University of North Carolina Athletics
CAR-O-LINES
May 30, 2000 | Men's Basketball
May 30, 2000
By Rick Brewer
Making selections to any Hall of Fame is always a difficult task.
There are seemingly always more good candidates than there are spots available.
For example, Bob McAdoo should have been an easy choice for the Naismith Hall of Fame in his first year of eligibility. His outstanding 1972 season at Carolina, two great years of junior college play and a brilliant NBA career certainly made him a top candidate.
But, with women and foreign players being added to the pool of possible candidates, it's taken a couple of years for McAdoo to make the Hall.
Still, he's made it relatively quickly for a guy who became eligible just a couple of years ago. Hall of Fame rules require a player to be retired for five years before enshrinement.
In his only season at Carolina he helped lead the Tar Heels to a 26-5 record and a spot in the Final Four. After being stunned early in the year at Princeton, Carolina's other four losses were by two points at Duke, by two in overtime at Maryland, by one at N.C. State and by a 79-75 count to Florida State in the national semi-finals.
McAdoo was the team's leading scorer at 19.5 and top rebounder with a 10.0 average. He was a consensus All-America. After checking with professional coaches and general managers, Dean Smith suggested that he might want to go ahead and make himself available in the NBA draft. Smith had reached the conclusion that McAdoo was ready for the pro game and would be drafted so highly that he would be set for life.
The Carolina coach proved to be correct as McAdoo was the second pick in the NBA's annual draft and the league's Rookie of the Year in 1973.
"I think when a lot of people think about Bob, they think of his scoring ability," said Smith recently. "That's understandable when you look at all his scoring accomplishments. But, he was a complete player - an excellent rebounder and a very good defender. Plus, he was also a tremendous competitor.
"Most of the teams for which he played needed his scoring to be successful. But, more than anything, he wanted to win. He would have tried to fill any role that was needed to accomplish that. I found him to be extremely coachable and I know his NBA coaches felt the same way."
Scoring was indeed what most of those pro teams needed. They got it.
McAdoo was one of the most dynamic scorers in NBA history. He won three straight scoring titles. The only other players ever to accomplish that feat were Michael Jordan, Wilt Chamberlain, George Mikan, Neil Johnston and George Gervin. All are in the Hall, except Jordan who is not yet eligible.
His average of 34.5 points a game in 1975 has only been topped by Jordan (37.1 in 1987 and 35.0 in 1988) since that time. In fact, his 31.1 average of 1976 has since been surpassed by only Jordan, Gervin (33.1 in 1980 and Bernard King (32.9 in 1985).
It was matched by Moses Malone in 1980. Thus, since 1976 only one man of McAdoo's 6-10 size (Malone) has matched his scoring ability and no big man in what is supposed to be a "big man's game" has had a higher average than his 1975 mark.
McAdoo was the NBA's Most Valuable Player in 1975 when he led the league in scoring average, points (2,831) and total rebounds (1,155).
He was selected to play in five NBA All-Star Games and scored 30 points in the 1977 All-Star game as a member of the New York Knicks.
In a 14-year career, he had regular-season averages of 22.1 points and 9.4 rebounds. He shot 50.3 percent from the floor in his career and 74.5 percent from the foul line. In the 1999-2000 NBA season, only one player-- Utah's Karl Malone-- could top all those career marks for just a single year.
So what kept McAdoo from being one of a number of players to be selected to the Hall of Fame in his first year of eligibility?
A number of other outstanding candidates also became eligible at the same time as McAdoo. He also had the misfortune of playing on a number of teams that weren't regularly playing for an NBA title. However, McAdoo did have an amazing effect on his Buffalo team.
The Braves were 22-60 the year they drafted McAdoo. But, in two years Buffalo was 42-40 and in the NBA Playoffs. Jack Ramsey built an offense around McAdoo and Buffalo almost upset the Boston Celtics in the 1975 Eastern Conference semi-finals.
McAdoo eventually participated in the NBA Playoffs nine times and was a member of two championship teams. He was with the Lakers when they won their 1982 and 1985 titles. He posted career playoff scoring averages of 18.3 points and 7.6 rebounds. Those figures would have been higher except he came off the bench for much of his Laker career.
With Buffalo he had successive playoff marks of 31.7 points and 13.7 rebounds in 1974, 37.4 points and 13.4 rebounds in 1975 and 28.0 points and 14.2 rebounds in 1976.
He still holds the NBA record for most points in a two-game playoff series with 68 in 1978 as a member of the Knicks against Cleveland.
He once scored 30 or more points in nine consecutive playoff games. That's the second-longest 30-point scoring streak in playoff history to Elgin Baylor's 11.
In his reserve role on the Laker championship teams he averaged 16.7 points and 6.8 rebounds in 1982 and 11.4 points in 1985.
McAdoo finished his career by playing seven seasons in Italy. He had a career scoring average of 26.6 there. Even in Europe at an age when most players had retired, McAdoo could still shoot. That ability, more than all his other skills, has earned him a spot among the greatest players in the history of the game.
