His name is Clyde, and not many people know this name; if his full name is Clyde Drexler is said, some people may know who the protagonist is today, but there are still people who will feel strange. Compared to his name, the nickname "Glider" is more well-known, but as the top quarterback of Jordan's contemporaries, his light is still somewhat obscured. Many people know that Drexler has heard that there is such a second boss on the road to victory of big dreams, and then because of his nickname, it is easy to guess that he is good at dunking. But Drexler is actually an all-around striker similar to Jordan, and longer than Jordan in showing the all-around. At that time, the outside stars were generally not well known except for Jordan Magician, etc., but they were definitely powerful. And a player like Drexler wasn't a short man who rose tall to become the second quarterback at the time, and his abilities and accomplishments were beyond reproach at any time.
Drexler
Overall data and accolades
Overall stats: 1,086 appearances, including 950 starts, averaging 34.6 minutes per game, 20.4 points, 6.1 rebounds (2.4 front boards), 5.6 assists, 2.03 steals, 0.66 blocks, shooting 47.2%, shooting 31.8% from three-point range, and shooting 78.8% from free throws.
Honors: 1 Best First Team, 2 Best Second Team, 2 Best Third Team, 1 Championship, 10 All-Star, Inducted into the Hall of Fame
Drexler's career record
Drexler, as a great shooting guard of the '90s, his name is rarely mentioned, but he deserves a place when talking about historical point guards. In his 15-year career, he played for the Blazers and Rockets, and he painted a colorful picture of the history of the NBA. Career total 22,195 points, 6,677 rebounds, 6,125 assists, 2,207 steals, including 32nd in scoring history, 34th in assists history, and 8th in steals history. And before him, only big-oskar Robertson and John Havellicek could have scored 20,000 points, 6,000 rebounds, and 6,000 assists at the same time.
Drexler career regular season stats at a glance
The league's expectations for Drexler are rising as Drexler's career progresses and gradually comes out. This can be seen from Drexler's fall to 14th place in the first round of the draft before being selected by the Blazers, and the first two seasons of 162 games are almost full attendance, but only 46 of them are started, mainly because of the same position with The All-Star guard Jim Parkerson, who is at the peak of skill and body at the same time, and without the encouragement from the Blazers management, Coach Ramsey obviously will not take care of himself to reuse Drexler.
However, from the 1986-87 season, Drexler began to emerge, and together with The Magician and Bird, he became the only three players in the league to average 21 points (21.7 points), 6 rebounds (6.3 points) and 6 assists (6.9), in addition to 2.49 steals per game. Since then, he has scored 20 points in seven seasons of his career, and he has always been able to get 5 rebounds and 5 assists, all of which prove his comprehensive skills. Its peak was the 1991-1992 season, which played 76 games that season, averaging 36.2 minutes per game, with a shooting rate of 47% of the game to cut 25 + 6.6 + 6.7, and 1.8 steals and 0.9 blocks, the team 57 wins and 25 losses in the First League of the West tied for second place. He was also selected for the only first team of his career that season, and MVP ranked second (22.48% of the vote) and led the team to the finals.
Drexler playoff stats at a glance
On the performance of the playoffs, there is no doubt that the three seasons of 89-92 are his masterpieces, 58 games in three years, although the team failed to win the championship, but Drexler's performance is also perfect enough, especially in the 91-92 playoffs, averaging 40.3 minutes per game, cutting 26.3 + 7.4 + 7 data. And the performance of the three finals? Drexler played 39.7 minutes per game against Jordan in the 1992 Finals, scoring 24.8+7.8+5.3 with 40.7% shooting, plus 1.3 blocks with 1.0 blocks. The five statistics are in the top five of the two teams' statistics, and in the team, it is the first in points, assists, steals, rebounds, and blocks; but helplessly he faces God, and the team eventually loses six games; but Drexler's personal performance in the 1990 Finals is even more amazing, the entire playoffs are 21+7+7, but the finals are 26+8+6, shooting 54%; in the 1995 Finals, the 33-year-old has a stable output of 21+9+7, shooting 45%. And these were also the highlights of his personal career.
