Dolph Schayes
(Kalb: #23, Simmons: #50, BBR: #71)
Dolph Schayes was one of the biggest stars of the early NBA, and the only one who was able to see success both before and after the adoption of the shot clock. Today he is probably better known as the father of Danny Schayes, but he should be remembered as a great player and possibly the greatest Jewish player ever.
In the first four seasons of the NBA's existence, rebounds were not counted, but in the first season they were counted, Schayes was the league leader, grabbing 16.4 per game, to go along with 17 points in each contest. For some reason, he was only voted to the All-NBA Second Team, despite the fact that he was easily the best forward in the league.
He spent the next nine seasons among the league's top 5 rebounders, and he also finished among the top 10 scorers in each of those seasons. He twice led the league in minutes played, and three times in free throw percentage, topping the 90% mark twice, which is still an amazing accomplishment. He missed only three games in his first 12 seasons, earning a reputation as a tough player. Even more amazing is that he played one entire season with a broken wrist on his shooting hand, which forced him to learn to shoot left-handed, a skill that helped him immensely throughout the remainder of his career.
In his first 10 seasons, with the exception of the season he had a broken wrist, he was one of the top 6 players in the league, but was never the top player. He was the top player for the Syracuse Nationals for each of his first 12 seasons, and in most of those seasons he led them at least to the Conference Finals, or Division Finals as they were called back then.
His teams played in the NBA Finals three times, winning the title in 1955, the first season with a shot clock. He was by far the best player on that team, as evidenced by the statistical differences between him and his best teammate, Paul Seymour, which can be seen below.
Schayes - 19.0 pts, 12.8 reb, 3.6 ast, .359 FG%, .840 FT%
Seymour - 12.5 pts, 3.9 reb, 6.8 ast, .309 FG%, .900 FT%
He was also the best player on the Finals losers in both 1950 and 1954, the first of which was his rookie season. Six times his teams lost one step short of the Finals, but they always made the playoffs. In fact, the only time he missed the playoffs was his final season, after the team had moved to Philadelphia and become the 76ers, and Schayes was 35 years old, which was ancient for those days.
Overall, Schayes has to be regarded as a great player, one who was always one of the top players in the league, with only one real weakness, which was his shooting percentage, which, at .380, was even low for those days. He was a good all-around player and a winner, and was a star for a long period of time, meeting all of my criteria for inclusion on this list.
Schayes and Johnson were both perennial winners and owners of NBA championships, but they played totally different positions in totally different eras. Their level of play was very similar for about the same length of time, and both were able to continue improve their games even though they were stars from their early years. Schayes wins the battle here because he was the star player for his entire career, while Johnson was usually the sidekick.
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