Top 50: Chauncey Billups, no. 19
The definitive ranking of the NBA’s best players.
by Russ Bengtson
Fifty-one games. That’s the chance Chauncey Billups got with the Boston Celtics after being selected with the third overall pick of the 1997 NBA Draft. Larry Bird and Kevin McHale weren’t walking through that door, neither was Tim Duncan, and Rick Pitino was so caught up in what Billups wasn’t that he didn’t bother finding out what he was. By February of 1998, Billups was on his way to Toronto. T
he Raptors were even less patient, playing him for the final 29 games of the season before moving him to Denver that summer. Billups lasted all of 58 games with Denver, before they traded him to Orlando. Injured, he never played a single game for the Magic. That summer, he moved on once again, signing with Minnesota, where he stayed for two full seasons.
There’s a reason I started this piece by rehashing the past. Every top athlete—every top team, for that matter—manages to find motivation and insult even where there is none. You heard Michael Jordan’s Hall of Fame speech, right? Even the most innocuous of statements gets twisted into bulletin board material when run through every player’s built-in Michael Jordan Translator. “He’s a nice guy” is heard as “he lacks that killer instinct.” “He’s the best player of his generation” sounds like “he couldn’t carry Dolph Schayes’s jock.” Even a simple “hey, what’s up” becomes “YOU SUCK YOU SUCK YOU SUCK YOU SUCK.” Teams that win titles after 60-plus win seasons where they blow out opponents on a regular basis after appearing in everyone’s pre-season favorites claim that “no one believed in us.” With perfectly straight faces. They actually believe this stuff. It’s revisionist history as it happens.
Chauncey? He didn’t have to make shit up to get motivated. By the time he signed with the Detroit Pistons in the summer of 2002, he was a 25-year-old veteran of five teams, none of which would ever be mistaken for the ’96 Bulls. If he thought that no one believed in him, it was probably because he’s been traded or dropped five times before he turned 26. It was probably because hardly anyone did. His third-pick career was looking more like Dennis Hopson’s than Michael Jordan’s. And five years in, he’d played in all of six playoff games.
Since then? Billups has kept it 100, so to speak, playing roughly 18 more than the requisite 82 every year. Since 2003, he’s led his team to the Conference Finals every single postseason. That’s seven straight Final Fours, if you’re keeping track. At Louisville, Rick Pitino dreams of waitresses that kind of streak.
But you know all this, right? How the lottery pick no one wanted went on to lead the Pistons to the 2004 (like GM Joe Dumars, winning the Finals MVP). How, after being traded back to Denver two games into the 2008-09 season, he turned another franchise around, leading them to the Conference Finals. Billups is like BASF—he makes everything…better.
Still, how good is he really? Statistically speaking, Billups is downright nondescript. He’s never led the league in a single major category. Or a minor one. “Mr. Big Shot” has never shot 45 percent from the floor, and has only averaged more than eight assists per game once. He doesn’t have the speed of Derrick Rose, the vision of Jason Kidd, or the hardware of Steve Nash. And he turned 33 last week. One could not only make the argument that Billups’s best days weren’t all that great to begin with, but that they’re behind him. It might not be a great argument, but you could make it.
But do so at your peril. For while—statistically, at least—Billups may do nothing great, he does everything very, very well. At 6-3, 200 pounds, he can post you up. He defends. He shoots close to 40 percent from three, and 90 percent from the line. He’s not looking to shoot much, but will gladly take the shots that matter most. And when he’s on the floor, you don’t only get production from him, but from everyone else. When Dumars traded Billups, both to save money and make room for Rodney Stuckey, he traded a little part of every other player on the team as well. Without their leader, the Pistons spiraled downward, losing in the first round of the playoffs. Billups went back to the Conference Finals, and Allen Iverson—considered by many to be the superior player—went home. And, quite possibly, insane.
At his best, Chauncey Billups makes teams work. He does his part, and makes sure you do yours. And that’s why he’s here.
Notes
• Rankings are based solely on projected ‘09-10 performance.
• Contributors to this list include: Jake Appleman, Brett Ballantini, Russ Bengtson, Toney Blare, Shannon Booher, Myles Brown, Franklyn Calle, Gregory Dole, Emry DowningHall, Jonathan Evans, Adam Fleischer, Jeff Fox, Sherman Johnson, Aaron Kaplowitz, John Krolik, Holly MacKenzie, Ryne Nelson, Chris O’Leary, Ben Osborne, Alan Paul, Susan Price, Sam Rubenstein, Khalid Salaam, Kye Stephenson, Adam Sweeney, Vincent Thomas, Tzvi Twersky, Justin Walsh, Joey Whelan, Eric Woodyard, and Nima Zarrabi.
• Want more of the SLAMonline Top 50? Check out the archive.
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Bryan - last I knew, you had stronger feelings than just “dislike” for horseface haha.
Calderon?? on the same level as Billups?? just stop
okay SLAM.
im starting to think you hate drose.
you are missing paul pierce
and the last spot is d rose
1. Chauncey Billups
2. Vince Carter
3. Tracy McGrady
4. Chris Bosh
5. Marcus Camby
That is a champion line-up!
If you were a GM building a team for the future, you’d choose Calderon over Kidd right now. Come on.
I mean, he leaves Detroit after they have been to the Eastern Finals for the last 6 years and they fall to the last seed ; he arrives in Denver after they lost in the first round five years straight, and they go up to the Western Finals… This guy is a PURE WINNER, and it deserves to be higher than just n°19. Derrick Rose, as good as he might be in a few years, doesn’t deserve to be Top 20, and hardly Top 30 I think.
And as far as PGs are concerned, the only one prior to Chauncey is CP3. Deron Williams is a bit higher than Chauncey, and Tony Parker (although I’m French) is quite on the same level, less clutch and less a good visionnary on the floor, but better at creating his own shot and drawing fouls. Not to mention the D of course, because here, Chauncey stands far beyond TP. So, I’m saying all this while I’m not a big Billups fan, I like Ros’s style better, it’s flashier and younger, and I like TP for his commitment to basketball in France, but I think Billups should be higher than Rose, and not far from TP. The latter will be a Top-3 PG this season, the former is going to be Top-2 in 3 to 5 years, and Billups is getting old. Still, Billups had the best result last year and will top Rose this year too. To me, Billups is higher than D-Rose and Paul Pierce, maybe Bosh, Stoudemire, Anthony too, because these players are more impressive but very very less “winners” than he is.
By the way, I wouldn’t believe Shaq is so far behind Pierce or Stoudemire… As for Calderon, he is a very good player and often do the good choice, but his style is just not the one the NBA
He will have an occasion to prove himself worth NBA-fans consideration in Turkey, because with him alongside Pau & Marc Gasol, Rudy Fernandez, Navarro… It’s gonna hurt you bad, Redeem Team !
Also, the thing I like about Billups is his knack for winning, making his teammates better, knocking down clutch shots, and outplaying other guards, even though it may not all show up on the stat sheet. He knows when and where to do whatever needs to be done, if that makes sense; he doesn’t have to force anything.
Actually, if you just look at his numbers they aren’t staggering, but he affects the game so much that his individual statlines don’t even matter much.
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