Tag Archives: Denver Nuggets

The Lowdown: Robert Pack

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Years Active: 1992 – 2004
Regular Season Stats: 552 games, 20.8 mpg
8.9 ppg, 4.6 apg, 2.0 rpg, 1.1 spg, 42.5% FG, 78.7% FT
Postseason Stats: 33 games, 13.2 mpg
5.2 ppg, 1.9 apg, 1.1 rpg, 0.7 spg, 38.3% FG, 73% FT

Hoopedia

Robert Pack is the quintessential “you had to have been there” player.

He played 13 seasons, but only appeared in half of the possible games due to injury or not being actively rostered by an NBA franchise. From 1995 to 1997, the point guard put up 14.5 points, 7.7 assists, and 1.7 steals a game, but a bevvy of injuries limited him to 127 games throughout those 3 seasons, the supposed peak of his career.

He appeared in the playoffs in 4 different seasons but was basically a non-factor in three of them for the Mavericks, Blazers, and Hornets. The rest of the squads he appered on were moribund: the late-90s Mavericks, the mid-90s Bullets and Nets. If you haven’t noticed yet, Pack never stuck with one team too long either.

So what’s the fuss? You had to have been there!

Robert Pack was absolutely sensational as the point guard for the Denver Nuggets from the 1992-93 season through the 1994-95 season. This guy was listed at 6’2″ but they must have counted his dazzling high-top fade in the measurement. His on-court speed though was not to be denied. Pack could move up and down the court in a flash. It’s the reason why Denver was so insistent on prying him from the Portland Trail Blzaers in the summer of 1992:

Pack yesterday got his first practice with the team, and with it his first look at the team’s Reader’s Digest playbook. What Issel wants to see from Pack isn’t how he runs plays, though. It is how he runs. Pack’s strength is getting the ball upcourt quickly, an ideal trait for Issel’s passing-game offense.

“It’s important, in the passing game, that you get down and get into it before the defenses get a chance to set,” [Denver coach Dan] Issel said. “If you have a point guard who just sort of hammers the ball and brings it down slow, and you let a good defense like Chicago get set, it’s going to be hard to score against it. That’s why we shot 38 percent against the Bulls.”

- Mike Monroe, Denver Post, October 26, 1992

Coach Issel certainly didn’t have to worry about Pack holding up the pace. In fact, the Nuggets were 3rd in the league in pace during the 1992-93 season as Pack and Mahmoud Abdul-Raouf burned the hardwood rubber. Pack in particular was prone not only to set up teammates for baskets but do what you had to have been there to see that made him so special…

Pack could jump out the gym and throw down! Sure he really only had one dunk, but when it was consistently being thrown down on men a foot taller than him, it was truly spectacular. The Nuggets though only had a 36-46 record and thus missed the playoffs. The next season, though, Robert Pack and the Nuggets would give not only spectacular final scores, but a stupendous playoff run.

The Nuggets went 42-40 in the 1994 season and snuck into the 8th seed against the Seattle SuperSonics.Falling behind 2-0, the Nuggets came back to force a 5th and deciding game in Seattle. Pack, having played putrid in the previous four games, delivered a stellar performance of 23 points (8-15 FG, 3-5 3PT, 4-4 FT) off the bench. Brian Williams also had a great game off the bench with 17 points and 19 rebounds. The Nuggets behind this bench duo and Dikembe Mutombo upset the #1 seed Sonics. The Nuggets nearly repeated this comeback feet in the 2nd round as they fell behind 3-0 against Utah and forced a Game 7. But the bid fell short.

The 1994-95 season was unfortunately Pack’s apex. He finally gained a starting spot in the Denver lineup but in February of that season hurt his knee ultimately requiring surgery. Traded to Washington that offseason, Pack never again enjoyed a healthy season as a litany of leg injuries hampered his career.

But believe me, watching this man play in the Mile High City was a thrill a moment that my words can’t do justice to. Even YouTube clips can sort of, but not completely, get the point across.

