of his prime and then a couple of years after his prime, he was twenty and fourteen in the playoffs and by the way, he's now a champion now. Was he a huge part of that Lakers title?
Seem No? But was he getting minutes? Was he valuable? You bet your ass he was?
Is not being included in the top seventy five is ridiculous, and I want it Before we get to our caller, I want to ask him on's a quick question.
You don't do a tunnel on these shows, but it's good. I'm glad you're here.
Do you feel like Dwight is viewed by a lot of people, particularly your age are younger, as more of a joke or more of an all.
Time I'd say it's pretty mixed, but I'm probably going to err on the side of a joke. Yeah, I think so. I think that you don't.
I mean, you don't have a lot of recollection of when Dwight was dominating the league. No, you remember like you remember the images of the slam Dunk contest and then the bad stand Van Gundy press conference. Again, he was an absolutely all parties agreed top five guy in the league for a five year stretch, top three guy in.
The league for a two year stretch.
For him to be non included in the top Nunning five list was outrageous. I think we have a caller that is going to comment on Dwight Howard. I want to hear it.
Question for you, Nick, if you took Moses Ballone's accomplishments and Dwight Howards and you made it a blind resume test, how would you be able to tell the two apart?
Just curious?
Okay, all right, so Rick is actually going a step further than I would go. Rick is saying he and Dwight Howard and Moses Malone have similar resumes. They flatley do not. Now now I have to give Dwight all that praise. I now have to bring realities. Moses Malone. You're going to see him on this list. He's not just a top thirty guy. He's not just the top twenty five guys, not just the top twenty guy. He's not just a top fifteen guy of the last fifty years.
Dwight has four MVP top fives. Moses has three actual MVPs. Dwight was the best player on a finalist, Moses was finals MVP on arguably the greatest team to ever play, the eighty three six Ers. So listen, I think it made it pretty clear. I'm a big Dwight Howard supporter. Let's not go crazy and acting he and Moses Malone of the same resume.
They do not.
Moses Malone and his fellow Sixer teammate Julius Irving are probably two of the most disrespected players in NBA history. We'll get to them in a few months on this list, but now we will get to number forty two. And number forty two is another controversial inclusion.
Number forty two Anthony Davis.
So Anthony Davis's top line resume is a clear, no doubt guy. But then it gets a little hazier. So he's four time first Team All NBA.
Which, as I mentioned just a.
Moment ago, that's the same number Dirk and Kevin Garnett, two of the greatest power forwards ever. But he has no second or third team All nbas. He just has those first Team All nbas. He was third in the MVP voting in twenty eighteen, and by the way, he has another top five, so he already has two top five MVPs. We know he's a great defensive player, four
time All the Defense, three time champion Blocks Champion. The question though, is the resume thick enough if he had a bigger body of work, his top level talent and his top level achievements, if the body of work were bigger, would have him higher than forty two. I'm comfortable with where he is because even though his playoff resume does not span many games, he has an underrated, unbelievable playoff resume. So I'm going to tell you some things I'm certain
you don't know about Anthony Davis. He is for his career twenty seven points per game in the postseason. That's good enough for top ten all time. During that title run, he was twenty eight and ten. He was the second best player on a champion. That has to matter. He goes to the Lakers, they immediately win the titler the second best player. And the first two games of those finals, which were the first two finals games of his career,
how does he answer the bell? Thirty four nine followed by thirty two and fourteen after two games of those NBA Finals looked like man, is Anthony Davis going to be Finals MVP?
Maybe? But it wasn't like.
He had just started showing up to the playoffs with those finals when he was with New Orleans. Not only did they sweep Portland, people forget this game. I don't to win his first playoff series ever, Game four against Portland forty seven and ten forty seven and ten to send the Blazers, who were favored in the series home, then in his first playoff series with the Lakers to close out Portland forty and nine. The next round against Houston,
he was good. Don't forget the Western Armands Finals, Western Hermand's Finals. Hey, battle of the big men, Jokicch versus Anthony Davis. Yokicch would go on to win the next MVP and damn near win another MVP right after. How did Anthony Davis end up doing it? How do you do against Jokis? Now on they win five? He averaged for the series thirty one and six against the guy who would then immediately become in some circles the best player in the league. He had a buzzer beating playoff game,
winning three in that series. And so I think that the playoff resume again doesn't have a ton of games. He has thirty nine career playoff games. He's scored twenty five or more in twenty.
