Alvin Robertson may be the best perimeter defender to ever play the game of basketball.  Michael Jordan certainly thought so.  Robertson still leads the league in most steals per game, and is one of a handful of backcourt players to win Defensive Player of the Year.  A four-time All-Star, Robertson wasn’t only about defense as almost 11,000 points can attest.  He was a complete player who averaged 14 points and both 5 assists and boards a game.  However it is the legacy of Alvin Robertson to be known as that of a big guard who could shut down anyone in the league.

Terry Porter is one of the best NBA players ever to come from a Division II school.  He was so highly regarded form tiny Wisconsin-Stevens Point that he was invited to the 1984 Olympic trials where he almost made the team; but was in the final cut with Charles Barkley and John Stockton.  A solid career followed for Porter in the NBA primarily with the Portland Trail Blazers where he teamed with Clyde Drexler to form one of the best backcourts in the league for almost a decade.  He would make two Finals appearances but failed to earn a ring despite being one of the best shooting point guards ever.  Porter will be remembered for those great appearances in the Finals and a long career but is a long shot to get in.  Of course he was a long shot to even make the league too.

Derek Harper was the partner in crime and backcourt mate of Rolando Blackman for almost a decade in Dallas.  Ironically the closest they ever came to a title is when they were both traded to the Knicks and they came within one game of winning the championship in 1994.  Harper was one of the best all around point guards of his era as he was a great defender who had size and quickness and could both score and distribute.  Harper is widely regarded as one of the best players to never make an All-Star game and when he retired he was 11th in steals and 17th in assists in NBA history.  1,200 regular season games and over 16,000 points don’t hurt his argument either.  Is a solid and consistent career with good overall stats enough to get him in?

The image most of us have of Big Bill is getting an entry pass from the wing and throwing his turnaround jumper over some defender and watching it bounce around four or five times and go in; or of course elbowing someone in the face (inadvertently of course) while going for the rebound.  Bill Cartwright was the very definition of old school 70’s and 80’s basketball which carried over to the next decade.  It was also his trade from the Knicks for Charles Oakley that put the Bulls over the top and was the catalyst for the Bulls first three peat.  That seems to be forgotten for some reason.