http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qc3zGYW2L6A

One of the greatest plays in NBA history.

Thanks, Sean.

It is hard to believe that it has been 15 years since this great playoff moment.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hW4uXlRGAF0

Also one of the most underrated plays in NBA playoff history. I remember EXACTLY where I was when he hit that shot (Ardmore, Oklahoma).

Bill Simmons argues that SA made a huge blunder when they drafted Elliot ahead of Glen Rice. Stuff like that is why I don't take him seriously. Yeah, Rice was a better shooter and had a better individual career. But Elliot was a better teammate/locker room guy, he understood the team game, was loyal to his team and played within the system. And when the Spurs needed a big shot, Elliot made one. He was/is also huge in the SA community. Pretty sure Rice would not have been the fan favorite Elliot was, nor would he have sold as many jerseys. Given that Rice played for 5 or 6 teams in his career, I think it is safe to say he would not have been in San Antonio on Memorial Day, 1999, had the Spurs drafted him instead.

I could go on, but I won't. Thanks, Ninja!

[This message has been edited by AgentZero (edited 2/7/2012 11:03am).]

Glen Rice also never played with one of the best players in the league. If Sean Elliott was the go to player on a mediocre team (the only time Rice played in 10+ playoff games in a season was when he rode Kobe and Shaq's coattails), I think he would have scored 20 points easily. He did score 16+ 5 times. Sean was easily the better defender of the two and was a good lockerroom guy.

The big mistake with Sean was the Spurs backing out of a trade of Barkley for Sean after the 92 season, because they thought Barkley wasn't "Spurs Material" and they wanted good guys on the team.

Then the 93 season played out and we saw how Barkley carried the Suns to the Finals and nearly to a title, and the Spurs went Eff it, we need a PF to go with Robinson and they got Rodman and all his bull****.

A 93 team built around Robinson/Barkley/Dale Ellis/Vinny Del Negro/Avery Johnson would have been pretty tremendous. Throw in Antoine Carr and Lloy Aniels coming off the bench and maybe make a move for another swingman and you are a much better team.

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So basically my point is that while you might have a personal attachment to Elliot (and he's on of my all time favorites as well) from 89-98 he wasn't enough by himself to elevate the Spurs into the finals

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My personal attachment aside, I don't think Rice would have been that guy either. He was a fairly one-dimensional player.

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and there is a player drafted behind him that plays the same position that was an all star level scorer early in his career.

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As 'soup put it, Rice was the lead guy on most of the teams on which he played, so his numbers are inflated by his status as the top-dog on a bunch of bad teams. I'm not saying Elliot was a better scorer, because he wasn't. But he was a better locker-room guy, a better defender and a more versatile all-around player. Those things count for something.

Simmons goes on and on in his book about "the secret", but then much of the justification of his player rankings was their respective offensive games. I'm not sure that he realizes that guys like Elliot are just as valuable to some teams as guys like Rice, even if they don't put up numbers anywhere near the same way.

How much do you think Elliott is going to score when he is on a team with Robinson scoring 30?

Elliott was a good slasher and a good defender. 6'8 with long arms. Plus he could put down the three ball.

Sure Rice+Elliott would have been nice. But how realistic is it that we would have gotten Elliott back in 95 if he had no attachment to SA, where he was very loved from 89-93.

And we ended up getting a nice one-dimensional shooter in Dale Ellis.

Our biggest screwup with Sean was not getting Barkley for him.

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Our biggest screwup with Sean was not getting Barkley for him.

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Meh, it's all relative. I doubt the Spurs end up in lotto position for Duncan if they made that trade. That's 4 championships up in smoke, right there alone.

I know Barkley was injury prone by 96-97, but I still think if he would have given the Spurs 50+ games that year as he did for the Rockets, there is no way they only win 20 games.