# Best Player to Never Hit the NBA



## Diophantos (Nov 4, 2004)

So what I'm asking is: best player to never play a single minute in the NBA? I.e. No Arvydas Sabonis, no Mel Daniels, etc.

Thoughts? I don't have any really knockout selections but to my mind the competition probably falls into 2 main categories:

1) International players who never came over
Guys like Oscar Schmidt, Dejan Bodiroga etc.

2) Guys who spent their entire career in the ABA (or other domestic leagues I guess)
For example, Roger Brown, Warren Jabali.

Then outside these two there could be great college players who somehow hit tragedy and never made it (Len Bias is the only one I can think of right now) or streetball legends (like Demetrius "Hook" Mitchell).

I'm not an expert on any of these categories (though I am in the middle of reading Terry Pluto's book _Loose Balls_ about the ABA so I'm working on the 2nd one) so I'm sure there are guys in this debate that I don't know much about. So what do people think?


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## jericho (Jul 12, 2002)

Oscar Schmidt was the first guy who came to mind when I saw the thread title. 

The Len Bias category could also include Hank Gathers of Loyola-Marymount fame.


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## Auggie (Mar 7, 2004)

gonna be Yi prolly


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## white360 (Apr 24, 2004)

Ronnie fields


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## Diophantos (Nov 4, 2004)

Okay, I'm doing some research and collecting some quotes...this is a subject that interests me today. I'll be working on adding to this list...keep up the suggestions.

*Oscar Schmidt*
6'8" SG/SF from Brazil
*Made his legend in*: Brazil, Olympics and other international competitions
*Big Moments:* Dropping 46 pts in a comeback win over the US in the 1987 Pan-Am Games gold medal match, Averaging 42 ppg in the 1988 Olympics
Wikipedia: "He is considered one of the best players never to have competed in the NBA."
Also author of one of my favorite quotes ever, when asked why he took all the shots and his teammates only set picks for him: "Some people, they play the piano. And some people, they move the piano."

*Dejan Bodiroga*
6'8" SG/SF from Brazil
*Made his legend in*: Various European leagues, International competitions
*Accomplishments*: too many to list, including 2-time Euroleague Final 4 MVP, 2-time Greek League MVP, Spanish League MVP, World Championship Finals MVP, etc.
Wikipedia: "Many basketball observers consider him the best player never to play for a National Basketball Association team."

*Sergei Belov*
6'3" G from Russia
*Made his legend in*: Soviet League, Euro-League, Olympics
*Accomplishments*: 11-time USSR champion with CSKA Moscow, 2-time Euro-League Champion, 1972 Olympic Gold Medal (controversially), In 1991 named "Best European Player Ever" by FIBA, 1st international player in the Hall of Fame
Wikipedia: "Belov is considered to be one of the best non-American basketball players of all time."

*Demetrius "Hook" Mitchell*
5'9" G from Oakland, CA
*Made his legend in*: Bay Area streetball
*Legendary story*: Dunking over a car
Wikipedia: "He is considered by several NBA All-Stars to be the greatest player to never reach the NBA."
Jason Kidd:"Hook was by far the best player to come out of Oakland. There's no comparison to me, Gary Payton, Antonio Davis, Greg Foster or Brian Shaw."
Gary Payton:"He had major, major game. He was 5'9 and had major hops. He could do anything he wanted to do."
Brian Shaw: "He could handle the ball with the Marburys and Iversons. He had the competitiveness of a Gary Payton or a Michael Jordan."

*Raymond Lewis*
6'1" G from Los Angeles, CA
*Made his legend in*: LA streetball, summer pro leagues
*Legendary stories*: There are plenty. Reportedly scored 60 points in a scrimmage agains 76ers first round draft pick Doug Collins. Lit up future NBA DPOY Michael Cooper for 56 points through 3 quarters of a summer league game in 1983. Led the nation in scoring (39 ppg, 7 apg, 59% shooting) as a college freshman.
Seth Ferranti: "A man whose talent and skill with the basketball was so immense he could have been one of the greatest ever. Raymond Lewis was so good that he never needed a nickname. In Los Angeles if you said Raymond, they said Lewis. And if you said Lewis, they said Raymond...The playground legend from Watts, California who ruled the basketball world in Los Angeles in the early 70s and 80s is still to this day considered one of the greatest basketball players that ever lived. And, without exception, the best to ever come out of California."
Dean Prator: "I often hear people talking about the basketball players who they say was the best to never play in the NBA. But without question, I believe Lewis is the best never to play in the NBA."

