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H2H 106: Tiny Archibald vs. Walt Frazier – Who was Better?

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Though the NBA in the 1970s may not have had the transcendent superstar power and great rivalries of the decades directly before and afterwards (Wilt Chamberlain vs. Bill Russell in the 1960s, Larry Bird vs. Magic Johnson in the 1980s), and faced a legitimate competitive threat in the upstart American Basketball Association (ABA), it was nevertheless a high-flying era with no shortage of legendary players.  At the point guard position, two flashy floor generals who stood out during this time were Nate “Tiny” Archibald and Walt “Clyde” Frazier – one was a dynamic playmaker and explosive scoring threat in his prime, while the other was an early prototype “big” point guard who was as colorful off the court as on it.  Both Hall of Famers, let us reminisce on this pair of brilliant 1970s point guards and pose the question:

Who was better – Tiny Archibald or Walt Frazier?

The Beginning

While neither Archibald nor Frazier attended a traditional college basketball powerhouse, both were nevertheless star players at the collegiate level before taking their talents to the NBA.

Growing up as a playground legend in New York City, Archibald became a high school star as an upperclassman; however, poor academics forced him to first enroll at Arizona Western College before transferring to University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP), where he played for Hall of Fame coach Don Haskins (perhaps best known for helping to integrate college basketball in the 1960s).  Following a senior year that saw him garner All-Western Athletic Conference (WAC) honors, Archibald was drafted 19th overall in the second round of the 1970 NBA Draft by the Cincinnati Royals (now the Sacramento Kings), as well as by the Texas Chaparrals in the ABA; choosing to go to the NBA and join the Royals as the successor to Oscar Robertson at point guard, he had a strong rookie season with 16.0 points (on 44.4% shooting), 3.0 rebounds, and 5.5 assists per game.

Meanwhile, as the oldest of nine children growing up in Atlanta, Georgia, Frazier starred in football, baseball, and basketball in high school and even had scholarships for college football, but ultimately decided to attend Southern Illinois University to play basketball.  There, he was a standout player, earning Division II All-American honors 2x as an underclassman; after being ruled academically ineligible as a junior, he returned as a senior and led the team to the National Invitation Tournament (NIT) championship in its first year in Division I, winning MVP honors in the process.  Having played his last college games at Madison Square Garden, Frazier was subsequently drafted fifth overall in the 1967 NBA Draft by the New York Knicks and would call MSG home for the next decade – as a rookie, he had a solid all-around year with averages of 9.0 points (45.1% shooting), 4.2 rebounds, and 4.1 assists per game.

Career Comparison

In the early to mid-1970s, Archibald and Frazier were arguably the elite point guards of the NBA, though flourished under divergent playing environments; the former was a one-man show for mediocre Royals/Kings teams during his peak years, while the latter was instrumental in guiding the Knicks through perhaps the great period in the franchise’s history.

Archibald quickly became one of the NBA’s best players, improving to 28.2 points (48.6% shooting), 2.9 rebounds, and 9.2 assists per game in 1971-1972 and earning Second Team All-NBA honors.  After the season, the Royals moved to Kansas City-Omaha and renamed themselves as the Kings; at the same time, Archibald would have one of the great seasons in league history up to that point: with a league-high and career-high 34.0 points per game on 48.8% shooting, as well as 2.8 rebounds and a league-best and career-best 11.4 assists per game, he became the first player to lead the league in both scoring and assists, and earned the first of six All-Star selections plus First Team All-NBA honors and a third-place finish for MVP behind Dave Cowens and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.  Moreover, his 34.0 scoring average that year was a then-record for a guard and still stands as a record for point guards.  However, as a follow-up to this brilliant season, Archibald was limited by injuries to 35 games in 1973-1974 and saw his scoring dip to 17.6 points per game; he did bounce back with two straight All-Star and First Team All-NBA years:

