Milwaukee Bucks: 3 players who were snubbed from NBA 75 list

As you may have seen, well, everywhere on social media, the NBA finished its list of the greatest 75 players in its history commemorating their 75th season. There was plenty of debate as to who should and should not have been on the list (mostly the latter), but who are the snubs for the Milwaukee Bucks in particular?

Throughout the long history of the Bucks, there have been many legends that have played for the franchise in some capacity, as evidenced by the eight former Bucks that made the list. Giannis Antetokounmpo, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Oscar Robertson, Ray Allen, Moses Malone, Dave Cowens, Gary Payton, and Tiny Archibald all represented the Bucks in some fashion.

However, despite the decent number, there are still some guys who should have been on the list that didn’t make it for one reason or another. Of course, it’s tough to narrow down the greatest 75 players in any league’s history and there will always be players who fans think should be on the list that didn’t make it. It’s easy to say who shouldn’t be on the list without being forced to take someone off the list, but that’s what I’m going to do anyway!

I’m not saying these guys should be locks, but just that there should be more consideration among the general population. Perhaps they’ll make it on the NBA 100 list in 25 years but for now, they’re on the outside looking in.

3 Milwaukee Bucks who were snubbed from the NBA 75 list: Bob Lanier

He may not be known as a Milwaukee Buck with the large portion of his career coming with the Detroit Pistons, but Bob Lanier is still all-in-all a Bucks legend who has his number 16 retired by the franchise.

He played a total of 274 games with the organization after 681 with the Pistons. For his career, he averaged 20.1 points, 10.1 rebounds, 3.1 assists, 1.1 steals, and 1.5 blocks. At his peak, Lanier averaged over 23 points and 12 boards with almost two blocks. He was an absolute force at both ends of the floor and was one of the truly dominant big men of his era.

He’s an eight-time All-Star, won the All-Star game MVP in 1973-74, and was inducted into the Hall of Fame. He played on some pretty poor Pistons teams which held him back from winning a championship, but once he came to the Bucks and joined forces with Marques Johnson and Sidney Moncrief, he was consistently in the playoffs.

His career was cut relatively short at the age of 35 when he retired due to knee problems but was still averaging 13.6 points and 6.3 boards per game in his final season. According to Ben Rohrbach of Yahoo! Sports’ Russell Scale, Lanier should have been in the top 75 players based on the criteria of his model.

It’s always hard to include a player who didn’t have a lot of playoff success at his peak, but Lanier was a dominant player in the regular season and, when his teams did make it, in the playoffs as well.