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On Tuesday, Sports Illustrated's Jack McCallum released his ranking of the 50 greatest players in NBA history. No huge surprises in the top 10, but then as you start moving towards 25, a question comes to mind: where the hell is Dirk Nowitzki?
McCallum believes there are 36 players better than Dirk, placing him at No. 37. Here's a list of a few people higher on the list than the big German: Rick Barry, Dave Bing, Jerry Lucas, Dwyane Wade, George Gervin, and Stephen Curry. Now, to be fair, Curry might get there -- we're all mostly agreed that he might be the greatest shooter of all time -- but he's only 27 and didn't cross the 10,000 points plateau until this season. Let's let him get a decade in the NBA before we start putting him in the top 30, yeah?
As we mentioned last week when Kareem said Dirk was a "one-trick pony," Nowitzki is the NBA's sixth all-time scorer, a 13-time NBA All-Star, a 12-time All-NBA selection, an NBA champions and Finals MVP, and an NBA MVP. Putting him 37 is disrespectfully low.
ESPN has been doing a similar ranking for a while now, and they had a much more reasonable (in my humble opinion) perspective:
• 13x All-Star
— NBA on ESPN (@ESPNNBA) February 4, 2016
• 1 championship ring
• 1 Finals MVP nod
Coming in at No. 17 in our All-Time #NBArank, @swish41 pic.twitter.com/B3Q6Yroika
Apparently, I'm not the only one who thought McCallum may have done Dirk a disservice.
Appreciate the response to my top 50. Main criticism seems to be having Dirk too low. I didn't think 37 was all that bad but ... I heard you
— Jack McCallum (@McCallum12) February 10, 2016
Not exactly an admission that Dirk should have been higher, but hey, at least the people spoke up.
So what do you think? Are you outraged? And can someone tell me who Dave Bing is?
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