Hypo: Burke leaves. Where does he rank in a list of M's all time greats?
Title pretty much explains it. Suppose Burke leaves after this team gets bounced in, say, the Elite Eight. Where does he rank all-time at U of M? Where amongst U of M's point guards?
I realize comparing eras and different positions isn't apples to apples. But whatever just have fun with it.
It impacts it, sure. But much of his legacy has already been solidified, I think.
Certainly, he's been one of the best, say, five point guards ever to play here, right? He's likely in the Rickey Green/Rumeal Robinson/Gary Grant tier of the pantheon even if we lose by 100 in the first round. At least that's what I'd posit. Now you try.
It's all about what happens in APRIL.
I'm pretty sure UM has never had a PG that will have as nice of an NBA career as Trey.
I hope you're right, but given that Gary Grant was a first round pick who stuck in the league for about 10 years, I don't think it's a foregone conclusion.
Rickey Green also had a 15-year NBA career, making the All-Star Game once.
http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/g/greenri01.html
Ill get back to you in march
March of next year? Or are you still stuck in February?
It's getting pretty hard to come up with a permutation of events where Burke doesn't end the year as an All-American. If you don't want to go too deep into hypo. pound-for-pound comparisons, that puts him in pretty august company.
"One month too early?" Burke is producing the best legitimate season Michigan has had since the 1989 NCAA Champions. The game has changed; as college fans, we don't get three or four years out of our stars anymore. This produces a celiing: NBA-ready players leave.
I think Burke is as good as any PG I have seen in a Michigan uniform, and I started watching in the Cazzie Russell era.
This raises some questions, though. What if players were allowed to take money from boosters, like a computer science major on scholarship would be able to? Under the current system, Burke has to leave, or throw away the possibility of signing a contract for more money than many grads will make in their entire lives.
But what if a bunch of rich boosters could put a lot of money into the "pot" for a player like Burke? At what point would it no longer be mandatory that he leave?
D Mo's single-season assist record, so. . . these things can be sifted in different ways. I remember when Darius was beating MSU and shouting "our house!" and we were all saying no one would ever forget it. . .
But yeah, I will never forget those steals yesterday as long as I live. As far as iconic PLAYS go, that's right there with anything for me. Some of those incredibly graceful hesitation plays where he sends the whole opposing team off in the other direction are also breathtaking in their simplicity and efficacy. . .
Keep in mind, Morris played in 35 games in 2010-11 while Burke has played in 29. Burke's assist average is higher than Morris's, and his scoring average is too. He's also been a better defender.
Statistically, he's in rarified air. However, I have to wait until both the BTT and the NCAA Tourney to see. Players that get as many minutes as he does have been shown to peter out when it matters. His playing time has only increased as we've gotten further into B1G conference play.
All that said, I fully expect him to leave after this year and we should enjoy every single game he plays in a Michigan uniform until that day. He is (dare I say) a once in a decade player. Nobody should be expecting a second year Spike, first year Derrick Walton, or even possibly a second year Caris Levert to come close to filling his shoes.
Jalen Rose
Chris Webber
Juwan Howard
Glenn Rice
Cazzie Russell
Rudy T
Ricky Green
Roy Tarpley
Rumeal Robinson
Then you have several who were maybe as good:
Gary Grant
Terry Mills
Phil Hubbard
Henry Wilmore
Bill Buntin
In my mind he's ahead of all on the maybe list but Grant. Unless we make a helluva run, I see him no higher than 11th.
Forgot about Campy. He's top 15. Man, Johnny Orr is the most underrated coach in M history. Had he been coaching football, there would be statues of him.
Had a helluva run throughout the 1970s, then feels unloved, leaves to coach Iowa St. for more $$.
Man, Johnny Orr is the most underrated coach in M history.
True, and almost ridiculous that we even have to talk about him as an underrated coach. He's got more wins than any coach in the history of our basketball program, right? Big Ten Coach of the Year '74, National Coach of the Year '76. Underrated and vastly underappreciated.
Where does Mike McGee belong on your list? He's our second leading scorer all-time without the benefit of the 3 point line. I vaguely remember Hubbard. McGee was the first UofM basketball star that I followed, so I'm a little biased.
If he wins the Wooden Award, that would be sufficient to enshrine him IMO.
He's the best point guard ever to play at Michigan.
Agreed -- I can't think of anyone better at *that* position (PG). (Too young to remember Ricky Green ...) Burke covers all the categories at least pretty well.
Offhand ...
* Gary Grant was a great athlete and defender, but he was inconsistent offensively (particularly from the outside).
* Rumeal was a good spot-up shooter and could drive to the basket well. Not much to complain about with him, although I think Trey is a better ball handler and shot creator.
