Unseld v. McAdoo All-Time Great Center Match-up by Category

At 6'7, 245 pounds, Wes Unseld was immovable under the basket, and as the greatest outlet passing center in NBA history, had the edge in today's super match-up as a passer and rebounder. However, Bob McAdoo (taller at 6'9 but lighter at 210) has the edge as one of the greatest scoring centers and top half dozen shot blockers of all time.

Result of game added at bottom.

A look at the two Value Add Basketball Game cards for our next all-time tournament game between Louisville 1968 and UNC 1972 shows McAdoo with a better card on 4 items - steals, blocks, shooting and free throw shooting, while Unseld is stronger in another 4 including drawing fouls, rebounding when UNC misses as well as when Louisville misses, and finally passing. The explanation for each category appears below these photos.

Steals - Advantage McAdoo with an excellent steal range for a center of 11-15, compared to rare steals for Unseld at 11-11.

Blocks - Advantage McAdoo as one of a half dozen players in basketball history who not only blocks shots in the whole block range on the opposing center (21-26) but also blocks the shot of any player on the court on either a 32 or 66. The short Unseld is a good but not elite 21-25.

Fouls - both average at 35-36 committing fouls.

Turnovers - both average at 41-43.

Dunk and Adj Dunk - both a strong 51-56 dunking but also -6 on adjusting opponents dunk, so neither will get any automatic dunks or automatic stops in the 51-66 range against each other as those cancel out.

Field Goal Shooting - advantage McAdoo who scores on 1-11 when he gets a chance including a "and 1" on a roll a 1 on the 1-20 die. Unseld scores on 1-9.

Drawing Fouls - Advantage Unseld who draws fouls on a dominant five numbers - 10-14 - which can be the great equalizer since he has a much better chance of getting McAdoo in foul trouble to perhaps force UNC to use a much weaker defensive player like Craig Corson or Bobby Jones or worse yet foul out McAdoo.

Free throw shooting - Advantage McAdoo who makes free throws 80% of the time (1-16 on 20-sided die) while Unseld is 65% (1-13).

Rebounding on Louisville miss - Advantage Unseld whose 19 rebounds a game over 3 years is one of the greatest totals ever and gives him a 1-11 offensive rebounding meaning on an 10 or 20 on the 20-sided die for high rebounder in game goes to Unseld since offense gets the tiebreaker and McAdoo's defensive rebound is also 1-11. 

Rebounding on UNC miss - Advantage Unseld whose 1-11 defensive rebounding keeps the rebound against McAdoo's 1-8 offensive rebounding.

Assists - we do not have an actual assist factor on the cards, but it obviously improved every other players' shooting stats, and Unseld was one of the greatest passing centers in history and averaged 3.5 assists per game in the NBA compared to only 1.6 for McAdoo.

And we have an upset in this round. Unseld managed to play through 4 fouls and Louisville upset UNC 71-69 to survive and advance. Here is the scoresheet. UNC with 4 more rebounds but 3 mire turnovers.

Current tournament.

