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Who was the best point guard to play at UK?

Maybe if Wall had stayed 4 years,but as far as accomplishments at UK it's hard to beat Ralph Beard,then probably names like Frank Ramsey (who was 6'3" by the way),Kyle Macy come to mind.
False. He would've jumped over those tiny F'ers and put his nuts on their heads.

I won't argue that Wall is a great Point guard,but he only spent one year at Kentucky and lost in the Elite Eight,that doesn't qualify him as the best guard at Kentucky in my book,many others accomplished more while here,if Wall had stayed 3 years and won a Championship,not that I blame him for taking the $$$ and going pro.
All the players back then weren't tiny,and your obvious disdain for white players is funny considering some of the greatest point guards even in the NBA were White,tell Steve Nash he wasn't good.
 
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[laughing] then what the **** is it supposed to be? Some can say "he's the best player that played point guard but not the best point guard." Makes no sense. People drum down his shooting but overlook his passing. He's arguably also the best passing PLAYER to ever play at UK as well regardless of position. Don't you want your PGs setting people up?

You fellers are funny.
Go compare Walls stats to all the other greats at UK on Jon Scott's site and get back to us,what he is doing in the NBA doesn't qualify him for what he did at Kentucky,that's the difference,hell Rondo wasn't that great at UK either,but is a dyno in the NBA
 
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If we're talking the best player to ever play point guard here, then it is Wall easily. If we're being stubborn about it only being based on what they did here, then it opens up a little bit, even though I think I still take Wall. Macy would be the only other guy I would consider. Beard is the most accomplished but if I were actually putting a team together I am not taking a chance on a guy who played back in the 40's.
 
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Still don't understand what you guys are arguing. I'm team Macy. Pay attention.

Didn't have that great of an NBA career and wasn't a good coach but what he did at UK will live on forever. Best UK PG of all time. Please try to keep up with the discussion.
Not being antagonistic here - I'm confused. You were saying Wall in a lot of posts, now it's all Macy. Were you being tongue-in-cheek about Wall, or did you just change your mind?
 
I think this thread has has morphed into the most athletic PG at UK. Wall would win that for sure. Best pure PG? No way. Those who say otherwise most likely never watched #4 play live.
The "pure pg" thing is a stupid argument. No one ever goes into detail about what that means. As I've already said, Wall has proven to be the best player to ever play pg here. The only way this is even an argument is if we're being stubborn about saying college only.
 
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It absolutely shocks me that the discussion of who the best point guard in UK history is / was can always go multiple pages without Ed Davender getting at least one mention. When his career at UK ended he was 4th all-time in assists, 7th all-time in scoring, 1st all-time in steals. By no means has he been pushed way down. He remains the highest scoring point guard in UK history. Was he the best? No. But his career stats very well may be.
 
The "pure pg" thing is a stupid argument. No one ever goes into detail about what that means. As I've already said, Wall has proven to be the best player to ever play pg. The only way this is even an argument is if we're being stubborn about saying college only.

Please explain how he accomplished this? If its proven, there must be a record of accomplishment somewhere. Because this is your opinion...doesn't make it fact. Neither does mine. The numbers are the only thing in stone and they tell a different story.
 
[laughing] then what the **** is it supposed to be? Some can say "he's the best player that played point guard but not the best point guard." Makes no sense..

You are smarter than this. Methinks you just enjoy giving it to the old guys. ;)

Michael Vick was the best athlete to ever play quarterback. He wasn't anything close to the best quarterback to ever play.
 
Please explain how he accomplished this? If its proven, there must be a record of accomplishment somewhere. Because this is your opinion...doesn't make it fact. Neither does mine. The numbers are the only thing in stone and they tell a different story.
The fact that Wall has and will continue to have a much longer and more successful pro career? I don't think that's debatable. As I have said, the only way this is an argument is if you are comparing freshman Wall to whatever version of Macy you want to use, otherwise it isn't a contest.
 
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The fact that Wall has and will continue to have a much longer and more successful pro career? I don't think that's debatable. As I have said, the only way this is an argument is if you are comparing freshman Wall to whatever version of Macy you want to use, otherwise it isn't a contest.
I'm confused. I thought this was the best PG at UK, not the NBA. COmpare JW stats to any year you choose of KM and holler back after you get educated on facts....I mean stats.
 
I'm confused. I thought this was the best PG at UK, not the NBA. COmpare JW stats to any year you choose of KM and holler back after you get educated on facts....I mean stats.
Macy's senior year would be the only one that is comparable. Even then the only thing Macy has on him is that he is more efficient from the floor and turns it over less.
 
Macy's senior year would be the only one that is comparable. Even then the only thing Macy has on him is that he is more efficient from the floor and turns it over less.
Lets add....better shooter, better passer. Not to mention dude was ice cold at end of game situations. Listen, I like JW, He's just not Kyle Macy and his jersey will never hang in the rafters. He never won a title for UK.
 
