Dwyane Wade and John Havlicek

So yesterday was John Havlicek's 70th birthday and today will be the final game in future Hall of Famer Dwyane Wade's career. This (in my mind at least) begs the question of who was the better player.

The similarities between the two players is pretty pronounced. Start with the size - Wade 6'4" and 220 pounds vs Havlicek's 6'5" and 203 pounds. In Havlicek's final season he averaged 16.1 points plus 4 assists and 4 rebounds per game. Not including tonight's finale Wade this season has averaged 14.7 points along with 4.1 assists and 3.9 rebounds. Pretty close for two guys in their age 37 seasons.

For their careers Havlicek averaged 20.8 points per game to Wade's 22 per game; 6.3 rebounds to Wade's 4.7; and 4.8 assists per game to Wade's 5.4. Pretty close especially when you consider that Wade was playing point or shooting guard while Hondo was a shooting guard or small forward. You should also consider that the three point shot didn't exist in Havlicek's day. If it did then Hondo probably would have averaged more than Wade's 22 points per game since Havlicek was the better shooter as evidenced by his better free-throw percentage (81.5% vs 76.5%). 

Havlicek was a 13-time NBA All-Star just like Wade. While it is a big deal that Wade won 3 NBA Championships with the Heat - let's not forget that Havlicek owns 8 Championship rings from his career with the Celtics.

The whole point of this isn't to take anything away from Wade especially on the day of his final game. It just saddens me that Havlicek seems completely forgotten and the two were almost identical. It would piss me off though to see Wade listed above Havlicek on any of those greatest players of the NBA lists.