Top 100 NBA Players: #65

Michael Finley

(BBR: #146)

Michael Finley may seem like an odd choice to be included among the greatest players of all time, since most people have already forgotten how good he was early in his career. He started his career in Phoenix, but after he was traded to Dallas as the main piece in the Jason Kidd trade, his career really took off. Over the next six seasons, he was one of the top players in the entire league.

For the next three seasons, he was the top player in Dallas and was one of the top 10 players overall for two of those seasons, but Dallas failed to make the playoffs with him leading the way. That all changed in 2001, when Dirk Nowitzki came into his own and became the Mavericks' star, with Finley as his star sidekick. Over the next three seasons they made two trips to the second round followed by an appearance in the Conference Finals. Here are his numbers over those seasons:

Finley as star (1997-2000) - 21.6 pts, 5.7 reb, 5.0 ast, 1.4 stl
Finley as sidekick (2000-2003) - 20.5 pts, 5.4 reb, 3.6 ast, 1.2 stl
Finley in playoffs (2000-2003) - 20.0 pts, 5.7 reb, 3.2 ast, 1.3 stl

As you can see, there wasn't a huge dropoff in Finley's production when Dirk took over in Dallas, which explains why they were suddenly so much more successful. Most championship teams have at least two of the top 100 players on their roster, but unfortunately Dirk and Steve Nash had not yet reached their peak when Finley was at his, but with a couple more years together, Dallas could have won their first title a few years earlier.

Within two years of that trip to the Conference Finals, both Nash and Finley had left town, Nash to Phoenix and Finley to San Antonio. The next year Dallas made the Finals without them (in fact, they beat both of them on their way there), but they sure could have used them against Miami. Finley did get his championship in 2007, but by that time he was just a backup and wasn't a significant part of the title team.

Looking at this chart, you can see that Finley was just slightly better than Carmelo through the early part of their respective careers, and each helped guide one team to the Western Conference Finals during their peak seasons. The edge goes to Finley for now, because he spent two years as one of the league's ten best, while Carmelo has yet to reach that plateau. Anthony should easily pass him with one more year under his belt, but through eight seasons Finley was slightly better.