* IMO the Fab Five didn't have a PG. Jalen was more of a point forward.
* I viewed Louis Bullock as more of an undersized shooting guard.
* We didn't get to see much of Kevin Gaines.
* I liked Darius Morris, but he couldn't score as well as Trey.
Who else is there? I might be missing someone.
" Gary Grant was a great athlete and defender, but he was inconsistent offensively (particularly from the outside)."
This was my recollection too but on second iteration and looking at the stats our recollection doesn't bear it out his jr/sr year - guy shot over 50% from the guard position. If it came from outside or driving who cares - Trey got most of his points yesterday driving the lane.
I don't know if you would classify Joubert as a PG or a 2-guard, but I thought he was pretty awesome when I was eleven years old. Great nickname too (The Judge).
Because of the flameouts he had in the tourney. But Grant's regular season numbers in '86-'87 and '87-88 were fantastic. Over 21 ppg both seasons. 80 steals. Nearly 7 apg his senior year.
Yeah, his turnovers were a bit high, but back then Michigan pushed tempo and didn't stress taking care of the basketball the way they do now.
It's hard to compare because we only get to see 2 years of Burke.
Good points on Grant. Didnt realize he was >20 ppts jr and sr season WHILE shooting over 50% from the field and look at that 3 pt %.
MIN FG% 3P% FT% RPG APG TPG BPG SPG PPG
84-85 Michigan 31.7 55.0 81.7 2.5 4.7 2.7 0.1 1.7 12.9
85-86 Michigan 30.6 49.4 74.4 3.2 5.6 2.9 0.3 2.5 12.2
86-87 Michigan 34.0 53.7 48.5 78.2 5.0 5.4 3.2 0.3 2.7 22.4
87-88 Michigan 35.0 53.0 44.4 80.8 3.4 6.9 4.4 0.1 2.4 21.1
LOL. Literally was going to start identical thread last nite but decided to wait til this morning. Guess 6:20 AM is too late. Nice.
I'm too young to know the Cazzie Russell era other than some old highlights but in the modern era I can only think of Chris Webber, Gary Grant, and Glen Rice as dominant at their position for "a season" - Glen was a late bloomer though and Grant did it his sr and yr years so only Webber and Burke did it like this in their first two years. Still give advantage to C-Webb for taking his team to deep runs in the tournament but he probably had more talent around him as well. But top 4-5 in the "modern" era (post 1970) for A SEASON. Other guys had longer careers - I assume he is leaving after this year so he cannot add to his legacy so some of the guys others have mentioned.
Next group for me is Juwan, Jalen, Rumeal, and Roy Tarpley. They obviously had better post seasons and longer bodies of work. But for one season, again dominating every night while running the most important position in the sport, Burke is the man. The way I think about it is to reverse engineer as well - take Burke off this team and its lucky to play 500 ball in the Big 10 and probably has the typical 15-13 type record. Take Juwan off his team, or Tarpley off his team and they drop some wins but dont go from "top 5" to .500 team.
I hate this argument. If you switch Juwan and Trey it's the same deal. Juwan would make this team just as good as they are now without Trey and if you take him off, then it'd be a .500 team. The thing with the Fab Five is that they were so ridiculously talented and deep that it wasn't even fair. So yes, your point it true to a degree. You could put any top 10-15 Michigan player on this team and say the exact same thing about what would happen if you take them away.
And you're wrong about Roy Tarpley. Very, very wrong in fact. If you take him away, that team for sure becomes more of a .500 team than a top 5. If you look at this team and that one, they're a lot alike. What makes you think that team makes up for the lack of Roy better than this one for the lack of Burke? Roy actually averaged more ppg than Burke and 10 rebounds. In fact this team is better without Burke than Roy's Michigan squad without him.
Tim Hardaway right now has more than 100 points more than the second best player on the 84-85 team, and there's still games to be played. He's also averaging better percentages than the second best guy on that squad who was Antoine Loubert. Robinson and Nik will finish right about where Grant and Rellford did. Mitch is already stastitically right where Wade finished. So I don't see where you're getting this idea that Burke means so much more to Michigan than Roy did to his team. I think it's actually pretty even and without Burke we might have seen GRIII be more assertive on offense. Now, I do believe Burke is one of the best to play at Michigan. But, your argument just doesn't stand.
I am older than a lot of you; not old enough to remember Cazzie by a long stretch.
But Burke is probably the best point guard in Michigan history. And a top 10 all time player. Hell, could you imagine if this was the old days, and he stayed for four years, how good he could be?