*Roger Brown*
6'5" F-G from New York
*Made his legend in*: ABA
*Accomplishments*: 4 time ABA all-star, ABA finals MVP, Averaged 33 ppg and 10 rpg in the 1970 ABA finals against all-star Willie Wise, outscored Rick Barry 32-23 in the deciding game of the 1972 ABA finals
Slick Leonard: "Roger was a complete basketball player. One-on-one, no man could guard him, like no man can guard Michael Jordan today."
Billy Keller: "Having Roger Brown is great for a team's ego. To know that you're in a close game and all you have to do is get him the ball..."
Gene Littles: "Roger was the Larry Bird of the ABA."
Mel Daniels: ""He was so good one-on-one that I remember defenders actually screaming for help. He actually dislocated or broke eight guys' ankles (with a) crossover dribble move."

*Len Bias*
6'8" F from Maryland
*Made his legend in*: College Basketball, specifically the ACC
*Accomplishments*: ACC Male Athlete of the Year, Beat #1 ranked UNC in the 1986 NCAA Tournament, etc.
Lefty Driesell: "I think he's the greatest basketball player that ever played in the Atlantic Coast Conference."
Mike Krzyzewski: "This is my 24th year at Duke, and in that time there have been two opposing players who have really stood out: Michael Jordan and Len Bias. Len was an amazing athlete with great competitiveness. My feeling is that he would have been one of the top players in the NBA."
Jim Calhoun: "He was bigger, stronger, and quicker than anyone we had. He was one of those rare guys you looked at and said, `You know, he is going to be special.' "


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## DanielGibson4MVP (Jun 8, 2007)

It's shame too, that these guys never made it.


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## Bubbles (Nov 12, 2005)

DanielGibson4MVP said:


> It's shame too, that these guys never made it.


*Nods in Agreement*


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## BadBaronRudigor (Jul 27, 2006)

Not sure the ABA should count either; they merged with the NBA and NBA considers their stats part of its official record but I'd certainly take an ABA legend over a summer league or streetball legend. The "Hook" legend is typical, great game, poor size, may or may not have made it in the NBA as a 5'9 scorer but seems unlikely. Same for guys like 6'4 dunk legend "Helicopter" Knowlings or 6'2 Earl "the Goat" Manigault; top of the backboard hops will make you a playgroud legend but if you aren't at least 6'6 and built like an Unseld/Barkley, you won't play inside in the NBA. 

One player that hasn't been mentioned is Bob Kurland. WAY before my time but he was considered equal or superior to George Mikan back in the day but had a job lined up making good money (NBA players often took summer jobs to make ends meet, lol) and chose never to turn pro, playing in several Olympics. Supposedly the first great shotblocking center.


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## PauloCatarino (May 31, 2003)

*Nick Galis*

Notable achievements

In 854 official games played, Galis scored a total of 25,995 points, an impressive 30.4 points per game. 
In 168 games with the Greek national team, he averaged 30.46 points. 
Galis was the leading scorer in every major European or World national event he participated from 1983 onwards. (1986 World Championship - Eurobaskets 1983, 1987, 1989, 1991). 
His personal scoring record in one game is 62 points (1981, Aris-Ionikos). However in the same game, his future teammate Panagiotis Giannakis scored 73 points! 
His career high in a European competition was 57 points against Venice during the 1981 Korac Cup. 

Titles
Galis won numerous titles and awards during his career. The following are some of them:

Greek Championship: 1983, 1985, 1986, 1987, 1988, 1989, 1990, 1991 
Greek Cup: 1985, 1986, 1987, 1988, 1989, 1990, 1993 
Greek championship MVP: 1988, 1989, 1990, 1991 
Eurobasket: 1987 
Eurobasket runner up: 1989 
Eurobasket MVP: 1987 

*Panagiotis Giannakis*

Titles (as player): 1 Eurobasket, 1 European Champions Cup, 1 Cup Winners Cup, 7 Greek Championships, 7 Greek Cups 
He holds the record for national team caps with 351, which is also a record for any european player. 
He has scored 9291 points in Greek competitions (3rd all-time) and 5282 with the national team (record holder). 
His personal best is 72 points scored, in 1984 as a player of Ionikos (ironically against Aris, his future team). 
He holds the records for most games in the Greek championship (493) and in Euroleague (163). 
He is the only person to win the Eurobasket Championship both as player (1987) and as coach (2005). 
He was selected 207th overall by the Boston Celtics in the 1982 NBA draft.