Nine of them. She has shown up.
And as far as his regular season resume, the MVP finishes the all NBAS speak to it. Here's another thing. Career in the regular season twenty three and ten. Some context in the last fifty years. So from this list, our start of it. How many twenty and ten regular season guys do you think there are? He is twenty three and ten. Ten other guys in the last fifty years to average twenty and ten for their careers.
He's at twenty three and ten.
So the championship, the peak in New Orleans, the playoff run with the Lakers, the fact that I think this list will look stupid as soon as two or three years from now if he's not included. He has to be on it. I know he became because he got hurt this year. Again somewhat unbald. He shouldn't have been top seventy five guy. Let's be honest and Davids top seventy five guy, and we're not including what you do in college. But the title run at Kentucky matters at
least a little bit. Is number one pick title in Kentucky amazing. Immediately sounds like top seventy five guy. We have an Anthony Davis caller.
I do believe.
Anthony Davis, always injured. Anthony Davis. Two playoff appearances in seven years in New Orleans. Anthony Davis, that's who you got in your top fifty. I can't wait to find out where you have Kevin Love.
Okay, Comparing Anthony Davis and Kevin Love is just totally disingenuous. Anthony Davis didn't have a lot of success in New Orleans, but he had more success in New Orleans than Kevin Love did in Minnesota. And Kevin Love, when he did team up with Lebron, was not the second best guy averaging twenty eight and ten in a playoff run. He was the clear and obvious third best guy who became a liability.
At spots in the playoff run.
So, I again, that's a that's just not a fair com and I understand he doesn't have and I've said it, I said it for I'll say it again. The volume you would love to have, but the top level production is so good plus never backing down in the playoffs again.
Top ten all time playoff points per game. A guy who in his first playoff series victory closed it with a forty seven and ten, his first playoff series with the Lakers close it with a forty and ten, opened his first two career NBA Finals games with thirty two and thirty four. Top seventy five player will be back with players forty one and forty right after this.
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Forty five dollars up front payment required equivalent to fifteen dollars per month new customers on first three month plan only, taxes and fees, Extra speeds lower above forty gigabytes on unlimited cementmobile dot com. For details, Welcome back into What's Right with Nick Wright podcast and YouTube show special editions Best fifty players the last fifty years in the NBA.
We are counting them down. We are already to number forty one. Today, we will do forty one and forty then we'll be back in one week with we're already into the top forty players, thirty nine and so on and so forth. We already did today Dwight Howard and Anthony Davis. We're going to stay with a couple contemporary names. The oldest name involved in today's edition is player number forty one, and that is iconic Gary Pate. The glove number forty one, Gary Payton. We'll go through the accolades.
Those should be relatively simple. He has on the MVP front. It's interesting he has won top three, as you can see, third in nineteen ninety eight, but six times he was top six, so he has no other top fives.
I expanded it to six.
Because five separate times he came in sixth in MVP voting.
He won a Defensive Player of the Year. Why does that matter?
He is the only back court player to win Defensive Player of the Year in the last thirty plus seasons. In the eighties, Jordan One Moncrete won backcourt guys could win it. From the nineties to right now, the only one to do it was Gary Payton. He's one of the greatest defensive players ever. Peyton was a Defensive Player of the Year and in fact was the only guard
to win the award for thirty plus years. Marcus Smart just broke that streak actually this season with Gary Payton presenting him that award, as they are now the only two guards to win this award since the eighties. And then you get to the tougher part of Gary's argument,
which is he was good in the playoffs. It's hard to argue he was great in the playoffs, which because those accolades I just listed those types of MVP finishes, those all NBA appearances, how long he played, and the fact that the statistically he's never going to get the full He's always going to get a bit of the short end of the stick because so much of his impact was on defense. You would think deserves to be
a little higher than what he is. Some would certainly argue you should be ahead of the guy who's we're about to introduce you to, who's very next on the list, who also is a point guard who played just after Gary, well really at the same time as Gary's, just they their careers at least overlapped the end of Gary's to the beginning of the next guys.
