Forgotten NBA stars from the merger to the Lottery era

Resume: Hall of Fame, 1x Finals MVP, 3x NBA Champion, 2x All-NBA, 5x All Star, 9x All-Defense

Most people probably remember Dennis Johnson as the player who made the game-winning layup after "Bird stole the ball!" in Game 5 of the 1987 Eastern Conference Finals against the Pistons, but he was so much more. Johnson was a star throughout his career — one of the best two-way guards in the NBA. Before his days of complementing Larry Bird and Kevin McHale, which helped Boston win two championships in 1984 and 1986, Johnson was the 1979 NBA Finals MVP for the Seattle SuperSonics after he averaged 22.6 PPG, 6 RPG, 6 APG, 2.2 BPG and 1.8 SPG in a 4-1 thrashing of the Washington Bullets.

Resume: 2x All-NBA, 2x All Star, 1x Champion

Dennis Johnson's backcourt mate, Gus Williams, was also a star in the late '70s for the championship-winning Seattle SuperSonics. He was a fine regular-season player, averaging 20.2 PPG and 6.2 APG in his seven prime seasons, but he was an absolute stud when the lights got brighter. Between 1979 (when the Sonics won the title) and 1983, Williams averaged 25.8 PPG, 5.2 APG, 3.9 RPG and 2 SPG on 48.9 percent shooting in 42 playoffs games. While D.J. took home the Finals MVP in 1979, Williams just as easily could have been named the Finals MVP, as he put up a series-high 29 PPG. 

Resume: Hall of Fame, 1x Champion, 7x All Star, 1x All-Defense

The third (and final, I promise) star member of the 1979 championship-winning Seattle SuperSonics team was Jack Sikma. Sikma, who looked like he was destined to play for the Boston Celtics with his blonde locks, was a 6-foot-11 banger down low who also had some decent skills and touch as seen by his 3.2 APG for his career and 84.9 percent career free throw percentage. During his seven consecutive All-Star seasons, he was a double-double machine and averaged 17.7 PPG, 11.4 RPG and 3.5 APG.

Resume: 5x All-ABA, 1x ABA Champion, 7x All Star, 1970-71 ABA ROY

Dan Issel was a problem... in the ABA. In his first six professional seasons, he averaged 25.6 PPG and 10.9 RPG, won the Rookie of the Year, made the All-Star team every season, made the All-ABA team five times and won an ABA championship. He was even named to the ABA All-Time Team too. He was awesome in his nine seasons in the NBA as well — all for the Denver Nuggets. Issel averaged 20.4 PPG and 7.9 RPG for his NBA career and made the All Star team in 1976-77. Issel was also an ironman, never playing fewer than 76 regular-season games, and actually playing 84 games twice and 83 four times in the ABA regular season.

Resume: 1x All-NBA, 1x All Star

Known best for his awesome nickname, Lloyd B. Free aka "World B. Free", was a lightning in a bottle scorer throughout the 1970s and 1980s. Though his teams didn't experience a ton of playoff success, he deserves recognition here for his ability to put the ball in the cup. From 1979 to 1986, he averaged 24.7 PPG with a career high of 30.2 PPG in 1979-80. He accomplished that feat in the NBA's first season with the three-point line, which he rarely ever used (0.4 three-point attempts per game).

Resume: Hall of Fame, 4x NBA Champion, 3x All Star, 1974-75 ROY, 2x All-Defense

Jamaal Wilkes was a winner. He won two championships at UCLA in college, and he won four NBA championships in only 12 seasons. Though he's typically remembered for being a supplementary player to Rick Barry on Warriors teams early in his career and to Magic Johnson and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar on Lakers teams for the majority of his career, the guy still put up numbers (18.4 PPG and 6.5 RPG during his first 10 NBA seasons) and clearly did all of the little things well, as seen by his All Star selections and All-Defensive honors.

Resume: Hall of Fame, 8x All Star, 1974 All Star Game MVP

Bob Lanier is too good to be on this list. However, he spent the majority of his prime on the lowly 1970s-era Detroit Pistons and thus, was never on a memorable team until his final season when he was past his prime and the fourth- or fifth-best player on a Milwaukee Bucks team that lost in the Eastern Conference Finals. That's too bad, because from age 23 to 31 Lanier was a monster of a big man, averaging 23.4 PPG, 12.1 RPG, 3.5 APG and 1.9 BPG. And he was no slouch when the Pistons did make the playoffs during that same stretch, as he averaged slightly better numbers in the postseason than regular season. 

