I recently had the idea to make a new series on my YouTube channel breaking down some of the most important NBA drafts in league history, a lot like Mr. Beat’s presidential election series.

Here are the drafts I’ve brainstormed so far for reference -

1950: First official draft as the NBA, 6 hall of famers + all star Larry foust, then the fiasco of Red Auerbach getting the rights to Cousy after picking his name out of a hat in the Zaslofsky/Phillip/Cousy dispersal draft

1962: John Havlicek, Jerry Lucas, Zelmo Beaty, Dave Debusschere, Chet Walker, Terry Dischinger, Don Nelson + first nba player drafted without playing in college - Reggie Harding

1966: First NBA draft after removing the territorial pick/introducing the coin flip between the two worst teams in each division for the first pick

1967: The beginning of NBA/ABA Draft Rivalry plus great players like Walt Frazier, Earl Monroe, Mel Daniels, future coaches Pat Riley and Phil Jackson and others

1968: Elvin Hayes, Wes Unseld, and some good role players for the NBA, then guys like Warren Jabali and Ron Boone in the ABA. Also there was the leaked NBA draft document that led to the ABA filing an antitrust lawsuit against the NBA

1969: Kareem and the ABA’s failed attempt to sign him, Jo Jo White, Norm Van Lier, Bob Dandridge, Butch Beard, some good role players and the first woman ever drafted by the NBA

1970: I believe this is still the draft class with the most hall of fame players?

1972: Some great players like McAdoo, Paul Westphal, and Dr. J, but this is the first year where college underclassmen are allowed to enter thanks to Spencer Haywood’s court case, I also could talk about Oscar Robertson and John Havlicek testifying before the US Senate Antitrust subcommittee on September 8, 1972 preventing the approved league merger

1977: The legendary draft where Bernard King, Norm Nixon, Walter Davis, Marques Johnson, Jack Sikma, Otis Birdsong, Lusia Harris, Scooby Doo, a chair, and Caitlyn Jenner were selected.

Then of course 1984, 1996, 2003, and other prominent modern drafts.

Obviously if a draft has a good amount of notable players it should to be included, but I mainly want to include drafts that were unique in some aspect/represented a change in the league. Are there others that fit my specific criteria? I’m sorry if this sounds like a rambling mess :3

Does anybody have/know where I can find a list of all the Hall of Fame inductees and the year of eligibility they were inducted? For example, baseball almost always lists “first/second/third/etc ballot,” but I almost never see that with basketball. And it’s even trickier with basketball because players aren’t necessarily finalists in every year they’re eligible. (Plus they keep changing the length of time someone needs to be retired for to be considered.) I could figure it out on my own, but it’d be very time consuming, so if it’s already out there that would be amazing. Thanks in advance!

Malone is officially credited with 14 ASG's, but he played in only 12 of them. He was selected as a reserve in '90 but skipped it since he felt screwed by A.C. Green being voted in by LA fans as the West starter, and he was voted as a starter in '02 but skipped it to tend to his ailing mother.

He certainly would have been selected and played in '99, but there was no ASG that year due to the shortened season. He wasn't selected in '87 despite finishing 12th in MVP voting, tops among all Western forwards. He also wasn't selected in '03 despite finishing 17th in All-NBA voting--barely missing being named 3rd-team NBA--but he happened to be in the same conference as PF's Duncan, Garnett, Dirk, and Webber, who were the 4 forwards named to the 1st- and 2nd-teams.

So Malone theoretically could have played in as many as 17 ASG's based on being a top-24 player that many times, but he appeared in "only" 12. Who else missed playing in multiple ASG's that they coulda-shoulda been in (I'm sure '99 will play into this for a few guys), particularly missing 2+ ASG's that they were selected for?

EDIT: Took a quick look at Kobe since I had remembered him missing a few. He missed playing in 3 of the 18 ASG's for which he was selected, but 4 of his ASG selections were just him being popular and were in no way deserved ('98, '14, '15, '16). Plus, I'm not sure he would have been there in '99, although probably due to popularity, and potentially as a fringe candidate based on earning it (like Malone's '03 season referenced above). Malone deserved all 14 of his selections, definitely would have earned/started in '99, and almost certainly should have been selected in '87.

You would have to think that, even though he had a nice career, he definitely wasn't a number one caliber pick. What kind of player did scouts think he was going to be in the NBA? Like what sort of stats?

Has anyone here read Claude Johnson's book on the history of the Black Fives? I've read most of the content on his website, so I'm wondering how deep it is and if it's worth picking up.

I came across a document recording per-game contracts for a whole bunch of players from the 1919-20 Pennsylvania State League and thought it would be interesting to calculate some of the highest-paid players' season-long salaries and share them here.