It absolutely shocks me that the discussion of who the best point guard in UK history is / was can always go multiple pages without Ed Davender getting at least one mention. When his career at UK ended he was 4th all-time in assists, 7th all-time in scoring, 1st all-time in steals. By no means has he been pushed way down. He remains the highest scoring point guard in UK history. Was he the best? No. But his career stats very well may be.

Davender belongs nowhere near the other guys in this conversation. I know his career stat totals are impressive, but this is one of those cases where the stats are misleading. I always thought Davender was about the ballhoggingest and most selfish shoot-first point guard we've had here. There's a reason no NBA team would touch him after his UK career ended.

Besides that, Davender spent his first two years primarily playing the shooting guard position (with Roger Harden running point), not the point. He only moved over to point his junior year after Harden graduated. And, frankly, he worked better for us as a shooting guard, because he played with an SG mindset. The two years when he ran point were disappointing ones where the team underperformed in relation to its talent level and pre-season expectations.
 
Again, Wall is clearly the best PG to play at UK. He was amazing his one year here, and all these other guys played more than one year...if Wall played 2-3 years I doubt the silly arguments would be had.

he didn't play two or three years, and he wasn't the player he is now
 
[laughing]

I respect the past just fine for what it was then, but it's just a fact that most athletes from 60 years ago aren't near the same kind of athletes they are today in general. You could probably take any 6th man on an NBA roster today and he'd be an All-Star in the 60s. It's just different. Bigger, faster, more athletic. Same as you could take Barry Bonds in his roided up heyday and stick him in the Majors in the 30s and he'd hit 100 homeruns against those joker pitcher lobbing up 80-85 mph fastballs. It'd be batting practice.

walter johnson threw 100. only mental midgets are incapable of grasping the concept of evaluating players based on what they were relative to their respective peers, anyway

rondo was a better college pg than wall, he was just tethered to stiffs
 
Oh I agree. Absolutely. "Genetics" is the difference alright.

Can't bring myself to choose anyone other than Macy no matter how hard I try. Dude was complete... a steady hand that dominated. Put him in today's game and he's a modern day Steve Nash IMO. Good discussion by all. Great job, guys.


yeah, he was an nba journeyman in his era, but he'd be steve nash 20 years later.

makes sense.
 
Good point. I don't think there's ever been a UK guard that made me feel more confident with the ball in his hands than Kyle Macy. With Wall you were never quite sure what he'd do with it, he might do something spectacular, or he might throw away a bad turnover. But with Macy you just always knew he was gonna make the right decision with the ball.

If we're purely basing this on what they did "at UK", and not their NBA career, I think Macy would be my choice. Obviously Wall's the more talented player, but he was only here one year and hadn't yet worked out the kinks in his game at that time.
Okay, if we are going to put qualifiers in there don't just stop at one. In my opinion too many people are comparing Macy as a senior to John Wall as a freshman. What did KM do his freshman year? I don't know the stats so I'm asking.
Also, from watching films of games from the 70's and 80's everyone looked slower to me, I believe the game was not as fast back in those days. Don't even get me started on what it looked like in the 40's and 50's.
 
but that's not the question. The question is "best PG", not "best point guard in comparison to their respective era".

Put Ralph Beard on the 2010 team and they're no better. Put John Wall on one of Beard's teams and... well... [roll]. The way it's worded is cut and dry.

You sure about that? He had Cousins, Patterson, Bledsoe & Miller & couldn't lead them to a title.
 
Try it this way. My OPINION is that Kyle Macy was a much better PG than John Wall and I got to see both in person. What other things is he better at?? Kyle was not deficient in any one particular area. NONE. Dude was nearly perfection in motion. JW was a runaway train at times. Tell me one area JW was better than Kyle at that were backed up by stats. I'm listening. You saying he was the best player at UK period is debatable when he wasn't even the best at his position. I think Anthony Davis recently comes to mind.
When do we get to compare KM as a freshman to JW as a freshman? Can we compare John Wall as a 22 year old to KM when he was a senior in college (AKA 22 years old)? Or is that not fair? Seems like we are comparing KM as a junior and Senior to JW as a freshman.
 
I think this is the wrong way to look at it. To suggest that people from the 50's would not be capable of elevating their game to compete with players today is a little misguided. The only difference in people today and in the 50's is training techniques have improved. Athletic ability is genetics. There are great athletes in every era. You can't just assume that people from different eras have less physical ability than people today, given the same training techniques. John Wall in the 1950's wouldn't have been the John Wall of today.
Everybody has a ceiling when it comes to athleticism. Wall's is much higher than everyone else mentioned.
 
When do we get to compare KM as a freshman to JW as a freshman? Can we compare John Wall as a 22 year old to KM when he was a senior in college (AKA 22 years old)? Or is that not fair? Seems like we are comparing KM as a junior and Senior to JW as a freshman.
Not really. We are comparing UK careers not how they played at a certain age. Unfortunately we only have one year of John Walls work to compare to Kyles. His one year is not better than Macys career.
 