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## Sunsfan81 (Apr 17, 2006)

Here are some others

John Beckman "The Babe Ruth of basketball"
Joe Lapchick
Charles "Tarzan" Cooper
Hank Luisetti
Bob McDermott


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## magohaydz (Dec 21, 2005)

PauloCatarino said:


> He was selected 207th overall by the Boston Celtics in the 1982 NBA draft.


207th? How long was draft day back then? And if there were 206 better players just in _that_ years draft, how could he even be considered the best to never play NBA?


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## PauloCatarino (May 31, 2003)

magohaydz said:


> 207th? How long was draft day back then? And if there were 206 better players just in _that_ years draft, how could he even be considered the best to never play NBA?


Just for an example, players taken in front of Manu Ginobili:

Elton Brand 
Steve Francis 
Baron Davis 
Lamar Odom 
Jonathan Bender 
Wally Szczerbiak 
Richard Hamilton 
Andre Miller 
Shawn Marion 
Jason Terry 
Trajan Langdon 
Aleksandar Radojevic 
Corey Maggette 
William Avery 
Frederic Weis 
Ron Artest 
Cal Bowdler 
James Posey 
Quincy Lewis 
Dion Glover 
Jeff Foster 
Kenny Thomas 
Devean George 
Andrei Kirilenko 
Tim James 
Vonteego Cummings 
Jumaine Jones 
Scott Padgett 
Leon Smith 
John Celestand 
Rico Hill 
Michael Ruffin 
Chris Herren 
Evan Eschmeyer 
Calvin Booth 
Wang ZhiZhi 
Obinna Ekezie 
Laron Profit 
A.J. Bramlett 
Gordan Giricek 
Francisco Elson 
Louis Bullock 
Lee Nailon 
Tyrone Washington 
Ryan Robertson 
J.R. Koch 
Todd MacCulloch 
Galen Young 
Lari Ketner 
Venson Hamilton 
Antwain Smith 
Roberto Bergersen 
Rodney Buford 
Melvin Levett 
Kris Clack 
Tim Young


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## Diophantos (Nov 4, 2004)

Cool...thanks Paulo for some more international legends that I hadn't heard of and SunsFan and Baron for some of the older American guys that I didn't know about.


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## Diophantos (Nov 4, 2004)

BadBaronRudigor said:


> Not sure the ABA should count either; they merged with the NBA and NBA considers their stats part of its official record but I'd certainly take an ABA legend over a summer league or streetball legend. The "Hook" legend is typical, great game, poor size, may or may not have made it in the NBA as a 5'9 scorer but seems unlikely. Same for guys like 6'4 dunk legend "Helicopter" Knowlings or 6'2 Earl "the Goat" Manigault; top of the backboard hops will make you a playgroud legend but if you aren't at least 6'6 and built like an Unseld/Barkley, you won't play inside in the NBA.


In general I agree with you, in that I'd probably rather have a guy who played in a serious pro league (e.g. the ABA) over a guy who really only played streetball or summer league or whatever. But the thing is with a lot of the streetball and summer league legends (like Hook or Raymond Lewis) is that there is documentary or anecdotal evidence of them playing and (at the very least) holding their own with NBA guys. Lewis played NBA guys in summer leagues, and played NCAA ball. Hook was playing NBA guys like Payton and Kidd and Shaw. So, while this doesn't tell us much about endurance or coachability or leadership or any of the other myriad skills necessary to be a seriously great player, I think you have to consider guys with that level of talent.

(later thought that I append to this post: ) And the handicap for ABA talent in this evaluation is that almost all of the very best ABA players (Erving, Gilmore, Daniels, etc.) played at least some time in the NBA. But many of the very best streetball or international players (especially before the modern era) did not. So the guys that actually did play only in the ABA may be comparable talents to these other guys. Or maybe not, who knows.


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## Diable (Apr 26, 2005)

Well Dick Groat only played 26 games with the Fort Wayne Pistons before the militairy called him up,but I'm sure that there are other guys from that era who played major league baseball because they could make much more money than they could playing basketball.Groat for example was twice an all american at Duke and the UPI National Player of the year in 1952.He was a very good baseball player winning the NL MVP in 1960,two world series in 60 and 64,but he was probably a better basketball player and the first Duke player to have his number (10) hang in the rafters at Cameron.


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## Vuchato (Jan 14, 2006)

Durant.


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## jericho (Jul 12, 2002)

Diophantos said:


> *Roger Brown*
> 6'5" F-G from New York
> *Made his legend in*: ABA
> *Accomplishments*: 4 time ABA all-star, ABA finals MVP, Averaged 33 ppg and 10 rpg in the 1970 ABA finals against all-star Willie Wise, outscored Rick Barry 32-23 in the deciding game of the 1972 ABA finals
> ...


