30 years ago, he was averaging 20/10/4 while being an elite passing big and able to hit mid range J’s. He was considered the Tim Duncan of his time fundamentals wise. He was never overly athletic but he was such a smart and smooth big man.
Today’s game is faster paced, the bigs are much more skilled and three point shooting is a much more emphasized aspect of the game. Does a 25 year Brad Daugherty in 2020 compare to Jokic, Embiid and Towns?
I've been thinking about those solid Cavs teams of the late 80s-early 90s. Daugherty retired before I started following the NBA in 1997, so I never got a good handle on where he ranked in the league's golden era of centers.
Most lists will go: Olajuwon, Shaq, Robinson, Ewing, Mourning or Mutombo, and then the second echelon guys: Smits, Divac, Seikaly, and the rest.
So, how good was Daugherty?
Not one of the most known players ever but he was headed towards a pretty promising career before these injuries he had.
The 3-seeded Cavs and 6-seeded NJ Nets met in the 1st round of the 1993 playoffs, and it basically went as expected with the Cavs winning & advancing, but there was some important context regarding the underrated Cavs' history around this time, plus a HOF-er on the Nets was unknowingly playing in his final game.
From '78-'86, the Cavaliers sucked. They were something like a million games under .500, went through 10 coaches in that 9-year stretch (including 4 in 1 season), and had only 2 All-Star selections total between '74 and '88. Then in 1986, things started to change for Cleveland: 1) They got both Brad Daugherty and Mark Price in the draft, and 2) They signed Coach Lenny Wilkens. A year later they drafted Ron Harper who played with the Cavs from '87-89, and shortly after that Cleveland traded for Larry Nance, and with their big three in place, they were ready for business!
They immediately finished over .500 for the first time in 10 years (42-40 in '88), they topped 50 wins 3x over the next 6 seasons together, and in '92 went to the ECF (falling to MJ's Bulls). The next season ended up being a special (but final) confluence of forces: it was Price's best season (1st-team All-NBA), it was Nance's last All-Star season (17 ppg, 9 rpg, 2.6 bpg), and it was perennial All-Star Daugherty's final "full" season despite only being 27 (career highlights - ended way too soon due to major back issues). On May 9, 1993, the group beat New Jersey in Game 5 of their first-round series behind Daugherty's 24 points, 20 rebounds, and 8 assists (all team highs). This was the last series the group won (losing in the next round to MJ's Bulls again), and Wilkens left a week later saying "It's been a great 7 years, but I think it's time to move on." Daugherty & Nance faded away quickly (to injuries & age, respectively), but Cleveland remained over .500 in each of the next 5 seasons as the Cavs slowly transitioned from Price's team to Terrell Brandon's, but they never topped 47 wins nor did they get out of the first-round ... not until 2006 with LeBron. Here's a 10-min mini-documentary on the Daugherty-Price-Nance era from '86-93 (link).
The final bit of trivia about that Game 5 on May 9, 1993, is that it was the last game in Drazen Petrovic's career. He was a Croatian playing in his 4th NBA season, and he's notable as the first International *g
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If Brad Daugherty didn't retire at the age of 28 and played more seasons after, would he be in the HOF?
If you guys don't know about the Cleveland legend, Brad Daugherty had to retire at age 28 due to back injuries, prior to that he was a 5 time all star and could've been more since they year he had big trouble with his back he put 17/10/3 on 50% shooting.
He was in the draft where he was #1 and Len Bias was #2. Sad stuff.
I just rewatched this game:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WPT2ypMxrsA
It's great - a top notch UNC team w Brad Daugherty, Kenny Smith, and notorious bust Joe Wolf (who looks great here) are topped at home by a Maryland team featuring Len Bias and a bunch of guys who would never spend a second in the NBA.
It got me thinking about Brad Daugherty, a perennial all-star whose career ended before he could move into a second act (his last season he played 50 games and averaged about a 17/10, then never played again because of back problems). It felt like we missed out on him become the '86 Bill Walton for some team, and that was the scattering of the Lenny Wilkens Cavs. He made All-NBA once as a third teamer (he probably deserved it over Robert Parish in '89) and was never up there with the Ewing, Robinson, Olajuwon trifecta that owned the mid-90s: it's weird that he made it over Olajuwon in '92.
