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The Top 20 Fantasy Seasons Ever (Part 2)

Author Icon for Patrick

Categorized as: Fantasy Basketball
Posted on: May 22nd, 2006

Part 1 of this article looked at the top 11 – 20 fantasy seasons of the past 26 years, with notable guest appearances by Magic Johnson, David Robinson, Kevin Garnett, and Kobe Bryant. Now, here is the rest of the list, only with a cool top 10 countdown this time (as before, standardized scores in parenthesis).

10. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, 1980, (9.6)
9. Michael Jordan, 1993, (9.7)
8. Hakeem Olajuwon, 1993, (10.0)
7. Larry Bird, 1985, (11.2)
6. Michael Jordan, 1990, (11.3)
5. Larry Bird, 1988, (11.5)
4. Larry Bird, 1986, (11.6)
3. Michael Jordan, 1989, (11.6)
2. Michael Jordan, 1988, (11.7)
1. Larry Bird, 1987, (11.9)

Hmmm. There are two things on this list not like the others… I wonder what they are?

Oh, what could have been? Abdul-Jabbar had some truly awesome looking seasons from 70-78, but since we only have stats going back to the 79-80 season, it looks like he’ll have to live with #10. Even at 32, Abdul-Jabbar was able to average 24.8/10.8/4.5 and shoot 60% from the field with 3.4 blocks a game. Too bad all I remember of Kareem is a dorky old bald guy with short shorts who decided to sport some slick alienish looking goggles on the court.

Hakeem Olajuwon, last seen with the 19th best season, makes the list again with his 1993 season. He basically averaged slightly more blocks and rebounds in 92-93 than in 93-94. He was still an awesome force on the court from his rookie season until about 1997, when things starting to slowly fall apart for him.

Remember the video game, Jordan vs. Bird? I loved the slam dunk contest – HERE COMES A DOCTOR J! Anyway, the list finishes off with a little Jordan vs. Bird action. They both appear four times, basically trading off spots (Jordan at 2, 3, 6, and 9 and Bird at 1, 4, 5, and 7). Jordan, version 1988 to 1990, averaged about 34/7/7 with 3 steals and close to a block a game. On the other hand, Larry Legend, version 1985 to 1988, averaged 28/9.5/7 with a crazy amount of 3’s (for the time) and close to 2 steals and a block a game. Bird is also the ONLY player in the past 2+ decades to have positive contributions in each of the 8 categories, which is basically saying that he was better than the average fantasy starter in every facet of the game. And he did it not only once, which still would have been amazing, but three different years (1983, 1985, and 1987). That’s just insane.

So, there are the top 20 fantasy seasons of recent history. I’ll play out the question of Jordan vs. Bird later. Maybe a little game of one-one-one would settle it?

Oh, and I said I would tell you which two top 50 players were really hurt by including turnovers in the calculations. They would be Magic Johnson and Charles Barkley.

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  • Well, since you asked Nick, it came in at 357 (although I’d probably bump it up a little based on the fact that he played almost every game). It sounds a little low, but Shaq was always hurt as a fantasy guy by his horrendous FT%. He shot 52% from the line that year and averaged 10 free throws a game. If he’d even been a league average FT shooter that year, it would have put him at 9th all time. Seriously. He was that bad a FT shooter.

    One could argue that I’m unfairly penalizing Shaq for his one bad category when realistically (in an H2H league) you’d just punt that one category and be happy with it. But strictly looking at the numbers, that’s where he stands.

    BTW, Shaq's best fantasy season (93-94) he came in at 193. He averaged a little less points/rebs/blocks than in 99-00, but his percentages were a little better.
  • What about Shaq's '99-00 season? 29.7 PPG, 13.6 RPG, 3.0 BPG and even a career-high 3.8 APG. And the big man appeared in 79 of 82 games!
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