How good was Sam Lacey? Who is a good modern comp for him?

[RRR3]

Looking at his stats, pretty rare combination of steals and assists for a center. https://www.basketball-reference.com/players/l/laceysa01.html#header

I imagine maybe only Kblaze and xiao are old enough to have seen him among active posters, and he might even predate them

[Kblaze8855]

I was alive and in front of a tv but neither old enough to have a valid informed opinion nor in the right market to know his game in his prime. Tontoz may be but in those days you didn’t see much of teams in Kansas City. Oddly enough I do have memory of Otis Birdsong and Phil Ford though.

[RRR3]

I was alive and in front of a tv but neither old enough to have a valid informed opinion nor in the right market to know his game in his prime. Tontoz may be but in those days you didn’t see much of teams in Kansas City. Oddly enough I do have memory of Otis Birdsong and Phil Ford though.
His stats kind of resemble Joakim Noahs, but I have no idea if that's a good comp. What happened to Phil Ford after his 3rd season?

[Kblaze8855]

I suspect he was one of those guys who comes in with so much college prestige you kinda give him the keys and let him go…and come to realize he’s good but not gonna be generational. Just calling Card was having handles and quickness enough that you couldn’t take the ball from him in college before the shot clock. He’s pretty much the reason college adopted a shot clock. They would get a lead spread the floor and just let them dribble around for four minutes.

It was an old concept, but they really ran it into the ground.

I liked him but he wasn’t as good in the nba as his college reputation. They probably just realized he’s another really good guard but not someone to love and die by.

[Kblaze8855]

I could have cleaned this up quite a bit but….i did make a Phil Ford video for some long forgotten point I was making



https://youtu.be/k5bRLSq-1Mo?si=WDMBfe4wt39JCWbz


I think I put the crowd erupting while he killed time as a laugh though.

[RRR3]

I mean his scoring absolutely tanked after his 81 season in which he was only 24. He was out of the league not too long after.