The Most Overrated Star in NBA history...

 

Kareem Abdul Jabbar..the man with the most career points..the most career MVPs...and 6 championships..he is overrated. Kareem by most fans is considered to be a top 3 player in NBA history but due to his lack of competition for his accolades, along with the a few other aspects of his career Kareem being in the top 3 pedestal is a place in history were Kareem doesn't deserve to be ranked. However, Kareem is easily a top 10 player in history. Although Kareem might be overrated being overrated doesn't mean you suck and it definitely doesn't mean you are not a great player. It simply means fans and analyst think you are better than you truly were and it is in no way a hateful term. There are multiple aspects of Kareem's career that shouldn't be overlooked but are and holes in his career that most people have ever heard about. And the following text is simply a personal opinion. With that being established let's get into the actually purpose for this claim..

6 championship argument: Despite contrary belief Kareem's 6 rings aren't truly as impressive as it is made out to be.

Jabbar for his last 4 title runs only averaged 18.5 PPG, 7 rebounds, 2.7 APG, on 56.4% TS. Those are not the statistics of a top 3 player in NBA history. Not even close actually...in fact those that's below all star numbers. To put those stats in perspective the average NBA all star during last years playoffs averaged 24.1 PPG, 8.6 rebounds, 5.2 assists, on 59.3% TS. So Jabbar wasn't reaching all star numbers/ play for the majority of his championships. Kareem was averaging less points, rebounds, assists, on lower efficiency than the average NBA all star. People tend to ignore this because he was 34-40 years of age and that's exactly the point. And this is often fans rebuttal. Kareem would win majority of his championships when he was old and and definitely not at superstar level. He was just riding of the wave until retirement. So it's wasn't a type of scenario with Michael Jordan's 6 rings were he was the best player in the world every time. I mean look at LeBron: James: Best Player in the world for all 4 rings. Magic: Jonson: Superstar for 4/5 rings. Kobe Bryant: Superstar for 4/5 rings. Larry Bird: Superstar for all rings. Michael Jordan: Best player in basketball for every ring. These players aren't winning championships while launching numbers that are below all star level. No, they do it on superstar status. Now if we simply use win percentage to see how much competition a player played in a championship run then we can also see Jabbar had a lack of competition for his championships. 

Lowest win percentage of playoff opponents among title teams:

- Kareem's 1971 ring is the 3rd lowest ever at 53.3% 

- Kareem's 1987 ring is the 4th lowest at 54%

- Kareem's 1988 ring is the 9th lowest ever at 56.4%

- Kareem's 1985 ring is the 14th lowest ever at 58.8%

So based on opponents win percentage Kareem owns 2 of the top 4 easiest paths to a ring ever, 3 of the top 9 easiest paths to a ring ever, and 4 of the top 14 easiest paths to a championship ever. Kareem also faced less 50 win teams than legends like Kobe, LeBron, Duncan, Shaq, and multiple other legends. In all Kareem's 6 championships runs COMBINED he only beat 9 50 win teams. Compare that to Kobe Bryant..Kobe for just his LAST 2 championships beat 7 50 win teams during that title run (for 2 of Kareem's rings he only beat 3 teams to win the championship not 4) 

And let's just take a look at Kareem in his very first ring in 1971. That playoff run Kareem would face a 42 win team in the NBA finals without Gus Jonson for half the series and Gus Johnson was All NBA 2nd team and All defensive 1st. During the 2nd round Kareem went head to head with the Los angles Lakers a 48 win team. And this team was without their star player Jerry West who averaged 27-9-5 on 49.4% FG in the regular season. Jabbar wouldn't beat a single team 49 win team during this title run. Imagine if a player like LeBron won a championship and every team he beat had less than 49 wins..you would never hear the end of it and some people would even say "it doesn't count" and nobody can deny that.