To fully get the joy of watching Robert Pack’s mid-1990s play, well, YOU HAD TO HAVE BEEN THERE!

And I’m glad I was.

The Lowdown: Fat Lever

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Years Active: 1983 – 1994
Regular Season Stats: 722 games, 31.7 mpg
13.9 ppg, 6.2 apg, 6.0 rpg, 2.2 spg, 44.7% FG, 31% 3PT, 77.1% FT
Playoff Stats: 48 games, 30 mpg
12.4 ppg, 6.2 apg, 5.8 rpg, 1.9 spg, 41.4% FG, 40.9% 3PT, 77.5% FT
Accolades: 2x All-Star (1988, ’90), All-NBA 2nd-Team (1987), All-Defensive 2nd Team (1988)

CBS Sacramento

Lever’s low profile has been largely of his own doing. On the court his moves are efficient and, thanks to his stamina, relentless rather than spectacular. And he shows all the apparent passion of a CPA at a Chapter 11 hearing. “Some guys show their feelings, some guys don’t,” he says. “I may not, but they’re jumping around inside.”

- Via Fat is Lean and Tough

Lafayette “Fat” Lever was indeed “relentless rather than spectacular.” But in a peculiar twist, that relentlessness became spectacular. Think of him as the stream of water that unerringly flows forth through the years, centuries and millennia and eventually turns into the mighty Mississippi or carves out the Grand Canyon.

This 6’3″ point guard was like that mighty stream. He just wore on you in every stat, every facet and every way.

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The Lowdown: Dan Issel

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Years Active: 1971 – 1985
Career Stats: 22.6 ppg, 9.1 rpg, 2.4 apg, 1.0 spg, 0.5 bpg, 50% FG, 79% FT
Accolades: ABA – Rookie of the Year (1971), All-ABA 1st Team (1972), 4x All-ABA 2nd Team (1971, 1973-74, 1976), All-Rookie 1st Team (1971), 6x All-Star (1971-76), All-Star Game MVP (1972), ABA Champion (1975)

NBA – All-Star (1977)

Issel

Via 1043thefan.com

Pat Williams, general manager of the Philadelphia 76ers, says of Issel, “He’s not a pro-type center, not defensive-minded, not an intimidator, and you can’t win a title with him. But when his career is over, he’ll be an immortal.”

Via “King of the Rocky Mountains” by Douglas Looney

The complaints of so-called dainty “big men” that prance around the perimeter are nothing new basketball fans. Elvin Hayes and Bob McAdoo took their fair share of heat in the 1970s for not being “tough enough” and so did Dan Issel despite the evident utility of such big men then and now (Dirk Nowitzki).

Issel, simply put, was a scoring machine. He still remains the University of Kentucky’s all-time leading scorer despite only playing 3 years there. In professional basketball, he retired as the 4th all-time leading scorer behind only Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Wilt Chamberlain and Julius Erving. Issel did put up some highly impressive single season scoring averages, but like any accomplishment of this sort, it was heavily indebted to career longevity. Issel only missed 24 of a possible 1242 games in his career.

The course he took to these points was unorthodox for a center. Like Hayes and McAdoo, Issel was a marksman from long-distance. His jumper extended nearly out to the three-point line, which invariably drew opposing centers out of their comfort zone. Issel would either calmly sink the jumper or deceive the defender with a pump fake and make his way toward the rim. Another favored method for Issel was scoring on the break.

He was by no means someone you could describe as fast, but neither were opposing centers in his era, for the most part, and Issel had the bonus of a motor that never stopped running. And he hit the ground running in his professional basketball career.

As a rookie, he led the ABA in scoring with 30ppg in 1971 and led the Kentucky Colonels all the way to the ABA Finals where they lost in 7 games to the Utah Stars. The next season, the 6’9″ Issel was shifted to power forward to accommodate the arrival of 7’2″ Artis Gilmore to the Kentucky lineup. Issel showed no slowing down averaging a career high 30.6ppg that season. The Colonels were a huge success during these years. Losing another game 7 Finals heartbreaker this time in 1973 to the Indiana Pacers and getting revenge in 1975 in a 5 game championship route of Indiana.