Drexler's career-high-level stats at a glance
Drexler had only one best squad, which was an important proof that he was considered insufficient. An important reason for this result is that Drexler entered the peak late, and the peak period was too short due to injuries and adaptations to the team's playing style, and as the second place to enter the NBA a year earlier than Jordan, his career golden age has always lived in the huge shadow of the No. 23 red and black jersey. Drexler entered the league at the age of 21 and for the first four years of his career the team's top scorer was the excellent shooter Van der Velvez. Drexler officially began to become the Blazers' top scorer in the '87-88 season, and was named to the All-Team for many years. However, in the 92-93 and 93-94 seasons, he was plagued by injuries, and at this time he was 32 years old, and he was unable to maintain his top competitiveness, and it was difficult to achieve success after winning another three-game in the first season of the Rockets.
However, Drexler seized the short peak period of three finals, two independent breakouts, one strong auxiliary to win the championship; including two team finals in the first nine years of the Blazers (lost to the Pistons and Bulls, respectively), and once led the team to the West Finals (lost to the Magicians of the Lakers), which is actually a very remarkable achievement, has proved that its peak height is waterless. And the most interesting point is that although Drexler has limited time to maintain the top level, until 1998, when he retired, the 36-year-old could still play 70 games, play 35 minutes, and average 18.4 + 4.9 + 5.5 + 1.8 per game. In fact, in addition to the rookie's first year averaging 7.7 points per game, Drexler's average per game has never been lower than 17+5+5. It can be said that Drexler's peak performance in his career is very strong, and the overall performance is always at a high level of competition.
On technology: a well-rounded glider
Clyde Drexler is called "Glider" by fans, first, because the pronunciation of "glider" in English is very similar to Drexler's name Clyde; second, it fully reflects Drexler's excellent bounce and long-gliding dunk characteristics. Isaiah Thomas once said: "In my time, there were three real flyers – Michael (His Majesty the Flyer), Dominic (the essence of human cinema) and Clyde (glider)". They are the ones who really play above the basket.
In actual combat, Drexler was able to bomb the basket from a variety of different angles at halftime and with a variety of fancy dunk actions, not necessarily very high, but very far, with obvious traces of stagnation, elegant gliding and extremely beautiful, worthy of the name of a generation of historical real combat dunks. The empty spacer Byron Scott, the breakthrough Joe Dumas into a 2+1 dunk, the breakthrough of the 2.31m dunk of the giant Manute Pol, the conversion of the offensive catch directly with David Robinson, and the rookie season to play the Lakers' signature gliding one-handed dunk, all of which are breathtaking. And many of his actual dunks have occurred in the playoffs, which shows that in fact, the dunk ability is historical.
Drexler dunked
In addition, Drexler, who is 2 meters 01 tall, can not only jump, but also extremely fast. The playing style is the same as Jordanko, which is typical of the "front guard swing man", a position that Jordan and the glider "developed". Technically, he has quite good rebounding ability in the guard, quite fierce for rebounding, averaging 2.4 rebounds per game in his career, comparable to a center; has a good passing vision and technique, and is willing to share the ball; has good strength and confrontation, which may be second only to Jordan's first-class counterattack weapon. The familiar glider scene should be in the offensive and defensive transition where he steps on his long legs, quickly advances with the ball, or assists teammates, or his own dunk to end, which is the greatest value of his technical characteristics, almost foolproof. You can either advance with the ball or run fast to finish. He always keeps his head down when dribbling, but it's puzzling that he can always spot teammates who are in the best position in the fast attack and pass the ball to them to score easily; if the teammates don't have a good chance, he can ride alone and score straight to the basket, which is extremely efficient on the offensive end.
Drexler layup
And it is worth saying that at its peak, Drexler is one of the few players in his class who knows how to control the desire to shoot and knows how to grasp the timing and opportunity of the attack. There are two points to prove the height of his desire to control the shot: First, throughout Drexler's career, the regular season has played a total of 22 games of 40+, which is definitely a small number of players of the same level, but he is rare in that he is all completed with 15 to 30 sports battles; second, there are only 10 regular matches with at least 30 career sports battles, only 2 games in more than 30 regular games, and only 33 times in the most sports battles.
