20 Softest Players in NBA History

The NBA is trending toward being a more buddy-buddy game than it ever was before, and between rule changes, players knowing each other through AAU camps since adolescence and constant image awareness, the league is becoming soft.

OK, so it's not exactly soccer as of yet, but comparing an NBA game today to one from 1985 is like comparing a WWE wrestling match to a UFC fight.

Imagine if someone like Andrea Bargnani played with Larry Bird's Celtics back in the 80s, how long would it take before Bird starting throwing fists at Bargnani for refusing to crash the boards?

Even some of the softer players of the 80s and before would get into scraps and throw some elbows around from time-to-time.

The game has evolved in such a way that it's hard for a player to play rough and not foul out every game or get labeled as a thug, but that doesn't change the fact that the game is different than it once was.

Who are the softest of the soft you might ask?  Well, I've whittled the list down to my top 20, and as always, feel free to let me know if I've left your favorite softie out.

20. Tom Chambers

Before we really get into this, can we please address the fact that Tom Chambers looks exactly like David Bowie.  How has nobody ever talked about it before?  Slap a little eyeliner on him, add some blue around his eyes and frost his hair a bit and he could jump up on stage and start belting out Space Odyssey, and the only difference would be the height.

Anyway, I digress.  Tom Chambers lived around the three-point line in his days, and other than his ability to dunk the ball, he did nothing tough throughout his career.

19. Rashard Lewis

One of the players that is the biggest embodiment of why the NBA is currently locked out (he's the second highest paid player in the league) is also a big softie.

Lewis was valued for his ability to stretch the floor, otherwise meaning he is a big guy who can shoot threes.

Unfortunately, the biggest value from a floor stretcher is for them to play both inside and outside (think Rasheed Wallace), but when half of the shots you take are three-pointers, it's pretty obvious where you are going to plant yourself on the floor.

He has an uncanny ability to slink back to the other end of the court if the ball wasn't bouncing directly at him for a rebound and hardly ever plays defense.

18. Yao Ming

I feel bad about this one, I really do, because I am a fan of Yao Ming.

It seems as a super seven-footer like Yao or Shawn Bradley, it's hard to continually bang down low without your knees going on strike.

Early on, Yao would pound the ball, and he would do it ferociously, but that only lasted for a season or so before he got sheepish and stuck to his frankensteinian turnaround, hook shots and lay-ups.

I'm glad I got to see him play at his peak, but insanely depressed that it didn't last longer than it did.

17. Chris Bosh

About seven years back, Tim Thomas got into it with Kenyon Martin during a playoff series, calling him a fugazi and implying that his tough guy act is fake.

Well, Chris Bosh is about four or five steps below that.  Deep down, you can tell that he knows he should be a tough guy, or that he wants to be a tough guy, but he just doesn't play that way.

He has a low post game and an outside game, so he is a floor stretcher, but his low post game is finesse, not power.

16. Michael Olowokandi

Michael Olowokandi didn't pick up the game of basketball until he was 18 years old, and like most players who pick up the game that late, he didn't develop the intricate knowledge of it that a guy who had played it since his youth has.

He had all the attributes you would want a basketball player to have, but as a seven-footer, he was incredibly unwilling to bang down low and crash the boards.

Olowokandi rebounded at a very poor rate, and his defense left much to be desired when smaller guys were pushing him around.

15. Pau Gasol

The most frustrating thing about Pau Gasol to me is that he has shown that he can be a tough guy, I mean, just watch the Lakers in either of their finals matchups in their title years.

Gasol can bang down low and he can stand his ground on defense, but he just doesn't seem to want to do it all the time.

I've got Rasheed Wallace on the brain, so I'll keep his comparisons going.  At his peak, Rasheed would play most of the season from 13 feet and out, only unleashing his killer post game when his team needed it or when he got mad.  Then, in the playoffs he would dominate down low.

The theory was that revealing all of his moves early on in the season would hurt him later on when teams prepare for him, so he only used his best tool, which was his post game, when his team really needed it.

Gasol kind of does that, but instead of selectively shutting it off, it seems like if he is in Gasoft mode, he will be staying in Gasoft mode.

14. Brad Miller

He's a big, fat guy with a goatee; he must be tough, right?  Well, actually, it's pretty much the opposite.

Brad Miller is a completely confusing player. He came up with the Kings, where they would bring him in off the bench behind the legendary Vlade Divac so he could pretend to be tough while shooting threes.

Miller would have a tough guy act early on, nearly get into scuffles after jawing with his opponents and then he would back down.

Plus, I once saw this man, a seven-foot tall man, mind you, step into the lane with the ball, take a few dribbles and put up a floater.  He might as well have been Manu Ginobili in a fat suit on stilts, and he was about as mobile as it.

13. Cherokee Parks

Remember Cherokee Parks?  Every time I hear his name I can't help but chuckle quietly to myself.

This big klutz was tattooed enough and had a constant scowl on his face so that people would look at him and see tough guy, but he could have been pushed over by Maggie Simpson.

Parks was a terrible rebounder, shot blocker and defender; really anything that would make him a real tough guy, Parks was bad at.

12. Nenad Krstic

Getting slightly tougher with age (kind of like beef jerky), Nenad Krstic was once the big man on the Nets who played "ole" defense.

A seven-footer like himself should be able to get the ball just outside the paint and either work his way in closer to take a shot or finnesse his way around to get a better look, Krstic can do neither.

He is completely dependent on getting the ball in a good spot; otherwise, he is not taking the shot, turning it over trying to figure out what to do or just putting up a brick.