Seed	Men's unbeaten	Player #All-Time Rank	Round of 32 & Sweet 16
1	Connecticut 2023, #7	Adama Sanogo	bye (next Gonz-TX)
2	Connecticut 1996, #14	Ray Allen #52	bye (next SMU-KS)
3	Western Kentucky 1966, #24	Clem Haskins	bye (next UNC-Xavier)
4	Houston 2021, #26	Quentin Grimes	bye (next Duke-Mia)
5	Purdue 2024, #35	Zach Edey	W 69-42 vs. UMass 1971, #219 (2nd R Gtown-ASU)
6	Michigan 1993, #36	Chris Webber #65	W 73-62 vs Gonzaga 1981, #216 (if W TN-Ore St)
7	Rutgers 1976, #39	Phil Sellers	W 84-82 OT vs. Duquesne 2024, #203 (Col-LSU)
8	North Carolina 1972, #40	Bob McAdoo #54	L 69-71 vs Louisville 1968, #178 (eliminated)
9	UCLA 2008, #44	Russell Westbrook #46	v nc stare 2024, #153 (Lville)
10	Colorado 2021, #56	McKinley Wright	vs. LSU 1953, #147 (if W rutg)
11	Tennessee 2023, #59	Santiago Vescovi	vs. Oregon St. 1990, #140 (if W MI)
12	Georgetown 1989, #63	Alonzo Mourning #69	vs. Arizona St. 2009, #139 (if W Purdue)
13	Duke 2015, #65	Justise Winslow	vs. Miami 2023, #131 (if W Houston)
14	North Carolina 2022, #67	Armando Bacot	vs. Xavier 2023, #86 (if W West KY)
15	SMU 2017, #70	Semi Ojeleye	vs. Kansas 2022, #79 (if W Uconn 1996)
16	Texas 2023, #71	Marcus Carr	vs. Gonzaga 2023, #76 (if W Uconn 2023)
17	Gonzaga 2023, #76	Drew Timme	vs. Texas 2023, #71 (if W Uconn 2023)
18	Kansas 2022, #79	Ochai Agbaji	vs. SMU 2017, #70 (if W Uconn 1996)
19	Xavier 2023, #86	Jack Nunge	vs. North Carolina 2022, #67 (if W West KY)
20	Miami 2023, #131	Norchad Omier	vs. Duke 2015, #65 (if W Houston)
21	Arizona St. 2009, #139	James Harden #33	vs. Georgetown 1989, #63 (if W Purdue)
22	Oregon St. 1990, #140	Gary Payton #48	vs. Tennessee 2023, #59 (if W MI)
23	LSU 1953, #147	Bob Pettit #31	vs. Colorado 2021, #56 (if W Rutg)
24	NC St. 2024, #153	D.J. Burns	vs. UCLA 2008, #44 (if W Lville)
25	Louisville 1968, #178	Wes Unseld #60	W 71-69 vs. North Carolina 1972, #40 (UCLA-NC St)
26	Duquesne 2024, #203	Jimmy Clark	L 84-82 OT vs Rutgers 1976 (Eliminated)
27	Gonzaga 1981, #216	John Stockton #25	vs. Michigan 1993, #36 Eliminated
28	Massachusetts 1971, #219	Julius Erving #19	L 42-69 vs. Purdue 2024 #35, Eliminated

Debuts for Final 17 Great Teams Starts with Edey vs. 1948 NYU

Our 234 All-Time Great Men's teams, listed alphabetically here with records and average scores in our game, have combined for 269 games played leaving only these 17 teams listed yet to have played. Our primary focus is always to play every new team created at least once to catch any mistakes - a missing player, stamina that doesn't add up, a player seemingly out of position etc.

The following shows where each team ranks among our 234 all-time great teams - with UNC's Bob McAdoo team the highest ranked at 39th of all time and about +4 points better than the average great team in our game. the 2024 Purdue team is the only team from this season in the top 100 all time (since we already have the UConn 2023 team which ranked 7th of all time) and comes in at 27th place at one point higher than that UNC team at +5.
 

Prev	Team	Year	Top Player (top 75 all-time?)	Rating
164	Arizona St.	2009	James Harden #33	-6
166	California	1993	Jason Kidd #36	-6
152	Colorado St.	2024	Isaiah Stevens	-5
221	Duquesne	2024	Jimmy Clark	-15
227	Gonzaga	1981	John Stockton #25	-16
213	Grand Canyon	2024	Tyon Grant-Foster	-12
168	Louisville	1968	Wes Unseld #60	-6
230	Massachusetts	1971	Julius Erving #19	-18
189	NC State	2024	D.J. Burns	-7
39	North Carolina	1972	Bob McAdoo #54	+4
232	NYU	1948	Dolph Schayes #61	-19
234	Oakland	2024	Jack Gohlke	-20
174	Oregon St.	1990	Gary Payton #48	-6
27	Purdue	2024	Zach Edey	+5
207	Utah St.	2024	Great Osobor	-10
231	Weber St.	2010	Damian Lillard #68	-18
226	Yale	2024	Danny Wolf	-15

We started one tournament of a bunch of newer teams from the last few years a while ago, but then moved our attention to a tournament of all the teams we added to the game because they featured one of the best players of all-time but had not been in the game.

