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Top 50 NBA players from last 50 years: James Worthy ranks No. 45

Published Apr. 20, 2022 8:31 a.m. ET

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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. 45, James Worthy.

James Worthy’s career highlights:

• Seven-time All-Star
• Two-time third-team All-NBA
• 1988 Finals MVP
• 1983 All-Rookie team

James Worthy was the best player only on teams that weren’t title contenders. He was never a top-10 player in the regular season. His individual accolades pale in comparison to most of his Hall of Fame peers.

What Worthy does have are big games. Lots and lots of big games. 

"[Worthy] has a name everybody knows, and he has at least one game everybody knows, but I don’t know if people know how big of a big-game player ‘Big Game James' was," Wright said.

James Worthy is No. 45 on Nick Wright's Top 50

Former Los Angeles Lakers star James Worthy lands at No. 45 on Nick Wright's Top 50 NBA Players of the Last 50 Years. Worthy is a three-time NBA champion and the 1988 NBA Finals MVP. In making the case for Worthy, Nick emphasizes that he was at his best in the most important games.

Playing on the "Showtime" Lakers afforded Worthy dozens of opportunities. He delivered dozens of times. Worthy played in 143 playoff games and averaged 21.1 points and 54.4% shooting in 37.0 minutes. All three represent substantial leaps from his regular-season rates (17.6/52.1%/32.4).

His production spiked even more in the NBA Finals. In 1984, Worthy was inserted into the starting lineup against Boston and promptly averaged 22.1 on 63.8% from the field over seven games. In 1985, while still not a 20-point scorer in the regular season, Worthy put up 23.7 while shooting 56.4% as the Lakers exacted revenge over the Celtics. 

Worthy wasn’t just a scorer, of course. In the 1987 Finals, he tallied 33 points, nine rebounds and 10 assists in a Game 1 win over the Celtics. He bookended that display with his iconic 36-16-10 line in Game 7 of the 1988 Finals, which earned him Finals MVP. He led the Lakers in playoff scoring in both seasons and the following one, which ended in a Finals sweep by the Pistons despite a 40-point outburst from Worthy in the clinching game. 

"The playoff numbers are absolutely out of this world," Wright said. "I think people focus just on that Game 7, just on that Finals MVP."

It was the only major personal award during Worthy's 12-year career, yet also a microcosm of his clutch performances for the better part of a decade. Worthy played in four Game 7s and averaged 27 points with 8.2 rebounds while shooting 60% in them. His averages over six Finals appearances (including three wins): 22.2 PPG and 53% FG.

As the numbers show, the bespectacled forward was an essential part of some of the best teams of all time.

"I think if he played for another team, he’d have a bunch of All-NBAs," Wright said. "He might have some top-five MVP finishes. Because Magic [Johnson] and Kareem [Abdul-Jabbar] were there, and then Byron Scott later, he never got the volume the other guys would get. But I think it’s undeniable how clutch he was, how productive he was, and how much of a key he was for what I believe to be the greatest team of the 1980s.

"If anything, in thinking about it, I might have ranked James too low."

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