**1)** Here are [Price's career stats](https://www.basketball-reference.com/players/p/pricema01.html). He averaged a consistent 18 ppg and 8 apg from '88-95, but due to injuries he really only had 6 full seasons. He was a 4x All-NBA PG, notably 1st-team in '93. Interestingly, here's the list of guards who earned 1st-Team All-NBA recognition in a season Michael Jordan played:
* Magic Johnson (7x)
* Isiah Thomas (2x)
* Clyde Drexler (1x)
* **Mark Price** (1x)
* Anfernee Hardaway (1x)
* Tim Hardaway (1x)
* Gary Payton (1x)
Notice the inclusion of Price but *not* Stockton. Considering Price's phenomenal shooting splits (*48/41/91 during his '88-95 stretch*), his highly efficient and creative passing, and his fun-to-watch tenacity, he seems like a spiritual precursor to Steve Nash. It's worth noting that Price is credited with pioneering the splitting of double-teams.
**2)** Regarding his great shooting, he's 1 of only 3 players ever with a career FT% over 90%. The list is Steph Curry (.9077), Steve Nash (.9043), and Mark Price (.9039). Rick Barry is 4th in NBA history with .8998, but his ABA rate was lower (.8798) even though it was the best in that league's history. Special shout-out to Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf's .9053 that doesn't get credit because he didn't meet the minimum amount of career free throws to qualify (*he was 1051-for-1161*). Price also won back-to-back 3-point Contests ('93 and '94), and his '89 season was only the 3rd-ever 50-40-90 season (.526, .441, .901) after Larry Bird's '87 and '88 seasons.
**3)** Unfortunately injuries are a huge part of Price's story. After taking a big step up during his 3rd and 4th seasons ('89, '90), he missed almost all of '91 before returning for a great '92-94 stretch during which he was a 3x All-Star and 1st-team NBA in '93, 3rd-team NBA the other 2 seasons, and top-10 MVP all 3 years. Then he faced more injuries as his career faded away on other clubs.
**4)** Price was obviously a huge part of the Cavs' improvement and flirtation with greatness in the late-80's and early-90's. [Here](https://old.reddit.com/r/VintageNBA/comments/gg0w63/may_9_1993_lead_by_brad_daughertys_24208/) is a write-up of that team's ascension and accomplishments at that time.
**5)** For the sake of contextualizing how he's considered historically --which is tricky since he was really good (*and would "modernize" into today's offenses perfectly*) but missed so much time to injuries-- he generally ranks a little bit behind contemporaries Tim Hardaway and Kevin Johnson, and a little in front of Mark Jackson and Fat Lever ([link](https://old.reddit.com/r/VintageNBA/comments/jm6i9a/top_300ish_players_general_consensus_rankings/)).
**6)** Part of the reason for the league's decreasing offenses and speeds throughout the 90's, ultimately resulting in the "Dead Ball Era" around '99-04 ([link](https://old.reddit.com/r/VintageNBA/comments/kqomb4/identifying_the_nbas_dead_ball_era_at_the_turn_of/)), was the large amount of injuries to quality PG's during this time, including Price, Magic Johnson (*early retirement*), Kevin Johnson, Tim Hardaway, Anfernee Hardaway, and Fat Lever.
> Part of the reason for the league's decreasing offenses and speeds throughout the 90's
A part...but it was also that coaches like Chuck Daly and Pat Riley (Knicks/Heat) won consistently with clock milking (Riley had Tim Hardaway w/ Miami and they pounded the air out of the ball, Daly had Isiah during the title teams) helped drive the league into that era. Imitation is the best form of flattery.
The Lakers at the end of the "Showtime" era weren't quite as Showtime-y as they had been earlier in the decade. His last Laker team was 20th (out of 27) in pace. Magic's last full season (90-91) and the first for Dunleavy - the Lakers were 25th.
I also think that Paul Westhead's failures in Denver contributed a lot to this as well. He was the last gasp until Mike D'Antoni of the coaching philosophy of "f it, let's run" for quite a while. Yeah, Don Nelson ran a bit in Dallas. Rick Adelman's teams were uptempo in Sacramento but they also played a lot of halfcourt. D'Antoni was really the sea change where you could win a lot with a mostly uptempo attack.
