Nique a hall of fame finalist!

[smithrules]

Man i didn't realize he was #9 on the all time scoring list. He had 9 all star appeareances. How did he not make the 50 greatest player list, if hes 9th in all time scoring?

[Dakin]

cause it wasn't 50 greatest scorers list. That list was dumb anyway. Nique belongs in the hall, so does dumars.

[Final_quest]

Dominique is certainly among the top 50 players of all time, and should have been on the original Dream Team. He nearly beat one of the best Celtic teams all by himself. I just hope the Hall voters can make some amends for his lack of respect by putting him in on the first ballot.

[Nicholasp27]

i read he's the favorite to go in of all the people on the list...so he should definitely get in the first time...

[smithrules]

Yes but you don't get 9th on the list by being an average player, or even above average. To get 9th on that list you had to of had some serious basketball skills. Plus nique wasn't only a scorer.

[Spiral]

Babcock ruined any chance of Dominique ever being on the top 50 list when he traded for Danny Manning. To this day, that was the single worst trade in the history of Atlanta sports. That year the Hawks were in first and had a good chance of going to the finals, but Babcock insisted on screwing with the team's chemistry. The next year Manning walked out on the Hawks leaving us with no compensation for the 9th leading scorer in NBA history.

[Diesel]

The Babcock years were about KNEE JERK reactions...

The Dominique trade was dumb..

He followed it up by going out and getting Ken Norman...

However, let me give the devil his due.

His best move was Willis to Miami for Smith/Long. Two players who did very well for us.

[Dejay]

Besides that and the Mookie Blaylock trade that rid us of the great Rumeal Robinson (note extreme sarcasm), what did he do right? It would've been different if the Hawks were a .500 team and they sent 'Nique to a contender that needed that final piece, ala Ray Bouque when the Bruins sent him to Colorado a few years ago to win a ring that he rightfully deserved. By doing that, he would've had one last shot to win a championship while our team received a player and/or a pick to help us rebuild. That would've been the right way to send Nique off, short of him winning a ring here of course. After all he did for this team, for Babs to send him to the armpit of basketball, for a guy that publicly stated that he didn't want to sign long-term here is one of the asinine moves in pro sports, PERIOD. Babs' incompetence, along with Kasten's negligence, single-handedly detonated this franchise to where it is today; about 2 additional years from playoff contention. Just how in the blue hell do you go 20 years between drafting All-Stars anyway?! How do you go 20 years and draft one guy (Jason Terry) that currently has a career scoring average in DOUBLE FIGURES?! The fact that Kasten basically got a chance to 'resign' and run off into the sunset without giving us the satisfaction of getting the ax Vince McMahon/Donald Trump style by the new owners just makes me sick to my stomach. Please, please, don't get me started on this again.

[chillzatl]

contest. When he started in on Nique being "the most underrated player ever". I don't know why, but I got the impression that he was >*< that close to saying something about Lenny and Babcock selling Nique up the river like they did. I don't know why, but i got that vibe.

Wouldn't that have been nice though? Because in all reality, they are the ones to blame for breaking ties with him in the first place.

[Diesel]

He just came along at the wrong time.

In his best year with us (I think his second) he was 13.3 ppg, 5.5 apg, 1.24 spg with a 2:1 a/to ratio.

His problem was that he came after Doc Rivers who would have 16 ppg/9-10 apg. and before Mookie who was 13.3 and 8.4 apg. The thing about Rumeal is that he came along when the Hawks had just gotten Bob Weiss and because he couldn't run the offense as well as possible he got a bad rap. Mookie was definitely much better and was a great pickup.

[Dejay]