Despite still being at his peak, Archibald was traded following the 1975-1976 season to the New York Nets for a pair of players and draft picks.  Unfortunately, he suffered through another injury-plagued season and appeared in only 34 games played, though did tally his final 20+ point per game season with 20.5 points (44.6% shooting), 2.4 rebounds, and 7.5 assists per game.  Nevertheless, following only one year with the Nets, he was traded to the Buffalo Braves, but tore his Achilles tendon and missed the entire 1977-1978 season.  Ultimately, Archibald never played for the Braves and was then dealt to the Boston Celtics in a seven-player deal; sadly, he was never quite the same player pre-injuries, but still an effective starting point guards, posting three consecutive All-Star seasons from 1979 to 1982, including a Second Team All-NBA selection in 1980-1981 (13.8 points per game on a career-high 49.9% shooting with 2.2 rebounds and 7.7 rebounds per game).  Following the 1982-1983 season, Archibald spent one final year with the Milwaukee Bucks before retiring at age 35.

Similarly, Frazier improved greatly in his second season in 1968-1969 to the tune of 17.5 points (50.5% shooting), 6.2 rebounds, and 7.9 assists per game, garnering the first of seven straight First Team All-Defensive selections.  This was followed by the first of seven consecutive All-Star seasons in 1969-1970, when he averaged 20.9 points (on a career-high 51.8% shooting), 6.0 rebounds, and a career-best 8.2 assists per game to earn First Team All-NBA honors; over the next six years, Frazier would be First or Second Team All-NBA every year.  The Knicks would soon feature one of the NBA’s best backcourts with the acquisition of shooting guard Earl Monroe in 1971-1972, and Frazier would respond with another First Team All-NBA season to the tune of a career-high 23.2 points per game on 51.2% shooting, along with 6.7 rebounds and 5.8 assists per game (imagine that, a point guard averaging more rebounds than assists!).  The next year, he followed up with 21.1 points (49.0% shooting), a career-high 7.3 rebounds, and 5.9 assists per game, and would then proceed to have two more First Team All-NBA seasons and the last of six straight years scoring 20+ points per game:

As the mid-1970s rolled around, Frazier produced his final All-Star campaign in 1975-1976 with 19.1 points (48.5% shooting), 6.8 rebounds, and 5.9 assists per game.  After one final season with the Knicks, he was traded to the Cleveland Cavaliers for Jim Cleamons; at the time, Frazier held Knicks career records for games, points and assists, though most of those records (with the exception of assists, which he still holds)) have since been surpassed by Patrick Ewing.  Though Frazier had a decent first year in Cleveland in 1977-1978 (16.2 points per game on 47.1% shooting with 4.1 rebounds and 4.1 assists per game in 51 games played), he would only play 15 more games over the next couple of years (66 total games over three seasons) before retiring midway through the 1979-1980 at age 34.

Both point guards played 13 NBA seasons and perhaps somewhat surprisingly, Archibald has a roughly 50 game advantage over Frazier despite his persistent injury woes.  On the whole, their scoring is essentially even (18.9 vs. 18.8 points per game), with Archibald being the better passer (7.4 vs. 6.1 assists per game) and Frazier being the more efficient shooter and vastly better rebounder (5.9 vs. 2.3 rebounds per game).  This translated into slightly more All-Star and All-NBA selections for Frazier (7x vs. 6x and 6x vs. 5x, respectively), with the biggest difference being Frazier’s seven All-Defensive selections.  Not surprisingly, this all points to advanced metrics viewing Frazier in a more favorable light as well: higher career Player Efficiency Rating (PER) at 19.1 vs. 18.0, and significantly more career Win-Shares (113.5 to 83.4).  Though they never faced off against each other in the playoffs, the two did have 26 regular season head-to-head matchups – Frazier’s Knicks overwhelmingly came out on top (18-8), but the point guard battle was evenly matched: Archibald averaged 24.1 points, 2.8 rebounds, and 6.5 assists per game in mostly losing efforts to Frazier’s 21.7 points, 5.7 rebounds, and 5.2 assists per game. Post their legendary playing days, both Frazier (1987) and Archibald (1991) were quickly inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame.