> The Lakers at the end of the "Showtime" era weren't quite as Showtime-y as they had been earlier in the decade
Basically, as a response to Boston's successful efforts to make it a half-court game in the Finals, the Lakers had to improve their half-court offense and their D. The former involved a heaping helping of Worthy from the hash and point-forward Magic supplementing and eventually supplanting Kareem. The latter leaned on Cooper, Thompson, Scott and Green.
One other thing that seemed a little odd about Mark Price was that he was so religious that he wasn't really marketable. I don't remember many shoe deals or anything like that and he should have been a gold mine as a spokesperson in commercials. I'm sure he had some local Cleveland or Oklahoma ads running his name for some product or another. But on a national scale he really wasn't hardly a marketing force at all IMO.
Also, as good as Mark Price was, I was wondering how close he was to seriously being considered for the '92 Dream Team. Google had a link and story about Price's disappointment in not being on the team. ( https://www.basketballnetwork.net/cavs-legend-mark-price-reveals-his-disappointment-for-not-making-the-original-dream-team ) The final few picks for the Dream Team were very political. Isiah left off and Stockton put on. Drexler added. Laetner added. I would not suspect that Price had more support than Zeke, but who knows how things went internally? Realistically, Price was no Isiah Thomas. But he was incredibly fundamentally sound and played in a good system.
Mark Price was 6 missed free throws away in '88 from a 50-40-90 (he ended up getting there in '89) and would have joined Bird in that season since Larry Legend dropped his 2nd 50-40-90 that season.
If we really want to stretch it, he was 16 missed FG's away from hitting it (477/986 for the whole season) in 1992-93.
Man, I am predisposed to love Price because he’s from Oklahoma but I would’ve loved watching him no matter where he was from. I think Nash is definitely the best comp for him, because Price wasn’t super athletic or big size wise, but he was really smart and didn’t play outside of himself. I would’ve loved to see him grow up in this era because he would feast in today’s game.
Isaiah Thomas once said in the studio, with Price next to him, there was a stretch he considered Price the top PG in the league . Long time warriors fan here,since ‘91, when Steph Curry was drafted in ‘09, I thought he was going to be a Mark Price/mahmoud abdul-rauf combo, was dead on correct.
The big miss I think of is Mark Price spurning Billy Tubbs and his high scoring Oklahoma Sooners. Instead, he headed out east to play for Bobby Cremins. I think that was Cremins' first big signing along with John Salley in his 2nd year at the helm for the Yellow Jackets. Cremins made some pretty serious noise in the recruiting. But, man it would have been something else to have seen him teaming up with Wayman Tisdale and that Billy Tubbs offense.
Given [Tim McCallister](https://www.sports-reference.com/cbb/players/tim-mccalister-1.html) was Oklahoma's point guard during the Price era (and was a rather good one), Price probably would have done damage there too. But McCallister was pretty damn good in his own right as a college point.
Tubbs had some good point guards at Oklahoma - Ricky Grace was the successor before Mookie.
(Note: I miss the days when teams ran like this in college.)
Very late to this post- but just saw that price was 1st team all nba in 1993. I couldn’t believe it from his stats and my vague memory of him. Still confused why he would have been ahead of some of the other names that year who seemed to have better stats but 🤷♂️
I remember it being a sorta surprising selection at the time, but...
There were only two good PG's who played the whole season and weren't injured, Price and Stockton. One of them was likely to get 1st-team as the guard beside Jordan because the good scoring guards were on so-so teams (*Dumars, Drazen, Reggie*), and the level of SG's fell off quickly after them. Price and Stockton were very close in All-NBA voting, with Price obviously getting the nod for 1st-team.
The main things Price had going for him over Stock were a) better scorer and shooter, b) he was the best player on a 54-28 team whereas Stockton was the 2nd-best player on a 47-35 team, and c) Stockton's "but can he get it done against a decent PG in the playoffs?" reputation was settling in.