 In NBA history only 4 teams have ever made or won the NBA finals while facing 2 teams .500 or below...Kareem owns 2 of the 4. Some people don't like win percentage so we can use a different stat to show Kareem's lack of competition during this time. SRS is a stat used to show and measure how good a team is. SRS stands for simple rating system. This season the Bucks, Clippers, and Lakers had the highest SRS in the NBA. Which you could argue those were the 3 best teams so this stat can be pretty accurate. So if we go through all NBA championship teams and look at the average SRS of there playoff opponents then this is another way we could measure a players competition for a championship (this stat wasn't tracked until 1984)

Easiest Paths to a championship based on opponents SRS (Stat not present until 1984)

1. 1987 Lakers (team Kareem was on)

2. 1988 lakers (team Kareem was on)

3. 2020 Lakers

4. 2013 Heat

5. 1984 Celtics

6. 1985 Lakers (team Kareem was on)

So each of Kareem's last 3 championships are all in the top 6 easiest paths to a ring ever since 1984. 

Kareem had 2 of the top 3 greatest point guards in NBA history for all of his championships. And won 5 of his 6 rings with the greatest point Guard ever at his peak. People will often say "well look at his finals competition". Unfortunately some fans only look at a players finals competition when ranking competition and don't take into account every single round in the playoffs. Kareem won 5 of his 6 rings in the weakest conference in NBA history (1980s West)

When talking about Kareems easier paths to ring people will often say statements along the lines of "oh well he can't control that." And that is a laughable rebuttal. Do you think LeBron wanted to start his career of playing with 0 talent? Of course not he can't control that but people will still blame him for his lack of winning in his early days. Same goes for Jordan as well. Just because Kareem can't control it doesn't mean we shouldn't take it into account.

6 MVPs argument: What Kareem is most acknowledged for is the fact that he has won more Most Valuable Player awards than anyone else in history. Although during the 70s the overall talent pool of the NBA was lacking compared to other eras. Because until 1977 the talent in the NBA was split between the NBA and the ABA. So basically the most consistent talent that Kareem faced for MVPs was Bob McAdoo, Dave Cowens, Rick Barry, bob lanier, John Havlicek. There was Moses Malone but he wan't in the NBA until 1977 and wasn't a star until 1979. And DR.J who also wasn't in the NBA until 1977. And wasn't a serious MVP threat in the NBA until 1980. 

Now compare that to a player like Tim Duncan who was facing LeBron, Shaq, Kobe, Kevin Garnett, Dirk Nowitzki, Allen Iverson, Dwyane Wade. So a player like Tim Duncan was facing 6 top 25 players of all time and 3 top 10 players of all time to try an win MVPs. However Kareem wasn't CONSISTENTLY facing any top 40 player in NBA history for that award.  

Just looking at the overall talent in the 1970s it's not hard to understand why Kareem won as many MVPs as he did. 

His Peak: Everyone defines peak in a different way but i tend to define peak as a 4-8 year stretch in a players career when he played his best basketball and this is also the definition that most people have. People tend to say Kareem has a top 3 peak in NBA history. And i find myself to disagree with this claim. In fact if we excluded all the other great peaks and only compare Kareem to other great big man..his peak doesn't seem to stand out at all.

Kareem's peak per 75 possessions (1977-1981): 23.1 PPG, 10.9 REB, 3.9 AST, 3 BLKs, 61.3% TS, 3x all nba 1st, 3x all defensive 1st, 1 ring, 0 fmvps, 2 mvps

Shaq peak per 75 possessions (1998-2002): 29.1 PPG, 12.4 REB, 3.2 AST, 2.5 BLKs, 58.2% TS, 5x all nba 1st, 0x all defensive 1st, 3 rings, 3 fmvps, 1 mvp

Hakeem peak per 75 possessions (1993-1996): 25.9 PPG, 11.2, REB, 3.4 AST, 3.9 BLKs, 56.6% TS, 2x all nba 1st, 2x all defensive 1st, 2 rings, 2 fmvps, 1 mvp, 2 DPOYs

Tim Duncan peak per 75 possessions (1999-2003): 24.6 PPG, 13.1 REB, 3.5 AST, 55.6% TS, 5x all nba 1st, 5x all defensive 1st, 2 rings, 2 fmvps, 2 mvps

Kareem doesn't lead these big man in any of these stats or accolades besides TS%. Of all these big man Kareem averages the least amount of points, least amount of rebounds, has the least amount of championships, least amount of FMVPs (in their peaks obviously). In fact taking into account the numbers and accolades provided above for these players during their peak one could come to the conclusion that Jabbar had the worst peak of these 4 big man. And these are just big man not even counting the other breath taking peaks from Larry Bird, Magic Johnson, Kobe Bryant, Michael Jordan, and LeBron James etc.