Resume: 1x NBA Champion, 1x All-NBA, 5x All Star, 2x All Defense, ABA All-Time Team

In the days of the dominant, low-post center, Maurice Lucas was the ideal star sidekick at power forward. Lucas, nicknamed "The Enforcer", played that role perfectly next to Bill Walton during the 1976-77 Portland Trail Blazers' stunning championship run. During that season, Lucas actually led the Blazers in scoring, averaging 20.2 PPG and 11.4 RPG and upping that scoring average to 21.2 PPG in the playoffs. And although he bounced around the league a bit after the fall of the Blazers (mostly due to Walton's injuries), he still averaged a double-double (16.2 PPG and 10 RPG) for over a decade from 1974 to 1985.

Resume: 1980-81 ROY

Darrell Griffith, aka "Dr. Dunkenstein," an incredible nickname he earned while at Louisville, was on his way towards being an excellent NBA player until a foot injury zapped him of his athleticism and derailed his career. During his first five seasons (1980 to 1985), he averaged 21 PPG, 4 RPG, 3 APG and 1.5 SPG and was a go-to player on a Jazz team on the rise. Unfortunately, the foot injury caused him to miss an entire season. Though he played five seasons after the injury, he just wasn't the same and saw his production drop off a cliff as he averaged 11 PPG in what should have been his prime. That said, from 1980 to 1985, Griffith was a star and deserves some recognition as one of the "What If" players of his generation.

Resume: Hall of Fame, 1x Champion, 4x All-NBA, 5x All Star

Shortly after winning a championship with the Celtics in 1974, Paul Westphal went to the Phoenix Suns and was a star for the next half decade. In his five seasons with the Suns, Westphal averaged 22.5 PPG and 5.6 APG while shooting 51.8 percent from the field. He also led the Suns to the Finals in 1976 where he lost an absolute heartbreaking series to his former Celtics teammates, which included one of the craziest and greatest games ever: a triple-overtime Game 5 that the Celtics prevailed in to take a 3-2 lead in the series.

Resume: 1x All-NBA, 4x All Star

Though his teams never experience much playoff success, Otis Birdsong deserves some recognition here as one of the league's premier scoring guards in the late-'70s and early-to-mid-'80s. From 1978 to 1985, Birdsong averaged 20.4 PPG and 3.4 APG on 51.2 percent shooting. During that stretch, he made four All Star teams. He was a player who would have greatly benefitted from the present-day NBA's three-point shooting movement as the three-point line wasn't introduced until his third season. He essentially never shot threes as his career progressed, either — never attempting more than 36 in a season.

Resume: 2x NBA Champion, 2x All Star

People forget that Norm Nixon was the guy in L.A. before Magic Johnson showed up. In fact, in his second season, the 6-foot-2 guard appeared destined for stardom after averaging 17.1 PPG, 9 APG and 2.5 SPG while leading the Lakers to the second round of the playoffs. Even after Magic showed up, Nixon averaged nearly the same numbers — 16.9 PPG and 7.9 APG — over the next four seasons and contributed to two NBA championships. Unfortunately, after he was given the opportunity to run his team again, it was with the lowly Clippers. After three solid seasons with the Clips, he suffered devastating knee and Achilles injuries, missing two straight seasons and effectively ending his career. Though the end wasn't pretty, Nixon was still a very good player from the late-'70s to mid-'80s.

Resume: All-Rookie Team

Clark Kellogg was another "what if" star of this era. As in, "what if Kellogg never got injured? How good would he have been?" The 6-foot-7 forward from Ohio State was the eighth overall pick in the 1982 for the Indiana Pacers, and immediately made an impact in the league. Over his first four seasons, he averaged 19.1 PPG, 9.7 RPG and 3 APG. Unfortunately, he suffered a severe knee injury, missed the next season, struggled through four games the next season and called it a career. 