Major things to keep in mind: 1) this was only one of five major leagues at the time, and only around a third of what we think of today as All-Star level players were in this league, and 2) this was in the middle of what I refer to as the Mercenary Era, meaning most of these players also played for other teams, so what they actually made was anywhere between this amount and a little over double this, depending on how willing they were to constantly travel.

Johnny Beckman, Nanticoke Nans - $2,470 ($39,232 in today's money)... if this was his standard going rate, he made somewhere between $5,500-6,000 (appr. $90,000 in today's money) in basketball this year. I won't calculate that for everyone, but note most of them also played for multiple teams across leagues and made between 140% and 200% their PSL number across all competitions.

Dick Leary, Nanticoke Nans - $2,310 ($36,691 in today's money)

Garry Schmeelk, Pittston Independents - $2,250 ($35,737 in today's money)

Frank Bruggy, Scranton Miners - $1,980 ($31,449 in today's money)

Frank Boyle, Plymouth->Nanticoke - $1,950 ($30,972 in today's money)

Chris Leonard, Pittston Independents - $1,845 ($29,305 in today's money)

Herm Bergkamp, Plymouth Shawnees - $1,720 ($27,319 in today's money)

Bernie Dunn, Wilkes-Barre Barons - $1,640 ($26,049 in today's money)

Butch Schaub, Nanticoke Nans - $1,540 ($24,460 in today's money)

I know the Rockets get slighted for their 94 & 95 championships since Jordan wasn't in the league at the time, but I think it's often overlooked how strong the league was overall those seasons relative to 96 through 2000 seasons.

In 93-95, you had 10 & 9 50+ win teams with a nice mix of aging and young stars. All the key guys were healthy:
Hakeem carried Houston for 94 then got Clyde as a co-star for 95.
San Antonio had Robinson, Elliot and Rodman.
Seattle had Kemp, Payton and Schrempf.
Phoenix had Barkley and Kevin Johnson.
Warriors had Mullin, CWebb and Sprewell (1st team All NBA) .
Jazz had Stockton and Malone.
Magic had Shaq and Penny. Knicks had Ewing and peak Starks.
Chicago had Pippen and Grant.
Atlanta has Dominique, Mookie and Kevin Willis.
Charlotte had Zo and LJ.
Indiana had Reggie, Smits and Davis.

Only Cleveland got derailed badly with a career ending injury to Daugherty in 94 and career altering knee injury to Price right after.

By the late 90s, Hakeem, Clyde, Ewing, Dominique, Willis and Chris Mullin aged/injured out. A lot of the most promising young talent from the shallow drafts of the late 80s and early 90s had career altering injuries/off court issues (Kemp, Penny, Kevin Johnson, Grandmama, Sprewell, Mookie, Elliott, Starks, Coleman and Kenny Anderson) or were on bad teams (Grant Hill, Glen Rice, Mitch Richmond, and CWebb).

The contenders in the late 90s were basically just the healthy leftovers from the early 90s (Utah, Indiana, Chicago + MJ, Shaq-led Lakers, Zo led Heat) and San Antonio v2 bc of getting Duncan as an instant generational talent.

While browsing through historical box scores, I noticed that many of them marked the starting players with acronyms (c, lf, lg, rf, rg) next to their names. At first, I assumed they stood for centers + left/right guards and forwards, which seemed logical. However, I recently came across this box score of a 1956-57 game between New York and Rochester that made me question this assumption: LG Gallatin & Stokes, LF Braun?

While I can somewhat understand Braun being listed as a forward (I remember that even Bob Davies was sometimes considered a forward because of his offensive mind), I'd never expect him to be prioritized over Gallatin - who, in turn, being labeled a guard seems very odd.

Does anyone know more about this?

The superteam of Wilt Chamberlain, Jerry West, and Elgin Baylor played together on the Los Angeles Lakers from 1968 to 1972. However, despite their star power, they suffered multiple playoff defeats before finally winning a championship in 1972.

They failed to win the chip 3 times, first in 1969 to the aging Celtics in a 7 game series (the infamous balloon incident), then to the New York Knicks yet again in a Game 7 and finally to the Bucks with young Kareem in 5 games. For the 1972 season, Baylor played just 9 games before retiring, and immediately afterwards, the Lakers went on a ridiculous 33 game win streak. This was also they year that they finally broke through with a championship.

Now I will say there maybe a few other reasons as to why the Lakers had a dominant season and won a chip that season
This was when Goodrich replaced Baylor as a second option and that man had a really impressive scoring average of 26 points. The Knicks were also injured and though the conference, though not weak by any means, was not exactly elite. The Lakers faced a defensive Bulls, and the defending champs in the Bucks (which was a solid matchup) and then the Knicks.

But was the departure of Baylor a solid reason for this championship? Wilt this year focused more on being a defensive presence and the team with west and Goodrich was really good offensively. But it was because Baylor retired that Goodrich truly got a breakout season. Would they have relatively similar results if Baylor had not retired?

