Top 100 NBA Players: #43

Isiah Thomas

(Kalb: #25, Simmons: #23, BBR: #26)

Isiah Thomas' name today is often synonymous with failure, due to his disastrous stints as coach and GM with multiple teams over the past several years, but in his playing days, he was one of the top players out there, and a great playoff performer.

Isiah was a great player right from the beginning of his career. He averaged 17 points as a rookie, then scored a career high 22.9 points per game the next season. Even with a small dip in scoring average over the next few seasons, he continued to improve, reaching his peak at age 23, when he put up the following stat line:

Thomas - 21.2 pts, 4.5 reb, 13.9 ast, 2.3 stl, .458 FG%, .809 FT%

His assist average that season led the entire league, and was the second of four straight seasons in which he averaged over 10 per game and finished in the top 3 overall. He averaged over 20 points per game for five straight seasons, and also averaged over 2 steals per game for 5 straight years.

What made Isiah great was that he was willing to sacrifice those big numbers in order to help the Pistons become winners. Starting in 1986-87, Detroit made it to four straight Eastern Conference Finals, which included three straight NBA Finals. Detroit was the winner of two straight championships, and Thomas was the star on both of those teams, but he was passed over for the Finals MVP in 1989 in favor of Joe Dumars, who was a little more fan-friendly. Here are the stats for the team's two starting guards:

Thomas - 18.2 pts, 4.3 reb, 8.3 ast, 1.6 stl, .412 FG%, .740 FT%
Dumars - 17.6 pts, 2.6 reb, 5.6 ast, 0.7 stl, .455 FG%, .861 FT%

The only way that Dumars was superior was in his shooting percentages, which shouldn't be enough to justify him taking the Finals MVP away from Thomas. Thomas was also the best player on the Pistons team that lost to Los Angeles in 1988, which means he was the best player on three straight Finals teams. There aren't a lot of players who can say that.

Thomas earns points both for being a star player early in his career and a winner later in his career, which allows him to rank pretty high on the all-time list, but his best years did not coincide with the years his team was winning, although he was still very good when the Pistons became champs. There are so many great players who had higher peaks, longer peaks, or more time as a winner, but Thomas had a bit of everything in his career.

Thomas and Schayes were the top players on exactly three NBA Finalists each, with Thomas getting a slight edge due to his team winning the title twice. Thomas reached a higher peak than Schayes early in his career, but also faded much more quickly, which balances out. The edge goes to Isiah because of his playoff heroics and his great early years, which make him much more memorable than Schayes.