The bracket at the bottom of the games played so far among those 26 teams. Nine of those teams had yet to play, but we decided to mix up that tournament a bit when we chose the eight 2024 teams to add to the game, we decided to match them up with eight of the great players teams so that we wouldn't be playing 2024 teams against each other in this round.

The debut for the 1972 UNC team featuring Bob McAdoo was already scheduled in the bracket at the bottom - the 1960 Providence team led by great player Lenny Wilkens , who won their first game in the tournament against Marshall. The winner of that game will play a surprise Elite 8 team - LSU 1953.

The next pairing of 2024 teams against great player teams features these four games, with the winners playing a mini tournament and the winner filling the line in the great players bracket below to play Connecticut 1996 in that Elite 8.

We will start with one of our newest teams - Zach Edey and Purdue, against our second oldest team NYU from 1948. Only Wyoming has an older team in our game. We did not have stats to feature the 1945 team which somehow was national runner-up with a 14-7 mark, but they still had Dolph Schayes in 1948 when they went 22-4 so we used that team.  

The second pairing is below, and the winner will now face the Michigan 1993 team.

With the adjustment of the games above to fill the lines below, we will continue with that Elite 8 once the 17 teams above played their games.

New Cards for 22 of Greatest 75 Players for New Teams

Click here for the google sheet or on the images below for the 22 all-time great players for the new Value Add Basketball Game teams we are now creating.

The four other new teams we are adding are from the www.kenpom.com era, so I can make them based on those stats and do the whole team at a time. The coincidentally are based on four incredible players in four consecutive seasons who made the Athletic list of the greatest 75 players of all time;

Texas 2007 Kevin Durant #13 player of all time.

UCLA 2008 Russell Westbrook #46 player of all time.

Arizona St. 2009 James Harden #33 player of all time.

Weber St. 2010 Damian Lillard #68 player of all time.

The process for the 20^th century teams takes much longer, and one step we always do is compare the NBA stats of the great players, particularly for stats not kept on college when they played (minutes played, three point shots, steals, blocked shots etc).

We basically took each players best NBA season (obviously against much tougher competition than they faced in college, and assumed they’d draw more fouls and hit 10% more of their 3-point shots (much closer arc) and 2-point shots (much easier defenders).

Below are the cards we created for each player. Note the dunk range and adjusted defense range are all the same, 51-56 and -6. These are usually for the whole team to adjust for level of competition, however since these players cards are based on playing against NBA players we don’t need to adjust the cards down for the ones who played lighter competition.

Durant, Westbrook, Harden and Lillard will be created with the rest of their teams from www.kenpom.com, but we will later add the 22 teams that go with these players.

Do note on the cards below that some great players from the days when front line players played inside, often with their backs to the basket, and would never have taken a 3-pointer, have no 3-pointers but do score and get fouled on a "1" on the 20-sided die roll instead.

Blue numbers on these stats were estimated using various methods because those stats were not kept then.

Here are the College Basketball links to the players above.

Jason Kidd Robert Parish Ray Allen Dave Cowens Allen Iverson Alonzo Mourning John Stockton Karl Malone Wes Unseld Bob Pettit Hal Greer Julius Erving Chris Webber Bob McAdoo Billy Cunningham Dolph Schayes Gary Payton Lenny Wilkens Steve Nash Walt Frazier Reggie Miller Tiny Archibald