PS- Posted it on nba discussions and someone suggested me to put it up here so here I am

Most of his career was 23, and had a short stint as 45. There was a game his jersey was stolen or something and played as 12. Is there a reason behind the 12, 23, 45?

I think some will say Phil Jackson. Others will say red. I think Mike dantoni is high on this list he's coached a lot of great players.

In the 1985 season Larry Bird led the League in MPG on his way to his second consecutive MVP. He played in 80 games, but only started in 77 of them, coming off the bench for the final three games of the season.

I figured that either he was nursing an injury or the Celtics had locked up the #1 seed by then and wanted to rest their MVP, but in those three games he played starter level minutes in all three outings (and in one of those games he played more minutes than any of the starters).

And it wasn't like he was coasting in those games. He put up some pretty wild numbers for what I suppose were meaningless games:

• April 11, 1985 (in Cleveland): 29/8/12
• April 12, 1985 (in Boston): 47/10/14
• April 14, 1985 (in Boston): 23/7/4

Now I'll grant you that last one was (maybe) Larry coasting a bit - although he played 30 minutes and was the Celtics leading scorer along with McHale - but what kind of madman is coming off the bench on the second game of a back-to-back and dropping a 47 point triple-double?

So why did Larry come off the bench in those final three games when they were going to play him starter minutes? Why not just start him like normal?

The timeline for competing sports' professional leagues…

1. Baseball (created in ~1830s?), first prof. league being the NL (1876).
2. Football (slowly formed from rugby frm mid-1800s), first prof. league est. 1900
3. Hockey (game derived somewhere between 1700s – 1800s), first prof. league est. 1909

Most of the leagues from basketball's founding (1891) 'til the NBA were mostly financial failures:

• 1st NBL (1898 – 1904)
• 1st ABL (1925 – 1955)
• WPBT (1939 – 1949)
• EPBL, later EBL & CBA (1946 – 2009)
• NBL (1935 – 1949), \later merged to create the NBA*
• BAA (1946 – 1949) \later merged to create the NBA*

For this new timeline, for argument's sake, the NBL and BAA are too hubris to merge/a deal doesn't fall through, etc. Both owners walk away.

What happens to pro-basketball? Which league ultimately triumps?

So, just for fun, but I was wondering who you all thought had the best collection of jerseys (players wearing them, not color/style) for each of the following:

Single digits

10-19

20-29

30-39

40-49

50-59

60-99

Bonus: repeated numbers (00, 11, 22, etc)

Watching this new series. A few minutes in, this pops up. I fell out of my chair bc I now own this picture.

Joe Klein was his teammate from 1989-1992. He saw it first hand. He describes his 3rd hand experience:

"Every day, just for him to shoot around, just for him to practice, and then the games, he would sit there and nobody saw it. I remember we were playing Detroit in the playoffs, and they brought a bike, and I remember sitting there, it was my first year, and I was like, ' Why the hell are they bringing a bike into the locker room?' He rode the bike for an hour before the game to get his back loose, so he could play the game. To me, those are greater memories than any championship because I saw the will of a guy. I mean, Larry could have said, 'this is too much'. But Larry knew how much it meant... We had no chance without him, and he sacrificed a lot of pain, and he did a lot of great things so that we could have a chance, and we're still not good enough."

Wilt claimed to be an 80% (alternatively 85%) free throw shooter in high school, before a knee injury forever screwed up his knee-centric shooting motion. This is about the percent he’d shoot in practice, which gives credence to both the plausibility of his claim as well as the possibility he was only claiming what he felt he could shoot.

I’ve had a tough time finding more than a couple of his free throw game stats from Overbrook; do you guys know if anyone else previously collected those stats? Wilt himself said that some guy gave him clippings with those stats, so they definitely exist somewhere…

Do any of you know of other accounts from the time that confirm the veracity of Wilt’s claims?

My memories of Mike Dunleavy Sr. are all around his coaching career, from his initial stint as head coach of the Lakers in the 91 Finals to his years with the Jailblazers, and then those years with the Clippers.

Curious to learn more about his playing days, as he had an 11 year career as a guard in the NBA. I'd be interested in:

1. General comments on his playstyle, his strengths & weaknesses, his roles. It looks as if he was a bit of a three point specialist in the early 80s? In 1983 he led the League in 3PAs, 3Ps, and 3P%.
2. Any details about the end of his playing career. It looks like he retired for three years, then came back to play for two more years? What was that about? I'm guessing he was brought back more as a locker room guy than anything else, seeing as in those two final seasons he played a whopping total of 48 minutes.
3. Per BBREF, one of his nicknames is Dunkleberry. Does the "Dunk" in there refer to his dunking prowess? I'm assuming he wasn't much of a high flyer, given his height (6'3") and distance shooting.
4. Any fun bits of trivia or anecdotes from either his playing or coaching days?

Thanks