11. Luc Longley

The fans of Chicago loved him, and rightly so; they didn't have to worry about him being soft because they always had Dennis Rodman to back him up.

However, Longley was so skinny and light, you could probably tie his hands to his feet and use him as a hoola-hoop.

He was an embarrassingly bad rebounder and shot blocker for a guy his size, but at least it was fun to watch him clopping up and down the court with his shockingly long limbs.

10. Will Perdue

Just one of two nice-guy teammates that Michael Jordan punched during practice, Will Perdue may have deserved it.

Perdue was a bad rebounder who was never able to live up to the hype that he was given coming out of college.

In a related note, Perdue, along with Longley and Bill Wennington, are featured on a shirt that I want almost as much as I want the lockout to end.  It features them drawn in caricature and the phrase "Bang Gang" across the bottom.

9. Wally Szczerbiak

Here is the toughest thing Wally Szczerbiak ever did.

This is the video of the chalk toss in LeBron James' return to Cleveland after going to Miami.  Right about at the 14 second mark, you see LeBron tossing the chalk and everyone in front of him booing, flipping him off, giving him a thumbs down, whatever.

Right in the center of that clump of people in a black sweater is Wally staring directly into the eyes of LeBron James with all of the focus and ferocity of a jedi.  In fact, I was so enamored with him actually showing disapproval (while everyone else on the floor hugged him) that this was the picture on my desktop background for a good six or seven months.

I love Wally, but the fact that his toughest moment that sticks out in my mind is that of him in the crowd rather than on the floor doesn't bode well.

8. Kwame Brown

An overhyped high school phenom that was picked No. 1 overall by Michael Jordan and his Wizards back in 2001, Kwame Brown is non explosive, makes little impact, and terribly inefficient.

In his years in the NBA, he has been the butt of more jokes than he has blocks recorded.

In fact, during his fledgling years in Washington, MJ actually berated him so badly in practice that he started to cry. 

To be fair, though, how would you feel if the best basketball player of your childhood yelled at you mercilessly?

I would have cried too, but at least I would have blown my nose and started throwing elbows to grab some boards.

7. Charlie Villanueva

If it weren't for Andray Blatche, I'm pretty sure Charlie Villanueva would be my least favorite non-Miami based player in the NBA.

Charlie V is a jump shooter first, complainer second, headband wearer third and tough basketball player 369th.

He ramped up his rebounding in his contract year with the Bucks back in 2009, but ramping up his rebounding numbers meant a measly 6.7 a game.

The thing that always got me with Charlie V was that he complained to the world after Kevin Garnett allegedly called him a cancer patient during a game.  C'mon, Charlie; trash talk stays on the court, no matter how much it hurt your feelings.

6. Yi Jianlian

Never mind him being soft; Yi Jianlian is just a horrible basketball player at this point.

Remember when he came into the league back in 2007 and his first showdown with Yao Ming came up while ESPN billed it as a great future matchup?

Well who would have expected that four years later, Yao would be retired and Yi would look lost on the floor?

5. Danny Ferry

One of the biggest draft busts of all-time, Danny Ferry had himself a decent career if you look at it as a three-point specialist, but when you consider that he was a No. 2 overall pick, it's pretty embarrassing.

Ferry, playing "power" forward, never grabbed more than 4.1 rebounds a game in his days in the league, and rebounded just over eight percent of the balls he had a chance to.

Ferry went on to be a mediocre general manager and blazer-wearer.

4. Keith Van Horn

Keith Van Horn was like Danny Ferry on anti-steroids, which I think is mayonnaise.

I'm not sure if KVH actually ever stepped foot inside the three point line on either end of the floor, and researchers are still collecting evidence to find out if he actually ever posted anyone up.

KVH was able to rack up some decent rebounding numbers here and there, but he did it mostly by being in the right spot at the right time, reading the shot and the bounce off the rim like Jason Kidd.

3. Andrea Bargnani

Do you think I could get a petition together to get the Raptors to move Andrea Bargnani to small forward, because that's what he plays like?

A seven-footer who goes up and maxes out at 6.2 rebounds a game is beyond embarrassing, it's beyond flummoxing, it's beyond baffling; it's embarraffloxing.

Oh well, I guess that's why the game is called basketball, not rebound-ball.

2. Vince Carter

I love hearing the arguments against the fact that Vince Carter is soft.  They always go something like, "How can VC be soft; he's an amazing dunker. I bet he has dunked on your favorite player!"  As if dunking is something tough players do.

Sure, there is some toughness that is generated through dunking, but when you do so many things contrary to having a tough persona, you can't point to one thing and think that it makes up for it all.

Carter is the ultimate injury milker.  Knock him down once and he will spend the next minute or so on the floor clutching his ankle looking like his foot was just crushed by a steamroller.

Then, after you knock him down hard once, he will stop driving to the lane altogether and settle for jumpers and turnarounds.

If that's not a soft player, then I don't know what is.

1. Shawn Bradley

Dunking may not be a surefire sign of a tough player, but getting dunked on is a pretty good one of a soft player.

There once was a time when the giant Mormon wasn't a dunk magnet for the entire league, but that was long ago.

Up until about the time he went to Dallas, Bradley was a slightly tough player, but injuries and being uncoordinated and goofy caught up to him and he started to get dunked on.

He grabbed an embarrassingly low number of rebounds for a guy standing a full head above everyone else and was seen sprawled out on the floor more than he was seen throwing his body into an opponent.

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