So why is Gary not higher?
Because the playoff resume has some we're missing some spots. Now, he was the best player on a fivest and in that run to the finals in nineteen ninety six, he was twenty one, five seven and two.
That matters.
That absolutely matters. It was the best he ever was and in those finals. Don't listen to what Michael Jordan tried to tell you on that propaganda fest that was called The Last Dance, where he's like, oh, Gary Payton never really bothered me that much. In those NBA Finals, George Carl foolishly did not let Gary guard Michael at the beginning of the series. The Bulls promptly went up
three games to nothing. Jordan did whatever he wanted. Then once they put Gary Payton on Michael game four, the Sonics won, Game five, the Sonics won Game six, was close until the end. The Bulls end up winning the title. In those final three games, Michael Jordan was twenty three points per game and thirty seven percent shooting.
It is far and away.
The worst three games of any of Jordan's Finals appearances, so Gary gets credit for that. The problem is on his playoff resume, not a lot of other.
Great moments he had.
In two thousand, he had won great game against Utah thirty five, ten to eleven and six.
That's, you know, the one of his few.
Thirty point career playoff games and his only career playoff triple double. He Overall, he averaged twenty two to seven during his nine year playoff prime. Again, that's good, and he did it with great defense, but it wasn't enough to quite break through even when he had Apex Sean kemp Now.
Where I don't think he gets enough credit as this.
He was a more than a rotation player for the Miami Heat that won the title in two thousand and six with Dwayne Wade. During that playoff run, he was twenty four minutes per game, so he's at the end of his now.
The numbers aren't good, but.
He was valuable enough to be on the court for half of the game in those in that playoff run, and in Game five of the six Finals, the critical game for Miami to win their third straight to go up three games to two, he played thirty one minutes in that game that was a one point Miami win. So some high leverage moments in there as well. But he's not higher because there's not a lot of great iconic playoff moments we can point to. Let's go to one of our callers on a Gary Payton question.
I'm Martin Weis. I'm about to tell you why Gary Payton is a no doubt top twenty player of all time. First of all, one of the two to three best two way point guards in the game, thirty fifth all time and points tenth all time and assists that wasn't even his specialty. Nine defensive teams in a row. I mean, come on, one, seventeen year career, Hall of Famer, top seventy five player and the best NBA trash talker in the history of the game, Top twenty without a doubt.
Talk to me, Nick, am I tripping?
Or no?
All right, Martin, you're my guy. That's Martin Weiss. Great job by him, Yeah you're tripping.
There is no argument that can be made that he's one of the twenty the greatest players the last fifty years. This is not too many other point guards. So like forget Magic and step and Isaiah, But there isn't a compelling argument that Harry Payton's had a better career than Chris Paul. Just doesn't exist. Chris Paul is also the best player on a team that lost in the finals. His other accolades far out strip Gary. There's not a compelling argument that he was a better player overall than
John Stockton or even Jason Kidd. Both those guys went to two finals, so stock him the second best player. Kid was the best. So now we've got what seven point guards at a minimum ahead of him, So there's seven point If there's seven guys in your own position, had to you, you can't be top twenty all time.
But I do appreciate that young Martin is.
Respecting his elders and respecting what a great defensive player Gary Payton was, and maybe I should give him a few more bonus points for trash talk. Number forty is a guy not known for his trash talk, instead known for his beautiful floppy hair. And that is our first Canadian on the list, maybe our only Canadian on the list.
One Steve Nash.
Number forty, Steve Nash.
So you guys know this already, back to back MVP. What you might not know is this, after he went, he won the MVP. The next year, he wanted it again the very next year, Dirk's year, he came in second. He almost won three straight MVPs. He is a four
time fifty forty ninety guy. He won five assists titles and all NBA teams three times first team the three years I just mentioned, two times second team, two time third team, so seven total all NBA teams and his apex with the suns, I mean, they were the seven second or less suns were a real thing. And the way if if he probably would.
Have shot more, if he would have shot more threes.
