Top 100 NBA Players: #48

Dominique Wilkins

(Kalb: #49, Simmons: #55, BBR: #32)

Dominique Wilkins was one of the most entertaining and exciting players in the league for an entire decade, but he had a couple of flaws that kept him from becoming one of the best of all time. He was an incredibly dunker, and won two dunk contests and nearly won two others.

For 10 straight seasons, Wilkins averaged more than 25 points per game, finishing in the top 7 in the league in each season in which he played enough games. He led the league in scoring in 1986, when Jordan was out with the only major injury of his career, and finished second to him 3 other times. The only problem was that he was too focused on getting his points. Former teammate Doc Rivers said that you could ask Wilkins how many points he had at any time, and he would immediately answer correctly.

Wilkins is the greatest player to never play in the Conference Finals, another fatal flaw. Only a couple of other players in my entire top 100 can say that, which has to be taken into consideration when considering his place in history. It wasn't that he didn't score in the playoffs, because his average was nearly identical to his regular season average, but he didn't have what it took to win.

Wilkins was a good rebounds, averaging 6.7 per game over his career, and he also shot over 81% from the free throw line for his career. What that does is prove that Wilkins was not a one-trick pony, but actually a pretty good all-around player. The problem that he had was that he never had a true star teammate, which made the Hawks a one-man show during his time there. Everybody knows that no team can win the championship without at least two star players.

Even though Miller had a lot more playoff heroics and success than Wilkins, it is obvious from the chart above that Wilkins was the better player for the majority of his career. During their peak seasons, Miller was only better twice, when Wilkins missed half a season due to injury, and when he was finally traded away from Atlanta. Wilkins' scoring average was always at least 6 points higher, and his shooting percentages weren't far behind Miller's. Overall, the Human Highlight Film takes this one.