How significant is Chauncey Billups' accomplishment of playing in his seventh straight conference finals?
Only four other players since 1970 have advanced to seven or more consecutive conference finals, and they all played for the great Lakers teams in the 1980s - Magic Johnson, Michael Cooper, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Kurt Rambis.
Really, that puts Chauncey on par with Magic - not in talent, obviously, but in the fact he was the floor leader of those teams. Before this year, I don't know if you could have called Chauncey a Hall of Famer. Now, like the Osgood debate in hockey, it's hard to deny him, based on his postseason resume.
I remember asking a question about Chauncey to Rick Carlisle during a Pistons-Pacers series a few years back after he lit up Indiana. Carlisle's response was fairly simple, something along the lines, 'Hey, he's a great player.'
At the time, you still didn't think of Billups in that fashion. You do now. Can you think of a better (i.e. more effective) point man in the league than Chauncey? Or put it this way, if you had a playoff team, which active point guard would you choose to run your club?
He's the best in the business.