Now, whether Burke is top 5 all time, and the next five, really depends on how the tournament goes. That is where GOAT make their mark.
too me it depends a little more on where he takes this team in the tourney. Right now he is a "really great" michigan player to me
He'll be number 1. Two NCAA championships, two player of the year awards, best pg ever.
/I'm assuming we win it all and he comes back because he wants a chance to defend the title. Yes, I realize this is unlikely at best.
He's going on "The Wall" in my house of Michigan greats.
He did something Glen Rice, Sean Higgins, Rumeal Robinson, The Fab Five, Robert Traylor, Lou Bullock etc. couldn't do. Lead Michigan to a B1G Championship.
Think about that for a second. Not even arguably the two best teams in program history (1988-89 & 1992-93), that produced multiple NBA stars could win one.
Plus, MOST LIKELY, he will only be here for two seasons. Who was the last Michigan player to score over 1,000 points in 2 seasons? Mr. Webber.
I'm not sure about where he ranks, I just know I'm going to miss seeing him in a Michigan uniform.
Apparently I will miss him so much I had to post twice about it.
and at 6' 3" its possible to conjecture that his 13-year NBA career was more distinguished than Trey's will be, although Trey may continue to surprise.
Right now he has a 1st round loss on his resume. That's not going to cut it.
Hang a Final Four banner and we're talking. Lead us to a Championship and I'm not going to argue against it.
...that are Burke-related. I went through the stats archive on MGoBlue and search the top 40 players (arbitrary cutoff admittedly) in various statistics. Here are some of the places where Trey appears:
| STATISTIC | TREY'S CAREER RANK (TO DATE) |
| Assists / Game | 3 |
| 3FG% | 10 |
| Assists | 11 |
| FT% | 15 |
| FG% | 16 |
| Points Per Game | 17 |
| Steals | 32 |
| Blocks | 33 |
Here is another interesting fact, if we're going to judge in part by the impact he has on the team now and how much he has meant in the last two seasons. Michigan has scored 4,442 points since Burke's arrival, good for an average for 70.5 points per game over two seasons. Without Burke's 1,052 points (23.6% of the total), the team average falls to 53.8 points per game.
Given that he will likely spend only two seasons here, looking at this and other stats in comparison to other point guards in Michigan's past, I have to agree with others in that he's on track to rank among the best. A solid performance this month in the Big Ten Tournament as well as the NCAA Tournament would help cement that legacy too.
I can't believe how lucky we are to have Trey and Denard playing at the same time.
We don't know his place yet. There are way too many games yet to play. Win the two games this week, win the Big 10 Championship, get to the Final Four at a minimum and his legacy will be secure. Less than that, and Burke will be one of many good players to come to Michigan.
As an example, Glen Rice's reputation was made by the championship. Sadly, Webber's was made both by the lack of a championship, and . . . other issues.
Why is getting to the final four good enough for Burke but getting to the final GAME twice not good enough for C Webb. I realize the off the court issues but if we are talking about playing ability and taking his team through the tourney, its pretty impossible to beat C Webb short of the guys who won it all. He had 10 NCAA wins (out of 12) in 2 years. So I dont think his reptuation was sullied by the "lack of championship".
They did have a lack of Big 10 championship but their sophmore year they had three big 10 losses, with two coming to champion Indiana - both by 1 point.
Trey needs to lead us on a deep run in the NCAA's before he can be declared the best PG we've ever had here at Michigan. But he is very close to being at the top. I would rank him below Jalen Rose but ahead of Rummeal (dspite the '89 championship). Gary Grant is also up there. I'd place Trey #2 right now behind Jalen...
In terms of the all time greats, I'm too young to have seen Cazzie Russell and Rudy T. My UM basketball knowledge is limited to mid-80's to the present. There's no way Trey overtakes Glen Rice. GR is in the Pantheon of UM greats. I would also place Webber and Rose rtight up there. Rudy T and Cazzie of course would be there as well.
The next 2nd tier is Juwan, Tarpley, Rumeal, Loy Vaught, and Gary Grant. Trey would be in this group for the time being but he has a very good shot of ranking higher.
The third tier is Mills, Jimmy King, Ray Jackson, Sean Higgins, Mo taylor, Tractor, Lou Bullock, Maceo, DHorton. Hardaway is in this group with a good shot at ranking higher if he can have a big tournament and/or Senior year.
Born in 89, but he is the best player I have witnessed and can actually clearly recall. But he is definitely outside the top 5 and unless he leads us to a national title or comes back for another year, I'd imagine he'll sit somewhere in the 8-12 range. JMO
As far as PG go, I'd say he is behind Grant and Jalen (who I am going to classify as a PG), but I think you could make an argument vs Rumeal, The Judge, and Green.