Every year, ESPN and Bleacher Report drop their all-time rankings. Portland Trail Blazers guard Damian Lillard is now in at 72. How do we feel about this?
Every year, the likes of ESPN and Bleacher Report drop their all-time NBA player rankings. Portland Trail Blazers icon Damian Lillard has made his way into ESPN’s ranking at the 72nd spot.
Bloggers, fan sites and twitter users will argue over these for the next month so we better break down Dame’s rank.
After last season’s buzzer beater and western conference finals run, combined with his amazing play this year in averaging near 30 points a game on career high efficiency, Lillard is now starting to popup in all-time great conversations.
To evaluate Lillard all-time against other similar point guards and players, you need to weigh up his accomplishments, his efficiency, ability to lead his team offensively and then playoff success.
Accomplishments
Five-time All-Star
The All-Star nods is a tough one for Dame. Joe Johnson finished his career with seven of these, and plenty of inferior players to Dame will end up with more. Because of the archaic East – West version of selecting players, in some of Dame’s best statistical seasons he missed out on selection. He will probably finish with seven or eight All-Star selections though so for now five is a good number.
Four-time All-NBA
Dame already has four All-NBA selections with a fifth one basically locked in for this year. Once you start getting to five All-NBA selections, you are in the realm of an all-time great. This means you were a top fifteen player in the league five times.
Gary Payton of the Seattle SuperSonics for example, was a nine-time All-NBA and All-Star selection. He is now in the Hall of Fame and was ranked 53rd all-time in these latest rankings. It’s fair to say that Dame probably ends with similar accomplishments.
Three top tens in MVP voting
Dame has an 8th, a 4th and 6th in MVP voting and i think reflecting on his season this year he gets at least another top ten. He may never win an actual MVP but if Steph Curry drops off then maybe the late blooming Dame has a few more top five finishes in him.
Efficiency
Dame is one of the most efficient scorers and shooters in the league. He is great at all three levels, and even though he hasn’t traditionally been a great shooter at the rim, this season he improved his finishing at the rim and slightly altered his shot profile so his two-point percentage is increased.
He is one of the greatest free-throw shooters of all-time, and this season is the first time he has also been close to the golden mark of 40 percent from three-point range, at 39 percent.
This season his efficiency sits at a crazy 61 percent true shooting. Good enough for first amongst high volume scorers. His efficiency isn’t at all-time levels yet, a la Stephen Curry, but the last few years he has improved in this regard.
Overall, in comparison to all-timers he is about in the middle.
Team Offense
For any offensive player, the ability to lead a great team offense should be of utmost importance. When a player hasn’t won a title yet, a good way to compare them with their peers is to evaluate their respective team offenses.
Dame has been in the league with the Blazers for eight seasons, and in that time, the Blazers haven’t had lower than the 15th season and have had the second, third and sixth ranked offenses in this time. Dame has managed to get this team to plus NBA offenses every year since he was a rookie.
For a comparison Isiah Thomas of the Detroit Pistons had similar offensive ranks on his regular season teams. Though a different player to Dame because of their styles and the two titles Thomas has, his teams had similar regular season success on offense.
Playoff success
Dame has had playoff success, but not at the highest level. He has two second rounds and one conference finals, but had limited efficiency in doing so until last season. He has massive shots on the big stage though, but now in his prime he needs more playoff series and deep runs to strengthen his all-time case.
So how does all this add up?
Dame was ranked 72nd all-time alongside contemporaries and current players including Vince Carter at 55 and Anthony Davis at 45.
Now Carter made more All-Star teams than Dame with eight in his first nine years, but had just two All-NBA nods. Davis has made seven All-Star teams and three All-NBA selections.
Both of them have had limited playoff success though, quite similar to Dame.
As an overall, I don’t think Davis should be as high but i’m alright with Dame at 72. His achievements have been awesome so far, but he is just hitting his true prime now and doesn’t have the playoff achievements yet to be pushed too much higher.
It would only take a few more playoff runs and All-NBA nods though to push him into the top 60 or even top 50 all-time.