I only saw Webber at the tail end of his career when he came to Philly, and he was a complete disapointment from the first game. It may simply have been that the injury should have been the end, but if teams were willing to pay him, why not?
As fas as being a HOF'er, I'd say no. There was nothing special about Webber, he was just another 6'10" PF that never won a Championship. There was nothing dazzling about his game or his personality that made people want to cheer for him. Say what you want about Mullins, his fans loved him. Dominique, had moves that blew everyone away. He deserved to be in the HOF for his ability to play above the rim like he did. Miller was an all-time clutch shooter, one of the best percentage shooters to ever play the game.
What did Webber do that was so exceptional or noteworthy? As I see it, he was a very gifted young man who got a lot of breaks because of his talent. He wasn't particularly smart or innovative, he didn't appear to work on his game much at all, and only experinced success when he was with an offensive genius in Rick Adelman.
Maybe I'm being harsh because he stole money from the league for the past 3 years, but I'm a fan of the game, and he was on my team. He had a chance to make an impression and he did, but it wasn't one that motivates me to call him a HOF'er.
WOW, are you completely off your nut on this one, Rick. To say that Webber never worked on his game, or was not innovative? Apparently you are NOT much of a fan of the game, because your impression of Chris Webber is so wrong as to be like it comes from Uranus, <so to speak>. Webber was nothing BUT about the game. Sure, he made mistakes, but if anyone learned from them more fully then Chris Webber did, I would like to know who.
This is what Webber did, and let me lead in by saying this is what he did AFTER he was injured. He had signed a seven year deal for $120 million. After three years under that deal, he blew his knee out in what turned out to be the worse type of knee injury and surgery a basketball player could go through. The type that destroyed the careers of others, like Houston in New York.
While still with Sacramento, Webber worked as hard as humanly possible to get back on the court. After ten months of rehab work, he made it back and in his first game had a double-double. It soon was apparent that the smooth lateral movements he once displayed nightly were gone forever, however, so he was forced to compensate. He just was physically unable to keep up. So he went back to his off-court workouts and daily tried to regain that flexibility. The work he put his body through during this time was so rigorous that other Kings' players who tried to keep him company all failed to keep up with this workout and quit. This work he put in should alone be recognized as HOF background for him. In other words, no one understood that he was not earning his money as he once was more then Chris Webber did, and he did everything in his power to overcome it. He, unfortunately, could not, and this would have eaten away at him, from what I saw of him here in Sacramento.
Prior to being hurt, Webber, with the help of Divac, turned the Kings from a lottery team into a winning franchise and let me tell you, there is no way in hell the Kings would have been anywhere near as successful if Webber was not on that team. He was the difference.
The comparison with Ewing is not worthy. Ewing was a thug and a clod who couldn't find his shoes, let alone tie them, without someone pointing out where they were. Webber is probably one of the smartest guys ever to play in the NBA. His hobby, off court, is collecting historical artifacts of African-American heritage. He has done much to save this valuable collections of books and memorabilia, and once put his collection on display at the Crocker Art Museum here in Sacramento. His problems with some couches, such at the one he had in Philly (O'Brien??) was that these coaches tened to ignore the simple fact that, beyond the typical PF skills Chris had in scoring and rebounding, these coaches never understood how affective Webber could be if the offense ran through him, because his passing ability was his best skill of all. Why on earth would you not incorporate that aspect of his game into the offense? Rick Adelman took one look at how good a passer Chris was and completely changed his offense to one that went through either Divac or Webber - they were equals in the passing game.
If Webber had issues with coaches, it was only about how he should be used on the court. He feuded with Nelson in Golden State because of this, because Nelson wanted Chris to play like the standard PF you saw around the League back then. Nelson, as good a coach as he was, failed to see in Webber that he had a unique talent in a 6'10" kid and one who would voice his dislike of the way he was being used because Webber felt he could do more if allowed. THAT was one thing Webber never could tolerate and never let go without commenting on, giving him a reputation as a distruptive, negative guy in the lockeroom. Why this never came up in Sacramento was because Adelman say the skills and totally bought into how Webber saw the game should be played by him, and Webber proved to be totally correct up to his injury.
That Webber chose to retire after only a nine game comeback with Golden State is an indication that he would rather not play the game if he would hurt the team by doing so.
