39. Amare Stoudemire – 1 time 1st team All-NBA, 4 time 2nd team All-NBA
38. Dwight Howard – 1 MVP Runner Up, 5 time 1st team All-NBA, 1 time 2nd team All-NBA, 2 time 3rd team All-NBA, 3 time DPOY, 5 time rebounding leader
37. Grant Hill – 1 time 1st team All-NBA, 4 time 2nd team All-NBA
These are three truly gifted players who for various reasons never quite had things come together to the point that they were able to have Hall of Fame lock caliber careers. Grant Hill probably had the highest potential ceiling of the three as he was a point forward who could do it all. Injuries cut his prime short but he still managed to make one first team and four second team All-NBA squads.
If it wasn’t for the stupidity of the NBA suspending half of the 2007 Suns during their series against the Spurs, we may look at him and that Suns teams a little differently as it is quite possible they would have won the title that year. But in any case, Amare was a complete beast who like Hill pulled off one first team and four second team All-NBA nods and went toe to toe with Duncan in some epic late 2000s playoff battles.
And then there is Dwight. Here is a guy that when you just look at his career accomplishments you would assume he is much higher on the list. But with this latest trade to the Hornets, he has also been dumped by 4 teams who simply thought they would be better off with him not wearing their uniform. He is the most discarded great player that I can remember, and at the end of the day, if nobody wants to play basketball with you, that has to affect your overall standing as a basketball player. And yes, I am still bitter about the shit show that was his entire stint with the Lakers.
36. Alonzo Mourning – 1 MVP Runner Up, 1 time 1st team All-NBA, 1 time 2nd team All-NBA, 1 time champion, 2 time DPOY
35. Carmelo Anthony – 2 time 2nd team All-NBA, 4 time 3rd team All-NBA, 1 time scoring leader
34. James Harden – 2 MVP Runner Ups, 3 time 1st team All-NBA, 1 time 3rd team All-NBA, 1 time assist leader
33. Chris Webber – 1 time 1st team All-NBA, 3 time 2nd team All-NBA, 1 time 3rd team All-NBA, 1 time rebounding leader
These four players were all the best player on really good teams that just couldn’t make it over the hump. Mourning led an outstanding Heat team that had to face the unfortunate reality of peaking during the dominance of Jordan’s Bulls and coming up just short time after time against Ewing and the Knicks in some intense playoff battles.
Carmelo is an unstoppable scorer with a full bag of moves on the offensive end, but he has had to face the unfortunate reality of simply not being as good as Lebron who happened to play the same position in the same conference for most of his career.
And Webber was one of the best passing big men of all time who lead a really good Kings team who had to face the unfortunate reality that Shaq and Kobe simply could not be beat at their peak. And I’m not trying to hear that the refs cheated them out of beating the Lakers in ’02. In the immortal words of Herm Edwards, “You play to win the game”, and the Lakers won, so get over it.
And then there is Harden. He puts up crazy stats and came in second in MVP voting twice, yet his playoff performances are inexplicable. It is not good when your two defining playoff moments are you crawling on the floor as time expires while Curry and the Warriors finish eating your lunch, and then following it up by playing an all-time WTF game against the Spurs in the clinching game of last year’s playoffs. Oh, and he came into the 2015 season out of shape after partying all summer with the Kardashians and got his coach Kevin McHale fired. So sorry James, you are not the real MVP.
32. Pau Gasol – 2 time 2nd team All-NBA, 2 time 3rd team All-NBA, 2 time champion
31. Tony Parker – 3 time 2nd team All-NBA, 1 time 3rd team All-NBA, 4 time champion, 1 finals MVP
These are two of the best foreign-born players the NBA has ever seen and were both the second-best player on multiple title teams. Gasol helped to save Kobe’s career with the Lakers by helping him emerge out of Shaq’s very large shadow to prove that he could bring the Lakers back to glory without him. He was the perfect second banana as he was never worried about how many shots he got but simply went about his business to bring back-to-back titles back to LA.
Parker provided a similar security blanket for Duncan and even brought home finals MVP in ’07. I give Parker the edge because he doubles Gasol in number of titles and we have already been over how I feel about players who win finals MVP.
The Jello's Jiggling 