Reggie Miller, The Most Overrated NBA Player of All-Time?
Blogger’s Note: This post is also available on my Indiana Pacers blog, Forever 31.
People are entitled to their opinion, and in the realm of sports, there will always be talk over who’s the GOAT (Greatest of All-Time), who’s underrated, and of course, who’s overrated. Now, I realize when one is called “overrated,” it’s not saying that the person is trash, it’s simply saying this person gets more credit, praise, etc., than he or she deserves. I wanted to make that known because most of the time people jump off the deep end and think this is what you’re implying when call someone, particularly someone they like, overrated. As highly regarded as Michael Jordan was (and still is) to most fans, I’ve even heard a few call him overrated.
I came across this video last week — although this video was made nearly five years ago — of a YouTuber stating his reasons why he thinks Reggie Miller was the most overrated NBA player of all-time. It’s rare that I hear someone label him as overrated, but I have heard it before, and I don’t take offense because people are entitled to their opinion. Usually I ignore these claims, but to call him to most overrated NBA player ever? As a long-time Pacers fan, I had to say something about this.
As he mentioned in the video, no, he didn’t have a deep offensive arsenal (i.e., a wide variety of ways to score) of a Michael Jordan, Larry Bird, Kobe Bryant, Hakeem Olajuwon, and other great scorers. He wasn’t going to cross you up (i.e., execute a crossover), he didn’t have a low post game, and he occasionally used a face-up game to drive to the basket, but his main method of scoring derived from shooting. There are plenty of players, past and present, that I can think of that have/had a more complete game offensively, but every scorer — and Reggie Miller was a scorer, regardless of what one thinks of his methods of scoring — does not score the exact same way.
Yes, most of the time he used picks, bounced off screens or spotted up to get shots to go along with his occasional drives to the basket, but his way of doing it was crafty, to say the least. I doubt if most of these players today know how to effectively use screens to get open.
He then mentioned that his career points total was due to his longevity in the league versus his ability to score. That made no sense to me. If that’s the case, all of the players who played nearly as long, just as long, if not longer than him was able to score such a high total due to their longevity.
If Reggie Miller was just a shooter, and didn’t have the ability to score, Indiana wouldn’t have had the success they had during his era, they wouldn’t have had the success they had during his era, period, if it wasn’t primarily for his play. He was a five-time All-Star, a three-time All-NBA, he’s a part of the 50–40–90 club, his jersey has been retired by the Pacers, and on top of that, he made the NBA’s 75th Anniversary team.
As an honorable mention, he also had a rule named after him called the “Reggie Miller Rule.” To me, you’ve definitely made your mark in your profession when people change, mend, or adjust the rules because of you.
As much of a fan as I was of Reggie when he played, I never viewed him as the “GOAT,” but the most overrated NBA player of all-time? I can’t go for that.