That would be Issel’s last act as a Colonel. In the summer of 1975 he was traded 1st to Baltimore, which quickly folded, and then to the Denver Nuggets. Moving back to center, Issel teamed up with David Thompson and Bobby Jones to lead Denver to the ABA Finals in 1976 (beating Kentucky along the way) before losing to New Jersey in 6 games.

Merging with the NBA that summer, Issel and the Nuggets took their act to the NBA and there was no drama to their play. Despite roster changes (Thompson and Jones making way for George McGinnis and then Alex English and Kiki Vandeweghe in the early 80s) and coaching switches (Larry Brown for Donnie Walsh and then Doug Moe) the Nuggets always scored like Chicagoans voted: early and often.

This style reached its zenith between 1981 and 1985 when the Nuggets never failed to average less than 120 points a game for a season. And 5 different times Issel was part of a troika of teammates that averaged at least 20ppg a piece. Something that rarely happens ever let alone this many times on one team.

With all that high-flying amazement, the Nuggets never got back to a finals with Issel. The closest they came was the Western Conference Finals in 1978 (losing to Seattle) and in 1985 (losing to the Lakers). That ’85 series would see Issel score his final NBA points. Going out in style, Dan swished a 3-point bomb as the Great Western Forum crowd cheered him on.

A 6’9″ perpetually-balding center with a devilish grin is certainly not what we expect when thinking of ABA personalities and NBA legends. But Dan Issel was certainly one of the best and, indeed, he is immortal: his number is retired by the Nuggets, he’s a Hall of Famer and to this day retains the most successful pro career of any Kentucky Wildcat. Eat your heart out, Ron Mercer.

The Lowdown: Bobby Jones

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Years Active: 1975 – 1986
Career Stats: 12.1 ppg, 6.1 rpg, 2.7 apg, 1.4 bpg, 1.5 spg, 55.8% FG, 76.6% FT
Accolades: ABA – All-Rookie 1st Team (1975), ABA All-Star (1976), All-ABA 2nd Team (1976), 2x ABA All-Defensive 1st Team (1975-76)
NBA – Sixth Man of the Year (1983), 4x NBA All-Star (1977-78, 1981-82), 8x All-Defensive 1st Team (1977-84), All-Defensive 2nd Team (1985), NBA Champion (1983)

Bobby Jones, 6’9″ second-year man out of North Carolina. Best defensive forward in basketball. Shot 60.5% last year (only man other than Wilt Chamberlain ever over 60). Leading league again this season at 59% despite worst form and shortest range in history of mankind. Just never takes bad shot. Great leaper. Denver MVP, easy. Thrifty, devoted, straight arrow. Brown says that during pregame talks, while other players scratch, read, go to bathroom, Jones “stares at me and actually listens. He’s scary.” Bob Goldsholl, Nets TV announcer, says Jones is so clean that when he went to the movie Story of O, he walked out when he discovered it was not the life of Oscar Robertson.

Via “They Run And They Gun-and They’re A Mile High” by Curry Kirkpatrick

Bobby Jones: an average name for maybe the best defensive small forward of all-time. The only real competition for the honor is Scottie Pippen and Tom “Satch” Sanders. But during Jones’s playing days, he was certainly the best. Possessing a wiry, yet toned 6’9″ frame, Jones had the perfect height, length, speed and, above all, desire to frustrate and dominate his opponents.

He was near-perfect at every conceivable defensive measure: ball denial, man-to-man defense, weakside help, steals, blocks, interceptions, miraculous saves. Jones did all of this dirty grunt work with an air of nobility: “If I have to play defense by holding on, that’s when I quit. If I have to use an elbow to get position, then I’m going to have to settle for another position.”

Although he shined brightest on defense, Jones was a complete basketball player. A smart passer, he could quickly ignite a fastbreak with an outlet pass after one of his rebounds, blocks or steals. His jumper was taken straight out of the set shot 50s, but it worked. Most excitingly, he could jump out of the gym. It’s what made him such a skilled shot blocker, but it also allowed Bobby to finish on offense what he started on defense via a thunderous slam.

