NBA: 50 greatest players who aren’t in the Basketball Hall of Fame
50 greatest players who aren’t in the Basketball Hall of Fame: 16. Brandon Roy
When great players suffer untimely injuries, they become something of folk heroes to the fans who watched them play. For a generation of basketball fanatics, that’s exactly what former Portland Trail Blazers shooting guard Brandon Roy has evolved into over the years.
A player who has been praised by legendary peers, local fans, and rival supporters in unison, Roy was one of the best players in the game by his second season.
Unfortunately, it all ended due to injury shortly thereafter.
Roy won Rookie of the Year in 2006-07 and made the All-Star Game in each of the three seasons that followed. He was named All-NBA in both 2009 and 2010, including a Second Team appearance in ’09 alongside Hall of Fame inductees Tim Duncan, Yao Ming, and Paul Pierce, and future honoree Chris Paul.
During Roy’s all too brief period of brilliance, the great Kobe Bryant was quoted as praising Roy as the hardest player to guard in the entire Western Conference, per NBC Sports:
"“Roy 365 days, seven days a week. Roy has no weaknesses in his game.”"
That’s high praise from one of the greatest players and on-ball defenders in NBA history.
Roy was a dynamic scoring threat who could convert shots at all three levels. He was one of the best midrange marksmen of his era, as well as a more than capable three-point shooter who could balance those abilities by finishing in the paint or getting to the line with volume.
If only to preserve his legacy as one of the all-time great, “What if?” players, Roy essentially ended his career with a nigh-iconic 24-point game against the eventual NBA champion Dallas Mavericks in the 2011 NBA Playoffs.
He scored 18 of those 24 points in the fourth quarter of a 23-point comeback that ranks amongst the most exhilarating in postseason history.
That was just two years after Roy dropped 42 points against the Houston Rockets in a series during which he averaged 26.7 points per game.
Roy’s career is not only an example of what could have been, but what should have been.