Friday, September 26th, 2008 at 8:00 am  |  264 responses

SLAMonline Top 50: Elton Brand, no. 27

The definitive ranking of the best players in the NBA today…

by Marcel Mutoni

Elton Brand is exactly who you think he should be. He doesn’t exceed expectations, and even more importantly, he never leaves you wanting more. Brand does and is just right.

Every once in a while, some guys manage to surprise us by doing more than what we thought they were capable of as basketball players, and all too often, others fail to reach the goals we set out for them. Not Elton Brand, though.

Brand was put up on this Earth to rack up 20 and 10s in the League, and that’s exactly what he’s done since the Bulls made him the first overall pick nine years ago. In fact, 20 and 10 is his career average.

Throw in a field goal percentage of slightly over 50, durability (E.B. has appeared in 83 percent of the games his teams were scheduled to play), and solid defensive numbers across the board, and you’ve got yourself a pretty strong candidate for the Hall of Fame someday.

(You’ve also got yourself someone who, all things considered, should probably have a wee bit higher ranking on this here list.)

The fact that he played on some of the most putrid teams in NBA history for a sizable chunk of his career – anyone care to revisit the wholly inglorious Tim Floyd Era? – never affected his performance; the fans always knew what they were getting from Elton.

And that is a rock-solid power forward, one of the very best in the business, and someone who quite simply deserved better than the cruel hand he was dealt for so many years by the basketball gods.

At 29-years-old, in the prime of his hoops life (and supposedly healthy), he’s now a Philadelphia Sixer, and thanks to his arrival, the passionate fans of that city expect their team to once again become a force in the Eastern Conference. It’s a feeling they haven’t experienced since a dude named Allen was performing nightly miracles for them a few years back.

There’s no reason to believe that Elton Brand will not deliver on what is expected of him, as usual.

Want more of the SLAMonline Top 50? Check out the archive.

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  • j-smoov 5

    good placement and good article. @ the EB haters: Dude’s good.

  • Teddy-the-Bear

    Uhhh, I’m not exactly sure what to say. His potential is much higher than this, while his injury-prone nature make him much lower than this. Let’s put it this way: If Elton Brand stays healthy, he’s a top 20 player. It Elton Brand gets injured again, he’s nowhere near where he is on this list.

  • andrew

    Gosh. I can’t believe that everyone on here is in high school. How come high-schoolers know more about basketball than me? I’m going to have a word with the educational systems of our fair countries to see why I couldn’t read slamonline when I was in school. Oh, wait, the internet wasn’t invented then. Neither was Slam. Bugger.

  • http://hibachi20.blogspot.com Hursty

    Andrew- your old dude. Go Hawks, only because Franklin wears 23.

  • scott

    Okay I got it figured out the rest of the players on this list and if it isn’t these guys then…we’ll it should be. No order.
    1. Carlos Boozer
    2. Chris Bosh
    3. Kobe Bryant
    4. Carmelo Anthony
    5. Caron Butler
    6. Baron Davis
    7. Tim Duncan
    8. Kevin Garnett
    9. Rudy Gay
    10. Danny Granger
    11. Dwight Howard
    12, Allen Iverson
    13. LeBron James
    14. Joe Johnson
    15. Shawn Marion
    16. Tracy McGrady
    17. Steve Nash
    18. Dirk Nowitzki
    19. Chris Paul
    20. Paul Pierce
    21. Jason Richardson
    22. Amare Stoudemire
    23. Dwyane Wade
    24. Deron Williams
    25. Yao Ming
    26. Jose Calderon

  • http://moneybills2cents.blogspot.com/ Money Bill Williams

    andrew, im at wollongong uni!

  • http://hibachi20.blogspot.com Hursty

    Im beginning to doubt that Calderon, Richardson or Gay wil be on the list scott.

  • andrej

    there way beetter players ranked after him

  • http://slamonline.com Simone S.Y Lawy

    Agree for what Hursty has said…calderon, ric, gay, gordon, … ain’t make the list.

  • http://moneybills2cents.blogspot.com/ Money Bill Williams

    me too!

  • Jeter

    Definitely in the Top 15. So far, this has been the most questionable ranking.

  • O.k

    All i want to say is that everyone thinks phillys better that the raptors but who’s better chris bosh and jermaine o’neal or andre igoudala and elton brand, besides jermaine is a 6x all star and bosh is a 3x while elton is a 2x and andre is even one besides elton missed like the whole season jermaine missed 40 some games

  • tommyizkool

    yo i never thought of it like that probably right, but thecs gonnado it again Deron williams 08 09 mvp

  • lalaa

    yo o.ks right the raptors are better then Philly

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