Resume: 3x All-NBA, 5x All Star

Marques Johnson was a star for the Milwaukee Bucks and LA Clippers in the late-'70s through the mid-'80s, averaging 20.3 PPG, 7 RPG and 3.7 APG between 1978 and 1987. The 6-foot-7 UCLA product was still playing some good basketball too, but a neck injury effectively ended his career prematurely in 1987. Although he never made it beyond the Conference Finals, he always brought it in the playoffs, averaging 21.5 PPG, 7.9 RPG and 3.7 APG in 54 career playoff games. He also made a great cameo in the basketball movie White Men Can't Jump, so that solidifies his position in this group.

Resume: Hall of Fame, 1x Champion, 1x Sixth Man of the Year, 1x All-ABA, 11x All-Defense, 5x All Star

Bobby Jones, aka "The Secretary of Defense", played two seasons in the ABA and then spent the next 10 seasons of his career locking up opposing forwards and big men in the NBA. Jones was such a dominant defender that he made the Basketball Hall of Fame despite only averaging 12.1 PPG and 6.1 RPG for his career. His second year in the ABA and his first year in the NBA were especially dominant, as he grabbed 8.9 RPG while swiping more than two steals per game and blocking more than two shots per game. He helped lead one of the all-time great teams, the 1982-83 76ers, to a title as well. 

Resume: Hall of Fame, 1x ABA MVP, 5x All-ABA, 1x ABA Champion, 11x All Star, ABA All-Time Team

The 7-foot-2, 240-pound giant of a human being, Artis Gilmore was an elite player in both the ABA and the NBA. In five ABA seasons, he averaged 22.3 PPG, 17.1 RPG(!!), 3 APG and 3.4 BPG. He won the MVP in his rookie season (and the Rookie of the Year, obviously) and made the All-ABA team every season. He also won the ABA title in 1975. In his first 11 seasons in the NBA, Gilmore continued to dominate the paint, averaging 18.1 PPG, 10.7 RPG and 2 BPG for the Bulls and Spurs. He's probably too dominant to even be on this list, but I didn't want people to forget about him.

Resume: Hall of Fame, 2x ABA Champion, 1x ABA MVP, 2x All-NBA, 3x All-ABA, 6x All Star, ABA All-Time Team

George McGinnis was one of the best players in ABA history, winning the 1974-75 MVP, making three All-ABA teams and winning two ABA titles. He also won the ABA scoring title in his MVP season and had three straight seasons where he played over 40 minutes per game. When he joined the NBA, he starred for four more seasons, making two All-NBA teams and averaging 21.8 PPG, 11.5 RPG, 4 APG and 2 SPG. His rebounding was particularly impressive considering he was a 6-foot-8 forward who often played small forward.

Resume: Hall of Fame, 2x NBA Champion, 1x All-NBA, 4x All Star, 1x All-Defense

Nicknamed "Greyhound", Bob Dandridge was a 6-foot-6, slender small forward who was always on the move, crashing the glass and creating chaos on defense. He was a consistent presence on a number of good teams during the 1970s, averaging 18.5 PPG and 6.8 RPG for his career. He's a recent Hall of Fame inductee and clearly made his mark during the postseason, where he averaged 20.1 PPG, 7.7 RPG and 3.7 APG in 98 career playoff games. 

Resume: Hall of Fame, 1x Finals MVP, 2x NBA Champion, 2x All-NBA, 7x All Star

If there were an earlier NBA iteration of "Playoff Jimmy" Butler, it might have been Celtics Hall of Fame point guard Jo Jo White. White, who was solid during the regular season, averaging 17.2 PPG, 4.9 APG and 4 RPG, would routinely take his game to a whole other level during the playoffs. In 80 career playoff games, he upped those numbers to 21.5 PPG, 5.7 APG and 4.4 RPG. He helped lead the Celtics to two titles in the 1970s and even won the 1975-76 Finals MVP.

Resume: 2x All-NBA, 6x All Star, 1977-78 ROY

Like Bob Dandridge, and for similar reasons, Walter Davis was also nicknamed "Greyhound". The 6-foot-6 wing and 1977-78 Rookie of the Year had a long, productive career, mostly for the Phoenix Suns, averaging 18.9 PPG for his career on 51.1 percent shooting. Davis was another player who really upped his game during the postseason, averaging 22 PPG and 4.8 APG in his first 62 career playoff games. In his two Western Conference Finals appearances, he scored 22.3 PPG and handed out 4.9 APG in a seven-game series loss to the Supersonics in 1979 and put up 23.8 PPG and dished out 5.8 APG in a six-game loss to the Lakers.