With the passing of Bill Walton, I've been thinking about the great players who couldn't stay on the court because of injuries.
Walton
My dad, who's not a basketball fan, saw Bill Walton play against Kareem in the 70's. He said that Walton absolutely demolished Kareem. There was no doubt about who was better, at least for that night. I've heard plenty of other people share similar stories from seeing a healthy Walton play. Could he have been the greatest center ever, if his feet had held up?
Kawhi
The other player who I always think about is Kawhi. Before Kawhi's injury, it seemed like he was on track to be in the conversation for greatest small forward ever (obviously putting Lebron in some other category). Kawhi on the Spurs was the best wing defender I've ever seen. It's close with Pippen, but the way Kawhi would just rip the ball away with one hand made it seem like you couldn't allow the ball anywhere near him.
Hill
My favorite player when I was a kid was Grant Hill. The stars aligned for us to see him play in person, once he got traded to Orlando, but of course that's when his botched ankle surgeries completely derailed his career. He was widely regarded as the post-Jordan face of the league and then he missed pretty much the entirety of what would have been his prime, before coming back as a valuable role player on Nash's Suns.
Slight aside, Hill being injured opened the door for McGrady to emerge as a true superstar. The game we went to was before people realized what McGrady was going to be and he put on a show. I haven't been to that many games in person, but McGrady was easily the most spectacular of the stars I've seen live.
Who else?
Who are your biggest "what if" guys?
If I were to round this out to a top 5, I think it would actually be Bird and Magic, despite them both being all-time greats as it is. We missed Magic's late prime entirely because of HIV and Bird threw out his back shoveling gravel. Both guys conceivable could have had four more prime years of performance.
Honorable mention to Pistol Pete, who also deserves to be in this conversation.