Vlade Divac was a good NBA player. He averaged a double-double (double digits in points and rebounds) during 3 different seasons. He was one of the greatest passing centers in the history of the game. Late in his career he averaged over 5 assist per game. Any player, not a point guard, who averages over 5 assists is exceptional. There are more a than a few current NBA teams that would love to have Vlade Divac as their center today.
Recently, Divac got “the call”, which in professional sports lingo is to say, he has been elected to the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.
Vlade Divac is not even remotely worthy of being a Hall of Famer!
The Hall of Fame is supposed to be for the game’s greatest players. Divac was not even one of the greatest players of his time, much less all time. He was an NBA All-Star a grand total of once! In addition, while he was indeed a great passing center, his primary legacy was his affliction with OFD (Obsessive Flop Disorder). No single player is more responsible for the NBA adopting fake flop awareness more than Vlade Divac.
Divac came into the league with my Lakers for the 1989-90 season to replace Kareem Abdul Jabbar as the team’s center. My Lakers have a long and glorious history of centers from Mikan to Chamberlain to Jabbar to Shaq. I did not accidently omit Divac from that list. The following is a list of that year’s upper echelon centers: Akeem Olajuwon, David Robinson, Patrick Ewing, and Brad Daugherty, all without question better than Divac. Even Moses Malone and Robert Parish were still playing at a level higher than Divac ever did. Over the next 15 years, the course of Divac’s career, Shaquille O’Neal, Alonzo Mourning, Dikembe Mutombo, Tim Duncan, Rasheed Wallace, and Yao Ming would enter the league, overlapping Olajuwon, Robinson, and Ewing. In other words, there was NEVER a time when Divac was a top 5 center in the league. How can that possibly translate to being a Hall of Famer?
Divac was traded after the 1996 season to the Hornets for the rights to a pick that would become Kobe Bryant. Other than that, and replacing Jabbar, his claim to fame can be best described as a hood ornament on the Cadillac of other great players, specifically Magic and Worthy in LA and Chris Webber in Sacramento. He was a good hood ornament…but a hood ornament nonetheless.
Speaking of Chris Webber, adding insult to injury in this whole episode, is the fact that Divac will be getting in before Webber. In addition to being as exceptional of a passer from the power forward position as there ever was, Webber was .2 rebounds short of averaging 20-10 for his career.
The statistical basis for those who support Divac as a Hall of Famer is that he is one of seven players with at least 13,000 points, 9,000 rebounds, 3,000 assists, and 1,500 blocked shots. The other six are either in the Hall of Fame or sure bets to get in eventually.
Sounds impressive right? It is actually cleverly misleading and an artificially exclusive list for the following two reasons:
1) The unique stat is blocked shots, which were not tracked before the 1973-74 season; and
2) It does not consider ABA stats. What this means is that the list is actually longer than seven players, and surely has more than a few who, like Divac, were good, but not Hall of Fame caliber.
There are always debates about a player or two’s Hall of Fame credentials, regardless of the sport. Many did not feel that Harold Baines was deserving in baseball and I too was surprised. But at least one can find career comps to that of Harold Baines that are already in such as Orlando Cepeda and Tony Perez. I cannot think of any NBA center comp that would warrant even consideration of Divac. The best comp I could come up with is a player named Billy Paulz. Paulz came up in the ABA in 1971. He averaged a double-double his first 4 years in the league and 5 years overall. He was a 3-time All-Star. He compares to Divac for scoring, rebounds, and assist as follows:
Divac 11-8-3
Paulz 11-8-2
Divac was a better passer but Paulz was the better rim protector, actually leading the ABA in blocked shots during the 1975-76 season. Other than those two distinctions, they were virtually the same player. Billy Paulz was a good player but not Hall of Fame worthy, and neither is Vlade Divac.
This is not some anti-European player rant. In five years, the greatest European player ever will go into the Hall of Fame on the first ballot and no one will object or debate because Dirk Nowitzki was better than pretty good. He was great and that is what the Hall of Fame is supposed to be about.
So the question is how did this happen? The international wing of the Hall of Fame elected Divac, which is as much about the marketing of their players as their qualifications for induction. I don’t blame them for advocating for their guys. It’s the Hall of Fame itself that needs to look at this. I make no argument against Divac belonging in the [international basketball] FIBA Hall of Fame. He probably does. I make no case against the Kings retiring his number for being a cornerstone on one of the most exciting teams in league history. He was. But the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame? Let’s not get carried away! SMDH