If they would have had the data that we have now, maybe they do breakthrough and they did have some bad luck. Demonse, you're too young to remember this, but Joe Johnson was a key player for them. Breaks his face during one playoff run, the notoriously cheap Robert Sarver.
Won't pay him and then he ends up going to Atlanta.
Another one, Amari Stodemeyer gets suspended after Steve Nash gets body checked by Robert Rory, so he gets suspended for a critical game against the Spurs.
They lose.
So he had his opportunities sometimes they were you know, you feel like there's some big what ifs. With that said, it's not like he didn't have great playoff moments. Despite that, he was the best player on a team that made three conference finals, and people should go back and think about when.
He truly broke through the year. He one league MVP.
They are playing Dirk, his old team, his old teammate Dallas, the team that wouldn't pay him in the West in the Western Conference semis games four, five, and six. To move on, here's what Steve Nash did to get to his first career conference finals.
To beat his old team, to beat Dirk Game four, forty eight, five and five. But they lost.
So now it's two to two Game five, thirty four, thirteen and twelve. They win and move and get to a game six, game six, thirty nine, nine and twelve to get to his first career Western Armends finals.
All right, so then think about what he did the following year. Down three to one to Kobe and the Lakers.
Now wasn't great Lakers team, but down three to one in the first round, how do you do?
Well?
He goes thirty two and thirteen in Los Angeles in Game six and then beats Kobe in a Game seven, the famous game where Kobe refused to shoot in the
second half. So a three to one comeback against Kobe when he's the best guy that's got a matter from during his three years of when he won league MVPs and almost one a third in the playoffs in the playoffs twenty one and eleven on fifty to forty ninety in the playoffs over that three year stretch, and then the brief Steve Nash kind of renaissance when it looked
like the Sun's run was over. They make another Western Armends Finals in twenty ten, and in Western Arms Finals Game five, it's two to two against the Lakers, the defending champion Lakers. Is a chance to break through and get your first NBA Finals. He has twenty nine and eleven and that's the game the Suns had won, and then metalworld Piece tips it in and the Lakers go up three to two, and once again there's a big
what if with Nash. So his apex didn't last quite as long as some other guys because he got started slow, because he wasn't really the centerpiece of a guy until he'd been in the league damn near a decade. But once he was the centerpiece of a team, they damn near reinvented basketball. He's the fortieth best player despite his defensive limitations of the last fifty years.
Let's get to our Steve Nash caller.
Question for you, Nick, do you think that nash is back to back MVPs have actually hurt his legacy That so many people make a point of proving that he didn't deserve back to back MVPs. The pendulum has actually swung too far, and if he just had the one MVP, it'd be like, yeah, you know what, he deserved that MVP, But the fact that he got back to back people want to knock him down. Maybe having one would have been better than having too.
What do you think?
So?
I think it's an interesting point by Wilds, my buddy, that does the back to back MVPs thing almost get used as a cudgel against Nash because we look back on it, we're like, oh my god, he shouldn't have been back to back MVP. To a degree, I agree with him that it maybe gets used against him in some barroom arguments, but I.
Don't think it's for me.
It doesn't get used against him when people who know what they're talking about stack him up against the other all timers, because just like with Shaq, you don't hold against him the only one one. He probably should have three. I don't really I don't add a ton to nash his case because he has that second MVP. It's more, there was this brief three year stretch of time where he was one of the five best players in the league, and that is immensely valuable. He's as similar as the
situation that Dwight had. There's a stretch of time we are consensus one of the five best guys. The fact that he won a couple MVPs doesn't help him as much as some might think it should, but it certainly doesn't hurt him in my eyes. Now, had he won a third straight, which he almost did, and the list of guys with three straight MVPs are Bill Russell, Wilt Chamberlain, Larry Bird, and Steve Nash, that wouldn't have been great.
That might have got him kicked off the list on principle, but they didn't.
Dirk ended up winning it. Okay, there it is. We are through players fifty through forty.
Next week we start with player thirty nine and listen, I'm not so to spoil the list, but nothing will get people to tune in like a promise of the ratings bonanza that is next week's episode. Bob McAdoo prominently featured to see that