Ranking the 75 best players in NBA history for 75th anniversary

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Patrick Ewing, New York Knicks (Photo by MARK D. PHILLIPS/AFP via Getty Images) /

Ranking the 75 best players in NBA history: No. 34 – Patrick Ewing

On NBA 50 at 50 List

Career: 1985 – 2002

Achievements: All-NBA (7x); All-Star (11x); All-Defense (3x); eighth in career blocks

Patrick Ewing’s career is hard to properly evaluate. Drafted one year after Michael Jordan, he lived his career in the Eastern Conference in the shadow of the Chicago Bulls. Ewing’s Knicks were never good enough to beat the Bulls, who knocked them off five times during Ewing’s career. When the Bulls weren’t present in 1994 the Knicks fought all the way to the NBA Finals before losing to Hakeem Olajuwon and the Houston Rockets.

Ewing was a force inside, a brick wall for anyone trying to score inside. He made only three All-Defense teams simply because he played in an era with defensive centers like Olajuwon, David Robinson and Dikembe Mutombo, but he was a perfect fit for the bruising interior game of his era.

Chronic knee injuries began sapping Ewing’s athleticism early in his career, and it limited his offensive ceiling. Even so, he averaged 21 points and 9.8 rebounds per game for his career, and he ranks eighth in career blocks.