The Quietest 26 and 10 Season Ever

How does a player average 26.5 points per game and 10.5 assists per game in one of the most competitive seasons in NBA history and receive absolutely no recognition? Not a single MVP vote, in a season when 20 players received at least one vote? No place on the All-NBA teams? How does a player finish second in three point field goals made (playing only 66 games), third in assists per game, sixth in points per game, and seventh in steals per game, yet have nothing to show for it?

This is the conundrum of Michael Adams' 1990-91 season. Adams was the point guard for the Denver Nuggets that year and, based on his stats, wanted to recreate Tiny Archibald's (in)famous 72-73 season, in which Tiny lead the NBA in scoring and assists. Adams led the Nuggets in points, assists, field goals made and attempted, free throws made and attempted (making at tidy .879 clip), three pointers made and attempted (Adams attempted 433 more three pointers than number 2 on the Nuggets), and steals. Adams did not lead the Nuggets in field goal percentage, shooting an ugly .394.

Adams only played 35.5 minutes per game, and yet averaged 26 and 10. This is surely due to the breakneck pace at which Denver played - they lead the league with a 113.7 Pace Factor (an "estimate of the number of possessions per 48 minutes" a team has). But we'll get to that. I want to address the ridiculousness of a player averaging a 26 and 10 and receiving zero recognition.

[It should be noted that the of fifteen players who got All-NBA Honors, 11 are Hall 0f Famers: Jordan, Magic, Barkley, Robinson (1st team), Drexler, Ewing, Dominique (2nd team), Dumars, Hakeem, Stockton, Worthy (3rd team), and there will be 12 Hall of Famers soon, as soon as Karl Malone is inducted. Chris Mullin, Kevin Johnson, and Bernard King (who should be in the HoF) were the other three All-NBAers.]

Only two other players have ever in the history of the NBA averaged 26 points and 10 assists in a full season. The aforementioned Tiny Archibald in 72-73 and Oscar Robertson in five (5!) seasons: 61-62 (the triple-double season), 63-64, 64-65, 65-66, and 66-67. In each of those six respective seasons, Tiny and Oscar made the All-NBA First Team and did not finish lower than 4th in the MVP voting, with Oscar winning in 1964.

If we extend the parameters, we find that there have been 20 seasons in which a player has averaged 20 PPG and 10 APG: Tiny (1), Oscar (5), Tim Hardaway (1), Kevin Johnson (3), Magic Johnson (3), Chris Paul (2 - working on a third this season), Isiah Thomas (4), and Michael Adams (1). In each of the seasons excepting Michael Adams in 90-91, the above players either received MVP votes or made an All-NBA team, usually doing both. Only Tim Hardaway (in 92-93) and Kevin Johnson (in 89-90) did not receive an MVP vote, but they made the Third and Second All-NBA Teams, respectively. In fact Hardaway's inclusion on the Third Team was the only occurrence of any of the above players not making either the First or Second Teams. Magic Johnson won the MVP each of the seasons he put up a 20 and 10 - 86-87, 88-89, and 89-90. So clearly Adams exclusion from postseason awards was an aberration.

But wait, you say, what about players who averaged 26 points and 10 rebounds? Surely some of them didn't get any MVP votes or All-NBA recognition. Well, dear reader, you are correct. There have been 79 seasons in which a player averaged 26 PPG and 10 RPG (compared to the seven we saw earlier with 10 APG):
Kareem (9 times), Barkley (2), Elgin (7), Walt Bellamy (3), Bird (1), Wilt (7), Billy Cunningham (1), Ewing (2), Elvin Hayes (3), Spencer Haywood (2), Karl Malone (8), Moses (2), Bob McAdoo (4), George Mikan (1), Shaq (10!), Hakeem (4), Bob Pettit (6), Oscar (3), David Robinson (2), Chris Webber (1), and George Yardley (1).

Of those 79 seasons, there were exactly 5 in which the player either did not receive an MVP vote or did not make an All-NBA team: Walt Bellamy in 61-62 and 63-64, and Elvin Hayes in 68-69, 69-70, and 70-71. Bellamy was (predictably) shut out by Russell and Wilt in both of his 26 and 10 seasons (the NBA did not add a Third Team until the 1988-89 season, meaning only 2 players per position got an All-NBA nod). Hayes was snubbed in favor of Wes Unseld and Willis Reed in 1969, then Reed and Kareem each of the next two seasons.