Drafted by the NBA’s Houston Rockets and the ABA’s Denver Nuggets, Jones opted for the ABA after graduating from the University of North Carolina. A man who was almost always at peace with himself, Jones rarely attempted a shot out of haste or to satisfy a selfish trigger finger. He took prudent, needed shots. Leading the ABA in FG% in his first two seasons (at 60% and 57%) testifies to that. His stat lines from those early days are the stuff of fantasy basketball dreams. Over his 1st four seasons (all with Denver split between the ABA and NBA), Jones averaged 15 points, 8.5 rebounds, 3.5 assists, 2 steals, 2 blocks and 58% shooting from the field.

Nuggets coach Larry Brown, yes that Larry Brown, deemed Jones “the best defensive player in the world” by his 2nd season. Teamed with Dan Issel and David Thompson in a high-octane frontcourt, the Nuggets reached the ABA Finals in 1976 where Jones was tasked with stopping Julius Erving, who was playing for the opposing Nets. Jones would be absolutely torched by the Doctor who averaged 37 points and 14 rebounds as the Nets won in 6 games. Sometimes great offense trumps great defense.

Jones and Erving would go from legendary ABA opponents to successful NBA teammates two years later as the Philadelphia 76ers traded superfluous scoring and turnover machine George McGinnis to Denver for Bobby. It was a much needed injection of positivity for Philly in the wake of the failed McGinnis-Erving pairing. Charles Barkley in 1986 noted the good vibes exuded by Jones: “If everyone in the world was like Bobby Jones, the world wouldn’t have any problems.”

The trade didn’t just change Bobby’s playing venue, it changed his role. Gone were his days of 30+ minutes and starting, he was now slotted as the 6th man behind Dr. J, Doug Collins, and, later, Andrew Toney. Jones’ demeanor and skills made him the perfect man for the job. Instead of griping about lost minutes, Jones decided to give a more intense performance in his slashed minutes. Unsurprisingly, he continued his stellar play as one of the NBA’s most clutch players. Hitting game-winners wasn’t his brand of clutch, though. Disrupting and denying the opposition a chance at doing that to Philly was his crunch time hallmark. And there were certainly many clutch, crunch and otherwise Maalox moments for Philadelphia during this era playing in 3 NBA Finals and 2 more Eastern Conference Finals.

The lone championship for the Sixers came in 1983 when Moses Malone arrived to lead Jones, Toney, Erving, and Maurice Cheeks to the Promised Land. For Jones though, 1983 wasn’t just the pinnacle of team success, he was recognized for his stellar bench play by winning the inaugural Sixth Man of the Year Award. Fitting for a Sixer. However, for the first time in his career he averaged less than 10 points and 25 minutes a game as Moses, rightfully, demanded a larger portion of the offense and Jones himself hit 31 years of age. Father Time would beckon Jones into retirement three years later in 1986.

Bobby’s streak of All-Defensive 1st Teams is unparalleled with 10 straight selections starting in his rookie season. He managed another All-Defensive 2nd Team appearance in 1985, before finally missing out in his last season. Despite his lofty total, Jones is the only one of 11 players with at least 6 All-Defensive 1st Team appearances who is either not in the Hall of Fame or soon-to-be (Duncan, Garnett, Kobe, and Gary Payton). On top of this, Jones averaged 1.4 steals and 1.4 blocks for his career. Only teammate Julius Erving along with Hakeem Olajuwon and David Robinson have done that.

To consistently be in the company of Hall of Famers and yet not be one must be a frustrating feeling for anyone except, probably, Bobby Jones. The man’s devout Christianity has given him peace for decades so it’s unimaginable he would let this slight bother him much: “When I’m in there, I just play as hard as I can. In the Bible, it says we’re supposed to give 100 percent in whatever it is we do and that’s what I do.” Yep, sounds like a man who’s probably off somewhere focusing on some new endeavor instead of seething at slights.