Who’s Neil Johnston?

Remembering one of the NBA’s lesser-known Hall of Famers

While I was in a discussion the other day over where Kobe Bryant fits into the all-time greatest NBA players, I decided to take a look at the list of career leaders in Player Efficiency Rating (PER). Unsurprisingly, Michael Jordan is #1 (27.91) and LeBron James is #2 (27.66 so far), while the notoriously inefficient Kobe is #20 (23.12 and bound to take a dip after this inglorious final season). What struck me is who rounds out the top 10: Neil Johnston, #10 (24.69), who even has an asterisk by his name, denoting that he’s a member of the Hall of Fame.

I’ve followed the NBA since I was a kid, supporting my birthright Seattle SuperSonics from the post-Shawn Kemp era onward (yes, carrying through to the Oklahoma City Thunder), while playing basketball throughout grade school, and so I consider myself fairly knowledgeable when it comes to NBA history, but I’d never heard of Johnston before. I clicked on his name to learn more and saw that Donald Neil Johnston (aka Neil Johnston or “Gabby”) played for just 8 seasons in the NBA, all with the Philadelphia Warriors during the 1950s, including that 1955–56 championship season. He was a 6'8" 210 lbs. center from Ohio (even attending Ohio State, for which just his first 2 seasons of stats are available) who averaged 19.4 ppg and 11.3 rpg (with 2.5 apg) and made the All-Star Game every season except his first and last, as well as the All-NBA 1st team from his 2nd season through his 5th and the All-NBA 2nd team in his 6th.

Not a bad career for one that only lasted 8 years, but was it really special enough to warrant Gabby being inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1990? I took a closer look at his page of statistics, and it seems that it’s all relative. Here’s a summary of just how much of an offensive force he was in the NBA during the ‘50s:

• 1952–53: led the NBA in Minutes Played, Field Goals, 2-Pt Field Goals, Free Throws, Free Throw Attempts, Points, Field Goal %, 2-Pt Field Goal %, Minutes Per Game, and Points Per Game
• 1953–54: led the NBA in Minutes Played, Field Goals, Field Goal Attempts, 2-Pt Field Goals, 2-Pt Field Goal Attempts, Free Throws, Free Throw Attempts, Points, Minutes Per Game, and Points Per Game
• 1954–55: led the NBA in Free Throws, Free Throw Attempts, Total Rebounds, Points, Points Per Game, and Rebounds Per Game
• 1955–56: led the NBA in Field Goal % and 2-Pt Field Goal %
• 1956–57: led the NBA in Field Goal % and 2-Pt Field Goal %

And here’s a summary of Gabby’s performance in terms of some more advanced metrics (which obviously didn’t exist back then, nor at the time of his Hall of Fame induction):

• 1952–53: led the NBA in Effective Field Goal %, Offensive Win Shares, and Win Shares
• 1953–54: led the NBA in Offensive Win Shares and Win Shares
• 1954–55: led the NBA in Player Efficiency Rating, Offensive Win Shares, and Win Shares
• 1955–56: led the NBA in True Shooting %, Effective Field Goal %, Offensive Win Shares, and Win Shares
• 1956–57: led the NBA in True Shooting %, Effective Field Goal %, Offensive Win Shares, Win Shares, and Win Shares Per 48 Minutes

It’s when you take a look at Gabby’s Similarity Scores — which are based off those Win Shares, weighted by how each season ranks within a player’s career, as further explained here — that you can really start to appreciate just how impressive his contributions were. These are the NBA players (in descending order) who have the highest Similarity Score with Gabby through 8 seasons (i.e. how long his career lasted): Bill Russell, Bob McAdoo, Moses Malone, Ed Macauley, David Robinson, Shaquille O’Neal, George Mikan (who only played for 7 seasons), Walt Bellamy, Artis Gilmore, Dan Issel. Here’s a similar list but for whole careers (not just the best 8 seasons): George Mikan, Ed Macauley, Bob McAdoo, Willis Reed, Zelmo Beaty, Dwight Howard, Walt Bellamy, Bill Russell, Yao Ming, and Mel Daniels. Some mighty company to have, huh?

So why, when we hear about NBA stars from the ’50s, do we only get the names of Mikan (from the first half of the decade); or Bob Cousy, Paul Arizin, Dolph Schayes, and Bill Sharman; or Bob Pettit and Russell (from the second half)? Is the 50 Greatest Players in NBA History the only canon that we’re supposed to remember?

Neil Johnston truly is a forgotten legend. I’m one of those sports fans who will always look at the accomplishments of past athletes as less significant than of those who played in the era of TV money, when being a pro athlete in the U.S. means that you devote your life to being as good as you can be, in increasingly sophisticated tactical and training regimens. But for a player such as Gabby to be so unknown, when he’s one of the top 10 most efficient players in NBA history and had a career comparable to many of the most acclaimed centers, seems like a major disservice to the man’s legacy.

I want to end this post with 2 quotes about that legacy. First, how was Gabby such an offensive force (besides the deadly trait of a center who could hit free throws)? From the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame:

With a devastating sweeping hook shot from the pivot, Neil Johnston became one of the NBA’s most prolific scorers. […] A multidimensional player, Johnston used his athletic talent to lead the NBA in scoring (1953–55), rebounding (1955), and field goal percentage (1953,1956–57) [until suffering] a career-ending knee injury

Second, from a 1990 New York Times article, how even when Gabby was inducted into the Hall of Fame, he was virtually ignored (emphasis added):

On the first ballot of the Basketball Hall of Fame’s anonymous 24-member honors committee, neither Monroe, Bing, or Hayes nor any of the 13 other candidates received the required 18 votes. According to the bylaws, that should have ended the procedure. No inductees this year.

But suddenly the Basketball Hall of Fame was confronted with a civic crisis. With no new inductees, would many people bother to attend the the Sunday clinic for junior-high-school students and their parents, the Monday celebrity golf tournament and Hall of Famers reunion, or the Tuesday autograph sessions, awards luncheon and enshrinement dinner?

As it developed, the late Neil Johnston, a lantern-jawed center for the Philadelphia Warriors who was a three-time National Basketball Association scoring leader in its early years, would be elected by the veterans committee.

But at the time, the Hall of Fame didn’t know Johnston would be chosen, so it moved to solve the problem. Although there was no provision in the bylaws, the Hall of Fame executive committee voted, 9–3, to create a second ballot with the names of the nine top vote-getters.

Maybe a 6'8" 210 lbs. white guy who arrives from minor league baseball and dominates as a center with a low post hook shot and .768 Free Throw % isn’t relevant to the NBA anymore, but in this era where advanced metrics such as PER and Win Share are used more and more to prove a player’s worth, it seems a shame that we don’t make a bigger deal out of Neil Johnston.