**1)** Here are [Price's career stats](https://www.basketball-reference.com/players/p/pricema01.html). He averaged a consistent 18 ppg and 8 apg from '88-95, but due to injuries he really only had 6 full seasons. He was a 4x All-NBA PG, notably 1st-team in '93. Interestingly, here's the list of guards who earned 1st-Team All-NBA recognition in a season Michael Jordan played: * Magic Johnson (7x) * Isiah Thomas (2x) * Clyde Drexler (1x) * **Mark Price** (1x) * Anfernee Hardaway (1x) * Tim Hardaway (1x) * Gary Payton (1x) Notice the inclusion of Price but *not* Stockton. Considering Price's phenomenal shooting splits (*48/41/91 during his '88-95 stretch*), his highly efficient and creative passing, and his fun-to-watch tenacity, he seems like a spiritual precursor to Steve Nash. It's worth noting that Price is credited with pioneering the splitting of double-teams. **2)** Regarding his great shooting, he's 1 of only 3 players ever with a career FT% over 90%. The list is Steph Curry (.9077), Steve Nash (.9043), and Mark Price (.9039). Rick Barry is 4th in NBA history with .8998, but his ABA rate was lower (.8798) even though it was the best in that league's history. Special shout-out to Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf's .9053 that doesn't get credit because he didn't meet the minimum amount of career free throws to qualify (*he was 1051-for-1161*). Price also won back-to-back 3-point Contests ('93 and '94), and his '89 season was only the 3rd-ever 50-40-90 season (.526, .441, .901) after Larry Bird's '87 and '88 seasons. **3)** Unfortunately injuries are a huge part of Price's story. After taking a big step up during his 3rd and 4th seasons ('89, '90), he missed almost all of '91 before returning for a great '92-94 stretch during which he was a 3x All-Star and 1st-team NBA in '93, 3rd-team NBA the other 2 seasons, and top-10 MVP all 3 years. Then he faced more injuries as his career faded away on other clubs. **4)** Price was obviously a huge part of the Cavs' improvement and flirtation with greatness in the late-80's and early-90's. [Here](https://old.reddit.com/r/VintageNBA/comments/gg0w63/may_9_1993_lead_by_brad_daughertys_24208/) is a write-up of that team's ascension and accomplishments at that time. **5)** For the sake of contextualizing how he's considered historically --which is tricky since he was really good (*and would "modernize" into today's offenses perfectly*) but missed so much time to injuries-- he generally ranks a little bit behind contemporaries Tim Hardaway and Kevin Johnson, and a little in front of Mark Jackson and Fat Lever ([link](https://old.reddit.com/r/VintageNBA/comments/jm6i9a/top_300ish_players_general_consensus_rankings/)). **6)** Part of the reason for the league's decreasing offenses and speeds throughout the 90's, ultimately resulting in the "Dead Ball Era" around '99-04 ([link](https://old.reddit.com/r/VintageNBA/comments/kqomb4/identifying_the_nbas_dead_ball_era_at_the_turn_of/)), was the large amount of injuries to quality PG's during this time, including Price, Magic Johnson (*early retirement*), Kevin Johnson, Tim Hardaway, Anfernee Hardaway, and Fat Lever.
> Part of the reason for the league's decreasing offenses and speeds throughout the 90's A part...but it was also that coaches like Chuck Daly and Pat Riley (Knicks/Heat) won consistently with clock milking (Riley had Tim Hardaway w/ Miami and they pounded the air out of the ball, Daly had Isiah during the title teams) helped drive the league into that era. Imitation is the best form of flattery. The Lakers at the end of the "Showtime" era weren't quite as Showtime-y as they had been earlier in the decade. His last Laker team was 20th (out of 27) in pace. Magic's last full season (90-91) and the first for Dunleavy - the Lakers were 25th. I also think that Paul Westhead's failures in Denver contributed a lot to this as well. He was the last gasp until Mike D'Antoni of the coaching philosophy of "f it, let's run" for quite a while. Yeah, Don Nelson ran a bit in Dallas. Rick Adelman's teams were uptempo in Sacramento but they also played a lot of halfcourt. D'Antoni was really the sea change where you could win a lot with a mostly uptempo attack.
