Sixers’ Finest Fives: Hall Of Famer Maurice Cheeks Is The Top Point Guard In Franchise History

Because there is an undeniable clamor for this during the coronavirus quarantine, I will over the next several weeks endeavor to list, one at a time, the top five players in Sixers history at each position. You’re welcome.

Drum roll, please, for the No. 1 point guard: Maurice Cheeks.

• Career: 1978-93 (11.1 ppg, 6.7 apg; .523 FG/.255 3s/.793 FT)
• Sixers Tenure: 1978-89 (12.2 ppg, 7.3 apg; .528/.250/.790)
• Scouting Report: The 3-ball wasn’t emphasized when he played, but he did everything else well. Drilled elbow jumpers. Finished at the rim. Made his free throws. Shared the ball. And defended exquisitely.
• Defining Moment: There are two: His dunk and uncharacteristic celebration when the Sixers clinched the 1983 title (shown at 1:36:50 of this video) and, when he was Portland’s head coach 20 years later, his rescue before a playoff game of Natalie Gilbert, a struggling young national anthem singer. (Cheeks, currently an Oklahoma City assistant, has also served as head coach of the Sixers and Pistons.)
• Career Earnings: n/a

(Stats from basketball-reference.com)

Maurice Cheeks was never quite sure he belonged. On the very first day of his very first training camp he was hesitant to go ask one of the veterans for a ball, after a photographer requested that he pose with one. She had to go get it herself.

Surely he had heard that the point guard the Sixers really wanted in the 1978 draft was North Carolina All-American Phil Ford, to the extent that in the run-up to the selection process they had offered veteran forward George McGinnis to the Kings (then in Kansas City) and Pacers, who held the second and third picks, respectively. 

Neither team bit. The Kings took Ford (after Portland had used the No. 1 pick on Mychal Thompson), while the Pacers settled for Rick Robey. The Sixers? They selected Cheeks, who played at West Texas State (now West Texas A&M), in the second round, No. 36 overall. And several weeks later they shipped McGinnis, a great player on the downside of his career, to Denver for a guy named Bobby Jones.

Two moves that netted two future Hall of Famers. Not a bad little offseason.

Of course Cheeks proved, very quickly, that he did belong. In 11 seasons with the Sixers he made four All-Star teams, four All-Defensive teams (in addition to a second-team designation) and was part of that ‘83 title team. When he retired he was the league’s all-time leader in steals, and fifth in assists. He now sits fifth and 13th, respectively.

It would appear, then, that his insecurity served him well.

“I think one of the reasons he was so successful is, he played like there was someone looking over his shoulder,” former Sixers coach Billy Cunningham told me before Cheeks’ Hall of Fame induction in 2018.

“Yeah,” Cheeks said when I apprised him of that. “Him.”

He laughed at the memory. Cunningham was a hard-driving guy, no question, but he saved his most pointed critiques for Cheeks’ friend and backcourt partner, Andrew Toney. About the only exception was one night when the Knicks’ Ray Williams enjoyed a big first half at Cheeks’ expense. 

“And (at halftime) I said something to the effect of, ‘Well, it looks like we need a new point guard,’ ” Cunningham recalled.

He didn’t raise his voice, he said, but he almost immediately regretted saying anything at all. And you can pretty much guess what happened next.

“I don’t know if (Williams) touched the basketball in the second half,” Cunningham said.

The moments added up. The years passed. And lo and behold, Cheeks wound up in Springfield, Mass., enshrined with all the game’s other greats. Naturally, he wasn’t quite sure he belonged there, either.

“There’s some people, like, the path was going to end up here,” he said as he sat at a corner table in a conference room within the Hall of Fame, the day before his induction. “For me, this path was just unimaginable.”

To a degree, he’s correct. His stats don’t exactly jump out at you. But he played hard and unselfishly. He elevated those around him, while shunning the spotlight himself. Of course he belongs, no matter what he might think.