If you listen to the 'experts', they will say that he didn't win a ring and didn't make his teammates better; all he could do was score, dunk, and not much else. They would say that he lacked the 'intangibles' to be a winner and should not have been on the list, let alone the Hall. I and just about everyone else here say BS to that. Unlike Bird, Magic, Jordan, Olajuwon, and Isiah, Dominique never had the luxury of having a Hall of Fame candidate to ride shotgun alongside him (and nope, a washed up Moses Malone doesn't count). Yet, unlike many of today's NBA players, he never publicly whined about wanting to be traded when Kasten and later, Babs would bring in the Adam Keefes and Ennis Whatleys of the world and still got the team within a game or two of playing for a conference title. He didn't get much help from his teammates, who often played hot potato with the ball only to give it to him with five ticks on the shotclock and three guys defending him. He received NOOOOOO help from Kasten and Co., who would make horrid draft picks annually, constantly cry about the salary cap during the offseason, and stand pat during the trade deadline while the Celtics, Bulls, Knicks, Pistons, and many others made moves and passed them by, only to make deals that were often two years too late. As much as he had to carry the franchise on his back, Nique should've called DFACS and sued the team for non-support (as a season ticket holder during much of his run, I believe he would've had a strong case). The fact that he had little help on and off the court and still managed to average over 24 a game, while shooting a decent percentage with everyone in the arena knowing who was going to get the ball on EVERY POSSESSION, makes him a first-ballot HOF in my book.

GAME, SET, MATCH.

[Dejay]

If he wasn't that bad, how come he didn't blossom with another team? Dan Dickau didn't let that stop him; what was Rumeal's problem? I don't recall Bob Weiss's name being among the HOF candidates mentioned. Chuck Daly, the Nets' coach during much of that time, stated on more than one occasion that if he had another guard on the roster, Rumeal would've still been in Atlanta. That came from a HOF and Dream Team head coach, not me. When Morlon Wiley is threatening to take your job away, that should tell you all you need to know when it comes to Rumeal's worth on an NBA court. All he did in my eyes was hit two free throws in a national title while riding shotgun to Glen Rice, Sean Higgins, Terry Mills, and another future NBA player that I cannot name right now.

[Wretch]

That's all I could think about when Charles made those comments. We're CLEARLY not the same organization that did that. I mean think about it...

We're losing, badly, but in less than 2 years...the new management has filled this franchise with more promise and hope than it has had since Nique was traded midseason for Danny Mashmal-er I mean Manning.

[Diesel]

Again...

His career was doomed when he left us. Remember, he was traded with Mookie. Mookie couldn't get any PT because there was an emphasis for NJ to play Kenny Anderson. Being the BU to Kenny Anderson back then was the road to obscurity. It's like being the guy who sits behind Jason Kidd..

Still, he played his best season with us. 13/5.5 with a 2/1 assist to TO ratio.

The funny thing is that as a PG, his second year was better than JT's second year with the Hawks?

I just think that he came along at the wrong time.

Moreover, coming out of college he was more than just 2 free throws to win the game and riding Glenn Rice's coattail the rest of the time.

All UM first team.

In 1999 he rank 5th in the history of college basketball for assists. I would suspect that he's still top ten.

[Wretch]

[Diesel]

I think you may have called Hakeem's name. He did play without another superstar beside him. The point is that it's easier for a HOF C to get to the finals and win than it is for a HOF Sf. If you really look at it, Bird is the only SF who was a better leader for his team than Nique. I can call no other Sfs who were as dominant as Nique.

[Dejay]

I guess Clyde Drexler wasn't on the roster during Houston's second championship run, huh? I give him all the credit for winning the first one, though.

[Dejay]

can get you an entree at Applebee's!! The man wasn't garbage of the Alan Henderson mold (how ironic), but trash is trash no matter how one spins it. Just how do you separate garbage from the really stinking out loud garbage anyway? I guess you throw the stinking garbage out first (unless Pete Babcock runs your team; in that case, he gets a multi-million dollar extension).

[Diesel]

Like I said, I was happy we traded and got Mookie, however, I think that RR came at the wrong time... A few years Later... A guy named JT came in and ran the offense worse, put up the same assists numbers, and his only claim to fame is that he scored more points... We gave JT every opportunity in the world and went through 3 coaches for him.

If we had coddled RR the way we Coddled JT, who knows how RR would have turned out.

About the garbage line...

all players have a little garbage in their game. The question is do you highlight it or do you work on what they can do? IN RR case, we didn't have time to develop his ability to be a floor leader. So we were disappointed that he wasn't like Doc Rivers or Sherman Douglass out of college. I think the major problem with RR is that he didn't come out and play up to a level of his predecessor Nor did he play on the level of a all american #10 pick national champion should play. There were too many expectations placed on him... However, if he were here now, we'd love his 13.3 ppg, 5.5 apg 2/1 a/to...

[smithrules]

He was a regular all star. He was a high caliber player. You should take a look at his Career. Before going to houston he was already a serious star. He played on those Houston teams with Hakeem.