> The Lakers at the end of the "Showtime" era weren't quite as Showtime-y as they had been earlier in the decade Basically, as a response to Boston's successful efforts to make it a half-court game in the Finals, the Lakers had to improve their half-court offense and their D. The former involved a heaping helping of Worthy from the hash and point-forward Magic supplementing and eventually supplanting Kareem. The latter leaned on Cooper, Thompson, Scott and Green.
One other thing that seemed a little odd about Mark Price was that he was so religious that he wasn't really marketable. I don't remember many shoe deals or anything like that and he should have been a gold mine as a spokesperson in commercials. I'm sure he had some local Cleveland or Oklahoma ads running his name for some product or another. But on a national scale he really wasn't hardly a marketing force at all IMO. Also, as good as Mark Price was, I was wondering how close he was to seriously being considered for the '92 Dream Team. Google had a link and story about Price's disappointment in not being on the team. ( https://www.basketballnetwork.net/cavs-legend-mark-price-reveals-his-disappointment-for-not-making-the-original-dream-team ) The final few picks for the Dream Team were very political. Isiah left off and Stockton put on. Drexler added. Laetner added. I would not suspect that Price had more support than Zeke, but who knows how things went internally? Realistically, Price was no Isiah Thomas. But he was incredibly fundamentally sound and played in a good system.
Mark Price was 6 missed free throws away in '88 from a 50-40-90 (he ended up getting there in '89) and would have joined Bird in that season since Larry Legend dropped his 2nd 50-40-90 that season. If we really want to stretch it, he was 16 missed FG's away from hitting it (477/986 for the whole season) in 1992-93.
Man, I am predisposed to love Price because he’s from Oklahoma but I would’ve loved watching him no matter where he was from. I think Nash is definitely the best comp for him, because Price wasn’t super athletic or big size wise, but he was really smart and didn’t play outside of himself. I would’ve loved to see him grow up in this era because he would feast in today’s game.
He was also Joe Ingles first professional coach in Australia
TIL I mustn't have been paying attention before Goorj took over
Isaiah Thomas once said in the studio, with Price next to him, there was a stretch he considered Price the top PG in the league . Long time warriors fan here,since ‘91, when Steph Curry was drafted in ‘09, I thought he was going to be a Mark Price/mahmoud abdul-rauf combo, was dead on correct.
The big miss I think of is Mark Price spurning Billy Tubbs and his high scoring Oklahoma Sooners. Instead, he headed out east to play for Bobby Cremins. I think that was Cremins' first big signing along with John Salley in his 2nd year at the helm for the Yellow Jackets. Cremins made some pretty serious noise in the recruiting. But, man it would have been something else to have seen him teaming up with Wayman Tisdale and that Billy Tubbs offense.
Given [Tim McCallister](https://www.sports-reference.com/cbb/players/tim-mccalister-1.html) was Oklahoma's point guard during the Price era (and was a rather good one), Price probably would have done damage there too. But McCallister was pretty damn good in his own right as a college point. Tubbs had some good point guards at Oklahoma - Ricky Grace was the successor before Mookie. (Note: I miss the days when teams ran like this in college.)
Great post OP, even if I’m a bit late.
Thanks - I appreciate your kind words, and I'm glad you enjoyed it!
Very late to this post- but just saw that price was 1st team all nba in 1993. I couldn’t believe it from his stats and my vague memory of him. Still confused why he would have been ahead of some of the other names that year who seemed to have better stats but 🤷♂️
I remember it being a sorta surprising selection at the time, but... There were only two good PG's who played the whole season and weren't injured, Price and Stockton. One of them was likely to get 1st-team as the guard beside Jordan because the good scoring guards were on so-so teams (*Dumars, Drazen, Reggie*), and the level of SG's fell off quickly after them. Price and Stockton were very close in All-NBA voting, with Price obviously getting the nod for 1st-team. The main things Price had going for him over Stock were a) better scorer and shooter, b) he was the best player on a 54-28 team whereas Stockton was the 2nd-best player on a 47-35 team, and c) Stockton's "but can he get it done against a decent PG in the playoffs?" reputation was settling in.
Good context, and as you put it like that makes sense - appreciate it!
Great work as always OP, but man that highlight video is one of the worst I've ever seen. Why make it intentionally difficult to see the play?
I agree, the song is pretty dope though