I think you mean Rogera Brown, who played mostly for the Pacers and a bit for the Utah Stars. 

Roger Brown was an undistinguished center who played here and there in both the ABA and NBA.


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## Diophantos (Nov 4, 2004)

jericho said:


> I think you mean Rogera Brown, who played mostly for the Pacers and a bit for the Utah Stars.
> 
> Roger Brown was an undistinguished center who played here and there in both the ABA and NBA.


http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/b/brownro01.html

Yeah, Roger A. Brown...everything I've read just calls him Roger Brown. Guess there's little chance at confusing the two.


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## Nuzzo (Jul 11, 2005)

Bob Kurland


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## jericho (Jul 12, 2002)

Cheryl Miller?


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## BadBaronRudigor (Jul 27, 2006)

Good one Jericho. There's anecdotal evidence that she used to kick Reggie's butt pretty consistently and he turned out to be a fairly impressive NBA player. :azdaja:


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## gi0rdun (May 31, 2007)

Me.


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## Diable (Apr 26, 2005)

Jackie Robinson probably deserves a mention,although the NBA was only formed in 1946 after his discharge from the army and I don't believe that professional basketball was of much importance outside of the Northeastern cities at this point.Probably relatively few of the best players considered going pro at this time since there wasn't much money to be made in it.


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## shobe42 (Jun 21, 2002)

white360 said:


> Ronnie fields


I'm not the most knowledgeble about this but that is the guy that instantly popped into my mind before I even opened the thread. 

You can make a solid argument that he was better than KG when they both played at Farragut.


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## cruelty4 (Oct 10, 2007)

prolly its Dejan Bodiroga

and from newer player K.Kambala hes into boxing now hehe


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## E.H. Munro (Jun 22, 2004)

magohaydz said:


> 207th? How long was draft day back then? And if there were 206 better players just in _that_ years draft, how could he even be considered the best to never play NBA?


Actually, I don't think he was 207th, either. I do remember that he was a ninth round pick of the Celtics, but in the days of the ten round draft it wasn't uncommon for teams to pass in the final two rounds. He was a great European player, but didn't have what it took to be an NBA one when the Celtics were interested.


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## jericho (Jul 12, 2002)

Diophantos said:


> Okay, I'm doing some research and collecting some quotes...this is a subject that interests me today. I'll be working on adding to this list...keep up the suggestions.
> 
> *Oscar Schmidt*
> 6'8" SG/SF from Brazil
> ...


This is a great compilation, Diophantos. Other than the obvious Bias case, what do you know about the circumstances that kept each of these guys from playing in the NBA?


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## Diophantos (Nov 4, 2004)

jericho said:


> This is a great compilation, Diophantos. Other than the obvious Bias case, what do you know about the circumstances that kept each of these guys from playing in the NBA?


From what I remember, various things.

A lot of international types, Schmidt and Bodiroga for example, just never decided it was worth it. Both were highly paid rock stars with no real need for the NBA. Belov I know little about, but I can't imagine the NBA was really a viable option for him at the time.

As for the American guys, the ABA obviously gave an alternative for guys like Roger Brown. A lot of the streetballers had legal issues--I think Raymond Lewis had some contract disputes, Mitchell spent time in jail.

And of course that list I put up isn't nearly exhaustive; for one thing there are the older guys that SunsFan and Baron mentioned who just played before the NBA existed (e.g. Bob Kurland). There are doubtless other high-school/college stars who hit injury or other problems (you mentioned Hank Gathers, someone brought up Ronnie Fields), as well as more great international guys (Paulo brought up Galis and Giannakis, great players both).

So yeah, it's a pretty wide sampling of reasons why these guys never made it to the NBA. The most fun part about reading about these guys, I think, are the quotes you get from people who saw them; it's interesting hearing all these stories, trying to figure out what's exaggerated, what's not, etc.


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## Block (Apr 22, 2007)

there are too many athletes to name. There was one player in China during the 70's whose name I've forgotten. He had some issues coming to the NBA due to the politics involved. 

without dramatization, he literally hit close to 80% from nba three point range. He probably didn't have the height or the skill set for the nba but he never got to show off his amazing shooting range.


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## dwade3 (Sep 12, 2005)

Bias and some dude that could touch the top of the backboard and was only like 6'0 (cant remembr his name), Bias was LeBron before LeBron....


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## Cagee7 (Apr 23, 2006)

Earl Manigault and Raymond lewis and Joe hammond.


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