What do you think Daugherty would be like today? Do you think he could have developed a three point game? As I remember he was a good mid-range shooter and free-throw shooter who wasn't really a rim-protector or great at running the floor. I just wonder if his game would translate well to today where the big man prototype is someone like Joel Embiid who can spot up for threes and spends a lot of time moving around instead of trying to post up. Is there any appropriate parallel? Is he sort perhaps even sort of a Jokic type before that time? He once averaged 4 assists a game, a lot for an 80-95 big man.
Brad is running a few minutes behind but will be here shortly, go ahead and start asking some questions and he will jump in when he get here.
edit 1: Proof coming via our team Twitter account @NASCAR47: http://t.co/FvORGKzNXF
edit 2: Hello everyone, Brad's schedule today was really tight and he wasn't able to stay around long enough to get to everyone but he will be back again. He had a lot of fun and next time we will make sure he sets aside at least an hour to chat with all of you.
edit 3: THANKS! http://instagram.com/p/rIAhtAPN5E/
Former NBA All-Star and current ESPN broadcaster & co-owner of JTG Daugherty Racing, Brad Daugherty will swing by /r/NASCAR on Thursday, July 31st from 1:15-1:45pm ET to chat about all things NASCAR, hoops, food and being 7' tall... Hope you can make it!
I don't know if this is the right place to post this, but you guys should check it out :)
I'll keep the question open ended, open to interpretation. I saw the "all time starting 5" post and noticed each list gaff Brad.
I have always seen how highly rated he is on 2k, but I feel that he is one of the more underrated centers of the time. For those who watched, how good was he?
The 3-seeded Cavs and 6-seeded NJ Nets met in the 1st round of the 1993 playoffs, and it basically went as expected with the Cavs winning & advancing, but there was some important context regarding the underrated Cavs' history around this time, plus a HOF-er on the Nets was unknowingly playing in his final game.
From '78-'86, the Cavaliers sucked. They were something like a million games under .500, went through 10 coaches in that 9-year stretch (including 4 in 1 season), and had only 2 All-Star selections total between '74 and '88. Then in 1986, things started to change for Cleveland: 1) They got both Brad Daugherty and Mark Price in the draft, and 2) They signed Coach Lenny Wilkens. A year later they drafted Ron Harper who played with the Cavs from '87-89, and shortly after that Cleveland traded for Larry Nance, and with their big three/four in place, they were ready for business!
They immediately finished over .500 for the first time in 10 years, they topped 50 wins 3x over the next 6 seasons together, and in '92 went to the ECF (falling to MJ's Bulls). The next season ended up being a special (but final) confluence of forces: it was Price's best season (1st-team All-NBA), it was Nance's last All-Star season (17 ppg, 9 rpg, 2.6 bpg), and it was perennial All-Star Daugherty's final "full" season despite only being 27 (career highlights - ended way too soon due to major back issues). On May 9, 1993, the group beat New Jersey in Game 5 of their first-round series behind Daugherty's 24 points, 20 rebounds, and 8 assists (all team highs). This was the last series the group won (losing in the next round to MJ's Bulls again), and Wilkens left a week later saying "It's been a great 7 years, but I think it's time to move on." Daugherty & Nance faded away quickly (to injuries & age, respectively), but Cleveland remained over .500 in each of the next 5 seasons as the Cavs slowly transitioned from Price's team to Terrell Brandon's, but they never topped 47 wins nor did they get out of the first-round ... not until 2006 with LeBron. Here's a 10-min mini-documentary on the Daugherty-Price-Nance era from '86-93 (link).
The final bit of trivia about that Game 5 on May 9, 1993, is that it was the last game in Drazen Petrovic's career. He was a Croatian playing in his 4th NBA season, and he's notable as the first International guard to pla
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