National Basketball Association

Top 50 NBA players from last 50 years: Bob McAdoo ranks No. 38

Updated May. 2, 2022 5:03 p.m. ET

Editor's Note: As part of a new series for his podcast, "What’s Wright with Nick Wright," FOX Sports commentator Nick Wright is ranking the 50 best NBA players of the last 50 years. The countdown continues today with player No. 38, Bob McAdoo.

Bob McAdoo’s career highlights:

Five-time All-Star
One-time first-team All-NBA, one-time second-team
1975 MVP
1973 Rookie of the Year
Three-time scoring champion

Bob McAdoo didn’t make the NBA’s 50th Anniversary Team. He did make the 75th Anniversary team. His inclusion on the latter came despite the fact he’d last played in the NBA 10 years before the initial list was assembled.

Another quarter-century of basketball only provided further proof that what McAdoo accomplished is rare. By the age of 24, he had won MVP and finished second twice while claiming three scoring titles in a row for the expansion Buffalo Braves. That was on the heels of winning Rookie of the Year.

"A true professional scorer," Wright said.

Bob McAdoo is Nick Wright's 38th Greatest NBA Player of the Last 50 Years

No. 38 on Nick Wright's Top 50 NBA Players of the Last 50 Years list is former 'Showtime' Los Angeles Lakers star Bob McAdoo. McAdoo won MVP in 1975 and is a three-time scoring champion. McAdoo's lack of championships as the 'best player' is what hurts him the most, Nick says, but it doesn't drop his ranking that much because of his postseason numbers.

Only three centers have even won the scoring crown since McAdoo last held it in 1976 (David Robinson, Shaquille O’Neal, Joel Embiid). The dexterous center's game was ahead of its time, featuring fluid ball-handling and outside shooting. Over five consecutive All-Star seasons (that involved two with the Knicks), he averaged 29.8 points and 13.4 rebounds.

The catch: his teams won one playoff series during his twenties.

"The problem for McAdoo is the lack of championships as the best guy," Wright said. "But it doesn’t kill him that much because of what he was able to do in the postseason."

During his peak, McAdoo put up about the same eye-popping numbers in the playoffs. He averaged 30 and 13 from 1974-78, which included a 50-point, 21-rebound effort against Hall of Fame duo Wes Unseld and Elvin Hayes.

McAdoo’s career then took a strange turn. He’d bounce around between six teams within six years, gradually losing minutes despite producing efficiently at every stop. He’d finally land with the Lakers, who brought him off the bench for four straight trips to the Finals (two championships).

In the 1982 Finals, McAdoo averaged 16.3 points, 5.0 rebounds, 2.3 blocks and 1.0 steals while shooting a team-high 56.9% from the floor in just 27.5 minutes per game. Nobody averaged 20 points for L.A. in the six-game series win over the 76ers. Two years later, he remained one of the Lakers' five most valuable players until suffering an Achilles’ tendon injury that sidelined him for the team’s Game 7 loss to the Celtics.

"One could argue the reason they didn’t win the ‘84 title was because McAdoo got hurt," Wright said. "He gets hurt in Game 6, or else maybe they win that series. In ’85, he was just a role player, but in ‘82, he was an important player for that team."

McAdoo would contribute to one more title team in L.A. and then play a final season with the Sixers before embarking on a successful run in Italy. He retired with career averages of 22.1 points and 9.4 rebounds that look even better when adjusted for 36 minutes (23.9, 10.2).

"I don’t have McAdoo far ahead of Dwight (Howard) and AD (Anthony Davis)," Wright said. "As dominant as their peaks were, I thought McAdoo’s was a touch more dominant."