Picture John Wall playing against 5'11" white guys and a 6'3" center. Is this really that hard?
That's the problem right there. The John Wall of that era would not be the John Wall you are picturing today. The Ralph Beard of that era playing today would also be a different player. There is no way to compare players from different eras because training, availability of gym time, etc., is dramatically different from one era to another.
 
The "best ever" debates are always interesting. 60 years from now, while some kids are debating this, one will say, "And don't tell me John Wall, he played in a different era when the game wasn't close to what it is now". I always look at these as the best/most accomplished in his era because it's impossible to compare eras. I will say this...what Ralph Beard led his team to in a 12 month period is amazing. He leads his team to a National Championship, goes to London and leads his team to an Olympic Gold Medal and comes back and leads his team to another National Championship, all while going 74-4 and being 1st Team All American both years. Alumni Gym would be proud of me!
The problem for many players of yesteryear is integration . When you consider that most of today's teams are comprised of black players and they are overwhelmingly the best players , it's difficult to imagine that players from earlier would really match up . They didn't produce better white players back then and today has a bigger population pool of white players to choose from but there is a very small handful of elite white players . I think their impact would be greatly diminished if they played in the modern era , they were great in their time but I'm not buying anything that suggests they were on par . Bottomline is there would be equal amounts of white players being stars on the elite teams but there's not , there's the answer .
 
Maybe if Wall had stayed 4 years,but as far as accomplishments at UK it's hard to beat Ralph Beard,then probably names like Frank Ramsey (who was 6'3" by the way),Kyle Macy come to mind.


I won't argue that Wall is a great Point guard,but he only spent one year at Kentucky and lost in the Elite Eight,that doesn't qualify him as the best guard at Kentucky in my book,many others accomplished more while here,if Wall had stayed 3 years and won a Championship,not that I blame him for taking the $$$ and going pro.
All the players back then weren't tiny,and your obvious disdain for white players is funny considering some of the greatest point guards even in the NBA were White,tell Steve Nash he wasn't good.
Did Beard and Ramsey win titles their freshman years? You touched on the one problem with this whole thread. Had wall stayed 3 or 4 years this wouldn't be a discussion. He had so much more potential than anyone else mentioned and we are seeing that now that he is a star in the NBA. Were Beard, Ramsey or Macy ever successful in the NBA? Wall is dominant at the NBA level, his teammates in college were also mainly freshmen so some of his lack of success was on them. Meanwhile the teams the other guards played on were veteran teams and there weren't as many teams that were good enough to win back then. There is a lot more parity now.
 
Everybody has a ceiling when it comes to athleticism. Wall's is much higher than everyone else mentioned.
I'm not arguing against Wall or in favor of anyone else. I'm just saying you can't really compare players from different eras. I never saw Beard play. Not sure what his athletic ceiling would be compared to Wall with the same training opportunities. That being said, I don't think it really matters. Athleticism is great, but it doesn't necessarily make someone a better basketball player.
 
It absolutely shocks me that the discussion of who the best point guard in UK history is / was can always go multiple pages without Ed Davender getting at least one mention. When his career at UK ended he was 4th all-time in assists, 7th all-time in scoring, 1st all-time in steals. By no means has he been pushed way down. He remains the highest scoring point guard in UK history. Was he the best? No. But his career stats very well may be.
So we are putting his career stats up against Wall's Freshman only stats right?
Gotchya.
Can we use Wall's stats from his first three year in the league? He played against top competition those years so it sounds fair to me.
 
walter johnson threw 100. only mental midgets are incapable of grasping the concept of evaluating players based on what they were relative to their respective peers, anyway

rondo was a better college pg than wall, he was just tethered to stiffs
Ridiculous.

Wall finished 2nd in POY voting. They don't vote on that based on potential, they vote on that based on how a guy actually plays. If Rondo was a better college PG than Wall, then he did one hell of a good job of concealing it.

John Wall is being thoroughly disrespected by a whole lot of people in this thread. There was a reason he was 1st team AA, there was a reason he went #1 overall in the draft, and there was a reason his team won 35 games. Some people around here seem to have really, really short memories.
 
Lets add....better shooter, better passer. Not to mention dude was ice cold at end of game situations. Listen, I like JW, He's just not Kyle Macy and his jersey will never hang in the rafters. He never won a title for UK.
So Macy was a better shooter and passer than Wall when KM was a freshman? I never knew that.
 
When do we get to compare KM as a freshman to JW as a freshman? Can we compare John Wall as a 22 year old to KM when he was a senior in college (AKA 22 years old)? Or is that not fair? Seems like we are comparing KM as a junior and Senior to JW as a freshman.

Well...that's when they were point guards at UK.
 
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