Super steals ability almost accompanied Drexler's entire NBA career, 15 seasons he averaged 1.0 or more steals per season, usually in a certain wing without the ball to defend the attacker, the teammates who looked at the top of the arc forced the attacker to control the ball behind the arc had to give the ball to the attacker who Drexler was defending as soon as possible, intercept the passing route, and directly snatch the ball down; yes, it is indeed a gambling defense, and many players whose basic defensive skills are not solid enough will also be. The steal ability is not equal to the defensive ability, Drexler's overall performance on the defensive end can only be considered medium, the basic defensive skills are not solid enough, and the skill points on the defensive end are still not high enough after entering the peak period.
Drexler defends Anderson
At the same time, Drexler's weakness is also very distinct, he does not have many tricks in the position war, unstable projection ability seriously limits his play in the playoffs, rather than saying that Drexler is good at breaking through, it is better to say that Drexler likes to break through, unstable shooting posture has plagued him for a long time, looking at his jump shot action, he understands that it belongs to the type of action that is not very scientific and close to the people, and will never be recommended to basketball beginners; throughout the entire player career, Drexler has not practiced until the shooting ability to ensure excellent stability after the decline in athleticism. If he can't run fast attacks, he doesn't have Jordan's ability to tear apart the defense with a single cover, only the average All-Star level singles ability. To maximize his role, he needs to have a good defensive lineup to play counter-attacks, and a single player (Terry Porter or Olajuwon) who can eat a lot of balls with good efficiency to avoid the stall battle, and among the stars of the same level, he is not good at opening up the situation with strong shots in the position war.
Big Dreams with Drexler
On career: There is no doubt that it is the number two quarterback of Jordan's era
The 90s were the world of the interior, and Jordan's brilliance was so great that many excellent outside players before and after were covered up, including "Iceman" George Gervin, "human film essence" Wilkins, Bernard King, who was the top Jordan scorer, etc., and even if they were also God's defeated players, Drexler and Gary Payton never received the same attention. Although the inner line is king in this era, the top masters among the outside players still exist, and each has a unique skill and a wonderful career. Jordan is indeed invincible, but this does not mean that peers are not enough to take a view. Drexler was written because, in his personal opinion, combined with honors and records, Drexler should be the second quarterback of this period, and among the other marginalized outside stars, Drexler may have the heaviest weight. In my personal opinion, among the retired quarterbacks in history, Drexler can rank sixth in history.
Drexler career statistics
Combined with his career, Drexler's shortcomings are of course obvious. His personal performance is slightly stable, the highest single game in his career is only 50 points, 30+, 40+ times is not explosive enough, and the number of times he plays a single game is also very small. Drexler has never been selected for the defensive team, the defense as a whole is not outstanding, and the offensive end is not strong enough to make up for this deficiency. To put it mildly, if Michael Jordan did not have the athletic ability at the peak of his body, he could still be like the Bird Magician in the middle and late stages of his career, still have the ability to dedicate several seasons of his peak to the fans, and have the ability to lead the team to actually compete for the championship; but Clyde Drexler may be completely away from his own peak.
Jordan with Drexler
In the memory of later generations, Drexler has been reduced to a flying buckle general image, in fact Drexler is good at various skills while working in the air. Drexler gave full play to his all-around ability because of the quality of his teammates, and led the team to a high height, but his personal attack has not yet reached the level of a big killer, so it is difficult to determine in the finals. Drexler's collaboration with Big Dream is perfect, and Drexler is even more comfortable as the second core. If a few years earlier had collaborated, perhaps one of the biggest dreams in history jordan would have been a reality.
But then again, the measure of whether a player can talk about greatness in history is never just whether he leads the team to win the championship during his career.
Basketball itself is a pleasure, not a win or a loss. —Clyde Drexler
Summary: Low-key stalker
Due to Drexler's limited personal honor, the personality of the court is also in line with his own personality, always introverted and calm, low-key and humble, which is very different from his explosive dunks, he is not the kind of player who plays by winning the favor of fans with data, which is fully reflected in his two missed four-doubles, which may have affected the height of his career to some extent. Drexler is often the forgotten one when people discuss historical point guard, and even his name is unfamiliar. He was the league's second quarterback of the '90s, a brilliant forward swingman, a great aerial magician, a member of the world's strongest team, the Dream Team, and a Hall of Fame player. Clyde Drexler, should not be forgotten.