Mark Aguirre
Mark Aguirre was one of the top scorers of the 1980's, finishing in the top 8 five times and taking second place in 1984, behind only Adrian Dantley, whom he was traded for several years later. While he is remembered as a great scorer, he was actually a pretty good all-around player. In that 1984 season, he was not even voted to an All-NBA Team, despite having stats that compared favorably with the two stars of that season, Larry Bird and Magic Johnson.
Bird - 24.2 pts, 10.1 reb, 6.6 ast, .492 FG%, .888 FT%
Aguirre - 29.5 pts, 5.9 reb, 4.5 ast, .524 FG%, .749 FT%
Johnson - 17.6 pts, 7.3 reb, 13.1 ast, .565 FG%, .810 FT%
It's tough to argue that he was better than either of the stars, but his huge advantage in scoring over Magic has to at least put him in the conversation. He didn't rebound or pass as well as either of them, but he wasn't any slouch. In fact, that year he led the Mavericks to the first playoff appearance in franchise history.
Aguirre worked throughout the 80's to make the Mavericks a championship team, guiding them into the playoffs five times, culminating in an appearance in the Western Conference Finals in 1988. Even as the team became more successful, Aguirre's relationship with most of his teammates grew strained, and halfway through the following season, he was traded to the Detroit Pistons.
In Detroit he became a role player on a team that won two straight championships. While he made a contribution to those titles, he wasn't nearly the player that he had been, and he definitely wasn't the star of the team. Still, he made it at least to the Conference Finals in 4 straight seasons, and he was a decent contributor in three of those years.
From 1982-1988, Aguirre had 6 straight seasons of at least 22.5 points and 5.0 rebounds per game, but he finally started making deep playoff runs once his scoring dipped below 20.0 per game, so like a couple of the players below him, his own personal success did not coincide with his team's success, and that is why he ended up down at #97 despite a career scoring average of 20.0 per game.
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