Regular Season Statistics

Tiny ArchibaldPlayerWalt Frazier
13 (1970-1977, 1978-1984)Seasons13 (1967-1980)
876Games Played825
18.8Points18.9
2.3Rebounds5.9
7.4Assists6.1
46.7%Field Goal %49.0%
81.0%Free Throw %78.6%
18.0PER19.1
83.4Win Shares113.5
6xAll-Star Games7x
5xAll-NBA6x
–MVP–
1xNBA Titles2x
–NBA Finals MVP–
–Other Awards7x All-Defensive, All-Rookie
1991Hall of Fame Induction1987

Source: Basketball-Reference.com

As brilliant as each point guard was on an individual basis, their team fortunes differed greatly – Archibald’s teams were generally mediocre to average at best and he did not taste postseason success until later on in his career with the Celtics, while Frazier was a key piece of multiple championship teams.

Despite his gaudy individual numbers, Archibald only led the Royals/Kings franchise to one playoff appearance, resulting in a first-round defeat in 1974-1975.  In the second half of his career, as a member of the Celtics, he made four postseason appearances, culminating in his only title in 1980-1981: Boston defeated the Houston Rockets in six games behind Finals MVP Cedric Maxwell, Robert Parish, and a young Larry Bird, with Archibald chipping in 10.3 points, 1.2 rebounds, and 5.5 assists per game in a complementary role.

In contrast, Frazier was a guiding force in leading New York to eight total postseason trips and notably, three NBA Finals in a four-year span vs. the Los Angeles Lakers, winning two titles in the process:

Playoff Statistics

Tiny ArchibaldPlayerWalt Frazier
47Games Played93
14.2Points20.7
1.6Rebounds7.2
6.5Assists6.4
42.3%Field Goal %51.1%
82.6%Free Throw %75.1%
12.7PER19.8
2.4Win Shares15.9

Source: Basketball-Reference.com

Every athlete goes through a natural career lifecycle, from starting off as a rookie to reaching peak years of performance and finally, declining into the inevitable retirement due to a combination of age and/or injury; Archibald was never quite the same dominant player after numerous injuries, while Frazier also declined after surprisingly being traded away from New York.  For Hall of Fame caliber players across sports, I like to look at a concept I call a “decade of dominance.”  The thinking behind this is that for most Hall of Fame type careers, there are roughly 10 great seasons that define an athlete (this idea is embodied in a sense by the NFL’s All-Decade teams), though due to injury or other factors, they might not be 10 consecutive years.

Decade of Dominance

Tiny ArchibaldPlayerWalt Frazier
1970-1977, 1979-1982Decade of Dominance1968-1978
695Games Played736
21.1Points20.1
2.6Rebounds6.1
8.0Assists6.4
46.9%Field Goal %49.2%
81.8%Free Throw %79.4%
18.6PER19.4
77.5Win Shares110.0

Source: Basketball-Reference.com

Even though Archibald really only had around half a dozen prime years, his decade of dominance compared to Frazier is essentially in-line with their overall careers – while Archibald was statistically a better scorer and passer, Frazier had the more efficient, well-rounded game that is highlighted by his better advanced metrics.

My Thoughts

In any debate about the greatest point guards in NBA history, the 1970s are often overlooked: Oscar Robertson in the 1960s, Magic and Isiah Thomas in the 1980s, John Stockton and Gary Payton in the 1990s, Jason Kidd and Steve Nash in the 2000s, Chris Paul and Steph Curry in the 2010s, etc.; however, if you had to pick a floor general from the 1970s, it would most likely be Tiny Archibald or Walt Frazier.  If we were comparing pre-1977 Archibald to Frazier, I think there would be an argument to be made that Tiny was the better player due to his electrifying combination of scoring and passing skills; ultimately, though, injuries took too much of a toll and he was a diminished player for the second half of his career, leaving a big question mark of “what could have been?”.  In contrast, for a decade, Frazier was a dynamic do-it-all point guard for the Knicks who could score, rebound, and pass, and perhaps most importantly, guided the team to its only two championships – with the exception of Ewing, he is the best player in franchise history.

Thus, after weighing their careers against each other in terms of statistics, achievements, and impact, the winner of this faceoff is:

Walt Frazier

As always, vote for your choice and leave your thoughts and comments below.

Who was better - Tiny Archibald or Walt Frazier?
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