We shouldn't feel too bad for Hayes and Bellamy - they did eventually get recognition for their skills: Hayes got MVP votes in 6 seasons, finishing as high as 3rd in 1975 and 1979, and made 6 All-NBA Teams, including 3 First Teams. Bellamy won the Rookie of the Year in 1962 and got MVP votes the following season. Most importantly, Bellamy was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1993, while Hayes was inducted in 1990.

Michael Adams received exactly 1 fifth-place MVP vote in 1988 and made the All-Star Team in 1992. Basketball Reference puts hit Hall of Fame Probabilty as 2.7% - and that seems far, far too high. Adams retired after the 1995-96 season and I can't imagine he ever got serious Hall of Fame consideration.

Let's return to how Adams put up a 26 and 10. As I said, the Nuggets played the fastest pace in the NBA in one of the faster post-merger seasons. For context, the average Pace Factor in 1990-91 was 97.8 - this season only the Golden State Warriors have a higher Pace Factor (100.3). Denver's Pace Factor of 113.7 was more than 10 possessions per game than the 2nd place team that year, the Warriors. Despite leading the NBA in scoring at over 119 points per game, the Nuggets finished in the bottom third in the league in offensive efficiency (a measure of points scored per 100 possession). So the Nuggets did not use their ridiculous amount of possessions very efficiently - not exactly a surprise. But this pace no doubt led to an inflation in Adams stats. Adams never averaged more than 18.5 points or 7.5 assists per game in any other season. He played on other Nuggets teams that lead the league in Pace Factor, but never with such a crazy number as 113.7 possessions per game.

The Nuggets also did not, how do you say?...ah yes, play defense. The Nuggets surrendered a ludicrous 130 points per game. 130! More damning though was their league worst defensive rating (number of points given up per 100 possessions), which means one can not write off the 130 points per game on the pace they played; they also gave up points at an alarming rate (for context, the Toronto Raptors of 2009-2010, who have been the punch line of many a joke about their porous D, have a defensive rating of 112, compared to Denver's rating of 114.7 in 1990-91). And Michael Adams, no doubt, was, as the Nuggets best player, the face of this historically bad defense.

Another factor in Adams' lack of recognition certainly was his poor shooting percentages (.396 and .296) and his high turnover rate (3.6 per game). Adams did record 2.2 steals per game, but had a historically bad 115 defensive rating (the NBA-record for worst defensive rating while playing at least 50 games is 118).

[Tangent: Looking at Adams Basketball Reference page, I see that Adams was traded by the Nuggets after his 26 and 10 season along with first and second round picks (in 1991 and 1993, respectively) to the Wizards for their 1991 first round pick, which the Nuggets used on Mark Macon (who?). I am just befuddled by this. Unless Adams was one of those "best players" who was a bad teammate and ball-hog (see: Adams' 1421 field goal attempts) who, despite his positive on the court production, was a cancer off the court. Perhaps, I don't know.]

The biggest reason for Adams' lack of recognition probably stemmed from the Nuggets league worst 20-62 record. No way an MVP voter taps a player who only won 20 games. However, as I said earlier, Adams only played in 66 games. In those 66 games, the Nuggets went 19-47, meaning they were 1-15 without Adams in the lineup. That's got to count for something, right?

So what does all this mean? I'm not really sure. Part of why I was interested in the curious case of Michael Adams is the absurdity of a player having a historically statistically significant season and getting no recognition. I don't think we'll ever see another season like Michael Adams' 1990-91 season. The closest thing we have to Michael Adams this season is Monta Ellis - a gunner playing on the fastest team in the league (that is also one of the worst teams in the league) averaging 26 points per game. But Monta is only averaging 5 assists per game, while playing the second most minutes in the league. One thing is the same though: I can almost guarantee that Monta Ellis will not be on an All-NBA Team or get an MVP vote.

Of all the crazy statistical seasons the NBA has seen, Adams' is perhaps the strangest. Let's start to appreciate just how crazy it really was.