38,000 points: I can say without a doubt that pace in the 1970s and throughout Kareem's career definitely gave him an advantage over other great scorers. Pace in the 1970s was higher than most eras. Especially in the early 1970s. In fact, during Kareem's first 5 seasons in the NBA the team he was on (Milwaukee Bucks) played an average of 110.8 possessions per game. And pace hasn't been close to this high since. Let's actually compare Kareem's possessions  to some of the other all time leading scorers. 

Kareem Abdul -Jabbar: number 1st in career points - 19 seasons were his team played 100+  possessions a game

Karl Malone: 2nd in career points - 3 seasons were his team played 100+ possessions per game

LeBron: James: 3rd in career points - 3 seasons were his team played 100+ possessions per game

Kobe: Bryant 4th in career points - 0 seasons were his team played 100+  possessions per game

Michael Jordan - 5th in career points  - 0 seasons were his team played 100+  possessions per game

Dirk Nowitzki: 6th in career points  - 0 seasons were his team played 100+  possessions per game

The other top scorers weren't playing on teams or in an era were the pace was as high..and those possessions  will definitely start adding up..especially over the corse of years. But enough looking at team possessions let's look at how many possessions these players were playing INDIVIDUALLY  (in the years were they were doing most of there damage scoring wise)

Amount of individual possessions played (Top 6 career scoring leaders)

Kareem (1970-1987):  83.8

Karl malone (1986- 2003) : 73.3

Kobe (2000-2016) - 73.7 

LeBron (2003-2020) : 74.1 

Michael Jordan (1985-2003) - 74.6

Dirk (2000-2017) - 68.1 

To some people an extra 9-15 possessions for Kareem might not feel like a lot but imagine an extra 9-15 possessions every game for a course 20 years...those possessions will soon quickly add up giving Kareem an extra advantage. 

Let's go over some of the issues people have with adjusting for pace. Some fans say it's misleading since they're different rules in different eras and things like that. But wouldn't it also be misleading to compare the stats of 2 players when one of them got more opportunities to score? The answer is yes! Obviously the one with more opportunities will have the prettier stats. 

To make things more interesting I looked at the total amount of points the top 6 scorers in NBA history would have scored if the all played 75 possessions for there whole career. I didn't adjust the amount of games or seasons these players played at all.

 Just there total career points if they all played the same amount of possessions (75):

Kareem: 35,667 (in 1560 games)

Kobe: 36,081 (in 1346 games)

LeBron: 34,761 (in 1278 games) *at the time of this writing*

Karl Malone: 38,061 (in 1476 games)

MJ: 32,659 (in 1072 games)

Dirk Nowitzki: 36,202 (in 1522 games)

Also Magic Johnson being the greatest passer in NBA history made it easier for Jabbar. Of course Magic wasn't the one going out there and scoring all those points for him but when you play with the greatest passer ever for about half you career it's gonna make it easier for you. Especially for Centers/ Big man.

Other Interesting facts that couldn't make the article:

As a starter in Kareem's playoff career he lost to 3 teams with under 50 wins. COMBINED Jordan, LeBron, Duncan, Kobe, and Bill Russell have only lost to 1. (58-1)

We often blame Kobe for missing the playoffs in 2005. But never blame Kareem for missing the playoffs in 1976. Kobe in 2005 had 0 all stars or hall of famers. While Kareem in 1976 would miss the playoffs even with hall of famer Gail Goodrich by his side. Kobe also missed 16 games while Kareem played all 82 games. Just further showing people give Jabbar a pass that most stars wouldn't get.

In game 7 of the 1974 NBA finals Dave Cowens completely outplayed Kareem and led Kareem in points, rebounds, steals, blocks, FT%, FG%, field goals, and had the same amount of assists. If MJ, LeBron, or Kobe would get outplayed by a player that wasn't even close to being on there level in and NBA finals IN A GAME 7 you would absolutely never hear the end of it which goes to show Kareem gets away with things that no other legend could get away with. 

Kareem never beat a 50 win team without Magic or Oscar.